Having gone through all of my characters and organised their spells, I once again find my hunter short on action bar space.
I don't know whether there are any other classes that suffer the same problem, but I have a druid, warlock and priest all at 85 with spare spell slots and I've never had this problem on any other class (or at least, the hunter has always been the worst).
Survival (I've switched from MM, since I like Entrapment better than Chimera Shot) seems to not be as bad - there are 3 fewer abilities than for my BM setup.
I am, however, definitely liking my self-heal and survival options, of which there are plenty - Readiness is going to be epic with double Exhilaration, Intimidation, Silencing Shot, Deterrence spell reflect, Bestial Wrath, Scatter Shot.... can't wait to get into the MoP Arena - PvP has never looked so good! :)
Showing posts with label Arena. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arena. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Valour Failure
Since my guild started our holiday raiding break (which is now looking to last until MoP, although that's another story...), I haven't been getting my usual quota of Valour Points.
Last week I'd realised that one week of points could get me over the line to the Arena bow I'd been wanting for transmog purposes, so I thought, "Great! I'll just do a quick Raid Finder Dragon Soul and be done with it".
Yeah, not so much.
Whilst RF used to be a quick and easy source for VP, I'm pretty sure that anyone and everyone - including me, really - who is actually capable of running the place has long finished farming it and is nowhere in sight.
Not to mention, the healers left at the slightest hint of a non-optimal group (stretching the queue time and leaving us with only the desperate hangers-on), making it incredibly difficult to finish the run once you wiped.
A few attempts later and I decided it was sadly much easier to run 5man heroics for VP, much to the delight of more than a few undergeared PuGs who /boggled at my ilvl 398 DPS.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, really, considering that everyone is feeling pre-expansion lethargy, but still. LFR is supposed to be easymode raiding, dammit! What happened? :(
Last week I'd realised that one week of points could get me over the line to the Arena bow I'd been wanting for transmog purposes, so I thought, "Great! I'll just do a quick Raid Finder Dragon Soul and be done with it".
Yeah, not so much.
Whilst RF used to be a quick and easy source for VP, I'm pretty sure that anyone and everyone - including me, really - who is actually capable of running the place has long finished farming it and is nowhere in sight.
Not to mention, the healers left at the slightest hint of a non-optimal group (stretching the queue time and leaving us with only the desperate hangers-on), making it incredibly difficult to finish the run once you wiped.
A few attempts later and I decided it was sadly much easier to run 5man heroics for VP, much to the delight of more than a few undergeared PuGs who /boggled at my ilvl 398 DPS.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, really, considering that everyone is feeling pre-expansion lethargy, but still. LFR is supposed to be easymode raiding, dammit! What happened? :(
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Deterrence Tanking FTW
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
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
Monday, October 24, 2011
Blizzkorean!
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 :)
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 :)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Brutal Beat-up
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! :)
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Let's Twist Again
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...
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...
Sunday, April 17, 2011
We beat our record
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! :)
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! :)
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Cataclysm Pet Control: Part five - Organizing your pet bar
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.
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.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Cataclysm Pet Control: Part four - Species-specific pet abilities
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!
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!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
2v2 in Cataclysm
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!
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!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Cataclysm Pet Control: Part three - General pet abilities
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.
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.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
It's a Vicious Circle
...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!
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!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
This will stop a hell of a lot of internal swearing
...if it makes it live:
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)
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)
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Cataclysm Pet Control: Part two - Aggressive, Defensive and Passive
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! :)
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! :)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Arena hotfix for 18 Jan 2011
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!
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Settling In
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! :)
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Random PvP stuff
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)
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)
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Please let this make it in....
From the 3.3 PTR:
Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effectIf this change goes through, it basically turns Deterrence into a pally bubble except we can't DPS while in it, which I'm sure will attract numerous complaints... but I was REALLY getting sick of not having any defense in PvP against my own class!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Pet Control: Part five - Organizing your pet bar
This is the final post in the Pet Control guide - a long time coming, but better late than never!
Part 1 - Attack, Follow and Stay
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 Ravage (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 (due to the bug where pet spells turn autocast on and off randomly if not on your pet bar), 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 and Cower or Growl (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 almost always 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 raiding wolf's pet bar:
In order, I have Call of the Wild, Dash, Growl 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 (Furious Howl, for instance) 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 Growl because you REALLY don't want that spell on autocast in the middle of a raid and not notice. If you have Lick Your Wounds, I'd put that on the bar instead of Growl.
Do make sure you watch your pet's Focus though - occasionally I've found Bite to be turned off (due to the autocast bug), so if you see that your pet isn't using up Focus like it should be, just check and make sure that all the pet spells are casting appropriately.
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 - Ravage 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/Cower 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, Last Stand, Roar of Sacrifice, Growl and Shell Shield, leaving Thunderstomp on autocast (I don't have the other active talents; if I did they would replace Growl).
If you're PvPing with a Tenacity pet (a crab, for instance), you will definitely want to macro Intervene and Roar of Sacrifice for your player bar, with Charge and your species-specific ability (Pin for a crab) on your pet bar.
Well... that's it for the Pet Control guide, finally! 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.
Part 1 - Attack, Follow and Stay
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 Ravage (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 (due to the bug where pet spells turn autocast on and off randomly if not on your pet bar), 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 and Cower or Growl (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 almost always 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 raiding wolf's pet bar:
In order, I have Call of the Wild, Dash, Growl 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 (Furious Howl, for instance) 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 Growl because you REALLY don't want that spell on autocast in the middle of a raid and not notice. If you have Lick Your Wounds, I'd put that on the bar instead of Growl.
Do make sure you watch your pet's Focus though - occasionally I've found Bite to be turned off (due to the autocast bug), so if you see that your pet isn't using up Focus like it should be, just check and make sure that all the pet spells are casting appropriately.
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 - Ravage 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/Cower 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, Last Stand, Roar of Sacrifice, Growl and Shell Shield, leaving Thunderstomp on autocast (I don't have the other active talents; if I did they would replace Growl).
If you're PvPing with a Tenacity pet (a crab, for instance), you will definitely want to macro Intervene and Roar of Sacrifice for your player bar, with Charge and your species-specific ability (Pin for a crab) on your pet bar.
Well... that's it for the Pet Control guide, finally! 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.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Arena gear for raiding
After hearing so many times that Ulduar vehicles scale with gear, you'd think I would realize Arena/PvP gear works too, not just PvE pieces... but hey, better late than never!
If you don't know what I'm talking about:
Currently, the honour-only non-set pieces start at ilvl 226, with last season's Arena armour at ilvl 232 and weapons at ilvl 239. If you're lucky enough to get drops from Koralon (or good enough at Arena to get the current season's rated Relentless Gladiator gear), the ilvl starts at 245 for non-set pieces and goes up to 251 for weapons.
PvP gear is relatively easier to get than waiting for drops in raids, so if your raid is going for Flame Leviathan with towers up and having trouble, you may want to check if swapping in pieces of your PvP set is actually better than wearing your raiding gear!
If you don't know what I'm talking about:
Currently, the honour-only non-set pieces start at ilvl 226, with last season's Arena armour at ilvl 232 and weapons at ilvl 239. If you're lucky enough to get drops from Koralon (or good enough at Arena to get the current season's rated Relentless Gladiator gear), the ilvl starts at 245 for non-set pieces and goes up to 251 for weapons.
PvP gear is relatively easier to get than waiting for drops in raids, so if your raid is going for Flame Leviathan with towers up and having trouble, you may want to check if swapping in pieces of your PvP set is actually better than wearing your raiding gear!
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