Mini Beast Master

I've only just realised it has been months since I've posted an update here... oops.

Well, at least I haven't exactly been idle....

It's been a devil of a time getting 666 unique pets to max and rare level (they are actually all at max, in case you're wondering about the discrepancy between 650 and 666 - some pets don't have a level because you can't battle with them, like the humans). Beast master hoooooooo!

If you're wondering how I managed not to get bored levelling them all up, let's just say that A) all of my random bank alts hang out 24/7 with various pet masters around Azeroth; B) pet battle week is frickin' awesome; and C) the Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling is a total MVP. Also, it helps that I absolutely love Warcraft 2 music - I started my Warcraft obsession there and the fact that pet battles use that music makes it a lot more fun :)

Next task: make a concerted effort to hunt for the rare tames that I still don't have. Hopefully there won't be too many people camping...

Gladiator, Are You Ready?

Now that my guild is regularly clearing Heroic Archimonde and I don't need to spend time in dodgy PuGs to get my kill for the week, I've finally made the move to a Gladiator's Sanctum, with the aim to get some PvP achievements - particularly in Ashran, which will likely be deserted as soon as the next expansion hits.

It's been awhile since I've PvPed properly and not only is my gear behind, but also my knowledge of any strategy to beating opponents 1v1. Luckily in Ashran that doesn't happen much, although I also have no clue what I'm doing in there besides following the mob and killing anything in the way.

I am, however, happy that I haven't completely lost my PvP cunning - I managed to get both the Darkmoon Faire and Gurubashi Arena heirlooms by biding my time and letting the frontrunners use all their cooldowns on each other before ganking them.

Not that I particularly care about heirlooms, considering the only PvP I do on my alts is in the world on a PvP server... but it's nice to have bragging rights to those!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get all the Ashran and Gladiator's Sanctum achievements... ideally I'd want to get them done before the next expansion and then go back to using the Lunarfall Inn... I realise it will take me about 2 years (not an exaggeration!) to get *every* follower from there... but I can't help myself!

If At First You Don't Succeed

...make sure you have enough gold for repair bills.

After running 6 PuGs this week with varying numbers of idiots, incompetents and elitists to get this kill on the board, I was so relieved to finally get a winning combo that I didn't even care that I (once again) didn't get loot.

Honestly, it's quite disheartening when someone /ignores you because you dared to whisper them after being kicked that it wasn't your fault that someone else's chains killed you and you couldn't kill shadows whist dead (this was after a single wipe and I already had points against me because a) I was BM and not MM; and b) I didn't have AotC).

Luckily not all the groups were that toxic, otherwise I'd have given up earlier. There were also good-natured but ultimately bound to fail groups:

...and it even got to the point where I was "that guy" and left a raid after one wipe because I just knew they wouldn't be able to get a kill (I was right; they were still in the LFG tool hours later).

Yes, this week was a complete nightmare of PuGs, but on the upside I did manage to scrape through with the all-important achievement to link for next week.

Now that I can breathe a little easier on that front, I plan to start practicing MM a little. I don't know whether I'll be able to get better DPS out of it given my tendency to move randomly whilst raiding (thus ruining Sniper Training and cancelling out any advantage MM is supposed to have from the 4set this tier), but I'm willing to at least give it a go - even I have to admit that the last phase of Archimonde is incredibly pet-unfriendly!

Decorating

I have to admit, this new statue that you get for killing Archimonde on normal mode or higher is pretty decent. A lot better than the Master Draenor Crafter and Master of Apexis statues, at any rate.

Unfortunately, although the ol' Garrison looks a little better, my gear doesn't - the past couple of weeks have been pretty average for loot. Even though I managed to scrape a full clear on normal and 6 bosses on heroic, I've only had a couple of minor upgrades for offset pieces... which means my iLvl (and therefore DPS) will still be on the low side.

On the upside, I did manage to score this little guy in my guild raid, which kind of makes up for it:

Now if I could just score the gun off Heroic Hellfire Assault, I'd be OK, I think. It would be nice to get some tier or trinkets, of course, but I'd be a lot more comfortable going for the better Heroic PuGs with a decent ranged weapon.

Argh-imonde

Week 3 in Hellfire Citadel brought me 2 heroic kills to add to my 12/13 normal kills and although the DPS requirement is clearly tougher, it wasn't too bad.

Archimonde, on the other hand, was a different story.

Stand too close at the wrong time, you wipe. Stand too far at the wrong time, you wipe. Stand in fire at the wrong time, you wipe. Don't stand in portal at the wrong time, you wipe. Don't interrupt, you wipe.

I have now done a few PuGs on Archi with raids of varying ability and have to admit that the fight is well designed as a final boss... by which I mean there is very little room for error.

I also experienced something that I can't remember experiencing for a very long time, if at all - I got kicked from a PuG for being the lowest DPS.

Not running a DPS mod, it took me by surprise until I looked at the logs and discovered I was the lowest ilvl as well - apparently 694 isn't fantastic for doing the last boss of HFC, which I suppose is understandable considering you could have had higher with heroic BRF and crafted gear.

This week I'm starting the PuG grind a little higher at 697, including a new gun, so hopefully I'll look a little better in the gear stakes. Not quite as high as the group I got kicked from - most of them were >700 - but at least not "fresh off the BRF boat"!

Fel Over Zakuun

Week 2 of raiding Hellfire Citadel and the PuGs have been good.

After last week's effort, I've managed to fill in those gaps and now sit at 12/13 Normal, with the guild at 5/13.

I'm actually very impressed with this raid. Almost all of the fights are complex and therefore interesting to me, which makes it enjoyable (although on the other hand, potentially frustrating if your raid members are struggling).

For those who have gotten that far, no, I don't know what happened with Fel Lord Zakuun either... and it's not like Blizzard are likely to re-tune him, since making a boss harder after some guilds have downed him wouldn't feel great.

I'm looking forward to trying to get a PuG for Archimonde again this week - I had some attempts and have seen to 40%, but would like to see what the Twisting Nether looks like.

Plus, it's infinitely easier to get PuGs if you already have a kill, so the earlier I can get it, the better. Having a full clear on Normal might also stand me in good stead to start trying for Heroic PuGs, as well.

Hell and High Water

Well, week 1 of raiding in Hellfire Citadel and my armory page looks completely wacky:

As a guild, Ashes (plus assorted friends, including some of my old Proudmoore guildies from Southern Wardens) managed to down the first four bosses on normal and had some good attempts on the fifth.

Not too bad, considering we had to work out mechanics (and the fact that we only raid for ~3hrs twice a week); I don't anticipate them being any trouble for us whatsoever when we head back in there this week.

Being me, I was of course keen to see the rest of the place, so managed to get two different PuGs to down Gorefiend and Mannoroth, with some attempts on Xhul'horac (now there's a chaotic fight!) and Archimonde (yeah... NFI what's going on there).

Overall, I'm extremely happy with this new raid - the mechanics and visuals are interesting and definitely a step up in difficulty from Blackrock Foundry.

I'm really looking forward to seeing some more of it. It's been awhile since I've felt a real challenge in raiding due to being limited to clearing heroic BRF instead of moving onto mythic. Even better, the heroic mode for this dungeon seems a lot more.... heroic. As it should be, considering it's a tier up - I don't expect to get bored any time soon!

#Inappropriate Selfie

Did anyone at Blizzard perhaps think about the fact that #funeral selfies are a trend that really shouldn't be encouraged?

And Here's Me at the Frozen Throne

Trying to take a few travel selfies and Arthas photobombed me... such an attention hog.

Behind the Curve

I've been out of the PuGging game for awhile (no, I don't count LFR... and yes, changed guilds again. Don't ask :P), so I was rather confused with the request for "AotC" on most of the heroic Blackhand groups.

Being a hunter, I'm used to AotC meaning Aspect of the Cheetah, but of course it's not - it's Ahead of the Curve, as in you've killed the boss on heroic before. Unfortunately before tonight, I didn't have it... so trying to find a PuG to take me - and also be good - has been annoying.

The smaller groups (for some reason the "magic number" seems to be 2 tanks, 4 heals and 9 DPS - possibly something to do with the balance of loot and organising the number of people) had huge problems with handling phase 2. If a couple of people died to mechanics, especially in phase 1, you weren't likely to recover.

It was a whole different story when I found a 25m PuG this evening - people were getting hit with bombs and marks left, right and centre. I had to /boggle at the easy two shot (although the group had been going on a little while before I joined, I think).

I also discovered that you can't loot two tokens from Blackhand - as in, one coined and one from the boss. Not that I minded, since I had my 4pc bonus already, but I wouldn't have said no to a 5th piece to swap in/out with non-tier.

Either way, I'm glad I have the achievement now - hopefully will be less trouble to PuG Blackhand in future weeks, which at least means I should be able to get the 5th tier piece soon!

BlackRhok'in Foundry

Having settled into our new guild Resurrected on Khaz'goroth - a much better fit for us than the previous high-end guild on Proudmoore was - we have made quite a decent headway (9/10 and looking like Blackhand won't prove too difficult) into heroic Blackrock Foundry.

Unlike others, I hadn't really had any complaints about Highmaul. It's an interesting enough raid dungeon and the Mythic fights are extremely challenging for me. However, BRF is proving to be what Blackwing Lair was to Molten Core - a huge step up in fun and mechanics.

We are, of course, still going through mythic Highmaul, since we still haven't cleared it. With the gear jump from T17 2 and 4pc bonuses, we managed to get mythic Brackenspore without too much trouble.

I can see mythic Tectus being a little bit of a challenge - I cannot imagine having to deal with US latency on this fight - the first time I've actually felt that the drop in latency wasn't just a happy convenience but a bit more of a necessity.

As it is, the first few attempts I couldn't manage to get out from under the mountains before getting one-shot (I eventually realised I couldn't afford to even be a single step behind the person getting targeted, otherwise I wouldn't make it).

I'm also still finding it difficult to maximise my SV DPS - at first glance, I can't really see any major errors, but I'm significantly behind compared to the other hunters in execution. On the other hand, I'm finding the set bonuses for SV a lot better than the BM set bonuses, just because I find the BM procs a little too random to be useful.

I'm still hopeful that I can make a killing on mythic Tectus using BM beast cleave, but we'll have to see how that goes.... we'd actually need to survive past the first lot of motes before I can figure that one out! :P

I Ain't No Flamin' Brack Girl

I'm currently the backup raider and flamethrower on Mythic Brackenspore.

Unfortunately, it seems like every time I start getting the hang of things, something happens to break the flow.

For a start, there are only 20 in a Mythic raid and if everybody shows up, I'd be on the bench.

Secondly, if the other two main hunters are in the raid, I don't use the flamethrower (we have a boomkin for our third).

Thirdly, our flamethrower strat between the 3 raiders is still evolving - trying to find a balance between maxing out two flamethrowers and keeping the moss in check is pretty difficult when your raid DPS changes slightly every raid due to different people, different gear and mushroom spawn points.

Tonight it so happened that one hunter was sick, so I was looking forward to either a kill or a decent run of attempts to practice in... only for the raid to be called due to various raiders having technical issues.

Disappointing not getting a kill, but my main problem? The less I play at a high level, the worse I get at actually playing. Not helpful if you're in the type of guild where you get benched for lack of skill!

I'm considering doing some PvP or at least Brawler's Arena to keep my reaction times fast this weekend if I get some spare gaming time... and probably should anyway for the achievements. So far behind on non-raiding related stuff... not even at 20k points and still have an entire zone I haven't explored!

Five Bye Five

It's the eve of Patch 6.0 and as we bid farewell to MoP, it's been a slightly more disappointing than exciting couple of weeks for me.

Firstly, I had hoped that merging with the new guild would allow me to completely clear an expansion at the appropriate time for the first time in my WoW career, but unfortunately they were only taking 1-2 people through heroic Garrosh a week and didn't get around to taking me. Yes, I realise the expansion isn't quite over yet (and we are planning to continue raiding as a new 20man team), but it still feels wrong not to do it with the old MoP abilities.

Secondly, although I did manage to get to wave 18 of Endless DPS Proving Grounds as BM, I didn't manage to get further. I'm confident I could have made Wave 20, but making a single mistake means pretty much starting from scratch and unfortunately these days I have less time to play outside of raids. Plus, I'm not sure I would have had the patience to re-learn cooldown usage as Survival (pretty much every hunter guide I've come across has used Surv to get through Proving Grounds).

Thirdly, I didn't manage to get all the drops required for the Deck Your Collection Achievement of Brawler's Guild - random drops are annoying :(

On the upside, I did manage to finish the Gold Challenge Modes and I am excited about the new hunter changes (hooray for keybind space and new pets... although boo to losing Scatter), so maybe the shiny new UBRS will help to swing the mood. Or maybe not - I was rather disappointed to read that there wasn't an updated version of General Drakk to kite down the hallway!

Carry Me Away

Well, my freak out about doing heroic Paragons for the first time was completely unnecessary. The merge guild's team were totally in control the whole time and since everybody except me knew what to do, it was easy.

I would have to say my heroic Blackfuse freak out was probably warranted, but I didn't do too badly at all - died on the first go (after someone else on the floor did, so they couldn't rez me), wiped on the second (slow getting up on the pipe and couldn't DPS wave #6 in time) and killed it the third, although I died right at the end when we were DPSing the boss instead of being on the belt (I had no idea what was going on on the floor, since up until this point I'd been pretty much permanently on the belt).

I'm pretty happy overall with my performance - the other hunter died once in the third Blackfuse attempt, so I felt better about falling off the pipe once in that fight. Plus, I managed to scrape top DPS on Thok (I realise that fight is totally built for hunters, but considering their strat involves 1 tank, 2 heal and burst DPS to get Thok down as the third door opens, I feel like I made a significant contribution...).

Unfortunately I didn't get to do Garrosh - they were taking another newbie through and didn't want a second - but at least I had fun raiding with them. Plus, there was the added bonus of having the entire rest of the week off from raiding - so efficient!

"Raid Break"

Well, it's counted as a break to *me*... when else does one have time to do old achieves but in raid breaks?! :P

(Incidentally, it's crazy how much my gear affects old raid soloing. Doing Firelands with my Heroic SoO gear vs my fresh 90 gear, which would have been the last time I did it, makes me feel absolutely invincible!)

An Apology...

Yes, I'm still alive.

I've been incredibly busy this year and haven't prioritised time for blog posts... sorry about that! Anyway, I've finally decided to stop putting off a catch-up post, since my hunter exploits have certainly not been neglected in that time. Plus, we're on a raiding break so there's a few extra hours this week :P

Here's the recap:

1. Raiding. My last post made reference to downing heroic Iron Juggernaut. Well... we've gone a little further than that now - Dark Shaman, Nazgrim, Malkorok, Spoils and Thok have all fallen, making our guild 11/14 heroic in Siege. Exciting? Hell yes! Haven't ever been in a position to potentially clear any final heroic raid boss at level, let alone the final boss of an expansion.

2. Challenge Mode dungeons. I managed to get a regular group going for CMs. They're almost as bad as heroic raids in terms of difficulty (and sometimes even more so depending on the dungeon), so it was extremely satisfying to get those Golds done.

3. Proving Grounds. The DPS challenge naturally didn't give me too much trouble, although I haven't managed to get the Endless version done yet; mainly because the AoE phase annoys me (I might have to actually use a flask to get it done; it's terrible! Also, I refuse to switch to Surv to make the AoE easier...). Because I am who I am, I of course had to get You're Doing it Wrong (seriously, it's like Blizzard made that achievement for me... I'd wear it as a title if I could; it sums me up in a nutshell :)).

I tried both tank and healer, and just found tank a lot easier. The tank in the healer challenge tends to taunt a lot more than my pet can keep up with... but if I have time I'm definitely going to try and get at least Bronze healer on hunter. My achievement pane says Gold healer only because I did it on my druid (yeah, the rare occurrence where I actually did something on an alt and not my hunter! I can only think of a handful of things where that's the case and I think this is the only non-horde specific achievement where it would be).

4. Old Achievements and Random Stuff

a) I managed to solo Halion 25 on heroic, which was a bit of a pain to get through. Can't think of any particular tips apart from drop traps and wait to DPS until he gets pushed into your phase, then blow your cooldowns.

b) I also got my last achievement (Stay Chill) for Glory of the Cataclysm Raider, which means the only non-MoP dungeon/raid achievements I have left are Ragnar'Os, heroic Spine and heroic Madness - all of which I expect to knock off in this raiding break. I expect I'll have to bite the bullet at some point and start working on some of the other "farming" (hi2u, fishing and archaeology) and PvP achievements that I've been neglecting.

c) Last but not least, I have a shiny new heroic warforged bow - once again, first time I've ever had the absolute best bow you can get in an expansion. Rhok on! :)

Phew, epic wall-o-text. I'm going to try and post here regularly again so that I don't get so far behind in updates - there will be plenty of LOL-worthy moments in pipe-jumping for heroic Siegecrafter that I'll want to post about, I'm sure. Plus, I've probably missed posting about so many things, just because I can't remember what happened between now and February. Half a year is way too long!

Do You Dig It?

I've been neglecting the secondary professions this expansion; fishing and archaeology aren't exactly the most riveting way to spend WoW time.

However, since I started to do pet battle rounds to get the 4 minipet pandas from the Beasts of Fable chains, I noticed some improvements to archaeology... or at least, the Mantid sites seem to require less movement than other sites. Could possibly also be the density of mobs in those sites, but /shrug.... either way, I'm liking it!

Of course, I'm not sure how long my enthusiasm will last since I got the last panda yesterday... although getting 75 pets to lvl 25 is going to need some roaming around as well.

With any luck, by the time the next expansion rolls around I'll have caught up somewhat on the Achievement front, although I may leave BG farming until then. Don't particularly feel like being the PvE-geared glass cannon at end game right now! :P

The Changing Friends List

I hadn't thought much about it until recently, but I've realised that the people on my friends list has changed significantly over the years.

When I was in my first raiding guild, I was often PuGging content with strangers... and because PuGging was so difficult, I always added good PuG raid leaders and reliable PuGgers to my list so that I would know who to ask if I ever wanted a group for old raids or achievements.

As people have left the game and WoW has changed to be more casual-friendly with LFR and Flex modes making an entrance, my friends list has become less a way of keeping track of random good players and more about keeping track of ex-guildies.

Is this a bad thing? Possibly. I can't remember the last time I met anybody new in WoW outside of the guild. Then again, I suppose the last time I PuGged anything outside the guild was around then, too. RIP Trade Chat PuGging :(

Holiday Hunting II

Yet another holiday task I set myself was to hunt down the treasures scattered around the continent.

Particularly for the latter group, I would recommend searching for the items that only spawn in one place rather than one that spawns in an area. The items aren't exactly large, so it's quite easy to miss them.

Luckily, it seems most people are focussed on farming on the Timeless Isle, so I haven't had too much competition.

I also recommend you take the time to look around while you're doing it. You might find some rather amusing sights on your way, like this poor dude...

Holiday Hunting

Happy New Year, everyone!

I may have been extremely lax in blogging over the Christmas break, but I certainly haven't been lax in WoW.

Since my guild hasn't been raiding much over the holidays, I've put some time into a couple of solo endeavours... one of which I really should have done a whole lot earlier, being a BM hunter:

Yep, that's almost every single wild minipet tamed. A lot more fun than fishing or archaeology, but still a good opportunity to watch the Brisbane International tennis or read a book :P

I still have a few of those achievements to go - mostly the Pandaria ones - but I feel like I've made decent headway into what initially looked like an incredibly daunting minigame.

Plus, tentacle. Who doesn't want a pet tentacle?!