Bit of a Beta Breather

I finally got my MoP beta pass and am currently waiting for the setup to finish.

Last time I did beta testing, I didn't do the quests or anything that people usually do in betas; after all, I rather enjoy the process of discovering new quests and items at launch and don't bother reading many spoilers besides talents and spells.

Besides, I figure there must be enough people testing quests, talents, spells, PvP and the like - no need for me to join the bandwagon.

This time I plan to do much the same - find quirky things to test that probably aren't necessary... but at least it'd be unlikely that others would be testing the same things.

Testing plans:

1. Pet strength - DPS and tank pets vs lvl 90 and 90 elite mobs
2. Gear strength - Normal DS level gear (which is what I'm wearing, mostly) vs no gear
3. Talent gauge - Determine which talents look promising for levelling, PvP and raid
4. ???

If anyone has any suggestions as to what to test in MoP, feel free to fire 'em at me... I'm not a theorycrafter or number cruncher by any means (I tend to leave that to the rest of the great hunter community), but hey - I'm sure Blizzard wants some "average" people testing their game and not just the elite few :)

3.1 Glyphs: Are you ready to rumble?

I've spent so much time picking 3.1 glyphs out (for both specs!) that I thought I may as well write a post on which ones I settled on, and why I rejected the other major contenders:



Minor Glyphs

Both specs - Feign Death, Revive Pet, Scare Beast

• Nothing new here. I've never really liked Mend Pet, because it's so easy to keep pets happy these days ("In MY day, we had to carry more food for our pets than ourselves!").
  

Major Glyphs

BM (raiding/soloing - pet tank) - Bestial Wrath, Steady Shot, Mending
Survival (PvP/soloing - kiting and CC) - Explosive Shot, Aimed Shot, Mending

(Note: "Mending" is still labelled as "Monkey" on WoWHead's PTR site, although the tooltip is correct)

• I don't like mana regen stuff because I prefer to have extra burst DPS available if required rather than longevity in boss fights, so Arcane Shot and AotV are out.


• Hunter's Mark, Raptor Strike and Kill Shot don't get used all that much.


• Haste isn't very good for BM *or* PvP, so Rapid Fire and Hawk are out.


• The bonuses for Disengage, Wyvern Sting, Deterrence, Frost Trap, Scatter Shot and Serpent Sting aren't quite enough for each skill, although it was REALLY tough to choose between these and my eventual top 3.

Round Up

Basically, I had to have the main glyphs for each spec (BW and Explosive).

Aimed I took for PvP because a reduction of 2sec for a 10sec CD is actually decent for burst damage and keeping the healing debuff up.

I took Steady over Aimed for PvE because I think I'd run out of mana way too fast, and don't usually need the burst damage even when soloing.

Mending... well, what can I say. "BM spec since beta" - anything to keep my pet alive!

My glyph is ruined

If the post title sounds familiar, I'll save you the search and remind you of that other blog post I made when my Bestial Wrath/Readiness build went out with the trash.

Among the latest PTR notes is this little line:

Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey: No longer works while under the effect of Aspect of the Dragonhawk.

Did Blizzard decide to make a range of twink-only glyphs or something?

This was my favourite glyph - I had been reserving a spot for this even in my PvE raiding build when dual specs came in, because of the gleefully fun proc - and it's basically useless now.

Not only that, but hunter glyphs (PvP and minor glyphs in particular) are mediocre at best; it's a case of "which glyphs suck the least" rather than the "there are so many choices I can't decide" problem some of the other classes have.

I'll talk about PvP more in a separate post, but for now, I guess I'll have to resign myself to the cookie cutter BM raiding build in 3.1 (except Hawk Eye), with cookie cutter raiding glyphs. /sigh.

I couldn't do it...

...I couldn't give up Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey.

It's just way, way too much fun having a speed buff when I dodge.

What I gave up instead (and here's where all the raiding hunters will pull their hair out in horror): Glyph of Steady Shot, one of the main "mandatory" glyphs for maximising DPS.

(In fact, the first comment on WoWHead for this glyph begins, "Needless to say, this Glyph will be on pretty much every Hunter's Glyph page.")

All three of my major Glyphs are, in fact, pretty selfish - I have:

• Glyph of Freezing Trap - useful if the trap breaks because I have an extra few seconds time to kite the mob/enemy player


• Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey - as mentioned above


• Glyph of Bestial Wrath - although this provides a significant DPS boost and would be on every raiding BM hunter's glyph page... I'm sorry to say I would have considered taking it purely for the immunity to CC Beast Within provides.

So.... if my guild ever wipes on a boss at 1%, it's probably my fault (although they should be used to it by now; I don't think I've ever specced for full DPS...). Sorry!

Guide to WotLK DPS Spreadsheet

Since I've hit 80 and starting to face gear choices again, I thought I'd do a noob's guide to the latest hunter DPS spreadsheet. It takes some setting up, and may seem overwhelming for someone who hasn't seen it before, but trust me - it's worth it!

I've written an introduction to the basics below; if you want to use the more advanced functions (shot rotations etc) you can find more info on the Elitist Jerks forums.


Guide to setting up the WotLK Hunter DPS Spreadsheet

1. Pick a day when the official WoW armoury is working, and you can see your character info.

2. Download the spreadsheet from the EJ forums at http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t30710-wotlk_dps_spreadsheet/ (note that this *used* to be called "Cheeky's DPS Spreadsheet", and was taken over by Shandara)

3. Overview Tab
Change the character name, server, and server set (US or EU) to your own.
Choose a name for your profile(s) (eg. "Phyllixia raiding", "Phyllixia PvP").
Pick your gathering skill (either Mining or Skinning, if you take them).
Pick your glyphs

4. Gear Tab
Scroll to the right and click on "Load Gear from Armoury". Make sure that it's the correct character name and realm.
Check your race is the correct one.
Your gear should have loaded - check that it's all the correct gear (sometimes it will miss something, or the item hasn't been put into the database, or you logged out in your Winter's Veil outfit etc)

5. Custom Gear Tab
If one of your items isn't in the database, or you want to create your own item, input the stats here. You can then go back to the Gear tab and select "Custom" in the appropriate slot.

6. Talents Tab
Click "Read from Armoury", again making sure it's the correct spec when it loads.
On the right is pre-loaded talent specs, which you can use and customize in the Overview tab if you often change specs (eg. for PvP and Raiding)

7. Buffs Tab
Pick a buff profile (none or raiding)

8. Pet Tab
Pick your pet and their talents.

9. Go back to the Gear tab, and click "Save Profile". This will now save your current gear (as well as your spec/pet/glyphs etc) as a default set. Whenever you get a new piece of gear and you want to know if it's an upgrade, compare the "Total DPS" at the top of the Gear tab with your old and new item. If you forget which items you've switched in, you can click "Load Profile" to go back to your original default.

10. Whenver you change something for good (eg. you get a new piece of gear, or you changed glyphs), remember to click "Save Profile" so it saves it as your new default.

11. Gear Planner Tab
If you're looking for where you can get upgrades, check out this tab. It highlights the item you have equipped, and shows you the top 10 items per slot in terms of raw DPS.

Now go forth and DPS!

Water Dodging

Sick of being chased by sharks while swimming?

Grab a Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey.

Not only does this glyph give you 6sec of 30% increased movement speed every time you dodge with AotDH or AotM up, you apparently also get water walking to boot.

Yeah, it's a gimmick bug; pretty useless for anything unless you happen to come across someone of the opposing faction in the middle of a lake, or maybe if you're trying to avoid mobs while swimming around for quest items, but knowing Blizzard, it's something they'll fix next patch instead of fixing the more annoying bugs we have at the moment.

Make use of it while you can.

Glyph Picks

Unfortunately for us hunters, the decent Glyphs don't kick in until we can pick Northrend herbs, and the pickings right now are slim. However, I thought I'd put up an overview for those of you that may be interested.

(Keep in mind that my Glyph picks will be geared towards my spec, which is all-around DPS, utility and survivability, and are NOT the best for specializing in PvE/PvP/Arena)


Minor Glyphs

My pick: Glyph of Feign Death, Scare Beast, Revive Pet.

Analysis:

• Glyph of Feign Death - our only "must have" Minor.
• Glyph of Possessed Strength - who the heck uses EotB to kill stuff unless you're bored?
• Glyph of the Pack - does anyone actually use this for anything other than running your party back after a wipe?
• Glyph of Scare Beast/Mend Pet/Revive Pet - all situational. You don't need the extra happiness in PvP because when you rez your pet gets happiness back, and if you're PvEing, Bloodthirsty or Growl will be more than enough to keep your pet happy.

Major Glyphs:

My pick for 70: Glyph of Freezing Trap, Rapid Fire
My pick for 80: Glyph of Bestial Wrath, Freezing Trap, Steady Shot (if you're going for pure DPS, take AotV instead of Freezing Trap)

Lvl 70 analysis:

• Glyph of Aimed Shot/Arcane Shot/Rapid Fire - OK. On live, if I find myself out of mana, a couple of shots in AotV brings it back up quick enough for my tastes, so Rapid Fire is my pick for the DPS Glyph at 70 (particularly as I have the Rapid Killing talent).
• Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey/Frost Trap/Deterrance/Disengage/Freezing Trap - All decent for PvP. However, Freezing Trap is also useful when chain trapping in PvE; the others less so.
• Glyph of Immolation Trap/Serpent Sting/Hunter's Mark/Multi-Shot - average. HM doesn't scale; Immo Trap is rarely used for anything; Serpent Sting's length only matters in long fights.

WotLK only Glyphs:

• Glyph of Bestial Wrath - Must have for BM hunters. 1.17sec CD for BW with Longevity + Glyph is too fun to pass up!
• Glyph of Aspect of the Viper/Steady Shot/Improved Aspect of the Hawk- All decent. However, we don't really need the extra haste for Imp Hawk (and I would drop the Rapid Fire Glyph at this point too); I'd rather Steady over AotV, and my personal choice is to have the utility of Freezing Trap over AotV as well.
• Glyph of Wyvern Sting/Trueshot Aura - situational. If you're the CCer in your Arena or 5man group, Wyvern could be worth taking; the buff to TSA would be decent in Arena when trying to burst someone down.
• Glyph of Aspect of the Beast/Snake Trap/Volley - no. Beast only buffs melee; snakes are easily killed by AoE so 2 snakes won't make a difference; Volley is too situational.

Happy Glyphing! :)