Phyl can cook

(so can you)!

A kind guildie (thanks Az!) who has an alt Horde-side donated the recipe for Dig Rat Stew to me last night, which now means I have every single Cooking recipe (and also every Alchemy recipe) in the game.

I've spent a lot of time and effort into collecting these recipes, so it's nice that Alchemy will have some profession-specific perks come WotLK. Until I added Lifeblood to my hotbar, every time a hunter-relevant leatherworking pattern dropped in raids, or someone would come past with their rings nicely enchanted, I felt a little left out... Not any more :)

Chill, mate

Although news from the Blizzard camp indicates that the zombie plague ends today, I wanted to comment on something that always amuses me when there's a one-off world event going on: people that complain constantly about it.

Because Proudmoore is a PvE realm, some people have been rather upset about the "forced" PvP aspect, and the lack of NPCs, of this latest world event. Understandable, I suppose (I'm a PvPer at heart, so being the victim of continuous ganking - or gleefully ganking people myself - doesn't faze me in the least), and most have the decency to keep complaints in-guild and not whine on the forums or trade chat... but not all.

Seriously... why?

To me, this world event was a great idea. It gives the RPers a reason for their character to go to Northrend, it gives PvPers a taste of total anarchy, it gives PvEers a couple of quests and a new raid boss and it gives everyone something new to do while waiting for WotLK:

No bankers in Ironforge? Go to Exodar.

Can't put your auctions up? Well, no-one can buy anything either.

Lowbie alt getting one-shot? Do as the PvP servers do - log your main (or get help from guildies/local defense) and clear the place out so you can quest in peace.

Hardcore raiders and PvPers were forced to do Shattered Sun dailies so that they could raid Sunwell and get Season 4 started, so to haters of the zombie event:

Chill out, and consider yourselves lucky that it didn't last as long as the SSO one.

Dear Zombies

If you're going to raid Darnassus, at least have the decency to kill Staghelm while you're at it.


...Oh, and invite me, too.

It's a jump to the left....

...and a step that's so right!

Hunter news from WotLK beta:

1. Ranged attacks no longer benefit from the haste effects of Windfury Totem and Improved Icy Talons. This is a nerf to hunter white damage.


2. We are also improving the armor on level 83 raid bosses by 10%. This will be a nerf to the dps of any class that does physical damage. For classes that would slide behind with such a change, we'll take steps to adjust them -- though it probably isn't as many as you think. The raid buff stacking overhaul was very beneficial to melee (and hunters). Sunder / Expose Armor alone can be a 20%+ dps increase, which is why we decided to attack the problem from this angle.


3. Now the armor change won't affect PvP at all and the haste buff change will only have a marginal affect in BGs and only in Arena teams that include certain comps. However, in order to make sure we didn't nerf hunters too much, we made two changes to Disengage. First, its cooldown dropped to 25 sec (from 30) which can be talented to 16. Second, it no longer requires a target, but does require you to be in combat. Now if someone closes to melee, you can leap back without having to select them first. We require you to be in combat though so we don't see a lot of hunters bouncing around IF / Org or using it like Blink to goofily speed up travel.

#3 is what interests me most; I think most people would agree that hunters were OK in PvE DPS-wise.

Disengage not requiring a target is a great move. If we don't have to be in melee range to use it, it means that we can keep *other* classes out of our melee range by pre-emptively using Disengage, before they can catch up to us.

In fact, we can basically adapt our "jumpshot-kite" method to Disengage... only in reverse!

(Being fairly uncoordinated in game as well as in real life, I'm expecting a lot of deaths from accidental cliff jumping while Disengaging to stay ahead of an elite melee mob I'm trying to solo kite, but I'm sure it'll be fun... :D)

High Achiever

Everyone is doing it; don't bother trying to deny it.

Whether it be working through the PvP list, the raiding list, the exploring list, the quests, or the current Hallow's End list, we're all madly scanning the new Achievements tab and ticking things off.

Personally, I've been concentrating mainly on picking up low level quests and running through the lower level instances; not only am I curious to see whether there actually *are* 3000 quests in the game currently, but doing them also lets me work towards the explorer's list, the dungeons list and reputations.

I've also been quite lucky with the Hallow's End stuff - last year I'd grabbed the Hallowed Helm because no-one wanted it back then, and a couple of days ago I managed to win the roll for a Sinister Squashling.

....Not that I would bother changing my title. I'm not one for following the crowd; I'll probably end up just sticking with "Challenger"!

Releasing my inner mage

In every other computer game but WoW, I've tended to pick the casters. Sorceress in Diablo 2, mage, wizard, all that stuff.


I didn't pick a mage in WoW (mainly because of Sylvanas Windrunner), and really, hunters aren't all that different - they use mana, they're ranged... but until now, they never had any decent AoE.


...I'm really hoping Blizzard doesn't nerf Volley until I finish AoEing through all the low-level instances.

(Also.... running a BT PuG and ending up #1 DPS over the mages and druids - we didn't have any warlocks - by a good 1% while spamming Volley was absolutely hilarious, considering I don't have the best gear. Enjoy it while you can! :D)

Aspects of change

Breaking news on the WotLK hunter forums!

Everyone's favourite Blizzard crab Ghostcrawler has announced that:

• Aspects are OFF the global cooldown
• Hunters will get a NEW Aspect called "Aspect of the Dragonhawk" at level 75 that will combine Hawk and Monkey
• All spells/talents/glyphs that affect Hawk and Monkey will be applicable to the new AotD (AotDH?)

I know we won't get it until level 75... but I'm still /cheering like mad anyway. No global cooldown and one less ability to have on my bar to look forward to has got to be a good thing :D

Stables Shuffle

New patch, new pets! :D

I have farewelled Hydrastorm, my faithful raiding pet for BC. He served me well, and hopefully he will find his way back to his original home.

I do, however, welcome 3 new pets into my stables to join Shadow, my new raiding/DPS pet:

Seismic the gorilla - AoE grinding tank

Koopa the turtle - Single target tank

Razor the ravager - Arena PvP

Until I get Razor levelled up, Vampyr the bat shall serve as my Arena PvP pet.

Hooray for the new pet system and more stable slots! :)

Spec for 70-80

Unlike the hordes of people that change their spec specifically to ease the levelling curve, I pick my talents to head immediately towards end-game. Luckily, BM actually *is* the recommended spec for levelling (although it's unfortunate that the same can't be said for my Destro warlock!).


Here are my picks for talents going into Patch 3.0.2, reasons behind my choices and something that may surprise those who know me: I won't be taming exotics!

End-game talents: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzggRcu0eoZ0eVbRbzZI
Level 70 talents: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzggRcu0eoZ0eMbMZc


Talent staples:

• I have to take The Beast Within (BW). No question about it.
• In the latest WotLK beta build, Readiness resets BW. This, to me, is much better than having an exotic pet - in PvE, you get the extra damage for twice as long; in PvP, you go twice as long without being CCed (not to mention you can also stun twice with Intimidation!). I only wish I could pick up Scatter Shot as well, especially since it's so low in the Survival tree... but you can't have everything!
• I always pick up Hawk Eye - I love having the longest range in PvP, and it's also useful for kiting or staying far back out of the action in raids.
  

Talent Breakdown:

1. Previously, I had always picked Endurance Training over Imp AotH, but testing the new pet talent tree in WotLK beta has me thinking I won't need it. 5/5 Imp Hawk it is!
2. 2/2 Focus Fire, 2/2 Imp Revive, 1/5 Endurance Training, 5/5 Unleashed Fury. Not much to say for these; the choices aren't great for lower tier BM tree.
3. 1/1 Aspect Mastery, 2/2 Imp Mend Pet - worth it for the points.
4. 5/5 Ferocity, 2/2 Spirit Bond, 1/1 Intimidation, 2/2 Bestial Discipline - I've always liked Spirit Bond, and it's actually buffed enough in WotLK for people not to automatically dismiss you as dodgy if you take it (bonus! :D). BD - With the new pet abilities, having as much focus as possible can't be a bad thing.
5. 3/5 Frenzy - It won't be up 100% of the time (4/5 is the usual), but I think it's enough and I want the extra point for elsewhere.
6. 3/3 Ferocious Inspiration, 1/1 Bestial Wrath, 5/5 Serpent's Swiftness, 1/1 BW - nothing special here.
7. 3/3 Longevity - Can't possibly pass up an even *shorter* cooldown for BW, Intimidation and pet specials (1.17min BW with Readiness and Glyph? HELL YES!).
8. 5/5 Lethal Shots, 5/5 Mortal Shots, 1/1 Aimed Shot - Staples for the MM tree.
9. 3/3 Careful Aim - If you think we have mana problems in BC, you haven't seen WotLK. We're going to need more +Int, and you can't go wrong with this talent.
10. 2/2 Go for the Throat, 2/2 Rapid Killing, 1/1 Readiness - More pet focus, and 3min Rapid Fire (with Readiness!).
11. 2 floating points in the MM tree - either Imp Hunter's Mark, Imp Stings or Efficiency; haven't decided yet.
12. 3/3 Hawkeye - I like it, so there. :P
13. 3 floating points in any tree - 3/5 Imp Tracking looks good, but I haven't decided on these. Is 1/2 Survival Instincts better than 2/5 Imp Tracking? Or possibly points in Invigoration (supposedly mediocre talent on beta), Frenzy (to get 4/5), Animal Handler (how easy will it be to "master" using Master's Call?) or Kindred Spirits? Or any of the talents I mentioned for the other floating points in MM? /ponder
    

Anyone have any ideas as to where to put my floating points? Have comments on this end-game spec? Think I'm crazy for being a self-confessed BM hunter and *not* want to tame exotics? I'd love to hear from you! :)

WTB New Wardrobe

I know it's been said millions of times by others, but.... ZA gear is damn fugly.

On the upside, the ZA PuG that I got the helm and bow from was also my first kill of Hex Lord and Zul'jin (I'd missed my guild's killing of Hex Lord), so I would have been happy even if I hadn't received any loot :)

..../hide helm