I got my Pants!

I am not Solin! Wooooo!

Demon Stalker Greaves!!!

3 pieces down, two to go. Unfortunately the Helm drops from the Prince in Karazhan, who we seem to constantly have trouble with and the Chest drops from Magtheridon, who we haven't even attempted yet.

Also, due to a loot distribution error, I got Maulgar's Warhelm. I doubt I'll use it because I have better things in the bank, so for now it sits in my bank as well.

Yay!

Feign Death. Who knew?

I lifted this from Wired's blog network.

Boy Survives Moose Attack Thanks To World of Warcraft

Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, recently survived a moose attack by feigning death, "just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft."

In WoW, "feign death" is a skill acquired by hunters at level 30 that allows them to take a page from the possum playbook, collapse to the ground, and convince their enemies -- who lose all ingrained animosity in the process -- that they've died.

According to Norwegian site Nettavisen , Hans and his sister apparently enraged one of the local moose (mooses? meese?) during a walk in the forest near their home. After shouting at the gigantic creature to ward it away from his sister, Olsen dropped to the ground, and presumably his lifebar plummeted to zero.

Moose have never been known as the wisest creature in the forest, and the boy's show of necrosis seems to have worked, as both he and his sister survived intact.

It's easy to decry video games as a menace to society but in a world where MMOs save adorable, tow-headed Norwegian children from a deadly moose, can they really be that bad?

Who knew? Thankfully he didn't play a Warlock...

No Loot for Bzak

It's been quite a while since I've seen anything drop for me in Karazhan.

So alone I sit at the top of the loot reel, patiently waiting for something to drop. Aran could have dropped the Drape of the Dark Reavers I've been craving. Illhoof could have dropped the Girdle of the Prowler that I really want. The Chess Event could have had the Fiend Slayer Boots I want to replace the leather Rogue ones I'm wearing.

But do they? No. No love for Bzak.

On the plus side, my dps jumped another 130 points from last log. I attribute it to constantly popping Beastial Wrath, Bloodlust Brooch and the Abacus of the Violent Odds. +130 dps for the win.

Now if I could just get some loot... *rofl*

Powered by Wowhead

I love Wowhead.com. I have been using it for a while now. I also have the Wowhead Client installed with my addons.

The other day I saw that Thottbot had a "Powered by" link and any links put on your page will pop up a mouseover tooltip to the item linked. I drooled and waited patiently for Wowhead to catch up.

They did. Powered by Wowhead is a godsend!

You will see that all my links to gear on Wowhead now pop up tooltips. Hooray for technology! Now to get it installed on our forums. Oh Maaaaark...

Why I Respecced BM...A Tale of Two Specs

Yes, I respecced BM again. 25g isn't too much to shell out, thankfully.

As you may recall, I respecced Survival not too long ago to see what my overall dps would look like. I was happy for a little while with the big 4k point crits, but it lacked something, and that something was a consistent dps.

After my respec I started logging The Bane's Karazhan runs on WoWWebStats, and as you can see from last night's run, my dps is a healthy 634. That's 100 dps higher than the next closest Hunter.


Both Hailen and Shikaku could benefit from some gear upgrades because Hailen has been out of the game for a little while and Adam's main is Sumner (a Warlock). It is evident to me that my gear choices play a large role in my dps superiority.

Here is a breakdown of the three of us. Shikaku with gear upgrades will equal me. Hailen needs to adopt a shot rotation macro. The three of us together? Deadly.

Heroic Badges in Karazhan

I have to say that one of the best features in 2.3 is the Heroic Badge drops off of all the Karazhan bosses.

Attumen drops 1, Moroes through Aran drop 2 each, I hear Prince drops 3. As full a clear as The Bane can muster (Attumen through Prince) will net me 16 badges, that's more than 3 Heroic Botanica runs, not too shabby.

I had saved up 26 badges, and with the two runs we've done plus the new Heroic dailies, I finally saved up the 41 badges needed to get the Bloodlust Brooch, and oh what a beauty it is.

I'm in dps heaven.

Double Guild First Night!

We are quickly taking Karazhan for granted.

Last night we one shotted both Illhoof and the Prince. We had never even tried Illhoof before yet we still one shotted him. As for the Prince, we've had him on our radar for a little while, and although I personally had to call it a night because it was almost midnight, the rest of The Bane pressed on until 1am, finally taking the bastard down.

Next time I'll be in on the Prince deal...

Survival and Back Again or Why I'm Beast Mastery Again...

I re-specced to Survival for a couple reasons, the most prevalent however was simply to level the Humar the Pridelord cat that I had tamed earlier this month. What a silly reason. I was doing nowhere near the overall damage that I can do as a BM specced Hunter.

Last night's run into Karazhan proved my point inexplicably. Oh yeah, I started using WoWWebStats too...

It really means the difference between 1st overall or 4th/5th overall dps. Simply switching to BM put me almost 100 dps higher than the next closest Hunter.

Hailen needs some gear upgrades and Shikaku does as well, but 100 dps is 100 dps any way you cut it.

I guess I'm going to be staying BM for a while.

New Phat Lewtz!

Gruul's Lair again tonight after a full reset yesterday.

High King Maulgar is now a pansy and we easily one-shotted him.

Apparently no one wanted the Pauldrons of the Fallen Hero so I snatched it up.

After a quick turn in, they become the Demon Stalker Shoulderguards. My shoulders now glow with a green demonic glow, I love it!

They are more of a sidegrade to my Beastmaw Pauldrons, but a nice pickup nonetheless for Survival.

Now if I could just find some Delicate Living Rubies for cheap...

Gruul! Dead! Woo!

Oh how good it felt to see him lying dead on the ground tonight.

And lookie who killed him...

That's right, me. Take that you big ugly bastard.

Pay no attention to the Recount to the left, yes, I only placed 10th in damage, but that's the Survival spec rearing it's ugly head. As you can see I beat the MM Hunter (Cal) but was a ways away from the BM Hunter (Kalihi). This was expected and I feel that my Expose Weakness, which was up the entire fight, only enhanced our damage. My proof? Look at 6 of the top 10, all melee or ranged dps, the other 4? Casters who couldn't take advantage of it.

That spells success in my book.

No we start farming this bastard.

Survival...again.

I made a quick spec change prior to the Heroic Botanica run we did tonight. I respecced back to Survival to see if me taking a dps loss would equate to increased dps for the rest of the party.

If you will remember a while back I switched to BM because of all the casters in our parties who weren't getting the benefit of Expose Weakness. Last night's run featured Sundein, Karadur, Shikaku, Arutaan and myself. Three ranged/melee dps could benefit more from the 200+ AP buff my EW would provide. Plus Shikaku is a BM Hunter so we wouldn't lose the 3% from Ferocious Inspiration.

Early tests were good and we flew through Botanica in what I felt was record time.

I'm going to play around as SV for a little while, and keep it active for our return to Gruul's Lair on Monday.

High King Maulgar Dethroned...Gruul? Too tough.

Maulgar continues to be on a semi-farm status for the Team Whiskers/Bane task force. We wiped twice but got him on the third try.

I'm slowly climbing up the loot reel ladder and should have my shoulders from this guy soon.

As for Gruul? Well he again proved to be too much for us, but on a lighter note, we did get him down to 23% while I was in the Raid and I heard that after I left they got him down to 19%. We are so close and going back in next Monday to see if we can finish him off.

Fingers crossed.

Champs!

World Champions!

Another awesome season and another World Series Championship! Woo!

Now that the World Series is over I can finally start to concentrate on playing WoW more often. Gruul's with the Rats tonight so stay tuned for an update.

Trinket Upgrades! WooHoo!

I finally got the trinket upgrade I've been praying for.

Such a pretty trinket. Just to give you folks an idea of how long I've been trying to get this to drop, I first saw it the very first time we downed Pathaleon and I haven't seen it again since last night. I'm taking a wild guess, but the first time I saw it was probably a month or two after the Burning Crusade came out...so yeah, that's a long time.

It was even more frustrating because I didn't win the roll over a Druid who is no longer in our guild...

/sigh

According to HAEP, this will replace my Hourglass of the Unraveler, which I will save just in case I ever go back to Survival. Now I'm just saving up for the Bloodlust Brooch (41 Heroic Badges...ugh) and I will be set trinket-wise until SSC or BT.

Yay me!

Caution: Shameless Plug

I was so excited to check my e-mail this morning and see that I received my first comment!

So, in honor of Selserene, here is a shameless plug of her YouTube page containing tons of awesome WoW related videos.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Selserene

Enjoy!

World of Warcraft? Who cares!

Who can think about World of Warcraft?

We're going back to the World Series BABY!!!!!

Imprompru Karazhan runs = Death

I was able to go into Karazhan with the Guild on Thursday, and yes, I know this post is a few days late.

I went in with one of our better damage dealers, Josh (Solinterrus), so this would be an excellent test to see if my shot rotation macro was up to snuff.

Let's take a look at the meter.

Yes, Josh beat me with 1.4 million damage, but I did come in second easily with 1.2 million damage. Add in my Cat, which had been separate the entire night, and I jump to 1.6 million damage, and a first place spot. It also would have helped if I hadn't died on Attumen, Moroes AND Maiden...I so rarely die that this was quite a surprise.

Explanations? For Attumen, our tanks were cursed and with missed swings, he came right for me and 1 shotted me before I could feign. For Moroes, I was trapping the Protection Warrior and a trap ran out before my cooldown was up and he got a couple swings in on me. I got combat rez'd, so I was able to recover. For Maiden, I got hit by a Holy Fire after my designated Healer had been killed and was on cooldown with my potions.

I don't plan on dying this much ever again.

For the Horde!

I've been doing some experimenting over the weekend with a Horde Hunter. I want to give the Beast Master tree a try while levelling. When I originally levelled Bzak I did it all as Marksman through level 70. Some quests were a pain in the butt, others were fine.

So far, my pets seem to be able to hold aggro constantly without any issues. Rarely do I pull aggro off and I can even get them to hold onto 2 mobs easily.

It's fun and I'll keep posting about Bzak's alter ego, Jysxyra.

Engineering Epicz!!!

Finally. Engineering will be worth it in Patch 2.3


It looks like I'll need the following mats to make them both on day 1:

208 Fel Iron Ore
16 Adamantite Ore
48 Khorium Ore
64 Eternium Ore
81 Motes of Fire
22 Motes of Earth
8 Star Wood
1 Hula Girl Doll

I'm going to start farming the ore immediately and wait on the Star Wood and Hula Girl Doll, just in case those get changed.

I'm giddy like a schoolgirl!

Shot rotation macros

I spent some time yesterday on the elitistjerks forums reading up on shot rotation macros and decided to give them a try last night.

In reading, a simple on for Beast Master Hunters is:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/cast [exists,target=pettarget] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

What this does is hide all errors generated from a shot not being off of cooldown, fires Steady Shot then Auto Shot in succession, resets itself if I don't press anything for 3 seconds and fires off Kill Command if it is up. A very interesting piece of programming once you break it all down.

To use the macro you simply target your target and just keep pressing it repeatedly until your target is dead. Spam the heck out of it, the worst you'll do is break your keyboard with all the mashing of that single button.

For me, so far so good. I don't particularly like the fact that I can spam one button an entire fight, but I'm seeing an increase in my overall DPS during the standard tank and spank fights.

I did most of my testing while farming for Motes of Air off of the elementals in Nagrand, and it seems to work quite well. I do appreciate the Kill Command going off automatically as I think I miss a lot of opportunity for that without the macro.

Next step is to program one with Arcane Shot included in the rotation. It will totally burn through my mana, but that's what Fel Mana Potions are for, right?

Prince Malchezzar down to 16%

After fighting our way through the authentication server being broken, people not being able to log in, our Main Tank (Lorrick) missing in cyberspace and a later than normal start, we did eventually get to Prince Malchezzar last night.

We suffered through four wipes before Jer, Tiff and I all crashed, and we decided to call it a night.

On our third attempt we did however get the Prince down to 16%, a huge accomplishment for The Bane, and certainly has our hopes raised for downing him altogether the next chance we get. It didn't feel like we had brought our A Game to the table last night, so with a few tweaks to the raid roster, I think it can be done.

Also, I had my first taste of leading a Raid. Granted all we had to do was clear trash up to the Prince and then fight him, but it felt good to be in charge. It was also my first foray into being the Master Looter. I must remember to give the greens that dropped to our Tanks (Jer and Chad) to help with their repair bills. I think we are starting Karazhan fresh tonight, so we'll see if I get to lead this raid too.

Short post, I know, but it was an uneventful night.

Twinking an Alliance Hunter for the 10-19 WSG Battleground (Part 3)

Congratulations! We are now 75% of the way to a fully twinked Hunter, but before we put on all that new equipment, it’s a good idea to gather materials to have your gear enchanted. Specifically, don’t put on any of the Bind on Equip gear. This way they can be mailed directly to an enchanter, they can apply the enchant, then mail the item back to you. You can do this step ahead of level 19 as well.

A list of recommended enchantments for your gear is:

Back: Enchant Cloak - Lesser Agility (+3 Agility)
Chest: Enchant Chest - Major Health (+100 Health)
Wrist: Enchant Bracer - Superior Stamina (+9 Stamina)
Hands: Enchant Gloves - Superior Agility (+15 Agility)
Feet: Enchant Boots - Minor Speed (Minor Speed Increase)
Melee Weapon: Enchant 2H Weapon - Agility (+25 Agility)

For your Dark Leather Pants you will need to track down a Leatherworker to craft a Clefthide Armor Kit for you. This will add +30 Stamina and +10 Agility to your pants.

For your Venomstrike you will need an Engineer to craft an Accurate Scope (+3 Damage). The Engineer will also have to apply it for you.

Now for the tricky part. Your Green Tinted Goggles should be enchanted with a Libram, either the Libram of Constitution (+100 Health) or the Libram of Voracity (+8 Agility). These can be purchased from the Auction House by your main and then have the materials farmed. The toughest part is the plant salves in Felwood. With all the traveling, you should have this done in an hour.

We need to finish things up by discussing talents. There are three main schools of thought for talents:

Option 1	Option 2	Option 3
3/3 Hawk’s Eye	5/5 Improved Concussive Shot	3/3 Hawk's Eye
2/2 Savage Strikes	5/5 Lethal Shots	5/5 Lethal Shots
3/3 Improved Wing Clip		2/5 Improved Concussive Shot
2/5 Improved Concussive Shot

I personally chose Option 3, but all are equally effective.

With everything properly enchanted and your talents set, you are now 100% ready to start twinking in WSG. On non-Bonus Honor days you will be the premier player in many games. On the Honor Weekend though is when twinking is truly enjoyable as many people dust off their twinks to match skills against others. This is why I twink, for the challenge against my twinked peers.

The next thing you should think about are Reputation Rewards. As soon as you can you want to swap out some gear for rewards:

Malachite Pendant	replaced by	Sentinel’s Medallion
Meadow Ring of Agility	replaced by	Protector’s Band
Empty Trinket Slot 2	replaced by	Insignia of the Alliance

These take some battles to earn, but are positive upgrades and worth the time and effort to achieve. These also may be forgotten altogether if you don’t wish to make the trek to the Sentinel's Outpost to turn in your tokens.

Finally, there are three pieces of equipment that I did not include in my gear set, two come from the Booty Bay Fishing Extravaganza and one comes from the Stranglethorn Vale Arena. I find these items extremely tough to obtain and have discounted them entirely from my twink’s gear. I have provided links to each item in case you wish to research further on obtaining them, but I have found that they are not required items to twink.

Lucky Fishing Hat
Nat Pagle’s Extreme Anglin’ Boots
Arena Grand Master

I have tried to make this an all-encompassing guide, but feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions. Good luck and happy twinking!

Twinking an Alliance Hunter for the 10-19 WSG Battlegrounds (Part 2)

Now we have our pet and are level 10 and more than likely are getting ready to leave the starting zone of our race. In fact, at level 10 it is definitely time to leave the starting area. You want to gain as little experience as possible from here on in and you don’t want any rested experience if at all possible. Now is the time to review the pre-twinking gear list of your new Hunter.

I recommend the following items be in your bank, ready for you at level 19 before your first foray into WSG:

Head: Green Tinted Goggles
Neck: Malachite Pendant
Shoulders: Serpent's Shoulders
Back: Sentry Cloak
Chest: Tunic of Westfall
Wrist: Forest Leather Bracers
Hands: Scouting Gloves of the Monkey
Waist: Deviate Scale Belt
Legs: Dark Leather Pants
Feet: Feet of the Lynx
Ring 1: Seal of Wrynn
Ring 2: Meadow Ring of Agility
Trinket 1: Minor Recombobulator
Trinket 2: None
Melee Weapon: Twisted Chanter’s Staff
Ranged Weapon: Venomstrike (if using bows) or Lil Timmy's Peashooter (if using guns)
Quiver: Quiver of the Night Watch (if using bows) or Bandolier of the Night Watch (if using guns)

Before anyone complains, yes there are some alternatives, but I feel these are the easiest things to come across as you level to 19 and so this is my recommended “Starter Set” of gear.

So, how do you get it? Easy. The following can be purchased from the Auction House:

Malachite Pendant	Sentry Cloak
Forest Leather Bracers	Scouting Gloves of the Monkey
Deviate Scale Belt	Dark Leather Pants
Feet of the Lynx	Meadow Ring of Agility
Twisted Chanter’s Staff	Lil Timmy's Peashooter

The rest require running instances or doing quests for rewards.

At level 10, I recommend having a high level guildie run you through Wailing Caverns as many times as it takes for Venomstrike and the Serpent's Shoulders to drop.

At level 14, begin the Defias Brotherhood quest chain that ends with killing Edwin Vancleef in Deadmines to get your Tunic of Westfall.

At level 16, start the Unsent Letter quest (the item drops from Edwin Vancleef) and have someone help you with the long quest chain that ends with An Audience With The King and gets you the Seal of Wrynn.

At level 17, go to Redridge and tame a level 17 Great Goretusk or go to Loch Modan and tame a level 17 Elder Mountain Boar. Both come with Charge 2 and Gore 3.

At level 18, start the Night Watch quest and have someone help you with the quest chain that gets you the Quiver of the Night Watch or the Bandolier of the Night Watch. In many cases, completing this quest chain will net you level 19.

Now is the time to start learning some Professions. Engineering is required so you can make and use the Green Tinted Goggles and the Minor Recombobulators. If you are using guns, you can also make Crafted Heavy Shot. Engineering can be quickly leveled by using this guide and buying the materials from the Auction House.

I pair Alchemy with Engineering. This is mainly so I can make my own Healing Potions, Lesser Mana Potions and Elixirs of Lesser Agility. These come in handy during long battles. Again, use this guide and buy the materials off of the Auction House.

Twinking an Alliance Hunter for the 10-19 WSG Battlegrounds (Part 1)

As promised, here is Part 1 of my "How to Twink..." series for Hunters. This is the path to Twinkdom I have taken and it is a proven path indeed.

Less blah blah blah, more information.

Here goes.

Obviously the first step to being a true twink is to have a high level toon with gold to spare. Some of the items here cost decent amounts of gold or are a pain to farm for yourself.

Next you need to choose your race. Currently you can be a Draenai, Dwarf or Night Elf. The racial base stats are as follows:

Racial Stats

Race	Str	Agi	Sta	Int	Spi	Armor	Health	Mana
Draenai	21	20	20	21	23	40	46	100
Dwarf	22	19	24	19	20	38	86	84
Night Elf	17	28	20	20	21	56	46	85

Immediately I am drawn to the 28 Agility of the Night Elf, the 24 Stamina of the Dwarf and the 100 Mana of the Draenai. All important traits for a Hunter.

Next we look at special abilities by race:

Draenai:
Gift of the Naaru - Activate to heal your target for 35 + 15 per Level over 15 sec.
Heroic Presence - Increases chance to hit by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
Shadow Resistance – Increase Shadow Resistance by 10.

Dwarf:
Stoneform - Activate to gain immunity to poison, disease, and bleed; +10% Armor; Lasts 8 seconds.
Gun Specialization – increase Gun Skill by 5.
Frost Resistance – Increase Cold Resistance by 10.

Night Elf:
Shadowmeld - Activate while immobile and out of combat to enter stealth mode.
Quickness – Dodge chance increased by 1%.
Nature Resistance – Increase Nature Resistance by 10.

All three have a decent skill or two that translates well to the role of a Hunter. Heroic Presence works on pets, Gun Specialization adds to your DPS and Shadowmeld is great for guarding flag rooms.

Once you have chosen your race, begin the grind to level 10. At level 10 you are able to train your first pet. I would suggest starting with a Mountain Boar from Loch Modan as they give you Charge 1 and Gore 2, two excellent skills that will come in handy in WSG and just in every day playing.

Warsong Gulch Bonus Honor Weekend!

In honor of the Warsong Gulch Bonus Honor weekend, I think I'll give the reigns over to my alter-ego, Markantony, for the weekend. Take it away Sir...

Hi everyone, I'm a Twink!

Markantony was created in about a solid week's worth of time getting run through instances like Deadmines and Wailing Caverns for gear. Check out the Armory profile for Markantony. I'm still working on some enchants and a couple pieces of better gear before I call this toon 100% complete. Over the next few days I will take some time to explain the path of Twinking for Hunters, including some gear and enchantment tips as well as when to do what, etc.

For now just bask in the glory of my Flamingo.

Who needs Beast Lord Shoulders?

What an amazing night we had last night in Karazhan. We started right on time, had extra people and everything. Glorious indeed.

Our only real stumbling block all night long was The Maiden. We had an accidental wipe on the first try, but managed to down her on the second try.

We then proceeded to one shot the Opera Event, Wizard of Oz, and I was quite delighted to see the Crone drop my shoulders!

Apparently the drop from any Opera Event boss, but I only thought they dropped from the Big Bad Wolf. Either way, I no longer need to run Steamvaults for the Beast Lord shoulders. My "Josh's Pants" nightmare has ended.

From Opera, we also easily one shotted the Curator and ran into a sticky situation. The Gloves of the Fallen Hero dropped again and no one wanted them...I told Josh this in IRC today and I think I heard the tear he shed hit the ground in Chicago. We ended up forcing them on Adam.

We then easily one shotted Aran, a true first. According to our meters we were easily 20% ahead of his mana use (Meaning his health was 20% lower than his mana the entire fight). Our DPS was truly insane. Min picked up a really cool trinket off Aran called the Pendant of the Violet Eye. Quite an interesting trinket for Healers during boss fights. I hope to hear more from him on it's usage.

After Aran we quickly did the Chess Event and then made our way up to the Prince. The Prince stalled our good night by wiping us twice, and then we had to call it a night. We were able to get him to Phase 3 the first time only to have him crit Lorrick 3 times in a row, effectively downing him hard. We gave it a second try but had no luck then either. We think that with some additional focused healing during that phase that we will ultimately get him down and get someone their Tier 4 helm.

We are thinking of giving Illhoof a shot this week too, but we'll see.

All in all, a very good night and gives great promise to use clearing that place completely in a night or two in the coming months.

Multiple gear sets DO matter.

I learned a valuable lesson, again, in Karazhan last night.

First, yes we were able to rock the hallowed halls of Karazhan again and with the influx of new people to The Bane, it looks like we will be able to get our sorry butts in there more often now.

A quick welcome to Karadur, Rallian and Illuria, who all joined The Bane recently. It good to have you all aboard! We also had some help from silly old Bill (Ispar) and Rallian, who I hadn't met before, but was a great Shadow Priest addition.

Back to the lesson learned, it is very important for a trapping Hunter to ensure that he is able to trap as well as possible. When you are Beast Master specced, you don't have any fancy Survival bonuses to trapping, so you MUST take advantage of the Beast Lord 2-piece set bonus to reduce the cooldown of your traps by 4 seconds. 4 seconds is a lot of time when Lord Crispin Ference is breathing down your neck breaking your traps early and whacking you for 2k damage a shot.



These beauties will not leave my bags ever again.

The loot Hunter-wise was not special, and two of the drops were Greed Rolled (no Disenchanters last night), but the other two actually had some people happy to take them.

Finally, I made a funny. When Jason (Lorrick) complained that he had the Brittle Bones debuf I reminded him of this...

A New UI

Yesterday I decided it was time to hang up the old UI and start fresh with some new things. Previously I had been using Photek as my UI, and liked it, but have just been looking for a change.

I came across Sakushu's Hunter UI on Curse.com and was intrigued by the layout and overall look, so I decided to give it a whirl. Have a look for yourself:



I made some changes to Sakushu's layouts, specifically by dropping KTM Threatmeter for Omen (#1), and a new Damage Meter replacement called Recount (#5). I especially like Recount for the DPS graph (shown) but I can't figure out how to get it to stay on my UI without reloading it after I log back on. It just looks too cool! Finally, I had to use the WoWAceUpdater to update all the programs used by the UI to get them up to standard.

The numbered highlights are:

1. Omen (a threat meter)
2. Trinketmenu (a trinket swap addon)
3. Nudge (a range check addon for Hunters)
4. Autobar (a bar addon that links multiple items to one slot that grows upwards when you mouseover it)
5. Recount (a damage meter and charting tool)
6. Kharthus's Hunter Timers (timers for Hunter traps, stings, marks, etc.)
7. FuBar (a compact bar to hold different quick use addons)

I'm still working on what to place on my bars, but so far I am pleased with the look and feel of this UI. I'm also still tweaking it for Raids, but am impressed so far.

Gruul's Lair with the Rats

Last night we took a stab at Gruul's Lair with Team Whiskers. This is the second raid I've been in there with them, and while on the first we downed Maulgar after about 5 wipes, last night would prove to be just awful.

To start we only had one Hunter, your's truly, to start the fights. Anyone who hasn't been to Gruul's knows that on the Maulgar fight it is imperative that Hunters begin the fight by Misdirectioning the Main Tanks and then pulling one of the 5 mobs to the tanks. With three Hunters its doable, with two its tough, with one, well 15g repair bill later, it sucks.

That darn Warlock (Olm the Summoner) is a royal pain in the butt. His Death Coil absolutely devastates anyone it hits, so he must be a Misdirection target, but I can't seem to get close enough to him without aggroing the entire room and having him Death Coil a tank or a priest or whoever he feels like killing.

I would say however, that by the 3rd reset we had the pull going pretty weel. I was MDing the Warlock onto one of our Warlocks just so the tanks, etc. wouldn't get eaten by the Coil.

Best we could do was get angry, frustrated and generally put into a bad mood.

We did down Blindeye (the Priest) in one of the attempts, so that would be the tiniest shred of a silver lining. Too bad he resets when we wipe.

/cry

Dimensional Rippers are your Friend

Is anyone else out there an Engineer? Raise your hands so I can count you all.

One of the funniest Engineering schematics is the one for the Dimensional Rippers. For the most part they transport you to a Goblin city. Pre-BC, it was Everlook, Post-BC they have added Area-52 as well. When it malfunctions is when the fun truly begins.

Let's take tonight as an example...

I wanted to gain some Consortium rep, and the fastest way to get to Netherstorm from Shattrath is the trusty, never-malfunctioning, Dimensional Ripper - Area 52.

It sure got me there fast, but look what it did to my beautiful beard!!!!!

Is your pet Hungry? Sad? Giddy?

There's nothing worse than having your pet just up and dissappear on you. Ever have it happen? Sit back kids and I'll tell you a story about the olden days.

Way back when Bzak was just a wee Hunter, around level 10, I did my pet taming quest and got my first pet, a Frostsaber Cat from Dun Morogh. He was cute, I named him Snowball as I recall. I was brand new at the game and had no idea what that red frowny face really meant, so I just went on my merry way, making Snowball kill things for me. Life was good. Snowball really loved being sent to attack rabbits scampering across the snow.

Then all of a sudden, Snowball dissappeared. I was confused. A friend of mine, Brandon (Bilco) told me that I have to feed my pet. It was news to me. I mean who really pays attention to the quest text at level 10 anyways?

Anyways...back to today. I learned a valuable lesson that day and later in life after learning macros, it was clear that the easiest way to ensure your pet is happily fed is to program a macro. Now I'm not going to get into Macro Programming 101, I'm joing going to tell you a great Feed Pet macro.

And here it is:

#show Clefthoof Ribs
/cast Feed Pet
/use Clefthoof Ribs

The simplest, make your pet happy macro ever. In a nutshell, this macro uses the Clefthood Ribs icon as the icon on your bar and provides the number of Clefthood Ribs you have in your inventory in the lower left hand corner. When you press it, it casts Feed Pet and the uses Clefthoof Ribs for the action. So with one quick program, I now know what spell I'm casting, how much food I have left and can cast and select the food with one button. Obviously you can replace Clefthood Ribs with whatever you feed your pet.

I love not having to open my bags!

Hunter Agility Equivalence Points (HAEP), or Math for Insomniacs.

As some of you may know, I played a Rogue through level 30...big deal, right? Well in levelling I found it indispensible to use the shadowpanther.net website, which gives all pieces of equipment an Agility Equivalence Point (AEP), from here you can determine what piece of equipment is better of two. This is particularly useful in twinking, something I like to do in my spare time on Markantony on the Shadow Council server.

I got to wondering if there was a similar spreadsheet designed for Hunters and went about trying to create my own, and to use Cheeky's spreadsheet as well. Well, I could only consume so much time at work before I felt bad, so I instead lucked upon a website designed by Kirrina:

Equipment Comparison Guide using Hunter Agility Equivalence Points

This beauty of a website is truly a sight to behold as it allows you to choose the equipment slot you are looking to compare and then provides a list of the top items receiving HAEPs. You can also choose from some of the pre-definied specs via a dropdown at the top.

So, for me, a quick switch to the pre-set Beast Mastery, I could see that for the Head slot, my newly crafted Surestrike Goggles v2.0 were better than the Stalker's Helm of Second Sight that I had equipped. I made a couple other changes from what I was wearing before finding this site, and am pleased with the results so far.

This is a link that is definitely being added to the sidebar as I visit it often.

Enjoy and thanks to Kirrina, wherever you are.

Respec your pet before every instance? What?!

Yes, I respec my Cat before every instance.

Why? Because it's cheap, almost free (15s usually) compared to my own respec (50g sometime... /gasp) and it can really be the maker or breaker of your pet surviving. We all know that BM is tied to your pet's damage, and more importantly for my groups, the Ferocious Inspiration procs.

Here is my Cat before any resistances:

Growl 8 is free, Claw 9 is our main damage kicker, Dash 3 is a must, Greater Stamina 9 adds 320 health, Natural Armor 3 adds 160 armor and Avoidance 2 allows your pet to take 50% less damage from AoEs.

From here it's just a matter of where to throw those extra points for resistances.

A list you say? Sure! Below I have broken down each instance along with what Boss does what school of damage. If a Boss isn't listed, the do vanilla melee damage. Below each instance and Boss list I've listed how I spec my Cat for resistances.

Hellfire Ramparts

Omor the Unscarred - Shadow damage

Nazran - Fire damage

(Fire 3, Shadow 3 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

The Blood Furnace

The Maker - Nature damage

Broggok - Nature

Keli'dan the Breaker - Fire and Shadow damage

(Nature 3, Fire 2, Shadow 2 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

The Shattered Halls

Grand Warlock Nethekurse - Shadow damage

Warbringer O'mrogg - Fire and Nature damage

(Fire 3, Shadow 3, Nature 2 and the rest to Natural Armor)

The Slave Pens

Mennu the Betrayer - Fire and Nature damage

Rokmar the Crackler - Frost damage

Quagmirran - Nature damage

(Nature 3, Fire 2, Frost 2 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

The Underbog

Hungarfen - Nature damage

Ghaz'an - Nature damage

The Black Stalker - Nature damage

(Nature 5 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

The Steam Vaults

Hydromance Thespia - Frost and Nature damage

(Frost 3, Nature 3 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

Mana-Tombs

Pandemonius - Shadow damage

Yor - Fire damage (Heroic only)

Nexus-Prince Shaffar - Arcane, Fire and Frost damage

Arcane 2, Fire 2, Frost 2, Shadow 2 and the rest to Natural Armor)

Auchenai Crypts

Shirrak the Dead Watcher - Fire damage

Exarch Maladaar - Shadow damage

(Fire 3, Shadow 3 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

Sethekk Halls

Darkweaver Syth - Arcane, Fire, Frost and Shadow damage

Talon King Ikiss - Arcane damage

(Arcane 5, Fire 1, Frost 1, Shadow 1)

Shadow Labarynth

Ambassador Hellmaw - Nature damage

Grandmaster Vorpil - Fire and Shadow damage

Murmur - Nature damage

(Nature 3, Fire 2, Shadow 2 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

The Mechanar

Mechano-Lord Capacitus - Arcane damage

Nethermance Sepethrea - Arcane and Fire damage

Pathaleon the Calculator - Arcane damage

(Arcane 4, Fire 2 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

The Botanica

Commander Sarannis - Arcane damage

Thorngrin the Tender - Fire and Shadow damage

Laj - Nature damage

Warp Splinter - Arcane damage

(Arcane 3, Fire 2, Shadow 2 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

The Arcatraz

Zereketh the Unbound - Shadow damage

Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates - Fire damage

Dalliah the Doomslayer - Shadow damage (Heroic only)

Harbinger Skyriss - Shadow damage

(Shadow 4, Fire 2 and add the rest to Natural Armor)

Currently I'm doing Karazhan and Gruul's for raids, so they are included too:

Karazhan

Maiden of Virtue - Fire damage

The Curator - Arcane damage

Wizard of Oz - Frost and Nature damage

Terestian Illhoof - Fire and Shadow damage

Shade of Aran - Arcane, Fire and Frost damage

Netherspite - Arcane and Shadow damage

Prince Malchezaar - Shadow damage

Nightbane - Fire damage

(Respeccing halfway through Karazhan is not an option, so I usually get a sense of who we are going after and spec accordingly)

Gruul's Lair

Krosh Firehand - Fire damage

Olm the Summoner - Shadow damage

Kiggler the Crazed - Arcane and Nature damage

(Arcane 4, Nature 2 and add the rest to Natural Armor, this is because most raids have the Hunters work on Kiggler who has a nasty Arcane explosion and when your pet is tanking that, every little bit helps. Also, most raids have your pets steer clear of Krosh and Olm.)

Epic Druid Flight Form, Anzu and Heroic Sethekk Halls

We had another first for The Bane last night.

We fought Anzu and helped Chad get his Epic Druid Flight Form quest out of the way. I have to say, Anzu is pretty. And, no, the mount of him did not drop and I cried.


The fight is a pretty straightforward tank and spank but at 66% and 33% he goes into a phase where he basically banishes himself and takes no damage but spawns a flock of 8 to 10 little crows. There are also three friendly bird statues in the room that when you cast a Druid HoT on them they come to life and add damage, or allow you to take less damage or increase movement and ranged and spell haste by 25%. We found it easy enough to keep all three HoTed at the same time giving us all three buffs.

It's all just a matter of burning him, then the flock, then him, then the flock, then him. The flock is easily Frost Nova'd and AoE by Hunters and Mages. A Warlock's Seed of Corruption worked awesomely too.

Now I need to work on my new cooking recipe.

/snicker

Survival is dead to me...Dead!

I was bored on my lunch break today and decided to do some forum surfing just to see what's what in the world of Hunters. The endless litany of BM > MM > SV > BM <>/= SV posts just make my head hurt sometimes, but for some reason I keep getting drawn to them. After reading a few, the same thing kept coming up, that BM is a better raiding spec than SV. I kept telling myself that this wasn't true, but really there is only one way to find out if its true.

Respec! (Not the Aretha Franklin kind like in Blues Brothers, that's R-E-S-P-E-C-T)

Before I go over the respec, let me explain why I did what I did back when I did it. If only this blog could do a flashback scene.

Flashback to April, I was level 70, had my epic flying mount, was pretty much an MM Hunter. I read a couple forum posts on a MM/SV hybrid that did some decent damage, so I gave it a try. It was hard giving up Silencing Shot, but a 30/31 build worked for me. I was doing decent damage, I was trapping better and everything seemed good in the world.

In May, I started reading more forum posts by Elakuan, a Troll Hunter, specifically this gem that went into detail on what gear to get for DPS. I looked up Elakuan on the Armory and saw he was a 41 point SV Hunter. His posts were well thought out and gave good examples, so one day I just respecced 0/20/41. My damage increased a ton, I was critting like a madman! Talents and trinkets were proccing all the time. I resocketed all my gear to +8 Agi gems, and boy did it cost a lot. I farmed for pieces of Felstalker gear and had a friend craft the belt and bracers for me. SV fit me like a glove.

Up until yesterday. I had been down on myself over not topping the Damage Meters in Karazhan and wondered if there was a way to squeeze out a little more productivity. Maybe BM was the key. The thing that put it over the top was Ferocious Inspiration.



Expose Weakness, at Rank 3, was providing a debuff on mobs that equals an AP increase of 25% of my Agi. I was running with about 800 Agi buffed, so equating to (800 Agi x 25% = +200 AP) +200 AP during fights. The only downside to this is that it only applies to melee and ranged attacks. My Karazhan raids usually have 1 Warrior Tank, 1 Paladin Off Tank, 1 Paladin Healer, 1 Druid Healer, 2 Mages, 1 Shadow Priest, 1 Warlock and 1 Hunter. The 10th spot is usually taken by a Rogue, Hunter or Shaman. This translates into 4 Spell DPS and 2 Ranged DPS. So only two people were really taking advantage of the Expose Weakness. Ferocious Inspiration only applies to your Party, but by putting me in the Mage/Priest/Lock party, we all increase damage by 3%.

With a sad goodbye, I respecced to a 41/20/0 BM build.

I will be testing it over the next few days, but after last night's run, making second on the Damage Meters, and almost beating Evangelia (Jer), I am happy so far. It also felt good to break out Rema again, I missed the old girl.

Why does a Prince rule the tower? Are there no Kings?

Day 2 in Karazhan.

People wanted to try Maiden, and we one shotted her fairly easily with no deaths. That was a first, effectively putting her on farm status now too.

Next up was the Curator, also one shotted putting him on farm status too. This means that everyone should start to get decked out in the Tier 4 gloves now. Minadorent (Jason2) won the roll for them, so now both our Main Healers have their gloves.

From there we went to Aran again, and got him on the second try. He is quite tough with all his Flame Wreaths, Blizzards, Mass Polymorphs, etc. I haven't survived a fight yet unfortunately. He didn't drop the Drape of the Dark Reavers and I cursed him.

After Aran, the Chess Event is a given and we rolled through that again. It is really a fun fight when you get to control something cool like a Water Elemental (Rook) or the King himself.

We decided to get brave from there and cleared on up to the Prince himself. I've done the Prince once before with The Edge, a raiding guild, and we downed him after two tries. Today was a different story. He steamrolled us twice, primarilly because of poor infernal drops and the like. We got him into phase two each time, but he is a mean one. I know we can down him, it just takes some coordination.

Schedules are loopy for the next couple weeks, not sure when we will get back in here.

The definition of "Noob"

We had a chance to go into Karazhan again last night, but unfortunately Lorrick (Jason) is having cat issues with one of his older cats, so he wasn't able to attend. Thankfully we've had an influx of new Tanks recently, so we were able to replace him.

As I stated before, we have both Attumen and Moroes on farm mode right now. We rarely have any deaths and about half of the loot we receive now gets disenchanted because people already have it or have something better.

Moroes did however drop something that Solin (Josh) wanted, the Nethershard Girdle, which he said was more a sidegrade than anything, but since he was at the top of the loot reel and hadn't gotten anything, that he'd take it. Too bad that he failed at Master Loot and gave it to the Tank instead. So Josh remains at the top of the loot reel, probably indefinitely at this rate.

We skipped Maiden and went straight to Opera. The Big Bad Wolf spawned and I did a little dance in my seat. The Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle might actually be mine now because Joe was below me on the loot reel, meaning if it drops, I'm guaranteed to get it.

So, did it drop?

Is the suspense killing you?

No?

Fine...it didn't drop. Stupid Wolf.

Who is this "Fallen Hero" I've heard so much about?

I was very embarrased after my "sleep" incident that I made sure I was ready for Karazhan tonight. We headed straight for The Curator and were able to down him in one shot. After the loot was picked up a random mathematic equation popped into my head:

Coffee + Redbull + WoW = Gloves of the Fallen Hero?



Obviously this complex formula worked because I obtained the mutch coveted piece of loot. Here is where I suggest everyone do their homework before bidding on items. View the Demon Stalker Gauntlets that you get when you trade this in:



No sockets??? What do you mean no sockets? I had no idea it didn't have any sockets until after I turned it in. In my opinion this isn't much of an upgrade for a Survival spec. My Beast Lord Handguards provide me with 25 Agi, compared to 28, but socketed with two +8 Agi gems, it jumps to 41 Agi. Plus combining the BLH with the Cuirass I'm able to take advantage of the two piece bonus making my traps quite good.

I sort of felt bad that I took these from one of our Mages (Sorry Jer). Just like the Belt of the Tracker, in my bank they go.

On the plus side, we moved from the Curator to the Shade of Aran, which we downed after the third try and then did the Chess Event too!

Aran dropped a very nice cloak, the Drape of the Dark Reavers, which I wish I had gotten instead of the DSG, but hindsight is 20/20. If Aran ever drops the DotDR again, I'm going to be all over it.



Agi, Sta, Hit and AP, a Survival Hunter's dream cloak. /sigh

A week late and a repair bill short.

I just want to get it off my chest, I'm glad I'm not a Tank. I think I would choke if I ever saw a 30g repair bill. Just a random musing.

I tamed a new pet in our Karazhan absence. After reading a couple forum posts and a blog put out by BigRedKitty (BRK), I decided to go with a Scorpid for a while. The clincher was BRK's blog on WoW Insider about how nasty Scorpid currently are on Boss fights. Prior to this I was mainly taking my Wolf (Rema) to raids because of the Furious Howl effect she has. She would normally sit by my side the entire night and spam FH, and rarely run out and attack something. I'm not a Beastmaster Hunter, I roll Survival. I found a nice level 69 Scorpid out in Shadowmoon Valley, so only one level to train thankfully. Since the Scorpid trick explained by BRK said that Scorpids would eventually be nerfed, I named him Nerf.


I'll do some testing and see how he fares in Karazhan.

After a week of us all pretty much doing our own thing we decided to venture back into Karazhan to see what fun could be had. We also added Cuja (Joe, who coincidentally lives in my home town even though I'd never met him before) as a second Hunter to our raids. Joe is BM specced so the two of us should gel just fine.

I would love to tell you more, but I fell asleep before the raid and missed it. In a nutshell, I suck. We are heading back in today so I'll buy some Redbull on the ride home.

I do know that they went to Attumen, Moroes and the Opera Event. They got Romulo and Julliene, which I was dying to try out.

Moroes? Again?

We finally got enough people again on Monday night and headed back into Karazhan. We were all a little upset when we entered and all of the Moroes trash was still there, it meant that he did indeed bug and we would have to kill him again in order to get to the Opera Event.

No biggie, we have Moroes on farm at this point. One shotted again. Some nice drops, but nothing for me this time.

We quickly moved to the Opera Event. Now any Hunter who knows this event is praying at the start for Big Bad Wolf, primarily because he drops the Wolf Slayer Sniper Rifle.



I've been eyeing this beauty for a while now but have never had the chance to even see let alone attempt the Opera Event.

Well...yeah, it was the Oz event. The Wicked Witch's Hat dropped which Thorial (Chad) won, and it looks fan-tas-tic on him.

Having plenty of time we moved on to the Curator. A nifty littel trick to get to the Curator is to go up a back entrance that becomes unlocked once you finish the Opera Event. Lots of little ghosts along the way (that hit HARD) and some big blueberries that instead of having a health bar that decreases, you kill their mana bar. Some designer was working hard that day.

The Curator took three tries to finally down. He summons these Astral Flares that need to be burned down while your Main Tank stays on him. After the tenth Astral Flare spawns, the Curator enters a evocation-like phase where he takes 200% damage. The trick is to kill the tenth flare and then go balls to the wall on the Curator during each evocation phase. We were able to get through two evocations and then had him around 20% so we just burned him down. Radharani (Tiff) was highest on the loot reel and was able to get the first piece of Tier 4 gear, the Gloves of the Fallen Defender which I believe she turned into the Handguards of the Malorne. I'm not a healing Druid tree, so I'm just guessing.

After that we called it a night. Due to scheduling we aren't really sure when we'll be in next, hopefully soon. I'm dying for some loot. Two runs and I got nothing but a big repair bill.

A reset Karazhan is a terrible thing to waste.

It is interesting having a ten man dungeon reset itself on a weekly basis. I was very used to running Upper Blackrock Spire on a weekly basis, but it would always be resettable after each run. I understand why it is setup that way, because it is such a long instance that there is no way that I can see people completing it when you are just starting out. Many of the boss fights are pretty gear intensive.

With that said, we had one of our best runs last night. Attumen, Moroes and the Maiden all went down first try. Nothing terribly interesting dropped for me off of any of them.

On two of the trash mobs however a Belt of the Tracker dropped. Two in one instance should be against the law when there is only one mail wearer in the party, but it still happened.



At first glance, I decided this was a piece of crap and passed on it. My guildies forced it on me. I think when Tiff yelled "NOMNOMNOMNOM EATZ YER LEWTZ" I kinda had no choice. It's sitting in my bag right now. I don't think I will ever use this thing. No Agility...bleh.

We had some time after the Maiden fight so we decided to move on to the next boss, The Opera Event. For those unfamiliar, it is a fight that takes place on an Opera stage. One of three randomly selected fights can take place: Romulo and Julienne (an obvious play on Romeo and Juliet), Dorothy and the Crone (Wizard of Oz) or The Big Bad Wolf (and Little Red Riding Hood).

We walked up to the announcer and...he was bugged. Wouldn't let us start the instance. People were mad, I was mad, I want more lewtz! A couple quick posts in general chat inside Karazhan revealed that when we fought Moroes a glitch occured. Our Warlock, Sumner (Adam), had been casting DoTs on Moroes the entire fight, as he should be, and apparently at the end of the fight when Moroes was at about 1%, he Vanished to Garotte someone. No one got Garotted and Moroes just appeared dead, and lootable. Now we find out that if Moroes dies while he is Vanished, Opera bugs because the game doesn't realize that we killed Moroes.

P.I.T.A.

We'll be going back...Moroes may reset, or he may be clear, we'll find out soon enough.

Karazhan, redux.

We couldn't get enough people to get into Karazhan the past week, so the earliest was yesterday. But, we sure made up for the missed time.

We easily one shotted Attumen and then cleared to Moroes (I like to call him Moreoreos, I don't know why), one shotted him and then went to the Maiden. Three tries later, Maiden is down, much lewtz are shared, all happy campers, for the most part. And it was only Monday!

We had a Rogue with us who was more than happy to take the Worgen Claw Necklace that dropped again, but I do think he was sad when the Edgewalker Longboots dropped off of Moroes.



These have a decent amount of Agility on them, some Hit and some AP, so I asked for them, and got them. Unfortunately I didn't have any candy (Delicate Living Rubies) on me, so I socketed them with the baby +6 Agi gems. This gave me 41 Agi and 85 AP, not too shabby.

I'm beginning to really like these Karazhan runs. We go again tomorrow.

The Bane's first official Karazhan run!

Well we were finally able to scrape together the required ten people to run Karazhan as a guild. Just about all of us had been there before in some context, whether it be with Team Whiskers or Devstyle, or in my case, with the Circle of Solaris and The Edge, so it was old hat for a lot of us.

We had high hopes going in that we could clear at least to The Maiden of Virtue and score some phat lewtz for the Guild, well...

We downed Attumen the Huntsman. On the third try. But at least we downed him.

I was able to score the Worgen Claw Necklace. I haven't decided if this is truly an upgrade or a sidegrade to the Jagged Bark Pendant.

I will do some theorycrafting (Stare at them both and make a decision based entirely on facts unrealted to theorycrafting).

(Queue elevator music while I am deciding...)

Ok, sticking with the Jagged Bark Pendant because as a Survival Hunter I value Agility over all else. The JBP has 6 more Agility than the WCN, so that's that. Almost makes me so glad that I used a loot reel hit for it.

We go back to Karazhan next Monday. I'll keep everyone posted.

The first of hopefully many...

First, welcome to my blog.

Enjoy your stay, use a coaster and clean up after yourselves.

More to come soon.