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.