Void Reaver is now Loot Reaver

No Dragonspine Trophy on Gruul last night.

But Void Reaver was one-shotted and is now officially on Farm Status with Team Whiskers.

Leatherworking is EASY

So I switched to Leatherworking.

Getting to 300 was simple enough and took a little time farming Yetis in Winterspring for Rugged Leather, but nothing too strenuous. I made 325 in one day of casual skilling up.

I spent a night of play farming for Leatherworking levels 325 to 350. These were a little more involved due to the large amounts of Knothide Leather required for each piece and I hit a snag around 345, but luckily I discovered the Drums.

Drums of Speed got me to 350 and Drums of Restoration got me to 352 and as soon as I farm some more Nether Dragonscales I will keep making these until I get to 365 and can make the Drums of Battle which will get me to 370 and then I can make the Drums of Panic for the final 5 levels.

Makes me thankfull that Bzak is at least Honored with every faction required to buy these plans.

Karazhan...again

These days it feels like I am constantly running Karazhan, either with The Bane on what have turned into almost regular runs, or with Team Whiskers on Agravane as an Off Tank.

Even better is that I am getting some loot again on Bzak.

An interesting drop last night was Romulo's Poison Vial. I have seen other Hunters use it in their Trinket slots, but I have always considered raw Attack Power to be more important, but in an open roll for the Vial, I won it. It has a large amount of Hit Rating on it, which puts me back over the hit cap after losing Engineering. The proc pops a lot too and the damage isn't too shabby. I need to do some more testing and read some more WWS reports before I am totally convinced it is a worthwhile upgrade.

Honestly, if the Dragonspine Trophy drops, I will stop using the Vial regardless.

Prince Malchezaar...Terminated with Prejudice

What a difference a single night makes.

We downed the Prince quickly, easily and almost painlessly. We suffered one death, Gypsymoon, who failed to get out of one the shadow blasts, but still managed to pump out some pretty awesome dps.

As an indicator, we pushed through Phase 2 in 64 seconds.

Also, this was the first time that I have downed the Prince with The Bane, so it made it an especially sweet kill.

He even had 3 quality drops (all upgrades for someone in the raid):

Stainless Cloak of the Pure-Hearted
Malchazeen
Helm of the Fallen Hero

Since it has been my quest the past week to convert to Skinning/Leatherworking, I was pretty happy that I was highest on the reel and got the Helm and turned it into the Demon Stalker Greathelm.

After putting it on, besides the fact that it is really ugly, I realized that this gave me my fourth piece of Tier 4 gear and I get to take advantage of the 4-piece bonus:

(4) Set: Reduces the mana cost of your Multi-Shot ability by 10%.

Not that I use Multi-Shot at all anymore except on the Moroes trash, but it might be time to rethink the Marksman Tree and see if I can squeeze more dps out of that than Beastmaster. I could also rework my macro to include Multi-Shot, but I find it unappealing in most non-Boss fights.

Time to do some research.

Prince Malchezzar is a Poopy Head

I apologize in advance for the foul language. ;D

Last night sucked something fierce. We wiped 5 times on Prince Malchezzar.

Sometimes Jason's (Lorrick) health would just plummet to zero at the end of Phase 2. Other times an Infernal would land right in between the ranged and the melee and would cause considerable havok during Enfeeblements.

Honestly there is absolutely no reason we should have failed so many times. Our melee dps was solid (3 Rogues) and our ranged was nothing to sneeze at (2 Mages and myself). I even went so far as to get some Elixir of Demon Slaying to buff our attack power, but it didn't help.

I am going to upload my WWS Report from last night's wipes and see if I can glean any useful information.

The talk is of going back in again tonight to finish him and Netherspite off, but I think I'm going to sit it out unless I am really and truly needed.

I don't think the beers I had with dinner helped.

Phase 2 - Complete

Last night I completed Phase 2 of my plan to switch Bzak to Skinning/Leatherworking over Mining/Engineering. Phase 2 consisted of dropping Mining and levelling Skinning.

It took me about 3 nights of play (but less than 1 day of /played time) to get Skinning to 375. so it wasn't too bad. I had hoped to come across more people in Nagrand completing their Mastery quests, but last night everyone doing them apparently were also Skinners because the free skins were few and far between. This just meant that Nomnomnom and Bzak had to chain kill Talbuk after Talbuk and Clefthoof anfter Clefthoof.

All said and done, I walked away with the following...start to finish.

55 Leather Scraps
137 Light Leather
95 Medium Leather
188 Heavy Leather
211 Thick Leather
76 Rugged Leather
242 Knothide Leather Scraps
154 Knothide Leather
35 Thick Clefthoof Leather
11 Fel Scales
3 Fel Hides

My route consisted of the beginning levels in Elwynn Forest, Eastvale Logging Camp and Thesalmar then moving to the Wetlands and the area around and in the Yeti cave near Southshore. From there I went to Stranglethorn Vale where the majority of my levelling occured on the Raptors near the Gurubashi Arena. From there I went to the Blasted Lands and finally hopped a boat and flew to Azshara to kill Hyppogryphs and Turtles. This got me to 300 and then it was off to Outlands.

Outlands was much simpler consisting of Fel and Hellboars in Hellfire and then the Ravagers on the road to Terrokar Forest. After hitting 330 on the Ravagers, the remaining 45 levels were all done on Talbuks and Clefthoof in Nagrand.

All in all...much easier to level Skinning than Mining.

Gruul's Lair and Tempest Keep

Last night's Gruul and TK run left a lot to be desired, we wiped twice on the High King, once on Gruul himself and five times on Void Reaver. My repair bill was disgusting. I need to farm some Primals and get the cash flow going again now...but it was still a good time.

This time around in Tempest Keep I actually took a moment to look around. I am awed by how gorgeous Al'ar the Phoenix God looks.


I'd really like to take a shot at him just to see how the fight goes and what he does.

Void Reaver on the other hand is just a pain in the butt.

The Arcane Orbs just fly all around and when they hit they hurt. I'm glad I'm not a melee person.

Anywho...off of Gruul, the Dragonspine Trophy dropped again and I anxiously awaited it to fall into my hands only to have my hopes and dreams dashed as it went to Raelex (Enhancement Shaman) who probably salivated just as much as I did when it dropped.

I was sad, but the good part is that he now has it and I move a step higher on the loot reel. I think if it were to drop again I would have a decent shot at it and this stands as my incentive to keep running Gruul's with Team Whiskers.

Nightbane Kill

As promised, a screenshot of the kill.

Drill Sergeant

Some runs it just pays to be an insufferable bastard and push people to their uppermost limits to better the raid as a whole.

Translation: I was a Drill Sergeant.

We had one of the quickest and best Karazhan runs ever last night. People were gunning, we were chain pulling mobs, rooms were cleared faster than before and all told, we had finished the Opera Event in under 2 hours. Through it all I was talking on vent, pushing people to pull faster, offering advice, distributing loot quickly and running the show.

We got the Big Bad Wolf which I have only seen once before and I was really hoping he would drop the Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle (which I only dream about at night), but alas, he was stingy and instead dropped the Beastmaw Pauldrons which I already have...and don't use.

We really slowed down from there though, maybe it was because I was tired, but we still were able to get Nightbane down to 1% on the first try before he wiped us...and a couple misfires later, we downed him for a guild first.

From there we rushed to Curator and quickly beat him down and Gypsymoon got her Tier 4 Gloves. After distributing them to her it felt real good. I usually only get joy in this silly game when I get loot, but this was a first.

The softer side of Bzak. LOL.

From there I went to bed and let Evangelia take my spot. I hear they downed Aran...I'll see what dropped later and post a screenshot of the Nightbane kill after work.

30 Minute Gruul's Lair

Last night was a pretty great speed run through Gruul's Lair. All told, we were a full 25-man party by 6 Server Time (8 my time) and starting on the trash.

We easily one-shotted Maulgar, even after losing the Main Tank half way through the fight and by over-DPSing Maulgar so that he enraged before we had killed Kiggler.

We quickly one-shotted Gruul as well but he wasn't kind enough to drop the Dragonspine Trophy that I would like to take away from him. Chad's Rogue (Wishper) did however get her Tier 4 Leggings!

All said and done...30 minutes. Now that's what I like...quick and dirty!

After Gruul's we headed into Tempest Keep, a first for me, with the intent of taking a few shots at Void Reaver. I will say that the trash to even get to him is quite interesting and Al'ar is very pretty.

I was able to stay for one shot at Void Reaver, and we were doing pretty good, but after half the raid was dead, we reset him and I had to leave. Apparently they got him after I left so that bodes well for next week when I should be able to stay in for the whole fight.

Phase 1 - Complete

Agravane bought his epic flying skill last night.

Another little piece of me died last night as I forked over the 5000g to the trainer, but now I can officially say that I have two toons with epic flying mounts.

I then tried to craft the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine Control, but realized that I need 375 Engineering just to buy the schematic. Agravane sits at 368 Engineering and those last 7 points are going to hurt. The good news is that I have all the materials crafted to make the Control and even bought the Hula Girl Doll that sits on the dash.

So, ultimately this means that I can start Bzak down the path to Skinning/Leatherworking...maybe this weekend.

The Bane + Zul'Aman = Fun!

The Bane officially started raiding Zul'Aman tonight, and after a while of getting used to the Bear Boss' (Nalorakk) trash, we took a stab at him.


One shotted him of course. One try, one kill, setting a tone like this made us feel like we could tackle the entire instance in one night...

Boy were we wrong. The Eagle Boss (Akil'zon) kicked us up and down and after four tries, we called it a night.

Oh yeah, Nalorakk dropped the Fury of the Ursine, but because of a glitch not allowing us to set a Master Looter, they got picked up by accident.

Looking at just the Nalorakk fight, my recent upgrades allowed me to push out some serious DPS. Previously on this blog I stated I was hitting around 763 DPS and pushed it to 874 DPS now...that to me is a crazy increase, but four new pieces of gear should do that.

Check the full WoWWebStats Log at http://wowwebstats.com/4qttrvxlbtqg5?s=2950-3302

Now I will just dream for breaking that 1000 DPS ceiling...

It's just around the corner!

Hey! Legacy!

I just wanted to throw up a quick screenshot of Bzak with Legacy.


I love the flavor text on this axe too:

"Legend tells of this axe being wielded by Draenei exarchs since the time of their banishment from Argus."

Further proof that the Draenei exarchs were all Hunters.

Beastmaster Hunter Macro Changes with 2.3.2

I mentioned this over on The Bane forums, but in case someone stumbles across here first, the Hunter shooting macro has been revamped for 2.3.2.

I updated my macro to:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

A little bit shorter than the previous, but works perfectly with the Auto Shot changes that came out in 2.3.2, namely, /cast Auto Shot alone toggled it on and off and ends up clipping your shots. Adding the ! in front tells WoW not to toggle it on and off.

Enjoy!

Full clear of Karazhan. A first for me.

I finally saw it happen. I was finally part of a group that fully cleared Karazhan, start to finish. It was a continuation of last night, and took a little while to get up and running, but once it did, we were flying.

The Bane members in attendance (Chaz, Adam and I) made out like loot bandits. The Curator dropped the Gloves of the Fallen Defender which Chaz quickly scooped up on Analeptic. Aran happily dropped the Drape of the Dark Reavers which I have been dreaming of ever since the first time we downed him and Soulsplay got it over me. The Tank wanted the cloak for his DPS set, but once I said it was an upgrade for me, I got it. Illhoof dropped a really cool trinket that I had never seen before, The Lightning Capacitor, which really looked like a fun caster trinket. Adam passed on Sumner and we went to Chess, which also didn't drop anything for us.

On Prince however, The Bane came out amazingly well. First off, the Nathrezim Mindblade dropped and as Adam silvated, no one claimed it and he walked away with it. Next up, the Prince also dropped the Helm of the Fallen Defender. Chaz had already won the Gloves, but in a roll off with a Warrior, won the Helm too.

Two pieces of Tier-4 in one run, lucky bastard. It was especially amusing when we heard him yelp with glee over winning the roll.

So, to close out the entire run, Bzak walked away with the following:

Weapon: Legacy
Boots: Ferocious Swift-Kickers
Back: Drape of the Dark Reavers
Wrist: Steadying Bracers

According to Chaz, that makes me Loot King, a title I will happily take.