Gronnd! Gronnd! Gronnd! Gronnd! So, after little more than a week of relatively casual play, Gronnd, my warrior, has a WoW-Heroes gearscore of 2443 and has tanked all of the heroics except for Heroic Halls of Reflection.

To further prove my point how easy it is to gear up these days:

There are still a few more pieces he can pick up with badges, as well as a back piece and shield from regular HoR. And of course he needs to snag one of the better weapons to replace the globe on a stick. He’s got 552 562 defense rating and has been buffed up to 40K in a heroic. The point of all of this? It’s not frakking hard to gear up a tank, even a warrior tank.

Once I get those last pieces I’ll see if I can get him into a few raids to see if my tanking is worth a damn. I also need to work on an arms DPS set. Right not it is pretty awful and I’d like to see what kind of DPS he can do.

Now, which one next: Shaman, priest or rogue?

Categories: alts, heroics
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Dong!…uh, I mean Ding!

So I’ve got yet another level 80 toon. This now puts it at five, though the DK doesn’t count since he’s technically only level 25. Still, after reading a post on WoW.com about the pains of leveling new characters, I kind of laughed. I mean honestly, it’s not that hard.

I started a rogue over the weekend and he’s at 24 already too. I’m not a hardcore player, even would put myself in the casual category. I have a full-time+ job, a girlfriend that doesn’t play WoW, and yet I still find it easy to muscle a character through the lower levels. Sure you hit some walls once in a while, but I find it a lot of fun learning the new mechanics of different classes.

I’d been tanking regular dungeons on my warrior, and recently graduated to the beginning heroics. Warrior tanking is so much more badass than paladin tanking. It feels more visceral and raw, no silly holy magic. We’ll have to wait and see if I like it when I’m struggling to hold mobs with thunderclap and just begging for a consecrate. Their whole style is just to beat things until they’re mad enough at you to want to kill you more than anything else in the room. Rawr!

Speaking of learning class mechanics, and to spread some personal epeen. I hit 80 on Sunday, ran some heroics as a DPS to get badges, made a shield and picked some assorted blue tank gear and started to tank stuff. Self-buffed HP just cresting 28K, and landed on Old Kingdom with random LFG. The healer was skeptical, but said he’d go ahead with it despite my low gear score. “Why thank you kindly sir, I do declare…”

About half way through, and I haven’t lost aggro once, didn’t die and we are moving right along. Healer (a disc priest) whispers: “Dude, you’re really good tank. A lot better than I thought you would be.”

/cast Puff chest

We continue, I tank everything fine. By the end of the run, after some discussion with party about gearscore and how my tanking was proof that it was bullshit, or at least a poor measure to judge someone, he’s asking if I’d be interested in server transferring. “Why sir, you at least have to buy me a drink first.”

Personally, I will admit I didn’t think Gronnd could tank much. But I did know that being defense capped was more important than raw HP, so I made sure I was at least over the 535 heroic cap. Tanked HoL and OK just fine, so I think I can just continue tanking without having to resort to DPS to collect badges. As long as I have a good healer it goes fine, but lately healers in heroics don’t want to actually have to try so they bounce if you don’t have 40K HP.

Hesston will take a backseat again as I continue experimenting with the tank, similar to my druid. It literally only took me a little more than two weeks of casual play to have him raid ready as a healer. I bet I can do the same as a tank.

Next up: Rogue, Shaman and then maybe the priest.

Categories: PvE, alts
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Finally, finally, finally got to run a full TotC-25 on Hesston, and with a pretty elite and organized group of people. I know, I know; everyone has this on farm but I don’t get to raid as much anymore so this was a treat. We one-shot everything but Anub’Arak and only because the raid leader DC’ed and we all just sort of fell apart. What did Hesston get? Nada! Not one piece of hunter loot dropped, seriously. Not a one. And to top it off, all the other hunters were pretty geared and probably would have passed on anything that I needed. Oh RNG, how I loath thee.

I did however get a trophy so I may farm some badges this weekend to upgrade my legs without losing the juicy T9 2-piece bonus.

Some random thangs:

• Warrior just crested level 76 and I’m having a blast with him. Protection warrior leveling and tanking is so active, I can see why so many really good tanks put warriors on a pedestal. It also has made me realize how boring my paladin tank is. Back to healing for joo!

• I just got a promotion at work, which will change my schedule to having evenings free. Depending on how things go, I might faction transfer said warrior to Alliance (yeah, yeah, I know), and rejoin Summit as an arms/prot, if they could still use me once he hits 80 and I learn how to be awesome at him. We’ll have to see, but it would be a lot of fun. Even if I don’t go to Summit, the opportunity to jump into a new raiding guild and/or PuGs will be nice.
• Trying to decide what my next alt leveling experience will be. I am amazed at how fast I leveled the warrior, so the task seems less daunting now. Though I’ve been shying away from pure DPS classes, I really want to try a rogue since they always beat me on the damn meters. But, a shaman or priest would be fun too. Though that might wait for Cataclysm, because a goblin shaman is just going to rock.
• To get back to hunter stuff, Pike has some really good hunters 4 dummies advice. I’m amazed at how clueless people are about the hunter class, as is evidenced at some of the posts on the official forums.
• 3.2.2 notes: Not sure how I feel about them constantly gimping instances that aren’t hard in the first place. I realize they’re trying to open their content to more new players and make it less of an annoyance to players that have run an instance hundreds of times, but come on. At some point people just have to deal with things as they were designed. And no updated stuff for hunters, QQ (then again no nerfs either).

That’s all I’ve got. Hopefully get to jump into some raids this weekend and perhaps get Hesston his first shots at the Plagueworks/Crimson Halls. If so, I’ll write some huntery things about it and possible a vid or two.

Categories: hunters, raids
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Last year I wrote a post about not being special when it comes to joining a guild. While there were some minor flaws in my thinking, I think the logic still stands. After running tons of random heroics using the LFG tool on multiple toons, this notion now extends to those runs as well.

You ever notice when, even after you spend a few minutes telling a group what to do and what not to do on a fight, they do it anyway or ignore your instructions. I’ve run into this a lot when using the LFG tool and it is usually a DPS’er or two that are guilty of the transgression. You tell the DPS to do X, and there’s always that one person that seemingly assumes you are talking to everyone else and not them and the they proceed to do ‘X.’ It happens in the same fights in the same instances every time.

So, I present a laundry list of as many oft-ignored “do/do not do X” moments that bug the holy crap out of me:

• “…don’t stand in the fires/void zones/poison/soul wells/ice patches/lightning.” (pretty standard)

• “…kill the casters first.”
• “…get behind the boss, don’t get cleaved.”
• “…kill the charming totems.”
• “…make sure the same person that loots the staff loots the headpiece.”
• “…wait here while the tank pulls the mobs around the corner.”
• “…free the people trapped in ice, especially the healer.”
• “…kill Skarvold first, then Dalronn.”
• “…move if you are getting hit in the face by the giant, spinning axe.”
• “…melee move out when the boss whirlwinds.”
• “…kill chaos rifts first.”
• “…don’t get hit by the ice spikes.”
• “…don’t forget to jump and remove your debuff.”
• “…kill the Skirmishers/Shadowcasters first.”
• “…wait for the boss to kill the adds before pull–shit…”
• “…stay behind the boss, don’t get hit by pound.”
• “…kill the Guardians when they show up then get back on the boss.”
• “…switch DPS to the add before it reaches the boss.”
• “…don’t get hit by the slow-moving purple shadow crash things.”
• “…stay at the top of the stairs, but don’t LoS from the healer.”
• “…kill the raptors when they come out then kill King Dred.”
• “…no one but the tank use your skeleton’s taunt ability.”
• “…get out of the poison.”
• “…kill Erekem first, then the adds.”
• “…one person use the crystals to kill the water adds.”
• “…if you have the void shift debuff, kill the adds.”
• “…spread out because of shatter, it’s like Gruul’s Lair.”
• “…kill the adds to free the person during Ritual of the Sword.”
• “…move to the side that the frost breath isn’t on.”
• “…one person get spears.”
• “…run away during Disperse.”
• “…get out of the Runeshapers’ whirlwind/kill them first.”
• “…move away during corrupt soul/kill the soul fragment.”
• “…get close to Bronjahm during phase two. YES, even you hunter.”
• “…stop DPS during Mirrored Soul.”
• “…move out of the big, frickin’ laser beam.”
• “…get behind the boulder and clear your debuff when the stacks get too high.”
• “…move out of poison puddles/poison nova.”
• “…run from boss if he is chasing you.”
• “…move out of the Explosive Barrage.”
• “…stop DPS if you have Overlord’s Bane.”
• “…if you are marked to get hit by Rimefang, get away from other players.”
• “…get out of the rogue’s poison.”
• “…kill the priests first.”
• “…turn away from boss when he casts Radiance.”
• “… don’t get hit by exploding ghouls.”

Oh I’m sure there are oodles more, but those are the first that come to mind and ones that I notice people ignoring the most. There’s one for almost every instance out there. Add to list in the comments if one pops to mind.

Happy hunting.

Categories: PvE, heroics
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Server maintenance day, the perfect time to get away from WoW and take care of some other things. You know, like read the forums and WoW hunter blogs.

On the forums:

• Buffing Hunter’s Mark – I tend to agree. However, I think a better fix would be changing Hunter’s Mark in the vein of the MD change. Allow more hunters to make use of it, perhaps let the bonus stack but have a diminishing effect if more marks are on a target. Or, just stop letting a non-glyphed/talented mark overwrite one that is. Though I do recall someone saying that only a stronger mark can overwrite a weaker one.

• Why the wolf? – I grabbed a wolf pretty early after they made the changes to cats, lowering their DPS. I love my Vargul Blighthound, but even he is starting to get a little old. New skins would be nice, but an entirely new way to customize your pet would be better. Pet barding or more freedom with the talent trees to make you pet either ferocity, tenacity or cunning would be cool as well.
• “Need to do 9K DPS on Festergut” – Pseudo-interesting DPS discussion that has, of course, derailed into some trolling. But, still worth reading as people sort through what’s possible versus what’s realistic.

From the blogs:

• Nassira has the scoop on removing Arcane Shot from your rotation (and when not to) – OK, post is a few weeks ago, but is still pertinent.

• The Warcraft Hunter’s Union breaks down the MM armor penetration build – This question is raised on the forums on a daily basis, WHU’s post pretty much sums it all up.

• Pike has some musings of the BM kind – I kinda miss BM, but hate devilsaurs and don’t have the patience to find a spirit beast. I know, not essential, but they just look so cool.
• Rilgon is very annoyed at bad gemming – I agree. Plenty of times I’ve seen people gemming for the bonus when it’s not necessary. There are even some who don’t even know that you can put gems that don’t match the socket color in a slot. Blizzard Tutorial /FAIL!
• The Hunter’s Mark looks at hunters vs. rangers in EQ2 – Never played EQ2, but I feel WoW hunters are superior. Nuff said.

Time for work and stuff, happy hunting.

Categories: Blogs, hunters
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I jumped into our 10-man ICC last night and recorded our Gunship Battle kill. This fight is strange to watch because it’s often difficult to tell if you’re winning. We had more ranged so I wasn’t tasked with merely killing rifleman, and got to run around like a maniac–my favorite thing.

Categories: raids, videos
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Though I love my hunter, like most WoW players I have a decent stable of alts that I dabble with when I don’t have anything to do on my hunter (or DPS queues are ridiculously long). At first I was terrified to do anything but stand back and pew pew, but after growing comfortable playing my paladin I tried a druid, which I’ve talked about already. I love the druid, and healing on both classes is a blast as well as tanking on the paladin.

Through playing each of my alts, in raids, leveling and heroics, I’ve learned quite a lot about being a pure DPS and a hunter in general. Playing other classes helped me be a better player at my class because I saw how others of that class succeeded/failed. So, below is a quick rundown of my character roster and what each of them has contributed to me being a better hunter DPS.

Hesston – Orc Hunter (formerly of the Alliance)

The main man, the man (Orc?) with the plan, the hunter with mostest. OK, that was lame. While not the first toon I rolled, Hesston was the first one I went through all of WoW with. He began his career in the service of the Alliance as a dwarf, having only recently joined the Horde.

All of my biggest successes and failures have been with Hesston. Never in my wildest imagination when I was bumbling through Outland did I think I would be raiding at the level I am able to now. I was terrified of grouping, afraid that I would fail horribly and end up the latest version of Leeroy Jenkins. I remember somehow falling into a PuG of Gruul’s Lair, being decked out in only questing blues and store-bought greens. Yes, I was THAT hunter. My pet accidentally pulled the first bosses, forcing me to furiously type apologies while the group miraculously pulled through. On Gruul, I died about 45 seconds in; I had no clue what was happening. We tried Mags after, someone said something about cubes, and then I was dead again.

Clearly, I got better. But not without a fair amount of research, coaching from friendly players and the desire to never be THAT hunter ever again. It took more failures, but I think I’m there.

Minalias – Blood Elf Paladin

My paladin was in fact the first character I rolled. He too began his life as Alliance, and I leveled through Azuremyst Isle with the intention of smiting mighty foes one day. That lasted for about 20 levels and, after some frustration with the final quest in the zone, I tried something else.

Fast forward months later: WotLK is out, I’ve leveled to 80 and begun raiding on Hesston. I understand the game way better at this point and decided to go back check on my lowly paladin. I came to realize what was causing so much frustration was that my spec was all screwed (points distributed across all trees), gear was all wrong and I wasn’t using all of the abilities in my spellbook. I fixed all that, blew through the quest that had frustrated me so long ago, and began the journey to 80.

Fast forward again: I dinged 80, snagged some Northrend gear, and I begin learning to paladin heal and paladin tank. This is when I first learn how much bad hunters can screw up a dungeon. I encounter hunters that constantly pull aggro, don’t use their pets, leave taunt ON their pets when they do use them, and then complain that their pet dies.

“Dude, heal my pet. It makes up a lot of my DPS.” No, you’re pet is lowest on my healing priority. Sorry, learn to use Mend Pet pal.

Through my first forays into healing and keeping groups alive I learned that hunters (and elemental shamans) should, in theory take the least amount of damage. They stay out of range of the mobs in order to DPS yet wear mail armor. Mind you, I said in theory. By and large I learned that hunters seem to have the hardest time staying out of or moving away from fires, void zones, etc. I’m not sure if is the combination of trying to keep track of a pet, a shot rotation and possible procs or just straight DPS tunnel vision, but it’s very common. When I first noticed this I would scramble to keep them alive, thinking I was doing something wrong, and then the tank would die because he didn’t get heals.

Lesson learned: If the DPS (hunters) stand in places they shouldn’t, it is their fault for dying. Wow Rule #1 – Don’t stand in stuff unless told otherwise.

As far as what I learned from tanking on the paladin is that hunters looooove to pull aggro. Well, all ranged DPS seem to have a habit of this but hunters are especially good at it. People also seem to have a hard time targeting the tank’s target. I use a simple /focus, /tar focus /assist set of macros, bound to alt-F and alt-A respectively, to fix this while on ANY DPS class. I set the tank as my focus and bam, I can always switch to his target simply by pressing alt-A. It’s also helpful to have your raid frames show your focus target as well as your target’s target, so that you can get a quick overview of who is hitting who.

In regard to pulling aggro, again not limited to hunters but they do it a lot, is pulling aggro off the tank and then backpedaling as the mob runs toward them. Listen, if I’m tanking and you pull a mob off of me bring the bastard back. I’m not going to go and chase him, and you, down unless I am at fault. Besides, if you’re a hunter and you pull a mob and I don’t see you feign death or trap the mob, I am definitely letting you die.

Through playing my paladin I learned even more how I should manage my abilities as a hunter as well as respecting my tanks a lot more. Try tanking/healing some time, it’ll do you good.

Krakattoa – Tauren Druid

I had wanted to play a druid for a long time, ever since I learned that they can fill two different DPS roles, heal and tank. However, I hated Night Elves and couldn’t bear running around as one. One day I finally caved however, and leveled a Night Elf druid to about the 30s. Sick of the flipping and the floppy ears, and wanting to see the Horde side of the world, I Faction transferred him into a cow. Best decision ever.

Blasted up to level 80 as a kitty, tried kitty DPS in heroics (John-fucking-Madden!) and then decided to give druid healing a try once I’d collected enough gear for it. To put it mildly, I was blown away at how fun druid healing was. I said it before, but if someone had told me this a long time ago, I’d have had a druid far earlier. Seriously, healing on a druid is like DPS’ing on a hunter. Well, sorta; lemme explain.

As a hunter, I like to be mobile. Being able to run around, fire off my shots, move-pause-Auto Shot-move, move, move; that’s my kind of play. The druid heals similarly in that I can fire off my HoTs, shift to a new location, throw out more HoTs and deal with any other quick heals needed, and then move some more. I like fights with movement so being a class that can still do their job while being mobile makes me enjoy playing more. Though it was fun to put up big numbers, fights like Patchwerk always bored me to death. I’ll take a Grobulus, Gluth, Mimiron or Twin Val’kyrs any day over stand still and keep firing fight.

Oddly enough, my druid now has a higher gear score than Hesston. It’s amazing the things you can get into as a healer and how much easier it is to random LFG. Even more so if you are a good healer. Will probably turn this fella into a troll druid come Cataclysm, but maybe not.

Laramie – Blood Elf Death

Ah, the Death Knight. Everyone’s got a DK stashed away somewhere. Mine was made right near launch of WotLK, finished the starting area and then sat in Outland for a really long time. I used him to level Jewelcrafting and Inscription, but then realized I needed to get him at least to Northrend to get them past a certain level.

I began the long slog through Outland, discovered how amazingly easy it is to kill things on a DK, and then got him to 80 a few weeks later. The biggest thing I learned playing a DK is that people will hate on you even more than they will on your hunter. Everyone assumes you don’t know how to play (if you aren’t all decked out in full raid gear) or that you are 12 years old and using a sibling’s account. Seriously. Other than that, my DK usually just sits in Dalaran, does the JC daily and makes vellums for my enchanter.

Gronnd – L34 (as of now) Warrior

My latest project is my warrior, who is leveling amazingly fast. At the start of the holiday weekend, he was level 14. I just dinged 34 today in the Scarlet Monastery Library. Random LFG while questing is ridiculous. I eventually want to warrior tank, which I’ve heard is complicated but a lot of fun.

Already I am amazed at how many reactionary abilities the warrior has. Most hunter abilities are proactive, warriors on the other hand are reactive–and I like it a lot. Overpower, Revenge, Shield Bash, Execute; all rely on something happening in the encounter, which make me pay closer attention to what the mobs are doing. Now, since I am leveling this toon now it’s not really increasing my abilities as a hunter, but for those new on the block I’d suggest playing a warrior a bit to get a feel for how different of playstyle it is. It will make you appreciate how much more freedom we hunters have in controlling our DPS. Do eet!

Well there you have it, my entire stable of alts. One day I’ll add a shaman to the mix and perhaps a priest. I’d like to try healing on all of the healing classes just to get a full taste of how it all works and so I can understand how those classes work in raids a lot better. So hunter, if you want to understand your role better my advice is: Stop playing your hunter! Check out the other classes, understand how they work so you know how you can better compliment them in a heroic/raid situation.

Take care, good hunting.

Categories: alts, hunters
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So, after only having healed one ICC fight in 25-man I managed to find myself in a 10-man ICC guild run. Their hunter was AFK so they spammed trade for a fill in. I stepped up and assured them I could hold my own in the DPS department (though I will admit I was a little worried since I still had an Ulduar ranged weapon). However once we got in, I realized my DPS was fine. The ArmorPen spec and gear I am using right now does really well. Problem is, if I continue to get upgrades there is less and less ArP on hunter gear. Will probably have to scale it back and respec if I get more ICC/T-10 gear.

Speaking of the ranged weapon, I finally got rid of the gun and picked up the Njordnar Bone Bow. Really happy about this as I’ve needed a new ranged for some time. Though I do lose some ArP, the overall DPS increase is worth it. Plus arrows aren’t as noisy as bullets.

We one-shot everything but Saurfang, which took a few tries and the victory left me dead at the end (as you can see above). However, after being through all of the fights on my hunter I can now offer some tips. Of course, other guilds/groups may switch it up but this is how I saw things. Also, I’m only going to look at this from the 10-man perspective, including loot, since that’s what I saw.

Lord Marrowgar

This fight is relatively easy for hunters: stay at range, pew pew, get people down from bone spikes, run run run from fire…repeat. OK, not that easy. Everyone can stack near Marrowgar’s ass (if you can call it that), but hunters still have to stay at range. The best place to be is behind the folks standing close. Keep up the DPS and about 5 seconds before Bone Spike Graveyard you should close in so that if it cast on you the melee are closer and can get you down. If someone else gets spiked, immediately change targets and get them down.

Fire is easy to avoid, and if you are at this level of raiding it should be a simple matter of paying attention and moving. During Bone Storm avoid the fire first and Marrowgar second. If you can, continue to DPS. Right before Bone Storm is about to end, I throw a Misdirection on the tank picking him up and start firing. Keep this up and he should go down fairly easy.

Loot you may want
• Linked Scourge Vertebrae – Nice belt, with two sockets and some hit in case you need it to cap out or shuffle your spec around.
• Bone Warden’s Splitter – Nice axe to dual wield, if you’re into that. I’ve seen a few hunters with one of these and Quel’Delar (1H version), which is awesome for an ArmP setup. Would like to do that, but will have to pass on this unless there are no rogues, enhancement shamans or DW DKs in the group.

Lady Deathwhisper

At first this fight seems chaotic, as there are a lot of adds to remember, odd kill orders and other factors to consider at all moments. It’s even more hectic on 25-man. However, once you get a rhythm down it is relatively easy.

The first thing to know is that there will be Death and Decays going out all during the fight. This is the standard “get out of stuff on floor” part of this fight; move out of it! In 10-man, only one wave of 3 adds spawn at a time; adherents and fanatics. I believe we were tasked with killing the adherents first, then fanatics. If one casts Dark Martyrdom, try and burn them down ASAP. If they explode, they come back as skeletons immune to one type of damage. If it is a Fanatic, casters need to burn it down, if it is an Adherent, physical DPS (YOU) need to burn it down. Whenever there aren’t any adds up, DPS Deathwhisper to get her mana shield down. Once it is down, phase 2 begins.

During phase 2, burn burn burn. Deathwhisper will continue with DnDs, so move out of them. There will also be some untargetable spirits roaming around. Try and kite them if they are beating on you.

Loot you may want:
• Njordnar Bone Bow – Great bow with hit and crit. However, if you’re running around with a ranged from 25-man TotC, this will not be for you.
• Handgrips of Frost and Sleet – Yes please! Two red sockets (though bonus is meh), ArP and a lot of hit.

Gunship Battle

To be honest, I’m not sure of all of the factors going on in this fight. Rocket packs, cannons and craziness; that’s what I saw happening. My job was to kill the rifleman on the other ship. If this is your task, stand at the edge (but don’t fall off!), and just burn them down as they appear. After I got the first wave down, there was never more than two up. If your DPS is good enough you should be able to handle them solo. Call out for another ranged to help out if necessary. However, if your DPS is super duper and you get all of them down, you can turn around and help out with adds on your ship. The other ship will be firing rockets at you too. It puts a little mark on the ground similar to Mimiron rockets, just move aside. They’re super simple to avoid.

Seriously, I wish I had more advice on this fight. I didn’t even realize we’d won for a few minutes. Apparently though it’s not that hard, but I would like to experience this from a healer/tank perspective.

Loot you may want:
• Pauldrons of Lost Hope – Nice shoulders in the T10 model. ArP, haste and two sockets; not bad if don’t plan on getting the actual T10 shoulders any time soon.
• Icecrown Rampart Bracers – A red socket, more hit and crit. I think Blizzard is making up for the loss of ArP with the sockets and putting hit on items instead. This way, the ArP aspect of gear is left up to you through gems. I like this, as it gives more flexibility with some gear.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Now here’s where things get fun for hunters. Now, I love just DPS’ing as much as the next hunter, but being tasked with handling a specific mechanic in a fight is far more interesting to me. This fight gives hunters the chance to bring out some of their abilities which may be a little rusty.

Every 30 seconds Saurfang will summon two Blood Beasts. These need to be pulled and kited toward you and through a set Frost Trap. I positioned a few yards in front of the teleporter and would place my Frost Trap a few yards away from the bottom of the stairs. When the Blood Beasts spawned, we had one tank stun one of them while I used Distracting Shot to pull the other through the trap. You and the other DPS should burn it down and then kill the other one. If it gets too close, kite away and/or have a Boomkin Typhoon it back. It is VERY important that they don’t hit you or anyone else, as it gives Saurfang stacks of Blood Power. Hopefully you can kill the beasts in less than 15 seconds and can get back on the boss as much as possible before the next wave.

This is a mana intensive fight for hunters since you are using more abilities than normal, plus there isn’t much of a break to go into AotV. You want to do max DPS on Saurfang and kill the beasts as fast as possible. My suggestion, using a mana potion or, if totally necessary, use a Potion of Speed and go into AotV on Saurfang after you kill a wave of beasts. It’s hard, but can be done.

And damn it all if you get Mark of the Fallen Champion, which is what happened to me on our winning attempt. This person takes tons of damage and if they die Saurfang heals for 5% of his health. It sucks, but luckily I was the only one that died and they made it through. The guild I was with was pretty damn good and coordinated. So good in fact I decided to join them as a substitute after the run. So Hesston is in a guild again, w00t! Krakattoa might join him as well.

Loot you may want:
• Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts – Better than Crusader’s Dragonscale Breastplate, but not by much. The increased AP makes up for the lack of Agility, but the crit loss is made up as well. OK, maybe it is better. The loss of ArP is kind of bad, but if you need it there are the three sockets. I’d ignore the bonus.
• Saurfang’s Cold-Forged Band – Yes please! A socketed ring with a lot of AP, haste and ArP. Uh, I’d like this to go please.

So that’s what I know. The first gate of ICC is both challenging and fun and has a lot of great stuff for hunters. Can’t wait to see what the second wing has, if I can get in there. Take care, good hunting.

Categories: 3.3, PvE, guild, hunters, raids
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So after not being part of a raiding guild, I finally, finally, finally got to do a full clear of 25-man TotC. I know, it’s content everyone else has been farming already and the new raid is out. But I still haven’t been all the way through, until now. A guild of that I know has skilled members was filling some spots in a guild run so I figured what the hell.

The group formed nice and smooth, everyone hopped in vent and away we went. Minus one wipe on Faction Champs, first four bosses went down without a hitch. The RL said that they didn’t plan on going after Anub’Arak unless the DPS was high enough on first four bosses. Interestingly enough, every piece of hunter loot that I could use dropped, it was amazing.

But oh, did I forget to mention? I was on my fracking druid healing!

That’s right, both trips to a full TotC clear have NOT been on my hunter. As you may recall, I main tanked a few weeks ago, something I did not think I was capable of right now. But yeah, this time I was druid healing. I totally dig my druid and had a blast, but I do want to see how my DPS compares to others in a raid. Hesston’s gun is getting rusty damn it.

On the positive side, we did go and decide to give Anub’Arak a shot. What kind of shot you ask? Well a mofo one-shot, that’s what. Not only that, everyone was alive. And not only that, check out the overall for the entire raid meter to your left. Now I don’t put too much stock in healing meters because they don’t take into account a lot of factors, but I’m still pretty proud of that shit. Hell, I only started druid healing not too long ago. And hey, I even got a new belt out of the deal, as well as met some cool people.

This was a good test to see if I can raid heal and if my gear is ready to move in that direction. I am thinking of trying to join a raiding guild to see ICC with, but as a healer and not on Hesston. This was and will always be a hunter blog, but for now I’ve just decided it is just too hard to get into a raiding guild as not only a pure DPS class, but one of the most hated on of the pure DPS classes.

Plus, hunter DPS’ing just isn’t that challenging anymore. I recently put together an Armor Penetration spec with Hesston. It’s ridiculous how easy it is considering that once you have all the pieces, you take a shot OUT of your rotation to do more DPS. What!?

Like I said, I still love huntering, but until Cataclysm comes out and I do the great goblin hunter adventure, this blog might focus less on being a hunter and more about the life of my alts and WoW in general (unless of course something changes and I can raid on Hesston, because I would do it in a second). We’ll have to wait and see.

Take care. Good hunting.

Categories: PvE, alts, raids, screenshots
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The Cataclysm expansion is a long way off, however I’ve been thinking about a fun little experiment that I may throw out on the forums called “Zeroes to Heroes.”

With the two new races of the expansion, the new race/class combos and new features in the old world, tons of people are going to be leveling new characters. I imagine 90 percent of those will be of the new races, but I’m sure there will be a fair amount of folks wanting to get that dwarf shaman or tauren paladin to end content.

What would be awesome would be to get a group of 8-10 people, and perhaps pick up more on the way, and level all the way from starter zones to 85 together, as a group. It would be scheduled similar to a raiding guild, though less strict of course. The idea would be to level together, not only to speed it up, but also to tackle any of the lower-tier raid/dungeons along the way.

Now my attempt to start a 10-man horde guild pretty much flopped, but I think this idea has some legs and I think I could get some interested parties. To me this would be a lot of fun and make the monotony of leveling from start to end game less of a drag.

Either way, I’m going to document the life of Hesston Jr., a goblin hunter, as soon as Cataclysm hits.

Thoughts?

Categories: Cataclysm, guild
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