The days of standing around and endlessly pumping round after round into the boss are over. Ulduar, as you may have heard, is a highly-mobile instance. One of the first rules of raiding is always “do not stand in shit,” something guilds often reiterate and can be a reason for /gkicks if someone continues to fail at this.

Someone once said that Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum was the Super Bowl of “not standing in shit.” This is true, especially on 3D. However, if that is the case, then Ulduar is the Olympics of “not standing in shit.” Every encounter (that I’ve experienced so far) requires movement from every player, be they tank, healer and especially DPS. The amount of raid/tank damage going out already is hard enough on healers without worrying about you. They are counting on you to move your ass and take less damage, as you should.

So, here’s a quick rundown of where NOT to stand in Ulduar:

Ignis the Furnace Master – Scorch areas are obvious. A huge gout of flame shooting from the ground is bad, don’t be there. If your tank is using the 4-point scorch path, be sure to keep moving so that you are relatively behind Ignis (across from your tank basically).

Razorscale – Your concern here is Devouring Flame. Razorscale fires these on the ground and they slightly follow one player. Get out immediately, especially clothies, they will kill you. Another point of concern is the whirlwind of the Sentinels. When one of these pops up, stay at range until an OT picks him up and burn him down fast. Also, healers and ranged DPS should spread out as much as possible due to chain lightning attacks.

XT-002 – Less of a “don’t stand in shit” as it is a “don’t stand in the raid when you have X.” Both Light Bombs and Gravity Bombs do damage to those around you. If you get it, move away from your group but not out of range of heals. They are not hard to miss, LB looks like a bright, white light all around you and GB is a purple, shadow aura on you.

Kologarn – OBLIVION! You want to watch out for Focused Eyebeam, which targets one player and follows them around. The best strategy I’ve found is to stand on the right side (near Kologarn’s left arm), and if he focuses the beam on you run or strafe directly over to the other side. If you’ve left enough space the beam should end just as you get to the other side. Other raid members should try and keep that path open for runners. However, also be aware of others with the beam. Do not expect them to always move the beam around you if you are in the way. Shuck and jive around them if necessary.

Assembly of Iron – This is if you are killing in order of Steelbreaker –> Molgeim –> Brundir, your strategy may change slightly if you are doing one of the harder modes. During the Steelbreaker burn you actually want to be sure to stand IN the Rune of Power if you can. They are bright, blue and make your DPS get all excited. Once he is down, Molgeim’s Rune of Death will kill those standing in it very quickly. This is centered on one raid member so people should be spread out. The neon green circle is huge, so move immediately. There is no time to get off that one more spell or shot, MOVE! During Brundir, his Lightning Tendrils spread out from him when he rises up in the air. They have a long range so just move as far away from him as you can. If he is moving away from you, edge in and get some shots off to maximize DPS since melee will not be able to do any damage during this phase.

Auriaya – When a Feral Defender dies it spawns a void zone. Move! These can be hard to see if swarm of small adds are running around. Be sure to have someone calling out when the defender is about to go down so people can watch out for the void zone. The zones persist through the fight, so during the later portion you will most likely get feared into one. If you don’t die, be sure to run around the void zone rather than straight back at the boss.

Hodir – This fight is all movement. You want to constantly move to shake off the Biting Cold, debuff, you want to be sure to move out of Icicle (you can see them forming as snow and a small, blue circle) and you want to stand IN the Starlight buff cast by the Boomkin NPC. When Flash Freeze is being cast, get near the edge of the large icicle and as soon as it drops get on the mound. This fight is a serious movement test. Those that can’t move and cast/shoot will die very fast here.

Freya – All of the trash and the three keepers are up to you. But as for Freya, the thing to look out for are the green seed bombs she throws out during the burn phase. Get away ASAP or boom. The first half of the is the hard part, which I’ll talk about in another post.

Thorim – I have only seen this fight from the perspective of the arena portion and only on normal. In the arena, group up and AoE the adds in the center. Stay away from the charged orbs on the walls, they hurt. In phase two, streams of lightning will shoot from the wall to Thorim, step aside. He also does chain lightning, so spread out.

Mimiron – F**k Mimiron! Seriously, there is just too much here and we have yet to down him on normal. Thinking about Mimiron on heroic makes Hesston cry. I’ll let Tankspot explain the pain to you. I know Ulduar is supposed to be difficult, which is great, but I think they went a little overboard on C3P0 here. Example, Mimiron’s Rocket Strike is the first ability to use scientific notation for its damage. Ouch.

We haven’t made it to General Vezax or Yogg yet, so that will have to wait.

Tips for movement
There are those that are mouse-turning purists and those that are stuck at keyboard turning. The mouse-turning purists even go so far as to unbind their movement keys, which I think is an absurdly dangerous thing to do. In my opinion, the best option is a combination of both. I use my movement keys (WASD, Q, E) when I have to strafe (which is often in Ulduar) and rotate around the boss. I use the mouse for fast turning when I have to do a 360 and get the hell out of dodge (again, often in Ulduar). Strictly keyboard turning however is a big failure. You can spot folks who keyboard turn when you see them doing a stationary spin when getting out of a void zone. These are often the folks who are dying in said void zones/fires/bombs, etc. That second or two your are turning is a possible damage tic (which are usually large), that tic needs a big heal, that heal could have gone to the tank. Get it? Don’t be that guy (or girl).

• Keybind instants - I keybind my instant cast DPS abilities around my movement keys. That way, they are close at hand while I am moving out of the danger areas. With Hesston’s MM spec this allows me to keep up DPS even when I’m running and jumping all over the place.

• Learn to strafe – This is very important. Learn to sidestep, move at angles and rotate around your target. Seriously, this will greatly improve your performance and survivability. For those concerned about DPS, remember, dead = 0DPS.
• Jump only when necessary – People looove to jump for some reason. Not sure why, but hell, even I jump around often. However, it is theorized that the game does not recognize your new location until your feet hit the ground and you’ve taken a step. Something about coordinates and spacial coding issues, and blah, blah. Because of this, people often die avoiding “don’t stand in shit” areas because they are jumping out of them instead of just running. If you are in mid-air when the damage is set to tic, you will most likely take the damage even though you are visually not in the damage area. The game still thinks you are at point A because it has not yet calculated where your point B is going to be at, so technically you ARE in the zone.
• About face! – Use that mouse to spin. By default, left-click and mouse makes your camera move around. Right-click and mouse actually moves your character. Some people find it dizzying and nauseating to quickly spin around using the right-click spin, however, this is the fastest way to turn around and move. Learn it, love it, use it.

That is all.

Void zone deaths this fight: < Hesston >
Lava walls this fight: < Hesston (2) >

Shut yur face!

Categories: 3.1, raids, strategy
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Delving further into the wonderful fun that is Ulduar, we come to the next series of bosses that reside in the Antechamber section. First of all, don’t underestimate the trash here. They can be tricky and on 25-man even require some *gasp* crowd-control. However I won’t go into detail about it because figuring out trash as a guild is a lot of fun, so go to it. After about three or four trash pulls you can move on to the bosses.

Kologarn

When you go up the stairs you’ll come to a large, open room and…OMFG!! IT’S A HUGE REJECT FROM A DISNEY FILM! Seriously, Kologarn is huge. The fight is only against his upper torso, however if he does in fact have legs and feet if you happen to fall down there, which you can (so I’ve heard). Despite his size, Kologarn is not that difficult as long as everyone pays attention.

At the start, all DPS should focus on his right arm. Blast until it is dead. All the while Kologarn will Stone Grip people, one at a time on normal and 2-3 on heroic. He also does a Shock Wave with his left arm dealing damage to the raid which can be healed through if your healers are on top of it. The other major player killer is his Focused Eyebeam. This targets one player and follows them around for a bit dealing damage to anyone in its path. Targeted party members should run in a straight path away from the majority of the raid but everyone else should be ready to move as well in case the targeted person has no choice but to run through a part of the raid.

When the right arm dies it will spawn some adds that need to be off-tanked immediately away from the raid. On normal, one AoE DPS can burn these down while the rest focus on Kologarn’s body. On heroic, everyone needs to help burn down the adds. Don’t worry about not DPS’ing the body, damage done to the arm(s) is subtracted from Kologarn’s total and the OT needs to be freed from the adds as soon as possible to help the MT.

There is not much more than DPS’ing that needs to be done. The arms have no aggro table so you can, and should, unload on them without worrying about threat. If necessary, have a volley ready to help with the adds. This is another highly mobile fight due to the beam. Keep that head on a swivel and be ready to move if he looks at you funny.

The Assembly of Iron

The Assembly of Iron is a 3-mob boss encounter that can be found down the left hallway before Kologarn. Each of the three stooges here have different abilities, can be killed in any order depending on how hard you want the encounter to be and each gains different abilities based on which order they are killed. I’m only gonna talk about the easiest mode because that’s how we did it and I’ll leave it up to those up to the challenge to do it the other ways.

You basically want to kill them in order of size…Steelbreaker (Curly) first, then Runemaster Molegeim (Moe) second and finally Stormcaller Brundir (and Larry). On normal the MT can pull Steelbreaker and Molegeim toward the front of the room and you should MD Brundir to the OT who should take him to the back of the room. He should be held there while the rest of the raid deals with the other two and to avoid the raid getting hit with Overcharge. On normal, three tanks should take each one to a different area of the room.

During the burn phase on Steelbreaker stand behind him and let loose. Pop your cooldowns and trinkets as you want to get him down fast. He does an ability called Fusion Punch on the tank that can one-shot them if the healers aren’t dispelling the DoT. Occastionally Molegeim will summon a Rune of Power on the ground. It’s a glowing blue circle on the ground that the tanks want to pull their mob out of and DPS should try their best to stand in. It increases your damage by 50% and will allow you to get through Steelbreaker much faster.

Once you’ve got Steelbreaker down, DPS will switch focus to Molegeim who should continue to be tanked near the front of the room. DPS should spread out a bit, as Molegeim will cast Rune of Death during this phase. This is a large, glowing green circle that is centered on one target. Everyone needs to get the heck out of it or it will kill you. The reason you need to stay spread out is so that when someone gets this on them, everyone around them can get out of it fast. If everyone is bunched up, everyone will be at the center of the rune when it spawns and you risk more people dying. Continue to DPS Molegeim, avoiding the Rune of Death when it spawns and trying to get in the Rune of Power if/when he casts them.

Once Molegeim is down, it’s on to Brundir. Now comes the fun part and where ranged (hunters) excel. Stay at max range and pew pew. When he begins to cast Overcharge all melee should run out and you should back up as well. You can still DPS but just make sure you are at least 30yrds away. When he casts Lightning Tendrils he will rise up in the air and follow one person. Call in your pet if you haven’t already, and move away. However, ranged are the only ones that can damage Brundir during this phase. So if he is following someone else, follow him from as far behind as you can and keep firing. The fight can go bellyup really quick during this phase if people don’t move out of the tendrils, they hurt. He will still be casting Overcharge as well as two abilities that can be interrupted; Chain Lightning and Lightning Whirl. If you are MM specced (yay!) help out with Silencing Shots if you can, but hopefully you’ll have a rogue and/or a warrior that can assist as well. The raid should also stay spread out to mitigate chain lightning damage when he does get a cast off.

Keep that up, and blamo, the three stooges should go down.

Auriaya

Don’t be fooled! Her pets may look like the kitty from Zul’Drak that is so common amongst hunters, but they most certainly are not. I think they’re rabid or something, and they love to pounce. Auriaya will patrol back and forth along the rear of the room right up to the platform. You have to clear the trash on both sides before the pull (we found this out the hard way).

The trickiest part of this fight is the initial pull. Once you get through the chaos of that, the chaos that ensues is much a lot easier, so to speak. The problem with the pull is, if one of the sentries sees any member of you raid on the initial pull, they will leap through the air and smack the crap out of them. The best thing to do is have everyone bunch up right behind one of pillar at the top of the stairs. Now when I say bunch up I mean bunch up. Treat the pillar like an iceblocked player on Sapphiron and get behind it. Depending on you raid setup you can pull in several ways. You can have a hunter MD a sentry to a tank (the MUST run behind the pillar immediately) or have someone put down an AoE ability at the bottom of the stairs and then get behind the pillar. The important part is to have the tanks ready to pick the boss and adds up when they get to the top. The sentries don’t have a lot of health, so all DPS should focus fire on one and then the other to burn them down.

Now comes the fun part.

Everyone but melee should be in front of the boss, and when she begins to cast Sonic Screech everyone needs to get in front of her. And when I say everyone, I mean like Gary Oldman’s character in the ‘Professional’ says … “EVERYONE!!!! *spittle*” The damage is spread out among all the targets it hits. The more people it hits, the less damage it does to each person. If it only hits one person, it does upwards of 86K on normal (268K on heroic). So do the math and you’ll see why it is important that everyone be in front of her for that.

Terrifying Screech is what makes that difficult to do. It’s a raid-wide fear, that can be combated with fear ward and totems, that will send the raid all over the damn place. As soon as the fear is up peeps need to get back on and in front of the boss. So usually when people are all spread out is when she decides to cast Sonic Screech, which the few people it hit. So, be in front of her at all possible moments.

Auriyaya will summon two types of adds, Feral Defenders and Swarming Guardians. The Swarming Guardians are more of an annoyance than anything else and will most likely die from AoE and incidental raid damage. The Feral Defenders are another story. They need to be picked up by an OT and burned immediately. They have some random aggro happening so don’t be surprised if you see them leaping around all over the place, especially if Auriaya casts a fear while one is up. When they die, they drop a permanent void zone that everyone needs to get out of. The tank and everyone else should move to the other side of the platform, out of LoS of the defender if possible.

UPDATE: On 25-man, we found it best to kill the first feral defender, but then ignore them once they respawn. Killing it each time kept too much DPS off of Auriaya and ran us up against the enrage timer. Plus, by the end you have way too many void zones up. If your healers can handle it, just leave them alive. The second one will most likely die from AoE and raid damage, so be sure to call out when it is about to go down so people can avoid the void.

Continue on Auriaya, being mindful of the screeches and fears. The Feral Defender will resurrect after a short while and pounce on anyone it can target, which is why you want to try and LoS it. Pick it up and burn it down again, another void zone will drop and you continue this until you are either furious or Auriaya is dead. Hopefully it is the latter.

Now I would like to give some hunter-related advice on this fight, but there really isn’t any. Since you have to stack you’ve got to try and stay just within firing range but without being too far away that you get pounced or won’t absorb some Sonic Screech damage. More than once I found myself smacking shit with my Black Ice because I couldn’t get the proper range without risking killing people. It’s a chaotic fight to be sure, but a satisfying one when you hear Auriaya’s pitiful cry when you kill her.

Well that’s all I’ve got for now.

Next time: The Keepers of Ulduar (granted we’ve made it that far…so far Freya and Hodir down on normal)

Categories: 3.1, hunters, hunters scope, raids, strategy
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So, for those of you have been following along on the adventures of Hesston (all two of you, I love you so much), you know he’s had a hell of a time getting his BiS ranged weapon. He was thrilled when he finally got his Nerubian Conquerer from 10-man Naxx. But then, he hit a RNG slump.

The one time we saw the drool-worthy Envoy of Mortality drop from Kel in 25-man Naxx, a more deserving hunter (and one with more DKP at the time), snatched it up. “No problem” I thought, there’s always next time.

Next time came: no gun.

Next time came: no gun.

Next time came: no gun.

Then Ulduar came and no more Naxx runs.

Well, I knew what was coming up once we started to chip away at Ulduar. Hunters finally got a reprieve and don’t have to wait for the last boss for their BiS ranged anymore (until something amazing off of Alagon or Yogg is revealed). Two bosses, one right after the other, Kologarn and Auriaya, drop Giant’s Bane and Siren’s Cry, respectively. Knowing we would be there soon, I set up to have a slight DKP edge over the one other person that might want one of those.

To make a long story short, we laid the law down on Kologarn (after some progressive wipes) and bam, there she was. Giant’s Bane, a new, shiny steampunkish gun, and she’s all mine. Talk about the “Squee” heard around the world.

Hesston is a very happy dwarf. Thanks Summit, I owe you big time.

Categories: 3.1, loot
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Pretty much after our first day in Ulduar I’ve been running a 7/57/7 MM spec and I am happy to say it is holding up nicely. I am able to keep up (though not beat) our top-geared DPSers and most notably our other hunters. Now these hunters are no slouches, they’ve got the gear and the skills to back it up so I’m pretty proud of little Hesston for being able to remain competitive despite not getting the BiS gun and two-hander available pre-3.1.

MM benefits for Ulduar
From the fights I’ve experienced so far, including the trash, Ulduar is a highly-mobile instance. Fire, scorched areas, void zones, death runes, snowfalls; it has them all in abundance. For SV hunters, this means less chance to gain their Sniper Training buff. This also means less steady shots, their secondary source of damage. For BM hunters, this also means pet survivability is a little more difficult. I haven’t experienced Ulduar as a BM hunter yet, but by the looks of it keeping your pet alive will take a lot more work than ever before. As soon as I get the money I’ll try it out.

The advantage MM hunters have in these highly-mobile fights is that their main attacks are all instant cast, the exception being steady shot. Your priority, however, is in shooting serpent sting, chimera shot, aimed shot, arcane shot and then start using steady to try and proc Improved Steady Shot. If you are glyphed for Aimed Shot you may only get one or two steady shots before your CDs are up. This is why I chose to glyph out of Steady Shot, since you are firing less of them. Another advantage of MM is that you really only need to fire one Serpent Sting on a new target. If you are using Chimera Shot at every CD, it should refresh the sting. To quote Forrest Gump: “Well that’s good, one less thang.”

Using these shots, I am able to run around and stay mobile and still do max DPS. I’m a combo keyboard/mouse mover, and strafe and use diagonal movement a lot. I keybind my main shots around the WASD movement keys (2, 3, R, F, C) so I can hit them easily as I move. So far, this has been an advantage for me during the Ulduar fights. Also, nearly all of the bosses we’ve fought so far have some sort of enrage timer. If you time it properly and use Readiness, you can sometimes get three uses of Rapid Fire which will really boost your DPS and help with mana regen.

MM disadvantages
Marksmanship is a mana-hungry spec. With the changes to regen and the amount your main shots cost, it is very easy to go OOM. Even with totems, BoW and Replenishment buffs going out, I find myself having to be mindful of my mana a lot more often. Mana pots are your friend, bring a lot of them. No doubt MM hunters are using switching into Aspect of the Viper more often than SV and BM. Learn how to switch quickly and not stay in it any longer than necessary.

Having the extra Rapid Fire can help with this. You can pop it , jump into AotV and along with Rapid Recuperation, you can get your mana up quickly. This can also be combatted by speccing into Efficiency, but I chose not too since I would have to lose some of my DPS talents. Until I find myself in a situation where I am OOM and have no regen options and am not doing any DPS, I’ll save those points for other talents.

Notes for all hunters in Ulduar

• Get your haste up – Despite it being less of a priority, even MM should get their steady shots down to or as close to a 1.5sec cast as possible. For SV and BM, this should be mandatory.

• Get really good at using Misdirect – There are several flights where on-the-fly MDs really help with add control. It also helps on fights that have “stand in this for buff” areas, since you may be doing so much damage you pull aggro off the tank. MD to tank, stand in buff area and pew pew. There are also some trash pulls that can really benefit from MDs and make it easier on your tanks.
• Mind your pet – While we always should do this, like I said earlier, pet survivability is rough. There are several AoE attacks and abilities that can one-shot your pet. I use a wolf, so I find myself keeping him out of combat more often so that I continue to get the Furious Howl buff. This buff is serious business now that it stacks with other AP buffs, which is why wolves are now the new “it” pet for many hunters.

That’s all I’ve got for now. More Ulduar fun later, stay sharp.

Categories: 3.1, hunters, raids, spec, strategy
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…because we’re killing ‘em!

Too tired to go into detail now, but we’re making a lot of headway into Ulduar on normal. We’re a 25-man raiding guild, but the 10-man progression gives us a great chance to see the encounters and understand their mechanics. I’ll write the hunter-related stuff to these encounters later.

Downed so far:

• Flame Leviathan

• Razorscale
• XT-002 Deconstructor
• Kologarn
• The Iron Council
• Auriaya
• Freya
• Hodir

We also managed 10-man Emalon, the new VoA boss. His mechanic is different, but once you get it down he too will become a loot pinata.

Loot

• Avalanche – Not a remarkable upgrade from my gun. But, seeing as how my chances of getting the gun from Heroic KT are slim, went ahead and took it. The other hunter has the gun, so it was cool. Have to get used to the silent arrows again.
• Valorous Scourgestalker Handguards – I know, I know, I just got the Gloves of Taut Grip last night, but these are T8. I gemmed and enchanted and they are slightly better, but not by much. The payoff will come in working toward that four-piece bonus. I may keep using the non-tier gloves until I get a second piece of the T8. The two-piece bonus will make my Chimera Shots hit even harder.

Sleep now, more later.

Categories: 3.1, loot, raids
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Like many folks, we made our first forays into Ulduar this week on both 10 man and 25 man. First thing is first, Ulduar is a bit harder than Naxx. It’s not worlds above it, but the combination of the new content and new bosses makes it difficult. I don’t care if those l33t guilds are clearing it already, it’s tough. However, it is not frustratingly tough. The only boss that has gotten to the QQ point is Ignis, but apparently our entire server has had trouble with him. He’s not easy.

Flame Leviathan
This fight is really, really fun. Especially the gauntlet beforehand. Unless people are being real idiots and not paying attention, the first part shouldn’t give anyone trouble and should just be used as some fun, getting loose time and familiarizing yourself with the vehicles. So far I’ve driven the siege engine as a tank and the chopper. The chopper is one of the most fun things ever, seriously. Speed burst through mobs, sonic horn, sonic horn, drop some tar … SUCK MY WAKE!

The strategy really depends on your role. If on a chopper, be sure to drop tar in front of him as soon as it’s CD is up and pick up launched passengers. As a siege engine, interrupt his flame jets and stay on his ass when you are not the one currently being pursued. It also seems to be bugged right now in that there is no button to push when you kill the turrets. In order to cause an overload and stun FL, you have to kill all the turrets instead (2 on normal, 4 on heroic). He also pursues demolishers just the same as siege engines, no matter where they are.

Razorscale
The ultra-cool looking dragon is just past FL and across from Ignis. During the first phase you should stay at range (of course) and help MD stray adds to your tanks. Watch out for Devouring flames during the entirety of the fight. They are bright and blue, so they are not hard to miss. If MM specced and you are fast enough, you can silencing shot the chain lightning ability of the Dark Rune Watchers. If your tank is not currently targeting them though, you can risk pulling aggro when you switch targets. However, their ability does a lot of damage so they should be burned first. On 25man, the Dark Rune Sentinels should be tanked away from the raid by another OT due to their whirlwind ability.

When the dwarves have repaired enough harpoon guns, you can fire them at Razorscale to bring her down for a burn phase. If necessary, try and clean up as many adds as possible before firing the gun so all DPS can focus on Razorscale. Attack from behind when she is on the ground and go all out. Sometimes my aggro spiked but it doesn’t matter, she isn’t going anywhere.

Once Razorscale is at 50%, phase 2 begins. Basically stay behind her, fire away while the tanks taunt back and forth for the debuff she puts on them. Other than that, phase two is tank and spank.

XT-002 Deconstructor
First and foremost, turn your sound on. The emotes on XT are hilarious. I honestly think our first wipe was due to us laughing so much. His first phase is just a burn phase. The tank should tank him right at the bottom of the stairs facing away from the raid and DPS bunch up behind him. During this phase XT will cast Light Bomb and Gravity Bomb on people. Those affected need to get 10 yards away from the raid quickly to avoid damage. He will also occasionally do a tantrum where he pounds the ground and causes a lot of raid damage. This must be healed through and what killed my pet most of the time. Try and throw a Mend Pet up as often as you can and especially when he starts to yell “No, no, no, no!”

At each 25% of XT’s health, he will go into a “rest” phase where he become untargetable. He will spawn adds from each of the four corners of the area (but not always from every corner). Scrapbots heal XT if they get to him, so you should volley them as they are getting close to XT. They don’t have much health so don’t run all the way to the corners to try and get them. The Boombots do a lot of damage when they explode and should be killed at range. However, they do AoE damage to the NPCs as well, so if given the opportunity kill them within a mob of Scrapbots. EDIT: As of 3.1.1, the adds can be rooted, snared or slowed. Use your frost traps as needed. Pummelers need to be off-tanked. Misdirect to your OT if necessary.

Now, there is a trick with the heart. The heart is used to trigger XT’s hard mode, however, it can be used to make the fight significantly easier and is how we downed him. When the heart is exposed any damage done to it (1.2M HP on normal) is also done to XT. Also, you do double damage to it so it is a fast way to get XT’s health down low. As soon as his heart is exposed, DPS should do as much damage to the heart as possible without killing it and being mindful of the adds. Personally, I would DPS for about 5-10 seconds and then clean up as many adds as I could before XT becomes active again. As soon as he is active and able to be targeted, DPS should switch to him while still doing what they can to control and clean up adds.

Now, if you use the heart method DPS must control their DPS. If you have folks in your raid that do not know how to pay attention to the mobs health and stop DPSing when called for, put them on adds. If you kill XT’s heart it activates his hard mode, which restores his HP to full, bumps up his damage output and gives him new abilities. No one is ready for that yet. Using this method though we got him to 50% very fast and skipped almost an entire burn phase of Light Bombs and Gravity Bombs. Also, the heart resets its HP at each rest phase, so it can be damaged again each time.

Repeat and you should be OK. Hesston even got some new gloves off the whiny robot on 10-man.

Next time: Kologarn, The Iron Council and Auriaya.

Categories: 3.1, guild, hunters, hunters scope, raids
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Oh woe is Hesston. Found out today that the new guild I joined has plans to move to another server before the patch hits. Many of their older raiders have not been showing up as often (hence our 20-man, 25-man Naxx runs). I think some of this might be burnout, something mentioned in a recent WoW Inisder post. Their reasoning is that they need to recruit and the level of recruits on the current server are not up to par. I tend to agree.

I’m debating the move, but leaning more toward doing it as of right now. The money involved is not a factor, it’s more of the risk and the logistics. The risk is that we may move and find out the new server has the same problems. Granted, we are on an RP server now (Blackwater Raiders), and moving to a PvE server would probably see a noticeable upgrade in the quality of players. Most of the raiders on my server are on an RP server pretty much by mistake, had we to do it over we would probably have made a different choice.

The other risk is that we move, without enough people for 25-man content but too many for 10-man and some people are left out. Then we spend time recruiting and get behind on progression. The guild I am in is very achievement oriented and I know they will want to hit Ulduar’s hard modes as soon as possible (no doubt after the first few clears depending on how long that will take). The logistical problems are organizing everyone on to the new server, making sure things are in place to raid, etc.

The other thing is that I do have a few in-game friends that I like to run dungeons with and hang out with. However, I have to think about getting my $15 a month worth, and chatting with pals is not it. Hesston wants to see the end-game stuff and I’m not sure I will be able to do that if I stay (though there are guilds that will be going, I just don’t like them).

My one option is, since I have two raiding 80s, I could move Hesston and keep Minalias on the current server for a bit. However, this would cut into my money-making ability because it would split professions. We’ll have to wait and see.

What a bummer way to start the week.

Categories: 3.1, guild
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There are some updated patch notes out today. I am loathe to go through and talk about every little change since much of it is minor tweaks, but there is one that I noticed which made me giggle. See if you can spot it (I’ll give you some help.)

Hunter

• Cower: This pet ability will now display its cooldown correctly.

• Disengage: This ability can no longer be used while riding any type of vehicle.
• Froststorm Breath: This pet ability will now display its cooldown correctly.
• Heart of the Phoenix: Can no longer be set to autocast (which did not work).
• Rake: This pet ability will now always refresh when used by the pet.
• Savage Rend (raptor special ability): Fixed a tooltip error to correctly note this ability boosts damage rather than attack power.
• Spirit Strike: This pet ability now has its damage increased by Prowl as intended.
• Spore Cloud: This pet ability will now autocast properly at all ranks.
• Steady Shot: Now does correct damage with heirloom weapons.

ATTENTION BLIZZARD: The cooldown is not what is wrong with cower/growl/prowl!! For the love of all things holy and unholy…STOP THEM FROM TURNING ON/OFF AUTOMATICALLY!

That’s all us hunters really want right now. Honestly, could it be that hard?

Categories: 3.1
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Much has been said about the upcoming patch and all of its new goodies. Most people love it and are looking forward to it, but of course you always have your QQ’ers. It’s inevitable. Hesston’s not a big whiner when it comes to new, shiny content. Save your bemoaning about nerfs and easy raid content, here’s a quick list of the good things that Hesston is looking forward to in the upcoming patch.

1. New Raid Content
   This is a given, however I mean this a little differently. This will be the first time Hesston will get to check out new raid content along with everyone else. As I’ve stated before, I got into this game late and soloed the first two-thirds of the game. All of my raiding has been done with folks who have “been there, done that.” I am seriously looking forward to discovering everything for the first time, including spectacular wipes, with an entire 25-man group.

2. New Loot
   Duh! Who isn’t looking forward to getting new weapons of mass destruction? Some of the models I am not too impressed with, but new is new. Again, it will be fun to see loot drop that is totally new, where all of us hunters are scrambling to decide to take it wait and see if there is something better.

3. New Fishing Stuff!
   I admit, Hesston used to be a fishing hater. I told myself I would never level it due to the tedium involved. I scoffed and turned my nose up at people squatting in fishing holes while I killed X mob to get Y quest item. Then one day, on a whim, Hesston started fishing in Elwynn Forest. And then he kept fishing. To make a long story short, Hesston leveled to 450 fishing in just a few days and was happily running around with his Kalu’ak fishing pole. So, that fact that they are changing the fishing mechanic to make it easier to level (on my alts), adding new poles, new recipes and new fishing dailies, makes Hesston most excited.

4. Getting to know my toon again
   I am of the opposite mind of many and look forward to class changes, be they for good or (perceived) ill. Dedicating myself to re-learning aspects of the game that I’ve grown too comfortable with keeps me on my toes, lean and makes me enjoy playing a toon again. Not that I ever don’t like it, but change can sometimes re-ignite your love for a character. Besides, if it hadn’t been for the 3.0.8 changes, I never would have fallen in love with the Survival Spec.

That’s just a couple of the major things Hesston is looking forward to. What’s on your list? (And no QQ’ing)

Categories: 3.1
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Yes please!

Tier Set Bonus:
• 2Piece Bonus — Increases the damage done by your Serpent Sting by 10%.
• 4Piece Bonus — Your Steady Shot has a chance to grant you 600 attack power for 15 sec.

On a side note, I got some new kicks tonight. No gun from Kel’Thuzad this go, which sucks because I passed on two sets of hunter shoulders to save the DKP for the Kel drop and would have had no competition. Oh well, there’s always next week.

Categories: 3.1, hunters, loot
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