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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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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So clearly, I’ve been hitting the leveling on my Hordie druid pal (61 as of right now). He was 35 when I faction transferred a little less than two weeks ago. Not bad I’d say, but the heirlooms and Hallow’s End candy buckets helped a ton. Seriously, if you’re leveling an alt hit them buckets. Tons of free experience kids, and candy!

Hesston has taken a backseat lately, with the exception of some PvP and dailies to get Crusader badges. The reasons are many and varied, but chief among them is that I just haven’t been having fun on the Alliance side of things or with the guild. Since I can’t raid anymore, I really don’t fit in with Summit anymore. I play to have fun and stressing about jumping into random raids but not getting any direct reward (which is my own doing, not theirs) simply was not fun. So, I’m taking a break–from Hesston, not the game.

Recently I’ve started to date someone in my real life who is not a WoW player. She in fact has only had negative experience with WoW (a roommate who was “addicted”), and asked a valid question when I told her I play: Why?

I’d been wondering this myself after the minor issues with the guild mentioned previously, and when asked directly I didn’t have a really good answer. To me, it’s like reading or watching movies. Sure, you can give the basic answer of enjoying stories or being transported to another world. But when it comes down to it, those who enjoy either reading or watching movies or both, usually just enjoy it. Often the exact reasons can’t be quantified.

I enjoy playing and interacting with the world simply for what it is.

Some people aren’t big into the lore of WoW, and while I’m not a lore junkie, I like the story. This is one reason I decided to check out things from the Horde side with Krakattoa. I’ve played Warcraft since the first, lo-res RTS game. So to me it’s like watching the evolution of a world I’ve been paying attention to for a very long time. Missing raid instances sucks not only because of the loot, but it also feels like I’m missing out a chapter of the larger story. Most likely I will never be able to go through and clear Icecrown Citadel when it hits in 3.3, and that’s a bummer. Again, it’s like missing a part of the story. I’m sure I’ll hear and read about it, but I’d like to be a part of it.

This leads me back to the pressing question that first came up when the loot issue reared its head: Why? What am I trying to get out of paying my $15 a month and what does it matter if I do or do not get a new purple piece of gear? The truth is that it doesn’t matter in the way I am approaching the game right now. For those doing hardcore progression raiding, a new piece of gear for a few raiders can easily swing the pendulum from wiping to winning. However, skill still trumps gear and I know that I’m good at this game. That’s a bit arrogant, but it’s true. So getting more gear right now, though great, doesn’t really matter. I’m sure when 3.3 drops and I go into the new 5-man bits I can do as well as I need to, and I’ll have fun.

I do this because it’s fun. I’m not playing to supplement some empty part of my real life or to substitute any interactions or relationships I am missing. I’m playing to have fun and I’ll do what I need to do in game to continue to get enjoyment out of this thing I like so much. If that means faction transferring characters or leaving a guild I don’t feel I fit in with anymore, so be it. Because the second any of this stops being fun and more like a chore, job or obligation, is exactly when you should cancel your account and find something else more personally fulfilling.

/EndRamble

Categories: alts, guild, ooc
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So the other night the guild needed to fill one of their raid spots on 25-man Yogg. I’m no longer raider status since I can’t commit the time, but can jump in from time to time. They’d been practicing on Yogg a lot and have a pretty good strategy down, but he still did not fall. Regardless of how many guilds have downed him, Yoggy is a bitch. However, I had a blast doing it because I haven’t gotten to raid with this bunch in a long time and it was loads of fun. Some roles have changed, for the better I think, and it will be fun to jump in when I can. Barring any serious fallouts or unforeseen circumstances, I’ll probably stick with Summit well through 3.3 and Cataclysm.

Last night they needed a similar fill-in spot for Trial of the Crusader, something I haven’t got to do yet. We downed Lord Jaraxxus, the Faction Champions and the Twin Val’kyrs. I must say that the Faction Champs fight is really fun for some reason, it’s like doing PvP without actually doing PvP. Sadly, two juicy pieces of hunter loot dropped, the Lupine Longstaff and Sabatons of Ruthless Judgement, but huge upgrades for little old Hesston. However, I wasn’t eligible because I haven’t been raiding. The sad part is that our other hunter passed and both went to offspecs. I understand it still helps the raid overall, but come on, throw a dwarf who will rarely get to raid a bone.

I did however snag the sweet helm from Onyxia over the weekend, though it clashes a bit. And through badges I got the ilevel 232 T9 gloves, giving me a two-piece bonus. Serpent sting crits is so badass, especially as an MM hunter because SS is always up.

OK, I promised myself that if I started blogging here again it would be less about simply gear, raids, WoW news, etc. People can get that anywhere. I’d like to try and write a little more about why we WoW and what it means to people. I mean, in reality it’s all just a repetition of the same thing. So why? I point this question at myself as well, but that’s a conversation for another post.

Toodles.

Categories: guild, raids
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OK, so not exactly old, but friends nonetheless. I rejoined as a casual, aka ‘Friends and Family’ member, so I could have some cool people to hang with and maybe hit up a raid once in a while. Work still is too much for me to commit to a regular raid schedule but pugging just got to be too much of headache (even though I’ve geared up both toons quite nice doing it), so I decided to jump back into the guild play.

I think it will be quite fun.

Categories: guild
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So 3.2.2 is dropping today and with that I think I will mark the return of my WoW blogging. I’ve been away from it (but not the game) simply because I didn’t have much to say. The trio of Hesston, Minalias and Laramie are still unguilded as of right now, but they’ve been getting playtime. With the fun that looks to be 3.2.2 and everything in the pipeline, I don’t anticipate quitting WoW completely.

It is one of my happy places.

In addition to the time commitment to raiding that I could no longer meet, some folks began to ruin my happy place. That is why I felt I should leave Summit at the time. Since then I’ve been playing casually, got some upgrades for Hesston, discovered I love tanking on Minalias, made money, finally snagged epic flying for Hesston and some fun mounts, did some achievements that I wanted for a while and basically rediscovered my happy place.

The game is fun again, incredibly so.

And so with that, I’m back. Though I’ve been healing/tanking a lot on my paladin, whom I frickin’ love right now, I will always be a hunter loyalist. When Cataclysm comes out it will be like a whole new class and I can’t wait to rediscover how to be an elite hunter again. Oh, and I might have to re-roll then, because a Goblin Hunter just sounds so bloody win it hurts.

Random Hunter Tip:
Through tanking I’ve noticed a few newbie hunters doing something really annoying…asking for a mana break. A hunter should NEVER have to ask for a mana break. As a tank, especially in a simple heroic, the only one I give a mana break is the healer. Everyone else is on their own. Hunters have Aspect of the Viper for mana, use it. You can pop that, sit down and drink some honeymint tea for about 10 seconds to gain almost your entire mana pool back. Don’t ask the tank to stop. Use your skills nub. That is all.

One final note, all of my raid videos were force deleted by Vimeo. Seems they don’t like gameplay vids. Jerks.

Categories: guild, patches
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Aka, Mimiron downed. Seriously, probably one of the most satisfying kills in a long time. It takes a lot of tenacity, concentration and, at times, a fair amount of luck. I’m gonna miss being there for every big kill and achievement hereafter, but I’m glad I was present for this one.

Summit, Silvermoon-US vs. Mimiron from Hesston on Vimeo.

Slightly lower quality because of all the madness going on in Mimiron’s encounter.

Categories: achievements, guild, raids
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Iron Council down!

We managed to two-shot the three stooges last night. It was very well done too, everyone performed stellar. As an aside, Hesston was pretty happy with the numbers he was able to put up. Granted, I got in plenty of Runes of Power and the third phase of this fight is very melee unfriendly, but still pleased. The MM spec is going well minus the OOM issue. However, I discovered a new solution to that which I will experiment with tonight.

We also downed both Ignis and Auriaya. Now it’s on to the (Heroic) Keepers of Ulduar. This is going to be fun.

P.S. Our Auriaya pic is so full of win it makes my head hurt.

Categories: Uncategorized, guild, raids, screenshots
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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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…well the 20 minutes of it we actually got to see was any way. We had one shot at Flame Leviathan and then the instance crashed and the entire server started having problems.

So, to make the best of it we decided to head to Malygos to get some folks gear they needed. About 3 minutes in, everything froze. It was very interesting to look at. We all logged into alts and were amused to see ourselves still sitting in the Eye of Eternity. When I could finally log back in, it led to this “WTF!?” moment.

I logged out, then in to find myself a ghost in Crystalsong Forest with my body outside the sewers of Dalaran. Um, yeah.

Initial 3.1. Thoughts

• News dailies = awesome

• Fishing dailies = More awesome
• Scribe = money
• Hesston DPS = UP!
• Minalias heals = UP!

Hesston’s new spec looks like this. However, despite what this shows I do in fact have Black Arrow. The armory still needs some work. Yesterday it showed my spec as this. Best spec evar!

There are some tweaks that will probably need to be made, but once I can test it in a raid instance I’ll see what can stay and what can go. As it stands, with my wolf pet I managed to hit 3200 on a testing dummy with no buffs. That was lucky with several Lock and Load procs however, and it seems the average was closer to 2900-3000. Now this is testing dummy peoples, so don’t be all “lolz nub, I do 5K on Patchwerk with a faceroll!1!!!!1″.

The rotation is a little more involved now, making sure to keep Black Arrow up as much as possible and throwing in an Aimed Shot every time it is off cooldown. I’ll post more about it later.

Take care, I’m off to go fishing.

Categories: guild, hunters, raids, screenshots
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