There’s a discussion over on the hunter forums about the new ICC ammo that will available for hunters.

For clarification, it will be shatter rounds for the gun lovers and iceblade arrows for those that like curvy sticks. The mats are almost pretty much nothing, but the method to get the patterns is what has drawn the ire of many hunters.

While I won’t argue, a base 30+ DPS increase just from ammo would be nice, I don’t think it is worth making a huge stink over. My response on the forums:

The problem will be when guilds start mandating their hunters (or new applicants) use the new ammo or get out. The truth, with all of the other upgrades available, unless you’re going after ICC hard modes the DPS increase based on the ammo won’t be that important. It will only matter to those DPS junkies who demand to be at the very top of the meters every time.

Also, I doubt Blizzard is setting a new precedent for how they want to do ammo in Cataclysm. With the overhaul hunters are getting in the next expansion, I’m sure they will revisit the way ammo works. Will you need to the new ammo to continue into Cataclysm questing/heroics/raids? I doubt it.

This is ammo strictly for ICC progression. A bonus for hunters/guilds that want to put the effort into obtaining it to increase their output for progression raiding. You won’t need it to do the 5-man instances, what we have now is fine.

Sure, the method to obtain it may seem unfair, but only to those that feel they MUST have it. If a freshly-dinged L80 hunter with pockets of gold buys the ammo along with a Nesingwary 2K, so be it. It doesn’t mean he is suddenly has some unfair, leet DPS advantage over regular raiding hunters. It means he has a slight edge over other, freshly-dinged L80 hunters.

I’m curious to see how this thread evolves, minus the trolls and whiners. So far though, it seems people just want to bitch for the sake of bitching (similar to all things WoW).

Also, 3.3 is dropping today. W00t! In preparation I parked all of my toons in low-population cities before I logged out last night, always a good pre-patch thing to do. I also put out the call to form a new guild just to see what interest there might be. Maybe, maybe not.

Time for work, then time for patch-day fiasco shenanigans.

Categories: 3.3, hunters
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In the continuation of a very humorous meme I saw on HolyPaladin.net, I figured I’d give my own hunter-centric contribution. Plus, bullet points are fun.

Don’t be that hunter…

• …who spends the entire fight in Aspect of the Viper. Seriously, get Power Auras or something.

• …who leaves Aspect of the Pack up and the entire raid gets dazed on the pull.
• …who brings a tenacity pet to a raid/dungeon. Thunderstomp may be cool looking but it is still fail in raids.
• …who leaves your pet’s growl/taunt/charge on in a raid/dungeon. You bring a tank for a reason, let them do their job.
• …who doesn’t have your pet out at all. I’ve seen it happen to the response of: “It’s only a little bit of DPS.” You fail.
• …who uses a shot rotation macro. People say playing a hunter is easy, and it is, but it’s not THAT easy. At least not anymore. Learn keybinds and know when to use stuff, your DPS (and raid leader) will thank you.
• …who stands in fire/poison/bad stuff just so you can keep DPS’ing. Move when you need to move, your healers will thank you.
• …who doesn’t know how to Misdirect. I once healed some Ulduar on Minalias and when someone asked the Naxx+some Ulduar-geared hunter to MD Ignis to the tank they cast it and just stood there. Told the tank to pull. /Facepalm
• …who pulls aggro, doesn’t feign death and runs the mob away from the tank (and usually into the healer).
• …who uses a frost trap to proc Lock N’ Load, slowing the mob the tank just taunted and screwing up the pull.
• …who rolls on a sweet mace because it has AGI/STAM and AP on it. Psst, we can’t used maces.
• …who rolls on expertise trinkets.

There’s actually a lot more, but I have to do real work now. Damn.

Categories: humor, hunters
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From the “unofficial” 3.3 patch notes:

Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.

I think this will work splendidly, especially in crisis situations. And multiple hunters being able to aggro dump on one target is awesome.

Categories: 3.3, hunters
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Yeah, kinda late considering he’s on farm. But, I figured I’d been missing our XT fights since I started recording (we usually kill him second). Plus, this is also a good example of managing light/gravity bombs and adds. My group was getting tons of both, so it was kinda hilarious.

Last night was also the first raid I’ve run with the 3.1.3 hunter changes, as well as a slightly altered Marksman spec. No Silencing Shot (I hardly ever use it since we have other, faster interrupts), and no points in improved barrage (my raid crit is 50%+ as it is). Instead, I specced down into Aspect Mastery using endurance training as the filler because more HP is always a plus. Definitely a DPS increase, but mostly due to less time in AotV and more time pew pewing. However MM is still a mana-hungry spec and needs more work, unless that is the intention by Blizzazrd. I enjoy the playstyle of it a lot more than Survival right now so I’m sticking with it.

We also did Mimiron for the first time since his changes. Waaaay fricking easier; we one-shot the poor bastard. If you haven’t downed him yet, but we were always close, you can definitely get him now.

Hopefully I’ll get home in time for Freya tonight and a chance at my T8.5 legs, like some people.

Categories: hunters, raids, videos
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Something I’m working on, though still in the outline stages.

As of right now though, Silvermoon is still offline. Someone really screwed something up over at Blizzard. Oh well, it happens.

Categories: hunters, videos
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OK, so it’s not worth getting that worked up over. But word on the street is that patch 3.1.3 is going to be deployed tomorrow, sans PTR testing.

Considering this will have a game-changing affect on Marksman hunters, I am really looking forward to it (and just as I was fiddling with Survival again). We’ll have to wait and see how the changes work out if/when I get to raid this week.

Categories: hunters, patches
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Patch 3.1.3 notes

Hunters:

• Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.

• Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%.

I’ve been jumping back and forth between an MM and SV spec depending on fights, but I’ve really come to love Marksman. It feels faster and less random than SV. I feel more in control over my shots. However, right now I am being out DPSed by our SV hunters. The problem has been the mana. I’m quick out of the gate, but having to jump into AotV too much causes a severe drop. Hopefully these changes will pass the mustard on the PTR and make it to live. There will be no PTR for these changes, they’re going live. Woot!

Along with improved hunter’s mark and glyph of hunter’s mark, MM should see a major DPS bump. Here’s to hoping.

Categories: hunters, spec
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Now while I don’t feel like Ignis is so mighty that he warrants his own post, but I realized that when I wrote my previous post on the Siege bosses, I left out the big lug because we hadn’t downed him at the time.

Then Blizzard took down his difficulty and notch and he was put on farm like the rest of the Siege and Antechamber bosses. Yay! So, in the spirit of completeness, a few words on Iggy.

The easiest method is for your tank to move Ignis in a four-point scorch path near the center of the room. Your tank should start at one of the points furthest away and you (and another hunter if you have one) can Misdirect for the pull. All DPS and healers should stay relatively in the center of the room, surrounded by the scorch areas. To be honest, that is basically it. Just pew pew, stay out of the fire and hope your healers keep you alive if you get slag potted. No need to worry about the flame jets, they only affect casters.

Unless of course, you want to play a different role.

Iron Constructs
During the fight, the Iron Constructs around the room come to life and punch people in the face. An OT needs to pick them up drag them into the scorch area until they are molten. Once they are molten they must be dragged into the water where they become brittle, then a 5K hit will shatter them. Ranged DPS must do this, as they do a good amount of AoE damage when they shatter (though it’s more of a *poof* than a shatter, but I digress). Most likely your RL will assign someone that can both root the constructs and deal the killing blow, a doomturkey is the best choice.

However, if your OT has enough HP and your healers are good, there is no need to root. The OT can just hang out in the fire with the construct until it is molten. The fire damage on a Naxx-geared tank is not all that significant.

This is where the burst damage of an MM spec shines. Your crit should be high enough when you are raid-buffed that a Serpent Sting –> Chimera Shot should shatter a construct. Hunter’s have an advantage here because both shots are instant cast, I think a doomturkey has some cast time on their lasers. It should be noted that SV hunters have a very difficult time doing this since their damage is done of three tics with Explosive Shot, and it is doubtful that one of those tics would be for 5K. If you are assigned to do this, just make sure your Chimera Shot is off cooldown or close to it when you see the OT dancing with a construct toward the water. You can still DPS Ignis, just be mindful of what’s going on with the adds.

That’s it really. Point out something I missed, movie below (already posted it, but figured I’d show it again.)

Categories: hunters, hunters scope, raids
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The developers believe hunter dps is too low, so today we are implementing a change to ranged weapon damage to improve dps across the board.

Bows, crossbows and guns of item level 226 or higher (which means weapons from Kel’Thuzad, Ulduar and the Furious Gladiator pieces) will do around 30 more dps. This should translate to a hunter damage increase of a few percent.

We don’t think this will be quite sufficient in boosting hunter dps to where we think it needs to be and we have another buff that we plan to get in sometime over the next couple of weeks. We’ll announce that change when it gets closer. (We have some plans for other classes as well, but we ask that you please keep this thread on the topic of hunters and the ranged weapon changes.)

As hunters may recall, we had an ambitious plan to change the way ammo worked for 3.1 that ended up being overly ambitious, causing us to scale back. However as part of that change, we stopped itemizing bullets and arrows. Since hunters could not upgrade from the ammo available at the launch of Lich King, their damage had started and would continue to fall behind as other classes upgraded their gear. This change basically incorporates the ammo damage into the weapons — as you get better ranged weapons, it’s as if you got better ammo to go along with them. This is likely to be a design we continue for the next few tiers of content until we have the opportunity to overhaul ammo completely.

Source

This makes me both happy and (indirectly) sad. Happy, because I happen to be the proud owner of a Giant’s Bane, one of the weapons getting buffed.

It makes me sad however, because real-life and career circumstances (positive ones though) are going to force me to cut down my raid commitments considerably within the next week. I’m not going to stop playing all together and I’m going to stay with my guild, but most likely as a casual.

/cast sadphace

Categories: hunters
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No doubt you’ve already read a ton of strategy guides for each of the Keepers of Ulduar so I will try to keep this both brief and hunter specific. The Keepers (of your tier) can be a tough lot your first few tries at them. My guild has yet to face Mimiron on heroic, something that gives me a headache just thinking about. As with all boss fights, once you learn the tricks and everyone gets on the same page, the loot shall be yours.

HODIR
Hodir is a high-movement fight, you will rarely find yourself standing still for more than a few seconds. Survival hunters will be hard-pressed to get their Sniper Training buff for the full duration, if at all. Basically, get out of blue circles, stand in the lights and next to toasty fires when possible, shake of the biting cold debuff, free the NPCs whenever they are frozen and pew pew pew. When freeing the NPCs, priority should go to the mage and priest, since they help free others and heal. When Hodir is about to cast Flash Freeze scoot over near a large blue circle and then run up onto the snow mound as soon as it forms.

As a ranged DPS, the hunter’s most important job here is to help free the adds and bring Hodir’s HP (which he has an ample amount of) down to zero. The best way to do this is to stand in the beams of light as much as possible. It gives you the Starlight buff, which considerably increases your damage output. Standing in these while freeing the NPCs will get them out very fast. Don’t be fooled, Hodir is a jerk and will drop icicles on you nearly every time you get in starlight causing you to curse and scream. If you get rooted, Master’s Call is a lifesaver.

THORIM
Since ranged have a bit of an advantage in the gauntlet, that’s where I’ve always been. Help CC the guards as necessary since they do a nasty whirlwind attack and down the Acolyte’s first, since they heal. On the first mini-boss, get as close possible to avoid charges. Right after he goes down, our strategy was to CC the first Acolyte past the door (sheep or hex preferred) and have the gauntlet tank pick up the guard. I would run up the stairs, drop a frost trap to stop one of the adds there and then continue up the stairs to misdirect the second mini-boss to the tank. Reason being, the adds here respawn until you’ve engaged the boss so if you grab him with all four up that should be all that you have to manage. The tank should pull the adds he is facing and the boss down into the larger room along with the rest of the gauntlet team. To have one less person to get exploded by his ability, stay in the small room at the bottom of the stairs (behind boss if he is in the room) but in LoS of your healer. Crowd control as much as possible until the mini-boss is down, then clean up the adds if you have time. If have less than 30 seconds on the enrage timer, Aspect of the Cheetah and haul ass up to Thorim to engage. Hopefully the rest of the gauntlet team will come with you. Drop a freezing trap to slow the NPCs to help you get away.

Once Thorim is engaged things are pretty easy for hunters. Unleash the fury and just look out for the little streams of lightning coming from the wall toward Thorim. I found standing near the gauntlet door spawned very few lightning streams near me, allowing me to just stand and shoot. He does a chain lightning attack so try and stand at least 10-15 yards away from other raid members, though this is difficult since people will be running around everywhere.

FREYA
The hardest part of the Freya encounter is the add phase. Freya will spawn three different waves of adds, one minute apart, that you have to kill in order to remove her buff stacks and move on to phase two. If all goes right, you should have to fight each type of add twice. All throughout the encounter Freya will summon little green trees that heal her and the adds. Hunters are an excellent candidate to be on tree duty, they should be killed as soon as you see them. They have 100K HP on heroic, so at least two people should be assigned to them.

For the detonating lashers, everyone should group up and AoE until they are low, then spread out and focus fire. If you pull one when you are focusing fire, try and kite it around as you kill it. They detonate (hence the name) for about 7K damage when they die.

When you get the Ancient Conservator, the big guy, stand under his mushrooms or you will silenced. It’s easy to forget about it and suddenly none of your buttons will work. He also casts Nature’s Fury on a raid member, get away from people with this or if it is you, get away from others.

The group of three, the Snaplasher, Storm Lasher and Ancient Water Spirit, are by far the biggest pain in the ass. They all have to die together, which is always fun. Your raid leader will most likely assign teams for each add, but I found it best to act as a floater as well. Use DBM to keep track of each add’s HP and jump between targets to help regulate them. There may be times however when you need to stop DPSing an add altogether, so be ready.

Once you get through the add phase, Freya’s second phase is a pretty basic tank and spank. Watch out for the green seed bombs and continue to kill the trees when they appear.

MIMIRON
Mimiron is the most difficult of the Keepers, requiring a fair amount of coordination, skill and a bit of luck. While we’ve only manage to down Mimiron on 10-man so far, we aim to take him down this week. Mimiron has four phases, each of which require a slightly different tactic.

NOTE: Most of this description is from the 10-man version. I’ll update with 25-man notes shortly.

Phase 1 – During the tank phase, you basically just DPS. Make sure you begin to reel your pet in a few seconds after a plasma blast, as he will do the shock blast shortly after and kill it. If you get hit with Napalm Shell, move out of the area so a healer can top you off before you die.

Phase 2 – During the VX-001 phase, you should be stacked up with a healer (or two) and some ranged DPS on one of the strips on the ground leading out of the middle. He has no aggro, so unload all you’ve got. He casts a raid-wide AoE ability called heat wave, so you want to get through this phase as fast as possible. Use Rapid Fire, trinkets, other CDs; just burn him. When he fires Rapid Burst at someone in the group, just take it and your healers should get you through it. Red circles equal death, move out of them as a rocket is about to hit and do 5,000,000 damage. Laser barrage fires clockwise from where it starts, strafe away from it and then get back to your original spot with the rest of your group.

Phase 3 – The air phase can be a pain if assignments aren’t handed out beforehand. The Air Command Unit needs to be range tanked, by either a hunter or another high-HP ranged class. I am usually assigned to bomb duty. The Command Unit will periodically drop bomb bots that will run toward the raid and explode for a large amount of damage. On 10-man, me and a druid handle these with roots and a quick burn. I also send my pet to attack the Command Unit so they sit right under it, often taking the bomb blast as soon as it lands. They can usually take it, just have mend pet up so they don’t die. Through the chaos it may be difficult to target the bomb, so I made a macro (/tar bomb bot) in order to quickly target it and kill. In 25-man it might be a good idea to have two DPS do this, and the Assault Bots need to be kited.

Phase 4 – The “OMFG there’s shit everywhere” phase. Basically all the other phases combined, plus three targets that all need to die within a few seconds of each other. JOY! You should jump between DPS’ing the head and body to keep them at the same level. Melee will be doing the same with the tank and body. He also shoots two rockets at a time, so be on the lookout for red circles again…oh and shock blast…oh and laser barrage…and he’ll be shooting plasma balls and hand pulses at you…and SHIT!! Yeah, total chaos. With the exception of Yogg, most likely the most satisfying kill.

Next time: The Descent into Madness (you know, when we actually get there)

Categories: hunters, hunters scope, raids, strategy
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