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.

You may have noticed this happening after 3.3 hit. Well, you’re not the only one. Call Stabled Pet was supposed to be put on a 5-minute cooldown after the patch, down from 30 minutes. It seems there is a bug that puts it on a 23-day cooldown.

This happened to me and, after filing a ticket, I talked to a GM about it. He said it was related to the cross-realm instances and is a bug that they need to work on. I recall this happening on the PTR, but thought it would be corrected. It seems there are several bugs related to the cross-realm instances that hopefully will be ironed out soon.

The ammo debate

After all the ballyhoo about the epic ammo, it’s already going for 10-15g a stack on my server. That’s hardly a price gouge and, in my mind, a reasonable price for such a DPS boost. Enough people have farmed the rep already and bought the recipes that this price will only get cheaper. I mean it’s only been a week, and already it’s cheap enough to use at all times.

There are some that are seriously nerd-rage pissed about it, but I think many of the the arguments are a little ridiculous. The folks that seem the most angry are the ones that seem to take the shit a little too seriously and need to take a step back. The ammo isn’t going to make or break your raid spot, nor your ability to down a boss. The only thing it may hurt is your ego if not using it drops you on the DPS meters a bit. And if that is so important to you, then buy or earn the damn ammo and pew pew to your heart’s content.

Cross-realm DPS

I noticed low DPS numbers on some PuG groups and was curious as to what the hell was going on, then I read this forum post and it seems to make sense. I’m not sure if it is the responsibility of Blizzard or the damage meter creators to fix this, but I hope someone does. While I don’t get all uppity about having elite DPS on a 5-man, seeing where people are at after a few pulls allows me to gauge how difficult the rest of the run is going to be. However, in a great experiment it would be fun to remove all damage meters from the game to see how people cope. At one time there were no damage meters, and people managed.

It’d be fun to go into dungeons/raids without those measuring sticks. In my opinion, boss fights would be a little more exciting if you are less sure if the raid has the juice to bring him down. Granted, I understand the purpose in hardcore progression raiding. But still, it’d be interesting to see what it did for socialization and the community if people didn’t immediately have that judgment to place on people.

The Forge of Souls

The first and shortest of the three is pretty basic. Most of the mobs can be grouped and AoE’ed down. There are random skulls which pop up and throw some damage around, but nothing to worry about if your healer is paying attention.

Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls and first boss, is pretty easy. DPS should spread out a bit, for hunters this is easy. When he casts Corrupt Soul on a player DPS should switch to it and kill it. If it reaches Bronjahm it heals him. If your DPS is good enough though you can just ignore it and zerg him down. On the second part just move in close and burn him down.

The second and last boss is the Devourer of Souls. Pretty basic “stay out of shit” fight. When he casts Mirrored Soul everyone should stop DPS’ing (and healing if possible), as all damage will get transferred to that person and it’s an easy way to accidentally kill them. I’ve found that PuG groups continually fail at this, I assume it is always that “well that doesn’t apply to me” attitude that seems very pervasive among PuGs. When he summons the adds, just try and kite around a bit to lessen damage and help out your healer. Don’t stand in purple wells, dodge laser beam. Profit.

Loot you may want:

• Accursed Crawling Cape (normal) – Good ArP cape if you need it.
• Tower of the Mouldering Corpse (normal)
• Eyes of Bewilderment
• Essence of Suffering
• Needle-Encrusted Scorpion – This is a very nice trinket if you are putting together an ArP MM setup (which I am). Of course, it’s dropped when I heal or tank but not when I take Hesston. Damn yous RNG!!

Pit of Saron

This is a big, fun open instance with a lot of (easy) trash to clear. This is where most players are farming to try and get a battered hilt for the Quel’Delar quest, present company included. It will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine. Most of the trash is laughable, as long as your tank keeps control of the larger packs and doesn’t pull extras. However I have noticed this is a place where tanks seems to want to get try and be too big for their britches and take on a lot, often wiping the group. Even with a good healer, there’s no reason to try and round up more than one or two groups.

You can go to either of the lower bosses, but I usually hit Forgemaster Garfrost first. Pretty easy fight, as long as everyone clears their debuff. Garfrost puts out an AoE debuff that ticks every 2 seconds. This can be cleared by standing behind a boulder and getting out of line of sight for a few seconds. This also falls into the category of things that PuGs think don’t apply to them. As a healer, I ask people to clear their debuff and it often doesn’t happen. For some reason people think it’s not hip to give in to the mechanics of a fight. Sorry, no heals for you! From what I noticed though, your pet should be fine just chewing on the boss. Mine never really died. Oh, and AoE down the adds at the start before starting in on Garfrost.

A few trash pulls later and you’ll come to Ick & Krick. This is a very easy fight, again, as long as no one thinks they are special. Run out of Krick’s poison nova (which you shouldn’t really be close enough to worry about anyway), dodge the bombs, and when he pursues you pop Aspect of the Cheetah and run away. Easy. Oh, and don’t stand in giant green puddles, obviously.

As an aside, one of the first times I healed it on Krakattoa, our DPS just couldn’t figure out the “move your ass” aspect of this fight. At about 50%, they all died and it was just me and the warrior tank. I healed in non-tree form and Wrathed and Starfired him all the way down. /Flex.

The trash on the way to Scourgelord Tyrannus can be a little tricky. We actually CC’ed it the first time through. Just take the Vrykul casters down first, and make sure your DPS is focus firing on the Ymirjar Wrathbringers/Flamebearers. When you get to the gauntlet, just run, run, run while MD’ing mobs to the tank when you can. He should be picking them up and heading to the center with the large Revenant. Pause, clear clean up the trash (though the small ones will keep coming). I’ve had issues with tanks just staying there, continuing to tank mobs thinking they needed to clear before moving on. I’ve also had trouble with tanks thinking they can just run to the end without picking up the mobs properly, naturally the healer will get aggro and get killed. Stupid tanks are stupid.

Scourgelord Tyrannus isn’t terribly difficult. If you get Overlord’s Brand, stop DPS as it will transfer damage to the tank and heals to Tyrannus. The tank will need to kite a bit when he gets his buff and everyone should be dodging Rimefang’s attacks. The emotes and visual cues are pretty obvious.

Loot you may want:

• Rimebane Rifle (normal)
• Gondria’s Spectral Bracer (normal)
• Horns of the Spurned Val’Kyr (normal)
• Scarborous Zombie Leather Belt (normal, and it’s not leather)
• Ring of Carnelian and Bone (normal)
• Band of Stained Souls – Good ArP ring; Hesston needs this
• Felglacier Bolter – This drops a lot, so if you’re still using a Naxx or 10-man Ulduar ranged weapon, this is an easy upgrade.
• Belt of Rotted Fingernails
• Spurned Val’Kyr Shouldguards – More ArP for MM hunters if you don’t go for the T9 or Pauldrons/Epaulets of the Devourer

Halls of Reflection

This is it, your (not so final) confrontation with Arthas. This place is a little chaotic, but can be fun with the right group. However, if you expect to go in and just faceroll it on your first try I’d guess again. Folks that have become relaxed just mowing through heroics lately will find this a welcome challenge. Though after you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad.

After some lore stuffs, you’ll face Falric and Marwyn after Arthas grabs Frostmourne and Sylvanas/Jaina chase after him. These fights are kind of like Violet Hold on speed, with a dash of Faction Champs. There are four waves of adds before each boss that can’t just be tanked and AoE’ed. They drop aggro, go after healers and clothies and generally have to be treated like the FC fight in TotC. As MM, use silencing shot on the casters to interrupt and make them close in. If SV, hit ‘em with a Wyvern Sting. Lay down traps as necessary, snakes and frost work best. Once things are under control just focus fire each add down.

The bosses themselves didn’t seem all that hard. As a tank I didn’t seem to take a ton of damage from any of their abilities. As a hunter, pew pew pew….lol fear, pew pew. That’s basically it.

After the bosses, there’s an intermission fight with a big skeleton and a noob doppelganger version of your party. Once through that, you run up to see Jaina/Sylvanas duking it out with Arthas. They cast a spell to hold him, and then begins the chase with Jason Voorhees, er Arthas.

It’s pretty basic: You run, he puts up an icewall, and throws some ghouls, abominations and Risen Witch Doctor’s to try and stop you. The tank should try and pick them up relatively far away to give the DPS more time to burn them down. The first two waves are pretty easy, but there are a few extra mobs on the last one that can present a problem. Make sure the DPS is focus firing, as a hunter you have the advantage of being pretty far from the action. If mobs start to close in on Sylvanas or your healer, try throw some traps down to give the tank time to pick them back up.

Once through the last wall there is some dialog and blamo, you’re done with the Frozen Halls. Profit.

Loot you may want:

• Crypt Fiend Slayer (normal) – Again, another fine ranged weapon for those that have nothing better than a store-bought Nesingwary.
• Frostsworn Bone Leggings (normal)
• Muddied Boots of Brill (normal)
• Frostsworn Bone Chestpiece – Not bad if you don’t want to spend badges on the T9.
• Spiked Toestompers – Some good ArP boots. Hesston is trying to get these to finally replace his old Malygos shoes.
• Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon – A nice two-hander, suited best for an SV hunter who needs the agility. The blue socket makes it that much better, but I’d ignore the socket bonus and just put a +20 agility gem in there.

So that’s that. Good hunting!

If you can’t afford to AH the ammo, you probably can’t afford to get the best gems and enchants for you new gear which would probably be a bigger dps increase. That is going to affect the economic decision of looting more than the ammo I suspect. I don’t think the ammo will be outrageously high on the AH given the mats. It may be high for the next week or so while it’s scarce, but as I’ve said, we don’t really want every hunter in the game to be able to get ammo which is tied to a rep grind and rare drop on day one.

You may not be able to afford to constantly switch Engineering specs, but we’re not trying to make that a very attractive option in the first place.

Not to kiss ass, but I have to agree. The people complaining the most are the ones that want a reward for logging in, basically. And the ammo is still available to those that want to farm mats and/or earn gold in another way to get the ammo. Either way you earned it, and can be happy about it.

Nothing in life is free.

The Dungeon Finder

Pros:
Oh dungeon finder tool, where have you been all my life? Seriously, this thing is such a hot mess of hot I can hardly contain myself. It works, and works well. The math Blizzard used to put relatively equally geared, or at least geared enough for the instance, players together seems to be pretty solid. I haven’t had a fail group yet on any of my toons and as either heals, tanking or DPS.

Of course, listing yourself as a healer or tank gets you in a group faster, but even on Hesston as DPS I found groups pretty fast. And if you don’t mind seeing the same dungeons over and over and over, it’s a ridiculously fast way to farm badges and get caught up or make an alt awesome. However, even after the nerfs I still got the: “Oculus, fuck this…” [So and so has left the party].

Cons:
For the most part, those looking to socialize and talk shop with a group will find it a little quiet. Nearly every group I’ve been in (and Minalias already has ‘The Patient’ title) has got right down to business, cleared the dungeon and moved on. I think this may have a detrimental effect on the social aspect of the game for some, and make servers a little less friendly. I could be wrong.

I can imagine that a certain degree of player would use this, and is not interested in chatting it up. For that still want to form groups the old fashioned way, the option is there.

The only other con is that you may run into a hunter like this and it will make you cry. The armory seems borked right now, but they had a 71/0/0 BM spec and were using two tanking swords. I tried to help, but they didn’t seem to understand that purple wasn’t always better. Oh well, you can’t help everyone. EDIT: It seems now they have updated their toon a bit, with an SV spec and some proper gear (but still using Red Sword of Courage and a melee DPS cape). I’m hoping my gentle advice to research the class a bit was the catalyst for the change.

Frozen Halls

The new, 3-part dungeon is pretty awesome. I’ll write up a full hunter’s perspective later, but will say this, the Halls of Reflection is no walk in the park. The difficulty level is a bit of a bump, in a good way. I enjoyed a challenge again that wasn’t in a raiding environment.

One quick thing though, when fighting the Devourer of Souls in the Forge of Souls, getting the Mirrored Soul debuff while you have a T9, 2-piece bonus serpent sting ticking sucks. Lol dead. I imagine a freshly-shot explosive shot will hurt just as much, especially if you’re healer isn’t watching out for it. Basically any DPS that puts up DoTs will get annoyed with that debuff right quick.

Hunter changes

Misdirection
In short, love it. Everyone where I’ve read seems that most relatively-geared hunters are finding it to be about a 40K aggro dump to the tank when you use it correctly. This rules on so many levels. I would be very curious to see how this works in a raid with multiple hunters on the same target.

However, the one thing that threw me off was when I first cast it. I didn’t see the little swirly circle on the tank. I thought perhaps the patch had borked my macro and then were in the first pull, so I fired. Swirly thing appears over me and I have a moment of panic when I think I’m about to misdirect the mobs right back at me, but nothing. It works, and the tank takes all of the aggro.

After running quite a few random LFG heroics it still messes me up a bit. Blizzard should try to edit the spell graphic. As of right now, there’s no real way to know you have the tank properly misdirected until the pull happens and the mobs don’t come and chew on your face.

Call Stabled Pet
“Hey, I’m gonna go Beast Mastery for this fight and try out my other pet’s DPS.”

*Pew pew BigRedPet GO!*

“OK, BM DPS is still kinda crappy. Switching back.”

All kidding aside, this is a nice change. Especially if you are the type that likes to rotate your pets and let them all get some fresh air.

Faster pet leveling
I approve this message. See above about those that like to try different pets.

However, WTB more pet stable slots Blizzard. Hmmm, perhaps in the BM Mastery tree of Cataclysm?

Other hunter stuff
There’s a lot more, but one thing I did want to mention is that I seem to be running out of mana a lot faster. Not sure if some new math snuck in there under the radar, but I am finding myself having to jump into AotV quite a bit more often. Some folks on the forums attributed it to mana-draining mobs in the the 5-man instances, but I noticed it in the other heroics as well.

I’m hoping this gets addressed and hotfixed soon.

Well if that doesn’t get you amped you must dead (or not a WoW player).

Still waiting to go home from work — which is turning out to be the longest day ever — to go home and deal with the patch-day goodness. Already seeing the QQ’ing on the forums as if this is a new thing. Come on people, really?

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.

Well that just gave me a boner.

So Hesston finally took the leap. I’d been planning to do this for a while but was thinking of waiting until after 3.3. But, I got antsy and decided to just go for it. I switched for a number of reasons but chief among them just for a change of scenery. And with the new LFG coming I think I will be be able to run a fair share of dungeons and enjoy things at my own pace. There are also some late-night raiding guilds on Horde side that I may consider later, but I don’t want to be tied down to anything.

The only thing that is crappy is having to re-do the Argent Tournament from scratch. Oh well, there’s always a price to pay (including the $30).

Oh, and my little druid is almost to Northrend, so that will be fun. Bought him dual-spec and will give tree healing a go, which is basically the polar opposite of paladin healing I’m sure.

For the Horde!

Blizzard is aiming to allow Bind on Account (BoA) items to transfer between factions in patch 3.3. This means your characters on the opposite faction, on the same account, can receive BoA items either through the mail or some other mechanism.

This makes Hesston, Minalias, Krakattoa and my whole future WoW family very happy, as well as give me a reason to continue to farm badges for heirloom gear. In retrospect, I should have grabbed the hammer for my druid.

P.S. Druids are fun.