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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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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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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This here is Minalias, my holy paladin I’ve been leveling and just recently dinged to 80. I have since gotten him some gear, ran some heroics and have tried to gain a new perspective on the game. To say the least, healing is a whole different game than the pew pew.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the healing but I must say, it’s a lot of pressure. If a DPS is slacking, you can still get by though it is just harder. If the healer is slacking or their gear is not up to snuff, it’s obvious and everyone looks in your direction as to why their spirits are trotting back to the instance. However, as everyone knows, it is not always the healers fault.

What every DPS can learn from healing
All DPS, be it ranged or melee, should try their hand at healing. This is easiest for a hybrid class (paladin/druid/shaman/priest), that can switch without leveling a new toon to 80. However, if you have the opportunity to heal, I highly recommend it.

1. The importance of not standing in shit.
I’m pretty good at not standing in fire, void zones, blizzards, etc. However seeing how important this is from a healing perspective emphasizes it a great deal. Being a holy paladin, with no AoE heals, this can become an issue quick if the raid is taking a lot of unnecessary damage. My point…MOVE! Don’t worry about the DPS meter or getting that one more shot off, get out of the shit! Your healer will like you a lot more for it.

2. The importance of staying in range.
Several times in my healing endeavors my ranged DPS, while I applaud their movement skills, are moving way the hell away from me. My priority is the tank, if you run clear across the room I’m not coming to you. Stay close to your healers. Not only can you be assured heals when needed, but you can jump in the way in case a mob starts heading for the healer to chew on their face.

3. The importance of not pulling aggro.
Again, this makes it more difficult for the healer to get everyone if you’re running from a mob away from the group. If you pull aggro (which is very easy to do as an SV hunter, I know), take the mob back to the tank, not away from him. Several times already I’ve had mages or hunters pull a mob at them and they start running around like a Benny Hill skit. Return to sender!

Granted, not all of these things are the fault of the DPS. A healer still has to assess the situation, adjust and try and keep everyone alive no matter what. In addition the tank has to do their job effectively too. However, anything the DPS can do to make the run easier on the healer/tank combo will make the run more enjoyable in the end and much faster.

I’ve also been trying to put a tanking set together on the side. So, as soon as 3.1 hits and it’s not such a pain in the ass, I’m going to try pally tanking (the easiest of the tanks so I hear).

Anyone else out there get a better understanding of their DPS role by trying out a different one?

And as an aside, though I love my paladin and am enjoying the healing game, I am and will always be a hunter.

Categories: alts, strategy
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So the proposed skinny on the fabled dual speccing has finally been made public via a Ghostcrawler Q&A on Blizzard’s Web site. Here’s the rundown:

• Dual spec is max-level only. They may expand it to lower level characters if it proves popular.
• Learning the “dual-spec” ability requires a one-time fee, paid to your trainer. No word yet on how much it might be.
• You can switch your spec at any Lexicon of Power. These exist in every major city, and players with the Inscription profession will be able to create an item that summons one.
• The item will be purchaseable by other players.
• Anyone can use the Lexicon it creates, but summoning one requires a multi-player ritual. Basically, solo players can switch specs by going back to town. Groups or raids can switch specs during a run by using this item.
• No decision has been made yet on whether or not the item is re-usable.
• Respeccing will reset your current talent profile, it won’t reset your alternate spec. To reset them both you’ll have to pay twice.
• Blizzard is implementing a “Gear Manager”, which seems to duplicate the simpler functions of addons like Outfitter. It won’t automatically switch your gear, but they seem to imply that it will let you put on pre-determined sets of gear with one click. More info coming.
• The respec cost for hunter pets is being removed.
• Hunters are getting a new core ability that lets you remotely access your stable, allowing you to switch out of Beast Mastery (and stable/replace your Exotic pet) without having to head back to town. The ability will have a long cooldown.
• You will now have two sets of Glyphs, one for each of your two talent specs.
• You will be able to swap hotbar configurations at the same time you swap specs.
• You will now be able to click around with your talents in game without saving them permanently.
• Two specs only.

OK, so as a hunter Hesston doesn’t really need to dual spec. It will be most useful for paladins, druids and shamans. However, it will still be a lot of fun and justify the fact that Hesston carries around an entire bag of various gear and trinkets.

And changing pets whenever I’m feeling saucy, sweeeet!

Categories: spec, strategy
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Utgarde Keep, near the starting zone in Howling Fjord, is most likely one of the first Northrend instances you will go to. It’s a fairly straightforward dungeon, being the first on the continent, but there are a few things to point out with each boss and the trash.

Trash Mobs
The first couple of trash pulls in here are easy, though if this is a group’s first foray into a heroic and are still gearing up, be wary of the patrols. The come up and down the path directly in front of you. Try and fight the two on the left and right in the first room as separate pulls, then pick up the patrols.

Past the first circular room of three pulls (you can skip the third by hugging the wall if you don’t need rep or XP), is an area with Enslaved Proto-Drakes and their handlers. In fact there is one immediately on the left of the room, so make sure no one runs in willy nilly or they will get their face chomped on.

When fighting these mobs, my groups always burn down the drakes first and then the handlers. For pet survivability, wait for your tank to grab them and turn them away from the party. Then send the pet in to attack at the drakes rear or side. They let out a flame attack in a cone in front of them that can easily kill your pet (especially our new, squishier SV version).

The other thing to look out for is that many of the humanoid mobs throw little time bombs out, either during the fight or right as they die. They can kill your pet pretty quick too, so if you see one yank the leash and bring him back quick. Also, after each mob kill, stay put and wait a second to make sure all bombs have detonated. More than once Hesston ran in to skin and got blasted in the face by a bomb. Rez please!

The rest of the trash is the typical affair. Casters first, everyone else second. There will be worgs with some of the pulls. If there are two, I usually take it upon myself to put scare beast on one (none of the pulls are close enough to where it would fear them into another pull) and burn down the other. They don’t have a lot of HP, and if you pop growl on your pet he should be able to tank it enough for you to kill them without any other assistance, before helping the group out with skull. Don’t forget to turn growl off/cower on before jumping back into the fray.

Boss fights below the jump.

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Tags: heroics,hunters
Categories: dungeons, heroics, hunters, hunters scope, strategy
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“It was like millions of [hunter] voices cried out, and then suddenly went silent.”

So it has come to pass. The great gods of Azeroth have come down and made our shots less steady and our inspiration somewhat less ferocious. Hesston already covered what changes were coming, so I feel no need to go over again as my fellow hunter bloggers have talked about it at length.

As with all things here, this is the patch from my perspective only and the changes Hesston is trying to make.

First off: Did I notice a change in my DPS immediately? You bet your butt I did. The first thing I did after the patch, after all the QQ’ing, downloading and disconnects of course, was get a group together for an instance run to test. I didn’t make any spec, enchant or gem changes, nor did I use a different pet. I pretended nothing had changed.

The verdict: *Sound of bomb dropping*

Yeah, it was bad. Though the serious lag may have played a part in a shoddy shot rotation, I can tell the DPS had dropped significantly. I barely held my own against a way less-geared mage and warlock, a freaking warlock. Come on! I didn’t record the actual numbers to avoid the public ever seeing such a dismal thing, but will just say change is at hand.

KITT was doing a significantly less amount of damage, which makes me sad. I love that cat and will hate to stable him. That however is the first thing I am changing, since it is also the cheapest. Since the Spirit Beast has continued to elude me, I went the next best route and grabbed a devilsaur. To be specific, I grabbed Tyrantus from Netherstorm. I’m currently getting him some combat experience in order to take him for some testing. I hate the stomping, but I hear next to Loque they are the heaviest hitters.

Next step was regemming. I spent about 600g+ stacking more AP gems over my hit/agility gems. I lost some socket bonuses and some hit, but nothing noteworthy. When necessary I can still get myself hit capped and with a healthy amount of crit for raids and heroics.

The next step will be enchant adjustments, which I haven’t made the step for yet since it is the most expensive. I’ll jump that fence when I get to it.

I refuse to give up on the Beast Mastery spec, as it is my favorite. However, depending on how the numbers come out, if respeccing is the option, I may do it. I don’t care about being #1 on the DPS meter, but I just want to be sure that I can carry my weight when the guild goes into raids.

We’ll have to wait and see. But like Hesston’s momma always said: “Hesston, you can take the ore out of a mountain, but only a real dwarf knows how to swing an axe.” Yeah, momma was a little crazy, I never figured out what that meant.

Tags: dps
Categories: hunters, strategy
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This is another regular feature Hesston is going to give a whirl, as I’m sure the endless loot and achievement lists are growing quite tiresome. So, once a week or so, whenever Hesston gets a break from killing things and farming leather, I’ll walk through one of the heroic dungeons of Northrend from the perspective of our most noble class. I’ll try and cover what to look out for, what to do with your pet and what good hunter loot is in each place.

Now I don’t claim to be THE authority on any of these dungeons, nor on hunters even (like many others do), but these are simply my observations as a beast-mastery hunter that has been through all of the heroics several times over. I welcome all to rebut, challenge or call me out on a wrong tactic or suggestion.

The other thing is, I don’t plan on covering every trash pull. I’ll do a brief overview to point out some particulars if necessary. I figure that if you’re running dungeons and heroics, you’re probably already fairly accomplished on trash. Unless there is a unique trash encounter and something specific that a hunter should and should not do, I assume you’ve got it handled.

The basics

Just in case, we’ll cover some of the basics first. Now this stuff goes for damn near any dungeon or raid instance, but the Northrend ones are most familiar to me so my focus will be in that direction.

• The First Rule of Hunter Club: Do not talk about….just kidding, I couldn’t resist. Seriously though, the first thing, numero uno rule of hunters going into dungeons be they heroic or non…turn that growl OFF. Nothing is worse than having your pet pull aggro from the tank and die, there goes your DPS. In fact, turning cower ON is a good idea. The auto-cast on those is still borked so put them on your pet bar to make sure. This also allows you to turn them on/off in an emergency. This has saved me from a wipe more than once when the tank goes down. Just pop on growl, let your pet tank and hope the healer is paying attention to the tempo changes. If you still are having trouble controlling your pet, put it on passive and make a /pet attack macro.
• Second Rule of Hunter Club: If you have a ferocity pet (which you damn well should going into dungeons or heroics), turn that charge off unless you really need it. Why? Because as soon as your pet charges in, if it stuns the mob being pulled, that mob stops. This upsets the tanks rhythm and position, and can cause potential problems. Charge isn’t necessary for heroics, the tank will handle the mob. Unless, of course, that is part of the plan. There are times where you might want to use your pet to off-tank something so, in that case, you can pop it back on.
• Third Rule of Hunter Club: Misdirect is your best friend. Set your focus on your tank and use misdirects to help them generate threat, even if they don’t need it. Nothing sucks worse after getting that mouth-watering, juicy crit than it pulling aggro and the mob coming to chew on your face. If your group is still gearing and the tank needs help, this will not only make them happy but keep you alive longer as well.
• The Fourth Rule of … oh you get the idea: Only use CC and traps if the tank (or group leader) asks. Crowd control, especially hunter crowd control, has become a little less necessary in Wrath. Oh it’s a blast for us hunters, but wholly unnecessary in most cases. Very rarely do you even see a sheep these days, but with hexes and shackles and all the other stuff, we hunters can just focus on the ranged DPS. Plus, if you plop down a trap when you don’t need it, then suddenly need it and it’s on cooldown, you’d better make quick with the running buddy.
• Fifth Rule: This is more of a rule of etiquette than a strategy issue, but don’t ask for a DPS meter, or post one, after ever pull or boss fight. Unless it is established that you’re having a DPS competition or you’re in a group that you know is cool with it, whisper the report to yourself. No one likes a braggart and everyone knows hunters can do well in DPS with even the slightest modicum of skill. Plus, often reports are inaccurate due to proximity to the reporter, downtime, etc. The only one I truly trust is a WoW combat log uploaded to WoWWebStats.
• Sixth Rule: Know your loot. This goes for darn near every class, but hunters have an advantage of being able to roll on a wide variety of loot. We can use daggers, axes, swords and fist weapons for dual-wielding, 2-handed swords, axes and polearms for the heavy hitters, and even rogue or feral druid leather if the stats outweigh the intellect loss; basically, we’ve got a lot of options. However, this doesn’t mean you should roll on everything you could possibly use. If it is something better served by someone in the party, let them take it. You’ll not only make good loot karma for yourself, and if it’s a guild mate they will be able to pay you back in the future (or pay it forward, as I tell people to). However, if you’re in say Naxxramas, and the Spaulders of Resumed Battle drop and there’s no rogues or feral kitties in the party, gobble those things up (as I did). The hit rating and AP bump are superb.

That’s really all the basics I can think of off hand. I may edit this if something comes to mind, or please add, subtract or correct anything in the comments (all two of your readers).

Next time, we venture to…Utgarde Keep (*cue ominous music*).

Categories: dungeons, heroics, hunters, hunters scope, strategy
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