The Brew Hall

Panda-monium

2011-10-24T21:59:00.000-04:00

It's sheer pandamonium (get it?). I know /groan, but that's apparently what a lot of folks did when they heard the next expansion was all about pandas.

When I first heard the announcement that the next expansion was indeed going to be Mists of Pandaria (MoP) I had a real Charleton Heston, Planet of Apes, moment. I thought -

"...We finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

But then a couple of beers later I settled in and starting absorbing the massive amounts of information Blizzard was providing on this expansion.

I love the idea of the Asian themed continent. For once we may get to experience zones that aren't all torn up, covered in green haze or littered with walking skeletons. I think Pandaria is going to be beautiful, and we'll appreciate that more than we know right now.

About the only thing I'm not sold on just yet are the Pandas. I'm willing to give them a try, and the fact that they can be hunters means they can't be all that bad. Speaking of Hunters, I think it's safe to say that the second big theme of Blizzcon, after MoP, was Hunters.

Hunter Changes

Goodbye minimum range - This is the change we've all been waiting for. Raise a glass an celebrate.
Goodbye stat sticks - Hunters are losing their melee slot and won't even be able to equip melee weapons. To compensate for the loss of stats Blizzard stated they'll be buffing our guns, bows and crossbows. Also, Hunters will be the only class that can equip ranged weapons. So suck on that Rogue who got Thorid'al the Star's Fury back in Burning Crusade!
Pet families will no longer be associated with a specific pet type (i.e., Tenacity, Cunning, Ferocity). The hunter will be able to choose which of those roles they'd like for their pets. Euripides can finally realize his dream of a tenacity seagull for extreme soloing. This unfortunately may mean the end of the pet talent trees - for now.

Talent Changes

Even if pet talents may go the way of the dodo, Hunter talents are getting a complete overhaul. Instead of having three talent trees, there is going to be one set of talents for the entire class. Our specs aren't going away so at level 10 you'll still choose between BM, MM and SV. Abilities specific to those specs will be gotten through the trainer and not via talents.

Now the talents are going to be a tiered system where we can choose one, and only one talent from each tier. Blizzard did say that we will be able to swap talents as easily as we do glyphs.

The good folks over at Wowhead already have a talent calculator that you can use.

Arena Tournament
Despite Hunter woes in PvP the winning arena team OMG, featured a hunter. They were only team to feature a hunter. While this is exciting, I can't help but wonder if this will be counter productive for our class. According to Frostheim, even Ghostcrawler was acknowledging that Hunters need help in PvP. We'll see if that assessment still stands.

Overall I think Blizzard gave us a lot to be excited about, and they gave us lots of incentives to keep rolling via the Annual Pass (more on that later).

I know I plan to visit Pandaria, although it won't be on behalf the Alliance and their silly war with the Horde. Nope, my mission is to impart Dwarven Wisdom to the Pandarens and ensure that every one of Chen's Empty Kegs is filled with Darkbrew Lager, and not that swill Chen's been pushing these thousands of years.

See you in Pandaria!

BM and SV Got Buffed

2011-10-13T14:04:00.000-04:00

Blizzard just updated the 4.3 patch notes with two nice buffs for SV and BM.

Talent Specializations

Beast Mastery
- Animal Handler now increases Attack Power by 30%, up from 25%.
Survival

Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 15%.

As we've seen with the recent articles on the state of DPS, both BM and SV were in need of a buff. I have to say that on the surface the buff to BM seems rather small.

Will this be enough for SV and BM to catch up with Marksman as the top DPS spec? Probably not, but it certainly closes the gap.

Episode 102

2011-10-11T11:02:00.001-04:00

This week, we welcome Serallios from raidbots.com to talk about the state of hunter DPS by spec. It's an interesting tool, and well worth checking out. You can see how well you do against the rest of the world here.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Episode 100 Extravaganza

2011-10-03T09:48:00.001-04:00

It's here folks! The ginormous 100th episode of the Hunting Party Podcast is now available for your listening pleasure.

For this milestone event Darkbrew and Euripides headed to the great North where we invaded Frostheim's famous "Geek House".

For those of you who didn't listen to the live show, this isn't our normal run-of-the-mill episode. We ditched the abacus and slide rule and replaced them with a bottle of god-awful Canadian Hunter Whiskey.

Michele Morrow helped co-host the show, until she mysteriously disappeared. We were joined by fabulous guests such as Zeherah, Dawn Moore, and BigRedKitty.

We drank, reminisced about the show and it's origins, and lapsed into total absurdity as the day wore on. It was truly awesome to get to finally meet Euripides and Frost.

Oh and in addition to the main show, we're going to make the post-show available for listening as well. This will be un-cut and virtually un-edited.

And don't worry, this isn't our permanent format, in episode 101 we jump back into the heady Hunter discussions you've grown to love.

T13 Set Bonus Speculation

2011-09-25T11:53:00.000-04:00

Greeting folks. Today I'm blogging from 30,000 feet as I fly home from the big 100th episode extravaganza. I'll post about that tomorrow, but suffice it to say a great time was had by all, although Minnesota was a little too cold for my tastes (yes, even at this time of year).

Today I wanted to briefly talk about the the T13 set bonuses that Blizzard announced yesterday.

2P -- Steady Shot and Cobra Shot generate double the amount of focus.
4P -- Your Arcane Shot ability has a chance to grant 25% haste to you and your pet for 10 sec.

No math or science here, this is just me "eye balling" it. I like that fact that the two bonuses compliment each other, and I think Beast Mastery and Survival will benefit greatly from them.

Think about it, more focus regen from Cobra Shot, means fewer Cobra Shots in our rotation. Fewer Cobra Shots means more Arcane Shots. More Arcane Shots means more haste, which in turn means faster Cobra Shots. As I said, this is very nice for BM and SV, but what about Marksman?

I think these bonuses will be less than ideal for Marksman. The problem is they will still need to cast Steady Shot in pairs to get the ISS buff. It may be harder for MM to reduce Steady Shots from their rotation, which means they may quickly find themselves focus capped more often than not.

Not only that, but they'll need to fire Arcane Shot for the haste buff, which could reduce the number of Aimed Shots and make it harder to use Aimed Shot for their focus dump. We'll know more once we start testing.

Anywho, this is all sleep deprived, sub-standard coffee, sitting in a cramped airplane speculation on my part. Be sure to tune into the Hunting Party Podcast episode 101 this week to get the full set bonus scoop.

Oh and if you find yourself traveling on a plane that offers wi-fi, just pony-up and pay for it. It's so worth it.

Good Hunting!

A Really Big Shoe

2011-09-23T09:50:00.000-04:00

That's right folks episode 100 of the Hunting Party Podcast is upon us and trust me when I say "it's going to be a really big shoe!"
First Euripides and I will be flying to Minneapolis and will broadcast the show with Frost at the famous "Geek House". We'll start at the same bat-time, but the show will be an epic two hours.
It won't just be us though. We'll be joined by some of our favorite guests. The lineup includes,

Michele Morrow - She'll be here for the entire episode and will once again dual Frost in the revised Hunting Party Drinking game. We'll all be playing, but I have to admit that I'm getting too old for that sort of thing, and I have to fly home the next morning.

Zeherah - She was our first ever guest and she'll join us early on to answer your Q&A.

Dawn Moore - We'll see if Frost's taming skills have improved, and we'll see if Dawn's pet healing skills have improved.

BigRedKitty - He is the reason we got into this business in the first place. We'll find out what he's been up to, and see if he's got a hangover recipe in that cookbook of his.

I'm really looking forward to this show, especially meeting Euripides and Frostheim for the first time. As always the show will begin 1pm Central / 2pm Eastern / 11 am Pacific.

See you tomorrow!

Call for Feedback

2011-09-12T12:53:00.002-04:00

Over on the official forums Blizzard posted a request for feedback on all of the classes. I encourage you to head over to the Hunter thread (US), or Hunter thread (EU) and participate.

Keep in mind that this feedback isn't necessarily for changes that they'll implement in patch 4.3. They are collecting information for the long-term, i.e., the next expansion.

Podcast Time Change

2011-09-02T11:09:00.003-04:00

This just a reminder that starting on September 3, 2011 live broadcasts of the Hunting Party Podcast will now start at 2pm Eastern (this is four hours earlier than normal).

This schedule should make it more likely that all of the hosts are there for more shows (although not this weekend). It should also allow more of our European fans to tune. More importantly, however, it's making our wives happier, and you know what they say, happy wife, happy life.

See you on Saturday!

Great Balls of Fire!

2011-08-30T23:39:00.000-04:00

Last night in raid one of our Hunters, Autoshott, whispered me and said "check out my new pet". "What pet I said, all I see is you standing next to some fire". Well it turns out that fire was his pet.

I guess no expansion is complete until we get our one quirky pet that's not supposed to be a pet. This one is actually a raptor, that's part of a quest. During the quest the raptor explodes and turns into the ball of fire. If you time it just right you end up with the fire and not the raptor. Oh, and you'll need the help of a friend who is on the quest.

Now a few things to keep in mind before you rush out to get one, this is more than likely going to be nerfed. There are several issues with this pet including,

You can't target it, which is an issue in PvP (well not for the hunter).
In PvE it looks like everything we were taught to avoid, and since Firelands is a very fiery place, you're tanks and melee are going to hate more than they do now.
It's fire. For crying out loud, we're hunters, not Shaman.

As far as the specifics on where to find him or how tame, I leave that to you and Google to figure out ;)

About This Transgentrify Thing

2011-08-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

Blizzard is beginning to talk about patch 4.3, and they've announced some pretty cool stuff. One of the amazing things that's happening is they're giving us uncommonly good looking hunters the ability to become even more uncommonly good looking than we are now. Can you believe it? I think they're handing out parkas in Hell, as I speak.

You can read all about this Transgentrification thing here. In short though they're letting us take our current armor sets and give them the appearance of a different armor set. For example you could take your T12 gear and make it look like T5. If you want to view all of our past armor sets you can check out this thread on MMO-Champion.

At this point I'm rather fond of our current T12 and may just keep that as my look, possibly replacing the helm with goggles. There are two items that are definitively on my list of must haves.

The Wolfslayer's Sniper Rifle - This was the first "real' gun that I ever got in the game. I think it's one of the best looking models, and I shall wreak havoc and destruction with it once again.

Legacy - I've always been fond of two handed axes and this is one of the better ones.

Both items drop from the Opera event in Karazhan. The bad news is I deleted these items a long time ago. The good news is I get to run Karazhan again!

So what's on your Transgentrification list?

I Feed On Your Tears

2011-08-15T08:35:00.000-04:00

Our guild finally downed Majordomo Staghelm this weekend. Moments before the first pull our feral druid had to suddenly drop group. This naturally paved the way for me to get Fandral's Flamescythe, which of course dropped. This item is about as close to a legendary that Feral's have ever seen.

There are two things I now look forward to,

Linking it to our Feral Druid every chance I get, and
Replacing it with the Ranseur of Hatred, preferably before this drops again.

Oh, and since this was our first Domo kill, I graciously lent the staff to our Resto. Druid for the group photo.

Theory Crafter's Delight

2011-08-05T18:44:00.001-04:00

Be sure to tune into the Hunting Party Podcast tomorrow. We'll be joined by special guests Zeherah of Female Dwarf and Revulva of Ask Mr. Robot. Like an IRS agent squeezing every tax penny out of your wallet, we'll show you how to get every ounce of theoretical DPS out of your hunter.

Gems and Enchants Matter Redux

2011-08-02T10:10:00.000-04:00

The other day I wrote about a hunter we had to bench in part because he was missing a lot of enchants on his gear. I've written about this before, but even I forget how to use the search button every now and then, so I'm doing it again. The bottom line is gems and enchants matter.

Here is quick look at my theoretical dps with and without gems and enchants. Take away the gems and enchants and we're looking at a 4.3K dps loss right there.

But to look at another way, everyone likes loot right? If you were to take the stats from all of those gems and enchants and turn them into a piece of gear, it would look something like this.

This lager is now the ultimate power in Azeroth! I suggest we use it.

Gems and enchants are easy to come by and just require some helpful friends or a bit of gold. If you're a raider there's no excuse for not having them on your gear. It's the easiest DPS you can get.

Good Hunting!

How to Get Benched

2011-07-29T09:08:00.000-04:00

Okay, when there are 28 people looking for 25 spots, and there are four hunters in raid all capable of placing in the top five dps on any encounter, you have two green quality gems, four un-enchanted items, and your item level is 364 and you barely beat the tank on Shannox the night before, guess what? You get benched.

We're not a hard core progression guild, but we're not a bunch of lollygaggers either. The 25-man is our main run, and we only go two nights a week. We need everyone to be at their best.

Prepping gear is easy an only takes a small investment of time and gold. By ignoring these things you're gimping your dps, the raid's dps, and you're getting carried, and in our guild, benched.

Compartmentalize Your Encounters

2011-07-25T15:43:00.000-04:00

Are you a raid leader? No? Okay then keep reading. Today I'm going to talk about compartmentalizing each raid encounter and why I think it's good. Now by compartmentalize I mean looking at the encounter and focusing solely on those mechanics that affect you. In other words, focus on your job, and only your job.

To see what I mean, let's take a look at the Alysrazor encounter. This is a fairly complex fight that's chaotic, and has a lot of moving parts, and there are a lot of things that I, as a Hunter, could care less about.

The hatchling is satiated or throwing a tantrum? Don't care. Is the other tank leading his hatchling to the wrong worm? Don't care. Is the person in the air having trouble pulling a barrel roll? Don't care. Are the healers forgetting to pick their feathers up? Don't care. Are the healers spending too much time healing folks taking unnecessary damage? As long as it's not me - Don't care.

What I do care about is,

Knowing which side I'm assigned to.
Interrupting the Blazing Talon initiate when it's my turn.
Throwing support DPS on the hatchlings in between adds.
Dodging tornadoes (much easier than I suspected).
Avoiding the Brush Fires.
Avoiding the flames from the Plumping Lava Worms.
Avoiding conal damage from the Hatchings.
Staying out of the middle of the room.
Getting two feathers when it's time to do so.
Stacking in the right place during the burn phase.

I'm not the raid leader. I understand the entire encounter at a high level, and then learn my job in great detail. Focusing on your job and not worrying about what others are doing makes you part of the solution and not the problem.

Good Hunting!

Hunting Party Podcast Update

2011-07-20T08:36:00.000-04:00

Ever since my vacation I've been a little lax about posting podcast releases here on my site. I think the last one I did was for episode 85. Anyway episode 89 was released yesterday and episode 90 was released today.

We're closing in on episode 100 can you believe it?

To listen to all of our great episodes just head over to Hunting Party Podcast web site, or subscribe to the podcast through iTunes (that's my preferred method).

As always thanks for listening and remember to drink your Darkbrew Lager!

Are the Bosses Smarter Now?

2011-07-12T11:32:00.000-04:00

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, the Firelands bosses no longer ignore our minimum range. I can't speak to all of them, but Shannox, Lord Rhyloth, Beth'tilac and Baleroc all follow this pattern.

Now with Shannox and Lord Rhyloth it's not a huge issue. Beth'tilac and Baleroc are different stories though.

On Beth'tilac most strategies stack the raid behind the boss for burn phase. Our minimum range limits how close we can get to the boss. It's important that you let the raid know so that they can adjust their positioning to accommodate our minimum range, otherwise you'll find yourself watching the end of the fight because you couldn't stand in a bubble or on a healing circle of some kind. Not a big deal here, and your raid should easily adjust to this.

Baleroc is a little more tricky. He has a mechanic where he drops a crystal on the ground. The crystal channels a debuff to the closest player. After getting about 10 stack the player closest to the crystal needs to move out and another player needs to move in.

The challenge here is Baleroc likes to drop the crystal close to where he's standing. If you stand next to the crystal you'll likely be in melee range. You'll need coordinate with your raid such that you are far enough out to do ranged dps and still be the closest person to the crystal. On our first night of attempts this was a small issue with our melee. Keep in mind that this boss has a pretty strict DPS requirement so standing in melee range for the crystal is not an option.

I know the Firelands bosses hit harder and drop nicer loot, and apparently they are a bit smarter than their BWD/BoT/TotFW counterparts. Maybe Blizzard can dumb them down a bit.

Oh and for those of you that have worked on Alysrazor, Staghelm and Ragnaros, are you noticing the same issue?

Bracers Can Wait

2011-07-11T10:13:00.000-04:00

I should be buying bracers. They are by far the weakest piece of gear that I have right now. They're not blues, but they aren't raid quality either. I've killed Chimaeron 15 times, including once last week, and I've only seen the Chimaeron Armguards drop one-time.

When folks ask us on the podcast where they should spend those first valor points we usually tell them to buy whatever represents the current biggest upgrade. In my case it's the Bracers of Forked Lightning. I'm not buying them first though.

I'm saving up for the Flamewaker's Tunic, and my next purchase will be the Flamewaker's Gloves. The tier bonuses are really good, and the sooner I can get to them the better. The chest is the more expensive than the gloves, and will take longer to get, but the gloves have a chance to drop from the new BH boss, which I'm doing every week, so it makes sense to grind badges towards the chest, and hope to get lucky with a drop in the meantime.

Furthermore the valor bracers are BoE which means if I scrape up the gold I can buy them on the AH or from a guildie. Also, there are the Hide-Bound Chains that drop from Firelands trash. We're doing Firelands every week so there's a good chance I'll see these drop. I've already been lucky with the Lava Bolt Crossbow (love the gun sound on it btw).

If all else fails, I've got another level 85 toon that I'm not raiding on that I could run through some randoms and then use that toon's valor to get the bracers. Right now that requires more game time that I have. I barely have enough time to get Darkbrew valor capped as it is.

So that's my thinking right now. I'm going for two pieces of tier first, and then I'll start filling in the gaps. How about you guys? What's your priority for spending valor this tier?

Beating Beth'tilac

2011-07-08T14:53:00.000-04:00

Beth'tilac is the giant spider boss that you'll face early on in Firelands. This is where I would insert something witty about spiders, but I hate spiders; even virtual ones.

I'm not going to give you the entire strategy here. You can go to Learn2Raid, or check out the strategy on Marks-365. My focus here are on things you can do as a hunter to take her down.

This is another ranged friendly fight and pretty straight forward for hunters. Chances are you'll be asked to be part of the ground team and handle the adds. The good news is hunters are well suited to handle all three types of adds.

Cinderweb Spiderlings

It's vital that are killed before they reach a drone, or worse Beth. Ice trap and Multi-Shot AoE works great on them. My preference is to go Survival with two points in Entrapment. Marksman with points in Concussive Barrage is also something to consider.
Once a group is dead start killing the other adds, but keep an eye out for the next wave.

Cinderweb Spinners

These hang from the web and need to be taunted down. Distracting Shot is perfect for this. If you're assigned to dps these down, you might want to consider turning on your pet's growl, and using the Glyph of Misdirection so you can easily solo them.

Cinderweb Drone

Nothing special here, just single target dps them down, and try not to have more than one out at a time.

Beth'tilac

You'll most likely be facing her during the burn phase. We like to stack our raid on her tail for better healing. Just be aware that unlike BWD and BoT these bosses don't seem to ignore our minimum range so you'll have to stand a little farther out than the rest of the group. Be sure that your raid is aware of this ahead of time so you don't find yourself having to be in melee range to stand in a healing circle.

Have any other tips or tricks for Beth'tilac? Be sure to post them in the comments.

Surviving Shannox

2011-07-06T16:12:00.000-04:00

Shannox is one of the first bosses you'll face in Firelands. Although he uses traps and has two pets out at once, he insists on using melee attacks, and thus it puts him firmly in the category of "Huntard". Our job is to revoke his hunters license once and for all.

I'm not going to give you the entire strategy here. You can go to Learn2Raid, or keep an eye out on Marks-365 for full blown strategies. My focus here are on things you can do as a hunter to take him down.
This is a ranged friendly fight and pretty straight forward for hunters. Outside of the normal don't stand in stuff there isn't much you have to worry about here.

Now as far as specs go you'll really want to do this one as MM. Rageface has an ability called Face Rage. Basically he'll attack a random player and give him the beat down until he is hit with a single attack that does 30K damage in 10-man, or 45K damage in 25. Marks is really the only spec that can produced this damage on demand. Both Chimera and Aimed Shot will work here. Just be sure to watch your focus and make sure you have enough in reserve to fire off at least an Aimed Shot when you need it.

The other area where hunters can help out is in slowing down Riplimb. Shannox and Riplimb like to play fetch and it's important that Riplimb is slowed down when going after Shannox's spear. This will give the Riplimb tank time to drop his stacks of whatever. Anyway, Concussive Shot and slowing traps will get the job done here.

Other than that you just need to watch your threat as the boss and dogs can't be taunted.

Overall this is a pretty easy fight for hunters, and if it does look like a wipe we'll have a good chance of hitting Feign Death and making out alive.

Have any other tips or tricks for Shannox? Be sure to post them in the comments.

Vacation Update

2011-06-21T15:25:00.000-04:00

Greetings folks! I'm still on vacation in Switzerland. I have limited internet access, but managed to find a moment to blog.

Here are some observations of my trip so far.

Driving a Mercedes in the Alps = awesome.
Real beer!
Toblerone:Swiss::Twinkie:American
Standing on top of a Swiss mountain and yelling Riiiicolaaaaa, totally not a tourist thing.
Mountain gondolas are public transportation.
Cheese, Cheese, Cheese!
I haven't had to say - "We need to go fast, I'm in a race for a million dollars.
If the Switzerland were a zone in Azeroth it'd be where guids go for their Critter Killer achievement (Moo!)
This place definitely does NOT need more cowbell.
I haven't had to lie and say - "I'm Canadien."

Well it's off to France now, and then soon to Azeroth.

End, Chapter One

2011-06-14T00:57:00.000-04:00

It's vacation time for me, so I won't be blogging or podcasting for the next 15 days or so. I also won't be around to see patch 4.2 go live, but no matter it will be here when I get back.

Have fun in Firelands, and don't kill all the bosses while I'm gone ;)

Good Hunting!

P.S. - I hope I have better luck catching my plane than I did this boat.

Looks like the Spirit Beast express is making a hasty departure. Winged Guardian, do your thing!

Hah!. I think I'm going to make it. Spirit Beasts here I come!

Remember that scene in Lost when they were in the helicopter and the island just disappeared?

My Karoma!

2011-06-13T10:50:00.001-04:00

Patch 4.2 is practically here and I've decided that I might do a bit more raiding on my alt. hunter, and thus I needed to get his stable in order. That meant ensuring I had all of the necessary raid buffs and debuffs covered, as well as making sure I had a spirit beast or two, or three in my arsenal.

One quick note before I begin, if Nochecazador from Of Marks and Beasts happens to be here, you might want to stop reading after I mention Gondria (see Still Waiting for Jadefang).

Now my strategy for taming creatures is pretty simple. I decided which ones I'd like to have and then I fly out to their spawn locations and I tame them, because they are almost always there when I arrive. With that in mind, let's go tame some pets.

First off, no stable is complete without a spirit beast. They have an agility buff, a healing spell and they just look plain awesome. Okay everyone, sing with me now "...ba-da-da-da-DUM-DUM-dum-dum My Karoma!"

Well as you all know spirit beasts are the junk food of hunter pets so you can never have just one. So off I went in search of more, and the find them I did.

Hello Ghostcrawler, now about the disappearing gun in patch 4.2? I've never looked for GC before and I've got to say they couldn't have put him in a more desolate looking place. Vash'Jir is a beautiful zone, but this area looks like an case study on coral bleaching due to global warming. When you see GC here you can't help but want to tame him or put him out of his misery. I chose tame.

Next up, Gondria. What can I say, when you find these things as often as I do, the risk of the screen getting assaulted by raspberry latte goes way down.

And finally, I couldn't let Eddie have all the fun, so I thought I'd let Darkbrew get in on the action. Sadly, I wasn't running with a BM spec, so I added Jadefang to my other pet collection. Sorry gang.

So, three spirit beasts and an additional rare sighting. Not bad for just a little flying around. If it's any consolation, I did swing by the spawn points for Skoll, Arcturus, Sambas, and Loque'Nahak and none of them wanted to come out and play.

Good Hunting!

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 85

2011-06-08T11:39:00.000-04:00

This week we discuss the eight new pets, the Careful Aim Nerf, and mourn the loss of the PvE raid gun. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

The Big 10?

2011-06-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

So I noticed that over at MMO-C they update their 4.2 patch notes and the eight unique pets was changed to ten. I immediately headed over to the petopia forums and this is what I found. Meet Karkin and Skarr, two new non-spirit beast and non-exotic pets.

Karkin is an very cool looking crab who is haning out on a floating island near Fireplume peak (close to where you find Skitterflame).

If you get close to his platform he'll start shooting fireballs at you that do about 15K damage.

One hunter who tamed him was able to toss an ice trap onto his island and then tame him from much further out than should be allowed.

It's not clear if that's how he's meant to be tamed or if it's a bug and we're supposed to execute a tricky jump and land on his platform as is the case with the next pet.

Skarr is a cat; an awesome cat. This model first appeared in WotLK and many a hunter have waited for the day that it would be a tameable skin. Well my friends, that day has come.

So how do you get him? Well first you need to execute a tricky jump from Skitterflame's island.

If you survive the jump, he'll start attacking you immediately. At first he doesn't hit very hard, but he'll start stacking a buff that will make him hit like a truck.

All in all these are two very nice additions, and I'm very excited about Skarr. I've wanted a cat that looked like that for a long time.

Good Hunting!

Hunter Changes Incoming

2011-06-06T11:54:00.000-04:00

A new build is being deployed to the PTR today and it includes some more hunter changes.

Wild Quiver - now has a 16.8% chance to proc, up from 14.4%. Each point of Mastery increases the chance by an additional 2.1%, up from 1.8%.
Black Arrow - damage has been increased by 40%. Now scales from 13.3 of AP, up from 9.5%.
Engineering: Flintlocke's Woodchucker is now restricted to Hunters.
Cooking: Kibler's Bits now makes your pet bigger for 5 minutes.

So both Wild Quiver and Black Arrow are buffs, and we like buffs. I'm not sure how big a boost the buff to Wild Quiver will be. My hunch is that it will not offset the nerf to Careful Aim, and it probably won't be big enough so that it's worth stacking more mastery. I'm not a theorycrafter so I could be way off on this.

Black Arrow is a very nice and much needed buff for Survival. If you were one of those hunters that was sometimes using Explosive Trap over Black Arrow, well this will certainly make that undesirable. Black Arrow needed a buff, and I'll be curious to see how this affects the dps balance between the specs.

The change to the scope is interesting in that Flintlocke was actually a Warrior and not a Hunter. Not much to say other than that.

Regarding the food change, I'll be curious to see just how big it makes the pet. Kibler's Bits is an a TBC recipe that drops from the cooking dailies in Shattrath. You can easily get the mats from the various buzzards in Hellfire Peninsula.

Anyway, those our the changes appearing on the PTR, I'll be curious to see how other people react to the Wild Quiver and Black Arrow changes.

How about you, what are your thoughts?

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 84

2011-06-05T10:06:00.000-04:00

This week Frostheim broadcasts live from the WHU BBQ. Between shot of Canadian whiskey made in Kentucky and bites of the awesome Sporebat cake we manage to talk about the latest round of hunter changes on the PTR. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

The Great Eight

2011-06-02T15:24:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week Blizzard announced Eight new and unique taming challenges for hunters.

"8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges."

Well hunters across the PTR have been hard at work trying to find these new and mysterious creatures and through their combined efforts we now know what the eight creature are. Fellow hunters, I present to you the Great Eight.

Ban'thanlos - An owl who flies high in the air. You'll have to fly up high, aggro him, and hope you survive the fall damage and 35K moonfires he does. He's a spirit beast so you'll need to be BM to tame him.
Anhka - Another spirit beast that uses the same model as Gondria, only white. His (her?) damage scales with the amount of armor you're wearing. The trick here is to get nekkid and tame. Also Anhka is immune to traps and CC.
Magria - Yet another spriit beast that uses the same model as Gondria, only blue. Magria requires the same taming technique as Anhka.
Solix - An orange lava spider. The key to this tame is you need to be doing the daily quest - Enduring the Heat. It provides you with a buff to protect you from the "fiery creatures".
Kirix - A green lava spider. Kirix has a buff called toxic presence which does AoE nature damage to anyone near it. I suspect lots of nature resist will be needed for this one.
Anthriss - A yellow lava spider. He has something called the web of doom. The trick will be to jump in the lava and tame him while you're submerged.
Skitterflame - A red lava spider. This guy is too hot to tame so you need to keep him cooled. He has an energy bar that needs to be lowered. You'll need to drop a frost trap and show off your kiting skills to nab this one. Marksman with readiness might be the way to go here. He also hits for about 24K a pop.
Deth'Tilac - A purple laval spider. He has a buff called Molten Will which prevents taming and is removed at low health. The trick here? DPS him until he's at low health. The challenge is he has about 36 million HP and needs to be dropped to about 8 million. Of course he hits hard too. There are reports of hunters spending as much as 30 minutes to get the tame.

So there you have it, the Great Eight. Three spirit beasts and five lava spiders. While I like the concept of unique creatures and taming puzzles, I'm a little underwhelmed here. There isn't a one that really has me excited. I'm not a big fan of spiders and they're mostly used for PvP. I also have Gondria, so I'm not sure that I need another one, okay, maybe the blue one. And I don't find the owl that intriguing.

Honestly I was really hoping for eight new looks that we hadn't seen before. Maybe even an entirely new pet family. I do like that fact that these pets aren't simple drop a trap, tame and go.

There's a lot more of this expansion left so I hope that Blizzard continues and improves upon this concept in the remaining patches.

Good Hunting!

What is this Evil Sorcery?

2011-06-02T11:44:00.000-04:00

I was reading the comments in today's Shatter Shots column and a lot of people were noting that the wowhead link to the Lava Bore Blunderbuss was pointing to the Lava Bolt Crossbow. So I went and looked and as of right now the item that was Lava Bore Blunderbuss has indeed been changed to the Lava Bolt Crossbow. It should be noted that the MMO-C database reflects this change as well. In other words, this is in fact what's coming out of the data-mined information.

This has to be a mistake; an egregious mistake. The Lava Bolt Crossbow has the exact same stats as the Arbalest of Erupting Fury. It seems odd that Blizzard would have two identical PvE crossbows.

Hopefully someone just made an error when updating the database to add icons, art, etc. I really hope that the PvE gun didn't go away. Stay tuned.

This is Totally on Me

2011-06-01T10:24:00.000-04:00

"Someone must've told him about my little maneuver in the Battle of Tanaab."

- Lando Calrissian

The PTR was update again, and this time it includes changes for hunters. The most intriguing was this one about some new rare pets.

"8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges."

This is very unexpected and exciting. I'm taking full credit for this, by the way. I've mentioned here on the blog and on the podcast that I've been extremely lucky finding the rare mobs with little or no time invested in camping and searching.

Case in point. This past week I happened to pass through Uldum and low and behold there was Madexx.

Madexx is cool, but man does he shrink once tamed.

And then this past Saturday I was doing some Therazzane dailies when I decided that I'd go and get Jadefang. I hopped up in her cave and there she was.

The next day I was doing the dailies again and I figured I would go and get the pet that she drops. Alas, I missed it by about 30 seconds. As I was working my way through the tunnels, a Tauren Hunter wooshed by and beat me to it.

Some of the other pets I've tamed that have been grab-N-go include Terrorpene, Sambas, Arcturis, Skoll, Gondria (twice), Loque'nahak (twice), Humar (back in Vanilla), Rak'shiri (back in Vanlilla), and Nuramoc.

So as you can see, based on all the luck I've had, it should come as no surprise that Blizzard is now introducing eight new rare pets each with it's own unique taming challenges.

Challenge accepted, I say. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and make some room in my stable for these new friends.

Good Hunting!

I Found It

2011-05-30T14:47:00.000-04:00

I was running ZA on my second hunter. We defeated two of the bosses within the time limit, and what should drop from the second timed chest? Yep, it was the Recovered Cloak of Frostheim.

Being the only physical dps class on the run I promptly entered a need roll, and then this happened.

The tank decided to blackmail me into getting the cloak.

I guess he wasn't aware that I work with Frost on a weekly basis, and that I was almost willing to pay him 200G to keep it. But alas, I'm trying to gear this guy to raid in Fireflands and the cloak was indeed a nice upgrade. I also have a bit of flea problem and usually run with a shaman who makes me smell like wet dog every time he casts healing rain, so anything that would make me appear uncommonly good looking is a good thing.

So, despite wanting my money, he remembered that I am the co-gm with the /gkick command at my disposal.

Order is restored

I suppose I should get this autographed now. Good Grief!

From Yawning to Fawning

2011-05-26T09:25:00.000-04:00

A reader named Oricc alerted me to this awesome data mined nugget from the ptr. It's a gun, a PvE gun that comes in both normal and heroic versions. No word on where it comes from, but given that there are two versions you can surely bet that it's a Firelands raid drop. At last a weapon truly worth of the Flintlocke's Woodchucker.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 83

2011-05-23T17:38:00.000-04:00

This week we talk about Blizzcon, the WHU BBQ, Patch 4.2 and more about our T12 armor sets. And although the Apocalypse didn't happen on May 21st, we continue to serve up a little slice of Hell on Earth for those who tune in each week. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 82

2011-05-17T09:05:00.000-04:00

In this episode we're joined by WoW Insider writer Matt McCurley. Matt is the author for the Addon Spotlight and Lawbringer columns, as well as many general articles on WoW Insider. Oh, and he also recently leveled a hunter from 1-85.

Frostheim was unable to join us this week, because he was running a marathon for a very special cause. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

In Ten Minutes or Less

2011-05-16T11:07:00.000-04:00

It's mount week here at the Brew Hall, and for our first installment I'm going to show you how to get the Time-Lost Proto-Drake in 10 minutes or less. Here we go.

Now the first thing you need to do is find the Time-Lost Proto-Drake hunting manual, bring it to a fire mage and have them incinerate it. I never do anything by the book. Case in point, according to the manual -

"Flying around is clearly the worst way in regards to actually scoring this kill. No matter how good your path may be, you don't know which of the four it can spawn from and you don't know which direction it went. It is entirely possible even four people can be out flying around and just miss it by a few yards out of sight."

Yeah, here at the Brew Hall we don't wait for anything to come to us. Why have a beer maiden bring my ale when I can just pony up right next to the keg? Right then, so what you're going to do is locate the beasts various flight paths and get to flying. Now remember to use your Track Dragonkin ability, and of course the NPC_Scan addon. If you're doing it right the addon should detect the beast in short order. Now for the attack.

Once again, according to the manual -

"The Time-Lost Proto-Drake is not a challenging fight, and should be easily soloable by all clasess. However, having some Snowfall Lager on hand is highly recommended. Since it often flies out of reach of most attacks, this will allow you to attack it in the air to initiate combat, and then use the lager to avoid falling to your death after you dismount."

Okay, first of all, while I heartily endorse drinking while hunting, or doing anything else for that matter, Snowfall Lager is about as weak as they come. Everyone knows that any game worth hunting requires a real drink, a dwarf's drink. And we all know what that is - Darkbrew Lager. You may fall fast, but with enough Darkbrew Lager in you, you won't feel a thing when you hit the ground. Trust me I know.

Anywho, if you're doing it right there won't be any falling involved. Just fly up to the beast and grab its attention. When it's good and angry, just fly to the nearest mountain top, dismount and show him what's for.

What can I say, I've had crazy kinds of luck with finding some of Azeroth's rare creatures with little or no camping involved, and this one was no exception. The "manual" as it were came from this article on wowpedia.

Good Hunting!

I'm Yawning, I'm Yawning Some More, And

2011-05-11T09:57:00.000-04:00

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

No, that's not me suffering from narcosleepy, it's my reaction to the new gun that popped up on the PTR yesterday; the Extreme-Impact Hole Puncher. It's purple, it's made by Engineers, it has a cool name, and flavor text ("Turns your target into Alterac Swiss!"). So far so good. It's also item level 365, expensive to make, and inferior to the weapons that will drop from the Firelands raid.

That said, I'm collecting the mats for it, I'll try and get the schematic and make the gun as soon as I can, I'll use it in Firelands, and I'll put a Woodchucker on it. Heck I might even name it, and then I'll promptly replace it with a weapon like The Crossbow of Erupting Fury, which will probably drop off one of the early bosses.

So for the moment it looks as if guns have once again been relegated to pre-raid and PvP status, and probably the obligatory tanking drop.

Don't get me wrong, I want to be excited about this gun, but when I have guild members running around with these, well I need to muster every ounce of DPS I can to keep up. This thing just won't cut it.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 81

2011-05-09T10:21:00.000-04:00

This week's episode can be summed up by the following - Flintlocke's Woodchucker. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Seriously, THIS

2011-05-07T10:24:00.000-04:00

It's never a bad time to be a hunter, but some times are better than others.

Say It A'int So

2011-05-06T10:29:00.002-04:00

My mother once said, "Never trust a person whose primary language is Binary." Boy was she right. Patch 4.2 is only a couple of days into the testing process, and already "the jerks" (as BRK fondly calls them) have come out of the woodwork to rain on our T12 set bonus parade.

Every time we get a new tier set we have to compare what we lose from the old one with what we're gaining from the new one. Obviously the stats on the new set will always be better. The question is will the bump in stats and the new set bonus be greater than the old set bonus. Here's what "the jerks" are thinking,

T12 normal is better than T11 normal.
T11 heroic is better than T12 heroic.

Remember I'm not a theory crafter. I tend be more like Onymas (our podcast guest from episode 74); I read what the theory crafters have to say and then find out what works best for me. In other words I've done absolutely no math on this whatsoever.

I also must stress that we are only couple of days into the PTR process and set bonuses have a tendency to change. Remember, our current T11 4-set bonus is not the original bonus.

Still, it's never a good sign when the old tier outshines the new tier. More investigation is needed, and I'll be reaching out to one surly dwarf, who can't seem to find his cloak, and see what's really up.

An Arrow From My Gun?

2011-05-05T09:57:00.001-04:00

According to Article IV, Section VII, Paragraph III of the Hunter bloggers handbook, I am hereby obligated to report to you on hunter gear and set bonuses coming in patch 4.2. So without further ado, I present to you our T12 set bonuses.

Tier Bonuses

2 piece - Your Steady Shot and Cobra Shot have a 10% chance to trigger a Flaming Arrow, dealing ??% instant weapon damage as fire.
4 piece - You have a 10% chance from your autoshots to make your next shot cost no focus.

There you have it. Two pieces gives us a nice little damage proc. How much damage is yet to be determined, but the fact that I'll be so awesome as to shoot a flaming arrow from my gun makes me happy.

The four piece bonus is utterly fantastic. A 10% proc rate may not sound like a lot, but it is. If it were a school kid he'd be walking around with a "nerf me" sign that the lesser classes taped to his back.

The overall awesomeness of this bonus will be determined by any internal cooldowns that may be associated with it (hopefully none), and if the proc can be consumed by Steady Shot and Cobra shot, which cost no focus. Although, come to think of it, worst case you'll just fire Arcane Shot if everything else is on cool down.

It's early in the process and things can and do change, but as of right now you'll want four pieces of T12.

Good Hunting!

For the Children, For the Birds

2011-05-02T15:55:00.000-04:00

I did it! After more than two years of running around collecting coins, eating candy, drinking beer (I kind of liked that), teasing orphans and pissing on bonfires, I finally completed What a Long Strange Trip It's Been and got my Violet Protodrake. /golfclap.

Now that I have the meta I wanted to talk a little about the School of Hard Knocks achievement, and why I hate it so much. It was the last thing standing between me and my drake.

Now, I don't know who came up with this one, but clearly that person has some bizarre fetish for social behavioral experiments. Bad, evil experiments.

On the surface the achievement seems perfectly reasonable, just go into four battlegrounds and complete tasks that would normally happen while attempting to win any of these battlegrounds. The problems is that the volume of players entering the battleground looking to complete these tasks is far greater than what any individual battle can support.

Imagine if you will, a professional basketball team where every player was given a monetary bonus every time they scored a three point basket.

Three point baskets are an important part of the game, and it's likely that if a team scores zero three point baskets it is probably going to lose. But, if every player focuses only on making three point baskets and ignoring the other facets of the game, well then that too is a recipe for failure.

What we have here is a situation where the needs of the individual are in conflict with the needs of the team. In fact most achievement seekers don't care if they win the battle, and are more than willing to sacrifice a win for the sake of their achievement.

Ultimately what ends up happening is that you have players ignoring the battleground strategy and colluding with one another to see that players get their achievements. Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, and Alterac Valley pretty much require Horde and Alliance working together to ensure that as many people in the battleground get their achievement.

For example, in Alterac Valley you would normally cap a tower and then seek to hold onto it. Throw achievements into the mix and what happens is, you cap a tower and then let the other side take it, so you can take it back. This goes on and on until the battle ends.

Unfortunately not everyone is there for achievements, so in addition to Horde vs. Alliance you also have battleground junkies vs. the achievement seekers. You have folks who will attempt to win the battle, and/or grief the achievement seekers by attacking opposing players attempting to collude. Likewise, you have the achievement seekers ignoring strategy and focusing solely on getting their achievement. Who wins the battle comes down to which side has the fewest achievement seekers.

The worst of these battlegrounds is Eye of the Storm because Horde and Alliance don't need to team-up for the achievement. Ironically this is the one battleground where trying to capture bases and win the battle gives the achievement seekers the best opportunity to capture the flag. The Alliance held three bases when I completed mine. But alas, most achievement seekers don't understand this and will rush and camp the middle until they get an opportunity to capture the flag.

My feeling is that Blizzard should change or get rid of this achievement. The achievement seekers hate it, the battleground junkies hate, and it just isn't any fun. If were a testament to one's battleground skill that'd be one thing, but it's not. It's really just a social experiment in behavior. A bad, evil experiment.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 80

2011-05-02T10:16:00.000-04:00

This week we grab a Raspberry Latte and kick back with none other than BigRedKitty. That's right folks he's back playing WoW. We discuss his return to the game, a possible return to blogging, and reminisce about good old days of WoW. Fo'shizzle!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Not Dead Yet

2011-04-28T15:21:00.000-04:00

You hear a lot these days about Wow and it's imminent demise, and I often wonder if it's fair to judge Cataclysm's partial content to an entire expansion's worth of patches.

The information being released about patch 4.2 lends me to think that Cataclysm still has some life in her, that is unless there aren't tameable versions of those...um. Well whatever they are, if they can't be tamed then this game will be dead to me.

Hunting Party Podcast with guest BRK this Weekend

2011-04-27T09:30:00.001-04:00

Great news folks, BigRedKitty will be our guest this week on the Hunting Party Podcast. Not a bad way to celebrate our 80th episode if I do say so myself.

We'll talk to him about his return to playing WoW, and he is back playing, and of course we'll ask him if this means a return to blogging.

This is BRK's third appearance on the show, so If weekend just can't come soon enough for you, you can check him out on epsidodes 34 and 41. Enjoy!

Patch Day Madness

2011-04-26T13:30:00.001-04:00

Patch 4.1 is here. I'm not going to do a full recap of the hunter changes. I sort of did it here and I've talked about it to death on the Hunting Party Podcast. If you want the full scoop listen to episode 78 or hit up one of the other hunter blogs. I recommend the WHU myself.

What I am going to talk about is what this patch means for me. In addition to Darkbrew I currently have two other hunters, one is 85 and the other is 84 and both have way fewer pets than they should.

Once the patch hits I'm going on a glorious taming spree grabbing all kinds of fantastic pets while reveling in the fact they won't need leveling. Sweet nirvana indeed.

Of course I'll be getting them both sporebats, but next on my list is this beauty of a cat. If you want to see all of the pet changes coming in the patch head over to Petopia.

Good Hunting!

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 79

2011-04-24T19:36:00.000-04:00

This week we pops rapid fire and readiness to bring you this show in record time. In this episode we hatch a truly evil secret plan (Better hide your rogues and DKs). The chat room tries to recommend book porn for Frostheim, and Darkbrew reports and official in-game BRK sighting. That's right you hear us. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

How Do You Drive This Thing?

2011-04-22T17:07:00.000-04:00

Today over at the WHU Frostheim solicits and gives advice for a returning hunter (hint: his name rhymes with BRK). My advice? Learn the MM spec inside and out. This post is what they like to call a fromage.

----
Hunter's mark up.

"Who's tanking?"

*waits for a reply*

Boss engaged!? But...

/Misdirection

"Healer just go one shot and needs a brez?"

Okay so we're MM now. A theoretical unstoppable cyborg killing machine. Let's do this.

/Rapid Fire
/Readiness
/Aimed Shot
/Aimed Shot
/Steady Shot
/Steady Shot
/Aimed Shot

Now we're cookin'.

Wait, what about Serpent Sting and Chimera Shot? These are signature shots and important right? Fire? Yes? No? Maybe? Screw it,

/Serpent Sting
/Steady Shot
/Steady Shot
/Rapid Fire
/Aimed Shot
/Aimed Shot

Did Serpent Sting just fall off?

/Serpent Sting
/Chimera Shot. Ha!

Okay boss is below 80%. Keep casting Aimed Shot? Sure.

/A---I---M---E---D S---H--- Crap, we need to move.

Hello Arcane Shot.

/Arcane Shot
/Arcane Shot
/Arcane Shot

Hey, where'd Improved Steady Shot go?

/Steady Shot
/Steady Shot

/A---I---M---E---D S---H--- Dang, we're moving again.

Okay forget this. Standard Arcane Shot rotation engaged. Go!

/Steady Shot

/Arcane Shot

/Steady Shot

/Arcane Shot
/Steady Shot

/Arcane Shot

Wait something's missing...

Horizontal boosters.

Alluvial Dampers?

Ow! That's not it, bring my the Hydrospanner.

I don't know how we're going to get out of this one.

Execute range, finally.

/Kill Shot
/faceroll keyboard.

*boss dies*

"Sorry guys, had bad latency and the cat jumped up on the keyboard midway through."

-------
MM is perhaps the most complex and most unforgiving of the Hunter specs. It's capable of producing large amounts of DPS that surpass SV and BM, but only if you don't falter with it's rotation. Not only that but the exact rotations you should use are situational and rely greatly on your skill as a hunter. One or two slips and you'll find yourself in the middle of the dps pack.

Now, I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't raid as SV or BM; I can and I do. Still, there's a storm headed our way in patch 4.2. If Blizzard doesn't make any adjustments then MM is poised to move further ahead than it already is. I'm making a point to learn this rotation inside and out now, before it becomes "mandatory" (which I hope it doesn't).

Starting next week, I'll dive into this tree looking at the do's, don'ts and nuances that make up what may end up being our highest DPS spec.

Who knows, maybe I'll even learn to play it along the way.

Good Hunting!

Patch 4.1 Recap

2011-04-18T14:28:00.000-04:00

The latest version of the PTR is listed as a release version which means patch 4.1 will probably go live within the next couple of weeks. It's about time too. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm ready to go in there with all of our improved abilities and new found DPS and start pounding the sweat out of these trouble making trolls. Not to mention that there's a certain cloak that must be found and disenchanted.

What's that you say? Our DPS is not getting buffed this patch? Our specs, rotations and abilities aren't changing? Are we getting nerfed to the ground then? Thankfully, the answer is no to that as well.

Basically what we're getting are tweaks and some very nice quality of life changes. Multi-shot is getting a buff which will help to improve Marksman AoE, but for the most part our specs, rotations and overall DPS will remain as they are now.

We probably won't see any significant changes to our DPS until the next tier of raid content is released, and we're half way through Firelands, and everyone is MM because it's doing massive amounts of DPS due to weapon damage scaling.

That's all patch 4.2, today I'm talking about patch 4.1. The full enchilada of patch notes can be found here, but the meat of the changes is pets.

Once upon a time I tamed Humar the Pridelord. This was back in Vanilla. I got him when I dinged level 23, and he was my pet for a long time. Then Burning Crusade came along and I decided to release him. Later in the expansion I decided to tame him again. I was 70 and he was still level 23. I had to grind 47 levels on him fighting mobs that were level 63 and higher. In other words for the majority of that time he just stood by my side watching me kite mobs. It was brutal.

Well brace yourselves because pet leveling is about to become the fodder for grumpy old hunters who'll sit back and tell you how it was back in their day. It's gone, kaput, a thing of the past, and I say good riddance. So now when you tame a pet it will automatically ding to your level. No excuse for not having a sporebat now.

You know what makes me happy? That's right, the demise of the pet happiness system. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to use a cunning pet and watch him go from green to yellow in the middle of a boss fight. No more having to waste GCDs on mend pet just to make our pets happy. Oh, and that "damage buff" the pets get for being happy? Yeah it's going baseline, so our pets will do the exact same damage they are now.

Of course all of the talents and glyphs that affect happiness are getting modified. The most notable is the Glyph of Mend Pet which is changing to the Glyph of Lesser Proportion. While I think it'd be awesome if it shrank our pets to critter size (think Baby Spice), I suspect it will be hardly noticeable.

All in all some great changes coming our way in Patch 4.1

Good Hunting!

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 78

2011-04-18T13:46:00.000-04:00

Patch 4.1 is on the horizon and this week we recap all of the Hunter changes coming your way. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 77

2011-04-11T09:49:00.000-04:00

April Fools fun on the Hunting Party Podcast this week. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Have Group Will Travel, Will Fail

2011-04-07T10:38:00.000-04:00

It was the end of the raid night and the door to Ascendant Council was bugged. Since we could no longer raid, we had one of our rogue's sneak into Garmosh Hold in Orgrimmar.

He then used Have Group Will Travel and summoned us for a surprise attack on Garrosh Hellscream.

The summon worked great. The sneak attack, not so much. Oh, and I'm pretty that Garrosh didn't need the help of Orgrimmar's citizens to pwn us. Dude hits hard.

Cho'gall Down

2011-04-05T16:02:00.002-04:00

Our guild cleared Bastion of Twilight last night defeating Cho'gall (10). For this first kill we went with two healers and a ranged heavy group, bringing four ranged DPS. After enduring a couple of 5-6% wipes we finally prevailed.

I'm not going to get into a full blown strategy here, but I will give you my hunter perspective for this fight. For a good write-up on Cho'gall I recommend this post over at Marks-365.

Mind Control

In 10-man Cho'gall will randomly MC two players who need to be broken out of the MC. To make it easier to break people out we had our raid stack behind the boss. Cho'gall ignores our minimum range so feel free to stack with the group so that you can be broken out of the MC if you're afflicted.

For breaking people out, Scatter Shot and Wyvern Sting both work, and if you're Marksman Silencing Shot will work as well.

Honestly, there are better classes suited to free people from the MC, but we can come through in a pinch. Also, I view Wyvern Sting as a measure of last resort and try to avoid having to use it. Remember we're not trying to kill people here (even the ones we don't like).

Adds

In Phase One there are two types of adds. The big adds called Corrupting Adherents and the little adds called Blood of the Old God. The big adds are nothing special, just dps them down and move out of the Corrupting Crash. It's the little guys that are the real concern.

I chose to spec. Survival with two points in Entrapment. This gives our Ice trap and Snake Trap and additional stun component which buys the group some worry free AoE time. Marksman with two points in Concussive Barrage can achieve a similar effect.

Once the traps are deployed and the adds are up I just use Multi-Shot to AoE them down. I also use Concussive Shot to slow any strays. A few things to keep in mind with the adds.

Since we're tossing out so many traps the Glyph of Trap Launcher is very useful. You might find that the Glyph of Ice Trap comes in handy too.
Monitor your focus and make sure you have enough to AoE the adds with Multi-shot.
If you get MC'd as the adds are coming out they won't trigger your traps. Be sure to let the raid know if this happens.

Phase Two

In phase two tentacle adds called Darkened Creations will spawn around Cho'gall. DPS the adds and try to get the raid to focus fire on them. As Cho'gall's health drops and you close in on the kill you'll be tempted to ignore the adds and focus on him; don't do this you'll end up wiping.

Additionally, these adds need to be interrupted, but again there are better classes suited for this, so our main job here is dps.

So that's basically it. He's really not that bad a fight and I look forward to facing in 25-man now.

Good Hunting!

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 76

2011-04-05T10:52:00.000-04:00

This week we talk about hunter changes on the PTR and delve into the realm of PvP. Euripides imparts to us his knowledge and experience, as Frost tries to implement it on the battlefield. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

It's the Gong Show

2011-03-30T16:12:00.000-04:00

If there's one thing our raid team is good at, it's inventing our own hard modes. Last night's Atramedes (25) kill was no exception.

You see when you're good and you've earned the trust and respect of your raid team you get asked to do things above and beyond your basic class role. In other words you are forced to sacrifice your DPS to ensure the raid doesn't wipe. I was put on gong duty for Atramedes. Not every gong mind you, just the gong to handle Searing Flame. Responsibility accepted /salute.

Now the way I handle Searing Flame is this.

Watch the countdown timer on my boss mod (in this case BigWigs).
When the timer expires wait to see that Atramedes is casting Searing Flame.
Strike the gong as soon as he starts his cast.

The NFL has a saying, one catch per pass. Well, for Atramedes the saying is one gong per Searing Flame.

I tend to be very competitive and I set a personal goal (which I achieved /flex) of striking the gong while allowing the minimum amount of Searing Flame ticks. Here's the thing though, Atramedes doesn't always cast Searing Flame when the countdown timer finishes.

All the boss timer does is indicate that Searing Flame is "off cool-down" and ready to be cast. It's up Atramedes to decide when he wants to do it.

The first time he cast it right on cue and I hit the gong right on cue. The next time he hesitated and I didn't. The third time he hesitated and I didn't.

It's quite the feeling to strike the gong and hear nothing but the sound of the gong. Each reverberation telling you that hit it too soon, and that Searing Flame hasn't happened yet, and that it's still going to happen and that you'll need to hit another gong, and that you only have so many gongs available to you. Not once, but twice did hear this refrain.

We entered the final air phase with one gong remaining (Protip - Know thy Star Trek. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one). Our rogue opted to follow standard protocol and used the final gong to save the life of the person being tracked. In retrospect we would've been better sacrificing him and saving the gong for the next Searing Flame, but where's the fun in that, right?

With our last gong spent, the boss at 16%, several already dead, and 35 seconds until the next Searing Flame, I told the raid, "Look alive everyone, this thing just got an enrage timer!" And with that the race was on.

Over the course of the next 36 seconds we proceeded to beat Atramedes like a rental car where you've opted for the insurance. And then we reached the end.

5%, tic, tic, tic.

4%, tic, tic, tic.

3%, tic, tic, tic.

2%, tic, tic, tic.

1% - "Brace yourselves and give it all you got!"

And then - BOOM!

I don't know who got the killing blow, and I don't really care. I, like many of my comrades was dead, but staring at a giant sparkling corpse. *phew*

Now rezzed, I began the distribution of loot and simply said thanks to the unknowing who complimented me on the precision in which I handled Searing Flame, choosing to hide my confession until now.

Good Hunting!

PS - As you can see in just one fell swoop ten of us went down, and we had a lost a few others earlier. We we're truly lucky to get out of this scrape (Protip: In today's raids all it takes is one player to screw the pooch. Choose your roles wisely :P )

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 75

2011-03-23T14:59:00.000-04:00

Once again various maladies strike two of our hosts, and Darkbrew is left to fend for himself. Luckily Kineasthesia of the raiding guild Vodka and raid strategy site Learn to Raid (L2R) was available to join him.

Dark talks to him about raiding in one of the game's premiere guilds, how he makes those wonderful raid videos, and they even throw in some hunter talk as a bonus. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hey, We're Two Today!

2011-03-17T17:11:00.001-04:00

That's right everyone it was two years ago today that the Brewhall opened its doors. When traveling in Azeroth be sure to knock back a few pints of Darkbrew Lager. Today they're on the house!

P.S. - Someday I'll post something other than "hey look here's the latest podcast." Happy Hunting!

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 74

2011-03-17T16:25:00.000-04:00

This week we welcome Onymas, a hunter from the Immersion guild on the Auchindoun-EU server, to the show. Immersion got the world first Glory of the Cataclysm Raider achievement.

We talk with him about some of the raid achievements and get his thoughts on playing a hunter and raiding. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 73

2011-03-08T13:26:00.000-05:00

This week Feral Druid Mange runs rampant and cripples two of the show's hosts. Thankfully Michele Morrow was able to step in and cover for Frostheim and Euripides.

She and Darkbrew take on a variety of topics including hunter changes on the PTR, Frostheim's Hairy Bracers, Swedish Meatballs, The Foam Weapon League, and how to get a TV executive to crap their pants. Good times.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Ep. 72 - Aspect of the Hotfix

2011-02-28T13:26:00.000-05:00

This week we talk about the Aimed Shot and Aspect of the Hawk hotfixes that went live and their impact on all three Hunter specs. We also touch upon the patch 4.1 changes on the PTR, although there isn't much to report yet.

Finally, Frost shows off his filibustering skills as we try to close out this week's episode. Perhaps we should send him to Washington to help sort out this budget mess. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Closer Than Ever

2011-02-24T13:56:00.000-05:00

The week the patch 4.06 hotfixes went live, and while Blizzard may have missed the mark in terms of adjusting the MM rotation, they seemed to have succeeded in introducing parity between all three specs.

Just to recap, here are the changes that went live.

Aimed Shot damage has been decreased to approximately 160% weapon damage (at level 80+), down from 200%.
Aspect of the Hawk now provides around an additional 2000 attack power at level 85.

I went and switched my specs to SV and BM. I just don't like having to hardcast Aimed Shot in the MM rotation, and I really enjoy playing SV and BM.

Last night during Halfus we managed to have three hunters each running different specs. Here's how we fared.

Euripides was MM, Autoshott was SV, and I was BM. We finished second, third and fourth on the meters for this fight. As you can see our numbers were extremely close.

So in my little pond all three specs are performing about the same. That's not to say some fights won't favor one spec over another. I certainly plan to do my share of spec switching. The point is we seem to finally have choices, and can honestly choose to play the spec we enjoy the most. Hunters haven't been in this position since as far as I can remember.

And while there will always be a spec that comes out on top (at least on paper) the "penalty" for not choosing to play that spec is negligible, and I, for one, find that refreshing.

By the way just to show you how far BM has come with these changes. My numbers were enough to actually be ranked in the top 50 for BM on Halfus 25N. While I fully expect to get knocked off the list as more people give BM a try, I think it's safe to say that BM has arrived. Welcome to the party!

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 71

2011-02-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

This week we discuss the Aimed Shot and Aspect of the Hawk hotfixes and what they mean to MM as well as the other specs.

It should be noted that at the time of this recording, the hotfixes were announced but not yet implement in-game. So be sure to tune into epsidoe 72 where we'll talk about how these changes are actually playing out. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

What a Difference a Zone Makes

2011-02-16T10:17:00.000-05:00

I started my adventure and am now level 82. Just as I thought I've replaced every piece of gear that I had with the exception of my BoA cloak (which is good until 85) and my trinkets.

Things weren't nearly as bad as I thought they might be. It took a little longer to kill things, but as I got more and more rewards things became much easier.
So how does my character look a few quests later?

Here is where I started at 80.

Here is where I'm at with a whole new set of quest gear, and a couple of levels higher.

And here is my other level 80 hunter, still in his ICC gear.

Lots of stamina on the new gear, eh? I went from 14K health to 43K. While I don't necessarily need that much, my pet is sure happy about it.

I really like what Blizzard did with the gear, the quests and everything. If you're a fresh 80 in sub Tier 7 gear you can easily quest and level in the starting zones. The green quest rewards are on a similar level to Tier 10 so within a few hours you can completely replace all of your gear and be competitive in starting dungeons.

Okay back to killing Naga and Murlocs.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 70

2011-02-15T09:12:00.000-05:00

This week we talk about the patch changes, Marksman, Aimed Shot, and how the specs now compare. We take your questions, and get caught up on e-mail.

Additionally it was iTunes review pledge week on the podcast. Whether it's a 250 word review or a 10 word review, every contribution matters.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

This is Gonna Hurt

2011-02-14T12:18:00.001-05:00

I dinged 80 last night on my third hunter. Yeah you read right, third hunter. You see I wanted to play a Worgen and well I was too cheap to do a race change on my second hunter, and... Okay, who am I kidding, I still really enjoy playing a hunter, and I wouldn't be surprised if I rolled another at some point.

So anyway, I'm 80 and ready to do the Cataclysm content again. While this is exciting I realized today that Eddiemunster isn't nearly the 80 that Darkbrew was. In fact he's not nearly the 80 that Ranchero (my second hunter) is, and Ranchero isn't nearly the 80 that Darkbrew was.

Unlike Darkbrew, this hunter is a fresh 80 loaded with quest gear and heirloom items that have gone from awesome to teh suxors in one ding. The entire WotLK expansion was based around being level 80 and by the end we were on our fourth tier of gear. It's safe to say that the gear on my newest hunter is well below the level of the first tier of 80 gear.

Here are Eddie's stats in his current gear set.

Now compare them to Ranchero's stats. Ranch is in mostly 251-264 gear.

As you can see everything is pretty much cut in half, if not lower. Health, dps, attack power, haste, and look at the difference in hit and crit. Good grief!

Luckily the quest rewards will get me up to speed pretty quick; and every one of them will be an upgrade. My leatherworking is also at a point where I can start making Cata. recipes, so I'll be able to fill in a few holes there.

Still though, this first zone is really gonna hurt.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 69 - Descent into Madness

2011-02-09T07:18:00.000-05:00

This episode, we invite Michele Morrow back! Then all hell breaks loose. We were a little light on hunter news, so we spent most of our time listening to Frostheim and Michele play the Hunting Party Podcast drinking game.

We also talk about the Foam Weapon League, Frostheim’s hairy wrist bracers, and a whole host of other random nonsense. It’s a good show, and a very fun listen.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 68

2011-01-31T17:05:00.000-05:00

This week we talk to Kruf from Paragon. He tells about raiding in Paragon, gives us huntering tips, and answers questions from the chat room.

Also, here is his blog on Paragon's site. He provides a wonderful look at the day in the life a world first raider.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 67

2011-01-26T14:09:00.000-05:00

This week it's all Frost, all the time. Both Euripides and Darkbrew are absent this week. Next week we return with a full house and special guest, Kruf, from Paragon. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Point Taken

2011-01-18T13:35:00.000-05:00

I've been leveling a Worgen hunter this past week. Yes, this is my third hunter. He's level 58 and now in Outlands. By the way Outlands is now the the most dated content in the game.

Between guild perks and heirloom items, the leveling has been extremely fast. My progression has been,

Worgen starting area.
Darkshore
Northern Stranglethorn
Cape of Stranglethorn
Thousand Needles
Tanaris
Un'Goro
Blasted Lands

There were several zones that I wanted to quest in, but I outpaced them and decided to move on to more level appropriate zones.

Now, when I was wrapping up Un'Goro I ran across a quest that turned me into a gorilla and had me go into a cave and speak to each type of gorilla. Keep in mind that I had completed some earlier quests that involved going in there and wiping them all out.

U'cha wasn't on the list of gorillas to talk to, but I noticed that I could speak to him. Here's what he had to say.

As much as we'd like to think of ourselves as heroes, in the end we're all just mercenaries and hired guns. By the way, I find that the new quests range from "been there done that" to "best quest ever".

If you're looking for something to do in-game, I highly recommend you roll a hunter and level him up.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 66

2011-01-17T08:24:00.000-05:00

This week we talk about all PTR changes that happened since our last show; and there were a lot. In fact some changes were reverted before we could do a show. We discuss the current "Nerfcon" level for hunters, and we'll learn why Darkbrew is removing his candidacy for the position of Defense Secretary for the Hunting Party Podcast. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 65

2011-01-17T08:17:00.000-05:00

This week we talk about patch 4.06 that is currently on the PTR. Is this the great Survival nerf of 2011? Tune in and find out. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 64

2011-01-12T09:57:00.000-05:00

This week Kripparrian from the Exodus guild on Ysondre-US joins us. We talk with him about hunters and raiding in Cataclysm. We also chat about the current state of hunters, impending nerfs and more.

Be sure to visit Kripparrian's You Tube site where he posts raid videos, dps how-to's and much more.

This episode is a couple of weeks old, but definitely worth the wait. We should be back on a normal schedule for editing our shows. In fact, expect to see episode 65 in a day or two.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Don't Forget to Tip Your Warlock

2011-01-07T13:36:00.000-05:00

Right before our raid one of our Warlocks came to me and said you're getting my Dark Intent tonight. Naturally I had no idea what he was talking about. The only thing I've ever gotten from Warlocks are summons and cookies.

Earlier that day he tested out this ability with another Survival Hunter and had gotten some favorable results.

So what does it do? It gives us a straight up 3% haste buff. When the Warlock critically strikes with its periodic damage ticks it Increases our periodic damage by 3%. This effect can stack up to three times for a 9% boost in damage. The same is true for the Warlock when our periodic damage ticks crit.

Survival hunters are good candidates for this because we have a lot of abilities that do periodic damage, have decent crit rates, and we can easily get full stacks of the buff. Keep in mind though, that the overall effectiveness of this ability is dependent on the Warlock, their spec. and crit rates. The DPS Analyzer at femaledwarf.com has been updated to included Dark Intent in the list of buffs so you can use this to get a sense of how this might effect your dps.

While Survival hunters may not be first on the priority list for this buff (Resto. Druids, Shadow Priests and Boomkins are probably better candidates), we do have a seat at the table. Depending on your raid composition and your personal dps you may find yourself an excellent target for this buff. To read more about it you should check out this thread over at MMO Champion.

Oh, and if you see a Warlock casting this on another Warlock be sure to Imp slap them, because it doesn't work that way, or so I've been told at least. Again, summons and cookies are all I know about Warlocks.

Happy Hunting!

It Ain't Greatness

2011-01-05T13:54:00.000-05:00

In Wrath of the Lich King Hunters were the beneficiaries of one the greatest pieces of loot all-time - The Darkmoon Card: Greatness. This little workhorse of a trinket lasted many a hunter into patch 3.2, and some still had it equipped when they entered Icecrown Citadel.

Now Cataclysm is here and along with it comes a new Darkmoon Card that looks deceptively enticing for hunters; the Darkmoon Card: Hurricane. Boasting 321 agility and a proc that looks like it's a match made in heaven for Survival hunters. On the surface this looks like an outstanding trinket, but sadly it's not.

I don't have this trinket myself, but I've been considering hit. Here are some things that others are reporting about it (you can follow the discussion and see what other are reporting in this thread on Elitist Jerks.)

The proc, called Lightning Strike, is on the spell hit and spell crit table. This means even with a 961 hit rating we can still miss with it and it's crit rate will be lower.
It does not proc off of Black Arrow, Explosive Shot or Serpent Sting. Only auto-shot, Arcane Shot and Cobra Shot.
The proc damage scales with Survival's Mastery.
It has a very low proc rate for Survival Hunters (it's unclear how it performs with other specs).
In raid fights it appears to account for less than 2% overall damage and contributes about as much dps as Arcane Shot.

Costing anywhere from 15-30K gold this trinket is not cheap, and will likely be replaced by other trinkets such as Essence of the Cyclone and Prestor's Talisman of Machination.

Now acquiring those trinkets requires you to kill raid bosses; one of them and end-boss. If you're just starting to raid it could be some time before see either of those. Fluid Death is another option that can be purchased with Valor Points. It is however, loaded with hit that you may not need.

So depending on your trinket needs, and how deep your pockets are, Hurricane could suit you, but don't expect to face Deathwing with it still equipped. It's not terrible but it ain't Greatness.

Happy Hunting!

Pardon the Interruption

2011-01-04T16:20:00.002-05:00

If you've spent any amount of time at all in the new heroics, then you know that interrupting spells is a huge part of many of the encounters. If you've spent any amount of time playing a hunter then you know that when it comes to interrupting we're not exactly the most assertive bunch. Still though we're not completely helpless in this area.

Now when you think of hunters and interrupt you normally think of Silencing Shot, which is only available to Marksman hunters. Silencing Shot is not our only option though. In addition to providing buffs and debuffs, we have pets with interrupt capabilities.

Gorillas, Nether Rays and Moths all have interrupt abilities. Gorillas have Pummel, Nether Rays have Nether Shock, and Moths have Serenity Dust.

Gorillas are the best option because their ability has the shortest cool down at 30 seconds. Nether Shock has a 40 second cool down and Serenity Dust comes in at a hefty one minute. Beast Mastery hunters have the Longevity talent that will reduce the cool downs by 30%. So for Pummel that takes its cool down 21 seconds which puts it on par with Silencing Shot.

So if you find yourself in an unbalanced group lacking sufficient interrupts, just head to the stables and grab one of these faithful companions.

Happy Hunting!

Ready for Raiding

2011-01-03T13:44:00.000-05:00

I managed to close the year out on high note that had me singing "Oh what a night, late December back in twenty ten..."

On Tuesday we defeated Argaloth and I got a nice PvP belt (which works just fine in PvE). On Thursday we defeated Magmaw and the fiery little worm was kind enough to drop Leggings of Lethal Force.

From there I went on a little tear and upgrade five more slots of gear. Darkling Staff, Signet of the Elder Council, Treads of the Malorne, the Unsolvable Riddle, and Wrap of the Valley Glades.

That's it I'm done and ready to raid. Any gear I get from heroics (other than bracers) are a side-grade. My reputations are where they need to be in terms of what I can get, and most of my pets are level 85. I just need a few more enchants, some flasks, potions and I'm ready go.

How about it guild are we ready to raid?

Pet Leveling Time!

2010-12-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

Among the many things I'm working on right now is leveling and taming pets. Yes, taming! Like me, I'm sure there are a lot of you sitting there with a stable full of level 80 pets that you now must get to max level so you can provide all the cool buffs for your raids and 5-mans.

Now ever since patch 3.2 (or somewhere abouts) it was safe to level your pets in a Wrath heroic. Someday it will probably be safe to do the same thing in Cataclysm, but we're not there yet.

So what can you do to get your pet from level 82 - 85 quickly? Well the easiest thing you can do is tame a level 85 pet. Duh! However, the list of level 83-85 pets available for taming is pretty slim. Most aren't even families that provide raid buffs/debuffs. Nope chances are you're going have to do this the hard way.

Here is what I've found to be effective. Daily quests. Specifically, Tol Barad dailies. I find that one round of TB dailies (including the ones unlocked from winning the battle) are enough to get a pet from level 82-84.

If you haven't done these dailies yet, you should. There are some great hunter rewards associated with this reputation, including an epic trinket. I should warn you though that these dailies suck big time. If a quest requires you to kill 10 mobs, you're guaranteed to end up killing at least 20 before all is said and done.

These quests have some of the fastest respawning mobs in all of Azeroth. It's brutal, especially if you're inclined to stop and loot. The good news is that your level 82 pet should be up to the task of handling the level 85 mobs, and you'll gain lots of experience. Like I said you're pet should go from 82-84 in one pass.

That last level takes a little longer, and I've found that a round of Therazane dailies isn't even enough to push you to the top.

So that's how I'm leveling my pets right now, how about you guys? What's working for you?

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 63

2010-12-20T13:40:00.000-05:00

This week Dawn Moore from Wow Insider and Learn to Raid joins us on the show. We talk about healing pets, heroics, and why some raids are stacking hunters in their groups. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 62

2010-12-17T10:18:00.000-05:00

This week Morynne of Marks-365 joins the gang as they give their first impressions of Cataclysm. Oh and I was vacation and not getting a Fat Albert tattoo or whatever Frost said. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 61

2010-12-17T10:07:00.000-05:00

Oops, I forgot to post this after I got back from vacation. Hopefully you tuned in live, or got it from iTunes, WHU, Outdps or the Hunting Party Podcast site.

Anywho this is our big get ready for Cataclysm episode. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

The Journey Begins

2010-12-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

My Cataclysm day one began bright an early on Sunday, December 12th. On December 14th I dinged 85!

It was quite a whirlwind experience, and a lot of fun. I did nothing but quest and quest and quest. I've yet to step into a dungeon. At the end I almost expected to find Phil Keoghan standing there saying, "Four zones, three days, 400 quests, Darkbrew you've just won the Amazing Race!"

Now the real work begins. My gear and stats are a mess, 11% crit, 6% haste, and I'm not quite hit capped. I have replaced all of my Wrath gear though. It may have taken just under three days to hit 85, but it's going to take a lot longer to get geared up for raiding.

The Big To Do List
Note to wife - Now this is a to do list.

Gearing Up
The main sources of gear are dungeons, reputations, crafting, quests and justice points. You need to have an average item level of 329 before you can queue for heroics. In my current gear I'm around 318.

I have 4000 justice points so that's one to two pieces of ilvl 346 gear. I'm closed to revered with a couple of factions, but I still have a long way to go there.

I haven't started leveling my two main professions (Jewelcrafting and Engineering), and mats are still very expensive. If I want to level these I'll probably have to farm the mats myself.

I'll also have to run some normal mode level 85 dungeons and grab a few pieces from them before I do heroics.

Bracers are the one piece that seem to be in very short supply so I'm eying the Eradicator's Bracers which are quest reward from Grim Batol.

Then there are the daily quests. Therazane, Wildhammer, and Tol Barad offer daily quests. I plan to start doing these right away.

As you can see level 85 was truly just the beginning and there's a lot more to be done. I'm tired just thinking about.

Good Hunting!

Vashj'ir it is!

2010-12-04T20:55:00.001-05:00

No, this isn't a post about which starting zone I'm doing first (although I'm close to changing my mind again and going with Vashj'ir).

Because Blizzard failed to contact me with their Cataclysm release plans I now have a vacation scheduled for the same week that the expansion launches. So, instead of leveling in Vahsj'ir, I'll be swimming in places that look like Vashj'ir.

Enjoy the expansion release and be sure to tune into the Hunting Party Podcast on December 11th. Morynne of Marks-365 will be joining the gang. Also be on the lookout for Episode 61 of the podcast. It should be released before Tuesday and has lots of good information on things you can do to prepare for the Cataclysm launch (Pro Tip- going on vacation for a week isn't one of them :P ).

See you in a week!

Trouble Brewing?

2010-12-03T09:52:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across this thread on the new WoW forums. There is a rumor floating around that Darkbrew Lager is a Horde only recipe. Say it ain't so! My famous recipe in the hands of the Horde? Apparently Morick's plans were more nefarious than I thought. Curse the Dark Irons!

Now during the beta I was able to learn the recipe from the Alliance trainers, however, I was never able to find the reagents to actually make it. I truly hope this is just a rumor, and the recipe is in fact trainable by the Alliance.

Before You Do That

2010-12-02T17:22:00.000-05:00

One of my wife's favorite pastimes is to give me lists of things to do. Right when I have things all planned out and am ready to begin she likes to toss in a "Before you do that", and then give me a new list of things that I should do first. Sometimes she'll even follow-up a "Before you do that" with another "Before you do that".

Yesterday I talked about which starting zone I was going to do first (I'm still leaning towards Hyjal by the way). Well before I do that, I realized there are some "administrative" tasks that I should do before I start the journey to 85.

One of these tasks is to fly around and discover the entrances to some of the new dungeons in Cataclysm. Before you can queue for one of the new instances in the Dungeon Finder you will need to have discovered it by visiting its entrance.

The dungeons are designed for various levels so you don't necessarily need to visit each and every one right away, but you probably want to at least locate Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides. These are the two level 80 dungeons that you can start running immediately.

Because it's underwater, Throne of the Tides might be a little tricky to get to, especially if you don't have the sea horse mount. The other dungeon that you might not be able to get to right away is The Stonecore which is in Deepholm. This requires you to go through the Maelstrom and I don't know if that's possible without questing in Hyjal or Vashj'ir (don't quote me on that though).

The other dungeons are located in Uldum and Twilight Highlands are all pretty straightforward to find, so it might be worth the time to fly to each one.

Here is an great video put together by the folks at Wowhead that show you the exact location of each dungeon. You can go here to read more about these dungeons.

Hyjal it is!

2010-12-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

One of the questions I'm asked is which starting zone am I going to choose, Hyjal or Vashj'ir. I keep going back and forth on this, but I'm 99.9999% certain I'm going to start with Hyjal. Ultimately I plan to do both, it's just that I probably won't get to Vashj'ir until I'm level 85.

The order in which I'll hit the zones is something along these lines,

Hyjal
Deepholm
Uldum
Twilight Highlands
Vashj'ir

Now my decision on where to start is based on where I want to finish. Hyjal is the home to the Guardians of Hyjal reputation. The only way to earn this rep. is by completing quests in Hyjal and wearing their tabard. The tabard is available at friendly and it takes about a 1/2 hour to reach that.

Looking over the quests, I'm guessing that by the time I complete Hyjal I should be revered which means I'll be able to get Acorn of the Daughter Tree, an ilvl 346 neck piece. At exalted they have a nice pair of epic boots.

Now Vashj'ir also has a reputation associated with it - the Earthen Ring. And like the Guardians of Hyjal they too have nice rewards at revered and exalted. The difference is the quests that grant Earthen Ring rep. are spread out in multiple zones besides Vashj'ir. In fact, the majority of the quest reputation comes from Deepholm and Twilight Highlands.

While I know that I'd enjoy Vashj'ir more, I think from a progression standpoint I'm better off with Hyjal. So Hyjal it is because I want my purple sh@#t kickers.

Here's a brief look at the hunter related rewards offered by these two factions.

Guardians of Hyjal

Tabard of the Guardians of Hyjal - Friendly
Acorn of the Daughter Tree - Revered
Treads of Malorne - Exalted

Earthen Ring

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 60

2010-11-29T10:05:00.000-05:00

This week we talk about the Shattering, and whole host of other topics. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T15:04:00.000-05:00

Wishing you and yours all the best on this day. And yes, I did get the Turkeystrider on Thanksgiving!

That's a Wrap

2010-11-23T10:12:00.000-05:00

That's it, I'm done with Wrath. I said my goodbye to Northrend and returned to the Eastern Kingdoms to aid in the fight against Deathwing. My journey ended with one last tour of some old places.

First was one final log ride to venture bay.

Next a final stop at Amberpine Lodge to use the outhouse.

Onto Howling Fjord to catch the boat that brought me to Northrend two years ago.

We arrived at the newly renovated Menethil Harbor. I find that the name Menethil is not nearly as ominous as it once was.

A quick trip to Ironforge and some R&R with the widow Balloo ;)

This is Mr. Balloo by the way. I helped build a statue of him once. It was nice. I'm not sure where it is now though.

Okay kids, see you in Cataclysm. I'm outta here!

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 59

2010-11-21T09:35:00.000-05:00

This week Frostheim and Darkbrew talk about the Patch 4.03a, what's in it and what's not, and what' in it for Hunters (hit: get ready to fill those stables up again). We also do chat room Q&A. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Well of Course It's Hunter

2010-11-19T17:18:00.000-05:00

But what's with the human?

Patch 4.03a - Get Ready!

2010-11-19T13:52:00.000-05:00

Okay, you know all of the stable slots you've been keeping in reserve? Well now is the time to go and fill them up. This next patch is bringing us all of the old world changes and that includes and astounding amount of pet choices. As always I recommend that you head over to Petopia for all the details, but suffice it to say your stables are about to get a lot more crowded and feel a lot smaller. What's even crazier is that there are still more pets coming when the actual expansion is released.

In a moment I'll show you some of the ones I gathered up on the PTR, but first I wanted to mention a few general things about the this patch.

The new Justice Points vendor is in the game, however, you must be level 85 to purchase items. So no dumping your points now and grinding Wrath dungeons to build them up again before Cata.
The portals to all of the major cities are gone from Dalaran and Shattrath.
Stormwind and Orgrimmar are meant to be the new Dalaran. I recommend setting your hearth to one of these cities the night before the patch goes live.
My red hyena, which I got from Scarlet Monestary, was changed into a Mastiff (dog family). There are other pets that will also undergo makeovers. This is not a bug.
The new fishing and cooking dailies are available. You can start stockpiling some cooking awards before the expansion.

Anywho, here is a sampling of things I tamed on the PTR and that you'll be able to tame when this patch goes live.

The new look Shango

Hive Controller

Seagull

Highlands Fox

Hellboar

Boss Turtle from Blackfathom Deeps

I Fail at the Internet

2010-11-16T00:15:00.000-05:00

If you're reader has exploded, or you had trouble finding my blog, or links to specific posts are broken it's because I fail at the Internet.

I changed blogging platforms, tried to move my domain here, and attempted to preserve all of my content and search engine traffic. I'm not really sure how any of it turned out. But hey if you're reading this then you found me and I can do this now.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 58

2010-11-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

This is the big catch up show where we answer all your e-mail and chat room questions. Enjoy!

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and thedirect XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.