BM and SV Got Buffed

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.

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Episode 102

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.

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Episode 100 Extravaganza

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.

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T13 Set Bonus Speculation

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!

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A Really Big Shoe

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!

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Call for Feedback

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.

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Podcast Time Change

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!

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Great Balls of Fire!

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 ;)

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About This Transgentrify Thing

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? 

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I Feed On Your Tears

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,

1. Linking it to our Feral Druid every chance I get, and
2. 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. 

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Theory Crafter's Delight

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.

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Gems and Enchants Matter Redux

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!

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How to Get Benched

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.

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Compartmentalize Your Encounters

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!

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Hunting Party Podcast Update

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!

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Are the Bosses Smarter Now?

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?

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Bracers Can Wait

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?

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Beating Beth'tilac

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.

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Surviving Shannox

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.

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Vacation Update

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.

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