Hit, ArP, Square Peg Meets Round Hole

We're working towards an Armor Pen. build. We're not there yet, but we're getting closer. When we get new gear we usually have a couple of options, we can put it in the bank and wait until we have all the supporting pieces (where's the fun in that?), or we can equip them and try to make them work with our current setup.

Last night we were fortunate to get both Distant Land and the Nerub'ar Stalker's Cord. They are replacing Quel'delar, Ferocity of the Scorned and Linked Scourge Vertebrae respectively.

The staff has no hit and no ArP. Quel'delar has no hit but does have +91 ArP. The belt we're replacing has no ArP, but does have +40 hit. Our new belt has no hit but does have +63 ArP. Great googly moogly!

The net affect of equipping these items is a loss of +28 ArP and a loss of +40 hit. The lovely female dwarf told us that despite these losses, she really liked our staff ;) (She dug the belt too).

At this point we're not gemming for ArP, so reaching the ArP cap isn't a priority. We always want to be hit capped though. With the old items we were five points above the cap and that's with three points in Focused Aim, and +32 hit from enchants.

As much as we love our space goat allies, we really don't feel like following them around ICC all night for their hit buff. That leaves gems as our next option. Now as long as we see our dps going up, gemming for hit is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. When we get the rest of our gear and decide to gem ArP, then gemming for hit won't be a good option. This is mainly because there are no ArP enchants, so gems and gear remain our best sources for that stat.

Eventually we'll dig ourselves out this mess, but until we get our four pieces of 264 T10 we may be forced to use more hit gems, or just bank items until we have our set. Salvation will come in the form of our T10 gloves. So if you'll excuse us, we need to go have a chat with Toravon the Ice Watcher.

P.S. - When we started our gear planning we were curious to see if there were any items with both hit and ArP.  Here's a link to what we found on wowhead.com.

http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=minle=245;si=1;ub=3;cr=114:119;crs=1:1;crv=0:0;gb=1

We found this list to be pretty underwhelming, and none of the items were things that we'd want for our pseudo "BiS" set. Oh and before you ask, we're not including ICC heroic items in any of our plans until we've actually killed the Lich King.

We Want a Tier Token

It’s raid night tonight. Not only is it raid night, but it’s Tuesday which means a fresh ICC (25) run. Tonight we will clear through Festergut, and possibly Rotface if everyone is on their game.

The number of items we need off the first four bosses is exactly two; a tier token and another tier token.

We use a DKP system and by my count there are five individuals (Warrior, Hunter, Shaman) ahead of us in points. Some are a little ahead, and some could buy two tokens and still be nipping at our heels in points.

If one drops we’re not getting it. If two drop we’re not getting it. I don't know how we're going to get out of this one.

We want a tier token.

Three Enchants to Consider

Today I wanted to cover three enchants that you may want to consider as part of your raiding set.  These are Cat's Swiftness, Tuskarr's Vitality and the Biznicks 247x128 Accurascope.

The first two come at the expense of some DPS enchants, and the last one is so old school it may be hard to get, but they're all worth a look.

Speed Kills

Ever since we interviewed Munken from Ensidia on the Hunting Party Podcast, I've been running with Tuskarr's Vitality on my boots. Ensidia requires all of their raiders to have some type of speed boost whether it comes from talents, gems or enchants.

The concept here is simple.  Almost all raid encounters require you to move around, and the faster you can get from point A to point B, the more time you'll spend doing DPS.

Cat's Swiftness - +6 agility and minor speed increase (8%).

• Large Prismatic Shard x8
• Primal Air x8

This is a Burning Crusade enchant.  The advantage it has over Tuskarr's is the small dps gained from the +6 agility.  That and it's name just make it more Huntery anyway.

I haven't checked the AH to see what it's going for, but the mats shouldn't be that difficult to acquire.  There recipe comes in two versions, a BoE Outland drop and a BoP drop from Kael'thas Sunstrider in Magister's Terrace.  As time goes by this one may be harder to find.

Tuskarr's Vitality - +15 Stamina and minor speed increase (8%).

• Infinite Dust x10
• Greater Cosmic Essence x2
• Dream Shard x2

This is the WotLK version of the speed enchant.  Scrolls, mats, and enchanters who can make this should be readily available.  If you're looking for a speed enchant this should be easy to get.

Old School Challenge

Biznicks 247x128 Accurascope - +30 hit rating (almost 1%)

• Lava Core x2
• Essence of Earth x2
• Delicate Arcanite Converter x4
  
  • Arcanite Bar x5
  • Ironweb Spider Silk x4
• Dark Iron Bar x6
• Thorium Tube
  
  • Thorium Bar x6

If you really like to min/max and want a challenge you can try scrounging one of these up.  Depending on your gear and how you're doing on hit this scope could allow you to replace an item such as the Icecrown Ramparts Bracers with say Scourge Hunter's Vambraces (thanks to Rilgon for this tip).

My advice is check the AH first to see if there's a scope for sale.  Then check to see what mats are available to buy.  I was able to get the Lava Cores, Arcanite Bars, Essence of Earth, and Thorium Tube for around 100g.

The Dark Iron Bars can only be made in Blackrock Depths and there's a bit of an attunement required in order to smelt the ore.

The tough part is going to be finding someone who can make it.  The schematic is a drop from Molten Core, so there may not be too many Engineers around who are able to craft one.  If you're an Engineer you could try and farm the schematic, but that could take a while.

Good Hunting!

Waltzing Matilda

Okay, I recently discovered that you don't have to form a raid group and enter the Icecrown Citadel raid instance to purchase your T10 gear.  There's a cute little dwarf in Dalaran who will be happy to take your emblems and tokens and hand you your T10.

Matilda Brightlink is a mail armor merchant and she can be found in the armor shop between the fishing fountain and the South Bank in Dalaran.  This is the same shop where we purchased our other tier gear.  Why the same dwarf, who we've been going to this whole expansion, couldn't sell the T10 is beyond me, but there you go.

Have a great weekend folks!

Zod's Fixed

Blizzard released a list of in-game fixes, which included Zod's.  You may once again kneel before Zod.  You can read the official link here.

"The proc on Zod’s Repeating Longbow should no longer reset auto shots."

Zod's Bugged

"Zod's should not reset your autoshot. This is a bug."

This is what Ghostcrawer posted in response to reports that the proc on Zod's Repeating Longbow is resetting our auto-shot timer.

Essentially what this means is you'll be losing out on the number of auto-shots that you should be getting during the course of a fight.  Enough in fact, to negate the benefit you get from the proc.

Given the lack of stats on this weapon the heroic TotC ranged weapons will probably get you more dps until this is fixed.  I'm not sure how the dps compares to other ranged weapons.

If you have this fine weapon, just know you aren't getting all of the dps out of it that you should.

I wouldn't kneel just yet.

Caveat Emptor

Euripides over at OutDPS.com has a nice post about some shady dealings with epic ammo happening on auction houses across Azeroth.  Just make sure you look before you buy.

http://outdps.com/2009/12/21/ammo-one-for-the-price-of-ten/

Solo Farming Quel'delar

I had a nice post planned today on how to go about solo farming the battered hilt needed to start the Quel'delar quest.  I even had a link to a great video made by Vek'Nilash (EU) on how to do it as a Survival Hunter.

But alas, Blizzard has changed the rules again.  The good news is that they increased the drop rate for the hilt (by how much, I'm not sure). The bad news is they no longer drop off of the non-elite skeletal slaves in the Pit of Saron, which was the best source to solo farm the hilt.

Hopefully the increased drop-rate means I'll actually get one to drop, or the prices on the AH will drop making it affordable.

Anyway, if you were planning to try getting the hilt off of the skeletal slaves (/points self) don't bother.

Good Hunting!

Patch 3.3 - Ammo

The speculation appears to over.  The latest PTR build has brought hunters new epic ammo.  It will be made by engineers, but available to all.

• You need to be honored with the Ashen Verdict to purchase the plans.
• Bullets require Goblin engineering and Arrows require Gnomish engineering.  This means that a single engineer will only be able to make one type of ammo.  I will probably be Goblin engineering, so please don't ask me to make arrows.
• They appear to be cheap to make (and hopefully cheap to buy).  One stack of bullets required two crystallized earth and one stack of arrows requires two crystallized shadow.
• The ammo does 91.5 dps.

New Ammo In Patch 3.3?

I was going to do a post on some of the new hunter gear coming our way in patch 3.3.  As I was doing my research I ran across what appears to be engineering recipes for new arrows and bullets.  I couldn't find anything on the finished products or the mats required to make them.

The recipes themselves are tied to the new Ashen Verdict reputation. What's also interesting is that arrows require Gnomish engineering to make and the bullets require Goblin engineering to make.

It looks like engineers may have a new source of income.  We'll have to see how this plays out.

Calculated Risks

So there you are.  You're in a raid and a boss drops an item that's an upgrade.  While it's a nice upgrade you know there might be better on the horizon.  No only that but you're competing with others for the same gear.  So what do you do?  Do you attempt to win the item, or do you pass and take a calculated risk that the upgrade you really want will drop?  This is a common scenario  that I, and three other hunters were faced with last night.

Our guild did it's usual VoA and Onyxia 25 runs.  It turned out that we had Wintergrasp at the start of our raid so we went there first.  It also turned out that we were carrying four hunters, which is three t00 many if you ask me.  All of us of course were on the hunt for upgrades.

We downed Koralon and the Windrunner's Handguards of Triumph dropped.  It was nice upgrade for all four hunters, but only three of the four hunters rolled (I was one of them).  So why didn't the other hunter roll?  Was it to be nice and see someone else get some gear? No, he was passing on this loot hoping that Onyxia would drop the Rifled Blastershot Launcher, a very nice gun indeed.  In fact I believe that it's best in slot outside of Trial of the Grand Crusader.  I can understand why he would want this.  In fact I too was tempted to pass on the gloves and hold out for the gun.

Here's the reasoning behind his decision.  We like to spread the loot around, so whoever got the tier piece was not going to get another item from Onyxia.  Also, one of the hunters already had Talonstrike which meant she wasn't going to get the gun either.  She also did not win the gloves.  That meant a 50/50 chance of getting the gun if it dropped.  Not bad odds at all.

Here was my reasoning for rolling on the item.  I like to plan things out, and based on the content I'm running I have a list of items that I want to be part of the gear set I take into Icecrown Citadel.  The gloves and the gun are on that list.  All of the items work together to create a very nice set of gear.  While there may be individual pieces that are weighted higher, it's really the set as a whole that I'm after.  I can't control what will drop and when it will drop.  So when I see a piece that's on the list, I roll for it.  Also, these gloves represent what is currently best in slot for my content.  Not only that, but getting them saves me 45 badges and the need to get a trophy out of TotC 25.  So for me, rolling on the gloves was a no-brainer.

In the end Onyxia did not drop the gun, or any other hunter loot for that matter (okay it's all hunter loot, but nothing we could actually use).  Oh and guess who won the gloves.  Booya!  See what I did there?

I Thougt it was an Upgrade?

Today's post comes from the Makeover department of Brew Hall HQ.

The other day I earned enough badges to buy my Conqueror's Scourgestalker Headpiece. Gratz to me! It's replacing my Hyaline Helm of the Sniper. Now the T8 helm is superior to the Hyaline Helm in almost every regard, however, it has one important stat the T8 doesn't, and that's +30 Hit rating.

Looking at my current gear, and talents, if I want to use this helm I'll need to do some major re-working of gems, enchants, etc. This is both time consuming and expensive. Not to mention that there may other upgrades in my future that will force me to go through all of this again.

So what to do? The first thing is to go to femaldwarf.com and run the numbers. What I want to know is if I were equip the T8 helmet right now, is it an upgrade? Much to my surprise the answer was yes, but not by much. Also, I have one point in Focused Aim that I'd really like to dump (if you listened to Episode 1 of The Hunting Party you'd know that it's a little broken again). If I equip the helm and respec, it's not an upgrade.

Now I could keep going down this track and rearrange gems and enchants and sure I could make this work and come out ahead. But the thing to keep in mind is, your next upgrade may not be too far around the corner. In my case it was just a matter of earning enough badges to get Leggings of the Tireless Sentry, which in this day an age does not take very long.

So for me the best option was to put the helm in the bank for a couple of days until I could purchase those pants and then I could go through the process of re-gemming, re-enchanting, and re-spec'ing.

So the moral of the story for today boys and girls is that an upgrade is not always an upgrade. You can't just compare the new item against the item it's replacing. You need to look at it in the context of all your gear and talents and make decisions accordingly. Luckily for us hunters we have tools like the DPS Analyzer and DPS Spreadsheet.

Well time for me to get that makeover. 

 Good Hunting!

It's a 3.2 World and We're Living in It

My baby hunter recently ding'd 77 so it's now time for me start thinking about life at level 80. When Darkbrew hit 80 it was the start of a long journey running heroics and working on Northrend reputations.

Having leveled a hunter to 80 once you would think this might be a rinse and repeat, but patch 3.2 changes everything.









Level 80 Day One

One of the first things I'm going to do is head over to the Argent Tournament and start running Trial of the Champion normal mode. I'm surprised they didn't just have us equip our lances and drop a pinata down from the ceiling for us to whack.

In normal mode there are four nice pieces of gear that drop, and there's no lockout for normal which means you can run this over and over again until you get everything you need.

• Scale Boots of the Outlander
• Banner of Victory
• Belt of Merciless Cruelty
• Wristguards of Ceaseless Regret

I will also start running this in heroic mode. Heroic drops ilevel 219 gear which is equivalent to Ulduar (10). In fact I think there might be an upgrade or two for Darkbrew in here (sad I know). There are six pieces of hunter gear in heroic. Remember that heroic does a have a lockout so you can only do this once a day.

• Chestguard of the Ravenous Fiend
• Gloves of the Dark Exile
• Ancient Pendant of Arathor
• True-aim Long Rifle
• Pauldrons of Concealed Loathing
• Marrowstrike

In addition to Trial of the Champion I'll also run some other heroics for gear and badges. Utgarde Keep is still good for the Plunderer's Helmet and Drake Mounted Crossbow (you can't expect the True-aim Long Rifle to drop right away).

Nexus is also another good one for the Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood. There are other three other items that drop in here too, not to mention it's a 5-badge run.

Now that people are starting to out gear the earlier raid content I'll probably try and find an Obsidian Sanctum (25) run. The Hyaline Helm of the Sniper and Fury of the Five Flights (lol, good luck getting that one) are nice drops.

Now if you're flush with gold you can hit the Auction House and pick-up some very nice items. Some of these won't come cheap, and you'll find it's a mix of entry level to "best in slot".

Legs

• Giantmaim Leggings
• Darkcore Leggings

Back

• Ice Striker's Cloak
• Shawl of the Shattered Giant

Ranged

• Nesingwary 4000

Rings

• Titanium Impact Band
• Band of the Kirin Tor
• Inscribed Band of the Kirin Tor
• Etched Band of the Kirin Tor
• Signet of Edward the Odd

Neck

• Titanium Impact Choker
• Nymph Heart Charm

Wrist

• Armguards of the Tower Archer
• Slime Stream Bands
• Bracers of the Smothering Inferno

Waist

• Torn Web Wrapping
• Belt of the Dragons

Trinket

• Darkmoon Card: Greatness

Before you start spending all that gold keep in mind that you'll be earning conquest badges and there's a lot of nice gear that you'll be able to get quite easily. For example, The Broach of the Wailing Night only costs 19 badges.

Then and Now

So how does hitting level 80 today compare to hitting level 80 back in December? It's quite nice actually. I went ahead and plugged some information into Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer (you can here an interview with her here) and compared Ranchero (pre-raid) with Darkbrew (pre-raid and current). Here are the bottom line dps results.

As you can see gearing up just from Trial of the Champion and a few affordable AH pieces puts you ahead of where you could have been before 3.2.

For details on how I spec'd and geared each one you can click on the links below. Darkbrew pre-raid matches the gear I had when I first stepped into Naxxramas. Darkbrew current is my current gear, and Ranchero is geared in items that I thought I could reasonably get in a short amount of time.

• Ranchero Pre-raid
• Darkbrew Pre-raid
• Darkbrew Current

It's a 3.2 world and we're living in it!

Jewelcrafting - Getting Ready

First things first, I'm back from my second vacation. It was a great trip and if it weren't for the timeshare folks it would've been perfect (that's a story for another day). I discovered something about myself, I may be an idiot, but at least I'm not a fool, but I digress.

A couple of months back I picked up Jewelcrafting so I could cut my own gems and take advantage of the awesome jewelcrafter only gems. I took a quick glance at some of the 3.2 changes on the PTR, and today I want to share some of the Jewelcrafting changes and what they mean for me, and possibly you.

First here are the important changes.

• Epic gems and recipies have been added to the game.
• The stats of the jewelcrafter only gems have been increased. The delicate dragonseye now has +34 agility up from +27.
• The jewelcrafter only gems are no longer prismatic. For example the delicate dragonseye is now a red gem.
• Epic gems can be purchased with Emblems of Heroism.
• Epic gem patterns can be purchased with tokens earned from the daily jewelcrafting quests.
• Epic gem patterns require jewelcrafting 450.

So what does this all mean for me? It means I have work to do.

• I will have to do some re-gemming. I'm currently using the jewelcrafter only gems to satisfy my meta-gem requirement.
• I will probably add a Deadly Ametrine and Shifting Dreadstone to my gear in order to keep my meta gem active.
• I will then upgrade any available sockets to Delicate Cardinal Rubys.
• With my current gear I'll probably gain about 20 more agility, but I'll be sacrificing some socket bonuses.
• I'll need to work on getting my jewelcrafting to 450.
• I'll also want to make sure I do the daily jewelcrafting quest each day so I can buy the patterns I want (I want all of them by the way).
• I'll also be doing more heroics to stock up on Emblems of Heroism so I can purchase some epic gems. Remember that when 3.2 hits we'll be earning Emblems of Conquest, and while they can be converted to Emblems of Heroism, I'll probably want to keep them to get Conquest gear.

When patch 3.2 hits you can bet that a lot of folks will be looking to upgrade their gems. In addition to gemming myself, I'm hoping to cash in on the early demand.

So the bottom line is if you're a jewelcrafter you might want to start collecting badges and earning tokens to get the new patterns and gems when 3.2 goes live.

It's Not Just About Gear

Reporter: "Coach, how do you feel about your team's execution?"

Coach McKay: "I'm in favor of it."

Okay so I ran 25-man OS last night, and a slightly lesser geared Hunter beat me on the dps meters. Now, it should be noted that I was screwing around with dual-spec and tried Marksman for the Sartharion part of the raid (note to self: TrueShot Aura is a good thing, please use it next time).

I'd post my WWS, but it's kind of skewed because I ran as both Survival and Marksman, plus it has VoA data which the other hunter wasn't part of. Nonetheless even if I had stayed Survival for the whole raid he would have edged me out. The b@stard even managed to keep his pet alive the whole fight.

I hear a lot of folks make a big deal about gear, and how if they only had better gear they'd be doing much better dps. Gear is important, there's no question about that. But gear is only one factor in our dps. It's the engine in our car, and we as players have to drive that car.

Our skill in executing our shots, priorities and rotations will make a much bigger difference than any one piece of gear will.

Right now Survival has the potential to bring the highest hunter raid dps. This is true only if you are able to manage your cooldowns, time your shots, and take advantage of Sniper Training and Lock and Load.

It requires a lot concentration to pull-off, and is very hard to do without using addons such as PowerAuras, Quartz and Bartender4. A properly executed spec/gear combination with a lower dps potential will do more dps than a poorly executed gear/spec combination with a higher dps potential.

There have been a couple of good articles this week regarding shot rotations/priorities for Hunters. Aspect of the Hare posted an article called "The WotLK Hunter Shot Rotation Compendium" and outDPS posted an article called "Survival Rotation for Patch 3.1!" If you're struggling with your execution both articles will give you some good advice on how to prioritize your shots.

Not everyone has to shoot for the top of the meters. This is a game and it's meant to be fun. That being said, if topping the meters is something you strive for, then eventually you'll run into someone who's flat out better than you. When that happens you should rejoice, because it's an opportunity for you to improve.

If you think you're struggling with your rotations or just want to try and get better, here are some things you can do.

• Practice on a Training Dummy. Get some cheap ammo, grab your pet and go to town. These are great for trying out macros, keybinds, rotations and more.
• Dual-Spec. Now that we have this option, try a different spec. Marksman, Survival and Beast Mastery have different shots and rotations. Find the one that is right for you.
• Talk to other Hunters you know. Treat these guys a colleagues and not competitors. Find out how they do what they do.
• Use Recount and run WWS reports.

Now I need to go find a Training Dummy and beer.

Ready Check

Our guild has been frantically recruiting players so we can run our own 25-man raids. As new players flood in it got me thinking about where I was when I first started raiding in Wrath.

I'm noticing that a lot of these folks seem under-geared for this endeavor. I know we're at the point where a lot of players have most of their raid gear and it's much easier to drag someone through to get gear. Still it's nice to see players who are willing to put in the time and effort to prepare themselves for their first raid encounters. If you're a hunter that's new to raiding, here's a look at the pre-raid gear that I had the first night I stepped into Naxx.

With a little bit of work you can gear yourself outside of the raid so that your initial performance is well within the expected parameters to succeed.

• Head - Truesight Ice Blinders

• Neck -Pendant of the Outcast Hero

• Back -Ice Striker's Cloak

• Chest - Polished Regimental Hauberk

• Wrist - Eaglebane Bracers

• Main Hand/Off-Hand - Broken Stalactite x2

• Ranged - Nesingwary 4000

• Hands - Heroes' Cryptstalker Handguards

• Legs - Giantmaim Legguards

• Waist - Belt of Tasseled Lanterns

• Boots - Boots of the Terrestrial Guardian

• Ring 1 - Jagged Ice Band

• Ring 2 - Signet of Bridenbrad

• Trinket 1 - Mirror of Truth

• Trinket 2 - Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood

A few other items I picked up shortly after we started were,

• Boots of Twinkling Stars (I almost couldn't wear these because of the name)

• Sovereign's Belt

• Mobius Band

With this gear, gems and enchants I was hit capped, had roughly 3400 attack power and my crit was around 29%. It should be noted that I was Beastmastery at the time.

Now this wasn't the best pre-raid gear available, it's just what I was able to obtain before it was time for the guild to start raiding.

Now how about Malygos please, guild?

Final Thoughts on DKP

Yesterday I wrote about the DKP system that is in place for our raid "alliance". I wanted to give the system some time before making a final judgement (our guild has often considered going to a DKP system). But after only two nights of DKP I'm ready to make the call. It's bad, very bad.

I have to admit it's hard to come here and bash a system where I've gotten, Valorous Cryptstalker Spaulders, Gloves of Calculated Risk, and Leggings of Failed Escape (arguably three of the best pieces of hunter loot in the game), but I must.

Actually, of the three pieces only the Leggings of Failed Escape were purchased with DKP.

So what are my gripes?

1. The focus of the group seemed to be more on loot then having fun and doing the actual content.
2. We had some new raiders that weren't happy with the prospect of not having a chance to get any upgrades.
3. Loot distribution was slow and took too much time.
4. There were also shenanigans. I wasn't paying full attention, but after the four horsemen loot distribution ended one of the OTs left the raid in a huff (he quit the other guild too). I think it was over a BoE drop.
5. Too much time strategizing. I have to admit I was very guilty of this. Prior to the raid I spent some time prioritzing drops and figuring out who the competition was. Before we started I knew the drops I wanted and the maximum amount needed to acquire them. I just needed to get lucky (which I did).
6. The system favors individuals and not the raid. If we had gotten to the Plague Quarter, and if Noth had dropped the Crippled Treads, I would have had a tough decision to make. Spend my points and get the boots (having already gotten the leggings) or defer and let someone else who hadn't gotten anything get them.

Overall I think DKP works best if you have a consistent team that is equally geared. That way you can reward those players who show up every time by allowing them to get gear first (you don't need a DKP system for this by the way).

I like the way our guild does it. We look at who is in the raid, who will be raiding and with what toons. We try to see that we buff the raid group as best as possible, and we try to spread the wealth. If we're pugging any spots we give those players the same opportunity to get loot as everyone else. It's not perfect, but I think it's better than this garbage.

D-K-P Easy as 1-2-3...

Last week I mentioned that our guild formed an alliance to do 25-man content. So far this has worked out well. We've cleared everything but Thaddius, Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad, and we are very close on Thaddius.

Last night we began using a DKP system for loot distribution.

I've personally never been part of a DKP system, so I'm not sure if I like it or not.

The main advantage of DKP is to ensure that players who have been regularly participating in the raids get rewared. If everything is just left to open roll then the guy who is on his first run will have the same opportunity to get an item as the guy who has been on every run.

Like any loot system there remains the possibility of shenanigans. The good news is this group doesn't strike me like that. So I'd be surprised to see things like upbidding, cherry picking and the like.

Still though, with limited points one does have to consider prioritizing their needs. And although we us a silent auction for spending points, everyone's DKP totals are publicly available on the guild site. This makes it easy to see who your competition is and determine the maximum amount of points you need to spend on an item. All of this could lead to a loot distribution system where individuals fare better than the raid as a whole.

What really concerns me is that not all of our guild members can participate every run. This means they won't be earning as much DKP, and may not wish to fill spots if they know they haven't got a shot at getting upgrades.

I'm in the fortunate position that for the most part there is only one other physical dps mail wearer in the group. I am also the only hunter. Mail pieces and ranged weapons shouldn't be too hard to come by. /fingers crossed.

I'm mostly glad to be finally doing the 25-man content. With any luck we will be giving Sapphiron a try by Monday.

We Almost Didn't Get This

Our guild has formed an alliance to do 25-man content (I’ll do a post on this later in the week). We joined forces in Heroic Naxxramas and I was fortunate to get my first piece of T7.5

Despite winning the roll, my numbers on the DPS meters raised a few eyebrows and some doubts as to whether or not I needed to get this over others who rolled.

Loatheb is without a doubt my favorite fight in Naxx. The Fungal Creep buff increases my critical strike chance by an additional 50%. With 25-man raid buffs my critical strike chance is usually around 43-46%. With this buff about 99% percent of my shots were critical strikes; for the entire fight!

Although I had such a high crit, I would've expected the meters to be a lot closer. The reason for this is as a survival hunter my crit chance is already pretty high, which means my dps doesn't stand to gain as much from Fungal Creep as some of the other classes. Methinks not everyone was as spore hungry as me.

In the Cards?

Things are bit slow in the guild right now. I think a lot of folks are cooling their heels until 3.1 arrives. This doesn't bode well for me. When things are slow and I'm bored I tend to hit the Auction House and spend gold.

Currently I'm considering getting a Nobles Deck which of course will allow me to get the Darkmoon Card: Greatness. This is pretty much regarded as the best trinket to have if you're a survival hunter. The problem is it's expensive.

The next Darkmoon fair isn't until April 7th so I have a little time to think about this. If anyone wants to talk me out of this feel free. As far as I can tell though there isn't anything better coming out of 3.1 so this should last me a good long while.

Poor house here I come (maybe).