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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Have Group Will Travel, Will Fail

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.

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Bwana na na na na na na na...

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic dwarf. Darkbrew will be that dwarf. We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."


So Blizzard delivered the pre-patch this week. You know, the one where all of the classes are horribly imbalanced, amazingly overpowered, and we can all walk into heroic ICC 25 and fly out on our Invincible horsies; that pre-patch. And while some of the class programmers got the memo, it looks as if the Hunter guy might have been out that day.

Thanks to some time spent on beta and the ptr I was ready to hit the ground running, and avoid the six million gold gouging that was happening on the auction houses across Azeroth. What I wasn't fully prepared for was raiding and 5-mans. It's the one thing I didn't get a chance to do on the ptr. Luckily my guild mates were quick to get set up and eager to raid, so we made our way into ICC 25 for some good times.

"I can't hold her; she's breaking up! She's breaking --"

To be honest I thought the overall raid dps was higher than before. As for my dps, it felt like the bionics had been left out in the cold and weren't performing up to speed. I think the good Dr. Wells needs to get in there and adjust some of the wiring and turn up the juice on these new abilities. Here are some random thoughts.

1. Multi-shot as our AoE is definitely not as good as Volley. Maybe it's okay for soloing packs of mobs, but for raid and dungeon trash it's blech. It costs too much focus and it requires you to be targeting something, and is subject to our minimum range. For ICC trash I'd get a couple of them off and then have to regen focus with Steady Shot until I could fire it again. Five mans are worse because stuff dies so darn fast, and you don't always start each pull with a full focus bar.
2. The Trap Launcher is a step down from Freezing Arrow. Yes you can launch any kind of trap, but you can't effectively macro this thing so it takes two keybinds to launch a trap whereas Freezing Arrow required one. It's just clunky right now.
3. BM dps is probably higher than it was and all three specs are reportedly close in dps. Overall hunter dps seems to be down.
4. My dps seemed slightly lower than where it had been, and compared to other classed in our raid it was very mediocre. I found myself in the middle of the meter rather than closer to the top. It should be noted that on our second night of raiding things improved because some of the classes got hit with the nerf bat.
5. I raided as BM going with a 31/2/3 build. I like my choices for the BM tree and feel good about two points in GftT. It's the other three points that I'm playing around with. For now I'm dumping one point into Pathing and two into Improved Stings. This is just for level 80 raiding. You can see my glyph choices in the build link.
6. For this week I raided in EZ-mode and macroed Focus Fire and Bestial Wrath to my shots. As I get more comfortable with things I'll play around with taking them out of my macros and firing them manually.

The Bionic BM

The "Rotation"

As I stated BM definitely got beefed up from where it was in Patch 3.3. For BM I used the following rotation/priority.

• Kill Shot
• Serpent Sting (when needed)
• Kill Command
• Arcane Shot
• Steady Shot

If you fire Bestial Wrath with a full focus bar you can go gangbusters with your rotation and just fire Kill Command and Arcane Shot. During this time I'm usually able to get two Kill Commands before focus becomes an issue. Also I like to use fervor early on to fill up the bar and extend things a little longer, making sure I have enough focus to reapply Serpent Sting.

Until we get Cobra Shot at level 81 we will have to watch Serpent Sting and apply it whenever it drops off. Several months playing MM makes this more challenging then you'd think.

A couple of things about Kill Command. It's a pet ability and requires your pet to be attacking something. Furthermore it does damage to whatever target your pet is attacking. That means you can't fire it if your pet is not on a target (i.e., it's hard to lead off with this ability), and you need to be aware of what your pet is attacking. Under the old Kill Command it didn't much matter, but it's changed now and a key part of the BM arsenal.

Earlier I mentioned playing BM in EZ-mode where I macroed Focus Fire and Bestial Wrath to all my shots, thus ensuring I use them whenever they are off cooldown. Focus Fire has a 15 second cool down and grants 3% haste for each stack of frenzy your pet has. Your pet can have up to five stacks of Frenzy.

By automating Focus Fire you'll get anywhere from 3-15% haste for 15 seconds each use. Chances are the very first time Focus Fire goes off you'll be on the low end of that spectrum. After that it just depends on how many stacks your pet can generate in the next 15 seconds before it fires again.

A more precise playing of BM involves micro-managing all of your abilities. The goal is to use Focus Fire when Frenzy stacks reach five while still firing the maximum number of Focus Fires the encounter will allow. You should also make sure Kill Command is available for every Bestial Wrath; possibly lining it up with Killing Streak.

I definitely need some more practice before I truly open things up, but hey even Steve Austin needed to walk before he could run 60 mph.

Finally, one of the new addOns I'm trying is called Hunter Focus Bar. It's a great big movable focus bar that also displays key Hunter procs like Frenzy. In the image below you can see the stacks of frenzy, time left on Focus Fire and time left on Killing Streak. It works for all hunter specs. This one might be a keeper folks.

PS - The bionic sound effect has to be one of the toughest things to represent phonetically. Any suggestions you have to do it better, stronger, faster are welcome (I may use it again in the future ;) ).

Dead is Dead

My first trip to the Frozen Throne was back in March with my 10-man team. My second trip was in May, this time with my 25-man team. Both journeys ended not in defeat, but rather in retreat. For various reason both the 10-man and 25-man teams disbanded before defeating the Lich King. In fact both teams failed to put in more than one night's worth of work on him.



Fortunately I regrouped, and last week my new 10-man team entered Icecrown Citadel and proceeded to obliterate the place. Only Sindragosa and the Lich King gave us any sort of trouble, but in the end we were victorious. I can now visit the fountain in Dalaran and watch the video with a sense that I participated in making those events happen.

I still hope to go back and defeat Arthas in 25-man, but dead is dead and I'm happy to have my Kingslayer title. I'll be switching it back to Brewmaster soon though ;) .

The king is dead and I need a beer.

Happy Hunting!

Naxxramas = Back in My Day Now?

Has everyone forgotten how to do Naxxramas? Rades over at Orcish Army Knife wrote about his misadventures on Instructor Razuvious, and last night I got my own taste of what it's like to run with the new kids.

Seriously, I'm starting to get the "old man of the expansion" feel. I'm quickly becoming the "back in my day guy".

Now I haven't done any serious Naxx raiding in almost a year, but 24 combined Razuvious kills are enough to have ingrained in my head just how this fight works. No explanations needed.

I mean really, back in my day the MC tanks waited until Razuvious was out of range before they approached the pylons.

Back in my day the dps waited until one of the understudies had established threat on Razuvious before we unloaded on him. Yes, we had an over zealous hunter (not me) get capped right away because he didn't realize the pull was borked. Hello, McFly!

Back in my day MC tanks used to coordinate switching on/off the boss so as not too risk having an understudy die. You see back then it was virtually impossible for a real tank to handle him so it was vital the understudies stayed alive. An ICC geared tank can last a little bit, but that's not the recommended strategy for this fight.

Alas, we defeated him in one shot, but I can only imagine what things would've been like if we had to do Thaddius.

They say that buffs and gear can't fix stupid. This is true, but what they can do is not punish your raid with a wipe. While this is great for getting the weekly done, or surviving an ICC encounter and moving on to the next boss, it's not great for honing one's raiding skills.

Ah well, we are heading towards the end of the expansion and soon we'll be in a raiding blackout as Cataclysm arrives and the cycle starts over. I suppose there is something to be said for just getting things done.

Major Raid Changes in Cataclysm

Zoinks! In case you haven't heard Blizzard is making significant changes to progression raiding in Cataclysm. You can read Nethaera's full post here, but the short of it is this,

• 10 and 25-man raids will be of similar difficulty and share the same lockout timer.


• 10 and 25-man raids will drop the exact same loot.


• 25-man raids will drop more gold, loot and badges.


• There will be smaller raid instances, but more of them.

I have to say I'm somewhat surprised by these changes. This could all but mean the end of 25-man progression raiding. I was just in a guild that disbanded because they couldn't get 25 people on. The guild I'm in now was recruiting because they were having trouble getting 25 people on.

Ten man raids are a lot easier to organize and manage. You're less likely to have multiple players of the same class/spec in the raid so the chance of you having zero competition for your gear is high. Also, Blizzard seems to be trying to get as many, if not all, of the 25-man buff into a 10-man raid, so you might be able to better plan your 10-man team around more diverse class composition.

The key will be just how difficult 10-mans will be and how much more rewarding the 25-mans will be. Will that alt-group be able to get through the new 10-man raids, or will you need your A-team? How similar will the encounters be? Right now in ICC there are a lot of encounters that require the raid to spread out. This mechanic is trivial in 10-man, but needs to be carefully managed in 25.

25-man teams might be able to gear up faster and progress quicker, however, both 10 and 25-man will now be going from point A to point B. Will it really matter how fast you get there?

In the same expansion that Blizzard is implementing changes to make guild management and recruitment easier (guild leveling, talents and looking for guild), they are also reducing the incentive to run larger guilds and raids.

One final thought, raids are going to be smaller in scale. Instead of single 11 boss instances we'll see multiple five boss instances. I suspect this gives raiders the option to do more things during their raid week, and it probably keeps pugs alive giving them a chance to clear an instance in one night.

Like everything else, I'll want to see it in action before I make a final judgement, but we just might see 10-mans as the big thing in Cataclysm.

Multi-Shot - Ruh Roh!

In episode 21 of the Hunting Party Podcast we interviewed Kruf who was one of the hunters who got the world's first Lich King (25), and heroic Lich King (25) kills. In the interview he said the most important thing for hunters is to constantly be firing something and not sitting idle. I agreed with him whole heartedly - until today.

Before I start I'm going to give some benefit of doubt here and chalk this one up to transitioning from Survival to Marksman. Even with that there are some things here that are just plain ugly.

What you're looking at is a World of Logs timeline view from a recent Festergut (25) normal encounter. For more information on using World of Logs you can check out this post at OutDPS.com.

So where to begin? See the spell labeled speed? That's a haste potion. The hunter is pre-potting so he can use another one later in the fight. Good stuff, and something I don't do enough of.

Next we see an adjustment to his tracker. This is for the 5% damage boost from the Improved Tracking talent. The problem here is that this was entirely unnecessary since he was previously tracking undead. Tracking should already be in place when you enter the instance.

We also have Misdirection and Hunter's Mark. Both fine. When the fight starts he leads off with Serpent Sting, having macro'd Silencing Shot and Kill Command. Nothing bad about that.

Next we see Chimera Shot followed by Multi-Shot. Ruh Roh! Next we get Rapid Fire and Readiness, followed by Chimera and Multi-Shot. Ruh Roh! With Rapid Fire cooking the poor bastard gets hit by Vile Gas. Things move along and then we start to see some Serpent Sting casts - lots of them. Ruh Roh!

The second image is from end of the fight. Note, the two images do not comprise the entire timeline. What's notable in this second image is that only one Kill Shot was fired once the boss was in execute range, and there were no additional Rapid Fire/Readiness combinations. All at once, Ruh-Roh!

Let's talk a little bit about what's wrong here. First, Multi-Shot is not Aimed Shot; at least not for Marksman, and to some degree Survival. The following talents all affect Aimed Shot and not Multi-Shot,

• Marked for Death - Increases your damage done by your shots and the damage done by your pet's special abilities by 5% on marked targets, and increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Kill Shot and Chimera Shot by 10%.
• Piercing Shots - Your critical Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 30% of the damage dealt over 8 sec.
• Improves Steady Shot - Your Steady Shot hits have a 15% chance to increase the damage done by your next Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot or Chimera Shot by 15%, and reduce the mana cost of your next Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot or Chimera Shot by 20%.
• Master Marksman - Increases your critical strike chance by 5%, and reduces the Mana cost of your Steady Shot, Aimed Shot, and Chimera Shot by 25%.
• Sniper Training (SV only) - Increases the critical strike chance of your Kill Shot ability by 15%, and while standing still for 6 sec, you gain Sniper Training increasing the damage done by your Steady Shot, Aimed Shot, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot by 6% for 15 sec..

This is huge, especially Piercing Shots which is a big part of Marksman damage. Aimed Shot is second only to Chimera Shot in the MM rotation. It does more damage and costs less mana than Multi-Shot. That's not to say that Multi-Shot does not have it's place, it does. Single target boss fights are not one of them though.

I'm not going to go into the whole nuance of Readiness/Rapid Fire other than to say you need to monitor these closely and use them appropriately as the length of the fight dictates. In this fight you probably should have had at least three rapid fires if not four.

As for Serpent Sting, Marksman hunters should only have to recast this if it's fallen off (which shouldn't be an issue with Festergut), or you get a buff such as Exploit Weakness and want maintain a buffed Serpent Sting on the target. If you look at the end of the fight we see Serpent Sting followed by Serpent Sting, followed by Misdirection, followed by Serpent Sting. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Finally, Kill Shot is our biggest shot. It's priority should be greater than anything else we've got. This is true for Marksman, Survival and Beast Master. Once you get into execute range there's no reason not to be watching this and getting off as many as you can. Most fights I've seen, there is usually time to get off more than one.

So at the end of the day where does all of this shoddy huntering get you? Right smack dab in the middle of the pack. Almost 8K dps. Not the worst, but not nearly as good as it could've been. If you're on a progression fight and bumping up against an enrage timer, "not the worst" probably won't be good enough.

PS: Ruh Roh - Astro or Scooby-Doo? Debate!

Instant Coffee and Beast Master

"We are here at Icecrown Citadel (a four-star raiding instance), where we've secretly replaced the fine Marksman hunter they usually serve with a Beast Master Hunter. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference!"





This week I decided to throw my hat into the Beast Master ring and do some ICC (25) bosses as BM.

I'm going to cut to the chase here. If there is a minimum threshold required to dps ICC (25), Beast Master hunters easily cross it. A well geared, well played (or perhaps mediocre in this case) Beast Master hunter can be a high contributing dpser in ICC.

I did Toravon the Ice Watcher, Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper and Stinky as BM, and I did Saurfang and Festergut as MM. I really wanted to do Festergut as BM, but just couldn't bring myself to sacrifice the DPS (I've been trying to break 10K on him for some time now).

A few things worth noting. My gear is tailored more towards MM than it is BM. My reliance on the focused aim talent forces me into a BM talent spec that is not optimized for raiding. Playing around with the spreadsheet and using gear that I have in my bank (or could acquire with badges) it was possible to increase my theoretical BM dps by at least 100. In other words, if I was really making the effort I probably could've done a little better. That being said I don't know that it would have significantly changed things.

Also, this is very representative of how I do as BM compared to how I do as MM in the context of my 25-man raid team. Your results may very.

THE STIGMA OF BEAST MASTER

Let's face it, BM has come under a lot of criticism lately, and has reached a point where going into a raid as BM is like wearing a scarlet letter. Sometimes though this perception can be overblown.

I did not information anyone in my raid that I had switched and would be running as BM. I used a wolf so it was a little less obvious. But nobody said a thing. There were no whispers, and no questions in Vent as to why my dps and position on the meters was lower. And it was lower.

Nobody noticed and nobody cared. Granted these were all farm bosses that we expected to one-shot. I don't know how things would have gone had these been progression bosses we had not killed yet. Still my switch to BM and related performance flew well under the radar.

So how exactly did I do as BM compared to MM. Let's take a very unscientific look.

COMPARING APPLES TO KUMQUATS

The big thing I noticed on this night was that in most cases my positioning on the meters was much lower as BM than it was as MM. That's not to say that my dps was bad or that I was not contributing. It simply indicates that when I play MM my contribution to the raid's dps is higher.

Toravon the Icewatcher (BM)



Lord Marrowgar (BM)



Lady Deathwhisper (BM)



Deatbringer Saurfang (MM)

When I switched to MM for this fight my DPS and positioning on the meters was much higher. Only one other ranged dps did better. The top five are all melee who go to stay on the boss the entire fight (I hate these guys) while I helped with adds. Also, we added another MM hunter for this fight (he's the on the bottom with the 7177.9 dps).



Festergut (MM)

On this fight the other hunter and I were the designated collapse points, so puking was the only thing interrupting our dps (definitely nice work if you can get it).



Stinky (BM)

I've included Stink because I've done over 10K on him before, and it's the only fight where I was BM and the other hunter was MM. My dps was good, but he pretty much cleaned my clock.



All and I feel that BM can definitely put out DPS and be a major contributer to a raid's success. As far as me continuing to raid as BM, I think it can best be summed up by my beer of choice for this experiment - Brooklyn Lager.


Good BM Hunting! Fuggedaboutit!

Last Dwarf Standing Wins

"I'd rather have someone in here doing 1k less dps but able to move out of the fires." - My Raid Leader

The key to your raid getting a boss on farm is for you to get the boss on farm first. When I'm learning a new encounter, and it looks like there will be wiping, my goal is to die when all hell has broken loose; I want to be the last dwarf standing.

Wiping is a natural part of progression raiding. It happens. The fights in ICC have a lot of movement and require tons of raid awareness to get through them.

The biggest mistake that I see people make is they perceive their class function to be their primary job, and as such they prioritize this over everything else. And why not? It's the one thing that doesn't change from encounter to encounter. It's the one thing you already know how to do; it's easy.

The reality is survivability should be the number one priority and everything else should be secondary until the mechanics of each fight are second nature to you. Survivability is a responsibility of everyone in the raid. It is not about healers doing a better job of keeping you alive, it's about you avoiding as much damage as possible, even if it comes at the expense of your dps. It's about understanding the fight and reacting to events immediately. As Rilgon over at Stabilized Effort Scope writes, you should never hesitate.

How does one get better? How do you go about getting a boss on farm? You can start by putting away the meters. On these early attempts the meters are nothing but a distraction. If you can't bring yourself to disable the meters, at least keep them minimized and review the numbers after the fight.

Get familiar with your defensive capabilities and have them at the ready. Deterrence isn't a standard part of my rotation, but when learning fights such as the Blood Queen I find it to be an invaluable ability. Also, consider going with a speed enchant such as Tuskarr's Vitality. Some high-end guilds actually require all of their raiders to have some form of speed enhancement.

Actively use a boss addOn such as DBM or DXE. Don't just install and forget it. Take the time and familiarize yourself with the timers and alerts for each encounter. Since the first few attempts are likely to be wipes, try backing off the dps and watching these mods. The information they provide is incredible. Seriously they are like GPS for boss fights.

Evaluate what you did wrong after each attempt. If you died to a specific mechanic, make a point to not die by that same mechanic next attempt. Find a new way to die. :P

Finally, try setting a goal for yourself for getting the boss on farm. I'd like to think that I can figure out the mechanics of most encounters in six or so attempts. It doesn't always happen, but more often than not I find that I'm the last dwarf standing.

Good Hunting!

ICC Tips: Sindragosa's Icy Grip

Our 10-man raid team is working on Sindragosa. The other night, I ran into some trouble with the Icy Grip/Blistering Cold mechanic. I can't tell you how frustrating it was, especially since my issues began on the latter attempts.

Icy Grip/Blistering Cold is an annoying mechanic that needs to be handled consistently. Hunter's have some good options at their disposal that not only help themselves, but can aid the raid (ooh, this could be my new mantra).

Icy Grip / Blistering Cold

Icy Grip - Extend tendrils of frigid wind to pull all nearby enemies to the caster (think Cyanigosa from Violet Hold).

Blistering Cold - Deals 30000 Frost damage to enemies within 25 yards (this is for 10-man normal, it only gets worse from here).

Every so often she'll pull the raid to her using Icy Grip. You then have five seconds to get 25 yards away before she casts Blistering Cold and effectively one-shots you. There are a couple of ways that hunters can handle this.

Method One - Just Run Out

1. This option requires that you simply not suck. You get pulled in, you turn around, and you run out. This worked just fine for me on many an attempt, but somewhere along the line it became less effective so I began to look for other options. Behold, method two.

Method Two - Disengage/Aspect of the Pack

1. Believe it or not Sindragosa's Frost Aura does not trigger the daze effect of our movement Aspects. Ka-Ching! When I get pulled in, I jump disengage to get some distance, and then pop Aspect of the Pack and run. Just remember to turn Aspect off as soon as she's done casting. Obviously Cheetah will work, but why not help raid, eh?


2. I've read that you if you disengage while she's pulling you in you'll drop to the ground, and may not have to run out as far. I've been too scared to risk a death, so I haven't tried it yet.

Sadly, Deterrence does not work against Blistering Cold. I tried it and got crushed.

What sort of things do you like to do that make this mechanic and/or this encounter easier? I'd love to know.

Good Hunting!

Things We're Not Writing About

We're busy today. Application deadline is looming and we've got a lot of coding to do. Therefore we're not going to write about last night's ICC (10) Sindragosa attempts.

We're not going to write about how nice it was to see our raid leader playing a ranged toon instead of a tank.

We're not going to write about how we enjoyed watching him fail at Icy Grip/Blistering Cold after chastising us about it a couple of nights earlier.

We're not going to write about how he busted our chops for failing to remove stacks of Mystic Buffet and then couldn't get them off himself.

And we're definitely not going to write about how he probably helped us turn a corner with strategy and that we expect to get her down next time we go back in.

Would've been a fun post though.

When in Ironforge...

Last night our guild was a little short for ICC (25) so we decided to do a TotC (25) bring your mains, alts. anything goes kind of run. We pugged a Hunter and Warlock from another guild.

There's an old saying that says when in Ironforge don't mess with the kegs. When we got to faction champs there was some disagreement on the part of the pugs over the designated kill order. The pugs thought we should kill all the healers first. Not only did they disagree with our strategy, they failed to followed it.

If you're invited to pug in another guild's run you're a guest and need to play by their rules and follow their strats; even if it's going to get you killed, or worse lead to a wipe. Feel free to contribute to the strategy, but don't be a jerk about it, and never deviate from the strategy once the encounter is engaged.

Whether you've killed the Lich King, almost killed the Lich King, or have braved the deeps of the Fargo Deep Mine, it doesn't matter; it's not your run. It's only going to lead to you getting kicked out of the raid, which is what happened to our pugs.

And if you get kicked out of a raid you can't get any loot (which is presumably why you're there). 'Bout dang time!

PS - Regarding our strategy? It was epic fail of course ;)

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!

Giving Her All She's Got

Scotty: "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!"

Kirk: "All she's got isn't good enough!  What else have you got?"

_

Last night our raid team attempted Festergut (25).  Nine attempts in all, and at the end of the night he was still standing. It wasn't a total waste of effort and we did reach the point where it was the enrage timer that was killing us. Two attempts had him at 7% and 6%.

I felt pretty good about how I was doing.  Nobody was complaining, and my dps was well within the range it needed to be, but the boss wasn't going down. The raid leader was also getting antsy, telling us we needed to step it up (naturally it was in that non-constructive way, like when a track coach tell his runners they need to run faster).

Now on Star Trek it's usually some dramatic, risky, untested, unconventional and highly theoretical solution that saves day.  In WoW those opportunities rarely present themselves.  Nope, we have to dig deep to find that extra bit of healing or dps that's needed to get the job done.  We have to keep doing what we're already doing, only we have to do it better.

Below are a couple of attempts both resulting in wipes due to the enrage timer.  I can't remember what percentage we had him to in the first attempt, but it wasn't one of the 6% or 7% attempts I mentioned in the beginning.  I do know that on the final one we got him to 6%.

Festergut Enrage Wipe I

Festergut Enrage Wipe II

As you can see my dps went up quite a bit in the second attempt.  Now there are many factors that can result in fluctuating DPS numbers. Procs, buffs, debuffs and the RNG will all lead to a variance.  Still though, adjustments (even tiny ones) also play a part.

After each attempt I try to evaluate my performance.  I sit back and ask myself questions such as,

• Am I economizing on my movement, firing instants and pausing for auto shots?
• Am I maximizing my GCDs? Perhaps I'm firing a Steady Shot when Chimera or Aimed are up (old BM habits die hard sometimes).
• Am I using Readiness and Rapid fire correctly?
• Am I recasting Serpent Sting the first time my T10 2-set bonus procs?
• Am I maximizing my cooldown stacking?
• Have I tried pre-potting a speed potion?
• I recently got some new gear, are my gems and enchants in order? Let's see I'm a JC and I'm using both of my allotted JC only gems. Both!? KHAAAANNNNNN!

Ultimately this is about attitude. It's very easy to sit back and blame the other guy saying, "My dps is fine, it's the lower half that needs to pick up their game." This may be true, but I can't play the other guy's toon.  I can only play mine, and I choose to be happy with how I play, but never satisfied. As the poet Robert Browning once wrote, "Ah but a man's reach should exceed his grasp..."

So my question to you is are you giving it all she's got, and is all she's got good enough, and if not, what else have you got?

Good Hunting! Live Long and Prosper!

Late Night Raiding

I'm tired and grumpy today.  One of the perils of being in a 25-man progression guild is that there is little or no time to run ICC (10).  When there is an ICC (10) run it's usually a late-night affair starting after 11pm server time, and ending at an hour that a working professional many years out of college has no business being awake.

Currently we raid 25-man ICC four nights a week.  We're not good enough to just plow through the place in two nights, so until we get our rears in gear we're committed to four nights.

Now I know what you're thinking, they're seven days in the week so that should leave three nights free for ICC (10). Well contrary to popular belief I do need to go outside occasionally and interact with other carbon based lifeforms.  The three non-raid nights don't lend themselves to raiding.

I'm mentally preparing myself for ditching ICC (10) or getting by with massive sleep deprivvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Note:  If you would like to create your own achievements you can go to http://worldofwarcraft.mmocluster.com.

Lady Deathwhisper Must Die!

This is the second boss in Icecrown Citadel and the first one that has that we're not in Kansas anymore feel to it.  Stuff you can't stand in, adds, mind control, crowd control, focused fire; this fight has it all.

I won't go so far as to say you've hit a wall with this one (I'll save that for Deathbringer Saurfang), but it will serve as your first real test in Icecrown Citadel (even with the recent nerf).

Our strategy for 10 and 25-man are vastly different.  In 10-man the entire raid gets up on stage behind the boss.  All of phase one is conducted in this area.  When the adds spawn we start to dps them down as they make their way to the stage.  We just found that it was easier to contain things and keep everyone in range doing it this way.

For the 25-man encounter we like to split up our raid into groups.  We have a group handling the adds on the left, a group handling adds on the right.  We assign a tank to the add in the back and rotate in a dps to handle the back add based on the type of add that spawns.  We also have two dedicated dps on the boss for all of phase one.  Sadly, I'm not one of them.

Instead of that cushy job, I am given the following assignments,

1. DPS the mana shield when there are no adds up.
2. DPS the adds that spawn to the right-side of the boss.  The right side always has two adherents and one fanatic.
3. DPS any remaining adds after our group's add are dead.
4. Backup CC on the mind control.  Mages and Shamans are primary on this for our group.
5. Watch my darn threat in phase two.
6. Don't stand in the Death and Decay.
7. Avoid the ghosts that are spawned in phase two.

Phase I - Handling the Adds

In phase one the goal of the raid is to DPS down Lady D's mana shield.  Once the shield is down you can engage Lady D directly and burn her down.  For Lady D in phase one you should,

• Put your pet on the boss.
• Use Serpent Sting unless you need mana and then use Viper Sting (a couple of these can really keep you out of viper for the whole fight).

There are two types of adds that spawn, fanatics and adherents.  The left side will always spawn two fanatics and one adherent, and the right side will always spawn two adherents and one fanatic.

My raid puts me in a group to handle adds on the right side.  We like to burn down the adherents first and I always MD adds to the tank.  Normal versions of the fanatics and adherents can be killed by anyone.  Lady D, however, likes to empower, reanimate them and more.  You need to pay special attention to when this happens as the adds will become immune to certain types of damage.  If you're not careful you can find yourself wasting precious mana and cool downs on the wrong type of mob.

The recommended kill priority for adds is,

1. Deformed Fanatic - They can't be tanked, must be kited, and must burned down pronto!  They are the most dangerous.
2. Empowered Adherents - Cast AoE spells and cannot be interrupted.
3. Reanimated Adherents - Immune to magical damage, should be handled by physical DPS classes.
4. Cult Adherents - Although these are just the normal mobs they cast Curse of Torpor which increases the cool down on abilities by 15 seconds.  It can and must be decursed; it's best not to keep these guys around.
5. Reanimated Fanatics - Immune to physical damage and should be handled by magic classes.
6. Cult Fanatics - They do a bunch of melee stuff.

Phase II - The Money Phase

For hunters we don't need to do a whole lot. Keep Misdirects up on the tanks as Lady D will cast Touch of Insignificance which reduces the target's threat. If you're not careful you can draw aggro very fast here.  Also, she will spawn ghosts that just need to be avoided.  They can't be killed and will eventually explode for a lot of damage.  If you're being chased by one, please don't run towards people.

Mind Control

Throughout the entire fight Lady D will occasionally mind control a player.  Standard MC rules apply here.  Crowd Control them, and don't kill them.  I repeat, no matter how much you hate the person, don't kill them.  We usually have a mage and shaman ready to take care of this, but as you know, Hunters can fill this role too.  Keep that Freezing Arrow at the ready.

Thing a Hunter Might Want

This is some of the better hunter loot available to us.  The trinket is great, the legs are better than our T10, and the Zod's bow is as good as it gets for now (in fact I've seen it drop twice now and still don't have it :( ).

Item	iLevel	Item Type	Slot	Source
Njordnar Bone Bow	251	Bow	Ranged	10-man
Whispering Fanged Skull	251	Trinket	Trinket	10-man
Zod's Repeating Longbow	264	Bow	Ranged	25-man
Leggings of Northern Lights	264	Mail	Legs	25-man

Don't Take My Word for It - Resources and Other Guides

• Tank Spot - Lady Deathwhisper
• Warcraft Hunters Union - Lady Deathwhisper Hunter Strats in ICC
• OutDPS - Hunting Lady Deathwhisper
• Stabilized Effort Scope - Icecrown Citadel: Dear Deathwhisper, damage immunities suck