*chirp*

So, yes, I'm "tweeting" now. Or as I like to call it, "microblogging" - like microcredit, only less useful for empowering third-world women through entrepreneurship.

From Now On, We Raid in Style

Behold!

Now, don't get me wrong - I've never been a real tech whore. My PC for the past 4 years had been a DIY job, periodically upgraded to squeeze a modest level of performance out of the cheapest parts possible. But in the end, it was quite the cobbled-together monstrosity, and after its most recent heart attack, I had to admit defeat.

So I splurged! I fully expect this beast to last longer than I do, and I am positively giddy in anticipation of stepping into Ulduar on this thing. Who knows - you may even begin seeing videos on this here blog... (the screening of which would probably be a great incentive to improve my own performance. Ah, public humiliation: the great educator.)

Out of Mana? Have Some Replenishment!

Cheers to the lovely and always entertaining mistress of both PvP and cutting-edge raiding, Megan at http://outofmana.blogspot.com/, for shooting me some blogroll linkage. May your Exorcism continue to affect enemy players, unannounced changes be damned!

I Can't See a Damn Thing in This Tin Can!

So, after tonight's regularly-scheduled lich beating, we decided to give EoE10 a few shots, mainly just to test out our druid's new Key to the Focusing Iris - honestly, you'd think Maly would have changed his locks by now.

We walked, nay, swaggered into his domain - and were repeatedly vaporized. We gave it three good shots, making it to phase three almost flawlessly each time, but we definitely need more practice on the drake riding bit. Also, on the final attempt before our healers had to split, we encountered a bug which ejected us from our mounts, only to re-mount us a few seconds later. Needless to say, that pretty much blew any rhythm we had going (and have I mentioned how much I HATE "vehicle" combat? Unwieldy, buggy, contrived vehicle combat? Occulus, EoE, that storm giant in Zul'Drak, and yes, even Flame Leviathan can all go die in a fire).

I was, however, quite pleased with my DPS and overall performance. I consider this the first meaningful test of my spec and gear post-3.1, and it saw a moderate damage increase, and possibly even better mana efficiency than before (perhaps due to 3/3 rather than 2/4 Hunting Party).

I even managed to pick up two new pieces from Naxx: Heroes' Cryptstalker Headpiece and Claymore of Ancient Power. Very slight upgrades, but upgrades nonetheless.

And shit, they look cool.

Blizzard Has My Back

The very day I conclude that my DPS would benefit from shifting a few talent points around, BAM! - free re-specs.

So, ever since 3.1 dropped, I've been snubbing the new Sniper Training - Ulduar, and even much of Naxx, just has too many fires that must not be stood in, and I believed those points would be better spent in Entrapment, mainly for kiting Gluth's zombies.

I still stand by those basic assertions, but now that Naxx is slowly being phased out of my regular raiding schedule, Entrapment is looking less appealing, whereas the extra crit to Kill Shot, especially in conjunction with its glyph, is pushing Sniper Training ahead. My only concern regarding the loss of Entrapment is controlling the adds during Ignis, but I'm hoping the interplay of 3/3 Trap Mastery and 2/3 Resourcefulness will allow for a constant ice sheet to keep them in line.

This is all just theoretical right now, as I won't be testing anything until this weekend at the earliest. As always, if your experience contradics my suppositions, tell me how wrong I am!

Prioritizing

Well, I broke down and shelled out for it. Now I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine! ...in about two weeks, when the Faire comes 'round again, anyway.

So, I'm basically back to square one as far as attaining my Chopper but, well, vanity mounts don't help kill bosses.

Don't You Wish Your Profession Got Loot Like Me?

I almost forgot!

Engineers - tired of getting useless gray items from "mining" mechanical corpses? Here's what I got from Flame Leviathan last night: 3 eternal Shadow, 2 eternal fire, 6 overcharged capacitors, and 19 saronite bars. It was totally unexpected, and I offered to roll to split it up after the fact, but hey - that's a lot of bullets. :D

Don't Let the Cinematic Trailer Fool You

Varian Wrynn was afraid to go to Ulduar! Yeah, His Surlyness just wants to go back to farming Naxx until Armageddon drops.

But we - the unknown, the unappreciated, the unaccountable for our actions - have answered Brann's call! Man, poor guy must be really hard up for help...

So, yes, last night was the guild's first look inside Ulduar. It wasn't our first official run; that comes next week. This was merely an attempt to get a feel for the first 3-4 bosses, seeing how far we could get.

And let me tell you, for anyone worried that Blizzard would not live up to their promises of more difficult content: Ulduar is HARD. Razorscale and her two-shotting fireballs. Ignis and his codpiece hellfire. And the trash! My God, the trash! Fire giants that Silence your healers, iron dwarves with magnifying chain lightning, fire elementals that hurl fire tornadoes that have a knockback and will chase you!

When you feel you've accomplished something after clearing a couple trash mobs, you know something's different. I know I'm excited.

One final note for my fellow Survival Hunters on slowing/rooting the iron constructs during the Ignis fight:

You may very well have Entrapment - that's good!
But remember, all of your traps share a cooldown with Black Arrow - that's /facepalm

*Gaaasp*

Now that I've stopped holding my breath in antici...
...
...pation of patch 3.1, I think I can feel fairly confident in where I'll be assigning my talent points later tonight (I'm slightly less confident that the servers will actually be up and stable later tonight...).

It's fairly similar to my current spec, with the most significant difference being that I'm foregoing Wyvern Sting and Noxious Stings to allow for the new 3-point Trap Mastery, and an additional point in Resourcefulness; the damage bonus during Black Arrow uptime is twice that of what Noxious Stings provided for Serpent Sting, so I really can't rationalize not buffing its DPS/mana ratio. Also, without the mana-discount from its glyph, I'm shunting Aimed Shot out of my rotation.

I've already covered the glyphs I'll be using, and my thoughts haven't changed on that front.

Sadly, although it still lingers in the patch notes, the proposed change to T.N.T. allowing Explosive Shot to refresh Explosive Trap seems to have never materialized (Confession time - I haven't been on the PTR much at all. I just can't justify spending my limited playing-time on something so ephemeral; huge props to all of you out there who have been testing and exploring the upcoming changes for the rest of us. Anyway, my point is: if the Explosive Shot change, or anything else I've covered, is incorrect, let me know! I'm running on rumors and innuendo here!).

Ahhh. It feels good just to think about playing my Hunter again. We're comin' for ya, Yoggie!

Forecast for Tomorrow is Patchy

With a 70 percent chance of content accumulation.

The pundits are all pointing to tomorrow as the day that 3.1 will descend from the heavens, and I, for one, hope they're right. I haven't done anything with my Hunter (other than buying Mysterious Eggs from the Oracles - c'mooon protodrake) in almost two weeks; not even dailies. I have all of the rep rewards I want, and my time has been better spent leveling my Death Knight.

I'm looking forward to learning the ins and outs of the new Survival tree, to say nothing of getting in on the ground floor of Ulduar raiding (should my work schedule choose to cooperate, he said pessimistically).

Anyway, maybe it's just the absence of any significant changes on the PTR in the last week or so, but it sure feels like the patch is coming tomorrow. My trick knee is actin' up, after all...

Requiscat in Pace

A long time ago (the 70s, man!), in a land far away (Minnesota!), one man thought it would be cool to pretend to traipse through a dungeon, killing monsters and taking their stuff.

May all your rolls be natural 20s, Dave, wherever the astral winds may take you.