Tuesday, March 31, 2009

This is the Greatest and Best Blog in the World...

Tribute.

As you should have heard by now, the bar-setting, internal-dialoguing, mass-marketing, pod-casting frontman of the Hunter community, Big Red Kitty, has made the hard, but undeniably right, choice to turn away from WoW for his wife and family.

BRK's was the first WoW blog I regularly read, upon returning to the game a year ago. He never went into the same obsessive depth of theoretical exposition as some other bloggers (and Lord knows, I loves me some math-craftin'), but he presented important fundamentals of the class in a highly entertaining manner, and I credit him with my Hunter becoming my main, rather than my Warlock, all those months ago.

Good luck, BRK. I'll raise a cup o' raspberry latte to ya.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Heart Attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack

Like anyone who deigns to publish a blog, I'm a fairly narcissistic person. So, of course I have a hit-tracker to tell me all of the who-when-where of visits to my blog, and I'll occassionally take a look at where my visitors are coming from (Hint: overwhelmingly click-throughs from my comments on other blogs, and woefully few hilarious Googled word strings).

With that in mind, it was with great surprise and a rush of endorphins that I just noted not just one, but two hits from the storied blogroll of the inimitable Pike. Indeed, I am still hyperventilating into a paper bag.

Thank you, Pike. If I don't recover, it will still have been worth it.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Ti-i-i-ime Is On My Side

It is... finished.

After arduous weeks of pain and interminable struggle, I have attained my lofty goal, so long held just out of reach. I have achieved...



Wait, what? Hang on... ah, here we go -



The Fall of Naxxramas


Yes, three weeks after downing K'T, my schedule finally allowed me to join my guild in clearing the Construct quarter, hence all the bosses in Naxx10. Some of our members will be giving Maly a shot this weekend, but for me, alas - WORK.

Just as an aside, tonight's raid composition gives a humorous insigt into our guild's overall makeup - out of the ten of us, there were 4 paladins and 4 hunters :D

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Oh, no you di'n't!

Oi, what a week.

The guild was hit hard by a rather unexpected dramasplosion, when a simple disagreement over loot procedures brought long-simmering personal differences to a head. Things were said. Prominent members left. Mistakes were made.

That being the case, we are no longer able to put together 25-person Naxx raids, as we had just begun to do, which leaves many of us in the unexpected position of basically stagnating until Ulduar (Malygos and various iterations of Sarth notwithstanding).

So what am I doing? Well, leveling my Death Knight, for one - we're perpetually short on tanks (some of the best of which left in the schism, along with some great healers). On my hunter, I'm mainly just doing dailies for gold (soon, my precious, soon) and rep achievements.

Still, Naxx isn't entirely barren of upgrades - just tonight, I finally replaced my Spaulders of the Black Arrow with Heroes Cryptstalker Spaulders, finally scoring me the 2-piece set bonus, for what it's worth.

I'm hangin' in there - more to come, no doubt.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Mr. Dwarf Goes to Washington

Ala Hillary or Bill.

Yes, after many hours of massacring Ogres for Draenei, Naga for Sporelings, and Furbolgs for other Furbolgs, I have finally been recognized for my skill as a peacemaker.



Who knew diplomacy involved so much mindless killing? Though, on second thought, if the most effective way to make people respect you is to wipe out their enemies, then the ongoing tension between the Alliance and Horde becomes a bit more explicable...

Friday, March 13, 2009

Trap Two-Stepping

The latest PTR update has some intriguing changes for Survival Hunters, namely:

* Entrapment redesigned: When your Frost Trap, Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Snake Trap are triggered, you entrap all afflicted targets, preventing them from moving for 2/4/6 seconds.

* T.N.T.: Gives your Explosive Shot a 33/66/100% chance to refresh the duration of your Immolation Trap effect on the target.

* Trap Mastery: This talent has been moved up to tier-2, up from tier-9, and is now a 3-point talent.

* Trap Mastery, Resourcefulness and T.N.T. now all affect Black Arrow.


It seems as though they are trying to make traps a more significant part of what the Survival tree is all about, rather than simply a desultory string of talents on the way to getting the most powerful shot in the game; I approve.

And the new Entrapment is going to make kiting Zombie Chows during the Gluth fight a lot easier :D

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The RP In Your MMOG

So, in case you didn’t know, the realm I play on, Kirin Tor, is an RP realm. Yes, yes, I know – Goldshire lol.

Anyway, a few of the WoW blogs I read are written by players on RP realms, and I've noticed that many of them are much more active in their in-game roleplaying than I've ever wanted to be. You see, I never actually roleplay with others in-game; it's just too reminiscent of the freeform roleplaying chatrooms that I long ago learned to shun. Rather, I seek out in-game superficialities that reflect my characters' personalities and backstories, even if I’m the only one who is aware of them. This includes everything from particular pets, to choice of professions, to titles – needless to say, the achievement system has really been a boon to my enjoyment of the game.

The practical effect of this approach is mostly a matter of how I spend my “non-progression” time in the game: whenever I’m not running instances or grinding rep for better gear. In this off-time, I’ll work toward acquiring the titles, tchotchkies, and even rewardless achievements that I feel reflect my character’s… character.

So basically, playing on an RP server is just a miniscule aid to the immersiveness of the experience – fewer people named Gankor and Jaknicklezon breaking the fourth wall. The only roleplaying I do in WoW is in my own head.

What about you? Whatever flavor of realm you play on, how far do you take your roleplaying? Do your characters have personalities, or are they just cartoon projections of yourself?

Monday, March 9, 2009

If You Can't Join 'Em...

Things were pretty slow around here this past weekend. Work kept me away from raiding (another successful Naxx clear!), so I just spent my time doing dailies and farming up the last of the mats I'll need for my sweet ride. I have nowhere near the gold I'll need for the vendored components, but I'm nothing if not patient... *twitch*

In other news, I've also leveled my Death Knight up to level 61, and it's been a lot of fun so far. I've never seriously played a melee class before, and it's an interesting change of pace; I look forward to having a new class to learn the ins and outs of.

With any luck, I'll be able to try my hand at tanking some Outland dungeons with guildies' leveling alts before long :)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

I Can't Read Your Crazy Moon Language!

Among other things, patch 3.1 will be changing the outlay of glyphs available to Hunters, both introducing new ones, and changing old ones. For your convenience, here they are:

· Glyph - Aimed Shot -- Reduces the cooldown of your Aimed Shot ability by 2 sec. (Old: Reduces the mana cost of your aimed shot ability by 20%)

· Glyph of the Monkey -- While Aspect of the Monkey or Aspect of the Dragonhawk are active, each time you dodge you gain 30% increased movement speed for 6 sec. Can only occur every 20 sec. This speed does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects. (Old: Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey -- While Aspect of the Monkey or Aspect of the Dragonhawk are active, each time you dodge you gain 30% increased movement speed for 6 sec. This speed does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.)

· Glyph of Wyvern Sting -- Decreases the cooldown of your Wyvern Sting by 6 sec. (Old: Decreases the cooldown of your Wyvern Sting by 15 sec., but decreases the damage it deals by 20%.)

· Glyph of Snake Trap -- Snakes generated by your Snake Trap take 90% reduced damge from area of effect spells. (Old: Your Snake Trap creates 2 additional snakes)

· Glyph of the Hawk -- Increases the haste bonus of the Improved Aspect of the Hawk effect by an additional 6%. (Old: Renamed from Glyph of Improved Aspect of the Hawk)

· Glyph of Chimera Shot *new* -- Reduces the cooldown of Chimera Shot by 1 sec.

· Glyph of Explosive Shot *new* -- Increases the critical strike chance of Explosive Shot by 4%.

· Glyph of Kill Shot *new* -- Reduces the cooldown of Kill Shot by 6 sec.

· Glyph of Explosive Trap *new* -- The periodic damage from your Explosive Trap can now be critical strikes.

· Glyph of Scatter Shot *new* -- Increases the range of Scatter Shot by 3 yards.

· Glyph of Raptor Strike *new* -- For 5 sec. after using Raptor Strike, you take 20% less damage.


Obviously, your choice of glyphs will depend upon your spec, style, and whether you’re focusing on PvP or PvE. That being said, I have some initial thoughts:

· The fact that Glyph of Aimed Shot no longer reduces its mana cost by 20% would seem to invalidate it as a regular part of most shot rotations. The only thing Aimed Shot seems useful for now is its healing reduction effect, so reducing the shot’s cooldown below that effect’s duration is pointless. I know I’ll be dropping it.

· The 20 second cooldown on Glyph of the Monkey is certainly a nerf to its PvP efficacy (I imagine – I don’t use it, and I only occasionally PvP).

· The revised Glyph of Wyvern Sting and new Glyph of Scatter Shot, on the other hand, might be more worthwhile for PvP.

· Glyph of Kill Shot: Yes, please. Especially in 25-person raids, where that last 20% can last a while.

· Glyph of Explosive Shot: Yes, please. Now that we don’t get a crit boost from T.N.T , this looks like a good choice.


For myself, I’ll probably be running with Glyphs of Explosive Shot, Kill Shot, and Steady Shot, come 3.1. What about you? And hey, Marks Hunters, is Glyph of Chimera Shot going to be worth it? Spec-curious Hunters want to know!

Monday, March 2, 2009

We're Taking This Ziggurat to Panama!

This past weekend was a raiding watershed for my guild. It was the first all-guild full-clear of 10-person Naxxramas. Now, for a serious raiding guild, only just now completing Naxx would be an embarrassment, not an accomplishment. But we are not a serious raiding guild.

We are, first and foremost, a bunch of friends and people with similar interests, who are in the guild to socialize and draw upon a reliable, competent player base for running heroics. We are casual – raiding is entirely optional, an opportunity that guild membership presents as a kind of bonus. People must be sufficiently geared, of course, but groups for heroics (not to mention advice on gear, enchants, and talents) are easy to come by.

Yes, we’re casual, but those of us who choose to raid take it seriously. We’ve been doing Naxx10 two nights a week for maybe a month and a half, now, along with Sarth and VoA10, and even a sprinkling of 25-person raid nights with some allied guilds. We have slowly but surely gotten past the phase of getting everyone geared up, to the point where we really had a shot at defrosting Kel’Thuzad’s freezer. And last night, we did it.

Friday and Saturday were our regularly scheduled raid nights. Friday saw our always-shifting cast of guildies (minus myself; work, work, work…) breeze through the Arachnid and Construct wings, and Saturday we did a similar job on Military and Plague. The night was young, and we weren’t about to leave Sapphiron’s bones undisturbed for another week. We proceeded into the Frostwyrm Lair – and a fight none of us had actually participated in before. Say what you will about the relative lack of difficulty in the current endgame (and I’ll probably agree with you), but I still largely attribute the fact that we killed Sapphiron (and don’t get too comfortable, Maly) on our second try – ever – to a raid leader who is very on top of things, in terms of both strategy research and in-battle direction, and some totally kickass healers.

We were feeling pretty damned good at that point, and charged (as circumspectly as one can charge, anyway) onward to Kel’Thuzad. We gave it three good tries that night: first attempt, we got him to about 45%, even though our ret Pally disconnected about two minutes in. Second attempt, Pally’s computer completely dies, with similar results. We called in a warlock to pinch-DPS for one last try, and got him down to 19% before we wiped. By now it was late, we were tired, and we decided to call it a night, research the fight some more, and come back the next day.

Fast forward to last night. We established that Saturday night’s group composition may have been suboptimal – we’d been running two healers and two tanks, one of whom would pick up the Guardians of Icecrown when they showed up. This seemed to inevitably lead to one of the tanks getting caught by the chaining Frost Blast, and either the Guardians or the lich going wild. So, last night we had one of our Paladins switch from Protection to Holy, and handle tank healing. Bingo – we took him down in two tries.

And oh, mercy, it was a hunter-loot-stravaganza. We’re talking Helm of the Lost Protector, Nerubian Conquerer, and, eh… Staff of the Plaguehound. As much as I wanted that gun, or even the helm, to make wearing my Heroes’ Cryptstalker Tunic closer to an actual upgrade, I passed; I’d won some nice boots and the aforementioned chestpiece the night before, and there were three, count ‘em, three other hunters in last night’s group, two of whom were significantly less geared than me. Remember what I said earlier about my guild? A bunch of friends? Yes, I meant that. Congratulations, Pig and Whistle Society!

Hunters, Grab Your Napkins!

Because it’s time for some math.

So, as you’ve probably heard by now, Blizzard’s imprecise language regarding changes to ammo and the removal of quivers was just that – the 15% ranged haste still applies to steady shot.

Things look less rosy for Explosive Shot, however – the reduction to base damage and attack power scaling will cut the shot’s damage by a little over 11%, a gap that will become fractionally larger as attack power increases.

As much as I hate to agree with a nerf to my own spec, Explosive Shot probably was a bit overpowered compared to talents equally deep in other trees, like Chimera Shot.

Now hand me that napkin, I need to dry my tears.