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!

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!

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

The State of the Hunter...

...is in flux.

So, as Broxigar seems to have stabilized, and I'm able to play for more than five minutes without crashing and losing all of my keybinds, I've been able to do some very cursory testing and comparison of my DPS in the current patch build versus the live realms. My testing build looks like this, and here is a representative sample of my DPS in 3.1 (no comments on my DPS as an absolute value, please :P - this is strictly for purposes of comparison):

This is using a shot qeue of Aimed Shot, Explosive Shot, and Steady Shot, while maintaining Serpent Sting and Black Arrow. Compare with my current live build and DPS:

Here I'm using a similar shot priority, albeit with Immolation Trap to proc Lock and Load, and of course lacking Black Arrow.

A few things of note:

• My new DPS is within 75.1 of what I'm pulling now. Not an insignificant decrease, but not game-breaking.
• My Explosive Shots are critting exactly as often as before. This leads me to wonder if the change of the T.N.T. talent from a crit- to a damage increase has actually been implemented yet.
• Finally, and most troubling to me, is the fact that I ran out of mana in almost half the time on test as I did on live. Lock and Load may not account for a huge DPS boost, but without those guaranteed procs, my total damage (before I would have to go into Aspect of the Viper) is more than cut in half. (It is worth noting that some of this mana inefficiency is due to the fact that Glyph of Aimed Shot no longer reduces its cost by 20%, and I simply don't have the gold to pay the obscene prices that glyphs are demanding on the PTR.)

So, that's how things are looking right now. Any thoughts? Have I overlooked anything obvious?