Updates

So patch 2.3 is coming today, and there alot of good changes coming for my Hunter, good PvP changes i should say. I really want to be playing my hunter, i want to be farming Materials for engineering, to be owning people with a combination of my situationally overpowered class and ridiculously unorthodox skills.

But The Horde incurrsion has hit full swing, Noven and I are 52, Nindo hit 51 and is completely caught up, Theo should hit 50 tonight, and Darbie has taken over the mage, and is right inline at 50.

Short story long, We are all caught up and ready to push 60.. Should be there by the Christmas LAN in Canada.

The problem, I've already decided when my Warrior hits 58, my hunter will be effectively retired other than Once-a-week arena, and when Ash hits 70, I will never log on the hunter again. It makes me sad, retiring Reydan and Raipu. But Horde is my home now, Warrior is my class.

Its time to start learning how to abuse the mechanics of the Warrior in the same way I have learned to do on the Hunter.

Its going to be an interesting ride.

Engineering mount~

Oh my god, they are finally coming out with an engineering only flying mount, something i have been waiting for forever..

AND the best news is... NO PRIMAL NETHER REQUIRED TO MAKE IT, only about 500g in mats.. Holy iron flying machine batman.. time to terrorize



Oh a side note, the warrior/horde incursion has hit a stall, as Nindo has decided to switch it up and not be the healer anymore.. yes, big wrench in the plans there.. Hes rerolled to rogue (hello alliance) and pushed Theo onto Paladin and Mage.

The good news, Darbie, possible the world of Camelots best healer (according to Theo, i never grouped with him so my vote goes to Will) is thinking about coming and playing with us, whether he hops on mage or pally is still up on the air, but he is definately going to be a solid addition to our line up..

Hmm, maybe i should call Williams the wonder cleric

On hating raiding...

Ok, so i hate raiding.

I loathe the idea of being in a guild that has scheduled raids, and i hate the stress of trying to PuG a decent 5man on my crappy server.

I just want to PvP. I hate having to PvE to be able to PvP well.

I definately hate the fact that my top of the line engineering skills require me to PvE, and not just to PvE, but to PvE alot! I need 10 runs in Steamvaults and Shattered Halls to hit Revered so i can unlock heroics (on a plus note that also unlocks the blue ammo and the head enchant). Then i must run heroic mode dungeons until i can get my 2 primal nether for my epic goggles and gun.

This is crap, its never gonna happen on my server, especially now that we are rerolling horde, I have all the time in the world to PvP, but none to PvE 5man rep dungeons..

I dont want any blue, purple, orange or flippin hot-pink drops from any stupid instance in the game, i just want to be able to craft my engineering items...

FFS

Somethings you just never grow out of...

So, i haven't been posting much due to the fact that Theo, Nindo, and myself have rerolled onto a horde server. After loosing a couple of people, and being upset with what was left of our setup on Alliance (2dps, one hybrid, and a ret paladin), we decided everyone would be better off if we just started over on a new server from scratch, with people on appropriate toons.

So, the three of us took a spot on the Holy-Triad:

Tank: (Myself, undead female warrior)
Heals: (Nindo, male bloodelf paladin)
CC: (Theo, undead female mage)

We picked up my step brother, Noven, to pick up my abandoned spot as MA, main DPS on a male orc Shaman (windfury ftw) and we switched our part-timer and iffy paladin Threven to warlock, on DPaSsist duty, and he is doing alot better in that role.

The groupset up is great, we have been blowing through instances, and are currently pushing mid 30s at the start of our second week. Group PvP is going to be much better, and we are set alot better for 5man raiding.

The only problem, i went from one of the best soloing classes, in PvE and PvP, to one of the sub-average. I cannot grind like i could on the hunter, i went from a kiting jumpshotting little dwarf annoyance to the exact opposite role, I chase people. I hate being kited, i hate being snared and rooted, i dont like the way melee mechanics and spell interupts work in this game compared to DAoC.

I can't solo.. Its going to get better i assume, and we are going to tear up in arena, but i miss my hunter already.

As of now he is demoted to a Arena once a week, solo BG on honor weekends, and world PvP bot. I just wish i could have gotten keyed for a heroic and earned my 2 primal nethers to finish off my 2 big engineering items, the helm and gun. I hate raiding, but i did want to do that.

If i could get the nethers, that would finish all the gear i would ever need from PvE, and i can keep to my plans of just PvPing to earn the rest of his gear.

I need to PuG some 5man rep runs, but my alliance server sucks.. (Another reason we started on a new one) Maybe i should transfer to a high pop server to PuG some instances..

Any suggestions?

On being a bad hunter... Episode 3

I was in Arathi Basin with Geno and Nindo, we were defending the lumbermill, watching inc on BS, and keeping pressure on the farm (I dont know how many people i have killed in that canyon leading up to the lm, its pretty much my favorite spot to be in AB)

We were pushing out from the canyon, driving back a surge towards BS, and trying to possibly cap farm to complete the 5cap. We get into one of those fairly epic 10 on 10 fights, geno is running around in circles jumping and spamming aoe spells like a good mage, nindo has already shadowstepped onto a healer, and i have BW and RF up, and am cranking out dps like Billy B.A.

I target a lvl 63 orc hunter, sick pet, scorpid sting, arcane, kill command.. Regular stuff, he then turns around, looks at me, feigns death, i retarget him and multishot, he stands up.. AND VOLLEYS AT MY FEET, his spell lasts one round, i dont get hit again, and my steadyshot/autoshot weaving burns him down in about 6seconds.

This brings us to the third, and hopefully most obvious way to be a bad hunter, using volley in pvp.. well, using volley for anything other than farming VC/SFK...

Don't do it.. It will never outdmg what you could have done with normal shots, unless possibly you have 10 people willing to stand in a small circle and not move or hit you for eternity, which doesnt happen..

Don't be a bad hunter. Take volley off your q-bar, replace it with scare beast (you got that one on?) and fear those annoying feral druids off your healers.

On being a bad hunter... Episode 2

Ok, so... the other day i was in an pug instance with Theo, i was about 4 lvls higher than everyone else, and Raipu and I were just gracing them with my 65% of the dmg meter presence, getting Theo exp and hopefully some gear.

Another toon in the group was a hunter, MM spec (theres your first problem), with a pet cat that was identical to Raipu! (i hate when that happens, i never saw a pet that looked like Deathrain)

Anyways, we were in Hellfire Citadel, ran ramparts and then blood furnace, and somewhere along the way, the shaman belt dropped, Girdle of the Gale Storm, got intelect, stamina, mp5 and healing..

AND THE HUNTER NEEDED IT

Now, obviously its not a big deal, because no one in the group wanted it, but the warrior was quick to point out, "Why in the world would a hunter wear that" To which i replied "They wouldnt"

The said hunter then goes on to claim its better than what he has on, and spams a lvl 53 mail belt of the eagle or something in chat...

It is at this point in which we come to our focus of On being a bad hunter... Episode 2...

Knowing your class loot, and gearing up to perform your duties.

The first zone in Outlands, Hellfire Pennisula, has a few lines of quests that gives gear that was good enough to replace nearly everything short of mid-tier dungeon armor, HOWEVER.. there is mail gear thrown in for shamans in some quests, which means there is pretty much nothing specifically for a hunter

It is at this time that i implore you, ignore the MAIL tag that you have been stuck on since lvl 40, the main stats a hunter needs to look for in gear is Agility, Attack Power, and Stamina.. Also known as Of The Bandit when searching the AH.

The good thing about the hellfire quests, and all quests/dungeons in general, is there is an entire other set of gear that fits the hunter very well.. Rogue gear, other wise known as LEATHER.

Hunters while leveling, shouldnt get hit, our pets should absorb 90% of the dmg while solo, and in groups there should be a tank..

While leveling, ignore the mail/leather boundry, and pick the gear with the best stats for your class, Agility, Stamina, Attack Power, Crit Chance....

Intelect and Mp5 are nice addons to help with mana, but never ever give up agility, ap, or stamina for mana gear

On being a bad hunter... Episode 1

Yesterday i was in an instance, group makeup was Shieildwarrior, Healadin, Feraldruid, and two BMhunters (one being myself obviously)

Everything went very smoothly, and as usual Raipu and I topped the DPS charts with around 32%, the feral druid who was one level higher than me came in at 28% the other hunter who was one level lower at 21%, the warrior at 17%.

A couple of things stuck out to me about this, number one being the fact that the feral druid was putting out what seemed to me to be some pretty insane dps for a druid. The other being the fact that the other hunter was definately alot lower than i thought he should be.

I didn't think to inspect him, but judging by what he spammed in chat asking if he could need on things, he seemed to be in ok gear, he was beastmaster spec, and he seemed to have a decent pet reaction time, and shot rotation, when i had time to observe of course.

Halfway though our second instance run, he asks me, "Reydan, how do you get your mana back so quickly, i then spam my Everlasting Underspore pods, and my Purified Draenic Water, and follow up with "Between those and Aspect of the Viper its pretty easy to regen between pulls.."

He responds with, "Wow, that must get expensive!"

This my friends, is the topic of this post, and is my first off possibly many posts on what constitutes being a bad hunter. Being cheap.

Hunters are one of the main classes that besides durability costs, can burn through stacks of gold in instance runs. Between my water for mana, pet food, stat boosting food for myself, elixers, potions, and even my ammo, i probably burn through 5-10g an instance, just on DPS materials, every death of myself and my pet just costs me more cash.

However, i know that other people in my group pay for the instance in their own way too, tanks and their durability and health pots, healers with water and mana pots, etc. The cost of instance running is part of the aspects of your class, and you should be ready and able to cough up the gold required for you to do your job.

Don't be a bad hunter, keep the water, petfood, elixers, bandaids, potions, Ravager Dogs and Sporeling Snacks in plentiful supply. Buy the expensive ammo to boost your DPS. Don't cut corners to save cash, every small step you take backwards adds up, and you'll find yourself in an instance getting out DMGed by 50% by someone like me, who goes the extra yard to do the best his class can do, and pushes his class to the limit.

Hunter Pet Damage Tests

So, while leveling towards 70 on my hunter, and contemplating switching my pet, i was running into the same problem many hunters do. Which pet to choose..

I have had my rare bugged spawn white windserpent ARASHETHIS since level 49, and he has always been my pride and joy (was hell to capture, but thats another blog)

So, one day i get bored (or motivated, whichever you prefer) and i went and tamed two new pets: a lvl 60 plagueboar, and a lvl 60 frostsaber. I trained them both with Cobra Reflexes, the boar with Gore8, the cat with Claw8, and i took them to my favorite DPS testing grounds, SFK...

(For those of you who don't know, there is a Horde quest mob inside sfk, in the first big courtroom, who is on the ground dead. As an Ally, you can endlessly beat on him, he will sometimes feign death, but will never actually die. So basically you can beat on him for as long as you want. This is a great place to test pet damage.)

Now, first i let the boar beat on the testmob for 10minutes, then i ran back to Southshore, grabbed my cat, and let the cat beat on him for 10minutes (the instance didnt reset, so the mob stayed the same lvl), after that, i threw Growl7 on auto, and let the cat beat on him again for 10minutes, and after that, i ran back to Southshore, grabbed my lvl 63windserpent, with cobrareflexes, and lightning breath5, and let him beat on good ole deathguard vincent for 10 minutes.




Here are the independent DMGMeter results:


BOAR (Gore on auto)
Damage Done = 113831 (100.0%) #1
[Melee] = 88652 (77.9%) 158/616 25.6% 143.9 Avg
Gore = 25179 (22.1%) 106/243 43.6% 103.6 Avg

CAT (Claw on auto)
Damage Done = 130976 (100.0%) #1
[Melee] = 106192 (81.1%) 146/615 23.7% 172.7 Avg
Claw = 24784 (18.9%) 91/245 37.1% 101.2 Avg

CAT (Claw and Growl on auto)
Damage Done = 128247 (100.0%) #1
[Melee] = 108809 (84.8%) 172/612 28.1% 177.8 Avg
Claw = 19438 (15.2%) 73/184 39.7% 105.6 Avg

WINDSERPENT (Lightning Breath on auto)
Damage Done = 110840 (100.0%) #1
[Melee] = 93822 (84.6%) 118/516 22.9% 181.8 Avg
Lightning Breath = 17018 (15.4%) 6/118 5.1% 144.2 Avg



If you breakdown these results, you get a chart that looks like this:

Ignore the & % of total, i removed that statistic cause it was irrelevant




Anyways, if you look at straight melee dmg, the cat (615attacks 23.7%crit) out performs the boar (616attacks 25.6%crit) by nearly 30dps, or 16.5%

If you look at claw (245attacks 31.7%crit) vs gore (243attacks 43.6%crit), they come out with nearly identical DPS ratings, only varying 1.5% in favor of gore





A couple points of interest:

-The crit% of straight melee hits varied within 5%, from 22.9 to 28.1, this will alter the straight melee dmg slightly (for example, in cat and cat with growl, these are tests in which meleedps should be unchanged, but due to the increased crit% the dps varied ~5%)

-The windserpent got off significantly less hits in 10minutes than its counterparts, around 16% less... this i believe to be caused by the following points:

-Windserpents stop in midflight (think during dash/dive) to cast their lightning breath, they also will fly away from the target while it is stunned or rooted, to cast LB, wasting time they could be beating on the mob in melee, and costing them DPS

-Lightningbreath is a spell, and possibly cannot trigger the increased swing speed from the beastmaster talent tree, while gore and claw, being melee attacks, can

-Also, lightning breath had a much lower crit rate(5%) than gore and claw(around 40%) This significantly reduces the dmg potential of the windserpent in comparison to the abilities of other pets.









So, after that drink from a fire hydrant's worth of information, what can you conclude?

Well, you can conclude and believe whatever you want...




What do i conclude?

As it stands, windserpents are a gimped pet, due to the mechanics of Lightningbreath

Cats outdamage boars in straight melee by over 15%, and gore does not help make up that gap, because, although it has a higher delve, their lowered dps and ap reduces its effectiveness to be on par with a cats claw

Ravagers are most likely the highest source of pet DPS in the game, because they will have the same dps and ap, meaning they will have the same white dmg, and a ravagers gore will outperform a cats claw

The beginning of the end...

So, here is the first post on my blogger, and in it, i shall lay out the basis of this blog.

I need a place to publicly put things...

That is, i have my photobucket and webshots for picture posting, a myspace and a facebook for personal interaction, and now, i have a blogger.. which shall be used mainly for public display of internet realm stuff

If that makes any sense, then i applaud your skills


For example, i have recently done some testing on the different pet and pet skill damages on my hunter in World of Warcraft, and my first couple blogs will be laying out and interpreting those tests