Well, after a night spent wiping on Chogall, I have the following questions/ideas/stuff to get out of my brain. I'm tank-healing (a new role) in a fight that's new to me (and to many of our raid), so I'm trying to get everything down while it's fresh. Feel free to chime in with tips, tricks, or anything else.
1) About what throughput should a tank healer have on this fight? I was managing about 9.6k hps, with my top 3 heals being PW:S, Greater Heal, and Penance, but man, the tanks health yo-yos like crazy.
2) Mana? I've just redone my spec to pick up the shorter shadowfiend cooldown, and hopefully that'll help. Part of the problem (I think) is that I'm always healing the tank on Cho'gall, so I don't really get any downtime to pop Hymn of Hope or just passively regen. I need to talk to the other healers, see if there's a spot where either the raid healer or other tank healer could keep an eye out while I pop it. Same goes for pots of concentration.
3) I need to figure out where in my UI the stupid corruption thing is. Never did find the sound meter for Atremedes, and I suspect it's the same problem.
4)Cooldowns. I need to talk to the tanks about calling these out. Also, I need to figure out how to view their debuffs, see what that fire thing vuhdo shows me is, and what debuff's causing the massive health drops. Once I figure that out, I'll have a better sense of when to panic.
5)GTFO is incredibly helpful for this fight. Seriously, with most of the raid stacked up with me, I can't see a darn thing on the floor. My tunnel healing vision does not help.
6) Power Auras for stacks of Grace and also for PoM. Ooh, and a low health one would be nice. And Inner Focus, Power Infusion, and Pain Suppression. Reminding myself I have these means I'll use them more, and I need to.
7) Shadowfiend macro. Why do I not have one? And while I'm at it, Misdirection macro for the hunter.
8)Do we have only one melee? Maybe we should have one of the ranged stand with the rogue, so the tanks don't have to worry as much about that possession thing.
Showing posts with label raids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label raids. Show all posts
Friday, June 17, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
So you want to start raiding...
But you're not sure where to begin. Well, things are different than at the end of Wraith, you actually have choices of where to start! There's 4 raids and 5 bosses you can start with, and having downed all but one of them I sat down and rated them from easy to hard. Obviously this is my option, but at least it'll give you some ideas.
1. Pit Lord Whatshisface->Located in Baradin Hold, the Pit Lord is only available if you have Tol Barad. Remember VOA? It's like that. Honestly, I think this boss is the easiest to start with. The strategy (divide into two groups, stack on the two tanks, run around when there's fire on the ground) is very simple, and the fight is more of a DPS race than anything else. If you can't take this guy down before the enrage timer with no DPS deaths, you need to look hard at your DPSers and make sure they're pulling their weight.
2. Magmaw (aka worm dude)->This guy's located in Blackwing Descent, and he's a big lava worm. There's quite a bit more going on in this fight (lava parasites, floor on fire, boss eating a tank, having to use chains to pin the boss's head down, a burn phase), but once you get the hang of it, you're golden. Keep in mind that there's loads of ways to handle the parasites, and experiment.
3. Omnitron Defense System->Also located in Blackwing Descent, these guys are a bunch of robots. The robots activate and deactivate, they all have different abilities, and once their shields come up, any DPS can cause a wipe. There's much more going on in this fight than in Magmaw's, but if you lack enough ranged aoe or a good kiter for Magmaw's parasites, this is a good option instead. Also, even if you off Magmaw, you still have to kill these guys sooner or later to progress in Blackwing Descent.
4. Conclave of Wind->This is located in Uldum, and is off the coast. You're got 3 bosses, and all 3 need to die within a minute of each other. It's not a hard fight, but is very unforgiving of mistakes or bad luck with the RNG. Also, killing these 3 only unlocks your access to Al'Akir and he's probably not one you want to tackle until you've got better gear and experience.
5. Halfus-> Located in Bastion of Twilight in the Twilight Highlands (look for the spiral tower thing), this is an extremely variable fight. Depending on the drakes you get, it can be a piece of cake or your worst nightmare. I'd say check to see what drakes are up, and then decide whether you want to tackle it or not. My raid team is actually saving our lockout with Halfus down so we can try the twin dragons (almost got them) without having to deal with a really hard drake composition. Plus, the trash before Halfus is rather icky. But if you want to progress in Bastion, you have no choice but to kill him.
If I was starting a raid team, I'd start with Pit Lord, then (or if no TB) hit Magmaw, go see what drakes were up on Halfus and maybe tackle him, and then tackle either the Defense Council or the next boss in Bastion. But I've really gotten to dislike the Conclave, so that has something to do with it. No matter what you decide, remember to do your research ahead of time, try different strategies if something's not working, and adapt as needed. Raiding in Cat's harder than Wraith was (imho), so be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on the cold floor dead. Best of luck!
1. Pit Lord Whatshisface->Located in Baradin Hold, the Pit Lord is only available if you have Tol Barad. Remember VOA? It's like that. Honestly, I think this boss is the easiest to start with. The strategy (divide into two groups, stack on the two tanks, run around when there's fire on the ground) is very simple, and the fight is more of a DPS race than anything else. If you can't take this guy down before the enrage timer with no DPS deaths, you need to look hard at your DPSers and make sure they're pulling their weight.
2. Magmaw (aka worm dude)->This guy's located in Blackwing Descent, and he's a big lava worm. There's quite a bit more going on in this fight (lava parasites, floor on fire, boss eating a tank, having to use chains to pin the boss's head down, a burn phase), but once you get the hang of it, you're golden. Keep in mind that there's loads of ways to handle the parasites, and experiment.
3. Omnitron Defense System->Also located in Blackwing Descent, these guys are a bunch of robots. The robots activate and deactivate, they all have different abilities, and once their shields come up, any DPS can cause a wipe. There's much more going on in this fight than in Magmaw's, but if you lack enough ranged aoe or a good kiter for Magmaw's parasites, this is a good option instead. Also, even if you off Magmaw, you still have to kill these guys sooner or later to progress in Blackwing Descent.
4. Conclave of Wind->This is located in Uldum, and is off the coast. You're got 3 bosses, and all 3 need to die within a minute of each other. It's not a hard fight, but is very unforgiving of mistakes or bad luck with the RNG. Also, killing these 3 only unlocks your access to Al'Akir and he's probably not one you want to tackle until you've got better gear and experience.
5. Halfus-> Located in Bastion of Twilight in the Twilight Highlands (look for the spiral tower thing), this is an extremely variable fight. Depending on the drakes you get, it can be a piece of cake or your worst nightmare. I'd say check to see what drakes are up, and then decide whether you want to tackle it or not. My raid team is actually saving our lockout with Halfus down so we can try the twin dragons (almost got them) without having to deal with a really hard drake composition. Plus, the trash before Halfus is rather icky. But if you want to progress in Bastion, you have no choice but to kill him.
If I was starting a raid team, I'd start with Pit Lord, then (or if no TB) hit Magmaw, go see what drakes were up on Halfus and maybe tackle him, and then tackle either the Defense Council or the next boss in Bastion. But I've really gotten to dislike the Conclave, so that has something to do with it. No matter what you decide, remember to do your research ahead of time, try different strategies if something's not working, and adapt as needed. Raiding in Cat's harder than Wraith was (imho), so be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on the cold floor dead. Best of luck!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Random Tuesday Stuff
First, this is apparently my 201st post. Go me!
Second, randomness, since my main server is down for 24 hours (which is far better than the 72 hours I thought it was).
Adowa is merrily gearing up as ret and holy. I ran a lot of normal TOC, Forge, and Pit yesterday and got some nice drops. I also played "pull off the tank" and "wow, ret is just like marks, but with positioning and longer cooldowns". I really miss fade/feign death, but at least I can survive a mob's attention. I also learned that Divine Intervention requires a reagent. I should get some of those for saving the healer. What can I say, I like my healers and most of them will rez me?
I then got into a just before server reset TOC 25, and ran into the BUG OF DOOM! Or the bug of really annoying fail DPS, whichever you'd like to call it. Garetia (my hunter who could use shinies from TOC) was unable to Chimera Shot, Steady, Arcane, Aimed, Tranquilizing, Serpent Sting, or anything other than Volley or Autoshot. I kept being told "Invalid Target". I fiddled with the ui, disabled lunarsphere and bartended, and just couldn't get rid of it. So once Beasts were done, I switched to Lyllea (who had no problems) and dpsed as shadow. It never ceases to amaze me how different the fights are as dps.
For example, the twins. As a healer I go light or dark (whichever they tell me), switch when DBM says so, and heal. As DPS, I go light or dark, try to get orbs of my color while avoiding the other color orbs, switch to the other twin occasionally, and switch colors when DBM says so. All while trying desperately to maintain my shadow rotation of complicated. And yes, healing is less complicated. I keep prayer of mending going bouncy, flash heal, and play whack-a-shield, with the occasional "oh crap" penance. I don't really plan things out, I don't pay attention to cooldowns, and I don't care about my latency. I care about all these things as shadow. It's why I have a special addon just for it.
On the plus side, Garetia did get new pants. They're leather, but they're a big upgrade.
And in other random news, Lyllea is officially a switch hitter for the ICC 25 I do. This means that I should stop talking about hitting shadowpriest.com for advice and actually do so. Hopefully my fail is something simple like not using a dot or misgemming, instead of "you're doing it completely wrong". Though "you're doing it completely wrong" would not be bad IF doing it right is easier.
Now back over to Trollbane, to continue my drain tanking experiment. My 'lock was demonology, and I just respec'd. I miss my stronger blueberry, but I like draining life and the better life tap. We'll see how this ends up. If by some miracle she makes it to 80, I'll probably go Demonology from what I know about the trees. Not a big fan of the dot-maintaining dps style, though I applaud those who are good at it. Merlin knows I'm not.
Second, randomness, since my main server is down for 24 hours (which is far better than the 72 hours I thought it was).
Adowa is merrily gearing up as ret and holy. I ran a lot of normal TOC, Forge, and Pit yesterday and got some nice drops. I also played "pull off the tank" and "wow, ret is just like marks, but with positioning and longer cooldowns". I really miss fade/feign death, but at least I can survive a mob's attention. I also learned that Divine Intervention requires a reagent. I should get some of those for saving the healer. What can I say, I like my healers and most of them will rez me?
I then got into a just before server reset TOC 25, and ran into the BUG OF DOOM! Or the bug of really annoying fail DPS, whichever you'd like to call it. Garetia (my hunter who could use shinies from TOC) was unable to Chimera Shot, Steady, Arcane, Aimed, Tranquilizing, Serpent Sting, or anything other than Volley or Autoshot. I kept being told "Invalid Target". I fiddled with the ui, disabled lunarsphere and bartended, and just couldn't get rid of it. So once Beasts were done, I switched to Lyllea (who had no problems) and dpsed as shadow. It never ceases to amaze me how different the fights are as dps.
For example, the twins. As a healer I go light or dark (whichever they tell me), switch when DBM says so, and heal. As DPS, I go light or dark, try to get orbs of my color while avoiding the other color orbs, switch to the other twin occasionally, and switch colors when DBM says so. All while trying desperately to maintain my shadow rotation of complicated. And yes, healing is less complicated. I keep prayer of mending going bouncy, flash heal, and play whack-a-shield, with the occasional "oh crap" penance. I don't really plan things out, I don't pay attention to cooldowns, and I don't care about my latency. I care about all these things as shadow. It's why I have a special addon just for it.
On the plus side, Garetia did get new pants. They're leather, but they're a big upgrade.
And in other random news, Lyllea is officially a switch hitter for the ICC 25 I do. This means that I should stop talking about hitting shadowpriest.com for advice and actually do so. Hopefully my fail is something simple like not using a dot or misgemming, instead of "you're doing it completely wrong". Though "you're doing it completely wrong" would not be bad IF doing it right is easier.
Now back over to Trollbane, to continue my drain tanking experiment. My 'lock was demonology, and I just respec'd. I miss my stronger blueberry, but I like draining life and the better life tap. We'll see how this ends up. If by some miracle she makes it to 80, I'll probably go Demonology from what I know about the trees. Not a big fan of the dot-maintaining dps style, though I applaud those who are good at it. Merlin knows I'm not.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Well, that was annoying....
I got into a Black Temple pug tonight. Full clear, only one wipe, which isn't bad at all for a PUG, especially one where not everyone is 80 and geared to the nines.
I did run into a new species of druid I'd never seen. Dickus Leetus Arboretus. I ended up putting him on ignore halfway through the run, since he had decided that telling us over and over again that he was the best healer there and how leet he was, ect. That stuff gets old, especially when I look at Recount's Heals and Absorbs and well, I think the caps speak for themselves.
So if you're going to claim AWESOME ELITENESS OF HEALING, be able to back it up. Cause otherwise, well, I assume you're overcompensating, and treat you as a joke. An annoying joke, a joke with a FSKING special character in their name, but still a joke. And just as an aside, people with special characters in your names, I hate you all. I cannot type your names, and I never plan to. Having to go look up a special characters table just so you can be Legolas or Killbot or something else, well, it does not make you cool.
At the end Skull of somebody or other drops. I look, think "ooh, a nice replacement for Mark of the War Prisoner" for my shadow set. I roll, and hey 100. Yays, trinket is mine. But noes, trinket goes to dickus. Who has pretty decent gear with a lowest ilevel of 251, compared to my lowest ilevel of 200 (stupid offhand).
Just kinda annoyed me. If it had been a heroic Solace or something like that, I'd be really pissed, but the Skull, while nice, is not that important to me. Oh, and his trinkets were Purified Lunar Dust and Sliver of Pure Ice. No clue how good those are for restoration.
I got to see the content, which was important to me, but now I feel like the raid was tainted. Like if he hadn't been there it would have been better. But now I know not to go on any raids he's on, or on any raids run by that leader. And I got an achievement out of it.
I did run into a new species of druid I'd never seen. Dickus Leetus Arboretus. I ended up putting him on ignore halfway through the run, since he had decided that telling us over and over again that he was the best healer there and how leet he was, ect. That stuff gets old, especially when I look at Recount's Heals and Absorbs and well, I think the caps speak for themselves.
So if you're going to claim AWESOME ELITENESS OF HEALING, be able to back it up. Cause otherwise, well, I assume you're overcompensating, and treat you as a joke. An annoying joke, a joke with a FSKING special character in their name, but still a joke. And just as an aside, people with special characters in your names, I hate you all. I cannot type your names, and I never plan to. Having to go look up a special characters table just so you can be Legolas or Killbot or something else, well, it does not make you cool.
At the end Skull of somebody or other drops. I look, think "ooh, a nice replacement for Mark of the War Prisoner" for my shadow set. I roll, and hey 100. Yays, trinket is mine. But noes, trinket goes to dickus. Who has pretty decent gear with a lowest ilevel of 251, compared to my lowest ilevel of 200 (stupid offhand).
Just kinda annoyed me. If it had been a heroic Solace or something like that, I'd be really pissed, but the Skull, while nice, is not that important to me. Oh, and his trinkets were Purified Lunar Dust and Sliver of Pure Ice. No clue how good those are for restoration.
I got to see the content, which was important to me, but now I feel like the raid was tainted. Like if he hadn't been there it would have been better. But now I know not to go on any raids he's on, or on any raids run by that leader. And I got an achievement out of it.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Bad start, but great finish
It was a good night.
First, I got to dps a Sarth 3D zerg on Garetia. She got 4 achievements at once (the 3 twilight ones and the one for staying out of the fire). That also got her enough emblems to get another piece of tier 9. Yay 2 piece bonus of awesome. I still need to replace her chest and legs and cloak and just about everything else, but at least her gloves and shoulders are good to go.
Then it was time for Old World raiding. Sadly, no one but me and Slack showed up, so I dragged his level 63 arse through Underbog instead. He got some nice drops, including a shammy relic and some awesome pants.
And then, as I was cutting gems for Slack's new pants, a call went out over the raiding alliance channel. They were losing a healer in their alt TOC25/Ony 25/weekly raid, so I went. And I got new pants. Two pairs, one for heals, and one for shadow. I also got enough triumph to get shadow tier, but I got a new wand instead (it was a bigger upgrade for both specs). I'd already broken my tier 9 4 bonus (because tier 10 shadow gloves dropped in a voa run and man those stats are beyond awesome), so I figure I'll try to hang on to the 2 piece bonus instead, or at least until Blizz figures out what they're doing with the tier 10 bonus. I do need to figure out shadowspec gearing beyond "am I hitcapped?" though. Looks like I'll be hitting shadowpriest.com and doing some reading.
All in all, it was a nice end to a week that hadn't started well on the raiding front.
First, I got to dps a Sarth 3D zerg on Garetia. She got 4 achievements at once (the 3 twilight ones and the one for staying out of the fire). That also got her enough emblems to get another piece of tier 9. Yay 2 piece bonus of awesome. I still need to replace her chest and legs and cloak and just about everything else, but at least her gloves and shoulders are good to go.
Then it was time for Old World raiding. Sadly, no one but me and Slack showed up, so I dragged his level 63 arse through Underbog instead. He got some nice drops, including a shammy relic and some awesome pants.
And then, as I was cutting gems for Slack's new pants, a call went out over the raiding alliance channel. They were losing a healer in their alt TOC25/Ony 25/weekly raid, so I went. And I got new pants. Two pairs, one for heals, and one for shadow. I also got enough triumph to get shadow tier, but I got a new wand instead (it was a bigger upgrade for both specs). I'd already broken my tier 9 4 bonus (because tier 10 shadow gloves dropped in a voa run and man those stats are beyond awesome), so I figure I'll try to hang on to the 2 piece bonus instead, or at least until Blizz figures out what they're doing with the tier 10 bonus. I do need to figure out shadowspec gearing beyond "am I hitcapped?" though. Looks like I'll be hitting shadowpriest.com and doing some reading.
All in all, it was a nice end to a week that hadn't started well on the raiding front.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentines!
This was my valentines' present to myself. Is it not nifty? Okay, so nine other people helped, but without me the tank would have died much sooner...
Sadly I lost the roll on the drake, but there's always next week. And the Lunar Festival has started, and I love this one. Love is in the Air I can take or leave, Winter's Veil was kinda eh, but yay Lunar.
Oh, and I want to point out a nifty addon called Talented while I'm at it. It allows you to do many nifty things with specs, like importing them from armory or wowhead urls and then using them as templates for leveling or respecing. No more alt-tabing between windows to respec for me! And no more specing a toon, leveling them, and then not being able to remember where the next talent point goes!
This was my valentines' present to myself. Is it not nifty? Okay, so nine other people helped, but without me the tank would have died much sooner...
Sadly I lost the roll on the drake, but there's always next week. And the Lunar Festival has started, and I love this one. Love is in the Air I can take or leave, Winter's Veil was kinda eh, but yay Lunar.
Oh, and I want to point out a nifty addon called Talented while I'm at it. It allows you to do many nifty things with specs, like importing them from armory or wowhead urls and then using them as templates for leveling or respecing. No more alt-tabing between windows to respec for me! And no more specing a toon, leveling them, and then not being able to remember where the next talent point goes!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wow, just wow.
Raid last night was, well, terrifying and overwhelming and incredibly impressive. I now feel like a complete and total noob, and I fear the other healers had to carry me. But I will do my research, and practice, and hopefully next time will be better. There was apparently a wws report done, so I will look over that. Also I need to remember to fear ward the tank on Ony. Very important, that.
I did have some mana problems, especially on Beasts and Faction Champs, and ended up having to switch my badge trinket back in to up my mana pool.
But enough of that, have some pretty pictures...
The Malygos fight is just really gorgeous. I spent all of phase 3 dead thanks to a disconnect on phase 2. I've decided this is a good thing, since it meant no one could see how fail I am at dragon driving.
One of my 3 new shiny achievements.
Another one. I didn't catch the Ony fight one, sadly.
I did have some mana problems, especially on Beasts and Faction Champs, and ended up having to switch my badge trinket back in to up my mana pool.
But enough of that, have some pretty pictures...
The Malygos fight is just really gorgeous. I spent all of phase 3 dead thanks to a disconnect on phase 2. I've decided this is a good thing, since it meant no one could see how fail I am at dragon driving.
One of my 3 new shiny achievements.
Another one. I didn't catch the Ony fight one, sadly.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Naxx 10 as Survival
I give you the tale of my Naxx run last week. Hopefully it will be amusing, but if not, I blame the GREs. They ate my brains, I tells you.
First, the reason I speced Survival...
my DPS went up. By about 400. In the same gear, with the same gems and enchants. Yay. Also, that green thing is from Power Auras Clasic. I've been attempting to create an aura for when my serpent sting falls off but no success yet.
Here's my second death. The Safety dance death was my own fault. This was more of a "dps dps dps dps, oh crap, I died!" thing. Since the priest and the other hunter also died, I really don't think it was my fault.
Then we have a cap with all my power auras up. Mostly cause it bugged out on me. The red one is Furious Howl (I'm working on trying to figure out how to time my rotation so the big shots hit when furious howl is active), the blue is Aspect of the Viper, and the gun is a lock and load proc.
Then I died on Grob and then we all died on Gluth. I just took longer (ty Feign Death). I ended up handling the Zombie Chow. I was just supposed to trap, but there's two problems with that. One, the survival rotation involves Black Arrow which shares trap cooldowns, and two, my cooldown no longer equals my trap, so I had to keep running back to look anyway. So, on the second try I because Zombie Chow girl with my own personal healer. Not my fav thing to do, but we took him down so yay for that. Then I died. (Random add left and I was trying to protect the healer). Noticing a pattern here? Yup, Friday was my night to die. I died more on Friday then I did first time in Naxx.
Last death (and my fav). I have yet to make it through one shift on Thad. Either I miss the jump, or I run around like a chicken with its head cut off. (I've only seen him three times now). But this was an epic missed jump, so you get a screeny...
How I managed to wedge myself in there is beyond me.
So, thoughts...
Survival appears to still be the dps king, or at least in my gear it is. The shot rotation/priority is a bit less complicated than MM, and the extra traps are nice. I saw very few lock and load procs using Black Arrow, so if you want as many as possible, trap dancing seems to be the way to go (all but two of my lock and load procs occurred while I was chain trapping zombie adds with frost traps. It was fun, and I will likely stay MM/SV for a while, but I still like MM best. I'll probably switch between them, depending on what I need to do. For 5 mans, it'll probably be Surv, just because of the less mana issues. For heroics, probably MM unless we need trappy goodness or replenishment.
As far as my personal survival spec goes, I gave up some dps talents for Focused Aim (since I have it as MM and I'm using the same gear) and for full replenishment. Otherwise it's a pretty cookie-cutter spec.
Now back to studying. Stupid tests...
First, the reason I speced Survival...
my DPS went up. By about 400. In the same gear, with the same gems and enchants. Yay. Also, that green thing is from Power Auras Clasic. I've been attempting to create an aura for when my serpent sting falls off but no success yet.
Here's my second death. The Safety dance death was my own fault. This was more of a "dps dps dps dps, oh crap, I died!" thing. Since the priest and the other hunter also died, I really don't think it was my fault.
Then we have a cap with all my power auras up. Mostly cause it bugged out on me. The red one is Furious Howl (I'm working on trying to figure out how to time my rotation so the big shots hit when furious howl is active), the blue is Aspect of the Viper, and the gun is a lock and load proc.
Then I died on Grob and then we all died on Gluth. I just took longer (ty Feign Death). I ended up handling the Zombie Chow. I was just supposed to trap, but there's two problems with that. One, the survival rotation involves Black Arrow which shares trap cooldowns, and two, my cooldown no longer equals my trap, so I had to keep running back to look anyway. So, on the second try I because Zombie Chow girl with my own personal healer. Not my fav thing to do, but we took him down so yay for that. Then I died. (Random add left and I was trying to protect the healer). Noticing a pattern here? Yup, Friday was my night to die. I died more on Friday then I did first time in Naxx.
Last death (and my fav). I have yet to make it through one shift on Thad. Either I miss the jump, or I run around like a chicken with its head cut off. (I've only seen him three times now). But this was an epic missed jump, so you get a screeny...
How I managed to wedge myself in there is beyond me.
So, thoughts...
Survival appears to still be the dps king, or at least in my gear it is. The shot rotation/priority is a bit less complicated than MM, and the extra traps are nice. I saw very few lock and load procs using Black Arrow, so if you want as many as possible, trap dancing seems to be the way to go (all but two of my lock and load procs occurred while I was chain trapping zombie adds with frost traps. It was fun, and I will likely stay MM/SV for a while, but I still like MM best. I'll probably switch between them, depending on what I need to do. For 5 mans, it'll probably be Surv, just because of the less mana issues. For heroics, probably MM unless we need trappy goodness or replenishment.
As far as my personal survival spec goes, I gave up some dps talents for Focused Aim (since I have it as MM and I'm using the same gear) and for full replenishment. Otherwise it's a pretty cookie-cutter spec.
Now back to studying. Stupid tests...
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Another day, another patch...
Not much to note in the patch notes this time around. But I did come across something interesting in the Wow Forums...which I am going to rant about.
The developers believe hunter dps is too low, so today we are implementing a change to ranged weapon damage to improve dps across the board.
Bows, crossbows and guns of item level 226 or higher (which means weapons from Kel'Thuzad, Ulduar and the Furious Gladiator pieces) will do around 30 more dps. This should translate to a hunter damage increase of a few percent.
We don't think this will be quite sufficient in boosting hunter dps to where we think it needs to be and we have another buff that we plan to get in sometime over the next couple of weeks. We'll announce that change when it gets closer. (We have some plans for other classes as well, but we ask that you please keep this thread on the topic of hunters and the ranged weapon changes.)
As hunters may recall, we had an ambitious plan to change the way ammo worked for 3.1 that ended up being overly ambitious, causing us to scale back. However as part of that change, we stopped itemizing bullets and arrows. Since hunters could not upgrade from the ammo available at the launch of Lich King, their damage had started and would continue to fall behind as other classes upgraded their gear. This change basically incorporates the ammo damage into the weapons -- as you get better ranged weapons, it's as if you got better ammo to go along with them. This is likely to be a design we continue for the next few tiers of content until we have the opportunity to overhaul ammo completely.
Well, I am S.O.L.. I may have Accursed Bow of the Elite, but as a lvl 200 item, no damage boost for me. And I am unlikely to see 25 man Naxx or 10 man Uldaur any time soon. But what I really want to know is...
What percentage of hunters have these level weapons and thus will get a damage boost? I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority don't, and won't.
I am all for harder raids getting shinier things, and 25 man gear being better than 10 man is okay, and I understand and respect Blizzard's reasons for doing that. But Blizz, you shafted the dedicated 10 man raiders once already with the tokens in Ulduar (25 man Ulduar drops tokens equivalent to the gear that drops and 10 man drops tokens equivalent to Naxx 25 gear which is half a tier lower), so why are you attempting to raise the damage of an entire class by upping the damage on certain high-end gear (and not including any 10 man Naxx gear?)
And then there's the mind-bogglingness of trying to raise the damage of an entire class this way. To give an example, let's say I want to raise SAT scores in a high-school. Do I a) tutor only the kids in honor courses, or b) tutor everyone? Blizzard appears to have gone with a, and I have no idea what they were thinking. Increased dps across the board? WTF? Increased DPS for the dedicated raiders who have enough peeps to run 25 mans, and for the hardcore PVPers does not equal increased dps for all hunters.
I'm just going to be happy that they have realized that this probably (certainly) won't get hunters to where they need to be.
So now that I've ranted (and yes after rereading I did notice that this is meant to be a substitute for the ammo removal but I am still annoyed), I have other stuff to talk about.
I am now in a progression raiding guild (I didn't change guilds, my guild shifted a bit). Granted, we're a bit behind, but yay for progression. I saw Sarth for the first time last week (stupid firewalls) and will be seeing Maly (for the first time ever) and Sarth again this week, plus the normal 10 man Naxx. There's even talk of 25 man Naxx, since our RL doesn't think we can handle 10 man Ulduar in 10 man Naxx gear. I love seeing new content, and getting new shinies, so this is a yay. I just need to find a nice map of Sarth that shows the firewall safe spots (cause I cannot see them to save my life) and um, Sons of Hodir. I've been putting that off because I wanted to finish Dragonblight before I started a new zone, but I need to get the enchants. That's going to be tomorrow's job, I think, attempting to finish DB and hit Storm Peaks.
The developers believe hunter dps is too low, so today we are implementing a change to ranged weapon damage to improve dps across the board.
Bows, crossbows and guns of item level 226 or higher (which means weapons from Kel'Thuzad, Ulduar and the Furious Gladiator pieces) will do around 30 more dps. This should translate to a hunter damage increase of a few percent.
We don't think this will be quite sufficient in boosting hunter dps to where we think it needs to be and we have another buff that we plan to get in sometime over the next couple of weeks. We'll announce that change when it gets closer. (We have some plans for other classes as well, but we ask that you please keep this thread on the topic of hunters and the ranged weapon changes.)
As hunters may recall, we had an ambitious plan to change the way ammo worked for 3.1 that ended up being overly ambitious, causing us to scale back. However as part of that change, we stopped itemizing bullets and arrows. Since hunters could not upgrade from the ammo available at the launch of Lich King, their damage had started and would continue to fall behind as other classes upgraded their gear. This change basically incorporates the ammo damage into the weapons -- as you get better ranged weapons, it's as if you got better ammo to go along with them. This is likely to be a design we continue for the next few tiers of content until we have the opportunity to overhaul ammo completely.
Well, I am S.O.L.. I may have Accursed Bow of the Elite, but as a lvl 200 item, no damage boost for me. And I am unlikely to see 25 man Naxx or 10 man Uldaur any time soon. But what I really want to know is...
What percentage of hunters have these level weapons and thus will get a damage boost? I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority don't, and won't.
I am all for harder raids getting shinier things, and 25 man gear being better than 10 man is okay, and I understand and respect Blizzard's reasons for doing that. But Blizz, you shafted the dedicated 10 man raiders once already with the tokens in Ulduar (25 man Ulduar drops tokens equivalent to the gear that drops and 10 man drops tokens equivalent to Naxx 25 gear which is half a tier lower), so why are you attempting to raise the damage of an entire class by upping the damage on certain high-end gear (and not including any 10 man Naxx gear?)
And then there's the mind-bogglingness of trying to raise the damage of an entire class this way. To give an example, let's say I want to raise SAT scores in a high-school. Do I a) tutor only the kids in honor courses, or b) tutor everyone? Blizzard appears to have gone with a, and I have no idea what they were thinking. Increased dps across the board? WTF? Increased DPS for the dedicated raiders who have enough peeps to run 25 mans, and for the hardcore PVPers does not equal increased dps for all hunters.
I'm just going to be happy that they have realized that this probably (certainly) won't get hunters to where they need to be.
So now that I've ranted (and yes after rereading I did notice that this is meant to be a substitute for the ammo removal but I am still annoyed), I have other stuff to talk about.
I am now in a progression raiding guild (I didn't change guilds, my guild shifted a bit). Granted, we're a bit behind, but yay for progression. I saw Sarth for the first time last week (stupid firewalls) and will be seeing Maly (for the first time ever) and Sarth again this week, plus the normal 10 man Naxx. There's even talk of 25 man Naxx, since our RL doesn't think we can handle 10 man Ulduar in 10 man Naxx gear. I love seeing new content, and getting new shinies, so this is a yay. I just need to find a nice map of Sarth that shows the firewall safe spots (cause I cannot see them to save my life) and um, Sons of Hodir. I've been putting that off because I wanted to finish Dragonblight before I started a new zone, but I need to get the enchants. That's going to be tomorrow's job, I think, attempting to finish DB and hit Storm Peaks.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The exciting end-game (or what I've been doing since I hit 80)
I've been running heroics at a mad-cap pace. I hooked up with an AWESOME tank and he's been helping me gear up. In that process I have learned a few things...
1. My reflexes stink.
2. I need to figure out keybindings. Right now I use a combo of clicking and keys and it isn't fast enough. I've already rebound my shots to 1-7 and am working on hitting them. I think I need to reorganize them, though. Sigh.
3. My dps in groups without replenishment is MASSIVE suck. MM is still mana-intensive, even with all the efficiency talents.
4. Focused aim is so worth it. I'm now hitcapped (168 with 3/3 focused aim), and I have no enchants or gems. Once I get enchanted I can replace the green ring with spellpower (and quite a bit of to hit which is why I have it). Yay.
5. I need to read more EJ. Lots more. So far today I've discovered 2 things I need to start doing (using readiness and switching aspects to fire chimera)
And I've also...
soloed Underbog (yay for dualspecs)
soloed Strat (I want the mount)
got a shiny new mount...
and ran into a really annoying bug. I'd like my blessing of wisdom to stay on for more than a minute, please.
1. My reflexes stink.
2. I need to figure out keybindings. Right now I use a combo of clicking and keys and it isn't fast enough. I've already rebound my shots to 1-7 and am working on hitting them. I think I need to reorganize them, though. Sigh.
3. My dps in groups without replenishment is MASSIVE suck. MM is still mana-intensive, even with all the efficiency talents.
4. Focused aim is so worth it. I'm now hitcapped (168 with 3/3 focused aim), and I have no enchants or gems. Once I get enchanted I can replace the green ring with spellpower (and quite a bit of to hit which is why I have it). Yay.
5. I need to read more EJ. Lots more. So far today I've discovered 2 things I need to start doing (using readiness and switching aspects to fire chimera)
And I've also...
soloed Underbog (yay for dualspecs)
soloed Strat (I want the mount)
got a shiny new mount...
and ran into a really annoying bug. I'd like my blessing of wisdom to stay on for more than a minute, please.
Friday, February 20, 2009
My own fake achievement
I did this recently, on what was a kickass run through Underbog and Slave Pens. 5 characters, all in the middle 60s, and only one wipe (a wandering mob wandered into us while we were taking down a boss).
Sadly, I got no new gear out of it (it was all shaman and pally stuff), but it was still fun. I need to run Underbog again, because brilliant me forgot to click on the plant thing for one of my Spore quests.
On the plus side, I remembered to turn Growl off after the first pull.
And here's another moment of my brilliance...
So what fake achievements would you award yourselves? You can make them here.
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