Long time no Blog

I know I haven't updated in a while. Real life has had me pinned down lately and any free time I have had lately I have been spending actually playing or reading a good book. We had a medium sized emergency with our house and luckily our insurance company came through for us and it's taken a while to get our house back in order. In any case I should have time to update from time to time again now.

In short my Hunter has been doing a lot of gearing up lately, some Arenas, and even some raiding. Loving the new Group Finder and weekly raid quests. When I play I prefer to always be playing with other people. I am ALWAYS queued up to run an instance. I wish I had more time to play and work on some of the other things I want to get done in game. As it is I'll have to cut my Hunter play tmie down to be able to work on my Warrior (now level 73).

I am working on a Frost Emblem purchasing guide on the side. Hopefully I can finish it soon and get it posted up.

Ding 80 and Survivalism

Well my hunter finally hit 80 this week and thanks to my awesome guild Initech of Cairne I managed to get some really nice gear upgrades. The one thing I was super excited to do as soon as I hit 80 was switch from a BM spec to a Survival spec for running heroics and raiding. So as soon as I dinged 80 I headed to the trainer to pick up Dual Specialization and specced Survival as my new main build. I'll be keeping BM as my off spec for soloing, farming mats, etc...

One thing I would suggest if you plan on respeccing, or adding a dual spec that results in a different play style, is to head to the nearest Training Dummy in town and practice, practice, practice!! It took me a good half hour of practicing, playing around with macros, and tweaking my shot rotation before I finally felt comfortable actually going out into the world as a SV Hunter.

Overall my first impressions after almost a week of raiding and heroics I have to say that I am really enjoying the SV play style, and I look forward to picking up some more gear upgrades so that I can start closing the enormous gap between me and the Mages currently claiming the top of the damage meters.

When I get a chance I'll upload some screenshots from the past couple weeks.

Playing as a Beast Mastery Specced Hunter

So after leveling my hunter non-stop over the past month or two strictly as BM I have found myself falling into two separate "grooves" of how I play depending on my situation. Are these the best instructions for overall Max DPS in instances? Probably not but it works well for me when soling and feels "comfortable" I guess.

Single Mob Pulls
  1. Hunter's Mark + Pet Attack
  2. Mend Pet
  3. Serpent Sting
  4. Arcane Shot
  5. Steady Shot
Basically the idea here is to keep Serpent Sting and Mend Pet refreshed at all times. Then use Steady Shot when Arcane Shot is on cooldown. I macro Kill Command to all of my shots to make sure I get the most use out of it.

 Multi-Mob Pulls

  1. Gather Mobs w/ Mend Pet up
  2. Kill Command + Thunderstomp
  3. Multi-Shot
  4. Volley
I can usually take 5 - 6 mobs safely, more than that and it gets dicey from time to time. What I like to do is turn off auto-cast on Thunderstomp while I gather the mobs. I use a combination of pet pulling and misdirect to gather the mobs quickly, hit Kill Command then set Thunderstomp to auto-cast again. Your pet should have plenty of initial aggro now. I like to throw out Multi-Shots in between Volleys when it is available. Be prepared to Feign Death after your second Volley, especially if you get lucky with crits. Always keep Mend Pet up.

Aspects

 If I am feeling lazy I will stay in Viper pretty much 100% of the time and never have to worry about pulling aggro or running out of mana. Basically a hunter in Viper is a well oiled machine that never has to slow down or stop for any reason. Most of the time however I am using the Dragonhawk aspect and going full bore out, burning up my Misdirects on my pet whenever it is available so I don't pull aggro. If I run low on mana I just switch to Viper for a pull and top myself back off.

Pets

While soloing I almost always go with my Tenacity pet, in my case Smokey the bear. I love the cleave component of his Swipe ability. While I have the Tenacity pet out I tend to AoE a lot more than single target DPS. However I do spent a good portion of my time with my Devilsaur pet (Lou), who is appropriately a Ferocity pet. Mostly I use him for instances, but I also pull him out in areas where AoE grinding just doesn't work well. In these cases I single target DPS down mobs alternating Misdirect and Feign Death from pull to pull.




I hope these tips can help any new BM hunters out there!

Need, Greed... Disenchant?

Found this over at MMOChampion in the PTR Notes


  • Group Disenchanting Option: In addition to rolling Need or Greed on items, players now have the option to elect for an item to be disenchanted if an enchanter of the appropriate skill level is in the group. Disenchant works exactly like Greed except if a player wins the Greed roll, they will receive the disenchanted materials instead. Players who choose Need will always win the item and will always beat those that choose Greed or Disenchant. 

I haven't seen anyone mention anything about this elsewhere yet, but being someone that has never been able to disenchant I think it's a huge and most welcome change!

Pre-80 Hunter Shopping List

For my own tracking purposes here is the list of items I will be attempting to obtain on my way to 80.

Head
Swiftarrow Helm - Obtained
Headguard of Westrift - Drops from final boss of The Occulus (decent upgrade from the Swiftarrow if I can get it to drop)

Neck
The Severed Noose of Westwind - Reward from quest chain in Icecrown (Req. lvl 78) Should hold me over until I can get one of the DPS necks from the Argent Tournament

Shoulders
Virulent Spaulders - Obtained

Cloak
Embrace of Sorrow - One of the few pieces I'll actually be farming for. Drops in the Halls of Stone off the Maiden of Grief

Chest
Razorstrike Breastplate - Obtained

Bracers
Eaglebane Bracers - Obtained

Gloves
Swiftarrow Gauntlets - Obtained
Tear-Linked Gauntlets - Drop from Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle

Waist
Ranger's Belt of the Fallen Empire - Quest reward from Gundrak dungeon. Use this as a hold over until...
Giant Ring Belt - Requires The Sons of Hodir - Honored

Legs
Swiftarrow Leggings - Obtained
Leather-Braced Chain Leggings - Drop from Loken in the Halls of Lightning

Boots
Dragonstompers - Obtained

Rings
Signet of Bridenbrad - Obtained
Frog-Toe Band - Quest reward in Icecown (level 77)

Trinkets
Happy with my current trinkets for now.

Ranged Weapon
Hemet's Trophy Gun - Obtained

2H Weapon
Icier Barbed Spear  - Obtained