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

Should I stay or should I go now?

So I am almost level 76 and I still haven't quested anywhere other than Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, and Dragonblight (which seems like it has the most quests I've ever seen in a single zone). Dragonblight is definitely beneath me now but I am having a hard time leaving the zone due to wanting to finish all of the excellent quest lines. The question I guess is: When is it time to move on to the next zone?

If I use the achievement for quests completed in a zone as my ruler for when I am "done" with a zone I'll be 80 before I finish the Grizzly Hills I think. On the other hand if I just use my level to determine which zone I should be in I would be missing out on all of the excellent quest chains (and the nice rewards that usually come at the end of these chains) and story lines I've been running into in each zone.

I guess I could always just come back later and finish off the questing in the zones. /sigh

When do you "move on"?

Got Trident?

If you are leveling a new Hunter through WotLK and are in need of a nice weapon upgrade set your sights on the Tidebreaker Trident. This item is purchasable for 50 x Winterfin Clam from Ahlurglgr after completing the quest Winterfin Commerce.

I was able to farm up 50 clams in about 25 minutes. Just dive down into the water right outside the Winterfin Village and start picking clams up off the ledges as well as the bottom of the trench. Don't worry about getting stuck down deep with no air, there is a bubble fissure at the bottom. Find that and add it to part or you farming route and you can just make routes up and down the east and west sides of the trench. Make sure to kill all the murlocs on the way too since they also will drop the clams.

Get yourself a cheap Greater Savagery enchant and you will have yourself a nice weapon that will last you quite a while. Have fun farming and enjoy your sexy new trident!

Misdirect Macro

When I hit Level 70 earlier this week I finally picked up Misdirection and I promptly wrote a new Macro to use it with.

First thing I always do in a group is set my focus to the main tank. So just click on the Main Tank and type:

/focus

and you are all set.

Then you can create a macro (all on one line):

/cast [target=focus,help] Misdirection; [help] Misdirection; [target=pet,exists] Misdirection

This will cast Misdirection on your focus. Or if you have a different group member selected cast Misdirection on them. Or lastly if none of those things are true (you are probably soloing) and it casts Misdirection on your pet. There are a lot of different types of Misdirect Macros out there, but this one seems to work for me.

A Busy Couple Days

I'll let the screenshot speak for itself:

Hunter Hits 70, Gets Big Gun

Yay! My hunter finally made it to 70! 6 days 20 hours /played

Apart from hitting 70 I also picked up a sweet quest reward gun (details to follow tomorrow night when I am not so tired) EDIT: Here it the gun's stats Fury of the Raging Dragon

Initech vs. Sunwell

My guild Initech on the Cairne server completed their final "retro raid" last night. I went along on my lvl 72 Warrior (Hunter is still half a level from 70). I had a great time and I am pretty sure I wasn't the only one who picked up a few upgrades. Some of the loot in there is still viable even at 80 it seems. Fun was had by all regardless of our epic wipes on Felmyst and M'uru. I had a great camera angle (due to me being dead) on Felmyst swooping in to breathe on the entire raid, but I was too busy LMAO to hit the screenshot key.


I think Anzak said that with Sunwell completed it means that Initech has officially seen ALL of the content in WoW which is a fantastic accomplishment IMO. Go Initech!


I'll edit this and add the list of the items I received when I get home tonight since I can't get to wowhead from work :(

And here they are:

Felfury Legplates
Onslaught Belt
Blackened Naaru Sliver

These upgrades should help my push to 80 on my Warrior just that much easier.

He could.. go.. all.. the.. way! or not...

Nose to the grindstone now. Monday my guild is doing a retro raid on the Sunwell and I just hit level 66. I am going to try and hit 70 by Monday night so I can come along for the ride and see if I can't get some choice loot to help me level a little faster.

Does anyone know the actual requirements for entering the Sunwell?

EDIT:

Requirement is level 70

And I fell just short. had to take my Warrior instead.

Hunter Macros

Two posts in one day! I have been meaning to post this one for a while so here it goes...

Leveling up my hunter I found it more and more difficult to place things on my hot bars and keep my interface usable. In order to save a ton of space I resorted to the use of some macros that I just can't live without any longer. I'm not going to go through the process of how to create macros, so if you need an introduction go here.

Aspect Macro

This macro simplifies the use of my Hunter Aspects. I have this bound to one of the buttons on the side of my mouse, and through the use of the key modifiers (shift, alt, ctrl) I can easilly switch which Aspect I am using without any trouble at all. And most importantly I don't even need to display the button bar this is attached to (I use bartender as my hot bar manager).

/castsequence [nomodifier] Aspect of the Hawk, Aspect of the Viper
/cast [modifier:alt] Aspect of the Pack
/cast [modifier:shift] Aspect of the Monkey
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Aspect of the Beast

As you can see if I do not use a modifier it will just toggle back and forth between Hawk and Viper which is what I am doing almost all the time. 5 hot bar slots saved

Sting Macro

Here is another of my space saving macros:

/cast [nomodifier] Serpent Sting
/cast [modifier:alt] Viper Sting

This simply lets me use my default sting as Serpent Sting, but in there rare case when I need to use Viper sting I can just by hitting Alt then my key binding. 2 hot bar slots saved.

Pet Attack / Hunter's Mark Macro

Now this is something I found very useful.

/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack [modifier:shift]

I have this bound to T (for target). Just hitting T will cast Hunter's Mark on the target but if I hit Shift - T it casts Hunter's Mark AND send my pet in to attack. This also has the side effect of reassigning the Hunter's Mark to whichever target I want my pet to switch to.

OMG Melee Macro

If in the unlikely event that you find yourself meleeing something (maybe in PVP). You can just mash this macro to dump the hurt on something in close range.

/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Mongoose Bite
/attack

Mount Macro

I know there are addons I can use to do this but I'm a macro kind of guy.

/cast [modifier:alt] Tawny Wind Rider
/cast [nomodifier] Great White Kodo

These were just a few examples of some of the macros I use. More to come in the future once I work out the kinks in some of the others I am working on. If anyone has any suggestions for useful Hunter macros, post them up!

Early Protection Gear in WotLK

I haven't been playing my Warrior much but when I do I like to tank instances. And because I am a Max/Min personality when it comes to gear I am trying to put together a "wish list" if you will of the first set of WotLK tanking gear I will be shooting for. I personally don't like relying on random boss drops to gear up and I always look for crafted or quest rewards that I can get now to help later in the farming of better loot off of bosses.

Crafted Pieces

If you weren't a Burning Crusade tank then you may want to look into getting the entry level Cobalt piece crafted for you. The mats are minimal and these pieces will provide you with a good starting point for tanking places like The Nexus.


Cobalt Belt
Cobalt Boots
Cobalt Bracers
Cobalt Chestpiece
Cobalt Gauntlets
Cobalt Helm
Cobalt Legplates
Cobalt Shoulders

37 x Cobalt Bars will get you the entire set. If you are a miner you can scavenge up the ore pretty quickly while doing your quests.

Quest Rewards

Head over to the Borean Tundra and make sure you do all the quests over in Coldarra until you get:

Have They No Shame (68)   for Tundra Pauldrons - Plate: Shoulders
Postponing the Inevitable (69) for Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant - Plate: Hands
Quickening (69) for Boots of the Unbowed Protector - Plate: Feet

Once you have those quests get yourself a group to run through The Nexus. You can easily bang out all 3 quests in one run and net yourself 3 nice upgrades. Unfortunately none of the bosses seem to drop any decent tanking gear. So doing this dungeon more than once to get the quests done really isn't necessary. There are however a few nice DPS items in there which I'll probably cover in a different post.

Next time I get a chance I will cover the next level of tanking gear beyond these pieces which should hold you over until around level 74 or so.

A Hunter and his... Devilsaur?

Yes that's right, I got myself a Devilsaur as my Ferocity pet. Un'goro Crater is probably my favorite zone in the game still. Where else can you find steamy jungle, a volcano, and giant-sized T-Rex mobs trying to sneak up on you? Add in some real Nintendo fanboy stuff with the Mario & Luigi and Zelda references and I can't resist. I love going back there to do my daily quest for the Venomhide Raptor mount (which I can't wait for).

I wasn't really sure if the Devilsaur you ended up with as a hunter had anything to do with the actual one you tamed so i hunted around for the one that I believe had racked up the most kills against me... the Ironhide Deveilsaur. I tracked him down threw down a freeze trap and started the tame. It was over before he got out of the trap and as he shrunk down to hunter pet size he changed skins into a non-unique Devilsaur hunter pet looking graphic, much to my dismay. Although, I have gotten several comments on him so far.

I named him Lou after Dante's original raptor pet back on Durotan in the very early days of WoW. If anyone know how to get a hold of Dante... please point him here ;)

And a new chapter begins

Swath hit level 60 last night finally. Thanks to my guild letting me tag along on their run through Blackwing Lair the other night I had some nice Epic gear waiting for me. Although now that I am questing heavily in Hellfire Peninsula, and will probably start running some instances, that gear will be sold to the vendor sooner rather than later.

I am full Beast Mastery for my main spec so I have been trying to decide what I want to get for my first "exotic" pet. I am thinking some sort of Devilsaur since they can be fun for PvP.

The Nexus Review

Well I finally got Swathcutter transferred over to Cairne and was able to get a group together to run my first instance in WotLK... The Nexus. I was able to run the dungeon twice in one night, once as a tank and once as DPS. Despite being horribly out of practice I think I did alright.

First off I have to give The Nexus a big thumbs up for ambiance. The look of the place was very nice I thought, and the layout lends itself well to go and hit any boss in any order you like (there were no restrictions that I could find). Which means if you and your friends are farming for a particular piece of gear you can head straight there. To add to the ambiance I thought the soundtrack for the dungeon was very well done.

There seemed to be a rather good mix of mob types in the dungeon as well... Humanoids, Elementals, Dragonkin, etc. If you were to go the Crowd Control route in this dungeon (like maybe on Heroic) it would make a number of different classes viable to help with CC in different sections of the instance.

The boss fights themselves I thought were rather lackluster. Mainly due to the fact that their "gimmicks" were easily dealt with. The caster chick splits into copies, just focus fire them down. The giant glowy voidwalker guy does nothing special, when he turns Pally on you any becomes invulnerable just kill the adds that show up, rinse and repeat. Now the Treeshaper boss had really good potential for a fun fight, but his spikes shooting out of the ground are easily avoided by simply standing on top of him. The mechanic for the (what has been the usual) final fight with the dragon in the central area, is easily avoided by staying mobile throughout the fight.

I wasn't impressed by the loot drops from the bosses, although they might be worth it for someone who just hit level 70. The quest rewards however I found very nice and was able to pick up a few upgrades to my tanking set.

The Nexus gets a B+ in my book. I just hope it gets more difficult on Heroic since it did seem overly simplistic.

Raking in the gold

I don't know what it is, but I must be doing something right this time around. My hunter has been making great money off of the Auction House. I thought I would write a little post about what I've been doing to help anyone else that is leveling a new character.

The first thing I noticed when I starting making money off the AH is that on a mature server with lots of level 80s people have a ton of extra cash to spend on leveling their other characters and their professions.

Preparation

There are a few addons I would recommend getting (hit up Curse for your addon needs):
Auctioneer
SellJunk
Gatherer

Apart from this you will need the ability to disenchant. As I am a Skinner / Leatherworker and have no other characters on this server I have just been asking my guild mates to DE for me. I try to spread the work around so I don't spam anyone's mail boxes too bad ;)


Step 1 - Get the biggest bags you can afford
Step 2 - Take at least 1 gathering skill (2 if you don't feel like crafting, although I have found Leatherworking to be quite lucrative in a roundabout way, more on that later)
Step 3 - Never sell greens to the vendor. Always put them on the Auction House. If they do not sell the first time around I just DE them and post the resulting enchanting mats for sale on the AH
Step 4 - Buy Low & Sell High. I know it sounds dumb because everyone says it... But how many people do you know actually do it? I see incredible deals on the AH all the time. Stuff priced WAY below what it should be. So I just buy them up and repost at a more lucrative price point.

Now I haven't even been working hard at this at all, just doing it every time I pass through a major city and leveling like crazy. I had made my first 1000g by the time I was level 50 and that was at like 2.5 days /played. I power leveled my way through to 300 LW rather quickly by using the cash I had made to buy the materials I needed. This seemed like a big investment at the time but by selling what I made back on the AH I ended up making money in the end. If you work hard at it I think you could do far better than I have.

Good items to make money off of are good gear for twinking out for low level Battlegrounds, namely the Level 29 BGs. Any of the Eagle leather for druids or Monkey leather for Rogues seem to sell especially well for this bracket. You can usually pull in 15-30g at a minimum for these types of items.

Also good are any materials for professions. Level 80s working on new professions or starting alts for new professions would rather just buy the materials than go out and farm them. Cloth, Leather, and Ore all sell extremely well.

Conclusion

Level up and make plenty of cash while doing it! There is no reason why leveling a new character needs to be a drain on your main characters resources. Or why your new character shouldn't be able to afford everything they need on their own. Be creative, I have found the oddest things sell really well. If you are short on cash, browse the AH and see what is selling high and get to farming!

Brewfest in BRD

Yeah I get it... I should have a level 80 character and be farming Coren or whatever his name is for the Brewfest loot. But while leveling my lowly Hunter I thought it was rather rude of Blizzard to put in high level mobs right at the entrance to BRD to one shot the unsuspecting new people leveling up.

Note to all players under level 55:

Run hard to the left when zoning into BRD or you will be granted a one way ticket to the Spirit Healer before you can even get yourself oriented.

Also note that the first pull of dwarves you pull WILL run when low on health. Often in a very unwelcome direction. >8(

Back in the saddle again...

I'm back! With a new name for the blog, new template, and a fresh perspective on the game. For those that get the reference of the new title of the blog I need your help! Does anyone have my old avatar kicking around from our old guild forums?

For those that don't know I have moved to Cairne as my main server after coming back from a long break to Vek'Nilash to find all of the people I enjoyed playing with have transferred there. Since I quit playing prior to WotLK I had to shell out the cash for the expansion so I am little short currently to be able to pay for a transfer for Swathcutter, but he will no doubt make it to Cairne eventually in all his Fury!

In the meantime however I created a Tauren Hunter named Swath. Current level 55ish. Looking to hit Outlands by this weekend. I am REALLY enjoying playing as a Hunter solo. Not sure how I am going to like it in Raids. But as far as a Farming / Soloing / PvP character you can't really go wrong with the Hunter class.

Current plan is to get both my Warrior and Hunter to level 80 and then focus on whichever my guild needs more. Keep an eye on the blog for some informational posts in the future! For now it's all about the leveling grind!

Is it time?

I've been away from WoW for a long time now. Lately I've had the itch to come back. I wonder who is still around... are my old comrades in arms still about? How is the Wrath of the Lick King expansion? What has it done to Warriors?

If anyone still swings by here to check on me hit me up on AIM (BGregorius0810).