Category Archives: guides

guides, shot rotation, stats

A Teacher's Work Never Ends

9 Comments

I think that sometimes we may take what we know about a subject for granted and assume everyone knows it. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been somewhat reluctant to post “hunter kindergarten” guides in the past… because I often fear it’s stuff everybody already knows.

But just now, while playing a lowbie hordie, I heard the following two things said by two different level 70 hunters:

“BM hunters don’t need agility, they need attack power.”

And

“The best shot rotation for 41/20/0 Beast Mastery uses Aimed Shots and Arcane Shots, and Steady Shot but only against dazed targets because it does more damage against dazed targets.”

…

/blink

Sorry Barrens hunters, but it’s back to school for you guys. Let’s go over some stuff real quick here: and I know I don’t have the math to back it up, but I do have some personal experiences.

Attack Power vs. Agility:

Attack power isn’t bad per se, but here’s the thing, if you are gearing for Attack Power over agility, then you are basically giving up crit in favor of a little extra damage per shot.

Whether or not AP helps your “pure DPS” more than crit does is somewhat debatable and is largely dependent on gear, according to Cheeky, a hunter that I have a lot of respect for.

But let’s go beyond “pure DPS” and think about what happens when you crit as a typical Beast Mastery hunter. You get to use Kill Command. More DPS. Your pet has a very good chance of crit’ing with Kill Command. More DPS. This procs Ferocious Inspiration. More DPS. Also when you crit, your pet gets a bunch of focus via Go for the Throat. This lets your pet use his focus dump moves (more DPS), which also have a good shot at crit’ing (more DPS) and procing Frenzy (more DPS) and Ferocious Inspiration (more DPS). Now I haven’t done any math or anything but I’m having a hard time believing that some extra attack power is going to overcome all the benefits of crits. I myself would much rather see a big crit number on my Armory page than a big AP number.

Now the key is balance, you don’t want to stack crit chance and let your AP suffer or vice versa. That’s why agility is so good, because it contributes to both. Not to mention when a paladin gives you Blessing of Kings, it is going to scale based on your agility and not on flat AP or crit increases.

And that is why, in Pike’s opinion, Agility > Attack Power.

Shot Rotations:

My fellow hunters, do not underestimate the importance of using a good shot rotation if you want to do lots of DPS. If you are a Beast Master hunter you do not need to be using Arcane Shots (unless you have a slower weapon and can thread one in there) and you should never be using Aimed Shots. I have done heroics with hunters who have a nice solid spec, are very well-geared, and yet do very little DPS compared to me, and the reason is because they are simply spamming whatever shots they can when the cooldown is up. You need to learn how to time your shots. I know it seems kind of counterintuitive at first to simply not use certain shots when they’re sitting right there in front of you, ready to be fired. But ya gotta trust me on this one. Grab a nice weapon like Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle, start weaving in Steady Shots between your Auto Shots, and hang on and enjoy the ride. The results will amaze you.

My damage meter told me I was hitting over 1100 DPS during my last Kara run; I don’t want to quote that just yet because it seems a little high to me and my damage meter has been sorta glitchy lately anyway. But I know I am doing close to 1000 under optimal circumstances and the reason is because of my shot rotation.

As for Steady Shot: apparently it really does do more damage against dazed targets (I… feel kinda silly for not knowing this before >.> I guess you can learn stuff in Barrens Chat.) but that doesn’t mean you should be saving it and only using it against dazed targets. It is the most mana-efficient special shot that you have and you should make the most of it.

Well, that wraps up today’s little review. In closing, I just want to mention how much I dislike lag. Because it throws off my groove.

This little guide was hastily written up before running to work, so as always, lemme know if I made a mistake or left somethin’ out.

guides, hunter kindergarten, movies

Hunter Kindergarten: Chain-Trapping 101

23 Comments

I’m enjoying this movie thing so much that I decided to make my very first real instructional movie:

Tawyn and Tux show you the basics on how to chain-trap in an instance.

I noticed something though. Something that didn’t even occur to me until afterwards when I was watching the finished product.

…I kept using certain pronouns.

…like “we”… and “us”…

…is it a hunter thing, or is this what happens when you read too much BRK? Have I been permanently transformed? Am I doomed to refer to myself in the plural form from here on out? WHAT SORT OF MONSTER HAS BEEN UNLEASHED?

/cough

Enjoy the movie, hopefully it’s helpful to some of you =D And I promise I’ll start posting some non-movie stuff again too.

And yes, I know I have a dorky voice.

guides, how-tos

How to: Make a World of Warcraft Movie

16 Comments

Loronar asked me to write up a little tutorial on how to make a WoW movie.

Sure thing!

This is going to be super basic. No need to download too many fancy programs. This means you won’t be able to do too much fancy stuff with your movies, but you WILL be able to make a basic movie and add your own sound and that type of thing.

This tutorial is written for Windows XP because it’s what most people use and because sadly, there does not seem to be a good solid program yet for Linux that works well with WoW/Wine. I’ve looked. I imagine they’ll have one out probably in the next couple of years but until then, I use Windows for my movie-making needs. (I imagine the tutorial for Vista would be similar– but I’ve never used Vista so I can’t say.)

How to Make a World of Warcraft Movie:

1.) Download Fraps. Fraps is the only program I’ve found thus far that works as well as it does. There are other free, open source programs out there which I’d rather be using but most of them are still sort of “in beta” and do not work with WoW, at least not as well as you need it to. So for now there is really one thing you can use to record a movie if you are on Windows, and that is Fraps.

You will need to pay a one-time fee of about $35 to unlock the full program (being able to record more than 30 seconds at a time). If you don’t feel like paying a fee I’m sure there’s other ways to “acquire” the full version. But you didn’t hear that from me. =P Myself, I just coughed up the money.

Basically after you pay you’ll be able to access a “members only” section of the site, and download a full version.

2.) Install Fraps. Straightforward enough.

3.) Open Fraps. You have some options in here you can play with. The options are pretty self-explanatory. I myself left pretty much everything at default, although I did disable sound recording so I could record my own sound (also because it saves a little disk space). On the subject of disk space, the movies you are going to be recording will be huge initially, so make sure you have a lot of hard drive space available.

4.) Minimize Fraps and boot up World of Warcraft. You will notice you have a number in the upper left corner of your screen. This is not going to go away so long as you have Fraps running. It displays your Frames-per-second. If the numbers are yellow, it means you are not recording, if they’re red, it means that you are. The numbers will not show up on your finished movie, so don’t worry. Now let’s say you just want to record a test movie to make sure everything’s working right. Press F9. It’ll probably open one of your bags, but wait, it also makes Fraps start recording! See, the little number in the corner turned red. And if you have a computer that boasts pretty good but not excellent stats, as mine does, you will probably notice that your game is slightly choppier now. You will lose some FPS while Fraps does its thing, but unless your computer is really outdated the game should still be playable, if a little bit choppier.

5.) You can run around for a bit, shoot some stuff, whatever you want to record. Then press F9 again to stop recording. The number will turn yellow again and your game will probably get a lot smoother. And your bag will either open or close again. (You can go into the options and set the default recording key to something else if you don’t want it to also open your bags. Or you can just do what I do and open your bag before you record, so it closes it when you start.)

6.) You now have a movie in your Fraps folder, which by default is C:/Fraps. But you’re not finished yet because maybe you want to add music– not to mention the movie is way too big to upload to YouTube right now. Fortunately, Windows comes with something called Windows Movie Maker. Just go into your Start Menu and find it, it’s not in any subfolders or anything.

7.) Open Windows Movie Maker. You have a sidebar that gives you some options, you want to click on “Import Video” and navigate to your Fraps folder and import your movie. Now it’s going to show little thumbnails of parts of your movie in the main area. Drag each of these parts, in order, down to the timeline at the bottom and arrange them one after the other. You can press play to preview your movie and make sure you got all your thumbnails in there (one time I forgot and finished/uploaded an entire movie before I realized that a portion of it was missing– do not let this happen to you! =P)

8.) So you have what we in the industry call “picture lock”. (Look Mom, I’m using my degree!) This means that the picture part of your movie is all finished and you just need to add sound. Go back to the sidebar and click on “Import Audio or Music”. Now you can navigate to maybe some music you want to add, or some narration that you made, and import it in. It’s going to show up with all your movie thumbnails. You can drag it down to the bottom section of the timeline and move it around so it starts and ends when you want it to. You can also trim your song if maybe it’s too long, you do that by finding the end that you want to clip, waiting until it turns into a little double-headed red arrow, and then dragging it down so it matches up in length with your movie. If you have more than one sound file you’d like to use, you can upload more than one and put one right after the other.


9.) Now I should warn you– chances are your audio clip is going to be very very loud by default. To fix this, click on your audio, go into the “Clip” menu at the top of the program, go into Audio, go into Volume, and set it so it’s a lot lower. (You can also fade your audio in and out and a few other basic things here.)

10.) Alright, you can play your movie back and if everything looks good, head over to “Save to my computer” on the sidebar. It will give you some options about what to name your movie, where to save it, what size you want it to be, etc. If you want to make a fairly-decent-sized movie you can upload to YouTube or Blogger, I recommend saving the movie as “Other Settings: High Quality Video (Large)”. Eventually it will get to a part where it has to process your movie; depending on how long your movie is this will take ten or fifteen minutes or so.

11.) After processing you’ve got a nice little WoW movie sitting on your desktop (or wherever you decided to save it)! Congrats! You can now upload it to YouTube, Blogger, or something similar– be aware that the uploading process for both of these also takes ten or fifteen minutes or so.

And there you have it, that’s how you make a WoW movie with minimum amounts of fuss. Have fun filming!

guides, hunter kindergarten

Beast Mastery and the Zen of Shot Rotation

12 Comments

The other day I sat down and figured out how to do WoW Web Stats, having been inspired by Aspect of the Girl (a fun new hunter and new blog!) and BRK’s commendable help guide. Then I WoW Web Stats’d a normal Steamvaults run that me and a few guildies did to help my boyfriend get Cenarion rep.

This is a very useful tool that lets you analyze yourself and see what you did right and what you did wrong and get hard data for just how often things like Improved Aspect of the Hawk or Ferocious Inspiration are proc’ing. It also tells you your DPS– I managed 613 throughout the duration of the instance and 820 on the final boss fight. I’ve noticed that boss fights are where I really shine in DPS, because I don’t have to be focusing on trapping things and the like. Not to say that I don’t like crowd control, in fact, I actually tend to get a bit miffed if I’m not “Lead CC” in a particular group. But if you’re looking for MQoSRDPS and nothing but MQoSRDPS from me, you probably won’t find it quite as much on trash mobs.

However, I’d like to use some of my WoW Web Stats data to teach you a little about the Beast Mastery Shot Rotation. My previous “Kindergarten” post went over very well (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with still being in kindergarten by the way!), so I thought I would bring you another one.

For starters: What is a shot rotation? Put simply, it is the order in which you use your special shots. It goes beyond that, though: we hunters have an Auto Shot that is constantly going. If you right click on a mob and do nothing else, that is your Auto Shot hard at work. Pew. Pew. Pew.

Auto Shot is interesting, though. It has a hidden timer to it. You can fire most instant cast shots and not interrupt that timer (Arcane Shot comes to mind), but if you fire Steady Shot (a non-instant-cast-shot) at the wrong time, it “clips” your Auto Shot. You don’t get that Auto Shot in and you’ve just cheated yourself out of a lot of DPS.

In order to maximize DPS, hunters have to come up with a shot rotation that takes things like the speed of their weapon into account. This way they can come up with an order to fire their special shots in without clipping their Auto Shots. A lot of us call this “weaving your shots”, because you are basically weaving your special shots around one immovable standard: the Auto Shot.

Marksman and Survival hunters often have to come up with very long and complex Shot Rotations that involve Steady Shots, Arcane Shots, and Multishots all done in a very specific order. It takes a lot of hard work to calculate out a big rotation like that and I /salute those of you that do it.

Beast Mastery hunters are a special case though. Why?


Serpent’s Swiftness.

Taking 5/5 in this talent ups your ranged attack speed by 20%. This means that we don’t have the time that hunters without it do, to weave most of our shots into a rotation. In fact, with a ranged weapon with optimum BM speed (about 2.80), we barely have time to squeeze in one Steady Shot between our Auto Shots.

…but that’s not a bad thing as some people might think right off the bat.

The two most mana-efficient shots for a hunter are Auto Shot (which obviously costs no mana) and Steady Shot. Both of these get you your most damage-per-mana-buck. So the Auto-Steady rotation is not only more mana efficient than other rotations (and thus lasts longer), but the fast speed at which you are firing more than makes up for the slower (but usually damage-heavier) shots of a non-Serpent’s-Swiftness-hunter.

So let’s take a look here and see this in action. Let me show you a small excerpt from the combat log on the final boss in Steamvaults. This is just me: it doesn’t display my party members or things that they did, nor does it display things that Locke did (except getting focus from me); this explains why you don’t see any Kill Commands:

07:12’17.500 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1354
07:12’18.015 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’19.609 Tawyn gains Quick Shots
07:12’19.718 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 544
07:12’20.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 603
07:12’21.484 Tawyn gains Ferocious Inspiration
07:12’21.937 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1072 (53 blocked)
07:12’22.328 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’22.546 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 614
07:12’24.734 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1370
07:12’25.125 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’25.531 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 586
07:12’27.265 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 537
07:12’27.843 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 604
07:12’29.671 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1221 (53 blocked)
07:12’30.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 566
07:12’30.390 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’32.187 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 582
07:12’32.984 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 621
07:12’34.593 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 562
07:12’35.187 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1420
07:12’35.609 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’37.000 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1381
07:12’37.250 Tawyn gains Quick Shots
07:12’37.609 Locke gains 50 Focus from Go for the Throat of Tawyn
07:12’37.937 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 617

So did you see what I was doing there with my shots? Here, let’s take out the procs so you can get a better look:

07:12’17.500 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1354
07:12’19.718 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 544
07:12’20.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 603
07:12’21.937 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1072 (53 blocked)
07:12’22.546 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 614
07:12’24.734 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1370
07:12’25.531 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 586
07:12’27.265 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 537
07:12’27.843 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 604
07:12’29.671 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1221 (53 blocked)
07:12’30.375 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 566
07:12’32.187 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 582
07:12’32.984 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 621
07:12’34.593 Tawyn’s Steady Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 562
07:12’35.187 Tawyn’s Auto Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1420
07:12’37.000 Tawyn’s Steady Shot crits Warlord Kalithresh for 1381
07:12’37.937 Tawyn’s Auto Shot hits Warlord Kalithresh for 617

Notice that? I am weaving Steady Shots inbetween my Auto Shots and that is the foundation of a Beast Mastery Shot Rotation.

Elitist Jerks, theorycrafting community extraordinaire, has an excellent picture illustrating this, where the little orange box represents using Kill Command if it’s available (and I hope they don’t mind if I borrow it– I’d be glad to remove it at their request):

(Click to enlarge)

So. You’ve got your Auto Shot, you’ve got your Steady Shot (if you are level 62 or higher, that is) and you’ve got Serpent’s Swiftness, and you’re ready to learn how to do your shot rotation. There are a lot of different ways to do this; some people swear by using a timer addon, others just jump straight into the macro (which I will discuss later). Me, I find that learning to weave your shots is pretty instinctive. I went out after getting Steady Shot and played around with it and after a few minutes I just had this “Ohhhh…” moment where everything clicked and suddenly the mechanics of playing-my-hunter changed forever. I don’t know if everybody has a moment like that or if it’s just me. But basically, I recommend that everybody learns how to manually weave their shots first before hitting up a macro or timer– I just think it’s a good foundation.

For me, I have discovered that if I watch my character very closely… if I hit the Steady Shot button immediately after she fires an Auto Shot… well, that’ll do it. After a couple shots are fired you’ll fall into a rhythm and you don’t have to watch quite so closely. (Note: I’ve found that the bow animation sometimes looks funky when you do this. That can be hard to get used to, at least, it was for me. Using a crossbow or gun isn’t so bad though.)

It takes a bit of practice to start weaving in your Kill Commands, too. You can use Kill Command after you crit (if you are level 66 or higher). Kill Command has its own little cooldown, though, so you can’t just spam it. Nor can you use it if you are mid-Steady-Shot cool– erm— up? (Opposite of cooldown >.>) Pretty soon you will get accustomed to keeping track of when you’ve got a Kill Command in queue and you will learn to use it between Steady Shots. It might take a little practice though.

There you have it. That is the BM secret to MQoSRDPS. I know a lot of people probably think it’s easy-mode, and that may be true, but honestly I think it’s all in how you look at it. One hunter’s easy-mode is another hunter’s “functional and elegant“. And that last phrase really describes it to me.

Now, one more thing to touch one before I letcha go. The Macro. The Macro. It looks something like this:

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Auto Shot
/cast Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

Yes, I’ve got it on my secondary action bar alongside all my tradeskills and various rarely-used Aspects. I’ve got it there because sometimes everything just starts lagging really really badly and we’re mid-boss-fight or something and it becomes near impossible for me to time my own shots just because of the lag. So that’s when I pull up the macro, shed a little tear, and start spamming it.

What’s the macro do? Well, it times all your shots for you and completely eliminates human error, meaning it will probably up your DPS.

Why don’t I like it? Because for me, playing my hunter is about having fun and The Macro is just not fun. You sit there and press it over and over again. There is no timing involved. There is no concentration involved. There is no opportunity to enter the little zen-like state I do when I’m deeply in tune with my rotation. It’s just… boring. Not to mention the macro tends to make me do weird things like break CC. I like having more control than that.

Now I’m not trying to decry The Macro. If you like using it, then great! Go ahead and use it if it’s fun for you. But it’s not fun for me. And that’s why I don’t use it. Fun > maximum-possible-DPS. It’s a game, after all. (And besides, I rather pride myself on my ability to often out-DPS hunters who are using The Macro =P)

Well, I hope I have helped a little when it comes to explaining the mysterious Shot Rotation (I say mysterious because I really had no concept of what this was for the longest time when I was starting out my hunter, and I always wondered about it). The whole Shot Rotation playstyle, which really does involve a lot of timing and concentration, is one of my very favorite aspects of the hunter class. Good luck to all you newer hunters when you attempt to go and master it– I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Class Dismissed!

Homework & Further Reading:

Drotara’s Shot Rotations for Dummies
Elitist Jerks Shot Rotations Illustrated

guides, hunter kindergarten

Stats for a Hunter

15 Comments

I decided to whip up a little guide about the game’s attributes and what a hunter should be looking for in regards to them. Yes, I’m sure this is kindergarten for most of my regular readers– but I enjoy writing guides that might help out newer players, and I hope this guide will be of some use to somebody who maybe just started playing the game or just started playing a hunter.

The stuff in italics has been taken from WoWWiki and is occasionally cut for clarity or length.

Strength:

Increases attack power with melee weapons. Hunters gain one melee attack power per point of strength.

Strength does not affect your ranged attack power. And if you are a hunter and you’re melee’ing, you’d better hope I don’t catch you! =P This stat can be completely 100% ignored. And if an item has strength on it, it’s probably not for you. (Although of course, there are some items that are still fantastic for hunters even if they have strength. My much-loved Ice Barbed Spear comes to mind. But once you hit level 70– if it has strength on it, it’s probably not for you.)

Agility:

Increases attack power with ranged weapons (not including wands) or melee weapons for certain classes. Hunters gain 1 melee attack power per point of agility. Increases armor by 2 per point. Increases chance to score a critical hit with a weapon. Increases chance to dodge attacks. This is dependent on both class and level.

Repeat after me: “I love agility.” Say it over and over. It is your mantra. Perhaps not quite as much as it used to be… back in the “old days” before I started playing, one point of agility was equivalent to two RAP (Ranged Attack Power) instead of just one… but this is still by far the most important stat for a hunter. Survival hunters in particular. But all hunters should love the agi.

Here’s what agility gets you:
-One point of agility will get you one attack power (there are still people who haven’t played a hunter lately who think it’s two attack power. I’ve run into those people. Sadly, they are mistaken, the times have changed.)
-If you are level 70, 40 agility will get you 1% crit.
-One point of agility will get you 2 armor points. Your pet’s armor scales based on yours so this will also make your pet less squishy.
-If you are level 70, 26.5 agility will increase your chance to dodge by 1%. Now, we’re no rogues; we shouldn’t be taking many hits and thus dodge isn’t a huge deal– but this is definitely helpful for things like PvP. So it’s a nice little bonus.

Go for agility above all other stats. If an item has +agi, +stam, +int, and possibly +attack power, and is mail (or some sort of two-handed weapon; most likely a polearm), then that is bona-fide Hunter Loot and you’re allowed to ask for it. (If anyone has an issue with it, tell ’em they can take it up with yours truly!) Really your only competition will be from enhancement shammies, and c’mon… isn’t there already enough shammy loot out there? =P (The Shaman Loot Drinking Game needs to be invented if it hasn’t been already. Good thing I don’t drink or I woulda been completely wasted months ago. Shammy gear… shammy gear… shammy gear… *twitch*) Edit: My challenge has been met! Znodis’s Shaman Gear Drinking Game.

Stamina:

Stamina provides 10 health for each point for all Classes/Mobs/NPCs (except from the first 20 points of Stamina that provide 1 health for each point instead). It also increases health points of a player’s pet for classes with pets.

Stamina is good because it lets you live longer. In PvP, Stamina is king; in PvE it’s probably not as important as your “main stat” (unless you’re a warlock or tank, in which case it is a main stat) but it’s still very important for all classes.

If you are a hunter, your pet’s stamina scales with yours so more stamina for you will also improve your pet’s staying power, health-wise.

If you are gearing for PvE, it’s definitely okay to forego stamina for something with agility; in fact, you should be doing that in most cases. But you don’t want to neglect it entirely. A dead hunter isn’t going to be doing a lot of Sustained Ranged DPS. There are things you can do to help with your stamina if you need to, for example, you can use [Nethercleft Leg Armor] instead of [Nethercobra Leg Armor] until you feel that your stamina has reached a decent level. (That’s what I’m doing right now, in fact.)

Intellect

Increases mana points. Each point of intellect gives 15 mana points (except from the first 20 points of Intellect that provide 1 mana for each point instead). Increases chance to score a spell critical strike. This increase varies by class and level; in general, the relationship is linear as intellect increases, with a small amount of base crit chance. The rate of increase is generally based on the amount of intellect a class is expected to have at a certain level. As of 2.4, Intellect will increase the amount of MP5 generated by Spirit.

Hunters don’t cast spells (at least, not “normal” ones) so we can ignore the bit about spell crit. What’s important for us is that the more mana we have, the more shots and other special things we can use before we have to use a potion and/or switch to Aspect of the Viper. Don’t underestimate the value of mana and intellect. If you have ever ran out of mana in a battleground or something you’ll understand how powerless it makes you feel. (For this same reason, I feel a sort of twisted pleasure in putting Viper Sting on every hunter I can find in PvP. Forgive me, my fellow hunters.) Intellect should not supplant Agility and Stamina as the stats you want to focus on but you should still definitely pay attention to it. Note: Marksman hunters will, in general, love the Int more than usual. Because they’ve got a lot of shots to put into their rotation.

Agility, Stamina, and Intellect are really the trinity of stats for hunters and you will learn to love them.

Spirit

Increases health and mana regeneration. Spirit affects all characters’ mana and hit point regeneration rates in and out of combat. Health regeneration from spirit is not active while in combat, except for trolls who gain 10% of their normal health regen in combat from the racial ability “regeneration.” Mana regeneration is active in combat except for the five seconds immediately after casting a spell (the five second rule). Some class talents and spells allow some mana regeneration during this period.

Spirit is an interesting stat; it’s obviously not nearly as vital as the afore-mentioned trinity, but I also don’t see it as being a necessarily useless thing to have. It will decrease your downtime between fights, even if not by much, and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.

That said, for the most part, this stat can be ignored if you’re a hunter. If you wind up with something that has Spirit on it, then hey, it’s not gonna hurt anything. But if you have a choice between Spirit and Agi/Stam/Int, well, I hope you’re gonna pick the latter. (And if you have a choice between Spirit and Strength, you’re gonna pick the former. *nods*)

Well, it’s getting close to midnight as I
write this and I’ve had a rather long day, so I’m going to post this and hope it doesn’t have any major glaring errors. But, as always, if you do find one or otherwise want to make a comment or ask a question, please feel free to do so!

guides

Puttin' Your Shoulder to the Wheel

7 Comments

So I’m sure most of us have been there: ahead of you, for as far as the eye can see, are approximately a million and a half elementals, ogres, or blood elves, and you’re there to destroy every last one of them (unless someone else gets to them first) as a way to grind rep, motes, cloth, or what-have-you.

Now I imagine different hunters have different approaches to this. There are a lot of people, I’m sure, who will send their pet in to a mob, pop Mend Pet and Autoshot, and then alt+tab to play Desktop Tower Defense or go make lunch or something. This is one of the beauties of being a hunter, and also one of the aspects of it that I have this tendency to avoid– not because it’s wrong, but because it’s just not exciting enough. So then you have hunters like yours truly who run up to every mob as though it were some raid boss that I’m trying to solo and go all out. Intimidate, Bestial Wrath, full-on Steady Shots and Kill Commands, trinkets, and… OHCRAPIGOTSAGGROAGAIN and OHCRAPI’MOUTOFMANAAGAIN.

This, friends, seems to happen to me more frequently than I’d like when I’m trying to grind. I’m not a very good learner apparently.

My co-host Illidan has a few words to say on this as well. Illy?

Yes, I know. /cry

Fortunately there is a way to strike a balance between auto-shot grinding and hardcore-hunter-mode grinding. Here’s how I do it:

Basically I focus on two things here: keeping aggro on the pet, and keeping your mana up. This ensures that you will hardly have any downtime and you will be able to get a lot done in a short amount of time.

– Aspect of the Viper. I’ll be honest; this one hurts and stings. Because I loooove me my Aspect of the Hawk. I love it much. But let’s face it: Viper is handy. It helps us regen mana, and it helps us so we don’t overpower the pet and grab aggro from him. It is my Aspect of Choice when grinding.

– [Power Infused Mushroom]. This is obtainable from an Underbog quest and it’s a very lovely grinding trinket. Basically it means that whenever you kill something that would yield experience or honor, you get 200 mana. 200 mana may not sound like much, but it adds up. I’ll usually swap out [Abacus of Violent Odds] for this thing, this further nerfs my attack power just a little bit which also helps to keep aggro on my pet, as Viper does.

– [Blackflight Arrows] are a lot cheaper than some of the better ammo which I usually like to carry around with me. They don’t do quite as much damage but again, that’s fine: your DPS does not matter when you are merely grinding for cash or rep. And again, aggro on the pet is good.

– [Sporeling Snacks]: Whether or not you want to use these is probably sort of dependent on how easy they are for you to make or obtain. For me, they pop up in the guild bank pretty frequently thanks to some of our crazy cooking fanatics so I usually have a nice supply. (And I do toss 10g or so into the bank anytime I take some– a tip, if you will.) More stamina and spirit on the pet means less downtime between mobs. You may opt for [Kibler’s Bits] instead if you have a pet that has a lot of armor/stam but needs a damage and threat boost.

– Using Intimidation and Bestial Wrath when they are available. I usually only use one at a time, per mob.

Well, that’s how I do it. That’s how I typically manage to maintain minimal downtime between mobs or aggro issues, while still being able to at least do some huntery stuff: Steady Shot + Kill Command is a very close friend of mine and I could never bring myself to shrug it off for Autoshot spam, even if it’s just grinding.

There are some things I’ll do to make the grind more fun or interesting; these include taking on more than one mob at once so I can practice chain trapping one while still focusing on the other, working on leveling a pet, using [Noggenfogger Elixirs] or [Dartol’s Rod of Transformation] (if you manually weave your shots as I do, it’s a heck of a fun challenge to try and do it without animations, as you will in furbolg form), and putting on music. I have no musical taste so I usually end up grinding to cheesy 90s electropop, and I love it. But do what works best for you.

…Hmm. I am feeling the urge to go play Desktop Tower Defense now. I used to be really good at that game, but then they changed it and added a bunch of new stuff and I turned into a jaded oldschooler who refuses to get with the program. Young whippersnappers!

…*goes to play it*

arrowed, guides, weapons

Arrowed!: A Guide to Ranged Ammunition Part 1

8 Comments

First off, the title “Arrowed!” is a reference to a particularly amusing Homestar Runner cartoon.

*coughs*

Anyways!

One of the neat things about ranged weapons in WoW, is that we aren’t just keeping track of our bow or gun, but we’re also keeping track of the ammunition for it. There is a staggering variety of it; Wowhead tells me that there are 21 types of arrows and 26 types of bullets in the game. Seem intimidating? I’m not surprised! Furthermore, each type of arrow or bullet adds damage to your shots. Now in general, the higher you get in level, the bigger your ammo selection will be, so you will slowly be able to work your way up to the higher DPS shots.

Let’s take a closer look here:

Normal Buyable Ammo:

This is the stuff that you can buy around Azeroth at any Bowyer or Gunsmith. You can typically find them at major cities and in some towns:

[Rough Arrow] / [Light Shot] (1.5 DPS)
[Sharp Arrow] / [Heavy Shot] (3.5 DPS) (Requires level 10 to use.)
[Razor Arrow] / [Solid Shot] (7.5 DPS) (Requires level 25 to use.)
[Jagged Arrow] / [Accurate Slugs] (13 DPS) (Requires level 40 to use.)
[Wicked Arrow] / [Impact Shot] (22 DPS) (Requires level 55 to use.)

Now you get into the Outland, and added to the basic selection are:

[Blackflight Arrow] / [Ironbite Shell] (32 DPS) (Requires level 65 to use.)

So those are your basic, buy-at-any-vendor arrows and bullets.

But wait… there’s more!

Special Buyable Ammo:

Here is the ammunition that is buyable from a vendor, but only if you meet certain requirements, aside from the normal level ones:

[Scout’s Arrow] (26 DPS) (Requires level 61 to use and requires a Friendly reputation with the Cenarion Expedition.)

[Halaani Razorshaft] / [Halaani Grimshot] (34 DPS) (Requires level 66 to use and can only be bought if your faction is controlling Halaa.)

[Warden’s Arrow] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with the Cenarion Expedition.)

[Felbane Slugs] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with Honor Hold. Alliance only.)

[Hellfire Shot] (37 DPS) (Requires level 68 to use and requires a Revered reputation with Thrallmar. Horde only.)

[Mysterious Arrow] / [Mysterious Shell] (46.5 DPS) (Requires level 70 to use and requires a Revered reputation with The Violet Eye.)

[Timeless Arrow] / [Timeless Shell] (53 DPS) (Requires level 70 to use and requires an Honored reputation with The Scale of the Sands.)

Each of these special arrows and bullets, with the exception of the Halaani ones (you have to physically go to Halaa if you want those), can be purchased from the Speciality Ammunition Vendors in Shattrath City. You don’t have to do anything special; if you meet the requirements for a certain type of arrow or bullet, it will show it as being available to you.

One of the interesting things about these reputation-based projectiles is that you might have to grind different rep depending on if you have a bow or a gun. For example, currently I use a crossbow and am Revered with the Cenarion Expedition, so I use [Warden’s Arrow], which gives me an increase of 37 DPS. If I were to start using a gun, and I wanted to gain the same DPS bonus of 37, I would have to become Revered with Honor Hold so I could use [Felbane Slugs]. And if I was Horde, I would have to get Revered with Thrallmar so I could get [Hellfire Shot].

However, for the most part, all the arrows have a bullet equivalent with similar requirements, and vice versa. (A noticeable exception would be [Scout’s Arrow], for which there is no bullet equivalent.)

Wow… that’s a lot of ammunition. And we’ve only scratched the surface! I’ve yet to cover craftable ammo and ammo that you get as quest rewards, and other such special types. However, in the interest of preventing my readers’ brains from exploding, I’m going to save all of those for another post.

I’ll see you next time for the next installment of “Arrowed!”


Level 29 Tawyn shows off her [Quiver of the Night Watch] and [Razor Arrows]. (I love the fact that I’ve taken billions of screenshots throughout my WoW career. Although poor Tawyn must feel like I’m the mom pulling out all the embarassing baby pictures. =P)

guides, instances

The Pre-Instance Checklist

6 Comments

I have my own personal little “Checklist” that I mentally go through when I’m going to be doing an instance. I thought I would share it with you guys in case anybody might find it useful:

Before Heading to the Instance:

–Ammo: Make sure your quiver/ammo pouch is full of the best arrows/bullets you can buy. If the instance is especially long you may want to bring a couple extra stacks in your regular inventory as well, but to be honest I haven’t found that I really need to do this in regular five-mans.
–Pet Food: I never bring anything less than a full 20-unit stack of pet food to an instance. If I know it’s a particularly hard instance, or one that is long, or that I haven’t done before, I’ll bring 25 pieces of pet food.
–Hunter Food: Unless you’ve got a mage handy, bring some food and drink for yourself.
–Repairs: Even if your durability is still at 90%. Get it to 100%.
–Bag space: It sucks to spend most of the instance trying to juggle what loot you want to keep and what loot you want to toss because you only showed up with three empty slots or something. (Trust me on this one.) Vendor stuff, put it on the Auction House or in your bank, or mail it to an alt and give yourself ample room for the things you’ll pick up!
–Potions/Elixirs/Buff Food: If you have some, bring it! Bring some for your pet too!
–The Right Pet: You probably don’t want to show up at Heroic Mech with the level 19 ghost saber that you just tamed a couple minutes ago. (Just a hunch.)
–Spec’ing the Pet: This is sort of an optional one and some people don’t like to re-spec their pet for every instance. But it’s cheap and it’s not a bad idea to give your pet extra nature resistance for Steamvaults, for example.

At the Instance:

– Growl is OFF. If you have Cower, it’s ON. If you have Screech, I myself like to turn it OFF (just because it causes threat on multiple mobs; I’m not sure if it breaks CC or not. Oh and a lot of tanks really hate the noise).
– Tank assist macro (feels an urge to write a macro article brewing) is set to the current tank.
– Pet is set to PASSIVE.
– Buff up: Is Aspect of the Hawk up? (I know I’ve forgotten once or twice). Have you used your food and agility elixir? Did you feed your pet some Sporeling Snacks or Kibler’s Bits?
– If it’s a group of people I haven’t worked with before I usually inform them that I am able to trap and that if they want me to trap something they should stick a blue square on it, and I’ll take care of it. Sometimes they’ll want to use a different symbol other than my usual blue square, that’s fine with me so long as they let me know (they always do).

Well, that’s my list. It seems long and scary but it really doesn’t take too long to do, especially if you’re like me and you like to be super-prepared and you go replenish your supply of ammo and pet food and repair every hour or so.

Everybody’s experience is different when it comes to this type of thing so develop your own list and find out what works best for you, but for the most part I think you’ll have a similar list. Do take note though that I have never done a real “raid” before so the list might be a bit different if you are further-progressed than I am (and I imagine a lot of you are).

Remember, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail”. Thus sayeth some random inspirational poster. =P

Happy instancing!

guides, math, pets, screenshots

A Question for the Ages Leads to an Informative Post

3 Comments

Way out in Netherstorm, by Area 52, there is a goblin named Dr. Boom. Who or what is he? Well let’s see what WoW Wiki has to say:

Dr. Boom is a non-elite quest boss with about 500,000 hitpoints; he does not move or use ranged attacks, making him a popular target for casters and Hunters to test their DPS output, as well as a target for leveling up ranged weapon skill.

So we can see that he is handy for a few things, aside from a quest. He is very handy for leveling your weapon skill (if you are not quite a high enough level for Netherstorm yet, you can always hit up those guys in Blasted Lands that don’t die.) And he is handy for ranged DPS classes who want to test their defining role: DPS.

Now, as BRK once said in one of his posts… hunters can’t really get the full story because you can’t use your pet on Dr. Boom. So even though you can get a good idea of your ranged DPS sans-pet… it’s discounting 35% of the story (or however much your pet contributes to your DPS.)

Still, I found myself heading over to Dr. Boom today. Why? Well, initially it was because I have a third use for Dr. Boom.

Namely, he allowed me to answer the age-old question… What happens when Improved Aspect of the Hawk procs, and you use Rapid Fire, Abacus of Violent Odds, and The Beast Within… all at the same time?

Well it doubles my vanilla DPS, that’s what:

Before:

After:

(Note: I also tested using Bladefist’s Breadth in place of the Abacus, since I typically have both equipped. The resulting DPS increase is not quite as much as it is with the Abacus.)

But wait! That’s not my total DPS… that’s just Tawyn‘s DPS. I am a hunter, afterall. I have a pet.

Now Tux is only going to be effected by Bestial Wrath and not all the other fun stuff like I am. But still…

Before:

After:

So now we have a bunch of numbers showing my DPS and Tux’s DPS, before and after using a bunch of buffs/trinkets. Remember, this is all “white” DPS: no special shots, no Kill Commands, no Ferocious Inspiration, no Frenzy for Tux… not even Hunter’s Mark. So the actual number in real combat would undoubtably be higher.

So why am I posting all this then? Well I’m not one for hardcore math or theorycrafting. But here’s what we can see right off the bat:

1. Unbuffed (except for Aspect of the Hawk), Tux is doing 32% of our vanilla DPS.
2. If we pop The Beast Within, Tux moves up to doing roughly 41% of our vanilla DPS.
3. If I use a bunch of speed-increasing trinkets/procs and The Beast Within, Tux is still doing about 26% of our vanilla DPS.

Obviously this isn’t telling us the full story; as I said before the numbers would change as we throw in stuff like Frenzy and Ferocious Inspiration and various special shots and Tux’s Claw. Also the numbers would change if I were to pull out my kitty Locke who does slightly more DPS than Tux does. The main thing I am trying to say here is: Your pet is important. If you are a Beast Mastery hunter and your pet dies, your DPS is going to be gimped down to about 70%– or less– of what you normally do. Furthermore you will be bringing no more Ferocious Inspiration or Kill Commands to the table.

And even if you pop all of your trinkets/buffs (minus the Beast Within), and double your white DPS, you still will not be able to make up for the loss of your pet.

Now there are times when things happen and losing your pet on some superhard boss fight might be inevitable. In these cases you can only hope he does the best he can, because not using him at all is exactly the same as him being dead. Well, except not as sad. *hugs pets*

But there are things you can do to increase your pet’s survivability. Here’s a short list:

–Sporeling Snacks.

-Various other stamina buffs or scrolls (I love using scrolls on my pet).

-Spec’ing him with Avoidance Rank 2.

-Spec’ing him with the appropriate resistances for the instance. BRK wrote up a handy list for Karazhan and various five-mans here.

-Keeping a Mend Pet up. Kestrel has a really nifty macro that lets you keep both Mend Pet and Scorpid Sting up at the same time.

-Knowing what you’re fighting. You should pay attention to the people who have been here and have done this before. Pay attention to the things they’re telling the melee DPS classes. If you’re in Mechanar and they say “Rogues, you have to run away when he ‘raises his hammer menacingly'”, then you need to mentally add “And pet.” If you’re in Shadow Labs and they say “Melee classes have to run away when Murmur does his Sonic Boom” …yep, that includes your pet. Watch for what the melee guys are watching for and recall your pet to your side at the appropriate time. Then send him back in when it’s safe.

Is it hard to do? Yep. But is it worth it to not only have that extra DPS, but also provide that constantly-ticking Ferocious Inspiration to your party? You betcha!

Happy Huntering, and give your pet a pat for being a good boy (or girl).

guides, trapping

Trapping Those Pesky Casters

15 Comments

I realized it’s been a little while since I posted a guide. And because I always want to have some guides available for newer (or older) hunters wishing to hone their skills, I figured I’d post a new one.

Today’s topic comes from a question somebody in my guild asked me the other day, while she was in ZF: “Tawyn, how do you trap casters? The person marking always seems to mark the caster for me to trap.”

Well, before we go any farther, I want you to make sure that the person marking is aware of the fact that trapping casters is a difficult thing to do. It could be that they haven’t played a hunter before and thus this little problem hasn’t occurred to them. I got lucky in this regard; our guild’s main tank already has a level 70 hunter of his own and he is very, very good about making sure that I don’t get the casters unless necessary. So be sure you politely let whoever is marking know that, if at all possible, you should be trapping the non-casters.

Now then, sometimes you really don’t have a choice and you will have to trap a caster anyway. The main problem with trapping casters is, of course, that they stay in place and cast spells at you from afar rather than run up to you (and thus, run into your trap). So, what can we do about this? Well, let’s take a look at some of our options:

Silencing Shot: Silencing Shot does exactly what it says on the tin: it silences the target for three seconds. If the mob is silenced, he can’t cast spells, and will default to trying to hit you with his stick. Open with this thing and it should give you enough time to pull the mob into your trap. The downside is that it is the 41-point-Marksman talent. Therefore, only full-Marksman hunters will have access to this shot; BM, Survival, and hybrid hunters will not be able to use this.

Warlockery!: Our warlock friends have a minion called the Felhunter. This minion has an ability sort of like Silencing Shot; it will silence a mob for a few seconds, thus allowing you to pull it into your trap. The downsides: Firstly you have to have a warlock in your group, and secondly… well lemme put it this way. In my experience, warlocks don’t typically like to be told what to do with their minions, much in the same way that we hunters don’t like to be told what to do with our pets. This is very understandable, of course. But poor warlocks are often told to use certain minions for certain tasks when they’d really rather be using their Imp or something. So if you’re going to ask your resident ‘lock for help, be sure you are very polite and that they aren’t already using a minion for a very needed reason. Most ‘locks, I’m sure, would be glad to help, but it’s always good to let them know that their help is appreciated. (Or you can get lucky like I have and get a warlock who comes up with this idea on their own and volunteers their felpuppy before you’ve even thought about it.)

Other Classes’ Help: I have to admit here, there is a lot I don’t know about non-hunter classes. However, I believe there are other classes with a sort of silencing ability. Shadow Priests, for example, can silence. You might ask around and see if any one in your party has any sort of silencing ability (if you don’t already know for certain). I know the warlock one mentioned above surprised me the first time I heard about it. You might be pleasantly surprised too.

Okay. But what if you’re not a Marksman hunter, and you don’t have an available warlock or other silencing class in your party? Then what?

Then we use a little trick we call Line-of-Sight.

Basically this means you are going to set your trap down by a corner of a wall, shoot the mob, and then run around the corner. If the mob can’t see you, he can’t cast at you. He will run to catch up with you, and pop! He’ll run right into your trap.

Here’s a little illustration I whipped up:


(Yeah, it’s not too pretty, but it works, right?)

Things to watch out for include making sure the trap isn’t too far off the beaten path (though they always do seem to have a fairly wide “radius”), making sure the place you’re hiding behind really is a good place to hide behind (i.e., it’s wider than a thin tree or something), and placing the next trap pretty close by so when the first trap breaks, he can hardly move without being trapped again.

Also, it’s a good idea to keep your mob selected. That way, if when you run around the corner you can’t see him anymore, you’ll be able to see the trap debuff pop up under his nameplate and know that you were successful.

“But Pike, what if I’m not a Marksman hunter, there is nobody in the party that can silence, and there are no walls in sight? Then what??”

Then… you do the best you can. Which for me usually means running up to the mob and throwing down a trap at their feet. Make sure you don’t invoke the wrath of any other nearby mobs when you do this, though!

Lastly, remember that practice makes perfect– if at first you can’t figure this thing out, keep trying and you’ll eventually start “picking up” what to do at what times and where to best place your trap. Hopefully it won’t be long until you’ve added yet another little magic trick to your Hunter Goodie Bag.

Alright, there you have it. A Basic Beginner’s Guide to Trapping Casters. I’m sure there are probably other little nuances regarding this topic that I haven’t covered, but hopefully this will at least enable you to get the general idea. As always, your questions and comments are quite welcome.

Until next time… hunt’s luck!