Category Archives: instances

instances, pike vs. the anxiety raid boss, screenshots

Update: I’m Still a Teeny Tiny Bit Scared of Heroics

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Is being scared of Heroics silly?  Probably?  Yeah, probably.  I’m not scared of Raids but I am scared of Heroics.  I imagine it’s because a Heroic is smaller so there’s a greater sense of personal responsibility.  Who knows, though, really?

althalor confused

Anyways, I decided it was time to CONQUER MY FEAR so I queued up for a Heroic this morning.  It was Upper Blackrock Spire, which I haven’t done since, oh, about ten million years ago when it certainly wasn’t re-tuned for level 100 yet.  Unfortunately Blizzard decided to throw a bunch of “Instance Not Found!” errors in my face and not let me zone in so I had to drop group.

Later I tried again and this time got Grimrail Depot.  I breathed a sigh of relief because I’ve done this one about fifty times on normal.  It went smoothly, except for one bit where I almost died for no reason (still not sure what that was about) and yeah.  It was nice and smooth and I got my Heroic achievement.  All’s well that ends well.

Still, I’m scared to do it again for some reason.  Why?  I don’t know.  I’ve talked before about how I most certainly did not used to be this way, and now I am.  I don’t get it.

Either way, it’s still something I’m working on overcoming.  Maybe I’ll even do another Heroic!  …someday!

guides, hunter kindergarten, instances

Hunter Kindergarten: Dungeons 101

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*dusts off desk*

*slowly walks up to chalkboard, baton in hand*

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  Pretty sure my last Hunter Kindergarten post was written back during WotLK.  Well, ladies, gentlemen and robots and all others… class is back in session.

serenityguides2So you’re a brand-spanking new hunter in this World of Warcraft and you’ve decided it’s time to do some instances.  Awesome!  That’s the bread and butter of WoW and hopefully you have fun.

Before heading in, however, you do have a couple of things to keep in mind.

(Yes, long time readers: most of these are rehashes of posts I wrote five or six years ago.  But trust me, this is stuff I still see.  IN RAIDS.)

REPAIR: Personally I have this weird quirk where I try to be 100% repaired at all times.  I just default to repairing every time I’m in my garrison or, well, basically next to anyone who can repair.  If you’re not in this habit, you should at least repair before queuing up.  I understand that if you’re in LFG you may be out in the world or whatever whilst waiting for the queue to pop.  But you don’t want to be that guy whose gear is mysteriously red after one single wipe.  Right?

PET SPEC’D FEROCITY: Ferocity is the DPS spec.  It gets you and your pet both all the DPS bonuses.  I’ve just started keeping pets spec’d for different things with me at all time and I swap them in or out as needed.  It’s easy enough to just switch pet specs on the fly, so you don’t have to do that, but this does lead in nicely to my next point, which is…

TURN GROWL OFF:  Ten years later and I’m still seeing hunters with their pet’s growl on in raids.  This messes with the tank and leads to your pet dying, which leads to a severe drop in DPS.  Please, please make sure growl is off before going into the instance!  If you have trouble remembering then pick one of your pets to be an instance/raid pet and keep growl off on him at all times.

BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR AOEs: Barrage is awesome and a stupid amount of fun.  Like, I always wanted to be a human gatling gun.  (Er… elf gatling gun.)  But it’s not for places where you have to be careful with pulls, because it can and will accidentally pull the next pack of mobs – or the boss.  Same goes for Multishot!

BUFF UP: Maybe not a huge deal in low level instances.  Maybe not a huge deal if you’re a Mythic raider dicking around in LFR.  But otherwise you should probably use an agility flask and eat some food.  Oh, and I know Exotic Munitions isn’t the most popular talent in the world right now, but if you do use it, be sure to make sure you’ve just applied it.  (With Poisoned Ammo in most cases).

Okay, that’s about it.  No, really.  That’s it for Dungeons 101, at least.  Oh, there are other things you’ll need to know – things about shot priorities, character stats, and so on.  But those are all subjects for another day!  For now, these five tips should be enough to get you started.

Class dismissed!  Your homework: Play video games!  Hooray!

instances

Flashback Friday: Nexus Prince Sexy Voice

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Mana Tombs was one of those weird instances that no one in my guild ever really ran for whatever reason.  Kind of like Auchenai Crypts, or Blood Furnace.  No, we were always busy doing Heroic Underbog, Ramps, or Mech.  If you were like me, or if you never did run this instance, then boy, you’re in for a treat.  Presenting Nexus Prince Shaffar, whose voice is guaranteed to get 99% of people – of any gender – all hot and bothered:

Yes, yes please DO tend to me personally, Shaffar.

FUN FACT: Voiced by the talented Cam Clarke, who is also Medivh, the male Blood Elf, Leonardo in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, and Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid.  His Blood Elf voice and his Liquid Snake voice are one and the same, by the way, which is kind of hilarious.

NAME YOUR FAVORITE AWESOME VOICE ACTORS IN THE COMMENTS, GO!

guides, hunter kindergarten, instances

Instancing Tips For New Hunters

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Since my last “Advice for New Hunters” post seemed to go over so well, I figured I’d make one specifically geared toward instancing. Now I made one of these a while back, but it was a.) during Burning Crusade and b.) Aimed more toward 70s/heroics. So, here’s one mostly directed for newer hunters!

See, in doing my random instancing I’ve seen a lot of things like hunters randomly using traps at strange places or complaining about why they aren’t higher on Recount (because, you know, Scarlet Monastery is serious business). So, here are some tips to make your instancing smoother:

1.) Know Your Shots. Until you get Steady Shot at 50, this basically means keeping Serpent Sting up, then Arcane Shot when you can, and Multi/Aimed depending on your spec. Don’t bother with Concussive Shot because it doesn’t do damage (but it does use up mana!). Distracting Shot is another one that you don’t want to use… not only does it not do any damage, but it taunts enemies to attack you instead! (Thank you to Anna for reminding me of this one in the comments.)

Once you hit 50 it means using Steady Shot when everything else is on cooldown. Pretty simple!

2.) Don’t Forget Your Pet. I’m not going to rant about using the wrong type of pet or anything because I do understand– you’re leveling, having a bear actually makes sense if you’re mostly questing and just hopping into LFG every once in a while. However, lemme tell you something I’ve learned when wearing the Tree Suit. 90% of hunters I’ve ran into in heroics– heroics— don’t use Mend Pet. Why? I have no idea. This baffles me. Seriously, read this and then remember that now we have Culling the Herd, too, if you have any questions.

Anyways, the point is that I think Not Using Mend Pet is a very bad habit, and it’s one to break now while you’re still leveling. I know it may seem like a lot to keep track of, but honestly, soon “checking your pet” while doing your rotation will become second nature to you, much like checking your rear-view mirror while driving. So: learn to keep an eye on your pet, bind Mend Pet to an easy-to-remember keybind, and you’ll thank me later! *nod*

While we’re on the subject of pets, turn Growl off while you are in an instance.

3.) Regarding Those Traps… Explosive Trap is acceptable for AoE damage pre-Volley. Once you get Volley (level 40), it’s much superior for instancing.

Most of the other traps involve situational usage. Freezing Trap was, long ago, near and dear to my heart but it’s rare that you’re asked to trap these days, particularly in a low-level instance. However, it’s still useful for things like mobs running at you if Feign Death is on cooldown. No guarantees someone won’t break your trap, though. Frost Trap is a similarly situational one. Immolation Trap really isn’t worth it (I use it in PvP, though.)

So for the most part… don’t worry about your traps.

4.) Viper between pulls. You get Aspect of the Viper at level 20. Learn now to get into the habit of using it between every pull and then going back to Hawk when you’re actually doing damage.

It is acceptable to use Viper during fights if you absolutely have to, but if you’re careful and use Viper between every pull you usually don’t have to.

5.) Don’t forget Hunter’s Mark! Another good habit to get into is using Hunter’s Mark on what you’re attacking. I see a lot of new hunters who forget about it. Binding it to Pet Attack via a macro is never a bad idea, either:

/petattack
/cast Hunter's Mark

6.) Attack What the Tank is Attacking: This isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be because so much is just AoE these days, but if you’re in an instance and you’re getting attacked a lot, it’s probably the first thing to look at. “Am I attacking what the tank is attacking?” Make an assist macro if you have to: /assist tank's-name

Sometimes you will get tanks who are just starting out. Learn to compensate.

7.) And I know I’m beating a dead horse here but Don’t Roll On Other People’s Stuff. I know this can be a bit of a tricky gray area especially in low-level dungeons where a lot of gear is bizarrely balanced in terms of stat allocation. And I know that learning “how and when to roll on stuff” is sort of an art form when you’re just starting out. For the most part, if it has Strength on it, don’t roll on it, especially if you have a warrior/paladin/DK in your group. Same deal goes for Spell Power: it does nothing to help you out.

Okay, I can’t think of anything else that is super vitally important to put here, so we’ll call it good for now. Hopefully this will be of some use to you newer hunters/players. Have fun in LFG!

guides, instances

A Hunter's Guide To: Trial of the Champion (AKA "The New Instance")

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LoadScreenArgentDungeonAs I’ve written about before, there are a lot of goodies for everyone in the new five-man instance, Trial of the Champion, and hunters are no exception. As such, I’ve ran it a lot on Tawyn and even more on Lunapike (at this point I’m running it for the gun. About a dozen runs and no gun so far. Our Pike is a Sad Pike. Marrowstrike, on the other hand, consistently and dutifully shows its face every other time. Too bad I got it on my first run…)

Anyways, I’ve ran it so much that I’ve got a good idea on what to do as a hunter. And since I figured there’s always new hunters out there who haven’t run it yet and will probably do so in the near future… here is a handy guide for you! ^_^ It is probably a little skewed towards Beast Masters but hunters of all stripes should find something useful here, I hope.

So here we go!

FIRST BOSS: WALL OF TEXT

It is an “intro” that introduces all the competitors and it crits you for eightmillion, every time, no matter what.

…

…

Okay, so it’s not really a boss. >.> Hey, you can’t blame me, I come from a background where we’d go “HEY GUYS CAN WE GET SOME TIPS, WE CAN’T GET PAST THE GONG BOSS” in Zul’Aman General Chat.

Aaaaanyways…

FIRST BOSS: THE JOUSTING THING

There are a bunch of guys who you will have to joust. I’d direct you to the Jousting movie I made earlier, but this is really quite different because there are four other people who will be doing it with you. The main deal here is to keep your shields up and charge when you can, and shield break between charges.

If you somehow lose your mount (you are unable to heal your mount during this), try to do it near the wall where you can hop onto a new mount very quickly. Otherwise, you may be trampled and stunned, oh, and for some reason it has this tendency to kill your pet. So try to avoid being dismounted for long.

After all is said and done your group is probably going to run out of the instance, because the transition to fighting them is… unpleasant. This is getting fixed in the next patch, but until then, you’re runnin’ out.

Once you run back in, you’ll have a little time to set up before fighting the three bosses. Don’t forget to unequip your lance in favor of whatever your Stat-Stick of choice is.

I open up with a misdirect on the tank + Multishot to help him grab early aggro on the three bosses. The main thing that you as a hunter need to know about this is that there is bubbly goo on the floor that a.) you should not stand in, and b.) your pet should not stand in either. The tank should be moving out of the way of the goo so your pet shouldn’t be in it for very long, so Mend Pet is probably all you will need. Just keep an eye on your pet’s health throughout the encounter, and you should be good to go.

FIRST AND A HALF BOSS: EADRIC THE PURE

You’re either going to get this guy or some other boss. Let’s talk about this guy first. He is, by far, the easier of the two.

Step-by-step instructions:
1.) Hunter’s Mark/Pet Attack
2.) Pewpew

…okay, so there are a couple things you need to be made aware of. The first is a thing where he yells out “HAMMER OF THE RIGHTEOUS!” and hurtles a hammer at you. Basically, it actually takes away all your abilities except for the hammer, and you have to chuck it back at the guy. Pretty self-explanatory. If you “kill” the guy with it you get an achievement, but don’t hold on to it for too long or about 90% of your health will go byebye.

The second thing is that he’ll do a big flash of light which will blind you for a few seconds and make you unable to attack. The easy way to get out of it is to spin around when you see the warning, watch for the light flash behind you, and spin back. If you miss it, it’s not a big deal, I just think it’s kind of fun to do.

It doesn’t effect your pet so just let him gnaw on the boss! Whee!

SECOND BOSS: PALETRESS

This fight is actually really difficult and is probably the first where I’ve developed a little huntery strategy for it. First of all, make sure you have full mana or close to it at the beginning. Viper on the mobs before it if you have to.

Okay, now, this is my strategy. Your mileage may vary.

Paletress will come out. Start doing your thing but don’t pop any cooldowns yet. Don’t Bestial Wrath. Don’t Kill Command. Don’t trinket. Don’t Rapid Fire. Because Paletress herself goes down like a rock without it anyway. Now…

…

She’ll summon something. Usually an old raid or instance boss. This isn’t as awesome as it sounds because instead of the old boss doing all their Old Boss Abilities, they just sort of sit there and smash on the tank and occasionally fear. So, it’s kind of a let-down.

But they’re really difficult to fight.

So THIS is when you pop all your cooldowns. You want that “Memory of [Whatever]” down as fast as possible. Not to mention, Bestial Wrath makes you immune to the fear (which is especially annoying because it also does damage).

Once the Memory is down it’s back to Paletress who once again goes down like a rock.

NOTE: I’m not sure how or why but my pet has this tendency to randomly take a lot of damage throughout this entire fight. I think Paletress and the Memory both have an aura or something that does damage. Anyways, keep a Mend Pet up and keep a close eye on your pet’s health.

LAST BOSS: THE BLACK KNIGHT

This guy is also pretty difficult. There are three phases to this guy, and here’s the lowdown:

1.) Pop everything you’ve got on the first phase– you might as well. Unless you’re a Marksman, Rapid Fire probably isn’t up yet from the previous fight, but don’t worry, it’ll likely be ready for the last phase.

2.) Second Phase! The Black Knight is apparently a Death Knight and summons Army of the Dead. You can AoE them but I’ve found that it’s often best to just focus fire down the Black Knight himself as fast as possible. If you do choose to AoE then keep your pet on the boss while you volley the adds.

The adds will probably be running around so Feign Death/trap to keep them out of your hair. With some luck this phase won’t last that long.

There are green circles on the ground, don’t stand in them. /mock stern face

VERY IMPORTANT: Once the Black Knight himself is down, all the adds will explode. One time I was in the middle of the adds when they did so. I died. Please do not stand near the adds!

3.) For the third phase, the Black Knight turns into a ghost and it’s back to a tank-n-spank. I’m not sure if there’s a threat wipe or not but I always misdirect the tank at the beginning of this phase, just in case. The main twist here is that there’s a bunch of random damage being dished out to all the party members so this is mostly a healer fight. Don’t be afraid to use things like healthstones, Lifeblood, Gift of the Naaru, or health potions here to help alleviate the healer’s woes a bit.

Just get him down fast– most of your cooldowns are probably back by now.

And that’s that! ^_^ Happy loot-diving~

gear, instances

Walkin' In An Epics Wonderland

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Not to long ago, I had a question in one of the comments asking why I hadn’t talked about the new five-man instance, Trial of the Champion, yet. To be honest the reason isn’t that I dislike the new five-man or anything, since I rather DO like it, it’s just that I figured… hey… it’s a five-man, since when do I make in-depth posts about those? Ya know? It simply didn’t seem necessary.

Recently though, I’ve discovered something noteworthy about this new five man. Namely, this place is Epics Heaven.

See, interesting thing about me is that I usually have no idea what loot various instances drop. Well, unless I see something super awesome that someone is wearing around town, in which case I find out where it drops and get all fanatical over it. But other than that, I don’t have Atlas Loot, I don’t really comb MMO-Champion or WoWHead for stuff… and I’ll go to a new instance or raid and have no idea what drops out of there. It’s actually really funny because more than once now I’ve headed into this new instance, watched everybody in the party, in turn, link exactly what they want from each boss, and then we get to me and I’m like “Um, I have no idea what drops here” while I bounce around on my Argent Horse or Wolf.

It actually ends up in a lot of pleasant surprises for me. For example, the time I healed Heroic Nexus for the first time on my Tree. Some apparently super awesome healy mace dropped from the last boss. Everybody starts congratulating me and telling me how many dozens of times they ran their healer through the place for it and I’m just like “Oh hey, cool, I didn’t even know that existed. /yoink”

Same deal with Trial of the Champion. I’ve ran Lunapike through it about a dozen times on Normal at this point, and once on Heroic. The gear is just ridiculous. So many surprise upgrades. It’s great for gearing up a fresh 80.

During one of those runs, a super epic trinket dropped. I kid you not, four people rolled Need on it, including myself. The only person who didn’t roll need was the healer. I won it with like a 96. Immediately this was followed by the other three people lamenting how they’d ran the place twenty times and had never seen it and/or won it and now would have to run it another twenty times. I was just like “Ooooh shiny, I didn’t know this dropped out of here! *pats it gently* *equips it* *immediatly sees like a 400 DPS increase*”

My lack of looking-at-potential-loot also makes me rather behind in some areas. For example, I had aforementioned Lunapike run Heroic Violet Hold about ten times for this staff, which used to be pretty much the best thing you could get pre-Naxx, and I assumed it still was. So I finally get it and ‘chant it up, and then two days later I run Heroic Trial of the Champion and this drops. For the record, that’s pretty much a sidegrade of Tawyn’s Ulduar-10 weapon. So yeah. Won it over a Death Knight, which is okay because the Death Knight won a helmet that dropped off of the same boss.

The pleasant surprises would not end anytime soon, because not long after I was back on my main, Tawyn, doing Heroic TotC and I wound up with a necklace upgrade. Another thing that I had no idea existed. Awesome!

Also there is apparently a really nice gun which drops out of Heroic which my rogue friends enjoy waving in my face. I’m holding out for an Ulduar25 weapon though. I’m going on Saturday ^_^!

So yeah, the new five-man. Fantastic for gearing up. I’d recommend doing it on Normal several times first if you’re a fairly fresh 80, because it is a relatively difficult instance, but the gear you get out of it will help you a lot in Heroic in the future. Plus, jousting is awesome, and I WILL NOT HEAR THIS BE DENIED! =O

Now I’ve just gotta summon up the courage to get my HealyTree back in there. I did it on Normal once and found it to be fairly challenging but not unmanageable, but then an attempt on it on Heroic turned into about five wipes on the first boss, a dissolved group, and me rocking back and forth in the fetal position while I felt rather decidedly like the Worst Tree in History (although my friends assured me that the tank was undergeared, but hey, I’m hard on myself.) Ever since then, I’ve sworn off ever going back as a healer.

I was going to make some sort of horrible tree pun about growing back some nuts to go in there, but ya know what, it’s so bad that I’ll pass. …oops, too late.

>.>

ANYWAYS, this post has got me thinking (scary no?), and I’m thinking of potentially starting a long-running series where I go through Every. Instance. In. The. Game. and talk about hunter lewts and other potentially helpful hunter info for each one. That way, hunters like me who love to level up via instances would sort of have a roadmap for the better places. Would anyone be interested in that, or would it be the TL;DR of the Century?

Speak now, or forever hold your peace!

guides, hunter kindergarten, instances

An Instance, For Instance

6 Comments

March is National Nutrition Month, and that makes this an especially great time to talk about hearing wellness and nutrition. Never thought about food in relation to your ears? You’re not alone. But considering food is a critical source of elements crucial to healthy skin, muscles, organs, and more, it’s no wonder that nutrition and hearing are connected.

Take children and hearing loss, for instance. Did you know that a lack of adequate nutrition early in life could mean problems with hearing later on? A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in February 2018, for example, found that young adults who experienced poor nutrition in their preschool years had double the risk of hearing loss versus their better-nourished counterparts, most hearing loss conditions can be treat with Sonus Complete.

Though the research focused on a population with ongoing malnutrition issues and limited health care access, the study adds to the body of research linking nourishment — broccoli, anyone? — and hearing health.

Speaking of broccoli: Selected vitamins and minerals in your food can contribute to protecting your hearing wellness, according to HealthyHearing.com, so feast your eyes — and ears — on these examples to jump-start your healthy-hearing nutrition:

Clams, Cod, and Rockfish

These delights from the sea not only please a discerning palate but can provide potassium, an important mineral for regulating blood and tissue fluid levels — including in the inner ear, which plays an important role in hearing and balance.

Okra, Asparagus, and Spinach

Choices abound when it comes to sources of folate, which studies have linked to healthy outcomes such as decreased risk of hearing impairment among older men. Whether you’re into dark green veggies, broccoli, avocado, escarole, or edamame, you can find folate-rich foods to match your tastes.

Leafy Greens, Whole Grains, and — Hey — Dark Chocolate!

Yep, dark chocolate’s on our list of foods containing magnesium, which — combined with vitamins A, C, and E — can help thwart noise-induced hearing loss. Other magnesium sources include pumpkin seeds, kidney beans, chicken breast, and more.

instances, stories

It was the best of times… it was the worst of times…

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You wanna hear a story? Come gather round and I’ll tell you a story.

So there we are in Heroic Mech. By now we’ve got the thing memorized and we could run it in our sleep. We’re goofing off in Ventrilo and a couple of us aren’t even in Ventrilo cause heck, it’s just Heroic Mech, right?

…I think we took things just a wee bit too casually. We were dying left and right on random crap, we made about a million dumb mistakes, and worst of all, The Sword that Can Not Be Named managed to elude our poor tank for the thousandth time.

But amidst the chaos there was one high point to our otherwise horrific run.

Gatewatcher Iron-Hand, a sort of mini-boss you fight after the first big robot guy. Ya know him? Him in all his “RAISES HIS HAMMER MENACINGLY” glory?

We’re fighting him and the tank dies when the boss is still at about, oh, 30% health or so. (Yeah I told you this was an off night. I swear we can do this heroic in our sleep when we’re trying. Honest!)

Tank is gone, we’ve got a holy paladin, a warlock, a rogue, a katana sword, and me and Locke. Boss comes charging to me first so I feigned out of it (I honestly thought we were all going to wipe in a matter of seconds) and he turns and heads towards the warlock, who proceeded to load him up with as many DoTs as he could before his inevitable death. By now I’d realized the group was still alive and kicking, and had jumped up pretty quickly and resumed pounding on the boss as best I could. This whole part here is mostly just a blur, all I know is that Locke tanked him for ten seconds or so before falling, and then the warlock died, and it was down to me, the pally, and the rogue with the boss still at about 15% health.

The rogue managed to keep him occupied long enough for us to chip him down even further until he was at about 10% health, and then there were two: me and the pally.

Now the pally wasn’t in Ventrilo at the time because he was watching a movie or something. So I heard myself shouting with my brain, hoping he could somehow catch the mental vibes: “BUBBLE TANK IT! BUBBLE TANK IT!!”

And he did. Bubbled and tanked the guy while I sat there and auto-steady-auto-steady’d (and ran around and arcane’d cause he kept moving)…

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the bubble ran out and our healer hit the dirt. I think at this point the boss was at about 4% or 5% health.

Tawyn vs. the world.

Bring it on.

He raised his hammer in the air menacingly…

…meaning he just stood there and didn’t move…

Pew… pew… pew… longest 4% of a boss in my entire life…

4%…

3%…

2%…

1%…

Killing Blow.

You’d better believe I danced on his corpse.

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!

instances, screenshots

Hunter Loot Trumps Sleep

4 Comments

AND The Abacus of Violent Odds. Which the rogue already had.

Tawyn is only going to get about four and a half hours of sleep tonight but she is a happy, happy hunter.

Heroic Mech (almost) clear. We got the fire boss to 4% and wiped, and then people had to start leaving. Still, we got the Calculator, so we’ll consider it a success.