guides, thoughts, trapping, Uncategorized

In The Blink of An Eye: The Lost Art of Trapping

29 Comments

clapslateI majored in filmmaking. Yes, that’s right, while the bulk of my friends were busy doing math or science or English courses, I was learning about cinematography and lighting and screenwriting and sound design and watching dozens of movies. (Actually, probably the two courses that taught me the most were the black-and-white darkroom photography class and the “class” where I was the prop manager for an on-stage rendition of “Kimberly Akimbo“, but I digress).

One of the 200-level courses was an editing course and its professor was a guy that most of us loved to poke fun at. The reason is because he was a very proud self-professed “dinosaur” who liked to go into long rambles on how kids these days would just rush into digital editing without ever once touching a real piece of celluloid, and how this was a horrible, terrible loss. Because of this, our big project for this class was to take a bunch of footage that was filmed long, long ago and turn it into a ten-minute long story. Oh and this was “real” film footage– no digital editing allowed.

This project was notorious throughout the school’s film program for the tears it induced; little sketches and cartoons depicting the hellishness of it all hung taped to various shelves in that dark, warm, sticky editing room filled with Moviolas and splicers. There was almost always someone in there working on a project, and everyone was filled with relief when the semester ended and the project was over and we could all safely move on to doing the rest of our school career’s projects on Final Cut Pro.

And so it may shock you to discover my reaction when I discovered not long after that, that my class would be the last ever to do that project– from then on out the school’s program was going completely 100% digital from the start, and no future students would have to do the one token “film editing” assignment.

I felt sad for them.

Because suddenly I realized that in a way, my professor had been right all along. There’s something about actually handling that film footage that teaches you something that is hard to explain. Those future kids wouldn’t get to experience literally being drowned in reels of loose film as you sat on a hard metal foldup chair in that tiny room, bent over your projector, trying your best to imagine your near-microscopic viewing screen was a wall in a theater. They would never get to experience having to think over all your editing choices and weigh them carefully with your instincts before making that splice, because if you later decided you wanted an extra two frames of footage you had to go tape your film back together– no “Undo” buttons here. Those future students would never get to experience all the literal sweat and elbow grease and wouldn’t get to view the joyous celebrations of a group of college kids who would sneak bottles of wine into that infamous room on the night before the project was due, refusing to uncork them until 2 or 3 in the morning when their cut was done and they could wind up your final film with pride, knowing they had just accomplished something very tangible. Because nobody did that in the clean, airy, and yet somehow very sterile computer rooms.

Yeah… my professor was right.

You’re asking why I’m telling this story, and you’re going to giggle at me when I tell you why, but oh well. I’m telling this story because everytime I think of chain trapping and how it seems to be such an un-needed and un-practiced skill these days, I think back to editing class and how once again I feel like one of the last of the old guard.

Some of my favorite memories in Burning Crusade where when I would go into a heroic with a tank that knew me and maybe a healer who knew me, and then two PuG DPS. The tank would mark up a pull– on a hard pull there would be the tank’s target and then there would be, for example, a sap, and a sheep, and then my beautiful blue square– the trap target.

I’d lay down my trap, the rogue would sap, the mage would sheep and then the pull would begin and I’d pull my mob into my trap and pewpew away at the skull. Then skull would be down and the rogue and the mage would run towards my trap… but oh wait, what’s this? The tank is headed at sheep, instead! So we’d all DPS sheep and I’d retrap my target and then the mage and the rogue would rush over to– oh wait, she trapped it again? And the tank, who knew me very well, would go right over to sap without blinking and we’d all DPS sap and then everyone would turn around right as I had finished calmly pulling my mob into yet another trap. At which point the tank would perhaps pause and /dance a bit before finally charging in.

Those moments were beautiful. And every time they happened I grinned to myself and knew I had pulled off a job well done. These days, things are easier and we don’t have a chance to pull that kind of thing off anymore. More than ever before, we are about the fabled Massive Quantities of Sustained Ranged DPS once spoken of by a wise man, and we have little room for anything else. Better? Easier? Your opinion. But as for Professor Pike, who has turned into her editing professor– I think that a hunter who has never trapped before is missing a little piece of knowledge and experience that they would find useful and fulfilling if they learned how, even in today’s world (of Warcraft).

Which is why my hunter kindergarten courses will always contain something on chain trapping, and why my sidebar still links to my Chain Trapping Tutorial Movie. Some of the specifics are different, but the basic gist of it is the same. And I still talk like a dork, so that hasn’t changed either. >.>

Remember: time and space are your friends. Lay your trap out early and use distance to your advantage, because that will buy you more time.

<3 (Oh, and in case you are curious, the title of this post, "In the Blink of an Eye", is the name of a book I read in that class, by master editor Walter Murch. I have long thought there was something very “huntery” about editing (or “editory” about WoW hunters), in that in my mind, both are sort of the unsung heroes of the finished product. Looking through that book recently, I’ve discovered there is actually a chapter called “Misdirection”. I rest my case. =P)

guild, stories, Uncategorized

Once Upon a Guild

12 Comments

Our server’s top raiding guild since forever recently disbanded, and while this doesn’t affect me personally at all, it did get me thinking a lot about my past guild. Now I’m sure the story is one I’ve told millions of times, and as such I don’t want to recount the specifics in much detail here. However, I find it interesting that months later, the emotions are still there.

My current guild is one that is made up mostly of the “closest” of us from that particular old guild. So, I still have my best friends with me. In a way, the guild still lives on. But it’s different now. It’s small, it’s “casual”; it’s more of a “hangout in guild chat” type of place. There are (well, were) guild raids, but we had to look outside the guild and invite our “honorary guildies” in. Not saying that is bad at all, by the way. It is just a different modus operandi. Lots of times I log on and I’ll be the only one online.

Back in my old guild, there were always people online. At least five or six, often ten or more, and usually a good chunk hanging out on Ventrilo as well. People were clamoring to get into our weekly Karazhan run; we usually wound up short some role or other (tanks or healers most of the time, natch) but the other roles would be overflowing and we’d have people “on standby”.

There were “cliques”. There were the people that wanted to roleplay and there were the people who wanted to raid, and for whatever reason we had very little overlap. The result was groups within our guild that would stick with each other and not branch out very much. But we were friendly and very welcoming and brought in people from everywhere; the tired, the poor, the huddled masses so to speak, which may have been the root of the problem, but we couldn’t help it. That’s just how we were.

There was drama, oh there was drama. Some of it coined a phrase which turned into a little inside joke: “It’s not just epics, it’s T4!” due to the issues that ensued more than once when somebody– usually a guild newbie– would throw a fit after not getting that coveted token from Curator or Prince. I can’t remember whether or not this was our fault on just not making loot rules clear enough, but I do remember the drama that ensued.

There was burnout. Officers who felt overwhelmed by their duties. Active guild members who disappeared or went on hiatus. One of these “active members” disappeared relatively early on in the guild’s youth; when he finally came back towards its twilight weeks he looked around for a day or two and realized the guild was no longer the same guild, and quietly left. He was right, though.

Because somewhere along the way we had in fact turned into something different. Like an Oscar seeing a Needlefish from behind and assuming it’s a minnow (I have seen this happen at work by the way; don’t laugh at my analogy! >.>), we had bitten off more than we could chew. Tossed a snowball down a hill and found ourselves unable to stop it.

And so it was that the guild turned into sort of a big mess and my friends started leaving one by one and then the boyfriend (and guild leader) gave leadership to me in an attempt to see if I could salvage it, but it was really too far gone by that point. Plus, I didn’t like logging into the guild anymore since it now just seemed to be full of unfamiliar faces, so I spent the bulk of my time hiding on alts on other servers. Eventually I realized that this was just acerbating the problem so I passed guild leadership to a friend, hoping things would be fixed. Again, it didn’t happen. Most of my friends had already /gquit and not long after this my boyfriend did too, and while I hung on for a while I finally, late one night, quietly left myself– one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not long after that, the guild dissolved.

warcraftrealmstawyn

I spent a few weeks guildless as I pondered what to do before realizing that my friends were actually the main reason I enjoyed the game and so I joined most of my closer friends from that first guild in our new, small guild. I’m happy now. Guild chat is sparse, but friendly; we still have the same Ventrilo server, although it is quieter now; and the biggest job the officers have is to come up with the wittiest possible theme for guild ranks. Plus, I seem to have fallen into the aforementioned “honorary guildie” status with a few other guilds to allow me to get my raiding in. Life is good.

Still, there are times when I miss what we once were. Being a part of something huge and big and seemingly omnipresent. Feeling like I was helping to lead a well-oiled machine. The machine fell apart in those last months, which is why it all started to go downhill. But at our peak, we really were something.

It was a train wreck waiting to happen, but like your first love, you can never quite get over it anyway. So here’s to you, Entelechy, wherever you are in the nether of the past.

entelechyposter3

beast mastery, enchants, guides, pets, stats, Uncategorized

Tuesday Chat: Agility, Attack Power and Pets

23 Comments

It’s Tuesday morning, the servers are down and some of you even have extended maintenance. Whether you’re at work or at home, there’s a good chance you’re bored. Never fear, Pike is here! To answer a few huntery questions I’ve been getting relatively frequently in comments/e-mails/Google searches/postcards. Except without the postcards. All I get in the mail are bills. /sob

But don’t take it from me. See for yourself what tragedy lies ahead when the paths of star-crossed lovers meet. And now: On with the show!

How much Attack Power does Agility give you as a hunter?: This is a flat 1:1 ratio. One Agility is one attack power. If you heard differently somewhere, you heard one of two things: either that Agility actually is worth more as Survival (which it is) so in a roundabout way, you do get more AP for it– or somebody who used to play a hunter a long time ago and then probably rerolled shaman/paladin in BC informed you that Agility gives you two attack power. Important: This stopped being the case with Burning Crusade. It’s 1 Agi = 1 AP now. A surprising number of people out there still aren’t aware of this. Don’t worry if you were led astray! Totally not your fault. *nods*

As a Beast Master hunter, should I be focusing on Agi gems or AP gems? Your “Stats for a Hunter” guide says Agi, is that still true?: That particular guide was written during the era of Burning Crusade and as such, while the basics of it are still correct, not all of it entirely is anymore. This is one of those points that has changed. At this time last year Agility was sort of the stat du jour for gems and enchants; AP and crit were still both very good, but “real hunters picked Agi”, so to speak.

These days, with your pet doing a bigger percentage of your damage (probably about 45-50% of your total DPS on a Patchwerk-style fight, as opposed to 30-35% of your total DPS in Burning Crusade) and Kill Command no longer having anything to do with your crits (and Cobra Strikes in general not proc’ing enough to justify stacking tons of crit), Attack Power is worth a lot more to you as a Beast Master than it was before, because it does, in fact, affect your pet’s Attack Power. Combine that with the fact that, for example, there have been no upgrades to Agility-based two-handed weapon enchants but some yummy AP ones, and you can see why AP is coming out the winner for Beast Masters these days.

Now remember, none of this means that agility or crit is bad. We still love them both. Just that AP gems are going to get you a bigger bang for your buck. Oh, and if you are dual-spec’d BM/Survival, I’ll say figure out which one you play more and gem for that. (Agi for Survival, and AP for BM).

So which pet really is the top DPS pet for Beast Masters?: There is some confusion here and I think it comes from the fact that there are some discrepancies on the list between “top DPS pets alone” or “top DPS pets when combined with the hunter”. Here’s the deal:

Devilsaurs are the current top DPS pet for Beast Master hunters.

Fortunately, for those of us who don’t like the large size/wonky hitbox/etc. of the devilsaur, we have some options.

Wolves do not do particularly high amounts of DPS alone, but in conjunction with Furious Howl applying to the hunter they are the second best DPS pet– yes, even for Beast Masters— last I checked the theorycrafting sites. Remember, combined with Longevity, that buff is gonna be up some 66% of the time for us. That’s pretty good.

However, they are only a smidge ahead of Raptors, the third best choice. Raptors on their own do rather more DPS than wolves do, but they lack the buff so the combined hunter-pet DPS theorycrafts out to be a little lower. They are still a top-notch pet especially for Beast Masters: Savage Rend crits a lot which self-buffs the Raptor and I have personally found it makes a big difference. I have both a wolf and a raptor at level 80 and I usually bring the raptor to raids. I find, in my situation, that I tend to perform slightly better with him (aside from the fact that I am more attached to him >.>). So remember, the theorycrafting numbers aren’t always everything, you have to see what works for you.

“But Pike, I love my Spirit Beast/Cat/etc.”! Good! Please keep using the pet you love. Cats and Spirit Beasts are still quite viable, they just aren’t in the current “top three” on paper. But “on paper” is just that, on paper, and in my humble opinion it’s not as important as raiding with a pet you have had since level 10, or took forever to find, or just love dearly.

Well, hopefully all of that cleared up some confusion. As always, this site would not be complete without the comments, so feel free to leave ’em!

rp, screenshots, stories, Uncategorized

Hooked

19 Comments

I don’t know if I will ever quite forget that first odd feeling, nor can I still really compare it to anything else.

Lemme explain what I’m talking about.

There I was, level ten, on the trial version of WoW. I had little clue what I was doing. I was merrily questing in Elwynn Forest since a friend dragged me there from Teldrassil at the tender level of six. I’d kept my hearthstone set to Teldrassil in case I ever needed to return there in an emergency, because I knew I’d never figure out how to get back otherwise. So there I was, questing away and picking flowers because I trained in herbalism specifically to give my boyfriend a Peacebloom. (Yes, that is the honest-to-gosh reason behind what is still one of my professions.)

So there I was going around Raptor Striking things and having a grand ol’ time when suddenly I hit level ten and was informed by the hunter trainer that I was to return to NightElfLand to get my pet.

I was scared to death that if I went back there, I’d never be able to find my way back, but I really wanted a pet, so I took a last look around at Elwynn Forest and then used my Hearthstone.

Several hours later, having spent hours doing the pet quests and scouring the archives of the first WoW site I ever visited– Petopia— before settling on taming an owl, Tux and I were ready to head back. There we went, taking the boat and schlogging through the Wetlands and finally ending up in Thelsamar where I (finally) remembered about this strange concept called “Flight Points” and proceeded to fly back to Stormwind.

That feeling of flying over the waterfall from Burning Steppes into Elwynn is what I haven’t forgotten. It was a feeling of relief, but more than that– it was homecoming. I was very struck by this odd feeling. No video game yet had given me a similar feeling, and I’d played hundreds of them. Some of them I had loved dearly and felt very immersed in. But none of them made me feel like I was coming home when I entered a zone. This one did.

That’s when I knew that I wouldn’t just be playing the free trial.

That’s also when Tawyn’s character really started to materialize and when I knew I’d be happy on my RP server, despite my initial misgivings. Tawyn who felt more at home among the humans than among her own people. Tawyn who was good friends with the inhabitants of the dwarven district, who prefers guns to bows and who has never in her life owned a saber mount because she has always ridden horses (or mechanostriders, or polar bears… but mostly horses, I promise) instead.

And as soon as my gryphon landed– that’s also when I set my hearthstone to Stormwind.

tawynofstormwind1

tawynofstormwind2

So this was a long time coming. Two years, in fact. Since long before the title even existed. My inner RP geek is satisfied.

non-wow

Can't Buy Me Blogging

19 Comments

As a warning, this post is not really WoW related so much as it is sort of “a state of the blog” related so if you’re looking for WoW guides and the like it won’t hurt my feelings if ya skip this one.

Basically some stuff has been going on with me RL-wise and as it may have the potential to affect my blogging it seemed appropriate to mention it here.

Without either beating around the bush or turning this into some sort of sob story– between a job that has been cutting back my hours as much as they can while still technically keeping me “full time” and various other strokes of misfortune, I am not exactly doing well financially at the moment. I am, yes, still playing WoW– although the temptation to temporarily cancel my account in the name of financial tightness is sometimes strong, on the other hand I refuse to let a crappy economy and some bad luck destroy something which I’ve really enjoyed doing– playing and blogging about a video game. Why yes, I am a stubborn fool.

Anyways, now on to the point. Right now, since the hunt for a new full-time job is going rather dismally, and the chances of me ever getting paid to blog are somewhere between a decimal point and a bunch of zeros, the smartest thing for me to do would probably be to get a second job or invest in the forex market at an online trading platform. If this were to happen I fear it would pretty much mean game over for WoW and for the blog. See, I’m one of those weirdos who has never had access to a computer at work (in fact, it’s still a foreign concept for me), so all of my blogging/researching/reading other blogs goes on at home. As does all my other home-related stuff like, you know, spending quality time with my friends or with The Significant Other, or making sure my apartment isn’t a (complete) disaster area. If my “home time” dwindles, as it would if I got a second job, then unfortunately WoW and the blog, as much as I love them, would be rather low on the totem pole and I couldn’t guarantee I’d get it any time for them at all. And since I am the aforementioned stubborn fool I refuse to let this happen.

Which brings us to the “good news” portion of this post, which is that I am going to start doing art commissions. Yes, I am going to try doing that as a “second job”. It would net me more control over my schedule and more “home time”– busy home time, but still, home time. Hopefully enough to continue to allow me to blog and play the game that powers my blog. And it’d be rather enjoyable work, to boot. More details on this will come later after I’ve finished up some projects I’d like to finish up before jumping into this; so it’s not officially underway. But! Soon.

Another thing– I have in the past had people suggest to me that I put up some sort of donation button on my blog to help offset site costs and WoW subscriptions. For several months my pride has prevented me from doing this. However, I think now is probably a good time to swallow my pride so there is now a PayPal “Donate” button on my about page. I don’t plan on hawking it or mentioning it again because I don’t want anyone to feel pressured into donating, but it is there.

So, there you have it. My crazy plans for a last-ditch effort to maintain blog quality while still keeping microwave pizzas on the table. Er, computer desk. Obviously if things take a turn for the worse then I will have to suck it up and put the blog on hiatus for a while. But I figured it was worth it to exhaust other possibilities before getting to that point– you’re not getting rid of me that easily. =P

specs, Uncategorized

IntroSPECtion

28 Comments

Recently there was a post at OutDPS! about dual specs and what different hunters do with theirs. While we obviously can’t do that “I have a heal spec and a tank spec!” (or tank/DPS, or heals/DPS) thing that I’ve seen the hybrids do, I still think that we as hunters have a lot of options.

I, personally, am spec’d my preferred Beast Master raid spec as a “main spec”… and Survival as an “off spec”. I originally went Survival as an off spec for one reason and one reason only: to make the sacrifice and be the Replenishment-bot if needed. As you may or may not have gathered, I do 10mans a lot more often than I do 25mans, and for some reason all my groups seem to lack Replenishment. While Replenishment has become rather less needed in the “old content” as my raid groups steadily improve, I still keep it around “just in case”, and because I volunteered to my guild that I would and, well, I stick to my word like that.

However, I have also come to realize that there are a few other handy reasons to have Survival as an off-spec. Firstly is utility. Although I’ve yet to encounter that glorious crowd control that I used to see all the time (ahhh… chain-trapping every pull in Heroic Mech because our beloved warrior tank could really only do one mob at a time… how I miss ye sometimes), there is at least one encounter where I still feel like I can drop everything and focus on the trapping: Gluth. Typically in my groups we have a Death Knight kite the zombies and it’s my job to back him up by making sure there is a Frost Trap on the grate at all times. With Survival’s reduction of cooldown time and longer trap duration, I really feel useful on this fight. I mean, yeah, I’m sure we’d be fine without the extra utility. But I like Survival being about traps ‘n stuff dangit! *waves cane* >.>

Secondly is the oft-tossed-around “Spec for Pet Unfriendly Fights” thing. Interestingly enough I very rarely switch to a non-BM spec for such fights. Heigan? I’m BM. Sarth? I’m BM. I find keeping my pet alive through those fights to be a fun and exciting challenge and I can usually pull it off… probably much to the chagrin of a lot of the other hunters that I group with!

There is currently one fight, though, that I tend to switch to Survival for pet-unfriendliness reasons on, and that fight is Kel’thuzad. It really depends on the group composition; if it’s a mostly ranged group then I usually won’t have an issue and I can stay BM. But if it’s a heavy melee group– as my current Naxx group tends to be– then I suck it up, respec, use Call Stabled Pet to pull out Perezvon the wolf and let him stand there and be the buffbot because he wouldn’t have a a shot at staying alive until near the end of the fight. It’s sad that he can’t join in the fun, but it’s sort of a necessary evil. Oh, and to tell the honest truth… I’m not sure on the specifics on why the survival rate of my pet on KT seems to directly correlate with whether we are a mostly ranged DPS or mostly melee DPS group. I think it has to do with either that jumping ice block thing or an increased rate of void zones that my pet is likely to eat. I should probably pay more attention to this kind of thing but hey, I’m a hunter. I just shoot stuff until it falls down.

So yeah, that’s the only fight that thus far I’ve felt compelled to swap specs for due to pet issues, though who knows how that will change if I ever get into Ulduar? I’ll keep you posted.

So there’s my reasons for dual-spec’ing what I dual-spec. Works out pretty well, I think. There are a ton of other possibilities I can think of, though…

PvE / PvP. A lot of people are doing this and it’s something I’d seriously consider if I was actually doing PvP these days… which I’m not. =/ Someday I will get back into it. And by “it” I mean battlegrounds… was never big into Arenas.

The Mana Conservative Spec / The Mana Intensive Spec. Similar to Replenishment and non-Replenishment but seriously sometimes I really wish I had my 53/11/7 spec without Invigoration… and then a 55/11/5 spec with 2/2 Invigoration that I could switch to if I was having mana issues but nobody else really was. Seriously, if you could tri-spec I’d probably do this. (Please tell me I am not the only one who is tempted by a dual-spec that is like… two talent points off from your main spec.)

The raid spec / The MY PET IS A CRAZY MAIN TANK spec. I see this a lot and it’s understandable. You raid on the weekdays and solo Onyxia (or just do a ton of quest-ish dailies) on the weekends. Sometimes I think it’d be fun but I can’t be bothered… I don’t do the solo Onyxia thing (though I’d love to try it sometime) and raid-BM works perfectly fine for dailies!

…A spec you just plain like / Another spec you just plain like. Absolutely nothing wrong with this! It’s fun to be able to swap specs just because you’re feeling like something different that day.

Spec you are testing / Another spec you are testing. Then swap between them on the training dummies. I’ve actually been tempted to do this sometimes, with specs that are a single talent point different from each other. But in the end I’m too miserly with my gold to actually do it. >.>

In the end, I really do find dual-specs to be a welcome addition to my repertoire– yes, even as a hunter.

How do you guys dual-spec?

screenshots

And Piggy Makes Three

10 Comments

With Tawyn’s acquisition of Mr. Wiggles yesterday, she now possesses all three of the “old-world” Children’s Week minipets– Speedy being her first and Whiskers being her second. Because Childrens’ Week was the first ever in-game holiday I experienced (seriously, I was about level… 16?), this means I’ve officially headed into my third year of playing World of Warcraft.

wow_turtleonmybed

For those of you who have been playing a lot longer than I have, that’s probably nothing, but for me it’s sort of a “wow… crazy” moment, that I have now played for two full years and am headed into my third. Two years ago I was on my last week of university courses ever and I opted to install the demo version of the game knowing I could now safely play it without having to worry about being distracted from homework and various super-important projects. I rolled up Tawyn, the teal-haired hunter, who was supposed to be a tauren except that the person who got me into the game was Alliance so I had to follow suit. Two years later she is (perhaps astonishingly?) still very much my main, and I’ve made some of my current best friends in-game and become some sort of blogger. Weird, huh?

Happy birthday, Tawyn! And thanks to all my readers for letting my share my WoW experiences with you guys. <3

specs

Fiftythree-Eleven-Seven

41 Comments

I had a comment in my last post asking what the current “on paper” best Beast Master raiding spec is.

Now as a forewarning, I do not have access to all these pretty spreadsheets everyone else uses. I’m on Linux, so no Excel for me. And the Open Office versions lack a lot of functionality. =P

That said, I have been lurking the Beast Master threads on Elitist Jerks, and the one spec that keeps coming up is 53/11/7 or some very similar variant (such as swapping out Improved Mend Pet for Spirit Bond– no real difference on your DPS).

I was extremely wary about this at first. Give up 5/5 Mortal Shots and a point in Go for the Throat? I mean, I’d swapped out Improved Arcane Shot for Improved Tracking a while back, having been sold on it based on my own testing, but was Survival Instincts really that worth it? The Mortal Shots change was the one that scared me the most, although eventually I managed to talk myself into it with the logic that my pet was 50% of my damage (which Mortal Shots doesn’t effect) and my Auto Shot is 50% of my personal damage (which Mortal Shots doesn’t effect) and my crit hovers around 30% so that’s 70% of special shots that Mortal Shots doesn’t effect… and etc. So, while I resisted for a while, I recently made the plunge.

My ten-man Naxx a few days back with my new spec went very well, and then yesterday I got into a 25man OS.

4922 DPS on one of the drakes. Using Wash the raptor, and 53/11/7.

For you guys that are in diehard raiding guilds and are in 25man gear, that’s probably not a big deal. For Pike who still considers 10man Naxx to be challenging and fun and is toting around a couple blues, it’s a big deal.

The other two hunters had 4800 and 4300 respectively; they were both Survival and outgeared me. To be fair, the 4800 guy was usually a smidge ahead of me on all the other fights. But no, this fight was mine, all mine, and it was glorious.

More importantly I was sold on the spec. Survival Instincts? Makes me crit more, and when I crit more, Cobra Strikes procs more, and when Cobra Strikes procs more, Wash’s Savage Rend crits more and his damage is increased by 10%. That thing was critting left and right and it was awesome. Not only that, but I was keeping a careful eye on Wash’s focus, and I never saw him focus starved. Not once. 1/2 Go for the Throat + Bestial Discipline for great justice!

My recommendation: give 53/11/7 a whirl and see what you think! Afterall, it’s only as good as it works for you. Though I think you will have a good experience with it.

Now some of you are no doubt scratching your heads and wondering why the heck I am trying to maximize BM DPS when SV is still all the rage despite the fact that the difference is much smaller now (and may become even smaller if the 3.1.2 Lock and Load change is a nerf and not a wording fix.) If you are wondering that, you will probably have to continue wondering it and just smile and nod, because my head is kind of an odd creature when it comes to this and chances are if you don’t really understand it now, nothing I can say would change that! Suffice to say that I’m the girl who very happily raided Karazhan for eight months back in BC and is very merrily raiding Naxx now, with little to no motivation to raid anything harder, who would rather have minipets over gear and would rather see her screen filled up with an amalgamation of both hunter and pet crits than be the top of the DPS every time… who still likes to see herself performing well in Recount.

That, my friends, is just how I roll.

Everyday I'm Huntering