beast mastery, raiding, screenshots, shot rotation

Beast Mastery Meets Multishot

9 Comments

The Stage: Vault of Archavon, 25-man. I’m one of three hunters in there, the others are Survival.

The Plan: As I’m sure many of you know, this is a fairly straightforward and simplistic fight; yeah you move around a little and you’ve gotta stay away from the big scary falling rocks but other than that it’s a tank’n’spank. Like Patchwerk but a little more mobile. And in a 25-man there’s gonna be a lot of mana regen. Perfect testing grounds for my new shot rotation.

The Spec: 53/17/0

The Rotation: Serpent Sting (kept up); then in order of decreasing priority: Arcane Shot, Multishot, and finally Steady Shot. Pop Rapid Fire, Kill Command, and The Beast Within when available. Keep an eye on Wash to make sure he doesn’t get unsuspectingly caught in something that hurts.

The Verdict:

archdps1

Was barely edged out by one of the SV hunters. The other was no where to be seen in the top 12, as you can see, showing that spec alone doesn’t automatically make you good– it’s rotation and gear and that kind of thing too. Overall I was quite satisfied. Wash did a smashing job and contributed 48% of my total DPS and had Ferocious Inspiration ticking non-stop. Raptors are indeed lookin’ good, what with the fact that a BM raptor can keep their 10% damage boost up for a good portion of a fight.

Other Notes: Despite all the Replenishment going on, I did run out of mana faster with the usage of Multishot. I had to switch to Aspect of the Viper twice during the fight. However, thanks to all of that said Replenishment, I only had to stay in Viper for 10 seconds or so each time and it would give me enough to keep going for a while. If I’d wanted to I could’ve chugged a mana pot, seeing as I run with an Alchemist’s Stone and it would’ve given me quite a boost, but I opted not to because my mana issues were so close to the end of the fight.

I also think my rotations would have been a lot tighter and the results would have been better had I not been lagging so much. >.>

Lastly I think it is important to mention that I think the SV hunter who edged me out could have been rather higher on the chart. However, she was using a Tenacity pet (not exactly known for their DPS) and her spec was slightly more SV-heavy than the current cookie-cutter one. So I am not trying to suggest that running with this BM spec and rotation that I mentioned here, is necessarily going to have you neck-and-neck with really good SV hunters all the time. But I am trying to say that for most of us everyday WoW folks, if you are doing it right, it will keep you quite competitive. And remember, don’t just compare your performance to the other hunters, compare it to the DPS and group as a whole and see yourself as part of the big picture. (The More You Know! *flashy star*)

Conclusions: Use Multishot when possible and you don’t think you’ll have a big mana issue. It’s worth it for me and I think it might be worth it for you too, so give it a spin and see what you think! Next on the agenda: go all out and try Aimed Shot, perhaps? Or will it be too small of a damage boost for too much mana? Stay tuned!

addons, screenshots, ui, Uncategorized

UI de Pike

18 Comments

Inspired by Anea over at Holy Discipline, I am here to post about my UI. I haven’t really done a post like this since I was like level 55 because I figure this blog is largely a screenshot dump anyway so I’m sure you’ve all seen it by now. But hey, this gives me an excuse to talk about addons, right? And I get a lot of comments asking about mine sometimes, so why not!

wow_pikesui1

Startin’ from the top:

Ah, X-Perl. Sometimes I go and try to replace it with something different and then I cry and run back to X-Perl. X-Perl is the unit frames mod that you see there, making you and everyone in your party all 3-D and purdy and in general just looking a lot better than the default thing. It also comes with approximately fifty million options to play around with. It’s kinda buggy and bulky at times but I still secretly love it, meaning this is one o’ those “I wish I could quit you!” addons that I’m sure a lot of us have.

Now let’s hop over and take a look at the lovely Drake-Mounted Crossbow in my bags which I recently traded in for the sexiest gun since Wolfslayer *drools*:

See how it’s giving me a “Stat Summary”, that’s RatingBuster and I couldn’t live without it. I mean really. Makes gear choices a lot easier to calculate out on the fly. Remember though that you have to tweak the options to take things like gems and enchants into account (I’ve certainly wound up with a few false “upgrades” because those options were unchecked) , and obviously this addon isn’t gonna be the answer to all your gear upgrade problems. You’re still going to have to mentally think about stuff like sidegrades and the like. Still, lovely addon.

(Also, looking at that screenshot now, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take scopes into account. Just a heads-up.)

And below that, you see Auctioneer. Would you guys believe I actually went Auctioneer-less for a while? No really, there was a month or two right after WotLK launched where I decided I didn’t like the new Auctioneer and auctioned all my stuff manually. I am a Neopets restocking veteran, I figured, I didn’t need no silly pricing addon.

Then one day I reinstalled it, figured out how to work the new Auctioneer, realized that I really really like it now, and it’s been good times since. <3 And finally we go down to the bottom of my screenshot and we see StellarBars. I love StellarBars. No having to worry about moving your action bars around, no having to worry about logging in and seeing like twenty extra random action bars filling up your screen, no having to worry about re-doing your keybindings… no, this is the pure and simple Blizz action bars but prettier and with some nice stylization options. I combined mine with ButtonFacade for maximum prettiness. Sure, I can play without StellarBars, but it sucks. I had to play without it for a couple days after this latest patch cause it was broken for me; I actually went and told the SB guy about my problem and he had it fixed in a new version literally the next day. So much love <3 Moving on to combat! wow_pikesui3

The scrolling combat text? Is SCT and SCT-D. I like this a lot better than the built-in game version because it tells you which shot is doing what and I find that immeasurably useful. For example, I can see how my Steady Shot crit in that screenshot for 1865, but I can also /chuckle inwardly because I know that I’ve seen Arcane Shot crits that go well over 4000. Very handy, and the numbers don’t bounce all over the place like they do with the Blizz version. You can customize it a lot too, to display the numbers where you want to and change the colors around. The written [Cobra Strikes] proc you see there is also a part of SCT/SCT-D. I do know there are better scrolling combat text addons out there by this point that are more frequently updated, but I’m happy with the old standby for now.

Up by my map is Omen, I don’t leave home without it, and neither should you. /cough

And straight down from there is Recount, the obligate damage meter. I usually don’t have my damage meter open and visible even when running things; I display it briefly after bossfights to see how I did, or when I’m pounding away at the training dummies. It’s a good tool for testing and troubleshooting.

And now moving on to the addons that I have but weren’t visible in those screenshots…

Deadly Boss Mods: when I was raiding in Burning Crusade I somehow wound up with the unofficial title of “Deadly Boss Mods Person, Give Me Assist Please” and even though I think I’m not the only one in our group who has it these days, I still have it just in case it’s needed. Basically it tosses up warnings and the like during raids and it can be handy for a lot of people. Now we just need to get it to draw a frickin’ line on the ground on Heigan and I’ll be all set.

CensusPlus: Take a census of your server and upload it to WarcraftRealms. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.

And finally, the Addon Graveyard, of addons I used at one point and no longer do. RIP…

FuBar. I really like FuBar, I do. But 75% of the FuBar plugins that I used quit working with 3.0.2 and never updated themselves, and in my latest reinstall it was borking my minimap somehow, so I canned it entirely. Maybe someday in the future I’ll look into it again.

MyRoleplay: I like what RP addons do, not just cause you can see details about other peoples’ characters, but cause it’s an easy way to see who else roleplays. It got to a point, though, where 1.) it was hogging up all my chat channels, 2.) I don’t actively roleplay enough (I’m more of a mental roleplayer), and 3.) not enough people on my server even use the thing. So it got booted. Again, I’m more than willing to look into an RP addon someday in the future, if I ever feel the need or urge for one.

Gatherer: Displays on your map where you’ve found various herbs/mining nodes/etc. in the past. Semi-handy but in the end I’m enough of an herbalist junkie at this point that I know where everything is anyway. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, if you want Briarthorn, go live in Silverpine Forest. Trust me.

Lightheaded: It takes about three seconds to alt+tab and use the WoWHead search bar on my Firefox. In the end, it wasn’t worth it for me to take up extra memory to be able to do that in game. Your mileage may vary!

Well, that’ll do it. If you’ve got questions/comments/discussion, lemme hear ’em!

memes, screenshots

It's Not Showing Off If You Were Tagged

11 Comments

My good buddy Rip over at Critical QQ tagged me with a meme where I was supposed to open up my screenshots folder and post my sixth screenshot, regardless of what it was.

My first thought was “Oh, heck no”. I’m that person who takes screenshots of random funny crap people said in Trade Channel. I’m that person who is OCD and takes screenshots when buffs make my HP end in “000”. I’m that person who takes screenshots and then when I go back and look at said screenshots I have no idea why I took them.

But then my curiosity got the better of me. What IS my sixth screenshot right now? I’ve reformatted and reinstalled and moved around and copied and deleted and hacked up my screenshots folder so many times by now it’s a mess. So what could it possibly be? Something from when I was leveling no doubt, or one of my alts, or Tawyn when she was running around as a fresh 70 or something, right?

…

wowscrnshot_010209_215810_edit

…so, remember when BM hunters were overpowered and cats were broken?

Yeah. Me too. /cough. I like things better now by the way, though I won’t get close to 3600 again until I’m actually in purples. But that’s probably how it should be, ne?

I tag whoever wants to do it =P

(P.S. original screenshot was unedited. I decided to do a rough edit job on it to take out the Vent password (no idea whose Vent that is) and out of courtesy on the Recount. Just in case ^_^)

gear, goals, screenshots

I Like Shinies

22 Comments

So I didn’t mention this in my last post because I didn’t want to stray too far off-topic, but in my latest Naxx run Heigan decided it would be really funny to mock my inability to live more than ten seconds on his phase two by giving me a present that was loaded to the brim with stamina.

Heigan

“Ya know what stamina lets you do? Stay alive! Oh wait, you’re Pike, my bad. /snicker”
“Die in a fire =(“

To be honest, I was willing to pass on this thing to anybody who wanted it. I woulda given it to a feral druid in a heartbeat if there had been one in the raid. And besides which, I have this personal quirk where I always hate to roll on an item that dropped from a boss that I was dead for more than 50% of. I think said items would better go to someone who was alive for the duration of the boss fight. Just a personal thing of mine.

But nobody else was even remotely interested in the thing, so to me it went. You’re a laugh riot, Mr. Unclean.

tawynstaff

It is shiny, though. /strut

Now aside from being loaded with stamina it’s also loaded with Attack Power. However, this comes at the expensive of two little things: Hit, and Crit. I can live with giving away some of that precious Crit for a bunch of that delicious delicacy that is AP, but the Hit is something I can’t afford to lose right now, especially since I’m already scooting around a little under-cap. Remember, Hit is pretty vital for a BM hunter cause we pass it along to our pets now, too. As such, while I’m holding on to this beauty in my bags, it’s not gonna replace my twin Broken Stalactites until I’ve done some more re-gearing. I’m working on the chestpiece outta Argent Crusade (about 75% through Revered!), and trying to weasel my way into Heroic Violet Holds for that cloak.

Have I mentioned lately that my cloak luck has been atrocious? Ya know what I’m still runnin’ with?

…

…

Shade of Aran

“Such a comfy cloak, isn’t it?”
“Yes but that’s no excu–FLAMEWREATH DON’T MOVE”

The moral of the story? Be sure to check all your stats before equipping that new shiny. It might be better to hold off for the time being.

Oh, and Heigan can still bite me. Nielas Aran can stay though, he’s a nice guy. And I totally have a crush on his son. /blush (I’m weird, okay?)

beast mastery, raiding, Uncategorized

BM is Raid Worthy.

12 Comments

I did a good portion of 10-man Naxx today. I was overall satisfied with my performance considering my relatively non-spectacular gear level and the fact that I spent approximately 33.3% of the boss fights face down in the dirt because apparently it’s not just Heigan that I completely fail at. (Hey, I actually survived three of those green lava waves this time! Three! That’s… um… that’s good right? Right? Bueller?)

Is BM the ultimate zomg highest DPS hunter spec? No, go Survival.

Is BM gonna do good on pet-unfriendly fights? Not so much. Not only does our flat pet DPS go away but all our pet buffs and benefits go away too.

Is BM as super overpowered as it was before? Oh heck no; my Patchwerk performance has been eviscerated literally by over a thousand DPS (though to be fair, my DPS was always higher on 25man, so it’s a skewed comparison)… but despite that large difference, I was still second place in the meters for that fight.

The point of this post is to answer a Google search that hit my blog the other day. That search term was literally “Is there any hope for BM hunters?”

Yes.

If you are weaving non-Steadies into your rotation, keeping Serpent Sting up, and you and your pet are decently spec’d and glyphed, there is no reason why you as a Beast Master should ever be shut out of your average everyday raid or heroic. If you’re in Nihilum or Death & Taxes or something then maybe it’s different but for the most part, you as a well-played BM hunter are valuable to a group. You provide a lot of DPS, you provide an excellent buff in the form of Ferocious Inspiration, you provide solid AoE and you have Viper for overly intensive fights.

Oh and you’re just plain fun to play, natch.

So yes, Virginia, there is hope.

And with that said I’m going to go back to sobbing in the corner while Heigan points and laughs. What a meaniehead. Not all of us did Mousercise when we were kids, not all of us are as coordinated as he is. /sob

thoughts

I Swear I Am Not Scrooge

21 Comments

scroogemcduck-mickeysccarollr1I remember back when I first started playing WoW and holidays were basically my favorite part of the game. Children’s Week was the first ever holiday I participated in and I ran that kid all over the place, to places I’d never been before, so I could get the Speedy minipet (much to the horror of the significant other who couldn’t believe that I was passing up the option of a whole five gold!)

And all the holidays were like that, I went nuts over ’em. Got all the items, did all the little things you had to do. For the most part the only people who cared about the holidays were people like me who were dorks who were willing to fill up our bags with toys and candy and stuff, and that’s basically what I did. To this day my bags and bank are bursting from the seams– with holiday stuff. I could pull out that Valentines’ Picnic Basket while at the meeting stone for a raid or heroic and everybody would ooo and ahh over it cause nobody else had one. I could throw Jack O’ Lantern heads or snowballs at people in the middle of July. I was the crazy hunter with all the gadgets and minipets. And finally I was pretty content that I’d done all the holidays and could relax, and not have to worry about bagspace anymore.

So then this new thing comes out: Achievements.

Suddenly holidays are like THE BIGGEST THING EVER TO HIT WOW and suddenly I find myself in this odd position.

Do I follow the mass hype and fill my bags with even more holiday crap when it’s already rare enough as it is for me to have a precious *gasp* five empty bag slots? Do I do achievements for things that I already did, back before it really mattered?

The answer, for me, is no. I can’t bring myself to do it this time. I don’t exactly know why, I’m not trying to be elitist or a party pooper or anything of that sort. I guess you could say I’m like the stereotypical kid from the country who was used to quirky and personal Christmases and Thanksgivings on the farm who then goes to the big city to see that they’ve been all commercialized*. Doing it all for an achievement rather than for the heck of it feels hollow to me, especially because I already have most of the toys and stuff. Besides, it’s difficult for me to enjoy a holiday if I’m freaking out about meeting requirements for things. So, I’m not going to pressure myself into it. That’s all.

I will of course do the holiday achievements if they fall in my lap, or if they happen to coincide with something I wanted to do in that holiday anyway, or if they provide a nice bonus incentive (i.e.; rep for elder coins)… but I would’ve done that before the achievements. I guess I’m just not going to go out and “seek out” those achievements if I don’t want to. (Brewfest may prove to be an exception cause of a running joke that Tawyn is the guild drunk and thus needs the Brewmaster title, but we shall see.) In summary, I’m going to do the holidays for fun, and not have to worry about finding a particular somebody to /dance with in Dalaran or whatever.

So there you have it. That’s why I’m not going nuts over holiday achievements. Not because I dislike holidays or dislike other people doing the achievements. Not because I am Uncle Scrooge. But because for me, it’s all been doooooooone befoooooooore!

* I’m a country kid, I’m allowed to say this kind of thing >.> Oh, and I ride buffalo to work, and I don’t really have the internet, this is all just an illusion.

guides, hunter kindergarten, shot rotation, Uncategorized

Booster Shots

19 Comments

Cause they boost your damage. Eh? Eh?

Okay, cutting to the chase because I just had this blog post almost finished when Firefox decided to eat it for breakfast so I’m starting from scratch. Let’s take a look at some of the shots available in your Beast Master repertoire:

Steady Shot: Once exulted on high as your best friend, now your filler shot that you press when nothing else is available. You’ll still be using it a lot, though, and you’ll want to boost its damage up from “abysmal” to “mediocre” as much as possible, so keep a Glyph of Steady Shot on you. For great justice. And yes, this means you’ll be keeping Serpent Sting up. Anyways, when you can, you’ll be wanting to stick to Shots That Aren’t Steady Shot™ as much as possible…

Arcane Shot: Your new bestest buddy, you’re going to want to use Arcane Shot as soon as the cooldown is up. Ferocious Inspiration and Improved Arcane Shot are both mandatory talents– as if FI’s super-buff wasn’t awesome before, this talent now also increases your damage with Arcane Shot. Combine that with IAS and get ready to /giggle at your Arcane Shot crits, especially after Mirror of Truth procs.

Multi-Shot: I’ve had good luck with this one on the Training Dummies, it’s a reasonable damage boost that isn’t Steady Shot. This is one of those situational ones, though. You may not want to use it if you’re having mana issues (are solo or in a group without Replenishment); and you don’t want to use it when there’s CC about or there’s a chance you might hit (and aggro) another mob with it. I know CC and aggro and all that is kind of a non-issue right now but I feel that this is a piece of hunter lore that we should remember in case it becomes important in the future. Don’t Multi-Shot CC.

Aimed Shot: Most Beast Masters don’t take this unless they dabble heavily in PvP, and I don’t blame them– the damage increase is small these days and the mana cost is pretty prohibitive. Still, it’s a Shot That Isn’t Steady Shot™, and I find myself wondering if it would be worth it on a DPS dump fight (like Patchwerk) with lotsa mana Replenishment going on. I haven’t tested this one myself but I’d be curious to know if anyone else has and what they think.

Kill Shot: Use it when you can! Now that the cooldown is a lot shorter than it was before, you’ll probably be able to use this more than once on most boss fights. Take advantage of that fact!

And moving on…

What is my Shot Rotation, Pike?: At this point I don’t know if it’s a true shot rotation as much as a shot priority.

1.) Is Serpent Sting up? If yes, go to the next step. If no or it is about to run out, apply Serpent Sting and go to the next step.

2.) Is Arcane Shot’s cooldown up and ready to go? If yes, use Arcane Shot. If no, go to the next step.

3.) Use Steady Shot.

Basically every time you are ready to fire a shot you are going to mentally ask yourself those three questions and go from there. If you’re going to be using Multi-Shot and/or Aimed Shot, insert them appropriately between Arcane Shot and Steady Shot. Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it looks– you’ll be watching cooldowns and managing your pet, yes, and it can be a little difficult at times if you stink at multitasking like I do, but you’ll get it. Oh, and when I say mentally asking yourself those three questions– you don’t have to, uh, literally do that. But you get the picture, right?

In closing this might be sorta semi-offtopic but I’ve been seeing a lot of comments left lately on some blogs I read that involve people of various specs talking about how their shot rotation/cooldown-watching/whatever is bigger and as such their spec is “harder” and hence, superior. May or may not be followed by quoting Ghostcrawler. And it all kind of bugs me because it’s twisting the complexity of hunters down into one oversimplification and assumption.

Here’s my own take on this, and you’re free to (respecfully!) disagree if you wish of course, but this is my opinion– shot rotation alone does not equal skill. Pressng more buttons does not make you a better hunter. Having more cooldowns does not make you a better hunter.

Being able to trap indefinitely, kite indefinitely, spec your pet best for whatever job he is doing, not break crowd control, know what shots to use and when, know what gems/enchants/stats you want, know when to bend those gems/enchants/stats rules, popping your “big” cooldowns at the right times, know to listen to the raid leader when he or she says “melee do this” cause you have to apply that to your pet… all of this combined with being able to pull off your shot rotation, regardless of spec, is what defines a skilled hunter to me. You can’t base skill or difficulty level off of one aspect of the class alone, especially when said definition of “difficulty level” is so dependent on opinion and an individual’s strengths and weaknesses.

And while we’re on the subject, let me also point out that you don’t have to be a traditionally “skilled” raiding hunter to earn my respect; if you’re having fun with the class you’ve got my respect. Period. Hunters are for fun!

That’s all for today, and remember:

i_question

Test everything and come to your own conclusions! Don’t take my word for it (or any other blogger’s)– we’re a guide, not a rulebook. ^_^

(P.S. I promise this ramble wasn’t directed at any blogs that I read. Much <3 to you all)

screenshots, Uncategorized

Top Fifteen Screenshots I Found While Waiting for WoW to Reinstall

18 Comments

(I opted not to provide annotations for all of these, because I like how a lot of them look alone, without commentary. However, many of them do indeed have a story or two behind them, so feel free to ask about any that you are curious about…)

Attempting to two-man part of Molten Core with a “certain someone” in WotLK Beta…

wow_diremaultree

Directly after a disaster Karazhan raid. We went a lil’ crazy.

wow_lunapikeagainstnightsky2

garrius This was a few weeks before WotLK. Great guy with limited playtime; I did Scholo with him at least once.

wow_eretosthenesthegnome

wow_attackoftheblimps A good friend and I visually “duped” the paper zeppelins and they followed us wherever we went. Even if we flew. You can see them between the trees there, coming closer…

treesaredeadly

Probably my all-time favorite screenshot; me, my friends, and Dire Maul. This was my desktop wallpaper on my Windows partition for several months.

I’m currently re-installing WoW from scratch thanks to a complete computer overhaul and some WoW-folder-savings mishaps. I was feelin’ kinda burned out from the game lately, I won’t deny it, but sometimes, old screenshots do wonders to remind you why you play it… don’t you think?

screenshots

FINALLY

17 Comments

exaltedhodir

And now all those dailies are going to be thrown into the pile of quests that I liked the concept of but were camped and farmed into oblivion and I never want to do them again. Like that wolvar pups quest for the Tuskarr. I thought the idea was adorable and silly (does that make me a horrible person?) but I got so sick of people swooping out of the sky and grabbing your pups that I haven’t done the quest since exalted. Same deal for most of the Sons of Hodir dailies. Heck, I gave up on the Blowing Hodir’s Horn one way back at friendly. Got better things to do than sit around for thirty minutes while druids swoop past me in flight form and moonfire tag everything from the sky.* =P

Oh, and for all you people that seem to get to my blog by Googling “Sons of Hordir”, because someone misspelled it in a comment once… it’s Hodir. No extra “r”. You’ll get more results if ya search for Hodir. *nods*

* Don’t hurt me, boomkins! /cower

Everyday I'm Huntering