The New Face Of Raiding

OK, by now I’m sure that you’ve all heard about the big shake up coming to raiding in Cataclysm. For those of you that haven’t, heard it yet, because you live under a rock or this is the only blog you read, well here’s the skinny. 10 and 25 man raid will share the same lock out in Cataclysm. So if you smack them down on the 25 man one night, you can’t go in the next night on 10 man and do it again. You will have to choose which version you want to run that week. Now for me, it’s not that big of a deal. Believe me, I would love to be able to run both 10 and 25 man ICC each week, but I just don’t have the time. However, I know that this change will affect the majority of DRC as we run 3, and here I thought it was 2, 10 mans.

Personally I like this move. I know that the 1337 raiders out there who think that all 10 mans are, are Blizzard placating the casuals. However, I don’t feel that way. I realize that not all guilds are able to get 25 people together at once. Hell, I’m sure some smaller guilds have 25 people in them that want to raid. So I can see the point to that.

The other big change is they are doing away with badges and going to points instead. They are going to have two different types of points eventually. The points for the current tier and points for the previous tier. No more downgrading badges multiple times to get that heirloom item or piece of gear that you’re missing, just spend the right kind of point and away you go.

Now I’ve been hitting the rounds to see what other bloggers have to say about these changes. From what I’ve seem so far, it seems to be that people are either thrilled by the change, or they are firing up the steamer to cook GC alive… I honestly didn’t give it much thought, because Duranub isn’t a hardcore raid group. That line of thought quickly ended after I popped on over to Belghast’s blog Tales of the Aggronaut and saw what he had to say. Now a lot of what he he said made me raise an eyebrow in concern. See in addition to the 25 man we run, we also have 3 different 10 mans also. My problem is I don’t have the time to run with any of the 3 10s. I know we’ve been struggling with the 25 man content, while the 10s are almost to Arthas. So here’s my dilemma. If DRC drops the 25 and just runs the 10s… I’m screwed.

See we have 3 hunters in our 25, for everyone’s’ sake lets call them Manny, Moe, and Jack. Jack will be played by me. Manny is always in the top 3 DPS. He’s our main puller, kiter, and lore master. Oh, and he’s a raid officer too. So my changes of me securing a spot over Manny are laughable at best. Moe is our other hunter. Moe’s advantage is Moe comes with a healer. Moe’s healer is an excellent healer on top of that. So, as a raid leader you could bring a single DPS by them self, or you could bring a DPS who also has an excellent healer attached. So that leaves us with Jack. A DPSer who comes al a carte, and is a puller and kiter when Manny isn’t there. Oh, and one more thing, Manny and Moe are already running with 2 of the 3 10s. Hell I didn’t even know about the 3rd until just recently.

So if DRC does switch to to just running 10s, I might be SOL for raiding. If that happens then what? Do I hope that more tanks and healers appear out of thin air? Do I move on? I was planning on making a Worgen warrior, but he was going to be a fury(or would that be a furry 🙂 ) warrior. Should I go prot instead and make him my main? Ugh too many things to consider, and not enough info yet.

So until Next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

A Primer For The New BM Raider

So you finally dingeded 80 a few weeks ago, and you’ve been running random heroics for massive amounts of badges. You have enough badges saved to start picking up some T9 gear, and you have the right Fluffy with you for your spec. You’re are revved up and ready for your first ever raid, right? Well… maybe…maybe not… Today we’re going to take a look at a beginners guide to BM raiding.

Hit It Like You Mean It

You can have a RAP of over 10,000 and it wont do you a lick of good if you can’t hit your target. Getting to hit cap is your #1 priority. For us that means hitting 8% or a rating of 263, UNLESS you are a space berry or have one in your group. If you fall in to this second group, then you only need 7% or a rating of 230. If you don’t have enough hit on your gear to hit the cap yet, don’t worry there are ways around that short coming. The fastest way to boost your hit is with the focused aim talent. Each point in it will give you a 1% hit bonus. If you put the full 3 points in, it will bring it down to only needing 5 or 4% hit bonus. The next thing I recommend for getting to the hit cap, is the ice walker enchant for your feet. Wonderful little enchant that gives hit and crit. Only then If you still need the hit would I start looking at gems that have hit on them.

Sparkle Sparkle…

Now as far as gemming goes, I have to agree with Rilgon from SES about gemming. Don’t worry about getting the socket bonus on the pieces. You WILL get more bang for the buck by using only Delicate Cardinal Ruby. Other than that use only enough yellows and blues to get you meta-gem.

What A Wonderful Glow You Have There

Item enchants are a huge boost to every part of you DPS. From hit to crit to hitting harder, enchants can make a big difference.
Weapon enchants are going to come in one of two flavors. Either Massacre for the 2 handed weapons or a pair of the +26 agility enchants for the duel wielding crowd out there.
Now for your head and shoulders, I hope you’ve been working on your KotEB and Sons of Hodir factions. The Knights give the best head enchant, and the Giants give the best shoulder enchant.
Now it’s time to head over to the AH or your local BS and pick up that shiny new belt buckle for the extra gem slot.
While you’re at the AH, you might as well grab a Icescale Leg Armor for the extra oomph to the legs. Don’t forget to make that you grab a heart seeker scope to better rain death upon your foes.
We’ve covered the feet already under hit, so no sense in going back there again.
Now for the hands, wrists, chest, and back look for anything that will increase your agility mainly, and other stats along the way.

We Are Here To Pump… You Up

Now we’re going to take a look at different consumables that you should bring with you, or make sure that they are available through the raid.  First thing is to make sure you bring flasks. Flasks will generally provide a better buff than using elixirs. I recommend going with the Flask of Endless Rage. If your guild or raid group has a dedicated chef or two, then they should be providing fish feasts for everyone. If they don’t, or you’re not sure if they do, feel free to drop by the AH to pick some up. If your fishing and cooking are high enough though you can make them, and bask in the additional love from the grateful masses as they nom down on your feast. Potions will provide that quick OMG effect at just the right time. Potions of Speed are a huge boost to your DPS. To get the true machine gun effect, pop one, along with rapid fire, when the shaman pops heroism…. Oh, please don’t forget that Fluffy loves his noms. His favorite ones are spiced mammoth treats.

More PewPew

Now that you’ve spec’d, gemmed, enchanted, and stocked up on treats, you’re to rock out in the raid right? Only if you are stocked up on ICC ammo. If not, get thee back to the AH and buy them, or bring the mats to your local engineer to make you some.

Well, now you’re ready. Come back soon to see the next part, the do’s and don’ts of raiding. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

Welcome Back Bel

I want everyone to go to Tales of the Aggronaut right now and welcome Belghast back to the land of the living. It’s been a while since he’s last made a post, but he’s back and ready to taunt the world. So swing by, say hi, and check him out.

Oh and whatever you do, PLEASE check your bunny sticks at the door before any and all pulls… He hates them more than my Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.s. 🙂

The New Look For Hunters

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, the preview came out today, some good, some meh, and some very good so lets take a look and see what we can see.

With the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm many game elements will be changing, and each class will be receiving a number of tweaks. Here, we will explore the changes that are being made to the gun-wielding, pet-training hunter. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the new hunter abilities!

New Hunter Abilities

Cobra Shot (level 81): A new shot that deals Nature damage instead of Physical damage. This ability will share a cooldown with Steady Shot. This will give hunters an alternative to Steady Shot on heavily-armored targets, and we will have talent incentives in the Beast Mastery tree to make this a signature shot.

Hrmmm…a new shot….and BM gets talents to better it and make it our version of explosive and chimera shots.

Trap Launcher (level 83): When used, the next trap can be shot to a location within 40 yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result, we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global cooldown.

Well this will make getting traps into place during combat easier. Heh I just had a vision flash through my head of flying snakes, and Samuel L. Jackson…

Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect).

Ummm… vanish 2.0? So we can still be smacked around in melee, and it drops the minute we stub our toe…

Resource Mechanic Change

Here we come to the meat of the upcoming hunter changes.

Hunters will no longer use mana; instead the class will use Focus. Focus generates much like Energy, by building up. It will not be affected by Intellect at all. Haste will improve its generation. Hunters will generate roughly 6 Focus per second, slightly less than rogues’ Energy generation rate of around 10 Energy per second. Below, we have listed some examples of how we intend Focus costs to operate:
Steady Shot/Cobra Shot: No cost. Generates 9 Focus per shot (or 12 per second instead of 6).
Arcane Shot/Chimera Shot /Explosive Shot: 45 Focus.
Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot: 60 Focus.
Concussive Shot/Tranquilizing Shot: 35 Focus.
Rapid Fire/Master’s Call/Disengage: 30 Focus.

Hrmmm…. Luckily these values aren’t set in stone yet. Oh, and since when is 6 slightly less than 10? 9 is slightly less, 8 is still slightly less. Hell even 7 would barely be considered slightly less. 6 is almost half the amount of focus that rogues regen.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to the resource change and new abilities listed above, we intend to make adjustments to some of the other abilities and mechanics you already know well. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we’re going for with each spec.

A major change coming for the hunter is the removal of ammunition. Guns, bows, and crossbows will now do damage without consuming ammunition at all. There will be no more ammo slot on the hunter’s character display. Any ammunition that a hunter has at the time of the change will become gray sellable items. Existing quivers will be converted into large bags — though each hunter can only have one and non-hunters will not benefit from this change — and we will not be making any additional quivers.

Sweet no more ammo! now to buy the biggest quiver I can get my hands on for a cheap quiver…

Pet management will also change. Hunters will now have two types of attainable pets: active pets and stored pets. Hunters will be able to have up to three active pets (perhaps five for Beast Mastery specialized players) and will have the ability to switch among these pets any time they are out of combat, without going to town. They will also be able to have a large number of pets in storage at the stables. In order to swap a pet from active to passive, a hunter will still need to visit their local Stable Master. However, this should afford ample storage for the many Spirit Beasts wandering the lands of Azeroth.

Pets…Pets…Pets…More pets… LOTS AND LOTS OF PETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This means I’ll be able to go hunt down the rest of the spirit beasts, get a worm, a chimera, a cat, a raptor, birds out the wazzu….I can use a different pet every day of the week…. MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Additionally, hunters will now start with a race-appropriate pet at level 1 and will be able to tame a different pet at level 10. We are also changing many pet family abilities to provide important buffs and debuffs. The intention is to allow the hunter to be able to swap pets and fill a position if a certain role is missing from the group. The goal is to have all pets provide a damage increase that is very similar and no greater than any other pet. Some examples of the changes we are making to the pet families are listed below:
Wind Serpents: Will provide a debuff that increases the amount of spell damage taken by an enemy (similar to a weaker version of the warlock ability Curse of Elements).
Ravagers: Will provide a debuff that will increase an enemy’s Physical damage vulnerability (similar to a weaker version of the warrior ability Rampage).
Hyenas: Will provide bleed damage (similar to a weaker version of the druid ability Mangle).

Hmmm race specific pets at level 1 interesting, not that it took that long to get to level 10 to get your pet before that… While I like the fact that Blizz wants our pets to be able to fill in the blank until we get a better version in the group/raid, I wonder how much weaker it will be than the class version.

Stings and other periodic effects will now benefit from haste and critical strike ratings. Hasted damage-over-time abilities do not lose duration, but instead add additional damage ticks.
Viper Sting will now restore 9 Focus every 3 seconds.

So all of our stings will get the 2piece T9 bonus nice… Viper sting only worked on targets with a mana bar, so will the new version work on all targets, or just those with focus bars or mana bars?

We are reinforcing hunters as a ranged class. To this end, the class will now start with ranged abilities at level 1, and we will be removing some melee abilities, such as Mongoose Bite.

Great now new hunters will be forced to learn how to shoot first and melee later.

New Talents and Talent Changes

Beast Mastery hunters will have a new talent called Careful Aim, which increases the damage of the next Steady Shot or Cobra Shot, but also increases the cast time of these abilities. The intention is to make the combination of spells into a decent damage opener, especially in conjunction with the new ability Camouflage.

So we’ll get talents that will increase our haste bringing our cobra and steady shots closer to the GCD, and get talents that increase their casting times… Ow my head…. kinda backasswards I think.

Beast Mastery hunters will also have talents that make Cobra Shot superior to Steady Shot, such as Longevity reducing the cast time of Cobra Shot to 1.5 seconds.
Rapid Recuperation will cause Rapid Fire to give 20/40/60 Focus immediately and will cause Rapid Killing to generate 3 Focus per second.
Efficiency will reduce the Focus cost of Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, and Arcane Shot.
Thrill of the Hunt grants Focus when you land a critical strike.
Hunter vs… Wild increases the hunter’s Focus generation when his or her pet is snared, stunned, or rooted.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Beast Mastery

Ranged Damage
Haste
Pet Damage

Pet Damage: Many of the passive benefits to pet damage will no longer be available in the Beast Mastery talent tree. However, these will be provided through the new Mastery mechanic.

Ummm I though GC said that they didn’t want our pets to do more than 30-40% of our damage. So if our BM mastery is going to boost our pets damage even higher, isn’t that counter-intuitive to their own philosophy?

Marksmanship

Ranged Damage
Armor Penetration
Double Shot

Double Shot: The hunter will have a chance to launch a free attack off of the global cooldown for 50% damage.

Survival

Ranged Damage
Ranged Critical Damage
Elemental Damage

Elemental Damage: Hunter abilities such as traps, Black Arrow, and Explosive Shot will do elemental damage of the following types: Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind that what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these planned changes as well as others continue to develop in response to feedback and testing.

So it looks like BM is FINALLY getting some big time lovin from Blizz. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. Now if they play their cards right, it would seem that they are finally bring all 3 specs in line for damage. So until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of ammo.

This Week In Duranub

OK I’ve been playing around with my off spec recently. I decided to try a piercing shots bleed build. It worked fine in heroic 5 mans, so I decided to try it last night during the raid….

It didn’t work out… at all… I haven’t seen DPS like that since… Naxx. UGH so by the time we got to the first boss I had swapped back to BM, I left Shadowfang out since he was buffed and good to go before I swapped to Devilicious. Duranub hasn’t had a night like Tuesday in a long time. 9 bosses down in just under 2 and half hours. 8 bosses including the bonus rotten giant and VoA. Lots of tastey frost badges dropped, and we only had 2 wipes.

Loot wise….well…that’s a different story. Once again DBS refused to drop the token for us hunters. However, he did drop bringer’s Will. Of course I was out bid on it. 😦

So Thursday night rolled along and we started out as normal with knocking out the weekly quest fast and easy. From there we went and smacked our faces against Dreamwalker for the rest of the night. We are making progress and for our first night of attempts we didn’t do too bad….

So until next time, don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

Being Sick Sucks…

Hack, Cough, wheeze… Hack, cough, wheeze… Ugh I hate getting a spring bug. The only fun part about being sick, is I usually get to catch up on lost sleep. No dice this time though. I spent all of last week out of commission. Wife needed me to run us up to pick up fabric and other crafty type things at the super sales. My oldest just got her learner’s permit, so I was supposed to take her out to practice her driving. We also had to cut out over 1000 denim squares that we sell online. All this and more while I’m sick as a dog. I felt so crappy this week I passed on both raids and didn’t even look at FFXIII.

Once a gaming geek always a gaming geek…

I loving gaming of all types. I’ve played all kinds. From D&D, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, even LARPing. I’ve been a dice chucker, card flopper, mini mover and more.

MtG was a major addiction for me at one point. Not only was it addictive, but I had a blast playing it also. I was a player, but more than that, I was a collector. At one point, I think I had close to 20,000 cards in my collection. I didn’t have all the sets. I didn’t have the most rare and expensive cards. I was hopelessly addicted to opening the packs. I would buy the booster packs by the box full, and I would rip in to them like a man possessed. I loved the thrill of finding out what rares, uncommon, extra rares I would find.

Why this walk down memory lane? It’s the WoW:TCG. I’ve picked up packs here and there, but never as bad as I was with MTG. I kept hoping to get an in game item or a pet or a mount. The cost helped to keep the addiction in check for the most part, not to mention they aren’t the easiest to find in my area. However, that changed one night in Wal-Mart. Several months ago, while we were at Wal-Mart, I decided to pick up a pack or two. Then I saw it. They had boxes of booster packs for $20 each. I shakily picked up one box, and Wife popped the other two in to the cart when my back was turned for me. 🙂 Well since then its been a fight to not go wild on eBay to buy any and all booster boxes, to rip into the shiny shiny packages…

Off The Wagon, And Loving It

Well between the cold meds and lack of sleep I fell off the card wagon hardcore. I picked up a box of Heroes of Azeroth, and a box of Blood of the Gladiator. Well I suppose it could have been worse. I could’ve picked up a spectral tiger…

So now I wait checking the mail to see if my shinies are here yet. If the RNG Gods smile upon me, I’ll end up with several loot cards. Then there’s all the UDE points to spend on Lando’s Pet boxes. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the RNG gods will smile upon me and gimme an etherial trader or a dragon kite pet….

So until next time don’t forget to send more booster packs… errr… ummm reload I mean, so you don’t run out of ammo.

Yet Another Blog Roll Update

Shock and Paw… lotsa fun and good info too 🙂