The Other Half Of The Chunk

Tests, tests, and more tests. That’s right everyone I finished up the 2nd half of the first round of tests. The first thing that I knocked out was getting some answers to my questions about melee hit cap and expertise. I would like to thank one of the best rogues I’ve ever had the honor of raiding with, Rylacus for his help. He clarified what that when at hit cap a melee should never miss, and that parries and dodges will be virtually non-existent when at expertise cap. This time I was testing on the live servers to see just how bad Sushi was doing. I mean with missing over 140 times after shooting 2000 shots…shudder… I was dreading what would happen on the live server. I used the same set up to test on the PTR. Just like the last one I used Dragonhawk and hunter’s mark; 2000 terrorshaft arrows; auto, arcane, aimed and steady shots with serpent sting; and for mana regen I used rapid fire and viper. Lets see how absolutely abysmal Sushi did shall we?

Huh? What?? Impossible!! 0 misses, 0 blocks, 5 parries and 58 dodges?!?! That makes no sense what so ever, on the PTR Sushi had 141 misses, 0 blocks, 14 parries and 111 dodges. Pets are supposed to scale up not down in the new patch.  It now looks like absolutely none of our hit rating is going to our pets at all. That’s right 0 zip nada.  When I ran the test on the PTR my miss rate was over 8%, and when I ran it on the live server it was 0%. So far 3.2 isn’t going so smoothly from my view. Pet scaling is totally borked, pooched and broken to the point where it is worse than on live servers. We BM hunters are already seen as a weak link who cant raid, and are sub par to everyone else’s DPS. But, we’re not that bad, we just have to really pay attention to what’s going on around us and our pets. We have a bad rep and the changes that have failed so far are hurting us even more. Come on Blizz this was supposed to be a big boost for us, not a nerf. All I can hope for is that since it’s early in PTR, that this just hasn’t been implemented yet, and this is not how it is supposed to be. If this is how it’s supposed to be, I might have to go survival again >.<. Next week I’ll do more tests on the PTR to see if they cleaned up this mess or at least started to fix it. So until next time, don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

A Lil Bit Of Ulduar, A Chunk Of The PTR

Sorry about the late update this week folks, but it’s worth the wait…hopefully. 🙂 Thursday has past bringing an end to our week in Ulduar. Most of the night was spent on cat cat lady with wipes aplenty. All I can say is her pull is the hardest and most frustrating part of the fight. We went through several different strategies before finding one that worked really well. We ended up having our new pally tank taking on 3 of the sentinels and Euron, our DK tank, pulling the 4th one away from the rest. This worked out extremely well, as it didn’t let the damage buff get to be unhealable, and we could quickly burn them all down. From there it was just a matter of getting the defender under control, which we did by having everyone clump up. After we got the clumping down it all started falling into place the Duranub way, which means a few more wipes followed by downing the boss with all tanks facedown and the rogues evasion tanking lol. Finally she went down, and guess what? She was being stingily with her bow, just like Kolo is being with his gun. Oh well maybe next week, I’ll have better luck.

 

Now the real fun stuff. I’ve finally gotten into the PTR to start testing the changes to us hunters and our pets. Pet scaling was going to be a "big" for hunters in 3.2.

if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.

Last night I started testing how the changes to hit and expertise were working so far. According to the notes, if I’m hit capped my pet should be hit capped and expertise capped also. Right now, between gear and talents, I am over my hit cap. Now we get to the part where I’m not entirely sure on and I’m going on speculation based upon what I’ve seen so far, and from people that I’ve spoken to. IF what they say is true, my pet should miss a melee attack very rarely at if at all. What I want to find out is when a pet reaches hit cap, what percent of the time will it hit. I know that if I am at my hit cap, I will hit over 99% of the time. So lets take a look at how its turned out so far.

The only buff/debuff that I am using during testing are aspect of the dragonhawk and hunter’s mark. I shot off 2000 terrorshaft arrows, using serpent sting, auto, arcane, aimed, and steady shot. I forgot to remake my macro that combined steady shot and kill command. When I ran out of mana, I would switch to viper and pop rapid fire when it was up. Also I used bestial wrath wherever it was up.

Here’s the first results.

Lets take a look at the break down of just the melee attacks. I chose to use this stat only for the base of my tests since it would have the results and give me the most accurate numbers in my option. Hmmmm 8.2% miss rate. That seems kinda… high for being at hit cap, 141 misses in all. I don’t think the Sushi is at hit cap yet, not by a long shot. Now next lets look at dodges and parries. Dodges are still happening way too much. According to the notes, with my hit cap reached, the amount of dodges should be way lower. My next step is 2 fold. I need to run the same tests on the live server and see what happens, and I need to check with some rogues I know to see what the melee hit cap is. Stay tuned to see what happens on the live servers and and how things compare. I’m probably  going to end up rerunning the PTR test using the SS and KC macro instead. So until next time kids, don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

Tuesday In Ulduar

Tuesday has come and gone in a flash, Kolo is down again and yet still he hasn’t dropped a 2nd gun for us. Things went really well this for Duranub, we didn’t have the attendance issues that have been plaguing us for the past few so far. Tonight we have a straight shot to the cat lady with only the 2 trash packs between us and her. Hopefully we will down her and she’ll be nice enough to drop her bow for me. If all goes well, and we do finish her then it’s off to Hodir for our first try at him.

Finally the PTR went up on Tuesday and I’ve started my character transfer to it to see how the new changes with pet scaling are working out. Unfortunately, when I started the transfer process it said it would be 4 days till it was done ugh. So once that’s up and running I’ll let you guys know how that’s working out. So until next time don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

Badge Of Dishonor

Last night I posted about upcoming changes to hunters in 3.2, however there were other changes of a darker more nefarious nature coming down the pipe also… The changes to Badges. That’s right, every instance that dropped a badge of valor or of heroism is going to drop badges of conquest instead. This change can be seen as a heaven sent, or a massive drop kick to the dangly bits depending on your gear, if you raid, and how much time you put into raiding.

Back in the good old days of BC, Badges were first introduced as rewards from doing heroic 5-mans. The gear you could buy with them was comparable to gear from Kara, and all was right in the world. The badge gear was tuned properly and the badge price was high enough to make you have to work to earn the gear, just like someone raiding did. As everyone progressed farther and farther into BC raiding content Blizz in their infinite wisdom, decided to have the same badges of justice drop off of bosses in Kara. It was around this time they started to add more gear that was around the equivalent of ZA/T5 gear. Well lets just say that at that point everyone and their mother had a Kara farm run set up. It got to the point where badge gear was a joke because anyone could farm it up in no time at all.

Then we entered the Wrath age. Blizz saw how much of a success the badge gear was and they decided to keep it going. Hey great I loved getting the badges, and I had the straw farmer’s hat and pitchfork to prove it. Blizz later confirmed that there would be 2 different kinds of badges. Heroism and valor, heroism for heroic 5-mans and 10-man raids, and valor for 25-man raids. Now we’re talking, those that take on the harder bosses and modes get better rewards, as it should be. BoHs were great for getting beginning gear to work on the 25-mans. It gave you something to work for, and the fact that BoVs could be traded for BoHs was even better. Blizz even went so far as to say that they wanted to keep them separate, and that any new badge gear, that would be the equivalent of a new tier or arena season, would not be able to be purchased with older badges. That statement blew my mind. I couldn’t believe it. Blizz was setting a precedent about farming older content to get the best of new content. This is how it should be. If you don’t want to run the new stuff over and over again to get the badges for extra gear, then you should not have any way to get the gear.

Now I know that last statement makes me sound like an elitist. I’m not, not by a long shot. Duranub raids 2 nights a week for 2.5 hours each night. We are not hard core elitist, we are not a casual raid group either. However, we all worked d@mn hard to get the gear we have and to do what we do, If you think that makes me an elitist then fine I’m an elitist by you. Umm… sorry bout that kinda went on a mini rant in the middle of this rant.

Ok, where was I? Oh that right, 3.1 and Ulduar. Yep 3.1 not only brought us Ulduar, but it also brought us a new tier of gear, and with it new badges to collect. Brand new badges of conquest for 25-mans and BoVs for the 10-mans. New gear and crafting materials that could only be bought with BoCs. This was a good idea, since the BoVs would help people gear up faster for 25-mans. All seemed right in the world, those that that wanted the newest shiniest toys could get them, and those that wanted better gear but couldn’t get enough people together could still get great gear. Everyone seemed happy, or so it seemed.

3.2 is coming. The patch notes have been released. Change is on the way, and not all of it is good. 3.2 is introducing a new badge, the badge of triumph for a new raid zone. Ok that’s fine, it makes sence. Wait, what… it will drop in both 10 and 25 mans? Ok…. that’s umm different. Then I saw it. Blizz has changed their minds again. They were getting rid of BoHs and BoVs. That’s right kids, ANY Wrath instance where you could get badges will now drop BoCs instead. Wait…wait we were told this wouldn’t happen. So let me get this straight I can go and steam roll Violet Hold along with the other heroic 5-mans everyday for BoCs, and Naxx once a week for a metric crap ton of BoCs??? WTF!!! In one days time of me running heroic 5-mans and Naxx I can get more BoCs than I can get in a week of 25-man Ulduars?!?!?! What’s the point in running 25-mans any more then? If I can get the same gear including T8/8.5 gear by running Naxx and Heroics, I have lost one of the things that do motivate me. I am a little bit old school when it comes to gear. I believe that epics should not be handed out like they were candy on Halloween, that’s just wronger than the Boost commercial with the lady who’s pit hair is flapping in the guys face.  Epics should be just that something that takes time and determination to get. Why should I waste all this time and gold and everything else to raid when I can run 5-mans and Naxx instead. Now I understand the developers at Blizz spent a lot of time making new content, and for them to want to have as many people as possible see as much of the content that they worked so hard on. But seriously why the hell should some n00b who can barely run a 5 man heroic be able to get the same gear as someone who has worked to get the badges through raiding?

I guess in a way I am an elitist, but I never really considered myself one. I don’t know, all I know is I just wish Blizz would stick with what they say sometimes, it would make everything so much easier to me. Well until next time, don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

3.2 And You The Hunter

The new patch notes are up, and it seems to be pretty nerf free so far. Most of it is good news, and there is very little in the the way of meh and wtf news thankfully. Everything from ammo to pets to traps to aspects and more all get a little bit o’ love it seems this time around so lets take a look at them then shall we?

Engineering

The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.

Wait…Wait… you mean no more mini stacks of 200 that have to be combined into 2 stacks of ammo now? Great it will be worth it if it makes 10 stacks of 1000 each. Will it happen? I can only hope so, since this will make me worship my local engineers (or my DK when he can make them.) Now the mats required to make them is being reduced also, sweet. The Saronite Arrow Maker was horrible with needing 15 saronite bars, so it will be interesting to see just how far it will go down. I know you engineers aren’t going to be to happy about this but… I’m really hoping that this one goes live just like they say.

Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
Deterrence now has a new visual spell effect.

Well I guess the Aspect change is a good thing at 16, but you get a mount at 20 so…Meh. A new animation for deterrence, Ummm let me get this straight, a talent that’s so broken it’s useless, and we get a new spell effect instead of getting it fixed? Wow… just wow…

 

The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
Traps now have separate 30 second cool down categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.

It seems that traps are getting a big buff and a small nerf at the same time. They are only going to last for 30 seconds now, instead of 1 minute. With the time that that they stay active in the world cut in half, this gonna change how we utilize them in crowd control majorly. Time to relearn how to chain trap all over again :). Now I know it’s not a big nerf, but its something that is going to affect game play. Now I really love how they broke down the trap cool downs by family instead of lumping them all together again. This is going to be a huge bonus for PvP. I can just see it now throwing done a frost trap, followed by a snake trap, finished with an immolation all the while Sushi is nomming on them hehe.

All pets now receive 40% of their master’s resilience and 100% of their master’s spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.

Now for the biggest one of them all, that’s right I saved the best for last kids. Pet scaling is going to be implemented, kinda. I say kinda because its a start. I have a feeling it’s gonna reinforce the old stereotype that all loot is hunter loot, so watch out casters and melee cause all of your gear is belonging to us. The resilience isn’t that big of a deal for me, since I don’t PvP that much, and I haven’t really done any arenas on hunter. Spell Penetration that’s gonna be a tricky one for me, because of Sushi. Spell pen  doesn’t do jack for me as a hunter, but it does help my pets DPS. So clothies watch out I’m looking for you spell pen gear now too… Hit cap, glorious hit cap, how I’m more in love with having it maxed out. From what this says, as long as I’ve hit my hit cap so has my pet? Hmmm I’m not sure what the hit cap is for melee, and not sure if it gives the 99% chance to hit like ranged. However, IF it does… twitch….twitch…twitch… hmmm higher DPS and BM will be no longer be seen as a joke by people. I’ll be honest with the expertise portion. I really don’t know enough expertise and how much I would need to hit the cap. If it’s not too bad, I could see myself looking for gear that would include it. I know there are a good amount of rings, trinkets, and neck pieces that have agility or attack or crit, that also expertise on them. If my pet can get that extra bit of expertise that means the mob is less likely to dodge or parry, while very rarely missing at all, Then yes I am going to look into getting some items with some expertise. Now I know it’s not going to be as important for us as for the melee, so I do not advocate talking items with expertise over the melee as you’ll just end up hurting the raid in doing so.

All in all IF these changes do go through as they are then it will be a very good patch for hunters everywhere. So I’ll see you kids on the PTR and don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

Thursday In Ulduar As a Marksman

Well another Thursday has come and gone, and it also brings an end to my MM spec test. We went straight to Kolo to start the night off. You know its gonna be a fun night when you wipe before the first pull. All I can say is that load time lag and a a sticky mouse make for a fast and fun wipe. After that the trash all went down smoothly. Kolo gave us a little bit of trouble, but ended up going down smoothly also. Sigh, yet again the gun didn’t drop for me. Onward to the Cat Lady and hopes that she would drop a bow for me. We got the new pull down pat after 2 tries, and then the fun really began.

Hmmmm… ummm yeah, the Feral Defender kinda looks just like my cat… not good, not good at all. See I was still testing BM vs. MM and I only have 2 other pets that I could use. The wasp, who isn’t 80 yet, and Mock my tanky turtle. Well, I guess that brings an end to my testing, time to switch back to BM and switch pets. Back to BM,  and time to let Sushi out to play. So I switched spec and pets to make it easier to tell my pet apart from the Defender, yet STILL it’s not enough. Someone make a comment over vent about Sushi and wants me to put my "VANITY" pet away… VANITY PET? VANITY PET?!?!?!? WTF SUSHI IS NOT A FREAKING VANITY PET!! Luckily before I could say anything, Thalen spoke up and corrected him that I was a BEAST MASTER spec, and no the spirit beast wasn’t my vanity pet, it was a major source of my  DPS. Well she didn’t go down last night, so we ended up shooting over to Razor to try to finish the night out on a positive note…that didn’t go so well either sigh.

Now you’re probably wondering how Thursday went in comparison to last Thursday. Well here we go.

vs.

All in all I saw an increase in my personal DPS and a decrease in my pets DPS. Wow like that was a shocker heh. However, in the long run the over all difference minimal at best that I noticed. The trade off of not having as much fun as I normally would have for a slight increase definitely wasn’t worth. MM spec requires a certain type of person who is much more diligent and has a longer attention span than I do. Does that make me a bad hunter? Not at all. I’m still in the top 5 for DPS each week and I have fun. I am a dependable hunter who can switch on the fly to whatever is needed of me. So Ego I’m sorry but don’t ever ask me to switch again OK? So until next time don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo

And Another Blog Roll Update

Oh, I forgot to add tis in my last post. I found another great hunter site. Slow Wolf Seems to be a fun and informative site so far. Take care all.

Tuesday 6/16 In Ulduar As A Marksmen Spec

First off yes I know I’m late with the Tuesday post again, what can I say. I took Wife to an auction on Tuesday and Wednesday and just now had a chance to sit down and right this up. Well another Tuesday has past and well it didn’t go quiet as well as planned. FL was cake (still haven’t been able to finish 3 car garage though).  Then it was off to XT. We had a little bit of trouble with a bad pull the first time. The second time went smoothly and XT went down. Lucky me, I ended up with a new not so ugly stick.

From there we went on to Kologarn. Now that didn’t go so well at all. We were short on healing, and we really felt it during that fight, and stopped after 2 tries. After that we decided to hit up Razor instead. Sigh once again the fact that we were low on healers caused us problems. Yes, Razor won that night, despite our best efforts. The raid leaders then decided to call it at night early as we had several people who had to go, including a healer. So the progress push night didn’t go so smoothly at all. It seems our biggest issue is getting consistent players.

First Night As A Marksman Spec

Let me say that I really don’t like Ego. I haven’t been really impressed with MM so far. Yes my personal DPS has gone up. My total DPS so far, well not by much if at all. Here let me show you what I mean.

  vs.

The meters on the left were from June 9th. The meters on the right? June 16th. Yep, 200 less DPS and a spot down on the meters. There really isn’t that much of difference in how it feels to me. I’m still using 3 shots in rotation (arcane, aimed and steady for BM vs. arcane, aimed and chimera for MM), with steady being a 4th if I have time in between the others. The timing is a little bit different, I start out with chimera after I put up serpent sting instead of arcane as my opening shot. My RAP and crit have both gone up, but well just look. I’m not doing anything more damage, if anything I’m doing less damage. Ego isn’t very happy about this, and Heart is smiling smugly. I’ll be honest also, I am most definitely not having a good like like I was as a BM hunter. So far it seems that the MM spec is going to be dumped after tonight if I don’t see a huge improvement over last Thursday night. Well it’s getting late and the raid is going to be starting soon, so until next time don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

Down A Dark Path

…I’m sorry Sushi. Ego took control the other day and made me switch my off spec to… to… marksman… What can I say, I know I haven’t been topping the charts as a BM hunter. It’s been a very long time since I came in on top, and I kinda miss those days. I think Thursday was my best performance in a long time coming in at 3rd over all for the night. But then I look at the top of the meters and I see our MM hunter Thalen and how he has crushed everyone. Heart saw this and said…

Whatever we have Sushi and we’re fine with that. we beat out almost everyone else and did a good sized chunk of the total damage.

Then Ego sees the meters…

WTH???? ALMOST 900 DPS BEHIND THALEN??? Not good enough. You should be crushing them all. Only 3690 DPS against his 4597 DPS? You should be ashamed of that. OMG are you still using Sushi instead of Devilicious? We all know devilsaurs have a higher dps that spirit beasts… Why aren’t you using the spec de jour? You know Marksman? HANG UP YOUR BOW AND GO PLAY A DK INSTEAD LAWLZ.

I know Ego can be a brutal bastich at times, but he can also be helpful in pushing me to strive harder and and being a better player. So Ego, I yield to you this week.

That’s right I’m going to go Marksman for the raids this week. Now this is gonna be a real test as we are going straight for the crazy cat lady and are skipping all optional bosses. So I have until Tuesday to get the hang of playing a MM hunter. Also I need to decide on what pet I’m going to be using. Currently I have a lvl 80 cat and a lvl 78 wasp in the stable that I could use with my MM spec. I’m hesitant about getting rid of the wasp since you cant tame her anymore. So that leaves the cat. Now the big pet question is do I keep the cat or do I get a wolf? If I get a wolf do I go for a high lvl skinny worg type, that takes little to no time to level up, or do I go for an armored one from Ramparts and start busting hump to get him to 80 ASAP. If I stay with the cat I don’t have to worry about leveling it at all, which means I can concentrate more on learning to play MM faster which is gonna be a huge bonus. On the other hand, with the wolf I would gain a nice AP buff that will increase mine and my pets DPS. Ugh, I hate decisions.

What is my spec going to be like you’re probably wondering. Well I’m going with a 13/51/7 spec based on what I’ve seen other MM hunters using, and what we have in our current raid. The 7 points that I spent in survival were to raise my damage by 5% on all non-mechanical mobs, and to increase my crit chance with special shots by 4%. Over all both of these are a nice little boost to my base dps. The 13 points in beast mastery cover a wide area that will boost my haste, aspects and my pet. All 13 points are ones that I have in my current BM raiding build. The 51 points in Marksman are scattered throughout based upon what I’ve seen others use, what I like, and what I know Thalen has. That last part is why you won’t see true shot aura in build, I know Thalen has it already. Now I know this is kinda shaky, but well… deal with it, this is for a test to satisfy that bastich Ego… and my own curiosity.

How will this week work out, I think it’s going to go 1 of 2 ways. Either I crush the meters and end up on top both nights or I create a fail of epic proportions heh. Either way it’s going to be fun to try something new and spice up the farmed content in Ulduar. Who knows, if I end up liking it, I just might keep this as a permanent off spec and drop the pet tanking spec. If I go that route, I think I would let Mock free and get either  the wolf or cat depending on what I ended up not getting for this test. So wish me luck guys and just remember to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

Thursday In Ulduar

Thursday night has come and gone again in the blink of an eye. We were off to a late start last night, we were trying to scrape together the last 2 people to fill out our raid. Bel then asked asked me what Wife was doing and if she wanted to come along. Well, Wife ended up being our lucky number 25 for the night. Now Wife’s gear isn’t the best in the world, but she does the best with what she has. We went straight to Kologarn to start the night off. It was a bit of a rocky start as we tried a couple of new things and showed a few people how the fight went. On our fourth try we downed him nice and easy. He dropped his box and inside the box it dropped. That’s right Giant’s Bane. It’s was a nice upgrade for me, using Arrowsong, and a huge upgrade for Wife, using Nesingwary 4000. Sigh… I know Wife has been chomping at the bit to start getting better gear so she can raise her DPS so she can get more invites, and I was hoping that it would drop. What can I say, I buckled and let Wife win it. Now I want you to know I didn’t let it go for a low bid, I knew how much DKP she had, so I got Wife into a bidding war :). Now if my wonderful luck holds out like it has been, I will NEVER see that gun drop again >.<. Its going to be just like the Bandit’s Insignia and never ever drop again LOL. All I have to say is GRATZ Kiddo enjoy the gun!!

Short Night

From there we trotted on over to the Assembly of Iron. Once again it only took us one try to finish them off. Unlike last week, we had a rougher time of it, and almost had to wipe at one point. Luckily our druid’s battle rez came off of its cool down after Bel died and Euron picked the boss back up. We were able to get Bel back up and Runemaster Molgeim back on him with out much difficulty. We finished off the last 2 members of the council and the loot was split. At this point the raid council made a decision to call it a night about 30 minutes early. We didn’t have enough left to make any decent attempts against her after we finished trash to really work on the crazy cat lady. However next week will be a different story. Next week we are driving straight to her. That’s right, no Razor, no Ignis, no Assembly. Just FL, XT, Kologarn and then the crazy cat lady for the rest of the week. How did I do this week? Better than last just take a peak below. So, until next time don’t forget to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.