Blog Roll Update

Real fast I added three excellent hunter blogs. Stabilized Effort Scope, The Angry Butterfly and Aspect Of The Hare.

Finding The Balance In Life

 

Balance. Not a boom chicken, but balance in life. That’s the secret. Trying to find that magic fulcrum where everything balances with the precision of a Cirque du Soleil performer.It’s the magical nirvana that everyone seeks. Playing WoW is no different. Looking for the perfect balance between game time and real life. Sometimes to find that perfect harmony, you have to learn to give up a little bit of one for the other. Other times to find that sweet spot in your life, you have to make the big decision, and give up something completely.

 

This year we saw several great blogs do just that. BRK, Resto4Life, Slow Wolf, Big Red Rhino were just a few.

Am I giving up WoW… no. Have I been cutting back…yes. Wife hardly logs on anymore, she has moved on to other things for the time being. She still logs on every now and then, mainly for the holidays. As for me, it’s mainly for raid nights and Sundays when I get a "Dave’s Day Off" and there isn’t any running that needs done or fires that need put out. Do I miss playing as much as I used to? Well yes and no. We recently started having a movie night with the girls on Fridays, where each week someone chooses a different movie for us to watch that week. But there are some night, that I would love to just jump on and blow off some steam, instead of finishing up various tasks around the house. Am I complaining? No. I love my family and will always put them first. I guess I am closer to nirvana than I thought. Well until next time keep searching for the happy balance that you’re missing in your life, and don’t for get to reload so you don’t run out of ammo.

Changes Are Refreshing…

 

Thursday night Duranub took a break from Ulduar and did something different. We spent the night at the Trials of Crusader at the Argent Coliseum. All that I can say is, we not only had a blast, but it was one of our best nights in a long time. We tore through the beasts of Northrend… we sent the big ol eradar packing… we showed the Horde’s champions how to fight. The twins gave us a little bit of trouble though,  and that was mainly because only some of us had seen the fight before. We clipped there wings with ease on the 2nd try. By the time we got to Anubrah’kan it was time to call it a night, but decided to give him a try anyways and got him down to 73% on our first try on him. Our first night in ToC was fantabulous, and the dkp and gear was flowing like candy on Halloween. It was a great change of pace and a huge boost too the moral of DRC.

See, we have been having a problem with consistency as of late. We have a high turn over of players and lost quite a few excellent raiders, and a few bad ones, over time. Now I know players come and go, it’s part of the game. I also know that summer time is a ruff time to raid, with school out and most people going on vacation. DRC’s have persisted after this. There have been nights where we have started 30 minutes later than planned while trying to scrape together enough people to raid.

Recently we have had a turn of good luck with a massive influx of new blood. This is a very good thing. We didn’t have to scrape and scrounge up enough people to get the raid going. In fact, we actually started early on Tuesday. The only downside that I’ve seen so far is the lack of gear. We have some new raiders who are in a mix of blues and purples. Luckily I’ve noticed that ToC is much more forgiving in the gear check department than Ulduar. We have hit a wall in Ulduar. We have been having nothing but trouble in Ulduar, and we have yet to clear more more than 2 of the 4 watchers. We haven’t even seen Mimrod or Thorim yet.I’m hoping that with us farming Ony, and working our way through ToC, we will be able to get the gear that we need for everyone, so we can finally clear Ulduar, or start hitting Ice Crown when it hits the live servers. I can only hope that we keep working on ToC for a while so we can gear up faster and faster.

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

Thoughts On Patch 3.3

Patch 3.3 is coming soon and it’s already up on the PTR, and there seem to be some big changes coming down the line for hunters. Lets see what’s coming up, shall we?

Hunters
Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes.

Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.
Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.

Talents

Beast Mastery
Intimidation: If the hunter’s pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet’s next swing or attack.

Pets 

Avoidance: This talent has been replaced by Culling the Herd. Hunter pets now innately take 90% less damage from area-of-effect abilities like all other class pets. This does not apply to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Cower: Redesigned. This ability no longer affects threat, and instead reduces damage taken by the pet by 40% for 6 seconds with a 45-second cooldown. While cowering, the pet’s movement speed is 50% of normal speed. Cower now only has a single rank and is available at pet level 20.

Culling the Herd: This pet talent has replaced the Avoidance talent in the pet trees (Hunter pets now gain that benefit automatically without expenditure of talent points). Culling the Herd increases pet and hunter damage by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds each time the pet deals a critical strike with Claw, Bite, or Smack.

Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes.

Improved Cower: Redesigned. This ability now reduces the movement penalty of Cower by 50%/100%.
Venom Web Spray: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.

Web: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.

Wolverine Bite: This talent is now enabled when the pet lands a critical strike rather than from the target dodging the pet’s attacks. In addition, this talent no longer has a prerequisite

First off, I love the fact that they are reducing the cooldown on call stabled pet to 5 minutes. 30 minutes was way to long and didn’t really give us much flexibility with swapping out pets with different specs. This means I can swap back to BM right after Hodir. Happy panda time.  The change to deterrence, well I don’t PvP very much. However, it seems like we will be getting a mini pally bubble with the changes made to it. Now misdirection, the change to a 4 second timer, instead of the next 3 sources of threat, feels to me like we’re being homogenized with rogues…slightly. Misdirection feels more like Tricks of the Trade, albeit 2 seconds shorter and it doesn’t have the damage increase. Volley and explosive trap are going to go great with the new misdirection. The other change is even better. It’s about time that more than one hunter at a time can put up misdirection at a time. Just remember that distracting shot will still get you smooshed because of the taunt component.

Now the change to pet abilities. There are a few that I’m really interested in. The fact that they are doing away with the avoidance talent and giving pets a flat 90% reduction to mob caused AoE damage is long over due. This is really going to help pet survivability over all. Cower was always kind of a worthless ability. I’m sorry, but if you have to have your pet use cower, so it doesn’t draw aggro from the tank…. well maybe its time for your tank to think about going to a DPS build instead. The big question that I have, is how will this work with the turtle’s shell shield. Will they stack for a total damage reduction of 90% for 6 seconds followed by another 6 seconds of 50% damage reduction? Will one overwrite the other? I haven’t had a chance to check it out on the PTR yet.

Now since they are dropping the avoidance talent we are getting a new one called culling the herd. CtH will increase our damage by 1-3% whenever the pet crits with bite,claw, or smack. Now the big question is, is this going to stack with FI, or is one going to overwrite the other. I had a chance to play around with it a little bit earlier this week, and either CtH wasn’t proccing yet or it didn’t have a buff icon to show when it is proccing. If it stacks with FI that will rock, plain and simple. Really another 3% damage boost on top of the 3% we would get from FI? A 6% damage boost would be a huge boost to BM’s over all DPS. The next question about CtH is will it stack with other damage boosting buffs. Time will tell…

I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance this weekend to hit the PTR and run tests With Sushi, Devilicious, and Shadowfang to see how the changes are working out and if they get my stamp of approval or not. So, until next time don’t forget to reload, so you don’ run out of ammo.

After These Messages, We’ll Be Right Back…

Pant…Pant…Pant…

I know I haven’t been around much lately. Real life happens… a lot :). I’ve been super busy since the beginning of September, and really haven’t had much time to sit down and write, think, or play.

Between my one daughter going back to school, my mother in law getting surgery, setting up Wife’s craft room, and trying to be in 50,000 places at once…

Well things are starting to finally settle down some and I’m hoping to get a chance to sit and get some game time, and write a few articles. I have one in the works now, and with the changes coming in 3.3, it’s an exciting time to be a hunter. >(^.^)<

So, stay tuned for new and exciting…. ,err at least new, ramblings. So don’t forget to reload, so you don’t run out of .