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A Letter to My Meat Shield

I think that from time to time, in our excitement after an instance well run, we forget to thank people. I mean we almost always thank the healer, or we always say “Yeah, Great Job Team!” but I find that people forget to throw thanks in another direction sometimes. Personally, as a DPS, I find that I appreciate the contribution of the tank, or as I lovingly call them: “Meat Shield.” It is now that I write a small token of gratitude to all of you tanks.

 

Dear Meat Shield…err…I mean tank!

Thank you for always being the guy/gal who loves to jump in front of enemy attacks that are always aimed at my head.

Not to protect me of course, but because your ego loves the sound of things deflecting off of your armor.

Thank you for running to my aid when I pulled aggro off of you.

One question: Where does one learn such colorful language?

Thank you for grabbing mine enemies, holding them by the scruff of the neck and making them stare you in the eye as I shoot/stab them in the back repeatedly, seemingly ignored.

            Do they ever say anything to you in the way of evil bad guy banter? Do they ever say “Ow?”

Thank you for {Insert Awesome Party Wide Buff}.

            I can always use more attack power/mana/blood aura! Woot me!

Thank you for dying, getting battle rezzed, grabbing back aggro, and dying again just in time for us dps guys and gals to finish the baddie off.

            Um…here’s 10 gold for repairs?

Thank you for PewPew instead of QQ.

            I know that you QQ, but you do it in dark corners, or forums and don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.

Thank you for marking when you’re also leader of the group (or as I like to call them, King of the Group….I mean they give you a danged crown next to your avatar!)

            I just hate marking.

Thank you for being so wrapped up in trying to hold aggro and do damage that you don’t notice my many flubs and goofs.

            When I say many…I mean….thousands…during one mob….Did you notice I wasn’t even shooting for the first half? Law and Order was on.

Thank you for consoling me when the news of Hunter Nerfage came out.

            DPS gets nerfed and your stuck holding the bag for even longer than usual…

Thank you for not asking me what Defense rating is.

            It happened to me once…/facepalm.

Thank you for not being too angry at my wonderful Tenacity Pet.

            I mean…yeah, they can tank…but I don’t want to waste mana rezzing them when you can be more of the healers problem.

And finally, Thank you for making my repair bill only about 3 gold when I know that yours must be somewhere around 40.

            Like…woah dude…woah…

Signed, Davlin

Straight off the PTR

So there I was, happy for all Night Elves (thats right, I know, I say what I say about Night Elves, but I was honest-to-goodness happy for them this time)  because of the changes made to their Shadowmeld. Well, another change was made in the upcoming patch (well supposedly upcoming, they keep not telling us when…):

Shadowmeld: This ability will now properly restore threat when it is cancelled. In addition, it will correctly remove a player from combat if it is active when that player is the last person left alive that the creature hates. This ability is now also unusable while affected by Faerie Fire.

So if you use it mid-battle, when its over you recieve all aggro back. That stinks, but I guess its really only supposed to get you out long enough to maybe hit a potion or something? I don’t know, but I do like that it removes you from combat if you’re the last person standing. Yay to another feign death-like ability. If you’re a Night Elf hunter that’s gotta be super duper handy. If you’re a Night Elf squishy, that’s probably really helpful too. It gives you just enough time for your tank to pick up aggro.

Nice.

Different from what it was, but not necessarily worse…

Nice.

–Davlin

The Best?

Recently, I’ve found that there a lot of folks out there asking for the “best.” And I don’t mean they are asking for me….although they should be. What I mean is that they are going around asking what class is the best {Insert Group Role}.

Ie: A guildy recently asked me “What’s the best class for a healer?”
And of course, one of our resident shamans felt it necessary to boast his class pride. Sadly, before I could voice my lengthy and rather well-informed opinion about the subject, the curious guildy felt compelled to take his new information of “Shammy haz healz” to his Horde alt.

As to properly answer this, I feel as though I’m forced to instead address my belief in the term “the Best.”

Simply put, the Best is a myth. I think that there have been reports of it being sighted in Sholozar Basin, every six hours, and only for ten minutes…

Seriously though, the Best is relative. In all honesty, I can’t even say I’ve ever met anything I would say is the Best in terms of “all of Warcraft.” There are just too many variables and with the way the Blizzard has been revamping classes over the last year or more the classes for each group role all have the capacity to be just as good at the group role as any other class.

So here’s Davlin’s short list of the Best’s.

Healer: Anyone that can keep me alive through almost everything.
Tank: Anyone who can hold aggro through most situations and earned the title of “Dav’s Meat Shield.”
DPS: Anyone who knows how to properly ride an aggro wave without pulling aggro and causing a wipe.
Hunter: Me.
Pet: Any pet that’s special abilities and armor/health fits well with your play style.
Profession for making money: Any profession….period.
Northrend Starting Zone: Howling Fjord, don’t take my darned Cobalt Nodes and Steam Clouds in Borean Tundra!

This is, of course, all from my point of view. Over here in Hunter land, where I’m putting out DPS and trying to keep my mana up and pet alive, what matters to me is making it through a mob. As long as I’m watching the Aggro Wave, I’m the happiest little Hunter when I see that my tank is holding aggro, my healer is healing through the pain, and my other dps isn’t trying to steal aggro. If your choices for your group can carry you through every mob, then they’re the Best.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is:
What’s the Best? The Best is that small group of players that knows their class and their role in a group. The Best are also always courteous “good” players.  There is no best class for anything. You want the Best? Run with PUG’s until you find the Best. You want the Best? Run with Guildmates until you find the Best. You want the Best? Take me with you, cause it doesn’t get any better than this baby!

Same Page, New Look?

First off! Yay new blog look. Epic Dwarven Blogger’s taken a turn towards the different. Why, you might ask? That’s an easy one to answer.

Davlin is never happy with the look and thus its always under new direction. Tell me what you think. If y’all hate it, Davlin might change it. He also might just grab a pint and cuss you all out, take your chances.

Second on the agenda today is Dav’s absence from blogging for almost a week? (A week? Lemme check…nope…only 4 days…wow…seemed longer.) I’ve been kind of sick. “Kind of sick” equaling out to Dav can’t even sign onto WoW for much longer than maybe one Heroic a night! Oh the shame! But no worries my friends and fans, Davlin feels as though he’s on the mend, as this light hearted (yet could turn out ominously dark) post implies.

In other news, Yay Hunters loot! Got me some nice bracers last night that just ROCKED MY SOCKS! Seriously, my socks are still shaking. Yay Heroic Nexus. Sadly though, in a fit of Davlin doesn’t want to take it all (Need roll on bracers, greed and win on Frozen Orb) I passed on Sphere of Red Dragon’s Blood, because I thought the DPS guys I was running with could use it. Turns out they already had it or something better, and our wonderful healer Zaralin ended up with a useless trinket to sell off of a greed roll. Let that be a lesson to you, Davlin, being greedy’s ok when everyone you’re running with has run these Heroics a few more times than you.

Oh yeah! Naxxramus is coming up for my guild. For all you guildies of mine that read this, start doing your homework. First of all, you all need to start gearing up. Some of you are fresh 80’s, right out of the box, still smelling like the guy at the factory with the greasy hands and the cigarette who inspected the plastic wrap before you got shipped. You need to go out and you need to hit heroics, HARD! You also need to go out there (ie WoWwiki.com) and you need to read up on Naxx now now now!!!As stated in previous rantings, I don’t use Vent, even though our Guild does have a channel (thanks Zaralin), and I’m sure some other folks out there might not either, so save us some typing time and learn the fights. Yes, I will take the time to do a short refresher course before every attack, but that’s no excuse, I love you all, go read.

And finally, I’ve decided that I want to beg and plead, but since I’m lazy, I’m going to rant about what I want WoW to do in an upcoming patch and hope that by ranting about it, it’ll leap from my mind to some Blizzard Employee’s and become reality. What am I begging and pleading for?

I want a Cavern’s of Time: Gnomeregan.

You heard me right. Take the largest, most fun instance ever, and revive it.

How?

Easiest way: Raise the level of the bosses and trash. Done. Davlin’s Happy. Jaffa Rejoices. Frejya does a little Spirit Dance. Bubba Pounds Chest in Elation.

Better way: We’ve already seen thousands of quests where you fight with or against a copy of yourself. In Old Kingdom there’s even a point against that final boss where you fight phased evil versions of your party. So here’s my plan. The same Gnomeregan map, all the baddies are the same, but the levels are bumped up so that they’re a challenge. In the little safe zone in Gnomer, instead, you find that the gnomes all holed up there were replaced by those evil blackish time dragons and they’re about to kill some hostages. Who? You and your teammates. That’s who. From the past. I’m currently unsure of if their levels should be different, but we’ll work that out in the beta testing. So the first half of the instance is a timed race to get to the hostages, and the fact that they are you is a surprise the time lord guys never told you. You get there and you have to fight a boss to free them. That’s your first boss. Then you’ve got 5 new members. Its a ten man raid! Woot! Now you and your counterparts have to make it through the rest of the instance, where every other boss is also some time dragon. The kicker? If your counterpart dies, you die. So yeah, you get extra heals with your healer’s double, and extra dps with your dps double, but if the double dies, you’re out of luck (Maybe for this reason the counterparts should be the same level as you in normal, but in heroic they are level 70’s). The final boss robot guy with the bombs can be different, sure, why not. And we’ll have it where he randomly takes a counterpart and offers them up for some sort of sacrifice thing like that chick in Utgarde Pinnacle. Oh yeah, that would rock.

Mostly I just want Gnomer to come back. I’d just be happy if they allowed us the option to make the current Gnomer heroic. No code rewrites, no huge patches. Just lemme go in there and have a challenge still. Jaffa hungers for lepers.

Ok, time to swallow my engineering pride (I’m too lazy to level the last 9 points) and send Nexultor the mats for the Nesingwary 4000. I’ve got me some Heroics to run.

Peace out!

–Davlin

Good Player!

Ok, I promised a whole slew of people that I’d throw down the hat and tell you my thoughts on what makes a good player. Here’s the numbered list:

1. Courtesy: I don’t care if you’re the best player on the server, can solo Naxx, and have the ability to sneeze murlocs, you ain’t running with me unless you know how to say please and thank you.
2. Chatter: A good player is willing to discuss, everything, from loot to how to run against a specific boss. That’s how we all learn and talking’s not just for your benefit, its for everyone’s.
3. Asking: Really as an extension of number 2, always ask questions, no matter how much they might make you sound like a noob. Yes, someone’s going to call you a noob, that someone isn’t a good player, or is just joking with you because they are funny like that (yeah…really funny…I’m laughing on the inside), but if you don’t ask, you don’t learn.
4. Know your Class: I preach it to everyone I run across. Know your class. Go to WoWwiki.com, read strat guides. I don’t care what you do, as long as its what you’re supposed to do. This one is the least important to me. I don’t care how good of a player you are if you don’t have the first three of these, but yeah, as a last decider, I look at this.
5. Read my blog: You don’t read Epic Dwarven Blogger? What…is…wrong…with…you….?!?!?!?1

That’s my top five “Good Player” Requirements. In all fairness, I only pay attention the first three, the fourth helps, and the fifth is expected of all good Azerothians.

Holy Mining Node Batman!

Holy Moly, I almost forgot to tell all you miners!!!

Currently, in the PTR, mining a node is different! Instead of  *swing swing swing* get some ore and some other stuff, rinse, repeat, its actually working where you do the whole process once, get all the ore and extras, and you’re done.

So…example.

I’m flying very slowly around S. Basin (darn you epic flying and your inability to be as important as other things when I actually have the money) and I see a saronite node. I land.

I hit my mining button.

I swing 3 times.

I recieve loot, all the ore that node has, a ton of crystallized stuff.

I won’t have to swing at it again.

No more ganking! No more worrying about someone taking your node from you. Its magical. Mining just became so much easier. THANK YOU ELUNE!!!

You get the exact same amount of ore after mining the same node only once, that you would have gotten before the patch after mining it 3 times.

Thank you Patch 3.0.8, whenever you decide to come to us.

–Davlin

(and yeah, I realize I just thanked the same patch that’s bringing about the great Hunter Nerf…but heck, I’m a glass half full kind of dwarf.)

VENTing…

I applaud, understand, and respect those who use Vent to communicate to each other during raids. I’ve never used it, never felt the need to, and have done quite fine on my own without it.

Please…when someone says something along the lines of “I don’t use Vent.” please don’t freak out, cuss at them and boot them from the poor hunter’s first Naxx raid.

That’s disrespectful and silly.

In other news. I was frustrated for reasons I have already mentioned, took out all my saved up epic flyer money and leveled my engineering to get my Truesight Ice Blinders. Yay to resolutions being crossed off. I outfitted them with suggested gems off of maxdps.com. I encourage everyone to visit that site.

Special Hat-Tip to Henrik from myself and Celess. Thanks for that pants.

Oh, and we’re listed now!!

@ TwistedNether.net

–Davlin

Happy New Year!

Resolutions? You betchya!! First I’ll give you mine, then I’ll laugh at you with crazy zeal, and then I’ll give you some suggestions.

Here are Davlin’s Goals for the New Year.

1. Get Engineering to 450
2. Get Chopper Schematic
3. *drool* Nesingwary 4000
4. Epic Flying would be nice
5. Truesight Ice Blinders are something I need to build for myself
6. Level Jaffa and Bubba to 80.
7. Get a moth.
8. Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade
9. Break 100 blog views a day!
10. Convince Blizzard that the title “Hunter of Nesingwary” will make everyone love Achievements.(ie: Davlin Of Nesingwary)

I suggest everyone start throwing their resolutions around the area of reputation. I mean, come on…dude…Drakes…guns….rings of Kirin Tor (Just another Hearthstone). That’s my suggestion. Get exalted with everyone.

Get Exalted with Davlin…

I don’t know if there’s a rep reward for that…

We’ll see.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Davlin’s 80! DINGERIFFIC!!!

And he ran his first Heroic. Drak’Tharon or however the heck its spelled.

So here’s the story.

Zaralin: I want the Triage Achievement, so if when Nexultor uses his Jumper Cables on you Dav, I’ll try to bandage you.

<<Rez Dav>>

Zaralin: Shoot, you’ve got more than 5 Percent health.

Davlin: No worries! I’ve got Goblin Global Thermal Sapper Charge!

Davlin puts thumb on trigger while currently having just barely above 5% health. “BAM!” He says for effect.

Nexultor: No Dav!! Don’t do it!

Davling pushes the thumb plunger.

Davlin goes up in a ball of flame and flying body parts.

Nexultor: /Facepalm

Zaralin: <<Rez Davlin>>

Davlin: Didn’t work? Wow…didn’t see that coming. No worry guys, I’ve got another one.

Group: /Facepalm…

 

–Happy New Year! –Davlin

Just remember…

On the cusp of the new year and all that jazz there are some things I’d like everyone to remember.

–Pugs, even the worst ones, aren’t bad. You learn playing styles and strategies, or (worst case scenario) you learn who ISN’T fun to play with.

–If you offer “free with mats” they’ll offer “free with mats.”

–No matter how much of a NOOB, or jerk, or whatnot someone is being, be the better person and be nice, never miss an opportunity to teach them a better way or lead by example. Be a Hero!

–10 days away from WoW leads to insane withdrawals that also lead to crappy blog posts about things to remember on the cusp of the new year.

–Set fun goals for yourself that fall outside of the realm of achievements. Want a special reputation or drop only cloak? Work for it. Want your profession up by a certain time? Do it! Want a Spirit Beast? Do it! And don’t let anyone take away the fun of working for your goals.

–Help out a guildy. Whatever guild you’re in, Heroes of the Alliance, or all the other…not quite as cool as HotA guilds, you’ve got members that, even though they might not ask for help, may want it. Offer. Usually it’ll end up being you just spreading a word or two of wisdom.

–Finally, REMEMBER TO JUST HAVE FUN. Who cares if you are hardcore or casual. I don’t. And you shouldn’t either. You play like you want to play. Its a video game. When I play Halo 2, or Age of Empires, or that Hulk Wii Game that I really suck at but love throwing people so I keep doing it, I laugh, I have fun, and down a brew and if I lose, I just keep playing, because its fun. It should be, and WoW is no different, except that there are 11 million other folks out there drinking brew with you too. *Clinky Clinky* Cheers.

A special thank you goes out to Furyen this week for helping a down and out fellow Hero out. When I was otherwise indisposed he helped me get some achievements I’d have otherwise missed. Thanks buddy.

–Davlin

PS: I’ll return to doing Macro’s of the Post when I get back to my home state and can properly put some much needed time into the blog. Woot!!!

PPS: Jaffa says hi and Happy Holidays. You should have seen him, Freyja, and Bubba wrestling over the reindeer antlers I wanted on of them to wear. Bubba one, only because of the opposable thumbs. It was really not fair.

ArP continued?

So, BRK went and posted a nice addition to my knowledge base of Armor Penetration that I thought would be a nice continuation of my previous ArP post.

Simply put, ArP removes a percentage of CURRENT armor. So if there are armor reducing abilities already on the target, then your shot or hit with an ArP bonus will have a smaller ArP bonus.

ie: If you are running against a mob with 2000 armor all by yourself and shooting/hitting at him with 10% ArP, then you’ll reduce his armor for that shot/hit by 200. If a warrior drops a Sunder Armor on him though that reduces his armor to 1000, you’re 10% will take away from current, not base, armor, so you’ll only do shots/hits that reduce his armor by 100.

Really it only effects your personal DPS in groups, and not by much, but its nice to see how your numbers are effected by running in groups. Besides, even if the Sunder armor and other abilities stack up, you’ll still be ignoring a percentage of his armor. And if it gets to the point where you’re reducing no armor…well then your opponent is armorless and you should rejoice and kick his tushy.

–Davlin

Merry Christmas

Too all you Heroes, and to all who walk the way of Azeroth. Merry Christmas, I hope you all have a good one!!

Hail Heroes!!
–Davlin!

Do you want ArP?

So, you’re running around Northrend killing all sorts of baddies! You’re rockin’ the proverbial Kasbah with all sorts of DPS and the bloodshed is rampant. You walk on over to the quest giver, “Yo! Punk! Where’s my loot?” and you see that the gear he’s offering you has 100 armor penetration?

What the heck is Armor Penetration (ArP)?

Davlin’s Definition of Armor Penetration: Armor penetration is a number that determines your armor penetration rating. This rating determines what percentage of armor will be ignored during your physical attacks.

I italicized the word percentage for a reason. Before patch 3.0 it wasn’t a percentage. Instead if you had 1000 ArP rating, then you’re physical attacks would ignore 1000 of your opponent’s armor. Since 3.0 the number you see in your ArP is actually a number that is used to determine your ArP rating, or percentage. The reasoning behind this shift was to aid those classes who originally would go up against Warriors or Paladins. Before patch 3.0 if a rogue ran up to a Warrior with 1000 ArP, who cared? A warrior running around with 15k armor isn’t going to care if you’re hits are ignoring 1k. At the same time though, a warrior running around with the same ArP could 2 hit a warlock or other type of squishy.

And thus the shift to the percentage.

That aside, we’ll discuss the other italicized word. “Physical.”

ArP only aids physical attacks. So Warlocks, Priests, Mages, Shammies other than enhancement, and….other guys who I’m probably forgetting, wouldn’t have too much reason to use ArP. They would instead want spell penetration, or higher hit rating. On the other hand, Warriors, Rogues, Hunters, DK’s, Pallies, and Enhancement Shammies love ArP. For these classes, each one of your physical attacks will see a percentage based increase in your physical DPS. That’s awesome. If you’re running around with a 14% ArP then you’ll see about a 14% jump in the power of your attacks. That’s not something to shake a stick at.

So for those of you who are flying off the handle, screaming at the monitor “Dav! Where’s all of the math? How am I supposed to calculate my ArP rating?” Well, tough, I try to stay away from math, math has cooties, instead, I’m telling you what it is, and if its important for your class. 

Shy of Feral Druids in bear form, Warriors and DK’s get the best benefit to ArP. After that comes the hunters, enhancement shammies, and then rogues. There’s a pile of math out there on it. But basically, I’m still arguing for balance. I’m not going to go out there and buy up a ton of ArP gems when I’ve got some nice crit and hit gems already. Find your balance. Play around with your stats, and decide what’s good for you.

ArP increases physical DPS (based on a percentage of the enemy’s armor). Is it better than haste? Is it better than hit? Is it better than attack power? Is it better than critical strike? No No No. Its not better than any of them. Its the same, you need to find a way to balance yourself between each of those. Fill your stats even across the board, play around with it for a bit and find out what works for you.

Feel free to argue, add, or applaud me. I love a good discussion

–Davlin

3.0.8 Patch Summary

Hey all, we’ve got a patch coming soon and I thought I’d give you a quick and dirty heads up of what to look for. This is my short and ugly summary, so if you want details go here.

Death Knights are getting buffed up. Doubled healing abilities, a Raise Ally rez spell, and more threat generation ability. Their Anti-Magic shell is also getting a lowered cooldown (maybe the focus is shifting even more towards caster tanks than it had been previously?) Frost Presence is going to be giving a ton of extra magic damage protection and armor (see? Told ya.) for those of you who jump into frost and tank a bunch.

Druids are mostly getting a feral upgrade. Instead of weaponry having to be specifically geared towards feral druids, now all weapons will have the potential of giving feral power. When a druid looks at the weapon they will see a tooltip on it that other classes won’t that shows the amount of Feral power that a weapon has. Survival of the Fittest also gives a big armor boost now too. Yay Druid Tanks.

Hunters I’ve gone over about 3 times already, so I won’t go indepth. But! I would like to point out something I had previously not known: Arcane shot now costs about the same amount of mana as Steady shot! Woohoo for spamming more powerhouse hits and still having mana to do…anything, lol.

Mages get a stackable arcane blast now. Stack it and any arcane damage shot to follow it does a percentage of damage based on how many times you managed to stack it. Woot! Sounds like fun. Also, improved blizzard has better stun effects now and slow fall is a party wide cast now.

Paladins: Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Hand of Protection, and Avenging Wrath all share a cooldown now. But not to fret, you get a new ranged taunt ability. Rock on you pally tanks.

Priests now have a party wide levitate and a buffed up mana burn, not much else here.

Rogues get some more armor and more dps from Fan of Blades.

Shaman totems no longer generate threat, and get some buffs based on the totem.

Warlocks, oh how I love ye, and I’m not even one. You guys and gals get this kickbutt new Ritual of Summoning. Basically, instead of summoning one person per soul stone thingy, you use one soul stone to open a portal that stays open for 5 minutes. You’re own personal summoning stone that others in your part can use. Open a portal, take a nap. Me likey. Oh and your drain mana gets a buff.

Warriors you get more rage and wave goodbye to that 5% penalty to Titan’s Grip. Lucky Punks.

Other than that there are just a few tweaks to the professions, a few quests, and no more racial restrictions on mounts (yeah…night elves on mechnostriders won’t look silly at all….<<sarcasm>>).  We’ll see 60 more graveyards in orginal Azeroth. Ghost speed and wisp speed will get increases. Finally, my personal favorite, tapping of a target (basically when the game decides that its yours and you’ll get benefit from it) will be 100% based on whatever the first spell or attack is cast on it. So if I shoot it, and some dude runs up and starts beating on it, I don’t lose out on my kill that some jerk is trying to gank and I’ll still get the xp and loot. That’s Nice.

 

In other news, Davlin will be out of game from the 20th to the 30th for the holiday. But blogness will continue.

Here’s some macro’s for you.

General Macro of the Post: Targeting macro.

/tar <target’s name>

I used this for getting the Spirit Beast, works great. But you don’t need the full name it turns out. Loque’nathak is the spirit beast’s name, and the macro I used was /tar Loque. It worked fine….lol very fine.

Class Specific Macro of the Post: Paladins: The infamous bubble hearth…

#showtooltip Hearthstone
/cast [button:1] Divine Shield
/use [button:2] Hearthstone

Between casting Divine Shield and using your hearth you’ll have to wait the 1.5 seconds for the global cooldown.

Me Haz Spirit Beast!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I, Davlin of IronForge have done the proverbial “it.” I’ve gone and stalked, trapped, and tamed the elusive spirit beast, Loque’nahak. I spent yesterday afternoon and this evening circling Sholazar, mining and sucking up Steam Clouds, as well as spamming the macro for targeting him if he arrives (/tar loque) and finally, at 9:45, at coords 20,71, I got her.

I’ve named her after Frejya, a Norse Goddess, simply because the name was uber pretty enough to match the awesome gorgeousness of said wonderful pet. And no worries folks, Jaffa isn’t jealous. He and her are getting along great. Just as well as Jaffa and Bubba get along. I’m honestly proud of him. He’s usually so tempermental when I bring home new pets.

Wanna see her?

OK!

The Aggro Table and You.

So, I’m sitting in the lighthouse, yelling again, for the fouth time, for Captain Grayson to leave Jaffa alone, when it occurs to me that a blog on aggro is long overdue. And if those two ever stop fighting I’ll write it…

/waits…

/glares…

/getsupandbeatsthembothsenseless

Ok, now that that’s taken care of…where was I?

Oh right.

What is aggro?

Davlin’s Aggro Definition: Aggro is a ranking system that measures threat generated from a target to determine who to kill first.

An enemy, for demonstration purposes we’ll refer to him as Nexultor, a level 80 Death Knight, has a ranking system for deciding who he’ll destroy. This ranking system is based off of threat. Threat is generated through damage done, healing done, how close you are to “Nexultor,” and by abilities that specifically generate threat.

Let’s throw out an example. Mustafah (fury warrior), Dezaras (prot warrior), Zaralin (resto druid), and myself (buttkickin’ BM hunter of DOOM!!) as well as Jaffa (Blood Thirsty Wind Serpent) all run at Nexultor.

Dezaras is our tank, so he gets there first and immediately uses damage and special abilities to build up a high threat (A tank’s job is to hold threat, through everything, so that no one else gets hurt. Thank you Mr. Meat Shield). Next Mustafah runs in and starts hitting the baddy. Because Stafah is doing high damage and is really close to Nexultor, he’s building up a nice size of threat too.  Jaffa rushes in next, throwing out lightning breath and doing damage as well. Being a good hunter, I’ve turned off his Growl (threat generation ability of pets) ability as to make it ahrder for Jaffa to steal threat.

In the distance is Zaralin, throwing out heals, building up threat with her heals, but not very much because of her range and me, shooting like mad from next to Zaralin, building up some rather nice Damage Based Threat. At this moment, Nexultor’s threat table looks like this:

Dezaras:Highest threat

Mustafah: High Threat

Jaffa: Moderate Threat

Davlin: Moderate Threat

Zaralin: Low Threat

This means that if Dezaras dies or loses aggro for some reason, Stafah is the next choice for the baddy to attack. If Stafah loses aggro or dies, Jaffa is next, and so on. Jaffa is ahead of Davlin, only because of range. Jaffa being closer gives him more reason to be attacked than Davlin.

The aggro table (that’s what the threat chart is usually called) is fluid though. If I start putting out too much DPS (damage per second) than the tank can put out TPS (threat per second) then the table will shift to this:

Davlin: Highest threat

Zaralin: High Threat

Dezaras: Moderate Threat

Mustafah: Moderate Threat

Jaffa: Moderate Threat

Whoa! Davlin, wait a second. You said you pulled threat from Dezaras, why’s Zaralin second on the list?!?!?! That’s because threat is range based as well as damage based. I’m standing next the healer like a good hunter, prepared to yank aggro off of her if a bunch of adds see her. If I go and pull threat, then the current enemy, Nexultor, will run at me, and now, because I’m so close to Zaralin, and thus she’s close to Nexultor, she’s second on the list. If I lose aggro, through feigning death or actually dying, then Zaralin, our healer, becomes the highest threat, gets squashed like the little squishy she is, and we all wipe. This is a classic poor threat management wipe scenario.

How does someone counter this? Well, before WOTLK came out, you’d have to go out and get Omen, or some other threat meter and watchyour aggro build up and then stop shooting, swinging, or stabbing before you stole threat. Since WOTLK though, you can instead watch the colors change around your avatar (cartoon representation of yourself. If you look at the Blog’s Intro Image, you can see Davlin with Full Aggro because of the RED AROUND HIS AVATAR) up in the left corner of your screen.

If it turns yellow, than you’re starting to build up a nice size of threat. If it turns orange than you’re about to pull threat (DANGER DANGER DANGER). If it turns red, thenyou have 100% threat from some mob. The proper thing to do is to slow down or stop your attacks or do some threat diminishing ability until your color changes, allowing for the tank to build up some more aggro, then resume your attacks. This is called “riding the aggro wave.”

As you level, and find yourself running higher instances, you’ll find that there are some badguys that have no aggro table. They usually switch targets faster than politicians change opinions, and a well practiced tank will know how to deal with this. If you’d like a tutorial on threat building for tanks, please request it here and I’ll force Dezaras to write it up.

Hope that helps.

–Davlin

Ding 78!

Ok, I had this other post already written to talk about aggro tables and what you should know, then I dinged, and decided it could wait.

Dinging isn’t the cool part. The cool part is that when I dinged, I ran Halls of Lightning and the boots and ring in the following gear pic dropped for me. The other gear is all gear I got from running the level 80 instances at 75,76, and 77. Plus of course the Fang of Truth which I got with Wyrmrest rep.

Oh Yeah Baby!! I ROCK!!!

Winter’s Veil is here

Merry Christmas!!! Happy Winter’s Veil!!! It is here and with it a ton of achievements. Feel free to ask your guildies to tag along to help you out with them.  If you’d like all the quick and dirty ways to complete each achievement, then yay, Dav is here to help. Here’s a link to WoW Insider’s Winter’s Veil Achievement list. Go there and you’ll see the easy answer to every achievement!!

Duel spec and Achievement loot

Dual Specs are coming. Achievement loot is coming. Probably around the time of patch 3.1.0. We’re currently looking at getting hit in the face by patch 3.0.8. So be patient.

Meanwhile, you can read up on this stuff here.

Don’t Cry

Consoling Jaffa can be a pretty difficult thing to do. I mean, he’s kind of touchy, and if he cries, he has no control over his lightning breath. So now, in my rubber soled boots, and rubber coated gloves I’m holding him and trying to explain:

Its not a nerf.

Yes, Jaffa, they are making your dps about 20% less. But they are giving you a growl buff of 20%. So its really no different. You’ll still hold aggro, and I’ll still shoot and miraculously not hit you.

Oh, now that’s not fair. Don’t cry for me. I know they nerfed my steady shot. Yes, I know, I read the BRK blog post, too. You should have finished reading it though. It’s only a moderate nerf, instead of “tons and tons” of DPS, I’m only going to get to put out “tons” of sustainable dps.

But Jaffa, buddy, smile! I mean, look what they’ve done to my kill shot. It now has a 15 second cooldown instead of 35. Comparatively, how long do you think we have a boss in an 80 instance waiting at 20% or less to die? They just gave us the ability to spam kill shot. That’s awesome buddy.

That’s the spirit pal, don’t you worry your little scaly head.

What’s that?

Volley?

Yeah, 30% less damage. I know. But look at it this way, now we can worry more about shot rotation than spamming that mana sucking volley shot. No, no no. Bubba won’t care. With his threat generation buffed up by 20% he won’t care how long it takes to volley mobs down, because he knows I won’t be able to steal them.

Of course I’m ok with this. Its not a nerf, its a paradigm shift.

What’s a paradigm shift? Haha, Jaffa, you silly old snake, what I mean by paradigm shift is that before this nerf and after patch 3.0.2, anyone could have done what we do. Gone out, held the tops of the charts and rocked the Kasbah,so to say. But now that this has come about, all of the posers out there are being foreced to step up, or step out. Its time to return to the days where experienced hunters were rewarded for their efforts by being invited along for being good at what they do, instead of all the huntards playing button masher and taking our raid slots.

Is that a smile I see little pal?

Now lets go out and use the jumper cables on an orc so we can kill him again. That’s the spirit.

–Dav

Hit Rating, what the heck is that?

There are thirty billion sites out there ( I counted) that will give you the complete mathematical formula for figuring out what a great hit rating is for your level. That’s great, wonderful, go read those if you want the specifics. Instead, I’m going to give you the short and dirt Hit Rating Tutorial, brought to you by Dockery’s Need.

Davlin’s Hit Rating Definition: Hit Rating is a number that determines how often you’re going to miss against an opponent.

Flat out: Low HR=Misses a lot. High HR= Never misses.

Get it? Good.

What’s the purpose of all that math? That’s slightly more complicated, but I’ll try to make it simple.

If you were run up to a bad guy three levels higher than you, any bad guy at all, then you have a 9% chance to miss. Which doesn’t seem like a lot unless you have 0 hit rating (right Dockery?). In order to actually score some good hits on him, you’d have to lower that percentage. That’s what hit rating does. Hit rating lowers the percentage of chance that you have to miss against a target.

So let’s pretend that we have a friend, we’ll call him Dockery. Poor Dockery has a 0 hit rating and is currently level 63. He runs into Nagrand to visit his old buddy Nesingwary and….oh no…is that…yes…it is….A CLEFTHOOF!!!

Well, Mr. Clefty is a level 66. So Dockery has to beat the 9% chance that he’ll have to miss hitting Mr. Clefty if he is to survive. Because Dockery has no hit rating, he finds himself straining and most likely losing. Dockery gets his butt kicked, and slinks away.

BUT LEARNS!!!

Dockery went out and bought some hit gems, got some enchants, and is back for round two! “Hello, Mr. Clefty!”

Dockery managed to bring his hit rating up to about 100. This has lowered his chance to miss to almost 0% against a level 66 enemy, being 3 levels higher than him. Our level 63 Dockery runs forward and makes short work of his nemesis. Yay Dockery! Pat yourself on the back!

Where’d I get that 100 hit rating for Dockery was the right amount to lower the 9% miss chance? I estimated, because math is for losers.

But it was an educated estimate based on some very basic rules. I know that at level 70, if you want to remove the 9% miss chance from a level 73 boss, you have to have a hit rating of about 145. At level 80, if you want to remove that 9% chance against a boss level 83 , than you’ll need a hit rating of about 290.

Without doing any math, I can guess that Dockery, at level 63, would do well to have somewhere between 90 and 110 hit rating to hit a level 66 100% of the time.

On the other end of the hit spectrum is everyone’s favorite fury specced warrior, Mustafah. He’s a level 80 and he recently came up to me and asked me if a 310 hit rating was good. I told him that it was too good.

As I said earlier, at level 80 you need a hit rating of 290 in order to remove the 9% miss chance on a level 83 boss. So if Mustafah bought a bunch of gems and got his HR up past that, than he’s really just wasting a gem slot. After you reach 290, any extra hit doesn’t matter because you’ve beaten the 9% miss chance. Stafah’s miss chance is now 0% and it doesn’t get any better than that. So whatever gem Stafah has that is putting him over the hit cap, he should replace with an attack power gem, or a critical strike gem.

Also, every character should also put into consideration how often they run into enemies 3 levels higher than them. Mustafah likes to run a lot of raids and high level dungeons. He needs his hit cap at 290. But if you don’t see many baddies 3 levels higher than you than you can take some of that hit and replace it with critical strike, or spell power, or one of those things that matters to you.

I’m a hunter who does a lot of soloing and some dungeons. I don’t expect to run into a ton of level 83’s. So it’d be alright if I decided that a hit rating of 245 sounded ok, and then took the extra gem slots I would have used for hit and put them towards attack power.

So its a matter of balance, as most things in WoW are. Once you’ve decided your playing style, you need to determine what hit rating would be good for you. Dockery, I suggest you at least get yourself around 90 right now and worry more about it as you level, but remember to keep balanced.

–Davlin

Honorary Heroes of the Alliance

Time passes.

Heroes come and go.

We always give them the hat tip, a pat on the shoulder and the right to say “We’ll always be a Hero.”

Once a Hero, always a Hero.

But, once in a while, a Hero member runs across a player who goes above and beyond the call. A player who steps up and does something amazing in a time of need. A player who….

isn’t…

a….

Hero…

Yet.

The following is a list of the true, the proud, and the Hero at heart.

LUNASTAR: In a time of dire healer need, several random “others” stepped foward and stood in. Luna was one of them. Since then she has offered free enchants, Kara heals, BM heals, and invited several guildies on Zul’Aman runs. She constantly leaves us an open invitation to invite her to anything, almost never saying no. I salute you LUNASTAR.

Ayr: Having come to us in much the same way as Luna, Ayr loves running with HotA. He’s almost always accepted invites on Kara runs, or in helping us smash any boss we need help with and only turns us down begrudginly and with a promise of future aid. /salute

Anndee: Clashing in the throws of angst against Murmur, we just couldn’t put out enough DPS on our first run. What was Anndee’s response? Hey Mustafah, why don’t I make you this really expensive gun (going for 3000g on the AH at the time).  Mustafah= /jawdrop. Party=/jealous. She has yet to turn down a request for aid. /salute

Henrik: A recent friend of mine, has offered to aid HotA in organizing raids with his guild Forgotten Heroes. He’s gone above and beyond the call in helping myself on several occasions, when one hunter just couldn’t cut it. He’s helped Zaralin finish quests, and he’s offered up the use of his leatherworking profession on many occassions. Thank you Ambassador and friend. /salute

Nonesuch: A hero in his own right, Nonesuch has helped us run raids and instances, aiding us with his unique healing prowess. /salute

Zarthustra: There are many Heroes today that can say “If it wasn’t for Zarth, I’d have died.” Simply put, he’s always on call, rushing to the aid of a Hero in need. He’s been quoted as saying that he loves running with us and that he’ll never turn us down. /salute

 

That’s everyone that I’ve thought of. There might be more that are just as deserving. I encourage you to post in the comments who and what they have done for we heroes.

I salute and thank you all for being Heroes without actually being members of Heroes. Thank you. We do appreciate you, even if we don’t tell you enough.

–Dav

–No Macro of the Post today. I’m lazy.

DING! 77

Yeah, I know, its not important, there are millions of 80’s,but this isn’t a blog of what you think is important. It’s a blog of what makes me happy. So here ya go.

/happydance

Helicopter, Oh how I’ve missed ye.

In other news, here are my new stats. I put my new point into my Serpent Swiftness to increase my haste. Me likey fast shooting. Jaffa’s right on my heals too, when he dings I’ll post his stats.

 

Woot me.

RAID IDEAS!?!?!?!?? THIS WEEKEND Someone gimme an idea. I know that if we’re shy folks that Henrik from Forgotten Heroes has offered his Guild’s help. 

I suggest one of the new ten man raids. I suggest Eye of Eternity. Saturday at 8:30 Server time. Whisper myself or Nexultor for any ideas and whatnot as well as to sign up. Or we’re just grabbing whatever punks…err…PUG’s we run across.

Grats everyone who got the Jenkin’s Achievement.

<<</SIGH>>> Hey all, Dietyman has gone and gotten himself stuck in a rut. He’s got the Avast Admiral! achievement. This means that all goblin neutral towns think of him as murderous scum, and at the same time, he needs goblin town access. While I’m fond of watching people wallow in the graves they’ve dug for themselves, I can’t stand by and watch one of our own suffer. So please send him all Mageweave cloth that you can. Deadwood Warriors in southern Felwood. Go there, kill them. <<<</grumble>>>>

General Macro of the Post:

/script SetRaidTarget("target", n)

where n is:

1. Yellow 4-point Star
2. Orange Circle
3. Purple Diamond
4. Green Triangle
5. White Crescent Moon
6. Blue Square
7. Red “X” Cross
8. White Skull

and 0 is no icon. It’s more helpful when used in the same macro call as preparing to sheep (when you as mage are leader) and other CC preps. Alone, this command line isn’t that useful unless with a key binding, since you can just rightclick the unit frame to change the icon.

Class Specific Macro of the Post: DEATH KNIGGIT:

Blood Bath

#showtooltip
/cast Vampiric Blood
/cast Rune Tap

This is for Blood Spec. Death Knights. If you have 2 blood/death runes up, one click will allow a nice little heal. Each spell is on a 1 min cooldown. Takes your normal Rune Tap healing aspect and adds 50% to it. Great with Improved Rune Tap. This macro it mostly an “OH SHI-” button, but good none the less.

NEXT POST!!! DAVLIN Hands our most helpful allies the honor of  Honorary Hero of the Alliance!!!!

Stay TUNED!!!

–Davlin

Looting for two?

First of guildies, I’d like to direct you all towards Furyen’s new blog, Blogger (80 Elite). Its his usual reports page, with more opinion than ever, and still quite as funny. I’m actually very jealous. As the “main” blogger for our guild, “Davlin’s Blog” lacks the creativity that Furyen has put forth. Dav wants a cool blog name… If you have any ideas, please throw them at me. I lack imagination.

But “Why Davlin? Why do you lack Imagination today, when every other day you are a ball of exploding Imagination?”

I’ll tell you why. Flat out, I’ve been busy. It turns out that there are a lot of things that I’d like to talk about in today’s blog.

First off, the new Bind on Account equipment. This creates an entirely new dimension to the game, and while, it might be old news on some blogs, is new to me and has me excited. First off, you have to get Stone Keeper’s Shards off of boss fights when you have the Wintergrasp buff. Kind of like Badges of Justice. These become your currency to by BOA equipment. BOA equipment can be mailed to anyone of Your characters on your account. They call it “Heirloom Loot.” And it will scale to whatever level you send it to. Say that I get an Upgraded Dwarven Hand-Cannon and send it to a hunter alt at level 1. He’s not going to get a gun that has 107.9 DPS. That would be insane. Instead, he’s going to get a gun with a scaled down dps, it will still be kickbutt, I mean 107 at 80 isn’t anything to sneeze at. But it’ll be kickbutt for a level 1.

This has several major repercussions. First off, Yay Twinkage. You’ll be able to play your main to your heart’s content and twink out an alt. I like that personally. While I like playing Lerytius, I’d prefer Davlin. I’m a hunter first. But now I can level him as a Holy Priest without worrying too much about quest rewards or instance grabs. Second of all, Badges of Justice? Remember those? Nope, no one does, because when Northrend opened up, they became pointless. Now with the advent of Stone Keeper’s Shards, no matter how much awesome gear our main has, we’ll always have a reason to go back and kill bosses for them. And if your alt ever finds that the gear isn’t good enough, mail it to another alt. You’ll always want Stone Keeper’s Shards. This solves the whole, “I just don’t care anymore” that followed Badges of Justice. Woot BOA!

More news and analysis on the Nerf, care of BRK (Thanks). Volley made us an AOE class, and we ain’t.We’re sustained DPS. so its getting nerfed. Thanks blizz for returning us to our roots. This isn’t bad, its good. Kill shot gets buffed! Cooldown is cut in half, spam that button like heck on bosses. Woot. Aspect of the Wild will be raid wide now. Yay giving everyone a nature protection Buff.

The real nerf to hunters comes to our pets and Steady Shot. They are going to lower the damage output of Steady Shot,a nd the pets get nerfed attack speed and DPS. This is ok: Pets at level 80 have a tendency to out dps warlocks. THAT’S NOT RIGHT. Pet’s should be nerfed.  As for steady shot. I spam that like it was bad e-mail. It brings my dps (at level 76) equal to or higher than a warrior’s at level 80. That’s insane.

Nerfs: Volley (takes away our ability to be an AOE class: good), Steady Shot (less dps makes us mortal: good), and pet dps and attack speed (dear Elune, Jaffa kills critters faster than me: Sad to see it go, but good).

Other than that we get buffs, and buffs are good.

General Macro of the Post: Click this macro and if you’re in Azeroth it summons a ground mount, click it in Outland or Northrend (I think, and it summons a Flying mount. Replace mount names with your mounts.

/cast [flyable, nomounted] Swift Green Wind Rider
/cast [noflyable, nomounted] Black War Raptor
/dismount [mounted]

Class Specific Macro of the Post:Warlocks: The grind macro.

This is intended for grinding. The assumption is that you have the following spells: Curse of Agony, Corruption, Drain Life, Health Funnel and Drain Soul. You should have some level of these spells by level 12. After that point, the macro will just use the most advanced version of each spell (except Drain Soul). The Voidwalker or Felguard are good pets when using this macro.

To use, simply press the button when each spell is finished. To drain the soul (and create a soul shard)hold down the <Alt> key while pressing the button.

Replace the (Rank X) with whatever the highest rank is that you have.

Rock on guildies.

–Dav

SAY WHAT?!?!?!?!

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no. Say it ain’t so. Hunter Nerfdom on the horizon!??!?! Come on!?!?! You didn’t even give us that very rogue Camoflage you had promise. What’s this now you’re saying that we are doing “Way too much dps,” and that Beast Master hunter’s pets are going to be nerfed to 30% dps?!?! Do you realized that Jaffa is probably going to kill me upon hearing this?

Its not “just” a hunter nerf though. Its kind of a boost in some areas. IE: Hunter’s kill shot is getting a cooldown decrease, which is awesome against bosses. Growl threat generation was increased 20%, personally, I always thought they had it backwards. If Jaffa growls at you, it should make you run, not want to attack him. But I digress.

So all you other folk, <<<DEZARAS>>>, I hope you’re all happy. Hunters are getting a damage nerf.

In all fairness, I’ve noted that at level 76 I’ve been putting out almost equal to the amount of damage that my level 80 fury spec warrior buddy is putting out, so I understand this change, and will admit that its probably necessary. On the other hand, nerfs are never something to be happy about. The reasoning behind their nerf is pretty sound as well. I mean the nerf to volley is expected, I’ve been spamming that button since 3.0.2. And Readiness (removes all hunter related cooldowns) no longer working with bestial wrath just makes sense, I mean +50% damage for around a minute or more…? Even I think that’s nuts.

AFTER INITIAL FREAKOUT, DAVLIN FORMS AN OPINION:

Mostly this nerf will return us to the good ole days where you actually had to know your class to do well, as opposed to pick up a gun, out dps a fury warrior, and still have no clue what you’re doing. It’s going to revive shot rotation, the need for a CC hunter (maybe?) over dps, and return hunters to their roll of Sustainable High DPS, instead of their newer roll of Nuclear DPS (is it sustainable? I dunno, everything dies too fast, lol). When the DK’s came out, and everyone was all excited that they were overpowered, whether they were or not, my initial response was “How dare they make a class that can out-do every other class.” Aiming that judgement gun at myself, Hunters can Out DPS every class when played correctly. As sad as I am to see the power go, the nerf, when looked at through the outrage and illogic, is probably quite necessary.

You’ll pardon me if the class Macro of the Post is hunter related….we currently need something to lift our spirits.

General Macro of the Post: Never tested this one, but it’s supposed to sell all of your gray items when you are at a vendor. Just walk up, open the vendor window, click this, and poof, no gray items.

/script for bag = 0, 4 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag) do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot) if name and string.find(name,”ff9d9d9d”) then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(“Selling “..name) UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end end end

If this doesn’t work, then say so, I’ll fix or just remove.

Class Specific Macro of the Post:HUNTERS

This should cast misdirect on your pet if you have no target, or on your target if you choose one. I use it (or one similar) pretty regularly and its awesome for making any pet a tank for PVE soloing.

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [target=focus,exists,nodead] Misdirection; [target=pet,exists,nodead] Misdirection
/cast !Aspect of the Dragonhawk

–Dav

Rocking the Blogness!

I have no idea what I’m blogging about, let’s just start ranting and see where that gets us.

Yay to new members. Our roster is jumping up, and down, and up, and down, but back up again. Grats you insane recruitment folks. I seriously have an image in my mind of you all sitting at the Gryphon master in Iron Forge and handing out flyers while Dezeras and Mustafah ring bells for Salvation Army donations. It brings a tear to my eye.

BRK did an awesome podcast about hit rating, haste, and some other awesomeness (like the spirit beast that I might get, shh don’t tell Jaffa or Bubba…they’re already wary of that Giant Rhino sharing their stable). But more importantly, he aims it at hunters, so here’s a math post from a feral druid (I’ve linked this before) that, while he mentions druid this and druid that, the math is actually the same for every class. Read it, understand what you need to do to be a genius and then do it.

Another thing, I’m thinking of doing a ” macro of the post” for every post (*I could do of the day, but then I’d have to post every day, or I could do of the week, but I might want to post more than that). I’ll do two, I think, one for everyone, and one for just a specific class. If you find yourself craving a macro for a specific thing, please send me a request, and I’ll post it in the blog with easy Copy and Paste ability, standard with any web browser.

Grats all our new 80’s.

Hey you! Mister Dk, mining all the same stuff I am trying to get our minings higher. Stop it! Or I’ll go all Hunter on you and kick your tushy back to Ebon Hold. You’re making me angry, you won’t like Jaffa when I’m angry. (/bestial wrath!!!!)

Ok, Macro of the Post- Generic: This will be my first macro of the post simply because its the macro I use the most and love the most, and its a one click “get the achievement” button for the Triage Achievement.

use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

It allows you to bandage yourself with the click of a button, you can replace the “Heavy Netherweave Bandage” with whatever bandages you use.

Macro of the Post- Class Specific:WARRIOR:

If you hit this macro, it targets the nearest enemy and then charges them if you aren’t in combat already, if you are in combat already, then it activates bloodrage. Sounds like a nice button for saving space.

/targetenemy [noexists, nodead]
/assist [help]
/cast [exists,nohelp,nocombat] Charge
/cast [combat] Bloodrage

 

Rock on Guildies….rock on….

HUNTER HUNTER HUNTER

You’ve been warned, this is a hunter post, you can read and learn more about hunters or you can ignore this. Its information, ignoring it is your choice….your horrible choice.

 

A guy on the WoW forums asked “What’s the best hunter pet?” The age old question. Which had a very defined answer before WOTLK. There were some pets that were great, and there were some pets that sucked. That’s changed. Now every pet has something to bring to the table. I answered him thusly and now share it with you so that you too can learn a little hunter knowledge. Hunters: The Awesomest Class in Azeroth.

“”Best” is a relative term. It completely depends on your playing style. Mostly each pet has great stats when measured up against the other pets. I think the only pet that has been nerfed or doesn’t quite measure up to the others is probably the boar, which is a complete flip from before patch 3.0.2 when the boar was the only viable leveling pet until 60.
That being said, it completely depends on how you plan on using your pet, and because of this, Blizz has even given you more pet slots, so you can mix and match.
Personally, I’m fond of the ever-neglected wind serpent. A wind serpent can give out some very nice burst nature damage. This “burst” damage can change to almost being considered sustained DPS if you spec your beast mastery tree with longevity and bestial discipline.
As for grinding for cash, I find the gorilla is the easiest pet for that. He manages an AOE threat generation ability,and being tenacity he tanks very well.
If you’re PVP then I’d suggest a netherray with his anti warlock ability or a Rhino, just so you can sit down on the bridge at AV and use his knockback to throw people off.
If you like to raid a lot, a wolf would be pretty nice to have. They have furious howl which is a raid wide attack power increase.
Tallstriders cause enemies to miss the next several hits.
Birds of Prey can disarm.
Worms can sunder armor and DOT nature Damage.
Moths can self heal and give themselves an attack power bump.
Its all about how you want to play.
So what pet’s the best?”

Undead Diarrhea…

Awesome post!

First off: sorry its been so long to post, I hope everyone had a happy holiday.

Second of all, I’ve been talking to Furyen/Nexultor and he’s decided that he wants to write a part two to his Death Knight tell-all. Woot that!

And: WOOT DRAGONBLIGHT!

My favorite quest in the entire game is super easy, yet awesome. You know why? Cuz what’s cooler than fighting with Davlin?!?!?! Davlin and Future Davlin fighting side by side to down some Chrono-Lord jerks!

What else? Davlin and Nexultor have been experiencing a very…revealing glitch in the game.

Everyone’s naked?!?!?!?!? First Nex thought it had to do with his new tabard. Then it started happening to me. And as you can see in the screenshot….they aren’t actually naked. I’m just seeing them that way. Maybe those new gnomish x-ray specs cast an AOE or something and I just keep running into people who have them? It really makes you contemplate the name “FizzCrank Airstrip:”

I’ve got two more pic posts for you. The first is just my pride. Jaffa Dinged! He’s 74 now, and these are his updated KICKBUTT Stats.

And finally, happy holidays. Meet Barniby. My Blizzard Bear Cub I got from the WoW 4th Anniversary. I know. Everyone got one…and this is a crappy pics only/no real info post, but its my blog…so tough.

 

AND FINALLY!!! A BIG SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF OUR NEW 80’s. I Think Its Just Mustafah, Matchitehew,  Alciana, and Dezeras.

Furyen’s Death Knight Post, also available on the webpage!!

Due to a high amount of requests for information about Death Knights, and since i do my homework and have the top Death Knight in the guild (hehe) I decided to make this page to fulfill all if not most of people’s questions.

Let’s first introduce Death Knights. Old story Death knights were the embodiment of orc souls within armor. Now truthfully these types mean nothing now but back stories. The new death knights or more commonly known as second generation are the immortalized body, soul, etc of a hero. These Death knights pledged themselves to the Lich King and became powerful forces in the Scourge. (link to WoWwiki)

So, Death knights are plate wearing, runeblade wielding, spell casters. Not to say that they throw fireballs around. They mearly dabble in magic compared to other casters.  A Death knights primary roles will be Tank, DPS, off-tank. Figures seeing that they wear plate armor. The weapons a DK can use are as follows: 1h axe, 1h sword, 2h axe, 2h sword, polearms, and of course the old left and right fisticuffs. No shield for DKs if you are wondering. So how do they tank? Well we will get to that soon enough. DKs do not use mana to cast, they use runic power and runes. DKs have two blood, two frost, and two unholy runes. If you are spec’d for it, you can also recieve death runes which can be used as either blood, frost, or unholy. Runic power is built up as a DK attacks, much like rage and warriors, and is expelled by using specific spells.

DPS role: You start off with some very good DPS gear. Attack power, crit, and hit rating are your tops. Double wielding is great as a DPS. A DK can generate several sword swings as well as some abilities swings like Heart Strike. To add to this, a DK gets three presences. These are similar to warrior stances but of course different stats and abilities. These three presences are different from the talent specs. All DKs get these presences. The first is Blood Presence. This presence strengthens the Death Knight with the presence of blood, increasing damage by 15% and healing the Death Knight by 4% of damage dealt. Only one Presence may be active at a time. So high powered attacks along with incoming healz.  The next presence concerned with DPS is Unholy Presence. This presence infuses the Death Knight with unholy fury, increasing attack speed by 15% and reducing the global cooldown on all Death Knight abilities by 0.5 sec. Only one Presence may be active at a time. Faster attacks and faster global cooldowns on your abilities. So more Heart Strikes in a certain time period or other such abilities.

Tank/Off Tank role: The last presence is a tanking role specifically. It is Frost Presence. This presence increases armor contribution from items by 60%, total health by 10% and threat generated by 45%, and reducing spell damage by 5%. Only one Presence may be active at a time. Major increase in armor and increase in health are great things to have. The main things you want as a Tank or OT are defense defense defense. This means Dodge and Parry. DKs can’t get block because there is no shield. So we have to make up for it in dodge and parry. More armor and stamina follow these closely. The more you can be beat on and the more you can dodge an attack means a lot.  How do you keep aggro? There are a few abilities in your arsenal that you can use. Pestilence, Death and Decay, and Dark Command are the big ones here. Pestilence and Death and Decay are primarily AoE type spells that inflict damage and thus gain you aggro. Dark Command will redirect single mob to the Death Knight if not already attacking him. DKs have a little hard to gain aggro like a warrior or paladin would, BUT a DK can tank jsut as well or better as a Druid or maybe some Hunter pets.  Give it some practice and you will get a pattern down. The biggest problems I have run into are aggro stealers. This meaning purposefully trying to steal aggro away from a tank to gain bragging rights or “high” DPS. This also means accidental aggro stealing by attacking the wrong baddie or have some crits in a row. Do not get frustrated, just learn from the experiance and move on.

The three talent specs a DK can learn from are Blood, Frost, and Unholy. Blood centers around weapons, armor, and attacks. Frost centers around control, counters, and combos. Unholy centers around spells, diseases, and summoning. I am spec’d Blood. I won’t switch to anything else and I will explain this in the following.  In my opinion Blood is the main tanking spec. Yes all three specs can tank so do not think yo have to go out and respec.  Blood gives you several key abilities that will help you become a great tank as compared with the other trees.  Lets go down the list. Rune Tap refunds a portion of health in exchange for expending a blood rune. This ability can be added upon with Improved Rune Tap to give even more health. (I also have the Glyph of Rune Tap which gives 10% base health back to the party members you are with.  Mark of Blood places a banner on an enemy which causes the enemies target to gain a portion of health. Now if you are a tank then you are getting the health. Vampiric Blood increases the amount of health gained through attacks and spells for a duration of time. Heart Strike is an attack that deals damage plus more damage per disease on the target and also makes it so the target can not use haste effects. Sounds silly in instances tanking but helps out because it is high damage. The next abilities are nice to have in a spot. Hysteria causes a friendly target to have their physical damage dealt increased by 20% but at a cost. The target of Hysteria suffers 1% health damage per second this is on them. All great things come at a cost eh? Dancing Rune Weapon is a runic weapon wielded by mysterious forces…well it is a direct copy of your main hand weapon that does the same strikes you do for a duration of time.

Now many out there would say that frost is the tanking spec, but I have done my research. The first few tiers in the tree of frost give extra armor contribution, but this means anyone can get them and I highly recommend it no matter how you want to run your DK.  The rest of frost deals with crowd control or attack counters on your enemy or combos you can use.  Combos as in a string of attacks that would work well with each other resulting in high damage.

My own build is an almost full blood (meaning down to and including the last ability Dancing Rune Blade) and also going into frost and unholy one to two tiers. From frost you can gain more armor and from unholy you can gain more dodge.

Here is a fast run down of an example fight. Three mobs (Skull, X, and Triangle). Skull is a caster, X is a melee, and triangle is a melee. Use Death grip to pull skull to you. Then use Death and Decay at your feet to aggro X and Triangle. Use Icy Touch then Plague Strike to deal damage and lay diseases on your target. Then use Pestilence to spread those diseases to X and Triangle. At this time your aggro on all mobs should be sufficient to last the fight. If say Triangle gets away from you, then quickly select him and use Dark Command to pull him back to you and follow up with one attack then immediatly get back to Skull. Watch your diseases cause they help a lot with damage and with Death Strike.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions please send Nexultor a message.