Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Milam family guild

Apparently our family now has a guild. They are here I think.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

BRK forums

BRK has some great forums for hunter uberness. They are here.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Keyloggers!

The bane of the WOWer.

Read this horror story. And read this for tools to protect yourself. Go do it, now!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Powerleveling Fishing and Cooking to 375

So I need to get my cooking buffed, and it turns out that fishing can go hand in hand.

Here is one such guide.

Here is another guide

This last
is probably the best.

Then there's the Elite Fish Vendor guide. This guy has a great deal going where he catches and cooks fish, and you can buy it using a web form. But Blizz wants him to take it down ;(

BRK list of enchantments (sorta approved)

From BRK, and i'm somewhat paraphrasing, but this is what hunters should have.

Melee 2h Weapon: +35 Agi or Savagery
Ranged Weapon: +10 or +12 Damage
Helm: Glyph of Ferocity
Shoulder: Honored Aldor/Scryer inscription
Cloak: +12 Agi
Chest: +6 All Stats
Bracers: +24 RAP
Gloves: +26 RAP or +7 Agi (+15 Agi is good, too)
Leggings: Cobrascale or Clefthide armor kit
Boots: +12 Agi

Update: Woot! BRK hath spoken. Sorry for the implication that his list was an 'official approved list'. But anyway I agree, this is a great list of enchants to have. Now as for the gear..tough call. Personally I'm going for a mix of arena stuff, Kara stuff, and BG stuff to replace my end-game quest blues/greens. The arena stuff is great for +sta, but I find myself unsatisfied w/ the quality of the BG stuff. The Arena season 1 stuff may be better. As for time, I managed to get 2.5k honor last night in an hour or so of work, and another guildy confirmed they got 7k (or maybe 9k, can't remember) from 5 hours of AV. So that's not too bad, but consider you need about 90k to get a full set of armor plus the gun (the Arena S3 ranged weapons are perhaps the best in the game).

Need More Loot

I want Terokk's Quillfrom Seth Halls (this is the quest link)

I also want Don Santo's Famous Hunting Rifle, currently at AH for 1200/1400 BO. I think i have half that amt saved up. Somewhat tough, since usually Kara runs will burn 100g per night in pots/repairs.

And this Glyph of Ferocity is a great enchant for headgear.

Warcrafter

The completely awesome WoW calculating site. It down ATM, server overload. But when its up, check it out. It will punch up your character from the armory, and (far more impt) will give you dps numbers on all your damage abilities, and the ability (i think) to swap out gear to ask what if questions, ie how much will this new toy really affect me.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Curator downed

In historic news, we managed to down Curator. We earlier last week cleared the first few bosses of Kara, and spent the rest of the week trying Curator. Literally. I think i was there Wed until very early in the morn, i skipped thur/fri/sat i think, and finally we all got together last night and brought him down. It's all kinda a blur, but after so much effort to down the boss, we were stoked. Of course the T4 Hunter/lock/mage glove token dropped, and we had 3 hunters and a lock and a mage. The lock won. Gratz to her, (even though it wasn't an upgrade) this person has been very helpful to me (and is the SO of the main tank/guild leader), and she's a great person really, so whatever.

Raid composition i think is key. we had:

Main tank - prot paly
healer: holy paly, holy priest
dps: lock (some type) mage (fire), 2 BM hunters, 1 MM hunter, 1 shadow priest.
Oh, and the retro paly (laugh).

I think all the ranged dps (6) was key, we were all sufficiently geared (all of us were near identical in dps output, I was #2 in whole raid, #1 was the other BM hunter in kara gear)

Chess event came, this nice leather belt dropped. I was debating rolling for it, but i saw the healer roll for it (a priest, yes i know priests cant wear leather), so i passed. And she got it, and she's basically flustered because she obviously misrolled so this epic equipment is now useless, she'll have to vendor it. Oh well, not sure how much an upgrade that would be, and its leather. Maybe good for arena though.

Anyway that's this week's kara. Time spent: prob 20+ hours. Gear obtained: zero. (but void crystal, dagger (useless), and sidegrade bracers from last week). I think my new policy is Kara 2x per week max (and be firm) and no later than 1am here (we finished 1:15 last night i think)

WoW again in news, unfavorably

Fox has a big flashy story about the evils of WoW and its ilk, mentioning several recent horror stories about players of the game and unspeakable real-life violence. I think all things should be done in moderation, and WoW can be as addictive as anything else. That said, it certainly isn't a breeding ground for wackos. But if there are 9 million people playing, then there are bound to be a few serial killers and other wackos. Its like driving a car, by demographics some car drivers will be wackos. I dont think the game is inherently good or evil, its what you make of it.

Friday, December 7, 2007

money making

In response to this article on WOWinsider

I'm pretty good at making money. That said, you need to do different things at different times to make gold. At low levels, you need to farm those mats such as small eggs, and definately have at least one gathering profession. Mine/skin is good for pre-outland. Herb is fantastic, not many do it, so there seems to be a benefit for that. Otherwise farm for mats that others need. Spider silk from ashenvale spiders (among others) is always in demand and sells for a gold or two each. All those green items that drop - sell em or disenchant em (and sell the mats you dont need). All the white items (white text), sell em on AH. All grey items, sell to vendor.

In OL, its a little different. Greens have a hard time selling on AH (for me), and skinning starts to suck. Mining is hugely profitable, and jewelcrafting becomes useful (but not profitable until youve sunk 1000s of gold for patterns). Herb is fantastic in OL, you can fly around to destinations, grab a herb or three, by the time you get there you have a stack which sells for 15g (on my server). Thus i strongly recommend herb in OL for that reason.

Further in OL there are things that will sell for alot, for ex rep grind tokens that are sellable (from scryer/aldor), coilfang armaments for CE, etc). Fishing and cooking also become hugely profitable.

I don't do much crafting but my guess is none of the crafting profs are actually profitable, nobody wants your lame crafted items. Crafters always make the mistake of selling for cost of mats alone. Its as cheap to farm for mats for pots, put it on the AH, and buy the pots from AH. This is probably due to a lack of understanding of economics by some (and those who do can't compete w/ those willing to lose money or break even on their crafts).

Thursday, December 6, 2007

'lock poem

From comment in WoWInsider (regarding locks and PvP)

'm jealous of every Felguard
Underneath the sun
I don't wish I had a Felguard pet, no
I wish that I WAS one.

Oh I wish I was a Felguard,
with bad teeth and spiky back
With a charge that doesn't miss
Whenever I attack

To be able to enter combat
With a bar full of blue rage
to start shooting off specials
the very moment I engage!

To wield a mighty 2H axe
without worry of the cost
A felguard isn't 'normalized'
so no rage there is lost

And to fight my foes half naked
without a speck of fear
Oh to be a felguard
un-dependent on gear!

Sure I'd be a warlocks slave
won't bother me in the least
No different than things are now
I'm shackled to a priest!

So Blizzard if you're listening
(Yeah right, we've no such luck)
I wish I was a Felguard
So then I could cease to suck.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Attumen, Moroes, Maidin, Opera downed

We downed the first 4 bosses of Kara last night, the first 3 were one-shots, meaning we didn't wipe on the boss at all. The Opera event was not Oz, but Little Red Riding Hood (LLRH), a fun event where the boss (the big bad wolf) randomly turns you into LLRH, you can't attack, you just have to run like hell (if you are a non hunter). If you are a hunter just FD. We took him down with 3 hunters, two BM (Llad and me) for the huge DPS output, and a survivalist. That undoubtedly helped.

Actually i found myself quite useful. First boss, well, not so much, we had to close in to the boss for complicated reasons, and I didn't do much damage. Thats ok. Second boss (Moroes), since I'm a dwarf i can get out of his garrot ability, which will kill you in 3-5 seconds, plus the survivalist and I team trapped an add for crowd control. Maiden i just DPSed like crazy, chugging a pot if she holy fired (and she did, but only once to me). Opera I did the FD trick and spanked.

Anyway really busy but very proud of our group. As of now we have first half of Kara on farm status. Tonight is the wipefest known as curator.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Heroics help

Heroics have rep-nerfed in 2.3, but they are still the most difficult 5man stuff there is. One hits on mail wearers is common. Anyway this thread at wowinsider has some help. Plus here is a guide someone linked in comments, and here is another collection of tips.

Borrowed and reprinted here is a table representing heroics from easy to hard.

Easy: Pens, Vaults, Mech, Ramps(1), Crypts
Easy-Medium: Underbog(2), Seth Halls, Furnace(3)
Medium: Botanica(4), Shadow Lab, Arcatraz (5)
Medium-Hard: Durnholde, Mana-Tombs (6)
Hard: Black Morass (7), Shattered Halls (8)

(1) Don't bring more than 1 melee DPSer, it's not worth the pain on Omor.
(2) Bring somebody that can CC elementals, eg hunter, warlock, or even mage (snare kiting). Can be done without, just painful
(3) Bring somebody that can CC things in combat for Broggok. Also have either a hunter or warlock in group for megahit demon packs before Kel'dan, which are nerfed in 2.1.
(4) AR on the tank for robot pulls- amended in 2.1. Some form of defensive dispel (priest, paladin, felhunter) is required for 1st boss. 3rd boss (Thorngrin the Tender) is doable but a major pain and not really worth the effort, fixed in 2.1. Shadow Priests trivialize much of the instance.
(5) Zereketh is very hard and SR on the tank is recommended. Bring 2 healers for Skyriss.
(6) SR on the tank for Pandemonius. Melee DPS is largely a liability on both Pandemonius and Shaffar. Bring tons of DPS for Shaffar, requirements hopefully eased in 2.1.
(7) Bring tons of DPS.
(8) Have 2 or more players who can CC. Bring a paladin, Limited Invulnerability Potions, or a group with KTM and impeccable tricky aggro control for the second boss, hopefully fixed in 2.1.

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