Thursday, March 27, 2008

New loot ranking system

For all us loot-crazy people.

Here

For hunters I used agi 0.8 and AP 1.0, everything else zero, force sockets.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Stranglethorn fishing contest

Here is a long guide (from the Game Dame).

Here is a article on wowinsider with a few more links of helpfulness.

Hunter's Helper

Seems quite useful. Basically its an addon that tells you all about the beast you have highlighted, and if it has any teachable skills.

Friday, March 21, 2008

pets in 25mans

Its buried in this thread. Not sure how long it will be around.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Gear upgrades

Wow, computer died 5 minutes before run, so I switched to J's computer, and managed to get in before Attuman.

Anyway nothing really happened, we had Basso as a paly tank (meaning no trapping for me). So my life was very easy (good, b/c I spent every spare moment trying to feed my pet (bringing wrong pet food, so i had to use buff food!), and getting macros back in place.

No upgrades, not even any hunter loot. Out of 11 bosses. Amazing. Oh well, bound to have a bad run sometime. So I'm planning out my upgrades via Wow Armory.

There isn't anything available until I get to this tasty nugget: PVP bracers. Now I just need to run 20 WSG matches. (err lose 20 matches).

For Gauntlets, Gauntlets of sniping are an upgrade but for 60 badges, and I'd drop my mana/5 in favor of more attack power.

Cloaks. Well i have 2 or 3 cloaks sitting in bank, but I still like my blue cloak the best, because of the hit. Anyway I could grab this one from badge vendor for 25 badges, or maybe find Vengeance Wrap at AH for 1000g, or get the cloak from Shade (that is the real upgrade), or even the Skyguard cloak . Or just use the Prince cloak I have now, and lose the +hit goodness.

Chest piece: Not much here. There is this from Nightbane, I haven't seen it drop yet (but the leather dropped last week to my good friend Stained). I think i'll either have to wait or get the season 3 chest piece.

Legging: Not much, i got the piece from netherspite. The Shifting camo leggings are interesting but according to cheeky's an actual downgrade. Other than that, wait until T5/T6 stuff.

Boots: Apparently the PVP stuff is slightly better than what I have now, for 18000 honor and 40 EOTS tokens. 3dps upgrade according to cheeky's spreadsheet.

Rings: I have the truestrike ring, one of the rare BOE ones, i think i had to pay a guildie 500g because he won the roll even though he's a paly (isn't useful for palys). One reason I left that guild. Anyway, this PVP ring is a nice upgrade, or the one from prince. Or the 25 badge one.

Trinkets: A bunch of them out there. Most hunters try to get the vendor one for 40 badges and the Hourglass from BM.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Druid leveling

My reply to this post:

First go here for alot of guides on how to play your drood. http://thebigbearbutt.com/

Second, I too hated my druid, she was stuck in the 20s forever! Finally my wife started playing a warlock, and we duoed through most of pre-TBC now. Lock and druid are very powerful. Anyway at 20 you are too low for duskwood, I second the motion to go back to a 10-20 zone such as westfall (or redridge), and do green quests until you can get to 23 or so. I play feral cat like so many others. Some tips that haven't been mentioned.

1) Buy healing potions. The lower level ones are very cheap because alchemists make a ton of them to level up. The first one (minor) can be had for a silver for a stack. Granted that's probably not useful, but get a stack of the best you can for your level. Its money well spent.

2) Second, make sure your gear is up to snuff. If you are dieing alot, hit a few instances and get a few pieces of blue gear at your level. Or hit the AH and buy some greens (never buy blues there, too expensive).

3) Be careful with your pulls, as a feral you don't have the oh-shit button like hunters or palys. If you pull more than two, run away as fast as possible. (make sure you clear a path of mobs away from your quest area before you start killing so you have a escape route).

4) Consider a leveling guide to get you through the difficult low 20s area.

5) Generally if you are fighting just one mob (ideal), you can heal after you kill it. If you have two mobs, generally you'll have to heal midfight. Shift out of bear or cat, pop a potion or renew/rejuvinate, and do the big heal (healing touch?). The initial minor heal will allow you to survive long enough to get the big heal off. If you try the big heal at say 20% life you aren't going to make it most likely.

6) In the early zones there is usually a plethora of people. If someone is killing the same mobs as you, consider asking to join up. You may not get as much xp per kill but the main point is to get through the quests as quickly as possible since the XP reward is much higher now. If you can get through two quests while in a grp versus one quest solo, then you'll gain more XP in the group.

7) Don't worry too much about rested experience as this level. You'll tend to waste more time traveling to and from the inn at a low level than you will actually gain by resting. However: If you don't plan to play this char for a week, by all means head to an inn. As you increase your level and obtain faster transport (ie travel form, mount), generally you will want to rest in an inn if you are putting the character away for a day or so. If you are logging for just a few hours don't bother with the inn.

8) Plan your zones. For 20s, definately duskwood (23+)and wetlands (after duskwood). Those two zones can get through 30. Maybe you need to hit redridge at 20 for a bit as discussed previously. For 30s you have duskwallow marsh (can get you through most of 30 i think with the new neutral town), and of course Stranglethorn vale. STV is best from 30-37, it has a zillion quests to do (esp if you are horde and come from 1000 needles). Once you are out of yellow quests, head to duskwallow. If its your second character, consider other zones, but by and large STV is the best place to get through the mid30s and mid40s.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Leatherworking 300 to 375

Good guide at WoWinsider! I played my druid briefly this morning, she's 54. Just a few levels until OL, and from there a few levels until she can start grinding through the rest of the LW levels. SHe's got a long way to go at 225 though.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

3rd Kara run and stuff

Not much fun time happening on my main char. I mostly farm a bit. I discovered that we completely kick ass in AV on this battlegroup (3600 honor in 1.5 hours). That's...just insane.

ANyway actually i'm pretty bored of the BM hunter, i've gotten to the point where there isn't a point trying to get pre-raid gear, because its not a upgrade. And of course all we do is kara and that's once a week. So, maybe i'll spec surv. Right now i'm mostly content to do kara. But that being said, my gear sucks. Somehow. Completely epic, yet sucks. 25% crit, yes hit capped, but 1500AP. You can get 1500AP, 22% crit (not hitcapped) without stepping foot in kara. So i got...3% crit for those months of raiding. Yeah idk, i never seem to get shit, or if i do its not an upgrade.

Last week there were some boots i wanted. I thoguht about it for a few seconds, too long because by the time I said i wanted it it was already sharded. This week, a raid member ninja'd a ring i could have used (really wanted) (they were confused by the stupid loot policy and apologized), and another piece was accidently looted by another member. I ended up *finally* getting the T4 token off curator, and a POS belt (15 mana/5, some AP). The famed [Belt of the Tracker]. I mean, really, a) what was I thinking (probably, hey its mail and i have 5 secs before disenchant). b) why is this purple? It should be green). Anyway, i'm getting 1-2 pieces every week there (well except last week), but these things aren't really upgrades. I got cloak which is just utter crap for PvE but great for PVP, i got a side-grade gloves (the T4 ones)...the kara loot is so underwealming, and there are quite a few sidegrades. There is a great loot table here. I must have done kara dozens of times (but only 3 full clears), and have seen only half of this stuff, and only got a few of the pieces. What's interesting is that there seems to be some gear that's high for mana/5 and some gear that's straight up agi+, and some gear that is all AP and crit. So there is some itemization available. But yeah, it seems like it would take half a year to get all the loot you'd want from kara. For example, never seen sunfury drop (did prince say 6 times). Seen WSR drop from wolf precisely once.

Anyway. Kara last night. MT was 30 minutes later than all of us. Its very unclear when raid start time is, either 7 or 7:30. I showed at 7 the first two times and we were pulling trash a few minutes later. This time, everyone was there at 7, but MT was there at 7:30. No biggie. We had a new bear tanking for some reason. He's a new guy. Never even done kara. How the hell did we end up with him, we must have been desparate for recruits (guess we are). Anyway, so off he goes to MT most of kara. Did a good job, i must say, but had no clue on the bosses (understandable). Vent didn't work so well with him, his headset must be crappy. Was real good about not being a loot whore, even though he probably really needed it.

Anyway, me me me. What did I do. Jack shit. I stayed quiet, I dpsed, and I didn't fuck up. That's what dpsers do. The only time people know of our existence is when we fuck up. My dps was neck and neck with the other two guys, a mage and my friend the rogue. So we should be happy. But i think i can blow their socks off if properly geared. Right now i think i'm all fucked up with not enough AP and agi. Well, if i mess up, i should be dead. When did i die? The valets up to Opera, i almost always die there because i'm always #2 on threat, and they one-shot mail wearing 10k health guys. Ran past the raid and into a arcane protector after curator. Woops. FD, pet gets it. no biggie. Died after Prince, some random aggro shit, i don't even know. Died on nightbane due to rain of bones and some bad hits. We later wiped (secretly i was happy), and we two-shotted his ass. See, hunter lives, we win. Hunter dies, we die. But yeah, i'm happy that i'm the only hunter in the raid, all the mail is mine. None of those damn shammies either, so naturally all mail is healing gear.

Hopefully things will pick up in a few weeks, but right now ZA isn't likely since they only want the 'good' crew there, and 25mans don't look especially promising, although we are getting a ton of ppl coming in, like 1-2 a week (mostly dps and tanks). Anyway i'm just as happy keeping the main on backburner while i level my lock and druid.

The Hunter guide

Not sure how I missed this, but tons of great stuff in here.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Tier tokens exchanged for Arena gear?

Wow this is huge, not sure how I missed it. Anyway Girl Meets Wow has the lowdown.

Huge I tell you.

Beginning 70 hunter gear

Here

Good start to entering Kara. I went another route, getting BG epics and arena stuff. I didn't do much instances at all. Either route works. With my route you'll have a ton more surivivability. The other route will be more DPS.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

warlock raiding FAQ

Seems well done, link is here

2nd kara run with new guild

Well I rushed home and managed to login at 7:00 on the dot, whew.

I screwed up much less than last time, so that was happy.

1) Attuman, fine, no problems there. Did well holding aggro and trapping.

2) Moroes. This was all fucked up. They told me to trap diamond, i trapped star. So i screwed up two of the adds. It worked out though. Why not blue square, what's wrong with that guys?

3) Staircase leading up to maiden/opera. This is always hard for me. Anyway i aggroed the first group of trash mobs, dunno how i managed to autofire. Raid recovered.

4) Maiden, total joke. I was out of healing range somehow even though i was on the stair where I was supposed to be. I got holy fire but used restorative pot. No problem, saved a death.

5) Trash leading to opera event. The two valets? I think, hard hitting big mobs. Both tanks lost aggro somehow, on both of their targets. I FDed on one, but not the other. Got squished. Not sure how I pulled aggro on second target, the OT was supposed to be generating aggro while we were taking down first target. But as soon as i lay into him, boom, aggro city.

6) Opera - was big bad wolf (no, no rifle :( ) I died as little red riding hood. Haven't done this in so long I forgot how. Get behind the stage props and don't cut corners.

7) Nightbane - much easier this time. I avoided the chared earth, sorta got a sense of what to do with skeletons. Only my second time downing him. Hardest boss there and we one-shotted him.
8) Shade - pretty easy, no problems. They still aren't raid marking the elementals quickly. So basically i just sit around during the boss fight for several seconds while waiting to dps. Worked out. First time I didn't die. Maybe I get this boss now. One shotted.

9) Illhoof. Very easy fight for hunters, apparently tanks had targetting issues. One-shotted. I did well on demon chains.

10) Chess. Dropped my boots, was DE without even asking. Thanks guys. (oh well, i got 3 pieces of gear last week, not complaining). Oh i screwed up on trash beforehand, sending pet to the shackle. Worked out i guess. Damn.

11) Stairs to Prince! Somehow i managed to aggro a trash mob while running up the stair. We didnt know that was possible. Almost wiped the raid.

12) Prince - easy peasy. He was very accomodating with the infernals/totems.

Full clear of Kara in 3.5 hours, no wiped, everything one-shotted. My repair bill was 30g because I'm an idiot. I just have to learn to trap better, and adjust to their pace. My total dps was only 700 and was #3 in dps. Gelsey the lock has T5 loot completely and was 20% above us. I had blessing of salvation which cuts my damage output but reduces threat, and i was using aspect of viper for trash. The raid moves so fast I dont have time to eat after every pull, more like every 5th pull. And i'm the one constantly out of mana. But the mana oil is very helpful for mana regen.

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