MMQB: As Good as it Gets

November 16, 2009

Monday has arrived and that means another raid reset is upon us. Patch 3.3 continues to bake in the oven and it seems close to being done.  More raid bosses were tested, the Halls of Reflection are open, and a lot of the yummy loot has been added to the game.  I have to say the Emblem of Frost Hunter gear is looking nice.  It is itemized well, has red and yellow sockets, agility bonuses, and a distinct lack of haste.

Speaking of gear, I’m coming to the realization that that I could be marching on Icecrown Citadel with my current gear set.  Assuming an early December release for patch 3.3 (I’m thinking 12/8), there just aren’t many shopping days left.  Still on the wish list are Ranged, Melee, Legs, Trinket, and Belt; in that order!  I’m going on vacation the week after Thanksgiving, so given my raid schedule that leaves two Onyxia and VoA runs, and one TotC (25) run.  This had better be one heck of a lucky week in terms of drops and rolls, or this may be as good as it gets. Read the rest of this entry »


The Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 13

November 13, 2009

The Hunting PartyHi folks! This week, we interview the guy your raid leader points to when you don’t succeed in your efforts to get out of the fire: Quadilious. He’s a hunter, he’s a quadriplegic, and he raids hard modes. How much more badarse can one get?

As always, here is the iTunes store linkthe Hunting Party Podcast feed, and the direct XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.


New Ammo In Patch 3.3?

November 12, 2009

I was going to do a post on some of the new hunter gear coming our way in patch 3.3.  As I was doing my research I ran across what appears to be engineering recipes for new arrows and bullets.  I couldn’t find anything on the finished products or the mats required to make them.

The recipes themselves are tied to the new Ashen Verdict reputation. What’s also interesting is that arrows require Gnomish engineering to make and the bullets require Goblin engineering to make.

It looks like engineers may have a new source of income.  We’ll have to see how this plays out.

EvilArrow

ShatterRounds


Shock the Monkey, Stroke the Ego

November 3, 2009

IcehowlEvery now and then I like to remind myself that the Brew Hall is primarily a blog about hunters.  Today’s post is from my beyond the button mashing series.

Now I don’t know about you but I especially like it when my fellow raid members compliment me on my dps.  I like it even more when they compliment me on the other stuff too.  One of those other things involves a situational spell and a giant monkey named Icehowl. Read the rest of this entry »


The Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 12

October 31, 2009

The Hunting PartyHi folks! This week, Darkbrew and Euripides have the pleasure of interviewing Scott Johnson, from The Instance and the myextralife.com comic. Scott has also just started a new podcast called The FilmSack- honestly, I don’t know how this guy finds time to sleep :)

This show, we talk to him about leading the largest guild in WOW (and probably any MMO), Alea Iacta Est, as well as ask him a bunch of silly questions in a tribute to the Quick Fire Questions segment on The Instance. These ones are all hunter related. Well, mostly.

As always, here is the iTunes store linkthe Hunting Party Podcast feed, and the direct XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to outdps@gmail.com or thebrewhall@gmail.com, and mention “podcast” in the subject.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.


A Primer on Deadly Boss Mods

October 23, 2009

DBM_Tutorial

Click to Enlarge

Here you go folks, a primer on how Deadly Boss mods works. I’m going to assume that you’ve downloaded and installed the mod.

Okay, so in case you hadn’t noticed we’re fighting Koralon the Flame Watcher from VoA (you know the jerk who throws fire underneath you and then gives you T9 gear when you win).

1. DBM Timer Bars - DBM has a variety of countdown timers it displays in the form of animated bars. By default these bars appear on the right, but I’ve customized DBM for me and put them on the left.

In the screen shot above we can see that Koralon will be casting meteor fists in 14.2 seconds. We also can see that we’ve got 3:57 seconds to get him down or he’ll enrage. Go, go, go!

2. Critical Warning -
DBM does a great job you letting you know when bad things are happening to you. In this case the jerk through threw fire underneath me. Note that this text warning comes with an audio warning as well (Run away little girl twisted ).

The important thing to realize is that the warning is in giant blue text right in the center of my screen (this is by default, right out of the box, no assembly required). Seriously if you have DBM there is no excuse for dying in the fire.

3. Spell Timer. As events get closer to happening DBM will move the timer bar from the left (see item 1) and put it in a more central location. Please note that I have customized my DBM for me.

The point is DBM attempts to put this important information in a place where you can see what’s about to happen.

In the above screen shot the jerk is casting Burning Breath. No big deal because the healers all have DBM, saw that it was coming, and were ready for it.  Right healers?

4. Boss is Doing Something. Again this is another alert in big text in the center of your screen. In this case it’s reminding us that the boss is casting Burning Breath.

DBM_Tutorial_1

Click to Enlarge

In this second screen shot I wanted to point out some additional DBM warnings.

1. Raid Warnings. Here you’ll see two warnings for Meteor Fists. The first one that reads “Meteor Fists in 5 sec.” appeared on the screen about 5 seconds earlier letting us know meteor fists was coming. The text right above it is now the Meteor Fists event happening. The five second warning message is about to drop-off.

2. Boss is Doing His Thing. Okay, I’m not 100% sure that this one is a DBM message. It may actually be a Blizzard message built into the encounter. Still that’s a lot of warnings for Meteor Fists, which explains why our tanks never die from it because the healers have DBM and are always prepared.  Right healers?

3. Chat Warnings. Finally if all those spell timers, audio warnings, and giant text in the center of our screens wasn’t enough, DBM broadcasts all of this to our chat window as well.

So that’s basically it, DBM is designed to provide lots and lots of information regarding these raid encounters. Each encounter will have it’s owns set of alerts, but the basic placement of these alerts is pretty standard.

If you have a free moment, I encourage you to go into the DBM general options and run a test mode. This will give you samples of it’s alerts and warnings. It only takes about a minute to run.

RUN AWAY LITTLE GIRL!!


Echoes of Doom: A Look Back

October 16, 2009

Echoes of Doom

I’m a couple of days late on this one, but oh well.  Today I’m going to take a quick trip down memory lane, for it was on October 14, 2008 that patch 3.0.2 Echoes of Doom was launched.  This of course was the pre-cursor to Wrath of the Lich King.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year already, but here we are.

Read the rest of this entry »


The Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 10

October 13, 2009

The Hunting PartyThis week, Euripides is hit with the family obligation debuff and is rendered unable to podcast, so Fimlys from Twisted Nether and his Asleep At The WOW blog joins me to talk about a variety of interesting things, not the least of which is Azeroth United! They’re doing an awesome charity event (see banner to your right). We also manage to squeeze the word ‘Hunter’ into the conversation as well.

This is the 10th episode? Already?

As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and the direct XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to outdps@gmail.com or thebrewhall@gmail.com, and mention “podcast” in the subject.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.


Long Overdue

October 8, 2009

We Just Lost the Moon“…And it’s not a miracle.  We just decided to go.”

- Jim Lovell, Apollo 13

.

.

Well this was long overdue, but satisfying nonetheless.  Phase I and II are crazy easy now, but those drakes are still a pain in the rear.

Champion of the Frozen Wastes


The Blizzard Wayback Machine

October 7, 2009

peabodyAs I’m sure all of you know Patch 3.3 is currently on the PTR. Once again it seems that Blizzard is cranking out a steady stream of content and doing it faster than ever. After all Patch 3.2 only just arrived on August 4th.

I was curious to see if Blizzard is on a faster track for delivering content for this expansion than they were with the Burning Crusade, and if so just how fast?

Today I’m going crank up the Wayback Machine and compare Burning Crusade’s patch releases with Wrath of the Lich King’s. Read the rest of this entry »