Updating the Blogroll

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  No Responses »
Nov 302012
 

So I finally got around to updating my blogroll. To the bloggers who visit here, but haven’t seen your blog listed in the roll, this was in no way intentional on my part. I actually do read a lot of the stuff that you guys write. I don’t always visit the sites directly or comment on the posts. This is mainly due to the fact that I subscribe to most blogs via RSS and read them in Google Reader. I also tend to check my reader while at work, and well, my work blocks access to all things “gaming”. They don’t block my reader though.

I finally had a free moment to compare my reader to my blogroll and I discovered that they were woefully out of synch. They are now one in the same. Actually the blogroll now has a few extras.

As far as what I choose to put on the blogroll, the two main requirements are the blog has to be Hunter related (mostly anyway), and it has to be active. By active I mean if you haven’t posted anything in six months, I’ll remove it from the list, but not from my reader. I just flag it as inactive and then one day if a new post should appear I flag it as active again.

With that if you have a Hunter or Hunter Pet blog that you’d like me to add to my blogroll, please leave a comment here or shoot me an e-mail at thebrewhall@gmail.com.

Cheers and thank you for your contributions to the Hunter community.

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What is Worth Upgrading?

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  4 Responses »
Nov 292012
 

All throughout the expansion the Pandaren have been asking us “what is worth fighting for?” Now that patch 5.1 has arrived, the more pressing question is what is worth upgrading?

In the perfect scenario one would have started patch 5.1 at the 3000 point valor cap allowing for two full upgrades. I’m not so lucky and will start with around 1,600 VP; enough for one full upgrade or two half upgrades with another 1000 VP to be earned this week.

Regardless of how optimized you were in you valor acquisition, the question still remains what to upgrade? With the ability to earn a half upgrade each week it is unlikely that one will be able to upgrade all of their gear before the next tier arrives. Even less so when you take into account that most people are still acquiring LFR and normal mode gear, nevermind heroic gear. Some valor will be used to upgrade items that may well get replaced.

Most tools like Femaledwarf aren’t fully modified to handle the new system, and there is no definitive list of upgrade this, but not this. If you happen to be loaded up with full BiS then it’s easy, just upgrade all of that starting with pieces that give you most bang for the buck. Chances are you are not part of the WoW 1%, and don’t have all the BiS gear, so you have tougher decisions to make.

Weapons and trinkets will be obvious choices followed by tier pieces to give the set bonuses some longevity. It really comes down to you where you are with your progression, how fast you are progressing and when might you get your desired upgrades. If you started out with 3000 VP, then you’ll have three full raid lockouts before you hit the cap again which is a decent amount of time get some items and plan things out.

As for myself, I’ll probably do a full upgrade on my Relic of Xuen. If I get Taoren, the Soul Burner I’ll likely upgrade that even though I probably don’t have long to wait until Fang Kung, Spark of the Titans drops. Then I’ll have to consider an upgraded Fang Kung versus an upgraded Taoren. I think Taoren comes out slightly ahead. From there I’ll just have to wait and see how the progress grows. We’ve now defeated heroic Stoneguard and are working on Garalon normal.

No matter what you choose to upgrade I think this is a great system that Blizzard introduced to the game. Sure it keeps us on the dailies treadmill, but I never felt like I was getting off of that thing anyway.

So what is worth upgrading to you?

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The Elegon in the Room

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  No Responses »
Nov 272012
 

Last week our raid team finally pulled it together and defeated Elegon (10). We had been struggling with him for the better part of two raid lockouts, and frankly, we were getting sick of wiping on him.

Elegon is without a doubt one of the toughest fights this tier and the first real stumbling block that most guilds will encounter. I did a little checking and I’ve put in 64 attempts on this boss, which is at least 20 more than any other boss I’ve faced. After defeating him we then two-shot Will of the Emperor and then three-shot Imperial Vizier Zor’lok.

The next night we got Blade Lord to 3% on our best attempt, so it won’t be long before we’re working on Garalon. If you’re struggling on Elegon, take heart, for once you clear him you may find a few easy victories to follow.

Defeating Elegon requires everything to go right, and everyone needs to do their job without exception. There just isn’t a lot of room for error and smallest mistake will cause a wipe. As far as Hunters are concerned it’s not a difficult fight to learn, but mastering it is another story. Here are a few things I recommend for this encounter.

  • Take advantage of the sweet spot. There is an area right on edge of the platform where you can get the buff and clear your stacks just by jumping. It’s critical that you take advantage of this. It saves you from having to move, and when the floor drops you won’t fall down, which means you can get some buffed DPS time on your pillar.
  • Use Fervor. Some guides recommend Thrill of the Hunt for the orb phase. Thrill of the Hunt is very effective, but so is Fervor. I like Fervor for the on-demand focus it provides. Having this control not only works in the orb phase, but is beneficial to you throughout the fight.
  • Binding Shot. Okay so I forgot to spec this for our kill, but it was recommended by Rogerbrown from Method. Binding Shot is useful on the adds that spawn during the pillar phase. I plan to try it next time I raid.
  • Deterrence and Glyph of Deterrence can help mitigate damage from the exploding orbs and Celestial Protectors.

Elegaon is tough fight, and I think it’s a fun fight, and it drops one of the coolest mounts in the game. I suspect folks will be defeating him for quite some time this expansion. I’m certainly wiling to defeat him once a week for that mount.

Finally, our guild is recruiting raiders for our two 10-man raid teams. Group one run raids four nights a week (Tue-Fri, 8-11 PM EST), and Group two raids two nights a week (Tue/Wed 8-11 PM  EST). Alas we have plenty of hunters but could use some melee DPS (Rogue or Fury Warrior or Monk), and both groups could use a healer (Disc. priest, Monk or Pally). Those classes are just what we’d prefer, but we’ll gladly accept anyone willing to put in the time and effort to progress. Our goal is to clear normal modes and the move into heroics. If you’re interested please shoot me an e-mail at thebrewhall@gmail.com and we can talk further.

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Everybody Have Fun Tonight

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  4 Responses »
Nov 142012
 

Everybody Fang Kung tonight! I know it just a pea-shooter and not nearly as smexy as this Sha-touched beauty, but it’s better than this sling-shot I’ve been carrying around. Besides it’s not every day that I’m able to get a cheesy 80′s song stuck in your head. /mwahaha.

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The Queue

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  1 Response »
Nov 122012
 

I’ve often wondered how it is that folks manage to miss their group finder queue popping up; especially if you’re a DPS with a 20 minute wait. Well one way this happens is you’re playing WoW and you get a waft of some delightful aromas coming from your kitchen. It’s your wife cooking food – for herself. Now you’re hungry.

Forgetting you’re in queue you head to the kitchen, brew a cup of coffee, fry an egg and toast some bread. As your bread pops from the toaster, your dungeon pops from the group finder, only you’re not there to realize it.

In the end you have a nice snack and another 20 minute queue to run the dungeon in search of the Bow That Does Not Exist.

/sigh

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Come One, Come All

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  1 Response »
Nov 042012
 


The Darkmoon Faire is upon us folks and that means Hunters all over Azeroth will have an opportunity to pick up the Relic of Xuen. Despite the meager 476 ilevel, this baby packs a real punch and is one of the best Hunter trinkets for this tier. Some BiS lists have the the Relic of Xuen and Terror in the Mists as the top tow trinkets for this tier. Others have Bottle of Infinite Stars and Terror in the Mists as BiS, so as you can see this trinket rates very highly among trinkets this tier.

What makes this trinket so good of course is that it’s loaded with Agility. It’s important to note that it does proc off of crit damage and not regular damage so the trinket’s performance will vary depending on your gear. The Relic of Xuen has a 55 sec internal cooldown and a maximum up-time of 27.27%. The proc is called Blessing of the Celestials (id – 128984) and can be tracked by many addons.

So how do you go about acquiring one? Well, the best time to prepare for this is in advance of the faire. Now that its begun prices for cards, deck and the trinket itself are going to be at a premium. I paid about 22K for mine, and I feel like that’s a pretty good deal. Your options include,

  • Buying individual cards of the AH. Card prices on my AH ranged from 2500-5K, with some cards valued higher than others.
  • You can purchase a deck off of the AH. Last week when I checked decks were going for around 39K.
  • You can purchase the trinket. Trinket prices on my AH ranged from 55-80K.

If you have inscription, you can of course try to make your own deck, or you can try and trade cards from other decks for the ones you need. Be mindful when asking for specific cards in trade chat, as people will think you’re desperate and want to charge you a premium.

This Darkmoon Faire ends on December 10 at 11:59 pm realm-time, and the next one won’t arrive until December 2, 2012. If you don’t get one this week then you’re only option will be to buy a trinket off of the AH or wait a month. Of course if you don’t care about DPS then you can always get one of these trinkets and sell it for a ton of gold once the faire is over. I’m going for the DPS myself.

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The Dwindling To Do List

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  No Responses »
Nov 012012
 

Pandaland is just over a month old now, and things are starting to feel manageable. And by that I mean, WoW feels less like a 60-hour a week job and more like a 9-5 job. Still the list of should do is now less than the list of could do.

Gone from the “I must do these things each and every day” list are,

  • Cloud Serpents. I have a a Jade and Azure mount and never use them because I created a Jewelcrafting mount. Sapphire!
  • Gold Lotus is at revered status. You get a 489 neck at exalted, but I have the valor one so no rush to get to exalted.
  • Shadow-Pan is at revered status. Unless there’s a 489 shiny for hitting exalted, there’s no reason to hit these each day.
  • Exalted with Tillers. I still garden every day, but again, these dailies are now on optional status.

Still on the grind list are,

  • Klaxxi is at revered, however, I recently found out that you get a 489 ring at exalted. About eight more days to go on this one.
  • August Celestials is at honored. Once I hit revered I’ll “unlock” the last of the valor gear.
  • Getting valor capped each week.
  • Running LFR.
  • Kill Sha.
  • Gates of the Setting Sun each day until I get a ranged upgrade from somewhere.

In addition to the dailies and the dungeons I’ve also been raiding.  Our team is now 4/6 MV normal and making good progress on Elegon. If nothing else it’s a good looking fight. I’ve also recently overhauled my UI by downloading and installing Kripparian’s MoP UI, but more on that another time.

As you can see the seas have calmed a bit, which means I can focus on a few other things, like say doing a podcast. There will be a Hunting Party Podcast this Saturday, and we will once again be joined by Big Red Kitty. See you there.

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No Podcast – 10/20

 Hunting Party Podcast, Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  No Responses »
Oct 192012
 

We, the hosts, have too much stuff going on this weekend so there will not be a podcast this weekend. Last week’s episode should be out soon, and I’m pleased to tell you that we’ll be releasing last week’s post show with BRK sometime next week.

Thanks for listening.

 

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Always on the Move

 Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft  No Responses »
Oct 172012
 

Patch 5.1 testing continues and Blizzard is now starting to release some of the class balance changes that are inevitable once players migrate into end-game raiding and PvP. Hunters are getting a huge buff to their mobility in patch 5.1. According to MMO-C, Steady Shot, Cobra Shot and Barrage will be useable while moving. I’ll say it again, Steady Shot, Cobra Shot and Barrage will be useable WHILE MOVING.

There’s no mention of Aspect of the Fox in the patch notes, but one would assume that it will be redesigned or removed all together. I suspect the the latter myself.

If this is indeed the direction that Blizzard is going with these abilities then it’s a very nice change. The benefit for PvP is that Hunters can now be in Aspect of the Hawk 100% of the time, rather than Fox 100%. For PvE this means no more aspect dancing. Ultimately Hunters gain more from this change in PvP than PvE, but it’s fantastic for both.

It was pretty well known that Blizzard wasn’t happy with Aspect Dancing. During the MoP beta they tried to address it by putting Aspects on the GCD, but this was unpopular and they reverted it.

In Episode 141 of the Hunting Party Podcast we talked to Zumio who had a pretty negative opinion on Hunter aspects in general. He even went so far to suggest that Blizzard change Steady and Cobra to fire on the move. It appears that Blizzard agrees with that assessment – for now.

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