A Hunters Life

It's been a while

2010-08-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have been on a brief hiatus from blogging, but think I shall return for a little while. Lots of good and bad things have happened since i last posted. I am still pursuing a Lich King kill on Braincramp and Iwasframed. I am back in my original Guild Lockdown. I have a new 80 Dôômbringer my Belf Pally.

I have been tanking on my DK in ICC, we are currently 8/12 regular mode. I enjoy it, my other tank with me is a Warrior and he has come a long way. The group is a pretty good group, but the biggest issue we are having is most of them are new raiders. They never had any raid experience before ICC. so the challenge has been to get everyone up to speed on there role, and making them push there pixels to the limit. We have progressed decently as a group. Went from barely being able to done Marrogar to one shotting every thing up to Rotface. Rotface still gives us some trouble due to it having lots of movement and mechanics. Raid mechanics are getting better and we still have people finding things out about there toons that they didn't know. As soon as we get rolling as a team it seems like someone has to go on vacation or miss a week due to work things. Oh well, we have been able to rotate a few people from our guild and get them some gear.

Braincramp on the other hand is sitting at 10/12 ICC, with attempts on Sindragosa and LK himself, with no luck on either... I have more experience on LK than Sind. I have been experimenting with different specs and play styles out of boredom. I know that with a BM spec I can single target about 12k and I do about 14-15k with my surv spec, my MM spec is the one I cant seem to break 10k single target, not sure why. My Arm pen is about 60% with about the same crit, and I know the rotation I just think Braincramp isn't set out for that play style :). I have played surv since before it was viable. I could out Dps other hunters in BC and they would get pissed becuase it wasn't supposed to happen. I guess it is all about you play style and being comfortable. Of course when I am full agi gemmed my crit in Surv is about 69% unbuffed and can reach 80-85% full buffed and when things proc.

Well hopefully Ican continue with the progression and I will try and keep things updated.

ICC and New Developements

2010-04-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like I may have found a Guild that I can raid ICC 10 man with. The guild "Is an Alt", has paired up with a couple of my co-workers. I followed suit and joined there ranks. They invited me this week and we went in and cleared the first wing with minimal problems, dropped Festergut like a bad habit and then finally hit the raid wall at Rotface. It wasn’t that we could not get him down. Dps was good, it is a very situational awareness fight, which means you have to pay attention.

We had a few tries, but it was getting late, and we were all a little tired, plus on of our healers had to go to bed so they could get up for work in a couple of hours. Overall the night was a lot of fun, we all gave each other a bunch of crap, and no one got offended. I hope they continue to bring me along for the ride. I was third on the dps meter, behind an amazing Death Knight and an awesome Shaman. I was also able to get a couple of good upgrades. I like the way they run there raids and hope this is a recurring group for me. We have it set to pick up were we left off on Thursday night. That should mean that we will clear the Plague wing and move on to the Blood Council. One day if we get good enough I may actually get to see old Arthas himself and shoot some arrows/bullets in his ass.

In other news, I hit 80 on Iwasframed last night, now I will have to gear him for tanking and Dps. Tanking will be first priority, because that is what I need him for. If I have a chance though, I will roll on any Dps gear that I can get my grubby little mitts on. Hopefully I can have him in t9 gear soon, then it will be off to the races for ICC, ToC, and VoA. I should be able to do the weekly on him this week, so I will get a few free badges. Overall it has been an outstanding couple of nights.

Success...well kind of

2010-04-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

Well last week started the same as any other reset. "Hey guys, let's do the weekly on Wednesday." from the raid leader. Collectly in vent the guild, "That would be a good idea." "Then on Friday we are going to do ICC" from the raid leader. "Ok cool are you going to be on?" the guild. "You bet, I don't have anything going on" RL. So we fly through the weekly, no problem, we may have even been able to try it on hard mode, but I don't think they are that brave yet. Then Fiday night comes along, about an hour before raid time some people start logging in, I ask if we are still doing ICC, everyone says yeah as soon aas the raid leader logs on. Ok, I will wait then, because I have this group that wants me to go.

We all wait, raid time has came and went, then people start logging off, So, I get on one of my other toons and start grinding away. Night ends, letdown.

Saturday comes along, I get an invite to ICC, we one shot the whole thing racking up a couple of achievements. It was a great night, then the raid leader comes on and we ask him what happened. "Oh sorry guys, I forgot about it and went out after work with some people and had drinks." Funny thing is that we all work together and were talking about it that day. Oh well, then he asks, ok who's ready to do ICC. Most of us told him that we had either already been saved or didn't feel like because of the previos night. Anyways, I got my first Ashen Verdict ring and the first wing down, so now i will be able to get into groups more readily. I am on my way up in this WoW world. Also i managed to level my DK to 79. One more level and then I will be gearing a second toon.

Malygos

2010-03-30T10:09:00.001-07:00

Monday nights are supposed to be our random raid night. I suprised that we actually did any thing because of last weeks happenings. We all decided that we should not only do a random raid, but we should also try and get the achievement Champion of the Frozen Wastes. The only thing missing for a few of us was Malygos. So we partnered up with some new found friends from another guild. We went in and they explained the fight and went in. There was a warlock there that said if we finish it he would give each one of us 100g, because he too had never killed Malygos.

The fight is fairly straight forward through the first 2 phases. Phase 1 is a tank and spank, you just burn him down to 50% or less depending how much Dps you have. Also keep the spark from getting to them, they empower him, that's no good. If you kill the spark and stand in it you get a buff they grants you 50% more Att Pwr. Phase 2 is somewhat of a ranged fight. You have to kill the guys flying around on the discs and then you Melee Dps get on the disc to help kill the rest of the floaters.

Then comes Phase 3, it is a vehicle fight of sorts. Malygos throws a temper tantrum and breaks the floor out from under you. You fall and land on a dragon, so you fly on dragons similar to the Occulos fight. Well here lies the problem, you have to be somewhat intelligent to make this happen. You have to move somewhat together so you can get healed, and you have to keep hitting the same button until Malygos has a certain number of a de-buff then press another button. then on top of that if he targets you, you have to press the button that shields you. So basically it goes like this: stack on {X} and strafe right when he says to, all this time you need to spam the 1 key until he has about 3-5 stacks then press the 2 key. While the tank and Dps are doing this the healers need to stay with everyone and heal(imagine that) which is basically spamming the 4 key for the AoE heal and hitting 3 for direct taregt heal.

Well wipe after wipe we finally decided that we would give it one more try. Everything got re-explained and we went for it. We were slowly beating him down and then a couple of us died, and it was going really slow and steady. Well since i was watching from the ground(yeah I died) I was able to keep an eye on his health and the enrage timer. So, I am watching and thinling we are going to get close but I wasn't too certain we would beat the enrage timer. So as things are getting close on his health and his enrage, the pucker factor starts a little. Then bam Malygos meets his demise with less than 10 seconds left on his temper timer. We were all relieved and the trusty warlock met us out side and gave us each 100g.

After that we decided to go kill K'T again to help a few friends get that part of the achievement. So we went in and 1 shot the dragon without frost protection and they got that achievement. and then went in to see K'T well we decided to try another achievement on him, we won't go itno it but it ended in 3 wipes. Then we decided to just run a train on K'T and not go for that one quite yet. Long and short version the night ended with success.

New Stuff

2010-03-29T12:19:00.001-07:00

Well with all my waiting around for my guildies to get on the same page, i made another new character. She is a Human Mage, I like leveling Alliance toons so much more than Horde toons, I guess it is just what I am used to. Other than that not much has changed, I log into my main and alt long enough to look for a raid or do the random daily for my badges, but other than that I have been making alts and see what I really want to do. Updates to follow, tonight is supposed to be a raid night, but i guess we shall see how that goes.

Frustration

2010-03-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

Well last i wrote I thought my next post was going to be one with lots of success, but instead i feel as if I am left in limbo. The guild leader has decided to pull his newest 80 and our only competent healer out of the guild to raid with another guild. The Main tank is not much of a raid leader, I sure as hell don't want to lead raids, main reason being is that I have held myself back in order to be there for he guild, but now I am leaning towards personal growth over guild growth.

i really do like my guildmates, most of which are co-workers. The only thing is that the ones that want to raid are not geared enough and wont work on it on their own, and the ones that are geared to raid are outsourcing their skills for self gain. So basically i am left to pick whether i help everyone else or just do my own thing. I have been able to get a few upgrades and PUG into a few raids, but I have missed a bunch of chances at ICC, holding back for the guild. In one word i guess I could some this up as FRUSTRATION.

Oh well it is just a game, but I am a perfectionist and looked at the hunters on my server I rank in the 200's for gear, that is so fricken lame. I know I took a year off, but still I need some gear damn it.

Black Temple

2010-03-21T10:23:00.001-07:00

Well I logged in last night in hopes of moving on to the second boss in ICC. That was a failure, so I pst the guy spamming for a Black Temple run. I had never been in BT before and even though Braincramp would have really enjoyed the trip, I took Iwasframed, my DK alt. We ran through that place really quick, there were a bunch of 80's in the raid.

I got one piece of gear out of there, sadly the old tier bosses do not carry DK stuff. At Illidan we wiped several times{5} before we decided like all encounters in WoW fire is bad. So Illidan falls and bam there it is Waglaive of Azzinoth. Oh how I wish DK's could use that. Oh well I guess eventually I will get to see another Legendary item. Maybe I can arrange a Sunwell run with Braincramp and rock out with a Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury

That was pretty much the night and it was enjoyable... but it was no ICC

Lord Marrowgar

2010-03-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

Well last night was a great night. We started the raid a little late, because our Main Tank, Helloiam(Tauran Warrior), forgot that he scheduled it. We were gettign pretty upset when he wasn't on, then when he logged on we all started giving him crap about it.

With that out of the way we garthered up the troops and Zoned into ICC. Trash went down pretty easy, even without a Rogue to identify traps. We took everything in stride, even thinking that we may not get the boss down. Well the first pull on Lord Marrowgar, went like this... I am on a bone spike, get me off this thing, stay out of the fire, FUCK, just wipe and restart. Before the second pull I told everyone, no matter what stay out of the fire, even if it means getting hit by the Whirlwind. The whirlwind will hurt, but those blue flames will kill you quick. With those that are new to WoW, no matter what stay out of the fire, no matter what encounter. Repair bills suck and you will /fail if you stand in the fire.

Ok, attempt three, went like this... ok stay out of fire everyone gets that right?, when it tells you bonespike on{failure} dps switch to the bonespike. With that settled we went in, all was going smooth, then boom, Helloiam is down. Dukat (Blood Elf Pally) off tank, picked him up. They battle rezzed Helloiam, and we continued. Everything was going slow and steady, we were all clicking well together. Then we lost a DPS, with Marrowgar under 10% we started to unload, apparently so much so that the other DPS did not feel it necessary to un-bonespike me, I die in flames on a Bonespike. Then a healer went down, then bam Lord Marrowgar bites the dust. We decided to call it a night and enjoy our 7 Frost Badges for the weekly and the boss.

I think we are going to continue to trash/rep farm ICC. I am very excited aboout this, hopefully we will get brave enough to move on and start progressing through that place.

Gear/Raiding

2010-03-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

Well slowly and surely I have been gearing out my main. I have gotten a few invites to 10/25 man raids. I really do enjoy raiding, end game content is what any hardcore casual player is after. I am now the best geared hunter in my guild, but not yet satisfied. I feel I could be doing better. If I could get a battered hilt to drop that would throw me over the 5k gear score mark and get me invites to ICC and others more frequently. I generally have no problem getting into raids now, which helps me learn the fights.

I have also been getting a little pressure to level my DK alt, Iwasframed is his name and he sits at 72 currently. They want me to take over tanking when the main and off tank in the guild get there healer druid and troll hunter leveled/geared. I think that is going to be a pain. I am trying to stay positive, I am a fairly decent tank, but it is a different aspect than what I am used to playing. I really do enjoy the stand and blast away feel of a hunter. Melee dps is not really my cup of tea, but Tanking is fun. We shall see how this developes. I feel like I may get railroaded into to it eventually.

Tonight when everyone logs on we are going to try our hand at 10 ICC, well at least the first boss. He is the weekly. I added a target bonespike macro for the fight, because I am feeling like I may be one of the few people that have read about that fight. Hopefully I am wrong and we do a great job. It would be really awesome to see Lady Deathwhisper as well tonight, but I will be fine with just downing Lord Marrowgar. As long as tonight is not /fail I will be happy.

I also will have to watch out for the worst kind of aggro known to man GF aggro. That will kill any raiding hopes. Hopefully she goes to bed when she normally does, then it will be game on.

Progression

2010-03-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Since I have been back I have switched factions, servers, and joined a guild of co-workers. I have not been to concerned about progression until lately. Last night we ran OS as a guild for the first time. We cut through that place like a hot knife through butter. We ran 9 people from our guild and only had to pug in one.

After that we went into the Spider wing of Naxx. We only ran one boss and we 2 shotted it. It was late so we called it a night, but we all decided that it would be fun to start Guild Progression in Naxx and then move on. Overall it was a good night for the guild. Lockdown is now on the progression map.

LFG... sometimes awesome sometimes its like the plague

2010-03-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

So, up until recently i have had a lot of luck with the LFG tool for dungeons. The past couple I have got into, the healer would get mad at the tank and not heal or the tank would get mad at the healer and start talking crap. That leads to the first mentioned problem.

The big problem I have is, the healer aggroing a full room and then calling the tank a scrub for not being able to save the group. I love healers, dont get me wrong, but you are there to heal not pull and blame. I have a lot of respect for healers, but not douche-bags. So for those that want to go-go-go make sure your tank does too, or it doesnt work well in heroics. How would your guild feel if you did that... yup it would be "you are no longer in "[guild of choice]".

Side note, gear is coming along nicely, still not quite geared enough to q in to all heroics. I am still enjoying everything though, hoping to run my first Naxx 10. Hopefully my guild can hook me up

Big Changes

2010-02-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

I finally went "ding" for level 80. My course here has taken me across 4 realms now,1original random server pick, 1 creepy stalker avoidance, and 2 times due to co-workers. On this last change I not only went to Nathrezim, but also became an Orc Hunter on a PvP server. I had several options to choose from, I ended up with an Orc for the racial attack power and the bonus pet damage. I am currently torn between a BM spec that I have created and my normal Surv spec.

I am duel specced, so i do have both. I have noticed that my DPS runs about the same, which is not supposed to be the case. I am not sure what I am doing that is maintaining the same DPS. Am I not utilizing my Surv spec properly or am I using the right rotaion, racial bonus, and pet combo for my BM to do the same DPS. The rotation I use for BM is a lot easier to keep track of cooldowns and dots.

Here is my character sheet:

I also look like I want to eat you :)

Cold Weather Flying

2010-02-18T03:48:00.000-08:00

Well I finally went "ding" level 77 tonight that means I spent 1k gold for flying in cold weather. I am still enjoying my hunter and am just waiting to transfer after my thirty days is up. The only question I have is if iget to pick what I am going to be or if Blizzard picks the race for me to be when i change Factions. Oh well I guess i will find out soon enough.

On a seperate subject, My DPS is making me happy. I was in Violet Hold with 2 other Hunters. Ther was me a Surv Spec, a full BM spec, and a full MM spec and i was hands down the best DPS even when I forgot to switch aspects from Viper to Dragonhawk. I was very happ, not sure if it was my rotation, spec or just flat out skill. I would like to say it is the latter but I will see about that :)

I'm back

2010-02-17T11:44:00.000-08:00

I recently came back to WoW after about a year off. So much has changed and I am leveling again... I have learned that dungeons are easier, and gearing out at 80 is quick too. I do miss the grinding through Kara hoping for the bow to drop off of prince, because it was the best weapon I could easily attain.

Now it seems when i hit 80 all I have to do is farm Heroics for badges. Then poof I am a geared 80. That is somewhat disheartening, I do miss the raiding and hoping to get gear.

I am also about to switch to the Horde eventually so I can raid with the guys i work with, i have not rolled a Horde until recent. The quest lines are similar but different enough it is a little bit of a challenge.