Addon-Addoff Addon-Addoff "Goood Daniel-San!"

3 Posts in a day, I bet you think you're pretty clever.. don't you boy!
I'm sure there's a lyric in there somewhere.

My bartender addon updated itself yesterday (thanks to WowMatrix) Unfortunately, in doing so, it managed to kill my SpartanUi.

So after about 10 seconds of consideration, about What benefit I was getting from usign SpartanUi, a decision was made. It was going. Along with several other addons of negligible / non-essential use.

Out:

Auctioneer - Yes, I've considered it an almost essential addon for years, but at the end of the day, the market seems to be flucuating so much these days that it's figures are almost always wrong.
SpartanUI - Since it's a bit screwed, and I never really liked the positions it forced Bartender into anyway.
AddonSpam - This stopped my chat log from being flooded with addon loading spam, but at the end of the day, I never really noticed it anyway.
A Few FuBar things - That I'd installed but rarely looked at.
Carbonite Quest - My hunter isn't questing anymore, and if my Pally needs it maybe it'll come back, but I was never keen on it's map interface.
Enchantrix - Haven't been an enchanter for ages, not sure why I still had this. I think it might have come automatically with auctioneer.

In:
AlphaMap - Map replacement, I can't stand the default Blizz Map, and this one includes dungeon maps too. Not that I ever look at them these days.
Glass UnitFrames - Lets you re-position all the unit frames, and makes them look nice. Not sure if I'm keen on thsi one yet though, so it might not stay.
Auctionator - This one's nice. Only runs when at the AH, finds the lowest price item that your trying to sell, and undercuts it. Just what's needed in todays variable AH market. It's not a replacment for Auctioneer, but it's not meant to be.
SexyMap - Minimap replacement - wanted this just to let me move the minimap. I don't like it though, it won't be staying, might choose ChinChilla instead, used that one before.

All these changes probably helped to distract me a little more during Naxx last night. Oh well, I'll make some more changes and hope to have it settled by my next run.

Re-Spec Experiment

My experimental re-spec is now over. With less than astounding results:

I took points from Survival Instincts, and Go for the Throat, and re-spent them to get "Aimed Shot".

Now the way it works, is that you can either use Aimed shot or Multi-Shot, but not both.. As they share a CD timer. And the "Increases ranegd damage by 408" is very misleading, in Aimed Shots tooltip. It increases that particular shots dmg by 408. So it basically just becomes White dmg+408 once every 10 seconds. Rubbish.

Multi-Shot can be fired every 10 seconds, but fires 3 arrows, and since my crit rate is about 30%, at least one of them usually crits. When the Crit-Fu is with me, and all 3 crit at once, mobs tend to fall over and die very quickly.

So mid-Naxx I dropped Aimed-Shot, and although I didn't put the points back into their original places. Keeping them in Mortal Shots instead, I saw an instant improvement in my DPS.

Multi-Shot FTW.

Falling on My Sword

I'd like to apologise to my fellow guidlies who were in Naxx last night. My performance was very.................... crap. (There isn't a better word to describe it).

Whatever I could do wrong, I did do wrong.
I forgot to eat raid food, I forgot to drink my endless rage pot, I even did half the run using standard arrows instead of my usual Saronite Razorheads (which cost me upto 1/3 of my entire DPS).
I had tried out a minor re-spec, and it wasn't working, so had to go to IF mid-run and respec again.

I finally found my feet and got into the flow of things once we reached the Miltary Quarter, and managed to redeem myself, a little. But it was just "one of those nights".

On the positive side, the strategy I found, on the net, for Loathebs corridor worked perfectly once people got the idea. There'll be no more wiping in that area anymore, which used to cost us massive amounts of time.

Why I chose, what I chose

For any budding hunters out there, here's my current build and my reasons for each point spent:
(Note: this obviously might change a little when 3.1 hits)

My Build

Beast Mastery:

Improved Aspect of the Hawk - This is pretty self-explanatory, it gives a solid and reliable DPS buff, and since it procs on 10% of all normal shots, and I fire god-knows-how-many arrows per fight, it's almost always up. Which gives me a permanent 15% speed increase, which then becomes a self-fulfiling prophecy.

Endurance Training - Not really essential for DPS, but the points have to be spent high up in this tree, and no other talent provides a more useful stat boost. Could be swapped for others if needed.

Focused Fire - Another bog-standard "does what it says on the tin" talent. A permanent 2% damage increase.

Aspect Mastery - Yet more Attack Power from Aspect of the Hawk, which should be your main aspect, and less of a DPS drop from Viper, which is also handy.

Unleashed Fury - It's all about the DPS baby. And this one gives 15% extra to your pet at all times.

Ferocity - More Crits = more DPS... Simples

Intimidation - Rarely useful, in my case, but required for the talents below it in the tree.

Bestial Discipline - More focus = more special attacks, and more special attacks = more DPS

Frenzy - The 'Aspect of the Hawk' for your pet... Again, self-fulfilling, more attacks = more crits = faster attacks = more attacks.

Ferocious Inspiration - Party Buff from the pet on every crit, and my pet crits alot. And 9% extra dmg for my arcane shot. No good reason not to take this.

Bestial Wrath - The hulking great damage bonus to all BM hunters. Get this talent, and reduce its cooldowns as much as possibe, and you can spend 18 seconds out of every 60 as a giant red carnage machine.

Serpents Swiftness - More attacks for me, and more attacks for my pet. Follows the basic more is always better principal.

Longevity - See Bestial Wrath

The Beast Within - See Bestial Wrath

Cobra Strikes - When I crit, my pet crits, when my pet crits the party gets buffed, and I and my pet do more dmg.

Kindred Spirits - The movement speed increase is negligible, but the 9% dmg increase for all pet attacks is a bonus. Only 3/5 on this one though, to make the trees points up to reach the bottom.

Beast Mastery - It's what the tree is all about. Exotic pets are fancy, though I don't have any. But the main use for this is the 4 extra points for my pet, which count for alot.


MarksmanShip:

Focused Aim - Chance to hit increased by 3%. At endgame this is one of the most important stats. Pushback mitigation... meh... you shouldnt be getting hit anyway.

Lethal Shots - 5% extra chance to crit. More crit = more dmg + pet crits =... you get the idea.

Careful Aim - 100% of my Intel becomes AP.... absolutely no reason not to have this one.

Go for the Throat - This talent is negotiable, it could be placed in one of a few talents instead, but all generally give the same amount of boost. But when I crit, my pet gets to pull off more special moves, which is always good.


Survival:

Improved Tracking - 5% dmg increase to all mobs. Wonderful talent, but best when teamed with an addon like AutoTrack, which will switch tracking for you automatically.

Survival Instincts - Less dmg taken is always better, but you shouldn't be getting hit. however 4% extra chance to crit with your main shot types is a big plus.


Notes:

I'm considering switching the points in Go For the Throat and Survival Instincts for 4 in Mortal Shots. I crit around 30-35% of the time, so that could provide much better overall DPS.
I might also move a point or two from lethal shots into Aimed Shot, and weave it into my rotation. + 408 dmg on every shot, and I shoot at least once per second, could potentially mean +408 DPS. I'll be giving it a try.

Improved Hunters Mark - Is nowhere near as good as it looks. The bonus doesn't scale at endgame. As it's a fixed increase, not a % of my stats.

Kel'ThuBad

The Munquis cleared Naxx, again, last night.
2nd time in a row, looks like we're starting to make a habit of it.

Horsemen, Plague Quarter, Saph and KT all taken down. Most in one shot.

It was a bit of a mixed affair though, every boss except the last in the plague quarter (and some players had never met him before) was single-shotted, with very little problem. People did what they needed to do, when they needed to do it, and everything went smoothly.

But from there on, things started to fall apart a little. We had Over-Aggroing, Under-Healing, and a lack of situational awareness.
I don't want to take away the glory of having cleared Naxx, but it could have gone so much smoother had people just paid a little more attention.

It reached the point where we all voted on whether to have one-last-try at KT, and I actually voted "No". but the majority said "yes", and that was the time we downed him.

When we did finally down him, it was done almost perfectly. Vedd died, but he's a squishy Melee DPS, and not having him in the centre created less problems with KT's Ice Blocks. So I'll chalk that one up to tactical-suicide by the raid leader.

But it goes to show that the team was more than capable of the challenge, so there wasn't really any need for the wipes and mistakes previously.

It wasn't all bad though. The 4 Horsemen, which I think is one of the most tactical fights, went very smoothly, and Grobbulus went down without a single cloud in the middle of the room. The kiting was done well on Gluth, and I don't think a single zombie reached him during a decimate.
On Last Thursdays run, we came very close to achieveing the Heigan Dance achievement, if it hadn't been for Flow's fraction of a second lag.

For some reason, some, raiders find the simplest thigns the hardest. Dieing while playing frogger in the plague qurater, for example, or falling off the pipe at the entrance to Gluth... Go figure.

At least 2 of the wipes on KT could also be attributed to attacking the banshees too quickly. Aparently, if you attack them before they're fully out of their archway, there is a chance you can aggro the mobs behind them too.

And a note to Shamans: Don't drop totems at the entrance to the room, they instantly aggro a group of mobs when the encounter starts, if they are still up.

All in all GRATZ to all involved, next time there's no excuse, we've all been there and done that. More focus, and the whole place can be a one-shot.

On a personal note, I also picked up epic shoulders and helm, so now I've just got my 2 rings, and 1 trinket to replace. Running short on gold now though, need to get some grinding in.

To Roll or Not-to-Roll

There's a little uncomfortableness in the raiding guildies at the moment, about the number of drops people are getting.
People seem a little unhappy with the way the loot is being distributed. The intention was, originally, to keep it as fair as possible. Anyone who is in the raid, with their main, may roll on any drop that is an upgrade for their main-spec.

If there are no takers, then it is offered to roll for off-specs, if nobody wants it after that it gets DE'd for shards in the guild bank.

If a BoE item drops, then the same rules apply, but instead of DE'ing it at the end, it gets put on the AH, and the raiders that night split the cash from the sale.

This seems a pretty straightforward system. And it doesn't favour the more hard-core raiders over the newbies, as everyone gets an equal chance to roll.
Sure, this might mean that someone who is new to the raid, or has sketchy attendance, gets a major upgrade, meaning that someone who has been loyally raiding every week, misses out. But I don't see any fairer, and as uncomplicated, way of distributing it.

Buty people are unhappy... So would it be fairer to bring in a DKP system (Dragon Kill Points)?

My understanding of DKP is this:

Every raider who is present at a boss-kill gets points awarded. When a drop appears, that they want, they use those points to bid for the item. The points roll-over in to all future raids, so people can build up a larger number of points.
This means that regular raiders obviously have more points, and have more bargaining power, and newer raiders have fewer points and so less chance of winning an item.
But this also means that people are more likely to pass on a minor upgrade, with the intention of saving their points to bid for that special drop that they want.

In some ways this seems even fairer than the system that we use now. And new raiders aren't going to miss out on every drop simply because they don't have any bidding power, as the more experienced raiders will either already have the item, or will be saving their points, and so will pass on the item anyway.

I know there's addons to help with the DKP systems, but having never used one, or been in a guild with a DKP system, I'm not sure how much work it would be to manage one. Or whether it would be worth the hassle.

Unfortunately for me, it wouldn't help much, as my main competition for drops is the only rogue in the team, who happens to be the raid leader, and so will always have more DKP's than me. But I'm not worried about that. Besides, his DPS could do with the upgrade more than mine ;P

Everyone's a Crit-ic

Apolgies for the delay between my posts again, but I'm sure the world isn't going to come to a standstill just because I stop babbling on.
Things at work are going to get a little more back to normal from this week, so my frequency of posts should go back up too.

Anyway.... Crit vs AP... Discuss.

My DPS is usually at the top of the meters for an overall run, but that doesn't necesarily mean that I do the most damage on bosses. Particularly on ones like Heigan, where I can't even send in my pet.
But generally speaking I'm happy with the amount of damage that I'm doing.
My question is, how do I do more?

At first I was stacking as much AP as possible, and it was working, I saw a steady increase in my DPS. Until I reached 4k AP unbuffed. At that point, my DPS seemed to level out a bit, and even when buffed up to 6k+, I didn't necessarily notice the major improvements that I would have expected.

So I switched out as many gems as I could for +Crit instead of +AP. Which now gives me just under 4k AP (Unbuffed), and about 28% Crit (Unbuffed).
Lookign at my last ReCount meter from Naxx, it shows I averaged 36% overall Crit, and yes I was 1 Million dmg above 2nd place (overall), but my DPS hasn't really moved at all.

I've also picked up t7 Gloves and Chest, so my pet is now 5% dmg higher (which should equate to about 50DPS)
Although I'm still stuck with my Blue helm and shoulders, and both rings, and 1 blue trinket. Unfortunately, the only place I can pick up decent upgrades for all of them is Raids, and my luck on drops hasn't been too good.

So, any ideas? Should I be stacking Crit, or should I go back to raw Attack Power?

Smythy

Naxx-Woes

I filled in for a missing ranged DPS spot last night. In the guilds Naxx(10) run.
Military Quarter and Frostwyrm lair.

The DPS was high, the healers were capable, the tanks were tough enough, but it just goes to show that sometimes a team just doesn't work.

The organisation was just not working, people weren't sure of their roles, there was a little confusion about positioning, and a few cases of people just not listening, or not paying attention during fights.

Result? About 10 wipes. Saph finally downed, and 1 attempt at KT was enough to know it was a definite no-go.

With the new raiding style, movement and positioning is key. Tactics can be learned, but unless everyone reacts at the right time. It's going to be a wipe. Unfortunately, 1 slow reaction, or mis-placed player can wipe a team. And that's what was happening.

I'm sure Thursdays team will do much better though, they're the more experienced and more team-work oriented group.

If you read this though Vedd, I'd really suggest that we don't leave the military quarter until last anymore.
In my opinion, it's a much easier set of fights than the Construct Quarter, so if we pull of the Arachnids, Plague, and Military in one-shots.
We'd even have time to start on the Constructs in advance of the following Monday. Meaning more time to perfect the KT tactics, and possibly move on to harder things.

For anyone who doesn't know. Sapphiron is basically just a tank and spank, with only a few minor twists.

Team-Work and positioning is king in the new raid design, and it's hard, but I like it.
It reminds me of the Shade of Aran encounter in Kara. Difficult to master, but alot of fun.

Happy EVEr after?

No, not really.
My trail period of EVE is reachign a close, and to be honest I'm very underwhelmed by the whole experience.

The game felt like I was just going through the motions, trying to achieve something that wasn't really going to make a difference anyway.

Despite all the training, and despite several ship upgrades, and despite seeing marked improvements in my stats. Not just in numbers, but in actual battle situations. I was bored.

Maybe I just couldn't relate to my ship being my character. Especially when I could change it at will, or adapt it to take on any challenge. In PvE encounters, it was ridiculously easy to fight off an attack by upto 20 enemies, in what I expected to be a very difficult encounter.

I did actually manage to lose one of my ships, but since money was also unexpectedly easy to come by, I simply replaced it with an even better one.
Also, the majority of the time, you're not actually face-to-face with whoever / whatever it is you're even fighting. They're nothing more than a reference in one of your control panels. Getting toe to toe with them was a bad idea anyway, and since my attack range and damage output was so high it was a simple case of "Lock-On Target"->"Orbit 5km"->"F1+F2+F3+F4"->"Boom". I never saw them, they never saw me...... Lather, rinse, repeat.
I spent longer looting the ships than I did fighting them.

So my days with EVE are over, and I don't see myself going back there unless the Munquis decide to up and leave Darkspear for the 'New Eden' realm, in which case, It'll suddenly become alot more fun.

Food glorious food

It's been a while since my last post... again.

Apologies if any of you ahve been waiting with baited breath for the next installment of my rantings. But I doubt there's many (if any) of you.
I've just been too busy at work recently, and with a pending promotion possibility, that is obviously taking priority right now.

But I haven't been neglecting my WoW duties either. More progress in Naxx, the Munquis have reached Kel'Thuzad but, despite tactical changes and hours of wipes, the Positional-Fu was just not with us that night. And we had to give it up. But it's a definite win for next time.

I've been using the rest of my spare time to level up my cooking skills.
Not too bad at all. I'm now on 420 cooking. And it cost me a minimal 400g on the AH to buy all the mats I needed.
Many of which I then re-sold for a small profit, and so off-set some of the cost.

The rest I picked up myself. Which made me even more money, since animals tend to have nice skins, which I also take, and are often surrounded by herbs which I also take, and occasionally they also drop nice items, which I take.
So after almost reaching the max cooking skill, I now have 1500g in the bank (1k more than I started with), and another 1kg sat on the AH. What credit crunch?

As a side efffect of killing all of those mobs, my gorrila also hit 80, and has become a practically unstoppable killing machine. He's more than capable of tanking about 10-12 level 80ish mobs, and since my DPS is high, I can nuke them all within seconds, and we move on to the next batch.

It's got to the point where, if I see a group of mobs close together, I'll even dismount, just because it's so quick for me to kill them, and the rewards are so high.

Unless Blizz bring in a patch that makes them uncrittable I don't think he's going to be tanking any heroics, but he's more than suitable for an overgeared group, or for trash.

It's like having my own personal Paladin. Can't wait until next patch when I can take my DPS pet out, and switch between them without having to visit a stable.