Shifttusk Does Gems!!

Hey People Its that time!

What the heck am I going to put in my shiny new linked chain shirt thats soon to be covered in gnome guts!

I received an email with some questions about gemming/chanting up so after chatting it up with
our subject Skipshrike we decided to make him our pet hunter for the day!

Armory

So taking a gander out our subject we can see he's looking pretty good. His dodge and parry total to about 20% with over 6000 armor and 226 resilience pre gem-athon! I think he also has another 20 from his pvp trinket which wasn't equipped in the armory.

In our email skip says:

"I have been told that putting +12 stm gems all over the
place would be the best thing to do till I started to get S3 pieces. I
like the survivability of that, but I would like to be able to do some
damage in BG's (for pve I have some gear for that). Which gems would
you recommend?"

This is 100% acurate increased resilience and stamina help out a ton in pvp expecialy arena, not being able to be bursted down before catching a heal is essential. But to support your email. So is unleashing a crap ton of damage to your opponents! Just to note our reader also has a S1 Headpiece coming so we're going to review that as well.

So first off skip, theres no simple answer should I always gem for survivability or pew. To me its all about the balance. I'm going to kinda push that with you. Luckily your pvp gear is not shabby and with the addition of the S1 head you'll be pushing 250 resilience before we gem your behind up.

So lets go piece by piece!

Gladiators Helmet - I'm going to assume you're not going to grab your season 3 helmet for a bit so I'm going to go all out.
[Red] - 20 ATP Gem, its purple but you can afford it. For around 7k honor this beauty can be yours. Is it worth it over 16ap? Not by much but its purple, its 4 free attack power and you should get it. Investing high quality in your gems is important, glad S1 gear although now easy to get is very good and worth spending the cash/honor on.
[Meta] - +12 agility +3% critical strike bonus damage. Say what shift? No 18 stamina? Heck no! Our boy is rocking almost an even 10khp at this point and will be getting more in enchants later 5% stun resist for a BM is silly. You have 18seconds out of every 2 minutes that you're immune to stuns! Instead you get 12 agility. Thats 12atp and around .25% critical you're also getting 3% bonus to your critical output to help offset your opponents resilience. Think about it +133% damage on a critical. With the resilience cap out at -25% damage on crit you're really helping to boost your output and offset your opponents mitigation!
Enchant - I agree with your choice of the cenarion enchant. Some people have opted for 20 shadow resistance to offset dot but you're BM, and warlocks have a ton to fear of you. The head enchant will also help you stay hit capped in arena (5% to hit is needed to not miss pvp targets)

Total Gain: 54 ATP 12 Agility 14 hit rating 3% critical strike damage. A whole lot of hurting!

Gladiators Chain Armor - I still got mine! And you are gonna be my twin.
[Red]x2 - Now with the exception of the PvP honor gems I always go hybrid in red slots. For this slot I recommend 4 agility 6 stamina gems. These give you a nice balance of attack power critical dodge and stamina and make great gems for these slots. Buy them and smile politely at all the noobs with 8 attack power 6 stamina gems.
[Yellow] - Heres where you stack some survivability. Unlike PvE gear where yellow gems are given to critical or hit rating for pvp I go with 4 resilience 6 stamina gems. Mitigation and big HP. I likes it!
Enchant - 15 resilience. Its a ton of mitigation for this slot. Get it and don't look back thinking about the 6 to all stats.

Total gain: 18 Stamina 8 Agility 19 Resilience a lot of balance!

Gladiators Gloves - No gems on this slot but you have room for a nice enchant!
Enchant - 15 agility ALL THE FREAKING WAY. I see tons of hunters PvE and PvP slap on 26 attack power here. Now think about it 1 agility is worth 2 attack power in the item budge why would you gimp yourself? More importantly in pvp why would you take less than 1 dps increase over more than .25% critical dodge and 30 armor? Don't do it get the agility my hunter cousins!

Total gain: 15 Agility

Gladiators Chain Leggings - Once again no gems, but now its leg armor time. Now I've constantly hated this. Warriors, who have better mitigation and stamina on their gear get to go HEY GEIF 50 ATP. You MR hunter do not. I have the nethercleft armor on mine. 40 stamina for a class that has issues getting focused is essential. The cobra kits are far too imbalanced and do not present any defensive stats while the cleft kits provide a bit of offensive stats with a chunk of stamina. They're more balanced and that is the key.

Total gain: 40 Stamina 12 Agility

Now I saw you had your boots already enchanted with 12 agility so I am guessing that you use these for PvE as well. From a long time world PvPer (I love being on a PvP server) you need the minor run speed. If you want to keep the agility find an enchanter and buck up for cat's swiftness. You'll never be able to put your finger on it but that 8% movement buff is HUGE!

I hope this helped you with your dilemma. If you get anymore gear soon write back so we can put some other pieces of gear into the mix! Thanks for being our experiment Skipshrike!

Wooohoooo!

Season 2 final results?

1811 2v2 1802 3v4!


Most importantly though.

Baby...

Got....

Back!!

Final purchases?

Season 3 Head (+20ap gem +12 agil +3% critical dmg)
Season 3 Gloves (+15 agility)
Season 3 Axe (+35 agility)
Season 3 Belt
Season 3 Ring
Season 1 Pants (40sta 12 agil)
+10ap +5crit gem for my s2 shoulders

I hit like I'm in PVE gear now :) the -1sec on multishot is def noticable in arena!

Ya I'll be on beating things up alot this week!

T-6 Hours

Ok Soooo...

I'm stuck at work and freaking out I want to buy mah gear. I'm literaly rolling in points to spend and freaking out waiting to get my sexies and go rough people up! We're not planning on running 3v3 the first day since its likely to be a crapshoot. We may start up our new 5v5 however.

Hunter Rogue Lock DiscPriest RDruid

Thats right, we're debating calling the team something like screwarmoryscan or Under Represented being we have the 4 least represented 5v5 classes (druid hunter rogue lock) and none of the most represented (Paly War Sham) in our lineup. WE have a cool plan and I think this odball lineup will actualy do very well. 2 MS effects, tons of CC, no classes that are easy to shut down via drains (well maybe priest or me but I drink all day).

I cant post my SS from work but S2 finished at:

2v2: Bringing It Back 1786 (slopped a few points this weekend messing around with a druid for 5s)
3v3: Try my special sause 1802. So I think challenger maybe rival but sweet none the less. This bad boy is going to jump up to 2k with our lock not wearing quest blues :)

So, Banked 4300 Arena, 65k Honor! What do I know I'm going to get?

S3 Head
S3 Axey
S3 Gloves
(4k arena)

S1 Pants
20AP Gem for the head piece
(21k Honor)

So this leaves me with 40k of pretty to spend on stuff. Being that this is season 3 I'm thinking I'm going to deck out in gems. I will def get all the pvp purples and as I pick up my S3 Chest get some BT/MT gems from friends in a PvE guild. But back to 40k honor and spending it.

I was thinking of getting 2 season 1 1h weapons with +30intel on each for those long 2v2 matches but I'm thinking I'll farm these later or get S3 ones. I won't really need to spend too much on S3 Armor through the season and will certainly have points to burn. Sooo....

Maybe...

Ring
Neck w/
10ap 5 crit gem
Belt

That should cost roughly 40k and leave me some things to BG for (bracers boots)

Help meh pick!

AFK SEC BIO!!

Haha just playing, sorry for the lack of posts I've been busy as all heck at work and ickie.

So whats up, day after turkey festival! And I think I'm still drunk!

Season 2 is just about over and the shift finished 1800's in 2v2 and 3v3 I'll screen shot it once I get home!. We made a breakthrough beating 2 mele teams in 3's which helped us slop up 40 pts this week! I have no doubt with some of the gear upgrades we're seeing that I'll be rocking my S3 bow shortly!

Mortal strike shot has me feeling more like a hunter. Rolling around without the scorpid and laying out tons of dps in arena. Making viperstings stick because clensing isn't an option when you're getting your ass beat with -50% healing!

I'm hunting for a druid to tame... erhm mean 2v2 with and looking to fill him out as our last on our new 5's layout. I like playing with our priest but I think a druid will give me the edge vs rogue mage and war druid.

(FG)warlock (Marks)hunter (disc)priest (Resto)druid and (prepmaces)rogue. The cc and lockdown provided by the rogue will really let the mana burn passe (lock priest) go to town and give me nice steady targets to burn. I think the combination of mace stuns, pws's and druid cc will really let us shut down warriors and mele really well! Notice anything about the team? Thats right SCREW WARRIORS!

What am I looking like for s3 start? 4200 points, 60k honor! I'll be rolling with the new s3 axe head and gloves as well as the new ring, neck belt and some other misc pvp stuff!

I'm pumped and will be looking for a certain veranice looking girl in av this weekend to beat up!

:P

PvE vs PvP 2.3 Has Hunters Up At Arms!

Ok I find this hillarious. PvP hunters are singing praises to bliz for the changes, could we have asked for better sure but are these good? Hell yea! PvE hunters? Crying like noones business!

QQ I can't drink in a boss fight!

QQ I can't spam a macro!

Now yes the no pet feed in combat sucks I agree and bliz did say they are looking to resolve this I hope they do as pet happiness really owns BM hunters DPS in a raid. I know I've had it happen.

But as far as the drinking? Suck it up noone else could do this, noone else could rotate trinkets mid boss fight! Plus FD drinking in a raid is just plain dumb! How much dps do you do while drinking? Judges? Pet only congrats! Hunters had an easy way out and now are crying that they have to go through the same trouble as other classes. Use your pot cooldown well. Purchase some Mp5 Weapon oil and quit crying! If you do this you get to keep hawk up and do more dps instead of sitting on your arse while the rest of your raid does their jobs.

As far as the macros I say the same thing. Can warlocks make a macro to pop their dots in the proper time? Nope! Can rogues macro thier moves and finishers? No! hunter dps without a macro isn't hard. I raided fairly extensively on shift (all t4 and voidreaver) and sure macros are great if you need to take a phone call during trash. But you get better performance out of learning your class and timing your specials.

Ugh we got hooked up people!

Oh plus cooking daily! I got a recipe for chocolate cake that makes you shoot fireworks out of your ass! Blue cooking recip! I win!

Oh eM Gee Two Point Three

So 2.3 went live and I have to give kudos to bliz I had minimal lag issues, nothing too crazy works wrong etc. So good job to you developers and IT people at bliz. Now as far as hunter changes I say:

Nice Job They're Not Bad!

To all the hunters crying that they won't get an aimed off in arena. Cry more learn to use rapid fire or a haste trinket properly and most importantly getting 3 free seconds via kiting is not hard. The arcane dispell is awesome leading to hunters being very good for softening a target for a kill.

1/3k Aimed -50% healing debuf
600/1.4k Arcane - Purge something very often important like a renew, ES or so on
another 2k dmg putting someone in a great position to be dropped in 5's

So what did I do yesterday? A little of everything I farmed for a bit leveling my ghostsaber and found the TSA change was phenomenal and really reduced the downtime I needed while farming/leveling a level 50 pet. And that's about all the PvE haha!

On to other stuff. The hunter dead zone change was the only thing to really effect 1v1 situations. It was much easier to get a clutch concussive shot on a rogue and get away after scattering him. The purge was rather funny in a few cases. Owning a locks fel armor and having him freak is awesome. Owning earth shield? Better :)

But the huge change was 3v3. We had been playing with different healers on and off but yesterday Me Warlock DiscPriest went nuts. The team was chilling at a nice (lol) 1600 or so rating. Today? 1750 our warlock has 0 pieces of arena gear and we were just abusing teams in full merc. Dispels while the priest is tanking are ridiculous. One match I zinged fel dom from a lock after we killed his lolguard and I was laughing my arse off. I think we went 9-3 overall our losses were to teams who we dropped 9-11 points to. It was great calling kill targets out. The MS debuf is such a huge asset to the team that has tons of mana burning and offensive dispelling. Melee is no big issue between hunter cc/kite on the warrior and lock fears on rogues and palas.

Things I did notice that were big for other teams? Pain suppression is jacked. Enh shamans are alot harder to drop even in crappier gear. Hunters are a real issue now :)

A few notable losses:

Hunter Warrior Shaman: From our server alliance side (screw u maplestory) these guys were very good and honestly a hunter does a lot to help keep a warrior DPSing. Our basic strat was:

1) Oom hunter while I killed his pet.
2) Keep warrior snared
3) after hunter was oom keep a pet on him to prevent him being useful and getting a drink
4) Then split some dps between shaman and warrior once the sham is forced into heal himself mode fear sham MS warrior and kill him.

This worked well except we dropped their warrior and their hunter dropped our lock at the same time. I was oom priest was oom as he kited the hunter i drank, the hunter killed my pet and their sham got a rez on the warrior... we noobed that up :(. I for see hunter+war+shaman being fairly good relying on warrior dps and the hunter assisting and helping keep the person snared so the warrior can continue bashing them down.

So the shifttusk summary of changes after rambling post?
1) Aimedshot Debuf is great it doesn't break 1v1 game is a huge asset in arena I noticed a huge bump in my contribution to the team hunters are now very good utility in arena between traps stings and purge.
2) The new kara amo is a huge up in dps for arena along side the racial change although as BM I wouldn't be hit capped in pve any more the extra 1%^ crit and 10 dps amo is huge. I was top dmg arena in every match.
3) Poison dispells seem to be going in order of application now so the scorpid may or may not be needed.
4) With the MS debuf I'm now specced out of imp stings officially my stings aren't getting dispelled when someone is MS'd(aimedshotted whatever) if you MS a dpser and sting a healer they're going to eat the viper.
5) The dispell while unreliable is a great asset especially combined with another dispeller like a priest really clearing people out so you can own important buffs like BOF, BOP and ES later.

I'm looking forward to S3 starting I think its going to be alot of fun with our 3v3 lineup. I think bliz's fix to enh shamans is partially successful but I think it is too much a 1v1 buff and not giving them any super utility for arena. They're still easy to shut down and are really only good for some dps and keeping a warrior on someone.

On a side note someone with a toon named "hotforyou" sent me a tell asking about the hunter changes I was in an arena and didn't respond but who the heck was that?

Patch Day!

Wake up, kick off 281 MB download.... go be stuck at work for 9-argh hours.

Seriously I'm very pumped. Surprisingly enough my main pumpage is about the two following items:

- Trueshot Aura now costs 0 mana and remains active untill canceled. Now this is no huge change, its not going to make a difference at all in arena but its so much of a convenient change. With its short duration I often forget to rebuff it and get peaved when I have to waste mana to do so in a BG or while farming. Woot!

- Arcane Shot Dispell - I plan on spending all night in bg's just seeing what funny things i purge off of people!

See you all tonight!

Weekend, Dueling, What to buy in a week Gah!

Hey sorry all long weekend with much wow, beer and other such entertainment. Unfortionatly I'm back at work on this icky monday... Oh yea blogging instead of being productive! :P

So this weekend in WoW was fun. I did a whole bunch of dueling, some AB, some arena and some other junk! So you all get an overly long post. So first arenas!

On sunday I messed around with a friend in 2v2. Since 3's in my main bracket I tend to fool around in 2v2 alot. On sunday it was my buddies deep fire mage. Yep deep fire dragon head thingie, blastwave, blazing speed. Basicaly the least popular mage build. The result? 8-2! Its a cool group. Between the mage and the hunter you have a ton of silences and snares add into the mix improved concussive shot and impact and warriors get their reverse treatment getting chain stunned like the slow plate beasts they are. EF YO MACE SUCKA!

So first the losses:

• Warlock Warlock - This was so close to the win we had the first lock down to like 10% hp twice but both times had our silences on CD and ate twin fears. If I were BM this would have been won. But 8-2 isnt bad eh?
• Rogue Shaman - This rogue was retarted. In my usual 3v3 style whenever I see windfury I kill it. Unfortionatly that kill little things strategy and outlast the burst idea only works when? Judges? You have a healer and can catch heals. A certain mage got his ass promptly stomped. These guys were in full merc though probably selling teams.

Big Wins:

• Maces War Holy Pally - This team is the anti warrior. Snare after snare with counterspell silence and sheeps on the pally I don't think he got a heal off before we reamed the warrior.
• Disc (power infusion and Pain Sup) Priest and AP Pyro Mage - This was hillarious the mage wanted to blast my mage. He AP'd and started chasing around a pillar where I promptly clipped him and right before his ap died out (not getting crap off) he figures out hes gonna have to hit me. All 11k hp. So PI bam.... Resist! He stopped dead and started crying. It was priceless.
• Maces Rogue + Resto Druid - Despite good rooting of me by the druid the rogue just got snared too much to be effective. Forced the druid into healing the rogue with a NS and a swiftmend (ie only hots for 10 sec) and swapped to the druid and blew his lower resiliance self up.

In 3's not so good this weekend. We did our 12 on tuesday going 9-3 and bringing our rating up to I think a nice 1700 or 1680 or something. Not bad since our change over to a pally healer this has been tops. So we decide to do a few more on friday night. Bad idea. We gave up like 50 points just getting our asses kicked by drain teams. We played a priest hunter lock and went 1-3 against them. Round one we won just burnt their hunter down. Every round past that it was Shift Feared trinket shift lolcoil shift psychic scream. Inc 3 mana burns and a viper sting. Go Go Autoshot! Blargh.

So arena done I got to daydreaming about my 3k arena pts and 40k honor (going to be like 50k honor that I get to spend. Drooling at the cheap and easy to get 1000pt weapon. Untill I was poking at the top 2v2 rated hunters in arena. They're all marks, they all roll with a 0/42/19 without imp stings or a 0/43/18 with it focusing obviously a bit more on dps or on mana draining. But one thing they all had? 2x Merciless 1h Weps with +30intel on them. In 5v5's the top hunters? All big old axes with +35agil.

Gah! so basicaly for an outlast team mana is important? Hehe, if you think about it it makes tons of sense 60 intel is a ton. It will bump you mana up significantly to almost 7k making you not as easy to mana burn to useles. With viper on below 50% mana this almost 30mp5. So /sigh? it looks like I need to aquire two sets of mele weaps. I'm going to get my 1000 pt axe for sure but for 2's it looks like I may need to save up and invest in season 1 mele weapons to put intel on for long matches. Should I get them now? Or should I get the s1 xbow to get resiliance on all slots (yep getting rid of my last pve gear my sunfury).

Ack the debate Ack!

1000 Visitors!

Woot! While its not BRK counter I'm very happy to have gotten this far in a few short weeks.

Dancing With The Stars - Breaking A Boomkin Druid

Per request I'm going to do a little writeup of how you, Mr Marks/Surv Hunter are going to drop the big bird dancer you so dislike. One of my favorite bloggers is having issues fighting them. We're going to assume in this case that both parties are at similar gear levels.

Hunter 200 Resil, 1650AP, 25% Critical, 5% to hit 10,000 HP, 6,000 Mana.

Big Bird: 200 Resil, 700 SD, 18% Spell Critical, 5% Spell hit, 9,500HP, 8,000 Mana.

Soooo... First things first we need to establish what the heck a moonkin can do to us and how it will mess us up. So what is basics are moonkins? They're mages with higher armor, less burst dps and the ability to heal if put on the defensive.

Moonkjn Strengths VS Marks Hunter:
- High armor (in the 12,000 armor range) while in moonkin form
- If given the chance the ability to root a hunter this is a cast time however.
- Hibernation to CC the hunter pet for a duration to avoid pushback
- 41 point talent summoned pets that do decent dps but also cause pushback dropping steady off the map.
- Insect swarm low dps dot to reduce your hit rating by 2 or 3%.

Moonkin Weakness VS Marks Hunter:
- Shorter range 35 (correct me if wrong) vs 41
- Only 1 instant cast that crits for only around 1000, granted its spammable but due to silence and resiliance they need to get their channeled spells off.
- Their main dps comes from 1.5 and 3 second cast spells.
- Lack of AOE (they have huricane at a huge mana cost and cooldown) makes them vulnerable to the good dmg snake trap does as well as the potential for mind numbing to proc from a snake pushing their casts to 2.25 & 4.5s on nukes.

Ok so whats our plan. It looks like the best way to get a boomkin down is to get him the heck out of moonkin form. His form severly limits our dps as well as gives him a crit boost. Putting him on the defensive early will give us the advantage of nearly 25% increased dmg (back to leather 4 u bird man) as well as really forcing him into outlast mode where he dots you and tries to heal through your crap.

So right off the bat duel starts you drop snake trap before hand and back up. Blow rapid fire right away, hit the boomey with a concshot and unload a steady->auto->steady->arcane->auto->multi crap storm into his face. This puts your burst on a cd but you've taken a good chunk out of his life (most likely 3,000 to 4,000). Now hopefully at this point the moonkin was thinking to start the fight early by rooting you to cut your dmg down. He probably wasted a lot of time trying to cast this before he realized your ploy to get an early lead.

Now as a note. NEVER FD his roots you need FD for his trees.

After taking this pounding the druid is going to make a crucial call, you've probably taken 1-2,000 dmg from his dots and initial moonfire. Some moonkins will decide to try and take you out staying in moonkin and unleash the trees on you.

THE TREES ARE STUPID!

Druids do not get a pet bar to control them, the second they head for you feign death and if available drop a frost or snake trap to confuse them more. Congrats you just avoided nearly all of the dps output of this druids 41pt talent. At this point if the druid is still in moonkin form we need to unload another barrage and convince him to get out. clip or concussive shot him and unload another arcane auto multi into him.

Now here it comes hes realized you can out burst him and will begin to rely upon his hybrid skills. With 700+dmg and healing he can heal somewhat effectively and is going to rely upon his dots to finish you while he heals through your dps and outlasts you. So bam cyclone and he starts winding up a heal. Right away if he cyclones you trinket scatter and snake trap him.

Outlast a hunter, my arse!

Turn your scorpions poison on and viper sting him. Get an auto steady rotation going and lets burn this boys mana down. Repeat viper stings as available and wait for scatter and silence to be off cooldown. If you feel comfortable and he drops to a decent 40% hp or so let him have it silence arcane multi him down. But realistically you can at this point slap on viper and just oom him.

If at any point early in the fight the moonkin decides to go moonfire spam on you silence him and turn on AOTC and run away. Get out of his range and let your pet work him down for a bit. If you are feeling seriously low on health early in the fight don't hesitate to scatter him and then trap him and bandaid this may get you the edge. You can even scatter then concussive and lay a frost trap and run away and bandage with AOTC on.

So key points?
- Get the moonkin on the defensive as fast as possible he needs to go humanoid to heal, when he goes humanoid our dps goes way up!
- Save your FD to take his force of nature (trees) cooldown away from him
- Save your trinket for a cyclone heal attempt. Be ready to spam scatter when you trinket
- DO NOT TRINKET ROOTS it is unlikely he will get this off on you since its channeled. This is the spell you should most likely silence shot if he is in moonkin form.
- Don't hesitate to silence and AOTC (cheeta) out of his range and let your pet get a little dps in.
- AOTC or scatter trap daid is your answer to him getting a lucky crit string off early.\
- In 2.3 arcane shot dispel innervate the second it comes up that's alot of mana regen and we want to outlast this kiddie. Especially in arena.

Good luck and whoop that bird man.

PS: 1/2 so far Mabd I think the frost mage is going to be more difficult as they really are the hunters anti class. I couldn't find any last night that didn't really outgear me (full merciless) or just sucked miserably. I'll keep on it though. Thanks for the idea!

EDIT: Mabd had an excelent point. That a moonkin can avoid pushback on his spells by going into basicaly barkskin wrath party. If this happens I'd try the same method as if they go moonfire spamhappy. Silence drop frost trap and pop AOTC and run the hell away till their buff is up. Untill 2.3 then just arcane shot them and laugh.

Mabd Made Me Sad!

Ok guys pep talk for mabd, he was trying out marks and was having alot of hurt in duels. So I
figured I'd give him my take on the fights and was hoping you all could give him some tips:

Sooooo Marks Hunter VS

Hunters - So Mabd lives in fear of BM hunters

Vs BM Hunter - First your open up with a scatter hopefully the nub will take it giving you the lead. Then rip off steady arc multi auto. This will give you the lead and force him to use only his instants for a few seconds runing his hasted dps advantage. At this point you need to pick one of two ways to avoid him. A BM hunter thrives on planting and rolling in his haste you can get in close forcing him to move or get away. If you go in close a snake trap + FD will work well. Once his BW is over move back to range. The other option is to FD right as he sends big red at you, pop on cheta and run like the wind and avoid him for 18 seconds. Once BW is gone this is a simple fight. Good stam will help you get through it as well. Just dont let him plant and start steady spamming.

vs Surv - You win

vs Marks - Gear fight that you can tilt by being smart and using only instants. Wasted time on steady push backs is a no no. Use silence serpent and scatter to add dmg instead.

Mages....

Vs Arc Fire - Wait for AP to be cast and scatter immediatly then silence and run the hell away and avoid the insta pew. After that hes a cakewalk.

Vs Frost - Try and draw an early IB as soon as you do kill his first water elemental. If you are frozen do not trinket the first use scatter and FD to avoid dmg. Save your trinket for when scatter and silence are on CD. After he IB's lay into him. Do not wing clip use concussive and frost traps to slow him. This is a hard fight for any hunter build as BM he will just IB through your big red.

Priests....

vs Shadow - I never lose as marks. Silence and scatter just shut these guys down. Snake trap is also great as they have no AOE and suffer from pushback marginaly.

vs Holy or Disc - Viper sting and kite till they are oom and at 50% and unload. Silence any mana burns and then save your silence cd for a kill. As BM these guys could just PWS greater heal out of my crap and then outlast my BW.

Warlocks...

vs SL/SL - This spec is OP. You can try killing the pet but he can instasummon a new one on a 15 minute cd. He has as much mitigation as you but his DPS stinks. silence frequently and burn him down. Dont bother freeze trapping his pet use imo for more dmg or frost to keep him out of your grill. FD or scatter any fears use silence if he goes drain spamming you. BM suffers worse against this build as they have a further 3% crit reduction over resiliance and really shut down your frenzy and FI uptime.

vs Afliction - Nuke him either build can drop an afliction lock

vs Destruction - I rarely see this build and have no experience playing a similar geared destro lock.

vs LolGuard - wing clip his pet and keep it slowed and off of you it hits hard. Use your silence scatter and FD to keep casting to a min and drop him down. frost is the best trap for this duel due to the hard hitting pet.

"Paladins... MM pwns em..." Agreed although BM can kill them just alot more slowly

"Shammies... MM has slight edge.. til patch, " Elemental shams are getting nerfed in the patch so have no worries. I find that resto shamans are very hard to beat 1v1 because they have alot of offensive ability. Your best bet is to scatter or freeze him early to keep max range and just kite/viper him out.

Druids....

vs Balance - Silence him, frost trap his trees down and just burst him out. he cant use channeled casts vs you and will end up going healermode sealing you the win. Once trees are down use snake trap to load him up on poisons for ooming.

vs Feral - Like a rogue take away his opener and this is fast. Any time he is in caster or travel viper sting him to reduce his shifting once he cant shift he is cooked. Use deterence when he is in cat and do not trinket feral charge save it for a bash/cyclone heal attempt then scatter trap and viper him. If you catch him oom and in caster fear beast him as he wont shift out to avoid the fear.

vs Resto - these are the most durable healers in arena. Your best bet is to keep him frosted and snaked up so you can viper sting his mana. If he goes bear kite it out untill he needs to heal then open up to keep him in caster and healing. They are tough to bring down but you can do eeet

"Warriors... Bane of the BM... MM has few problems..." See as BM I crapped on warriors. charge intimidate winclip run. intercept beastwrath wingclip run dps last intercept wingclip freeze trinket run. As marks a good arms warrior with imp intercept is my nightmare. The key? Them messing up in my case you need to kite them perfectly from outside intercept range after you trinket a hamstring or you fail. Its hard but its a good fight.

Hunters are not bad at burst - How to drop your target in 2v2 properly

Its 2v2, your healer isn't CC'd and your mana looks good. You've been dropping your snowcones and autosteadying yourself to a 40% HP target. The opposing healer is running oom from your viper stinging. You have silence and scatter off of cooldown and are looking ready to drop someone. You have their healer on focus and a macro set up to silence your focus and scatter as well.

What the heck are you going to do. Well make sure you have hawk on for maximum burst. Blow rapid fire and let go of a few more auto->steady spams to get any big heals and natures swiftness's burnt. Then hit your AP trinket. Poop off a concussive shot to ensure your target isn't going anywhere fast then line up your last steady its time to rip off your instants and drop that sucka. Right after steady hits silence the healer and roll out your arcane auto multi combo.

But Shifttusk Hunter burst sucks!

Sucks my arse I say! Look at what your combo can really do. Based on how much you're crit has been mitigated by resilience so far you can guess where in the range your burst will fall. if that opponent is somewhere in the 3k-6k hp land its your time to shine. Light him up!

Hunter: Marks 1700AP 28-30% Crit +200ap use trinket

4.5 Sec Marks Hunter Arena Burst Down
Hit Crit

---

Steady - 550 - 1265 (cast before hits at opening)
Auto - 500 - 1150
---Silence Healer---
Arc - 650 - 1495
Auto - 500 - 1150
Multi - 950 - 2185
Burst - 3150 - 7245

One thing I really want to hit up is ZG for the trinket. Look how much additional burst it provides allowing for a second (40% crit) multishot. You also have another arcane adding 650-1500 dmg right afterwards

3 Sec Marks Arena Burst Down With Charm Of Beasts (ZG Trinket Resets Multishot CD)
Hit Crit

---

Steady - 550 - 1265 (cast before hits at opening)
Auto - 500 - 1150
---Silence Healer---
Multi - 950 - 2185
Auto - 500 - 1150
Multi - 950 - 2185
Burst - 3450 - 7935

The big key to being ready to burst someone down is not using your mana too aggressively and having your instants ready. Once you have someone in a good position to drop you're really ready to let loose. If your unload fails to drop them Scatter the healer immediately and wind up another steady auto this should put you in the winning position.

Shift Answers Questions Late!

From comments I found this question. (Just to note I put up an email link so mail away!)

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For the Pie said...
Yo! Shifttusk,I dabble in the Battlegrounds and am not a good enough PvP to consider myself even a noob. Sure I can outdamage most any class, because I know my class.My issues are I tend to get a bit tunnel visioned so I miss the other parts of the battle.Second, I realize, BM is not the biggest burst damage spec. Would a respec to a MM build for around 60 be the way to go? I am only 59 right now so I can do AB, WSG and be a big dog there, or AV and still be pretty good.
October 30, 2007 12:26 PM
-------------------

First things first whatsup Pie!!

Second an answer :P. So as you said you're level 59 and dabble in PvP. There's certainly a difference between a leveling/pvp build and an arena build and it puts you in a hard place. The first thing is you're pretty lucky BGing is alot more forgiving than arena and you can spec just about any way and enjoy success in a BG. So if you like BM for every day playing there's no reason to respec for some casual BGing. In AV since there's alot of NPC killing BM actually gets more total dmg from my experience. So my recommendation - spec how you are comfortable. BM works fine and in a more disorganized BG where heals are less common TBW is a great thing to get yourself the heck outta dodge so to speak.

Another part of your comment stood out at me as well about tunnel vision. Now in a BG to be honest its no big deal. Often times in a BG I pick out someone who seems fun to battle and has similar gear and basically try and duel them in the BG. Tunnel vision is fine. BG's are fun, the rewards are nice but not enough to fully gear you for 70 pvp. Enjoy it in any way.

But in arena and duels and so on awareness is a huge deal. If you have read my comments on BRK one of the big things I promote about Bm is due to its simpler shot rotation BM makes it easier to be aware in a raid. Awareness is huge.

But PVP is way faster!

Even in a 3v3 match there is a lot going on. Now being able to calm down and see it is something from experience but there are some tools to help. The biggest one? A focus frame mod.

Now you can search "focus frame wow" or similar and get a mod that puts another target up for your to see what your "focus" is doing in arena. Xperl unit frames also does this. This is huge. In 3v3 you can now keep track of two people to decide who to silence scatter slow or send your pet to as distraction. I generally focus a caster who is not our primary dps target (usually a healer) and make their life miserable via silence and scatter shot.

Tunnel vision in arena fades alot with experience but to those of you having it I'd recommend you use a focus frame or Xperl (turn on party targets too to check focus fire targets).

Hunter PvP Itemization Woes

Ok so the qq fest about gear.

First thing the PvP gear changes that the BC introduced are GOOD. The fact of the matter is in most cases (WSG with pve gear aside) a PvP player in warlord blue will wreck house on a 5 man blues geared pve player. Sure his dps wont match up but he will kill the pve player. Someone decked out in Season 1 pieces will drop someone in kara gear.

PVP gear is now good for pvp and pve gear won't give you an automatic ticket to the top of the arena ladder. Now some pve gear will help mixed in with good sta and resilience pieces but someone in T6 is not going to win every arena match they play. I've seen this from my own example. (look up Droggo, Taley and Trillian from manno we beat them in 3's 4/5 games we've played them).

The issues I'm going to point out are minor ones but they need to be looked at.

First the DPS scaling 60-70 of hunter vs dps casters. At 60 decently geared casters would have 400 or so spell dmg in a BG. At 60 I pvpd as 0/41/10 and has 1308 RAP after the agility nerf. Now at 70 casters in arena have anywhere from 800 (mages) to 1000 (demo locks) spell dmg where as I have 1700 AP rougly. Casters got a but load more base DMG. Now sure at 60 hunters were a bit unbalanced in pvp but really the aimed shot changes fixed this and the trinket dispell fest on freezing traps locked it in. I think hunters need a slight boost in dps stats to be more represented. Its very hard for us to establish range in arena which is good. We should be more punishing when we do get range. Nothing drastic but a 3-4 pieces of arena gear hunter should be at around 1900AP and pvp blues should be at around 1700. Make this boost with a mix of agility to allow our crit to scale more as well.

The biggest problem however is longevity. Our mana pools are embarrassing at around 6k, 7k if the hunter class is being designed to be an outlast then burst dps class we need better ways to regen mana or bigger pools to avoid too much mana burning. In pve gear we are given mana per five. This should be added to pvp gear. FD+drinking is a nice strategy but an alert team can keep you in combat easily.

Some Spec Alterations

So like all wow players I go crazy... ABSOLUTELY FREAKING CRAZY.. over my talent specification. It makes a huge difference in how your character is played and bad choices can lead you to being useless at your role. Like BRK shows in his blog not speccing BM (unless you are the guilds 1 survival hunter) really gimps your output in raids.

Now wait you can raid as marks, you're not going to put out a pathetic DPS number but BM puts out more, buffs the party better and is far more mana efficient in a raid. The other huge factor is not having to focus on your shot timing (marks should be going auto->steady->special->auto) as much lets you be more attentive to the raid environment. BM for raiding is win+win.

But this is about pvp :)

I swapped from arena play as BM to marksmanship and haven't looked back. I an currently swapping around in all brackets to help friends out and also played on my own 5v5 and 3v3 extensively as marks now. My impression? My 3v3 jumped up from the 1550's area to 1650-1700 range. My 5v5 cleared 1750. After following many cookie cutter marks builds to test it out I've made some adjustments to the spec. Mainly to talents people quote as needed for arena.

So prior to this weekend I played as 0/43/18 with 5/5 improved arcane 5/5 improved stings 1/5 Ranged Weapon Specialization and 3/3 Careful Aim.

What did I see? I was awesome at draining mana, My burst was pretty good but my overall dmg was horrid. I had huge trouble with druids LOSing me and playing with a warlock scatter shot broke too often to allow me to stop a druid to unload. When I did catch him the lack of 4% ranged dmg was noticeable and he could literally rely upon a few hots to get him out of the red to keep kiting then stop to HT himself.

So changes. First good bye imp arcane 1 second is not worth 5 talent points. Second goodbye improved stings. an additional 380 mana is not worth 5 talent points. Reduced cool down on viper sting and we'll talk.

So my revised spec (0/42/19) and I am loving it. Now here's some of the biggies:

5/5 Improved Concussive Shot - Laugh? Silly stun? How about druid win. That 3 second stun will proc every time I fight a druid because they last that long. When it procs i crank out enough dmg to make the druid have to stop and heal no kite stop. At this point he stops decursing, gets fully dotted up, eats a barrage of auto steady until he is low at which point its burn time arcane silence steady auto scatter multi skillcoil shadowburn and he eats floor. Its happened 3/3 times we faced a druid healer in 3v3 this weekend.

5/5 RWS with 2/3 CA - My dmg is back. I feel like an even more marksman marks hunter. My multishot is a 40% crit chance nightmare and hits like a truck when it doesn't crit.

5/5 Survivalist - I wasn't able to get the last 4% hp of this previously and it is goood this extra boost in hp puts me over 11k in my current so so pvp gear. When S3 comes out and my stam skyrockets I'll be able to regem for more AP where I feel I am lacking. This is going to make leaps and bounds in my dps output and make my non crit dmg constantly higher which is awesome.

The huge difference I see? My viper seems to be dispelled less. Now I'm sure in 2v2 this won't be true but with 2dps slinging around people are not dispelling viper they are healing so someone doesn't die!

What do you people think of my choices. Idiot for no improved stings? Good idea for adding more dmg to the build since pvp gears dmg stats did not scale as well as other classes?

Site Meter is Awesome

Ok so this is the official best way to waste time at work.

1) Make a blog
2) Install Site meter Java Script
3) Check out the cool places people are hitting your site from!

So BRK is obviously a big contributor but I'm also starting to notice a few people hitting me from Google as well as from unknown (meaning you really likes me and typed me in!!!)

So I was looking through and saw:

"http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS226US226&q=does"

As a feeder link. Cool! And a good question!

Simple answer? Yes it does. EW is like any of the rogue procs such as expose armor or hemo or improved kidney shot.

But!!!

Resilience kicks its ass! In PvE its a great talent and if you have 35% critical strike ranged unbuffed you can keep it up 100% of the time using an auto steady rotation. The problem being if a person has 350 or so resilience and reduces your critical strike chance by 10% you need a blistering 45% critical strike chance unbuffed to keep this up. The other issue is that expose weakness works in a raid because 5-10 people can take advantage of it. In the largest arena there are 5 people on your team, at least one is a healer and more than likely one is a caster DPS. In the best situation this is 3 people taking advantage of a buff that is nearly impossible to keep up full time in arena with the current itemization. Without tons of people benefiting, you're better off speccing Marks or BM or 0/31/30 and upping your personal dmg. If you really like having a high base crit rate go 0/31/30 its pretty fun to get TSA and LR with a decent AP pool and huge 32%ish crit chance.

Questions WOOHOO

Ok so first off I do plan on setting an email up for this blog to answer reader questions. I promise once I get some time to fiddle with blogger more I will set it up. Most likely this weekend.

Anyhow I saw a good question in a comment so I wanted to answer it fast:

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Guitgoin said...
Hey Shift, I have a question not necessarily associated with this post, but I couldn't find where I could reach you at. I'm looking to switch to a full PvP spec here pretty soon, and I looked at yours for some guidance. If I remember right, you took 3/3 in Careful Aim, instead of more points in Ranged Weapon Specialization. Is there a reason for this? I'd think the damage increase would be more from the extra few percent instead of 45% of your intellect, especially when you consider a PvP spec has a generally low intellect. Thanks for your help and also for a great blog on hunter PvP
------------------

You're 100% right my spec does have careful aim over RWS. If you're a PvE'er or an old school 0/31/20 hunter you're going WTFHELLSHIFTTUSK.

I used to PVP with RWS. Then I took a look at some 1900 hunters and their specs and saw CA over RWS (aside from 1 point to get to the next tier). I followed blindly now lets see if its right!

So Shift Has 170 Intel Logged out. I will be going up alot in 2.3 but lets work with 170 so CA gives me 76.5AP. This is 5.4DPS on autoshoot only.

RWS would give me 3% more dps. My autoshot DPS is 269.3 with neither of these talents filled yet. RWS points would give me 8.079 dps autoshot. So it looks as though RWS would be a better choice.

But we all know a hunter autoshots far less in arena where he is frequently running around for freedom from dps. This is where RWS starts to drop out.

For arcane shot the dmg equation is:
ArcaneShotDamage = DamagePercentageBonus*RWSMod*(ArcaneShotBonus + RAP*0.15)

So as RWS +3 PTS:
=1.04*(273 + (1644*.15) = 540.4

As CA +3 PTS:
=1.01*(273+(1720*.15) = 536.31

For multishot:
MultiShotDamage = DamagePercentageBonus*RWSMod*(AmmoDPS*WeaponSpeed + (RAP/14)*2.8 + WeaponDamage + ScopeDamage + MultiShotBonus)

So RWS+3PTS:
= 1.04*(32*2.9+((1644/14)*2.8) + (83.3*2.9) + 0 + 205 )
= 1.04(92.8+328+241.57+205)
= 1.04(867.37)
= 902 DMG Multishot

And Finally CA +3PTS:
= 1.01*(32*2.9+((1720/14)*2.8) + (83.3*2.9) + 0 + 205 )
= 1.01(92.8+344+241.57+205)
= 1.01(883.37)
= 892 DMG Multishot

SOOOO looks like at 170 Intel CA is a no go and Shift needs to visit his hunter trainer again. Now with the added scaling to serpent sting and traps CA may get better but I'm not sure. I'll obviously look at it again as i get more Intel with 2.3 purchases. Anyhow Guitgoin good thing to look at and now you know where to put your points!

+10 dmg on multi +4arcane /cry stupid bliz forums!

Hunter PvP Tips For Thursday: Gouge my Ass!

That's right My Ass! Today I'm going to go over a few tips for fighting rogues. I'm sure alot of them are common knowledge to the PvPers out there but hopefully one of you takes a good skill away from this post.

So rogues, they're stealthed, they stun and slow and blind and have good tools to mitigate your pet as well as your own snares. How can you beat them? Well literally a BM hunter should always beat a rogue. BW nullifies all of the tools rogues commonly use to win VS hunters. All you need to do is time your CD well and you will do OK.

But!

BM doesn't fare that well at the top levels of arena and an Imp Stings/Silence/Scatter hunter is far preferred to help healers out. So lets do this from a marksman perspective. I'm going to go over several situations in a Hunter VS Rogue Duel then some tips for 2v2 Hunter Healer vs Rogue Healer.

Step 1: The opening - Your worst nightmare the rogue with 2 merc weapons has challenged you to a duel. You the underpowered utility mana drain DPS versus the melee with all of the tricks! He's stealthed you can't see him yet what the heck are you going to do? Use your tools young hunter-san!

• Track Hidden - "Greatly increases your stealth detection" What really happens is that stealth and detection work like weapon skill and have a rating. Track Hidden, Paranoia and Perception all increase this by 30. Engineering helmets by another 5. Essentially with track hidden on you are looking for stealthers as though you are level 76. If you have an engineering helmet (great item until you get an arena one good mix of dps with nice stam) you're a 77. Now a good rogue will know this and will not be found easy but if you see him and remove his ability to get a Cheapshot on you. You've started the fight ahead!.
• Flare Up! - Plop down a nice big flair with your trap in the middle. Make it so a rogue cannot disarm your trap easily in stealth.
• Use a frost trap initially - Many rogues expect a good old ice cube when they make their opener and will use cloak of shadows to immune it. This doesn't work on frost traps since they are not a single target effect but an AOE giving you some kiting room to work with and wasting his 1minute CD.
• Pet - Put your pet on stay aggressive at one edge of your flare. If your pet detects the rogue it will make noise and pursue helping you avoid letting the rogue get an opener. Once the rogue is discovered put your pet back on passive. THIS IS A MUST HOT KEY THIS ISH! If you don't you will not be able to use scatter and freezing traps reliably.
• Run Around! Spam Scatter! - Don't stand still letting the rogue pick position. Run in a circle around the fringe of your flare, let your stealth detection work and spam scattershot. It will automatically hit the rogue if you detect him. This also makes it much harder for the rogue to get into position for a good opener.

Step 2: KITEEEEE - Through your sweet defensive strategy you took the opener away from the rogue and he is running around for 4 seconds scattered maybe even over a frost trap. Get your pet on passive send him in and turn on his poison. Keep that rogue from getting a vanish off and resetting the fight. Pet skills do not use you GCD so get a mark and a concussive shot up on him at the same time. Now don't back away. Practice as long as it takes and get yourself trained in jumpshotting and run directly away from the rogue jump rotating 180 degrees to shoot him.

Step 3: React to his abilities - If the rogue sprints immediately turn and scatter him to waste his CD and keep him off you. If scatter is on CD pop deterrence and wait to get away. Spam wingclip pull your pet off and drop a freezing trap use this macro!

/cast Freezing Trap (Rank 1) Save the 50 mana CC only lasts 10 seconds in pvp
/petpassive
/stopcasting

Now some specific Tips:
- You were deadly thrown and a rogue is going to catch you. He is not stealthed. His next move is to hit you with a gouge to stop you, Regen energy and continue to kill you. The trick? Gouge needs you to be facing the rogue. So run towards him, Jump, Rotate your ass to the rogue, Spam wingclip. Once you are through the rogue run back around and continue kiting! SEE GOUGE MY ASS ROGUE! :P

- If a rogue vanishes immediately flare near him not near you to destealth him to prevent another opener.

- If a rogue sprints immediately scatter shot him and drop a freezing trap to waste his CD.

- If you have a rogue at range and he evasions (flash and rogue becomes partialy see through) do not stop and do any dmg/concussive shot him. He will be avoiding 50% of your pets hits and 25% of yours forcing you to waste mana and CD's. Drop a frost trap run directly away and if safe pop AOTC to get more distance and outlast his CD.

- Rogues have great mobility, if the rogue is not stuck in a freezing trap do not use steady or aimed it is going to cost you your best resource distance.

- Scorpid poison and snake traps are also good tools vs rogues as they keep them from stealthing and rogues have no way to AOE down your snakes to stop their dmg. It will often get them to waste trinkets/evasion/CLOS

- If you are stun locked, DO NOT USE YOUR TRINKET UNTIL Kidney Shot is done. Use it only once you have a real chance to get free. Wingclip and a frost or freezing trap down. If you use it on a cheap shot he will immediately gouge or KS you keeping you in his range.

GL People!