Shifttusk Does PvP!

New Home!

2008-09-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

So check it out, I've decided to get back into the blogging game but with a twist.

We're hooking up a brand new pvp casual blog. I'm working on it as a collaboration with a friend. And whoever we can con into posting for us haha! If you somehow ended up on this semi retired site and want some new hotness head on over to:

http://thecasualpvper.blogspot.com

New Interm Main - Easylay!

2008-03-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

Long time no post!

What have I been up to you may ask? Finally after a year plus of playing hunter pretty much exclusivly shift has been abandoned to once a week arena play.

I am leveling finally an alt. I'm going 100% a new way with this alt. On the PTR its always other PvP class/specs. All my other alts in their 20-30's are enhancement shamans or frost mages. This guy is going to be my PvE homeboy. What class and spec you ask?

Protection Paladin baby!

I'm reading up on the goodies at http://www.ardentdefender.blogspot.com/ who I need to add to my sidebar woohoo. I watched a few videos of mid 30's-40's prot paladins AOE farming 7 or so mobs and I was impressed. I mean its like feral but different. I get to have a very solo viable spec even if its a bit slow and I get to learn how to tank. So far my little wonder in just a few days (IRL not /played) has successfully cleared RFC, WC and SFK and is pimped out in the sexiest tanking mail available! Pally tanking is absolutely a blast expecialy the more mobs there are. I seem to excell in large pull mayhem.

The things I like is its a cool cross I'll be a spell dmg tank. I get to stack stats I never used on shift. The huge thing is I'm enjoying PvE in a different roll. You get very bored of wait for threat, pew pew pew. As the pally I get to control the pace of an instance. I get to run right in and start up the brawl.

Things I'm still getting used to are mostly the pally taunt. Its a pain to have to split second pick the party member rather than the mob. I'm pretty bad with catching it before it hits them which won't cut it say at 70 in a heroic.

I'm really pumped up playing this class. In a few days I've ground out the entire BE starting area (which is way better done than the other horde areas), tanked a bit (and not to shabby!!) and I even ran WSG last night at 24 (lol). I actualy scored despite being under the level cap for the bracket I has BOK to stam me up some and plus good armor/block and +3% hit from my tree and -6% dmg from imp Fury. I was a pain to bring down baby! I even smoked a twink hunter. Granted I used Bubble and LoH to do it but hey. He went down like what!

More updates coming soon. Hopefully I can finish my pally quest out in BFD tonight!

What I Like About Teh Hunter

2008-02-11T13:29:00.000-08:00

So everyone and their mothers have been ranting about some blog topic consortium or something and the topic of the month is.

Why I like to play xxxxx!

So why does shiftnoobs like playing hunter? 5 Reasons I got that. Many people are taking things from the PVE perspective this is mostly from my pvp side. For raiding its pretty easy to like the hunter. You help tanks, you help dps and you look good when you smoke the rest of the raid dps while doing it. PvP is different. Its about what you can do that your opponents can't. Things unique to how your class is played. That list of factors that the opposing team is contimplating when you walk into Blades Edge Arena and they go "Oh Shit Its a XXX Hunter".

Reason Number 5:
Pets! Now sure locks have them, mages can coldsnap them. But ours need food and have names! Theres nothing better than someone having to see "Bowner hits you for 145" in their combat log. Seriously bowner in the face! But really, our pets are a huge part of our utility in arena. They allow us to easily keep a second person in combat while fighting their dps. Stopping drinking is huge. They hide our poisons or in the case of our boars give us time to get that last kill shot in. One of the key parts of playing hunter is the need to master pet control. Boar charge isn't nearly as devistating if you don't know how to micromanage your pet with stays and hotkeying that one clutch charge to los a healer and get a kill. Without pet skills your scorpid would be mace meat in arena making what was a 2v2 into a 2v1.5 as you no longer have the help of your trusty best friend. Our pets help out farming keeping us from having to blow mana full nuking. They let us show some style. Plagued swine may not be pretty but you can't get such a cool visible tool on your warrior!

Reason Number 4:
Underdog complex! While hunters have always done well in BG's since the release of the BC hunters have been crying that their class is riddled with pvp issues. While some changes have helped with this I still like playing the underdog. I wouldn't feel nearly as satisfied finishing high 1800's in season2 playing a maces warrior or ar-prep rogue. I'm sure teams were hugely agitated to drop to a hunter drain team before they were popular. Much like the Giants blowing up the pats I love slapping the easier to succeed classes in arena. Screw your skillherald. Scattershot FTW!

Reason Number 3:
Complexity! While many classes fall back on a few maneuvers in pvp I find that you do a ton as a hunter. Seriously compare a warriors fight to a hunters. Charge, MS, Bloodrage, Hamstring.... Wack Wack Wack intercept if shaken. Piercing howl or aoe fear in case of emergency. Now the hunter is wingclipping the warrior and his healer to prevent mobility. Selecting the right trap every 30 seconds, snakes for poisons, frost for team kiting, freezing for CC when no dispellers are around. They're alternating steady multi for dps while throwing up arcanes to dispell key buffs from opponents. We're managing our pet and dismissing to save it from dmg! Scattering to get our teamates freedom from mele. Silencing a healer/caster. I forgot to mention swapping aspects and weapons to maximize mana regen, our offense or our defense. Oh yea we can fear druids and hunter pets and stupid travel form shamans.

Oh yea and vipersting for your mana! You're ass is oom!

The ammount of tools I can be using as a hunter is awesome. Much like a warlock or druid there are tons of things you can be doing at any time to give your team the win.

Reason Number 2:
Being a huge pain in the ass! You're in combat cant drink and have a viper sting draining the crapole out of your mana. I'm silencing you. CCing your mele. Forcing you guys to blow CD's left and right. A well played hunter is a huge X factor in a game combining a bunch of abilities to really shut down the opposing teams momentum. Given enough time a hunter will make you pay for ANY mistake on the battlefield. With our drain, dispell and ability to control your team via aoe slows and snares and roots and short CC we are truely masters of the battlefield when used well. Master tactician isn't in your trees for a reason other classes. You aint the masters!

Reason Number 1:
It aint easy shootin bows! Its hard to be good at hunter in pvp. Any schmuk can spam an auto-steady macro at Leotheras! Not many hunters can successfuly jump shot concussive a rogue to get room while vipering his healer and dropping a frost trap. Being an effective hunter requires you to be the master of your shortish cooldowns, a master of movement from strafing to jumpshotting as well as having a good sense of what is going on around you to select the right trap and shot to turn the fight for you. In any given match you have an additional player to keep track of (pet). Miss any of the above and you're not bringing your A game. Bring them all? Some rogue priest team is gonna be bitching about you in vent all night.

So theres my take on the hunter. And yes I do have a boar named Bowner.

A Public Service Announcement To The Nubbies of Anetheron

2008-01-30T09:52:00.000-08:00

Dear all (2) level 67 mages who may be questing with a level 70 goatman hunter in BEM,

It has come to my attention that you're idiots. A hunter with the exotic spiked shoulders is not ample protection for a squishball such as you. The next time you observer a troll hunter land and mine ore near Gruuls Lair where you are questing; I have the following recomendation. Don't throw a wimpy 900 fireball at me while I fly away. I'm waiting for a raid invite and bored, and I have my pvp gear in my bag. I am going to land above you, put on 400resil and 13k hp and come back to toast you. I'm sincerely sorry that my aimedshot crit you for 4.5k and one shot you and also that I killed your oh so cute gnome twin before he found his iceblock button. I'm also so very sorry that your bodyguard hunter took so long to figure out what happened that he managed to shoot me once before he bit it as well.

So just for your future reference I enjoy having my sexy purple troll mohawk singed about as much as you enjoy having my size 11 shoved up your tiny gnome arse. So next time, just leave me to my adamantite and I'll leave you to sucking. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Shifttusk, Troll Hunter, Purple Hair, Now of Anetheron

PS. Thanks for the 60 honor
PPS. You really need to learn where iceblock is on your action bars.

I'm Angry and I don't know why

2008-01-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

So, I'm burning some time at lunch today reading blogs and I check mine for comments. I like when people drop by and say whats up! So I look into my last thread and see a comment from

"http://goldsoon-goldsoon.blogspot.com/"

I pop onto the site not thinking and its a gold seller's blog. Not only that they have been harassing MR large furry rear area!

"http://bigbearbutt.blogspot.com/2008/01/please-kneecap-goldspammer.html"

But I click onto this site and what confused me the most was that there was what looked to be a well written post about nearing 1850 in arena in 5v5 and killing Tidewalker in SSC. But for some godforsaken reason it seemed so familiar. It was 100% like seeing a girl and not being able to remember why she was so familiar. Turns out she was the one you hit on all sloppy wasted last night. Only with blogs and stuff. So I'm reading, and not working and going hey wait WTFHSAUSE!

From our goldspammer's site (without quotes or credit):

"Tidewalker was downed on Monday. I wasn't there, I ran on very little sleep over the weekend and wasn't up to raiding. Apparently it was one of those wipe wipe wipe nights and then "one more try" became the killing one. Grats on the hardwork, the fight for me will still be new as I have yet to play the same toon in that fight for back to back attempts. "

And from Meg's site:

"Tidewalker was downed on Monday. I wasn't there, I ran on very little sleep over the weekend and wasn't up to raiding. Apparently it was one of those wipe wipe wipe nights and then "one more try" became the killing one. Grats on the hardwork, the fight for me will still be new as I have yet to play the same toon in that fight for back to back attempts. " http://outofmana.blogspot.com/2008/01/random-update.html

So not only is this asspie trying to sell gold and have fake anime pictures of purple half naked women. He's ripping off quotes from Meg who is cool and like Big Bear Behind Butt Boy has a pictures of backsides on her site!

I was pissed to say the least, I enjoy reading the stuff alot of other bloggers write like Mabd and Megs and even Huge Druid Bootay! To see some scammer ripping them off is a joke. I hope you all read BBB's post and report the blog as he recommended. Not only is it material against the rules for WOW, this person is ripping off peoples blog text. Its pretty damn silly.

Goldsoon, be warned, you're a douchebag

Grrrrrrr!!

2008-01-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

Hey peoples, sorry for the lack of posts, the begining of the year is a busy period for me at work so I've been a bit swamped. Anywho... so... don't be shocked surprised or freak out... but theres going to be some changes to the blog. I've decided to yes continue doing arena (mostly 5v5) but I'm also getting back into pve. I messed around with survival from the advice of Guy (of BRK fame) and have been having a blast badge farming kara and going to a few SSC runs with a friends guild. I closing in on the magic 800 agility number unbuffed and have been having a blast with it. Anyway expect to see me specced 0/20/41 alot of times on logout but expect some goodies from SSC and Blades Edge arena moving forward.

I'm thinking of re-titling the blog but I'll keep everyone posted. I'm thinking next post. Some sort of PvE vs PvP specs. Back to werk :( Cyas!

Megs Motivates Me Again

2008-01-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

So, I'm supposed to be working, but I was blog reading...

Whoops!

I was reading up a thread Meg posted and it got me thinking about my pvping and arena play. I was wondering how often I fall into said tunnel vision. I find in a BG my tunnel vision is turned off generally 100%. But I realized this is entirely a function of my survivability. When I was a fresh level 70, I was like a flea in BGs. Find something in cloth with a red name tag and latch on till it died or I died. Now I sit back and survey a situation from the top of an objective and only act when it’s needed. I calmly sit and think about the best course of action regardless of if I'm taking heat. I was wondering what the big cause is.

Then it hit me. I'm a complete bitch for most BG scrubs to kill and I have the time.

Survivability in a way leads to a clearing of tunnel vision. Now obviously a bad mentality is not going to be fixed by gear BUT fear of impending doom certainly is relived. When I was a fresh 70 nub cake despite my 20k pvp kills I ran into level 70 BGs in fear. Frost mages could kill me in 2 shatter procs. A rogue could drop me without blowing any cool downs. I had 7,xxx hp and like 30 resilience. That xxx wasn't 999 either :(.

So from that my recommendation to some of the newer players would be to play as though you were decked out in full pvp gear. The mentality of taking the time while steady shot is channeling to look around rather than going ZOMG MASH ARCANESHOT IM GONNA DIE SOON will really help you get some perspective. You'll be more alert to what other classes are up to and be able to pick apart a fight and say well here is where I should have trinketed. And when you have your 400 resilience you'll be better off.

On a less serious note later in her post Meg posted some of her key binds. And while knowing that when I face Meg in fives she’s pressing Shift+1 to fear me while pressing just 1 to fear my paladin. It doesn’t really help us hunters bind our crap very well. So here are most of my binds.

Post yours and junks!

My Focus Macro Format For Bar Saving Justice!
#showtooltip Silencing Shot /Cast [modifier:shift,target=Focus] Silencing Shot; Silencing Shot

ESDF Baby!!
E - Forward
S - Strafe Left
D - Back up
F - Strafe Right

` - Ventrillo Talkey
1 - Raptor (Rawr) Strike
2 - Hunters Mark
3 - Auto attack On / Off
4 - Aimed Shot Target
5 - Steady Shot Target
6 - Arcane Shot Target / Shift 6 For Focus
7 - Multishot... lots targets
A - Concussive Shot Target / Shift A For Focus
Q - Silence Shot Target / Shift Q For Focus
W - Wing Clip R - Scatter Shot / Shift R For Focus
T - Freezing Trap
Z - Frost Trap
X - Snake Trap
V - Viper Sting / Shift V For Focus / Alt V for rank 1 to mess with people
8 - Serpent Sting / Shift For Rank 1
9 - Scorpid Sting
Shift + B - Band-Aid Self

Aspects are bound to F1-F7

I have a few others that aren't as important like S1 For Rapid Fire SF1 For Bloodlust Brooch and random situational crap like my Pet->Totem Owner Macro.

Anyone else ESDF?

Happy New Year A Much Needed Update

2008-01-02T07:49:00.000-08:00

Long Rambling Done Through Out My Work Day Post Inc!

Ok so I warned everyone. First off happy new years! I hope everyone celebrated and had a fun time!

So whats been up with the lack of posts Shift?

Well a few things first and foremost Teh BRK has put up a new version of his site and added some forums so I've been at my best ranting with people and bickering with Guy. I'd suggest everyone bookmark the site: http://www.bigredkitty.net/forums/index.php as its a nice forum and has alot of good info coming in without sounding like math class like elitist jerks. Oh and your Shifttusk is moderating the UI/Macros forum so come stop by and post obscenities so I can delete them and LOL. Other than that I was enjoying my holiday and playing with my new toy http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/ . It Is Awesome. Since my phone carrier doesn't support the new iPhone yet this is my alternative. It has wireless internet so I'm able to check my email while outside having a smoke and watch YouTube while taking a.... uhm... eating dinner. My first request to you commenters. Post your favorite gift from this year!

On the wow side. I'm now 3pc vengeful+axe. I spent the dough for the S3 Chest this weekend. I'm now working JC up and or bucking up for BT gems to really pimp it out. I'm rocking 2x8AP+6Sta and an 8Resiliance gem fer now. I have enough points saved for my pants as well but I haven't decided if I should get to 4 piece and then start banking/working towards rating gear or start at it right now. The S3 Legs are a nice upgrade bringing my AC ignore up to over 500. I think this will really make a difference vs rogue/mage teams giving me way nice dps as well as make killing SL pets easier. I think I'm going to buck up once I have another 1k pts in the bank. I will at the very least get the s3 weapon. Its a rating I've hit before and I'm not to intimidated by the higher level play.

Not too much serious news on the arena side I've just been playing 2s with a friends alt priest to get him some points and messing around with a 3dps 3s team to get me some points each week. No active 5v5 yet as we're searching for the lost component. A resto druid. I don't know about you but on our server they are uber rare. We're looking at running an uber drain team with only two lineups and the druid is the elusive component:

Lock (felguard+draintalents), Hunter (MM), Druid (resto), Priest (disc), Pally(holy)
swaping to
Lock, Hunter, Rogue (ar Maces), Druid, Pally for 2mele 3 healer teams to lock down half of their dps.

Back to work for me. Look for a post about using your wasted time in arena (GCD's you're not using after unloading your instants) later today or this week.

5 Hunters + Too Much Beer + 200g = All hunter 5v5

2007-12-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

Remember everyone, theres a such thing as being too serious. Sometimes you need to just cut loose. Enjoy the hillarious, Merry Christmas and enjoy whatever holiday it may be you're celebrating!

Direct Link: Here

A special thanks to Wormy and Pumma for filming and starting this adventure in hilarious!

Oh BTW 5-5!!!

I'm On Welfare Yo!

2007-12-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

So aparantly the debate of the month is "Welfare Epics". Its all over the forums, and you see it in trade channel all day. It is now popping across the blog community.

Meg is talking about it

So is BOK

It seems that the debate is really getting everyone up in arms. Expecialy raiders. The big debate seems to be over a lack of progression in arena/pvp and an ease of getting something purple to wear. Several people are complaining that under the old rank system pvp was better and gear was more representative of skill. Now former HWL's and GM's don't get me wrong but...

HELL NO!

All level 60 HWL meant was that you either spent 16 hours a day for weeks at a time in front of your computer in AV or AFK botting your way through AV. This wasn't any skill. Was it progression? Sure the more time you spent the more gear you got but to be honest that is the worst gear progression ever. You're rewarded for nothing more than time spent. This is tantimount to recieving a huge pay increase at work just for showing up and staying late, it doesnt matter if hey you get anything done!

The advent of arena allowed PvP players with better skill to get better gear than someone who AFK'd in AV all day and got their pvp blue set. Granted one can still bank 200 points a week from a bottomed out team but lets look realisticaly:

2v2 1300's rating gets you 250 points a week I believe. Gloves wousld take you 5 weeks to get. Weapons would take nearly 3 and a half months for a 2hander. Does this really seem like a welfare arena farmer gets to stack on a ton of s3 gear? Nope he gets one shiney purple for his hours of time. He could have also farmed for crafted epics or gold and purchased crafted epics from a T5/T6 guild (I've seen non raider LW's with the BT crafted shoulders).

Meanwhile if a person is on a successful team those gloves take one or two weeks to get. They do well and are rewarded for being GOOD not for spending TIME.

Now raiders seem to criticise that a good player can gear up very quickly via arena. I fail to see the problem. As a hunter, I could literaly sit in a raid and auto+steadyshot spam and over months learn to avoid xxx aoe or stop dpsing when xxx comes and eventualy get a good deal of purple loot.

Now lets be honest. For a hunter is downing Leotheras excessivly chalenging except if you do not have the gear to DPS hard enough?

Nope pew pew pew stop pew pew pew. Pull pet back pew pew pew.

Should this hunter rewarded as quickly as a hunter who is exceptional and is able to win consistantly in PvP against opponents who can react on the fly?

I think not, I think faster rewards for more challenging play is a good thing. I think that the progression method works only for the old pvp system where time was rewarded as well as raiding and honor farming where primarily time is rewarded.

Now granted I have the utmost respect for the dedication and time raiders put in, heck I did it for the first 4 months of being 70! Organizing 25 people is a challenge in its own. But I think due to the different nature, the pvp reward system is good.

What does everyone else think? Time is the most important thing to be rewarded or should ability be also?

Elephante Down!

2007-12-06T17:14:00.001-08:00

Rival Shifttusk Drops EYEBUYGLADIATOR Elephante?

Unpossible:

Shoulda spent some of that gold on skill buddy, arcane shot dispels BOF!

OMG HATE WORK

2007-12-06T07:17:00.000-08:00

So I'm not giving up on the blog,

I've just been responding to emails and.... working like I like my job (ewww). I have a few things that I need to trickle in here over the next day or so. Instead of leaving you in the dark I figured a little list of previews!

1) Screech Crash Boom - Since I read TJ so much I've decided to take a little tip from her and write about the crazy people that reside near me (central NJ). This story? Sunday.... red suv... oh noes this is a dead end? House! I'll let you all try and figure out what I mean!

2) Confirmed Elephante sighting and killing!!! This was in AV last night and I so wanted to post the SS I took today but... I suck and forgot my USB drive at home this morning. But he died, I killed him with a stylish arcane->Bop purge and a silence in the face. He 100% recognized what I was doing and ran like a scared girl in his new set of purchased resiliance. Now I don't know if Meg owes me a framed dollar bill but what can I say, I deliver!

3) New GEARS!! No hints yall have the internet and can armory meh if you want to ruin the surprise!

4) A completely crappy start to season 3 (our priest leaving 3s to go shadow, me hunter for a druid for 2's)

Back to working/reading blogs for me. Catch yall later!

Shifttusk Does Gems!!

2007-11-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-28T06:19:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-27T07:40:00.000-08:00

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!!

2007-11-23T08:15:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-14T07:21:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-13T09:09:00.001-08:00

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!

2007-11-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-08T09:33:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-06T11:06:00.001-08:00

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

-------------------
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

2007-11-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-11-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

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:

------------------
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!

2007-11-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

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!

2.3 What Does it Mean for Hunter?

2007-10-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

So here's my review of our changes on the PTR. I'm also going to go over what I think should have been changed.

Pets will try to get behind their targets when engaging in melee combat - This change is great for PvE more dps and less parrying for pet dmg. It is also going to remove that threat of resetting the bosses swing timer from a parry. PvP no real worry. It will down warrior and rogue mitigation a bit from the pet but the travel time is going to negate that anyway. In arena your pet is only useful to help you protect your viper sting and often gets gibbed by smart teams. This really isn't going to help me much unless I go into kara/gruuls pugs since I don't raid anymore. HAHA SCREW YOU BLIZ NERF MAI DST I NO GO TO YOUR SSC NEMORE! (lul)
Aimed Shot (Marksmanship) now reduces healing done to that target by 50% for 10 seconds - Ok first off I l0ve the idea of having more to contribute to a team and this is an awesome tool. Rapid fire and off a fast aimed shot when clear, silence a healer for 3 seconds and drop someone this is great. BUT. Its a copy cat skill. Melee is the healing debuffer right now (warrior and rogue). Shouldn't it stay that way? I'll be happy to use this shot again (I haven't since the ages old nerf to it in 2.0 or so). I think its going to help hunters out tons in getting 5's representation but it isn't a good tool for 2's and doesn't address hunters main issues of having their dps shut down easily and vulnerability to taking a ton of dps with very little mitigation (lol chain mail).
Arcane Shot (Ranks 6 and above) now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition to their normal damage - Ok this change is AWESOME. For arena. It is going to give hunters in 2v2 a way to beat warrior pally reliably. When the warrior gets BoF... gone! BoP? Ef You BoP!. The problem I see with this? People are going to flip the hell out in BG's. Now BG's aren't arena you don't really need to be intelligent about the use of your abilities. I throw arcane shots out every time its up. I'm marksman, I have a nice stack of AP self buffed and it hits. So lets say I throw out 20 of these per death in a BG. You know that fel armor you just used? Yeah, well don't bother buffing it cause its gonna get reamed. I guarantee it. PWF, or better yet party buff using a reagent? Thanks for spending money so I can pwn your buff for 202 mana. I have a feeling people in BGs are going to freak when this happens. I agree that its going to be a pain. Hunters are going to purge the ever living crap out of you because its our main source of instant dmg especially if you're BM and do not have the multishot improvements.
Explosive Trap: The initial damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power - Cool for being annoying in AV. Cool that now hunters really don't have any reason for saying QQ my abilities don't scale unless I get some random spell DMG buff. This is cool. But I don't use explosive trap in PvP. Often :P
Immolation Trap: The total damage dealt by this trap is now also increased by 10% of your ranged attack power - Now this is cool. Is there a dispeller alive on the opposing team? No melee so your frost trap isn't that effective. They have AOE to ruin your snake trap push back festival? Drop this 980 DMG will now be roughly 1200-1300 making it semi beneficial to use as extra DPS when your other traps are not benefiting you vs the opposing team.
Misdirection: This spell will now always be removed correctly if multiple Hunters overwrite each other's Misdirection - Good PvE buff but not really needed 100%. If you're in a raid group and you and your other hunters cant figure out a system to avoid MD overlapping you need to stop raiding. A Tip! /join yourguildhunter (6), /6 misdirecting %T onto %F Do not misdirect for 5 seconds please. /target focus /cast misdirection /targetlasttarget
Readiness: This talent now finishes the cooldown on Kill Command - Lawl Oh kay so I use my 5 minute 41 point talent to reset the 5s CD on KC. Good fix but utterly useless. I don't know who figured this out I never noticed it.
Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap all gain additional damage based on ranged attack power - Way to double post nubs!
Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship) no longer costs mana to cast and will last until cancelled - Awesome I may have mana after I die in a BG!
Wyvern Sting (Survival) is now instant cast and has a maximum duration of 10 seconds in PvP - I still don't think survival will do well in arena but now maybe 0/24/37 or similar can work?
Last One: Hunter Mele range now 1-4 yards and ranged attacks 5-35(41) IE bye bye dead zone - This removes the 1 way we are shut down. But! Doesn't fix the issue of pillar kiting. I still play like I have a DZ on the PTR so I'll have to adjust to this change.

So whats missing? These are awesome buffs to hunters and hunters will be seen more in 5v5s but! They aren't a good solution for the real issue of hunters. First off hunters can get shut down easily. Our only answer is to patiently wait for a good target to unload into or for mele to force a target into a bad position. The range of 1 yard would be too much but would fix this allowing us to chase around a pillar.

Our other issue is mitigation. Warlocks have their own HOT/Drains as well as SL, mages get ice block, shammys druids pallies and priests can heal, Rogues have CLOS and vanish, warriors have defensive stance shields(when needed) and spell reflect. Hunters have marginal dodge/parry (lul overpower and rogue talents), deterrence (lol overpower) OK armor but not enough to make us a hard target for a warrior to take down and a maximum of 4% reduction to magic dmg taken available only deep into a tree that is ineffective in arena (survival / survival instincts). What would help hunters? A way to avoid magic dmg. Heck leave us as we are for mele we're not that poorly off. My suggestion?

The old rumored Imp Feign Death - (0/2) Survival Requires 15 points in survivalist talents. reduces the chance your FD will be resisted by 2/4% and gives feign death a 50/100% chance to remove all magic debufs and movement impairing effects from the hunter.

Increase the cooldown on Feign Death to 1 Minute. This won't break pve. A smart hunter should be waiting on threat anyway in a raid. This won't break PVP either. Does CLOS break rogues? No its what they need to survive against caster classes that they are supposed to beat.

Other things bliz could do as opposed to mortal strike shot? Give us something unique! Make Tranq shot reduce rogue energy/warrior rage for 10 seconds. Make disengage disarm an opponent. Hunters primary function in pvp is to shut down opponents abilities (drain mana, silence, frost trap kiting) focus on this strength don't make me into a ranged warrior with a purge!

Now don't get me wrong I'm happy we're getting a buff. But I'd rather something unique and something that fits with a hunters bag of tricks. A dispell and a MS are really not it but hey. I feel sorry for you buff classes :P

Read This Blog Now!

2007-10-30T07:12:00.000-07:00

So I'm the worst! I read this blog every day. This girl has more 70's than I have braincells.

Out Of Mana

Check here for the best look at Warlock and Paladin PvP you can find. Megan understands pvp like whoah! Plus she's way prettier than the Shifttusk. Check out her most recent post for a funny ass warlock talent tree in response to the upcoming nerfs to aflliction/slsl.

As a side note, I feel your pain I do 3's with an aflic lock and I'm very worried about the changes. Locks Soul Link aside are super squishy and have very few GTFO Me Mele cards. This change is going to make a huge change in 2's and ruin warlocks already poor showing in 5's.

Most Likely Solution?
- Your searing pain now dispels 1 magical effect
- Your shadow burn now reduces healing on the target by 50% for 6 seconds

You too can be a ranged warrior :(

Look forward to a post about hunters and 2.3 and stuff later after I pretend to do my job for a bit!

Lata,
Shift

2's, Priests And A Strategy

2007-10-26T06:55:00.000-07:00

First a note incase people check my armory. Yes my current 2v2 is with a warlock friend of mine. Hes undergeared and we're having some fun messing around in 2v2. But! We are looking for a priest to do 2v2s with us particularly me.

So! If you're a priest on mannoroth with 200+ resiliance 2v2 team with warlock and hunter LF yous. Requesting a Disc/Holy spec with imp mana burn although deep disc with pain supression is hot!

So I've been doing the majority of my arena play as Marks. Yes I raid as BM, yes I sometimes arena or BG as BM but if you didn't get it out of my previous post. Marks works better once you take into consideration a competent teamate expecialy a healer. Theres a ton of strategies for hunters in arena for each bracket. Today its time to blab about 2v2 Marks+Disc priest.

Team Composition:
Marksman Hunter (5/5 Imp Stings, Scatter, Silence, Entrapment)
Disc/Holy Priest (this has some more variation with 2x/3x/0 but I've seen alot more 41/20/0 popping up for pain supression which I think is an amazing talent oh ya imp mana burn).

Strategy:
Surving while decreasing the opposing teams resources (mana/rage). Via a few well timed burns and constant viper sting eventualy OOM caster DPS or a healer , shut down another team and drop a target via arc/multi/auto/SW:D.

BM vs Marksmanship vs Survivalism In Arena

2007-10-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

So talent specs. I'm not going to go into specifics today just a brief overview of builds and what strengths and weaknesses they have and to some extent their viability. Now note that if your partner is exceptionaly good you can get away with less than optimal specs and the same applies you can be perfectly specced and you and your partner don't work together you won't see >1500 ratings.

So Specs:

BM High DPS (41/20/0)
Key Talents: 5/5 Endurance Training, Intimidate, Serpents Swiftness, Mortal Shots, Frenzy, Bestial Wrath+TBW (spirit bond optional).

Strong: When free 41/20 can sustain a nice load of good dps. Nothing bursty but a nice steady 700dps in arena gear. TBW provides good protection against being stuck in mele as well as dmg from being frozen by mages (a frost mage relies on freezing you not just to avoid dmg but it increases their own dmg ALOT).

Weakness: A big lack is the missing burst damage. You will have far lower attack power than your marksman counterparts in pvp and as such your specials for burst (arcane multi your instants) hit for less. The biggest weakness of this build is utility. While you have tools to get out of hairy situations you lack the big tools to put the opposing team into a hairy situation. 700 dps is great for slowly wearing down a healers mana however a healer can heal through your dps and you lack the tools to shut down a healer or drain him more effectivly (improved stings).

Viability: BM is arguably the best dueling spec. It does well in BGs but BM is hit HARD by resiliance. Pets have a static crit rate aside from talents. Now resiliance cannot push pet crit completely off of the table but the big decrease in crits gimps you dmg against well geared opponents by ALOT. The net result of the resiliance is a lack of frenzy (30% pet dps) and ferocious inspiration uptime (3% dmg for party). The other glaring issue with BM in arena is a lack of shut downs you can't effectivly drain a casters mana and you dont have silence/scatter to help out a teamate. When it comes time to burn an opponent down you'll often find that your dps isn't enough to get through the heals and you lack a way to shut down the heals. A smart priest will be able to assist you via silence or fear but this is a bandaid for the spec.

BM Arena Tank (41/4/16)
Key Talents: 5/5 Endurance Training, 5/5 Survivalist, Deterence, Bestial Wrath, Intimidate, Imp Wingclip, Optional Spirit Bond.

Strong: You have a ton of health, it only gets to be more as you get geared. You have TBW as well as deterence to shut down mele dps on you. You can soak up a rediculous beating for a hunter while you do low dmg and your partner brings the other team down.

Weakness: Your dps is abysmal and you cant use this spec as a pvp/pve spec. In 2v2's you are forced into a 2dps team as well as in 3s. You have no interupts as well aside from a 1 minute cooldown.

Viability: This build somewhat works when undergeared. It helps you live and its less likely teams will realize the "tankhunter" strategy and will still focus on you. As you get more gear and play better teams this build just fails if you are not the focused target. You won't have tools to help your teamate get free and your dps.... SUCKS

Marksmanship (0/42-3/18-19)
Key Talents: Mortal Shots, Improved Stings, Scatter Shot, Silencing Shot, Trueshot Aura, Entrapment, Barrage Talents, Surefooted +++ IN 2.3 Improved Arcane Shot, Aimed Shot

Strong: Utility for assisting teammates in the form of entrapment and scatter allowing you to help focus targets reduce inbound dmg and get free of mele and casters. Good burst dmg from improved multishot allows you to take out a low HP target fast as well as spread a good amount of dps around the opposing team forcing the healer to spread heals and heal more per mana spent. Improved stings is a great tool for OOMing teams who slow play with healer+halfhealer lineups in 2's as well as in 5's and 3's. Silencing shot can help reduce incoming caster dmg and stop heals for a burn down. It also provides more (albeit shitty) dps while on the move. With the 2.3 changes this build will get more tools with the aimed shot change as well as the purge from imp arcane. The deadzone removal will help up the dps of this build making it harder to shut down the dps via positioning.

Weakness: MELE, you're going to be in a way like a warlock. You will HATE making a mistake with a rogue or warrior because it means you're going to get hit more than a few times and will need heals. Dealing with mele is where this build needs skill rather than GOGOLOLWITHIN to get free. Good use of your range to get warriors into combat fast as well as scorpid sting and deterence will help you survive and get free.

Viability: This build is far more popular on top end pvp hunters. For good reason, silencing shot is the easiest to use, shortest cooldown silence in the game. Scatter is great for offensivly dmging and stopping heals as well as helping a teammate get free of mele focus trains. Having been a BM raider I was pvping as BM and found the issues above. I was consistantly playing in the 1400-1550 range and never improving. The respec to 0/43/18 has made a huge improvement for me and will get better as I learn it. The better you get at 5-7 kiting warriors and dealing with mele focus the better you will do. You have alot of strong tools and using them to your advantage is key. Throwing out scorpid on mele, viper on caster dps and good use of frost traps for entrapment are all key. Swapping to this build I've shot up to near 1700s (and they will be 1700 by tuesday :P) within 2 weeks.

Survivalist:
Key Talents: Wyvern Sting, Expose Weakness, Survivalist, Lightening Reflexes, Deterence

Strong: High crit, higher mele dmg reduction via dodge

Weak: Resiliance Owns your buff and overall dps.

Viability: DONT DO EET. I tried it, it worked when noone had resiliance but resiliance OWNS expose weakness and your lack of scatter and silence removes all the good utility of this build. The instant cast wyvern sting my change this but I think that with its long cooldown it will still not be as effective as silence. I have yet to see a team matrix make good use of this build. I'll maybe do an update post 2.3 when the wyvern to instant change goes in perhaps 0/24/37 will make a comeback with good multishot dps and an instant wyvern for burndown.

Random 2.3 Musings: 20&24 Slot Quivers

2007-10-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, So first off this doesn't apply to you silly gun toters. Real hunters use bows!

C'mon our epic quest. Bow. Only weapon to say "Class: Hunter" Bow.

And now if you pvp we're all xbow users. Yup bliz feels the need to make troll racials useless in arenas. But not human rogue/warriors and realy will of the forsake and canabalize are underpowered in pvp really..

Ok /stoprant sorry.

So anyway I just wanted to make a blurb about the new quivers/amo pouches from crafting in the next patch. Now yea 6 more slots for raiding is pretty nice. But I do have other bags to just stash amo in beforehand its not a big deal. But a big deal? Abandoning my Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina! Its epic! It says its for a Hunter JUST FOR ME! I got to kill 4 demons that instagib any other freaking class.

Ok /stoprant again sorry!

But seriously I'm not getting a new one I'm keeping my precious. Anyone else feel the same way?

Mondays Hunter PvP Tip: Feign Death

2007-10-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

So as an attempt to provide some regular content on here my plan is every Monday to go over a specific hunter ability and how to best use it to help you in pvp.

Today's Feature? Feign Death

"But lewls Shifttusk players dont have agro!! L2 Hunter neub!"

So first what does feign death do?
- If not resisted FD will lower your current threat on a NPC to 0. (Yes no use in pvp)
- If not resisted FD will de-target your character this will break casts. (Aha wait a minute)

So FD for 60 mana can basically waste an opponents time that they spent channeling. It can also be used for some cool but risky tricks on melee opponents. The trick on melee is to FD when your pet or teammate is hitting the melee opponent your FD will have them targeted giving you a tiny time period to trinket off a snare and get to range. Try it its not very effective on a skilled opponent but every tool helps!

So part 1 what in the heck should I FD out of? Here's the Shifttusk recommended eat it or FD it list!
- Polymorph: EAT IT first off polymorph doesn't result in a lot of movement if your healer/teammates are paying attention they wont go out of LOS and you will come out to help. Poly heals you somewhat and if you're dotted it will break.
- Fear: FD IT fear can run you all over the place, it wont break consistently on dmg and you can get yourself feared out of LOS of your healer making you an easy kill.
- Casted DMG (fireball frostbolt immolate shadowbolt): This is a sometimes if you have a healer in LOS of you eat it. If not FD it to save your HP pool.
- Unstable Affliction: FD THIS EVERY FREAKING TIME. UA is like a caster mortal strike it means you are going to take dmg and your healer HAS to heal you. He cant run around it means every dot on you is going to tic. Love dodging mortal strike? FD unstable affliction.

Now there are a ton of other spells but the guidelines above should give you a good idea to judge your FD off of.

Back to work for me! If you guys have any tips on how you use FD in pvp (aside from getting a fast drink in) post them up!

Pookie, Snuggles and Hobbes What Pet Should I Choose and Why?

2007-10-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

So when deciding on my first post I tried to think of the most common question I see people ask on forums and blogs about their hunter.

"Hai I just made a NE hunter and am level 10 what pet should I use and why?"

And

"Hai I trained my pet with XxX is this good or is there something else I should use?"

Now while at first these seem like the typical noob questions that everyone flames and makes fun of in reality its probably one of the most important questions faced by a hunter. Possibly the most important. Now you can say questions of how x armor piece is going to improve my DPS or which ranged weapon is better are the most important. Realistically though these questions are answered over and over and can be backed up by statistics and numbers.

Slower weapon for pvp burst, high dps with good attack speed for raiding, more RAP higher crit more Mp5 Etc.

Heck it's been shown time and time again the best DPS by armor piece can be calculated via a spreadsheet taking into account everything from rotation to latency (see cheeky on the US forums). But what these sheets cant calculate is how your pet choice effects your playing. All of that aside your pet can have easily as much of an effect on your performance as you gear so why is asking about pets a bad question? Its not its a great question.

So after all that blah blah here's the Shifttusk take on what works for what situations:

1) Leveling - now its been a while since I leveled my hunter (ages actually) but for me there was one simple answer. BOAR. Boars used to have pretty low DPS but their ability to immobilize and cause high threat give newer hunters a ton of room for error while leveling. And their higher HP reduces downtime. Plus the immobilize isn't a bad deal for pvp at all.

2) Ima PVE Raider! - So this does somewhat fall into the realm of spreadsheets. Basically the rule of thumb is cat/ravager are the best unless the hunter is BM and reaches a gear mark. At around 25-27% unbuffed ranged critical a BM hunter will show a dps boost using a windserpent. Basically due to the fact that they proc enough GFTT to generate the focus to drive lightening breath. LB causes well more than 2x the dmg of claw but sucks up double the focus. Now one thing to note!

Lightening Breath Crit Rate SUCKS!

Claw is much better for maintaining Ferocious Inspiration. Using Cheeky's spreadsheet and a little testing I've seen about 30dps more using LB over claw. BUT my FI went from around 90% up time to about 75%. If you're in a high dps party in a longer fight the lower FI up time could mean an overall loss of raid DPS. Its nitpicking the numbers a bit but in addition to the dps they provide BM hunters are looked at as a party buff and you should pay HUGE attention to your FI. Unlike a mage or priest hunters need to work at keeping their buff up just like sunder armor and FF for druids.

3) Level 70 PvP - So here's my new domain. This is what I've been up to for about a month now and of course can use some tips at points. So what I've found is this:

Scorpions Pwn You!

Now sure did blizard nerf the ridiculously exploitable scorpid poison DPS for raiders? Of Course! Does this make the scorpion a little less effective in PVP. Sure I used to love the additional armor negating dmg on a warrior while kiting them but its not big deal.

So why a scorpion? It has no dash! It has significantly lower dps than a cat. and its UGLY!

Well lets look at a hunters strong points in arena play (arguably the most important pvp venue at 70). Hunter have many issues in arena but lets look at what they are currently good at and how the scorpion assists in this.

Spreading Dmg and Wasting Healer Mana/GCD's on healing a non focused target or dispelling - So spreading dmg and wasting heals on a non focus can be attained with any pet really and multishot is a great asset for this. DMG spreading is one of the strongest points of a BM specced hunter in 2s/3s. Specced 41/20/0 a BM hunters multishot still packs a decent punch with mortal shots and his pet can be on an off focus target inflicting serious dmg. This forces a healer to split healing, spend more mana and possibly lead to a screw up in which you can drop the focused target or even the healer. I've had many an occasion where my pet has taken a significant chunk out of a healers HP pool where I have beastwrath/rapid fired onto the focus target. At this point he the healer has to heal the focus, drops to 20-30%hp due to the BW'd pet and i quickly hop onto the healer with arc/multi/auto and drop them. The second portion of this is where the scorpion excels. Lets say you put your pet onto a healer. Your pet is killed but his poison is ticking for the next 10 seconds on a close to OOM healer. This healer has to waste his GCDs cleansing the poison so he can get out of combat to drink. If paired with a rogue the opposing healer needs to spend a ton of mana cleansing your scorpid poison stack off a focus target to be able to clear off wound poison so he can heal effectively.
Viper Sting Insurance - Viper sting, yep you know that spell pve players never use. That one that was never used in pvp at 60? Its one of your best tools in arena. Mana draining a healer means an eventual end to the heals our focus is receiving. But Druids, Paladins and Shamans can dispel viper sting. But since dispel mechanics are random a stack of scorpion poison on a target reduces the chance of dispel from 1/1 (100%) to 1/6(16%). With an only 8 second duration this really helps keep your viper sting effective at draining a caster (even offensive) and locking in a win.
Keeping Biotches in combat. An OOM healer is far from done if they can get out of combat. Out of combat = time to drink. Drink = 800mp5. Drink = bad. What will end up happening is a healer will call for a ccer to get a pet off them or kill it. With scorpid poison even if your pet is CC'd or killed you have an aditional 15 second (10 sec poison duration plus 5 to get out of combat after last dmg) window to get a shot in on the healer to keep them from drinking. This is invaluable. It also keeps a dpser from being able to bandage for 10 extra seconds.

Now alot of people complain about a lack of dash for getting into combat fast. Heres the problem if your pet goes in without other dps going in. Your pet is going to die. He has 0 resilience and a smaller HP pool. Defend your pet in arena it is one of your most important tools.

Welcome Peoples

2007-10-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

So I'm sure you knew it was going to happen,

You know... read BRK alot... Comment on BRK alot... Get BRK to go LW for some leet epix!

Make a blog so you don't eat up all of BRK's bandwidth bantering about the Internet maths!

So here goes the start to what I hope will be a good source of information for hunters and I guess people wanting to help their hunters in raids or own hunters in pvp! So as a little background I've been playing wow for a little over a year. I've always played my hunter (troll baby!) and I've experienced level 60 raiding in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair as well as the old level 60 PvP craze. At 70 I raided a decent amount from Kara through to Void Reaver and Lurker below. So one thing I hope to bring to some hunters is good PvE tips and what to expect in some raids. But anyhow after a few months of far too much raiding (unfortunately not a casual guild) I decided to decrease my boss killing and increase my pvping. So as a change up to BRK's blog I'm hoping to provide some good insight into hunter PvP at 70 in BG's, Duels and Arena. This will be mostly as BM (since I find it to do better in 2's which I like) but I also do 5's as Imp Drains + Entrapment Marksmanship.

Now I'm not one of those crazy 2500 in all brackets players but as I develop my pvp (ness) I'm going to try and share some of the tips with you people out there. Hopefully someone else with more experience can point some things out as well.

Some of the ideas I was planning on making posts of soon are:
-Pet Choice (PvP, PvE and dashing good looks!!)
-Hunter PvP Talent Builds (41/17/3, 41/20/0, 41/4/16, 0/42/19)
-5to7: How to kite warriors while your partners bring them down without falling to an intercept+mace stun party
-Pillars: The forums are full of folks crying about them lets learn how to use them.
-Void Reaver: Oh Noes Get Your Balls Away From Meh! From a hunters perspective.

Anyhow hope to see everyone checking in!