The Hunter's Mark

Update: Hunter Loot From Icecrown Citadel Raids

Lassirra — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:09:55 +0000

The last time we visited this topic, not much was known about the loot tables for later bosses found in Icecrown Citadel as most of the content was not yet open on live servers. However, now that the final wing of the Citadel has been released (and, in fact, defeated) we have a bit more information available to us regarding available loot. So today we’ll revisit the topic of loot found in Icecrown raids with the new information available to us.

10-Man (Normal)

The Lower Spire

Shawl of Nerubian Silk – Lord Marrowgar
Linked Scourge Vertebrae – Lord Marrowgar
Bone Warden’s Splitter – Lord Marrowgar
Njordnar Bone Bow – Lady Deathwhisper
Handgrips of Frost and Sleet – Lady Deathwhisper
Whispering Fanged Skull – Lady Deathwhisper
Icecrown Rampart Bracers – Gunship Battle
Pauldrons of Lost Hope – Gunship Battle
Frost Giant’s Cleaver – Gunship Battle
Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts – Deathbringer Saurfang
Saurfang’s Cold-Forged Band – Deathbringer Saurfang

The Plagueworks

Precious’s Putrid Collar – Festergut
Taldron’s Long Neglected Boots – Festergut
Taldron’s Short-Sighted Helm – Rotface
Shaft of Glacial Ice – Rotface
Shoulderpads of the Morbid Ritual – Professor Putricide

The Crimson Hall

Blood-Drinker’s Girdle – Blood Prince Council
Soulbreaker – Blood Prince Council
Hersir’s Greatspear – Blood Prince Council
Stakethrower – Blood-Queen Lana’thel
Seal of the Twilight Queen – Blood-Queen Lana’thel

The Frostwing Halls

Legguards of the Twisted Dream – Valithria Dreamwalker
Rimetooth Pendant – Sindragosa
Wyrmwing Treads – Sindragosa

The Frozen Throne

Windrunner’s Heartseeker – The Lich King
Tainted Twig of Nordrassil – The Lich King

25-Man (Normal)

The Lower Spire

Snowserpent Mail Helm – Lord Marrowgar
Band of the Bone Colossus – Lord Marrowgar
Zod’s Repeating Longbow – Lady Deathwhisper
Leggings of Northern Lights – Lady Deathwhisper
Shadowvault Slayer’s Cloak – Gunship Battle
Scourge Hunter’s Vambraces – Gunship Battle
Scourgeborne Waraxe – Gunship Battle
Bloodvenom Blade – Deathbringer Saurfang
Deathbringer’s Will – Deathbringer Saurfang
Protector’s Mark of Sanctification – Deathbringer Saurfang

The Plagueworks

Nerub’ar Stalker’s Cord – Festergut
Carapace of Forgotten Kings – Festergut
Distant Land – Festergut
Dual-Bladed Pauldrons – Rotface
Seal of Many Mouths – Rotface
Protector’s Mark of Sanctification – Professor Putricide

The Crimson Hall

Treads of the Wasteland – Blood Prince Council
Bloodfall – Blood-Queen Lana’thel
Protector’s Mark of Sanctification – Blood-Queen Lana’thel

The Frostwing Halls

Anub’ar Stalker’s Gloves – Valithria Dreamwalker
Frostbrood Sapphire Ring – Valithria Dreamwalker
Sindragosa’s Cruel Claw – Sindragosa
Protector’s Mark of Sanctification – Sindragosa

The Frozen Throne

Fal’inrush, Defender of Quel’Thalas – The Lich King
Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General – The Lich King
Protector’s Mark of Sanctification – The Lich King

Tier 10

Some of you have no doubt noticed that none of the Tier 10 set pieces are listed as drops and are probably wondering how the heck you’re supposed to pick up your Tier 10 sets. Allow me to explain how this tier is going to work.

First, there are three different versions of the Tier 10 set:

The first set is purchased entirely via Emblems of Frost.

The second set is purchased by acquiring items from the first set in addition to Protector’s Marks of Sanctification and turning them in for upgraded versions.

Finally, the third set is purchased by acquiring items from the second set in addition to (Heroic) Protector’s Marks of Sanctification and turning them in for the final upgraded versions.

In other words, the sets are gated and you have to pick them up in sequential order to get the best set:

First Set -> Second Set -> Third Set.

You can’t skip right to the best possible set.

Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Battlegear (iLvl 251)

Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Handguards – 60x Emblem of Frost
Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Headpiece – 95x Emblem of Frost
Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Legguards – 95x Emblem of Frost
Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Spaulders – 60x Emblem of Frost
Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Tunic – 95x Emblem of Frost

Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Battlegear (iLvl 264)

(Heroic) Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Battlegear (iLvl 277)

Set Bonuses

2-Piece: Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for 10 seconds
4-Piece: When your Serpent Sting and Wyvern Sting abilities deal damage, you have a 5% chance to gain 20% attack power for 10 seconds

All three sets share the same set bonuses.

We’ll be publishing hard mode loot in our next article.

This post from The Hunter's Mark. You can get even more great Hunter class content delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. Want to show your Hunter pride to the world? We've got some gear in The Hunter's Mark Shop to help you, and we're adding more all the time. You can also connect with us via Twitter and Facebook or visit us on the forums. If you have questions or feedback, send us an email!

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Weekly Guest Posts

Lassirra — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:00:33 +0000

As part of our new focus on community-building and communication with our visitors, we’d like to open the floor to all of you with a new weekly guest post program. Whether you’re an experienced author or just some Hunter with an axe to grind or a story to tell, we’d like to hear from you and share what you have to say with the rest of the community. There’s a lot to be gained in the way of insight from reading about how others play and experience the game and we think our visitors have a wide range of experience and expertise to offer. Don’t sell yourself short! You’ve got a story to tell and people want to hear about it. How do you think we got started?

The Rules

There must always be rules, isn’t that the way of it? So, here are the rules for having a guest post published here on THM:

Your post must be your own original work (no submitting posts on behalf of others)
Your post must not already be published on another site (we’re not into ripping off content that can already be found elsewhere)
Your post must have something to do with the Hunter class or general game-play (we’re not particularly interested in the lesser classes)
You must provide attribution information (such as a link to your own site if you have one) so we can give you proper credit for your submission
If you want to include images in your post, send them along with your submission

Also, make sure to spell and grammar check your submission! We don’t mind doing a little editing and basic formatting, but please make sure to do things like using proper punctuation yourself. We’re here to give you a voice–not play English teacher–and we want to make sure we maintain the quality of the site in the process.

Anyone can submit a guest post, even if you have a site of your own, and you can submit as many guest posts as you want. If you do submit more than one guest post, we won’t publish them back-to-back if there’s a post from someone else waiting to be published. This is merely so we can give as many people an opportunity to share their thoughts that want to as possible.

Only posts that appear to have very little thought or effort put into them will be rejected. If your post contains factual/data inaccuracies, you may be asked to revise it before it’s published (or, in the case of minor inaccuracies, we may fix it for you). This isn’t because we’re trying to be writing nazis, but merely so we can maintain the quality of posts being published here for our readers and cull out the folks looking for some quick attention. When in doubt, don’t be afraid to submit something to us! If we think your post has potential but could use some polish, we’ll let you know and will be happy to take another look when you’ve made some improvements.

Posting Schedule

Ideally, we’d like to have a fresh guest post ready for publishing every Saturday morning starting next week. We understand that people tend to be a little shy about throwing their two copper out there, so there may be weeks when we don’t have any guest posts waiting to be published. In that case, we’ll likely let the week lapse without a Saturday morning post (or we might post a reminder that we’re looking for guest posts if it’s been a couple weeks without a submission).

If you’d like to have a post published, but you aren’t quite sure what to write about, we’ve got a couple ideas on tap that we’d be happy to share. In particular, for those of you out there that enjoy PvP, we could definitely use some of your wisdom!

I know many of you probably feel like you don’t have anything useful to share, but you’d be surprised. Pearls of wisdom can often be found in the simplest of stories. If you’ve ever thought it would be nice if you had a place to share your game-related stories and musings with the world, now’s your chance.

Don’t be shy! Show us what you’ve got.

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Spending Your Pet Talent Points

Lassirra — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:55:18 +0000

In a recent post, we talked about possibilities for spending your first talent points and provided some suggestions for talent builds to use as you level. Of course, that begs the question: what about pet talents? What should we do with those as we level? Unlike our own talents and builds, pets are pretty straight-forward and often the build your pet uses while you level isn’t very different from the build it will be using at the level cap. The reason for that is that, rather than three talent trees for each pet, we have three different types of pets that each have their own special tree: Ferocity, Tenacity and Cunning. We’ll be looking at possible builds for all three today.

Pet Types

As we’ve already mentioned, there are three different kinds of pets: Ferocity, Tenacity and Cunning. What differentiates these pets from one another is the talent choices they have available to them. Ferocity pets have talents that are geared almost exclusively toward increasing the damage output of your pet as much as possible. Tenacity pets have talents that increase their survivability and threat generation making them an ideal choice for tanking. Cunning pets have talents that are geared towards overall utility, making them able to maintain threat while dealing damage; the draw-back, however, is that Cunning pets are not as good at either of these things as their Ferocity and Tenacity counterparts. What makes Cunning pets useful is their versatility.

Pet Families

Within each pet type (Ferocity, Tenacity and Cunning) there are different families of pets that are distinguished from one another by appearance and the special abilities they come with when tamed. Additionally, there are also “Exotic” pets within each family that can only be tamed by Hunters with the 51-point Beast Mastery talent.

Ferocity

Carrion Bird – Bite, Demoralizing Screech
Cat – Claw, Rake, Prowl
Core Hound (Exotic) – Bite, Lava Breath
Devilsaur (Exotic) – Bite, Monstrous Bite
Hyena – Bite, Tendon Rip
Moth – Smack, Serenity Dust
Raptor – Claw, Savage Rend
Spirit Beast (Exotic) – Claw, Spirit Strike, Prowl
Tallstrider – Claw, Dust Cloud
Wasp – Smack, Sting
Wolf – Bite, Furious Howl

Tenacity

Bear – Claw, Swipe
Boar – Bite, Gore
Crab – Claw, Pin
Crocolisk – Bite, Bad Attitude
Gorilla – Smack, Pummel
Rhino (Exotic) – Smack, Stampede
Scorpid – Claw, Scorpid Poison
Turtle – Bite, Shell Shield
Warp Stalker – Bite, Warp
Worm (Exotic) – Bite, Acid Spit

Cunning

Bat – Bite, Sonic Blast
Bird of Prey – Claw, Snatch
Chimaera (Exotic) – Bite, Froststorm Breath
Dragonhawk – Bite, Fire Breath
Nether Ray – Bite, Nether Shock
Ravager – Bite, Ravage
Serpent – Bite, Poison Spit
Silithid (Exotic) – Claw, Venom Web Spray
Spider – Bite, Web
Sporebat – Smack, Spore Cloud
Wind Serpent – Bite, Lightning Breath

Choosing a Pet

Your choice of pet should depend first on the talents you want it to have available, which is a decision you’ll base on whether you want your pet to excel at dealing damage, taking damage or a bit of both. The next part of your decision–the choice of pet family–you can base purely on aesthetics as you level if that’s your preference, or you can base that decision on the special abilities a pet will come with.

As you level is a great time to experiment with different pets and tame as many as possible. The reason for this is that once you reach the level cap, if peak performance is your primary goal, you’ll be extremely limited in the choices you’ll have for viable pets for PvE content. Because pets are such an integral part of being a Hunter, use your time spent leveling to sample all the different pets available to us. You can worry about which pet does the best damage later.

Ferocity Talents

The Ferocity tree specializes in maximizing your pet’s damage. That being the case, every point you spend in this tree should be spent with that in mind. If the talent doesn’t provide a damage boost, it’s filler. If you find yourself having to resist the urge to spend points in talents that will help increase your pet’s utility or survivability, consider switching to a Cunning or Tenacity pet instead.

2/2 Cobra Reflexes – While you do sacrifice a bit of short-term damage with this talent, the long-term benefits outweigh the loss.
1/3 Great Stamina – It is important to remember that with Ferocity pets you’re looking for pure damage, but this talent will get you down to the next tier without giving you another ability that will use up focus that could be better spent on Growl (while soloing) and special abilities.
3/3 Spiked Collar – A scaling boost to pet damage is a no-brainer. The benefit from this talent will improve as you level up and acquire better gear.
3/3 Culling the Herd – For Beast Mastery Hunters whose pets crit very frequently, this is especially nice as you’ll be able to keep this damage buff to both you and your pet up almost constantly.
3/3 Spider’s Bite – Remember how pet special attack crits give you and your pet a damage buff? With this talent, they’ll crit even more often giving you a more sustained damage increase.
Call of the Wild – This is basically giving you and your pet a free Attack Power trinket. The difference is that most trinkets are on 2-minute cooldowns while this is on a 5-minute cooldown. Still, the periodic increase to Attack Power for you and your pet is definitely worth it.
Rabid – Again, you’re looking at another free trinket, only this time only your pet sees the benefit. (You’ve got your own trinkets anyway!)
1/2 Bloodthirsty – This talent will essentially remove the need for you to feed or heal your pet under most circumstances, taking a lot of the maintenance out of having a pet. (And freeing up some much-needed bag space!)
1/2 Shark Attack – Finally, a scaling damage boost for your pet that will get better as you level.

This build on WoWHead. Note: your second and eighth talent choices are filler used to get you down to the next tier. Great Stamina was chosen in lieu of Dash because it provides a bit more health and doesn’t consume the pet’s focus in the process, leaving more focus for pet attacks and special abilities. In the case of Bloodthirsty, again the choice was based on focus use. As an alternative you could place another point in Great Stamina instead of taking Bloodthirsty.

For Beast Mastery Hunters with four extra points to spend, you can finish filling Shark Attack, pick up 2/2 Wild Hunt and you’ll have an extra point left over to spend as you like.

Tenacity Talents

The Tenacity tree is, for all intents and purposes, the opposite of the Ferocity tree. You’re sacrificing damage for increased pet survivability. Tenacity pets are ideal for Hunters that want to AoE grind as they level, as most other pets are unable to sustain the threat needed on multiple targets.

3/3 Great Stamina – A scaling increase to your pet’s health that will increase as you level.
2/2 Blood of the Rhino – Another bonus to pet health, as well as a buff to incoming heals making it easier for you (or a pocket healer) to keep your pet alive through damage spikes.
Boar’s Speed – This is really just a luxury talent. It’s primary purpose is simply to get your pet to where it’s going that much faster so it can establish threat and you can start dealing damage sooner.
2/2 Guard Dog – This talent helps ensure that your pet won’t lose threat and at the same time also makes sure your pet is at peak performance (since happiness affects pet performance) at all times.
Thunderstomp – This talent is a must for Hunters that intend to AoE grind, as it helps your pet establish threat on multiple targets simultaneously.
2/2 Grace of the Mantis – This talent helps reduce damage spikes, making it more likely that a steady stream of Mend Pet will be sufficient to keep your pet up and at ‘em.
1/2 Natural Armor – Again, a mitigation talent. While I won’t get into the finer points of tanking mechanics, additional armor essentially increases your pet’s effective health making it able to take more damage over longer periods of time.
Taunt – In case Growl is on cooldown (it happens) and you’ve got a stray mob whacking you or a friend in the face, it’s nice to have an extra taunt available to reestablish threat (especially if Feign Death is also on cooldown!)
Last Stand – For those that have played a Warrior before or are familiar with their mechanics, this is exactly what you would expect it to be. If you’re in a tough situation and a last spurt of health for your pet will get you over the hump, this talent is a must.
2/2 Natural Armor – Another point spent here will get you down to the final tier while providing a bit more damage mitigation for your pet.
1/2 Silverback – Having your pet heal itself each time it Growls (which is frequently) and keeping Mend Pet up will make sure your pet’s able to take a significant stream of steady damage and keep on truckin’.

This build on WoWHead. Unlike the Ferocity tree, there isn’t really much in the way of filler in the Tenacity tree. Instead, you find yourself confronted with choices that will depend on your style of play. For example, if you find yourself dealing frequently with casters, you might choose to go with points in Great Resistance instead of Natural Armor. If you level with a friend or play in groups frequently, you might want to pick up Intervene. These are things you’ll want to think about as you select talents.

For Beast Mastery Hunters with four extra points to spend, you may just want to give yourself wiggle room to accommodate different circumstances and pick up both Great Resistance and Natural Armor.

Cunning Talents

Finally, we have the Cunning tree, which is the embodiment of the “Jack of All Trades, Master of None” philosophy. The talents you choose for a Cunning pet will depend largely on what kind of utility you need it to have. Your very first talent choices will set the scene: do you want this pet to be better at dealing damage or taking damage? You may also want to consider the family of Cunning pet you’ve chosen when you pick talents. If the family abilities are geared towards dealing damage, take some survivability talents. If the family abilities are geared towards utility, take some damage boosting talents. This strategy will ensure you wind up with a more well-rounded pet.

2/2 Cobra Reflexes – Again, while you do sacrifice a bit of short-term damage with this talent, the long-term benefits outweigh the loss.
Dash – Because you’re working with a Cunning pet whose focus is utility, not pure damage output, you can afford to spend a point on this to help move combat along.
3/3 Spiked Collar – As before, a scaling boost to pet damage is a no-brainer. The benefit from this talent will improve as you level up and acquire better gear.
3/3 Culling the Herd – Another talent shared with Ferocity pets. (See above.)
2/2 Cornered – This is where the utility starts to come into play. When your pet starts to run low on health, it takes a page out of Emeril’s book and kicks it up a notch, making it more likely that your pet will kill off whatever is attacking it before it dies.
2/2 Feeding Frenzy – Have you ever watched a wild animal scent blood on the Discovery channel? This is somewhat like that. When your pet’s target runs low on health, your pet’s damage will spike as it goes in for the kill, helping you burn through targets faster.
Roar of Recovery – This talent will help keep you out of Aspect of the Viper as you progress from one fight to the next, making sure your damage stays constant and at peak efficiency.
Wolverine Bite – This gives your pet an additional attack that’s guaranteed to deal damage (since it can’t be blocked, dodged or parried) after your pet crits, which will definitely start to add up.
1/2 Wild Hunt – Finally, this talent will provide buffs to the two things Cunning pets can make the best use of: survivability and damage.

This build on WoWHead. As an alternative, you might want to swap the points from Cobra Reflexes and Dash into Great Stamina for a bit more survivability if you find your pet is dying a bit more than you’d like (although, the points in Cornered should help that as well).

Final Notes

Remember: you can retrain your pet’s talents very easily (and cheaply!) by visiting your local trainer, so if you make a mistake or just want to experiment with different builds, it’s extremely easy to do. These are, of course, just a few options for builds and the build that works best for you will depend largely on your style of play. If you’ve got a pet build that you’ve especially enjoyed using, feel free to share it in the comments so others can give it a try!

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Ensidia Banned for Lich King Exploit Kill

Lassirra — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:36:41 +0000

For those who may not have heard the news yet, Ensidia got the world first Lich King kill for the 25-man version. (Blood Legion got the world first 10-man kill.) While the fact that Icecrown Citadel has already been cleared in it’s entirety within two days of the last wing being made available is somewhat suspect in terms of how that reflects on the quality and complexity of the encounters therein, what’s particularly noteworthy in this case is that directly following their world first, Ensidia received a temporary 72-Hour ban from the game as a result of their kill.

The reason stated for Ensidia’s ban, simply put, is that they used game exploits to complete the Lich King encounter and get the world first kill.

From Blizzard Staff in the ban notification to Ensidia members:

We are writing to inform you that we have had to place a warning on your World of Warcraft account and temporarily suspend it. It is with regret that we take this type of action, but it is in the best interests of the World of Warcraft community as a whole, and for the integrity of the game. The use of these items bypassed a major portion of the encounter, significantly reducing the difficulty in a clear abuse of game mechanics. After your suspension has expired, you will be able to access the World of Warcraft servers again.

To clarify what they’re referring to, here’s a note from Ensidia that was posted shortly after their world first:

Yes it seems this bug does relate to our kill. We had no idea that our Rogues using Saronite Bombs in their rotation (as they always do) was causing it and thusly it occured every try we did. Short version, we’re not going to stop trying the boss when all we are doing is playing our normal game. It would be nice if these kinds of things, much the same as Holy Wrath on Anub, were tested before release.

It does make the fight easier, but we are 100% sure it would have died either way. It only affects one of the easier phases.

As a side note this only occured in 25 man.

In response to the ban, Muqq announced his retirement from World of Warcraft in a blog post on the Ensidia site stating that Blizzard’s response to the incident was unfair and was largely the result of poor coding and encounter planning on the part of game developers.

What do you think about Ensidia’s ban? Do you think Blizzard did the right thing or do you feel like Ensidia got a bum deal? Let us know in the comments!

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A Friendly Reminder: Hunters Rule

Guest — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:00:08 +0000

This is a guest post from Talsin, GM of <Starsong Tribe> Emerald Dream-US.

Setting the Scene

It was only a Saronite node…

Flying high above Sholazar Basin, mining was fresh and exciting. Perhaps it would have been rather boring for some, but not only had I just maxed out mining (Favoring it enough to drop 450 Herbalism), but it was my first log in that day. You know the kind? The first time logging in, even if only to check your mail, can seem to give you an extra boost of unobstructed enthusiasm. Or maybe it’s only me.

In any case, it wasn’t long before my tracking picked up my first node. I began my decent, and before long my red drake had touched down right next to some rich Saronite. Even though I play on a PVP server, and am an avid world PVPer, for some reason the attack caught me by surprise. A tauren warrior had decided the precious metal would instead be his, and he wasted no time charging up to me and beating me in my night elf face. Instincts took over, and my well placed wing clip plus disengage macro got me some distance. I laid down a frost trap, snake trap, and the kiting began. The warrior hit both my traps, and I just pecked away at him and watched as my dots ticked happily like a great symphony. As he neared the edge of the frozen ground, I did the trick I had so many times before. Activating my nitro boosts, I ran right toward him. His momentum plus mine would be all I needed to finish him off. I jumped gracefully over his head and continued to run. Once the boost wore off, I turned to face him again. He had turned around and was walking through the frozen ground, for the second time. Knowing that his charge would be off cool down again soon enough, I had to finish him off now. As luck would have it, lock and load chimed in and I sent a few extra explosive shots his way. It was enough.

Now, to that Saronite. I walked back over to it and began to mine it. I should have thought to use a bandage first…

This time, a death knight wanted it. Landing right next to me he put me in chains of ice, and started his DPS rotation on my head. I knew I couldn’t stand that for long considering I was at half health as it was, so I laid down a freezing trap and prayed his trinket wasn’t ready for use. The trap worked, and while he was inside a large frozen block of ice, I mined the node in front of him, feigned death out of combat, and summoned my flyer to escape safely. Once I healed, I’d come back for him.

The Moral of the Story

What is the point I’m trying to make? Hunters have it made. The kiting, hard hitting shots, and the escape tricks wouldn’t have been possible if not for my choice of class. Now granted, I realize that all classes have their own strengths and weaknesses. I have an 80 Rogue and an 80 Death Knight as well, and I’ll admit that both of those classes are fun in their own way, however, I always had that burning interest in having a hunter and I haven’t been able to put it down since level 1. I’d like to simply take a moment where we can stop what we’re doing and think to ourselves… Do we get burned out on the game mechanics at times? Sure! But we have the best class in the game! We get our own pets, powerful traps, explosive burst damage, a large range of weapons to use, and more CC than you can shake a bow at.

I’m not going to claim to be an expert hunter who has played since the launch of the game, because I’m not. My Hunter was my third character, but it’s become my main and I’ve gotten pretty decent at playing it. This round of fisticuffs in Sholazar was simply one of those moments where I became thankful all over again for the very core that is our class. We have a move for everything it seems like, and more toys than we know what to do with. Does your team in Arathi Basin need to know which bases would be best to attack? Use Eagle Eye, and you can tell how many enemies are at every single node (depending on where you use it from of course). Think a rogue or druid is close by? Lay down some traps and throw up a Flare to give yourself the advantage.

My point as a whole here is this… If you’re getting jaded on the game, stop thinking about the game, and go back to the roots of the hunter class. Remember those group quests that you soloed? Remember that first pet you tamed? The Hunter continues to be one of the most popular classes in the game to date, and this is why: We’re freakin’ awesome! Take a moment and remember these things. I promise that if you truly reflect on it, that you will gain that obsession all over again. Then you can rain down arrows on your opponent with a fresh outlook once more.

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Zath’s WoW Competition

Lassirra — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:25:56 +0000

Zath! is currently hosting a World of Warcraft contest with a veritable plethora of prizes to be won and several winners will be chosen. If you’d like to get your mitts on some free game swag, keep reading.

Prizes

1x World of Warcraft Mouse
1x World of Warcraft Keyboard
1x SteelSeries QcK WoW: Lich King Limited Edition Mouse Mat
1x SteelSeries 5C WoW: Frost Wyrm Limited Edition Mouse Mat
1x WoW Comic (Hard-Cover)
1x WoW: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King Book
1x BradyGames WoW Guide
1x BradyGames WoW: Burning Crusade Guide
5x Starbucks WoW Raiding Kit (USB Cup Warmer, a Starbucks VIA WoW Mug and some of their new VIA instant coffee)

For details on how to enter and other information about the contest, check out this post on Zath. The contest closes February 7, 2010!

Happy Hunting!

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Spending Your First Hunter Talent Points

Lassirra — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:03:42 +0000

The end of an expansion is always a common time for players to be leveling alts, and of course there are always those Johnny-Come-Lately players that join the game long after the party’s already well under way that could benefit from a bit of direction. We’ve received questions recently about where to spend your first talent points and far be it from us to leave you guys hanging!

You’ve made your way through the starting quests, finished up your pet taming quests and now you’ve got a slew of new choices to make. You open up the talent window, you’ve got a whole lot of blanks staring back at you and you’re not sure quite what to do. We’ve got you covered.

Unlike some past MMOs, WoW is extremely forgiving of mistakes, especially at earlier levels. If you’ve already spent your first talent points and you’re afraid you’ve made a mistake, that’s okay. Resetting your talents and starting fresh is extremely easy — visit your local trainer and ask them to reset your talents (there is a small fee involved, and the more often you reset your talents, the more it will cost). That’s all there is to it!

This also means that you’ve got a lot of room at earlier levels for experimentation, and you can decide to use a completely different spec at the end-game when you finally get there from anything you used to level with if you want.

A quick note before we dive right in: these builds are not the end-all-be-all of leveling builds. Some folks take leveling as seriously as others view the end-game and try to squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of leveling that they can. I’m not one of those people; which is not to say there’s anything wrong with that point of view, it’s just not one I share.

I view leveling as a time where you can try a little of this or a little of that and everything’s right in the world as long as you’re having fun doing it. As a result, builds I suggest for leveling will reflect that attitude. These are just builds that I’ve found to be successful in the past and would recommend others try out to see what they like. They may not provide the most efficient leveling experience, but that’s never been my goal. Also, variations of these builds exist for different reasons and are just as valid. I provide these builds as a starting point for players to take and branch out from if they want or stick with if they’re happy doing that. Keep that in mind moving forward, and we’ll get along just fine.

Decide What Kind of Hunter You Are

The first step to deciding where to spend your talents is deciding what kind of Hunter you are. Think of the time you spend leveling like going to college: it’s a time to learn and experiment, and anything goes.

If you rolled a Hunter because you think pets are just the coolest thing since sliced bread and you really want to see what those puppies can do, Beast Mastery might be just what you’re looking for.

If you’re a closet NRA member and blasting folks in the face sounds like a perfect way to spend a sleepy Sunday afternoon, Marksmanship is probably more your bag.

If you’re not sure what the heck you want yet, but you think you might like to try a little bit of everything and you want some added utility to really get a feel for things, Survival is probably a good bet.

The nice thing about playing a Hunter is that our talent trees are pretty self-explanatory, which allows you to spend more time focusing on playing the game and learning the class than worrying about talent choices. Beast Mastery focuses on buffing your pet and improving the synergy between Hunter and pet, Marksmanship focuses on improving ranged weapon damage and performance and Survival focuses on providing utility and increasing your ability to really stretch the limits of what the class is capable of. Choose a spec that reflects what you want to get out of playing your Hunter. Each of the three specs performs very well while leveling, so there’s no reason to avoid a certain spec if it’s really what you want to play.

Building a Spec

Once you’ve decided what kind of Hunter you want to be, that’s when the fun starts. You’ve got a tree in mind that will help you get out there and be somebody, and now you’re looking to figure out where those points would be best spent. It’s a good idea to build a spec with all 71 points mapped out first, and then decide the order in which you’ll work your way into that spec as you level up. Here are a few suggestions, listed in the order you’ll want to spend your talents. There are countless variations of these builds available, and to list them all would take weeks, so I’ll stick to choices that are rather generic across different goals and play-styles. I’m sure folks will provide additional direction in the comments section as well to help.

Beast Mastery (51/17/3)

To really get the most out of your pet, your first points are best spent on talents that will directly benefit your pet either by increasing it’s damage or improving it’s survivability to reduce down-time and increase efficiency. From there, move on to talents that will increase damage output for both you and your pet.

5/5 Endurance Training – This is a talent you won’t need or want at the level cap, but it does help while leveling
3/3 Thick Hide – Again, this is one you won’t want at the level cap, but it’s handy for leveling
2/2 Focused Fire – You’ve gotten some solid survivability buffs to your pet already, but you do want to make sure you and your pet are dealing adequate damage as well, so this one is important
Aspect Mastery – Aspects are a big part of playing a Hunter, so this added utility to abilities you’ll have up all the time is important
5/5 Unleashed Fury – Now that we’ve given your pet some added survivability, it’s time to start buffing damage so you can work through mobs (and quests) a bit faster
5/5 Ferocity – Similar to Unleashed Fury, this talent provides a much-needed buff to pet damage
Intimidation – Depending on your style of play, you can either get a lot out of this talent in the way of utility or you can use it simply as a stepping stone to bigger and better things
2/2 Improved Mend Pet – We’ve given your pet some added survivability through increased armor and health, but that only gets you so far when you find yourself dealing with numerous mobs simultaneously. This talent will help you keep your furry friend alive and well when things start to look bleak, as they inevitably will from time to time
1/2 Improved Revive Pet – This talent is especially helpful if you level in instances, as it will reduce the downtime spent rezzing your pet (which BM Hunters shouldn’t hesitate to do mid-fight since nearly half your damage comes from your pet)
5/5 Frenzy – Get the most out of your pet’s increased critical strike chance by providing an additional damage buff each time it crits
Bestial Wrath – This talent should need no introduction; it’s a corner-stone of every BM build, and there’s a reason for it
3/3 Ferocious Inspiration – You’ve buffed your pet’s damage, now it’s time to buff your own (and your groupmates’)
1/2 Animal Handler – This talent is primarily useful for it’s increase to your pet’s Attack Power, though if you play on a PvP server or like to visit the Battlegrounds as you level, the buff to Master’s Call can also be helpful
5/5 Serpent’s Swiftness – This talent is particularly useful for getting your Steady Shot ability in line with the global cooldown, which will reduce gaps in your shot rotation and increase overall damage output as a result
The Beast Within – Like Bestial Wrath, this talent is a must for any BM build
3/3 Cobra Strikes – Guaranteed crits for your pet definitely helps boost your total damage output
2/2 Animal Handler – Previously we placed just 1 point in this talent to get us on to the next tier of the tree; now you can finish filling it in for the extra Attack Power buff for your pet
5/5 Kindred Spirits – Yet another boost to pet damage, which is never a bad thing (and a slight movement speed increase, which some players find handy to have)
Beast Mastery – This talent is especially attractive to “pet collectors” who have their eyes on Exotic pets, but even if you’re not after Exotics, the added talent points for your pet will provide a nice boost to utility, survivability or damage depending on your pet

Once you’ve finished putting points into the Beast Mastery tree, you can move on to putting your remaining talents into the Marksmanship and Survival trees.

Marksmanship (7/57/7)

The early Marksmanship tree is integral to most Hunter specs, even at the end-game, so your first points will really give your performance a solid boost. The rest of the tree is geared towards improving the shots you’ve already got to give them the best possible damage output.

5/5 Lethal Shots – Increasing your crit chance with ranged weapons (the only kind you should ever be using!) right off the bat is a great way to start boosting your damage output
5/5 Mortal Shots – You’ve already boosted your chance to crit, now give those extra crits a damage buff to get the most out of them
1/2 Go For the Throat – While pet damage isn’t a primary concern for Marksmanship Hunters, you’ve boosted your crit chance already, so give your pets some benefit from those extra crits by translating them into extra focus your pet can use for more frequent use of special attacks or abilities (like Growl to help them keep aggro as you solo!)
3/3 Careful Aim – While stacking Intellect isn’t necessary, it is needed to help increase your mana pool so you spend less time using Aspect of the Viper (which decreases your damage output), so you might as well maximize it’s benefit by converting it into Attack Power as well
3/3 Focused Aim – As you level, +Hit Rating can be difficult to come by on items and in classic content you’re not able to gem for it. All those missed shots are costing you damage, so this talent will help get your Hit up until you have more manual control over it
3/5 Efficiency – The benefits of this talent should be fairly obvious: reduced mana cost for your shots means more shots fired before needing to switch to Aspect of the Viper or stopping to drink
Readiness – Being able to reset your cooldowns has a lot of potential for utility; for example, you could lay a trap then immediately reset the cooldown and lay another, giving you the ability to temporarily crowd control more mobs simultaneously, which is a handy thing to be able to do (not to mention this talent is required to pick up Trueshot Aura…)
3/3 Improved Arcane Shot – Arcane Shot is a big part of most Hunters’ rotations (with the exception of Survival Hunters with Explosive Shot, which shares a cooldown with Arcane Shot), so buffing the damage dealt by Arcane Shot will provide a non-trivial increase to overall damage output
Aimed Shot – This shot is usually considered optional and a lot of builds don’t bother with it, but it can be handy if you PvP, want an extra shot you can fire on the run, or run instances frequently and would like the healing debuff
3/3 Ranged Weapon Specialization – What’s not to like about increased damage for your ranged weapons?
2/2 Combat Experience – Increasing both your Agility and Intellect provides a double boost to your Attack Power, as well as increasing your crit chance and mana pool
Trueshot Aura – Long considered the signature of the Marksmanship tree, this party/raid buff scales reasonably well with your gear and is a “set and forget” constant damage boost
3/3 Piercing Shots – Don’t underestimate the power of DoTs (just ask Warlocks how great they are!); Steady Shot should be a regular part of your rotation by now (even if Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot aren’t), so being able to squeeze a little more damage out of it is definitely worth it
1/3 Improved Hunter’s Mark – Hunter’s Mark should always be included in your rotation, the extra damage it provides for a relatively low investment on your part is well worth the trouble; buffing the bonus you receive from it (and reducing the cost), especially while leveling, is a good way to increase damage output with little effort on your part
5/5 Master Marksman – Even more crit chance? Definitely worth it. If that weren’t enough, it also reduces the mana cost of a couple key shots in your rotation which means less time spent in regen mode
Silencing Shot – This is another optional shot; what makes it particularly useful while leveling is that it makes pulling casters to you a lot easier, whether you’re soloing or running instances; additionally, it’s handy to have if you’re on a PvP server or like to run Battlegrounds occasionally
3/3 Improved Steady Shot – Again, because Steady Shot is a regular part of your rotation, getting added benefits from using it seems like a no-brainer
1/3 Wild Quiver – Free shots just from using Auto Shot (which can no longer be clipped by other shots in your rotation)? Yes, please.
5/5 Marked For Death – If you didn’t already have enough reason to use Hunter’s Mark, this talent would do it; it increases the damage dealt on shots and special abilities by you and your pet against marked targets
Chimera Shot – If the extra shot damage weren’t enough to pique your interest, this shot does a whole lot more than just that: it refreshes your stings (which means less mana spent doing so manually and eliminates the chance you might forget to refresh your stings) and also applies an additional effect depending on the sting you currently have active on the target

With your remaining points, finish filling in Efficiency, Improved Hunter’s Mark and Wild Quiver and then move on to the Beast Mastery and Survival trees.

Survival (2/14/55)

The first half of the Survival tree will largely focus on added utility by increasing your survivability and improving your traps, while the later half of the tree will give you major boosts to your damage output.

5/5 Improved Tracking – Our tracking abilities are a big part of what makes us Hunters, why not really put them to work and have them also increase our damage output as well? The trick here, especially for you gatherers (miners and herbalists, I’m looking at you), is to remember to switch our tracking appropriately which can sometimes be difficult while leveling when you’re trying to track nodes to make some cash
2/2 Survival Instincts – While the incoming damage reduction can be nice while leveling, the real benefit from this talent is the added crit chance for Steady and Arcane or Explosive Shot
3/3 Trap Mastery – This is purely a utility talent, increasing the effectiveness of your traps, which is especially helpful if you’re trying to test your limits and need some added crowd control or damage
5/5 Survivalist – The extra health is handy, especially while leveling, but what we really want from this talent is access to Hunter vs. Wild later on
3/3 Lock and Load – This talent is one of the corner stones of a high-damage Survival build and gives a huge damage boost when it procs; it’s especially great in instances that require crowd control, because your Freezing Trap ability will automatically trigger it
3/3 T.N.T. – While this talent is of questionable benefit at early levels (unless you’re using Explosive Trap frequently, which many do), it really shines once you pick up Black Arrow and Explosive Shot
3/3 Hunter vs. Wild – This talent provides a lot of potential for increasing your damage output whenever you also increase your survivability (and that of your pet) by increasing your Stamina; as a result, picking up this talent makes the extra Stamina from Survivalist totally worth the points spent
3/3 Killer Instinct – More frequent crits always provide a damage increase, and as an added bonus, this talent will provide access to Noxious Stings further down the tree
5/5 Lightning Reflexes – So much of a Hunter’s effectiveness is based on Agility and the other stats Agility also increases (like Attack Power and Crit Chance), so spending points in a talent that will help increase your Agility scaling is well worth it
Wyvern Sting – While this shot is useful under certain circumstances (it’s handy in PvP and provides back-up crowd control when needed), the real reason we want it is for access to Noxious Stings later on; if you end up using it frequently, more power to you (it can be helpful to have), but if not, that’s okay too
2/3 Expose Weakness – This talent was a lot more attractive when it was the Survival tree’s version of Trueshot Aura, acting as a raid-wide damage buff, but it’s benefit to our personal damage now isn’t anything to scoff at; all three points aren’t necessary, but a couple are definitely worth the trouble
5/5 Master Tactician – This talent isn’t quite as beneficial at lower levels where players aren’t likely to be hit-capped, but it does provide a non-trivial damage boost through increased crit chance on hits that don’t miss (and Focused Aim will help with this, when you get it)
Black Arrow – This shot is a primary piece of the Survival rotation, particularly once you get out of content that favors crowd control (so you’re not getting Lock and Load procs from Freezing Trap anymore) and need something else to provide damage and get those procs up
3/3 Noxious Stings – Finally we’ve got access to Noxious Stings; the aspect of this talent pertaining to Wyvern Sting is really only beneficial in PvP, what we’re really after is the added damage on targets affected by Serpent Sting (which should be any single target you’re attacking!)
3/3 Thrill of the Hunt – Aside from all those crits providing increased damage, give ‘em legs and really put ‘em to work! The mana regen on crits from this talent will significantly reduce your time spent in Aspect of the Viper
3/3 Sniper Training – While we tend to do quite a bit of moving and shaking in raids, in regular five man instances and as we solo we’re frequently afforded the luxury of standing still; this talent will help increase your damage output even more when you do get the chance to plant your feet and let ‘em have it
Explosive Shot – This shot is the bread and butter of the Survival build and the majority of our damage (and talents) are tailored to really make it cook
3/3 Resourcefulness – Reducing the mana cost and cooldowns of your traps and Black Arrow will not only increase your utility, but also your damage output when you’re able to fire Black Arrow more frequently giving you more damage from that single shot itself and also having more opportunities for Lock and Load to proc giving you more Explosive Shots
1/3 Hunting Party – The big thing from this talent for solo players is the increased Agility that provides synergy with so many other talents in the tree, the mana regen for you and your groupmates is just icing on the cake

Once you’ve finished putting points into the Survival tree, you can move on to putting your remaining talents into the Marksmanship and Beast Mastery trees.

Final Notes

Remember: these aren’t “the absolute bestest most leetest” leveling builds out there. Far from it, most likely. These sample builds are intended as exactly that: a sampling of what’s possible for each tree as you level that you can use to experiment with as you learn the class and what you like most about it.

My recommendation is to try at least one build featuring each of the three trees so you can get a feel for what Hunters are truly capable of and what you like best about them. Each tree favors a different flavor and style of play, and no single build is right for everyone. The time you spend leveling is intended for you to learn how the class is played, what all our abilities do and what you really like best about it. Don’t get bogged down by obsession with what’s “best” or “fastest”, at least not yet. You’ve got plenty of time for that once you reach the level cap! Use your time leveling to have fun (whatever that means for you) and learning the class.

If you’ve got a build that you’ve used for leveling that you really liked, tell us about it in the comments!

Happy Hunting!

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A Refresher on Hunter Gems

Lassirra — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:38:53 +0000

We’ve gotten a few emails recently asking for some clarification on the subject of gems and it’s been quite some time since we’ve visited the subject, so we can definitely stand to revisit the topic. With all the new gear coming out of Icecrown, it’s important to know how to really give it a good spit-shine.

Epic or Rare?

If you can afford it, epic gems are worth the investment.

If you’re doing Icecrown Citadel, use epic gems. You’re doing the highest-level content this expansion will have to offer and the content is fresh enough that no one out-gears it yet. The difference between rare gems and epic gems could be the difference between another wipe or a fresh boss kill.

Let’s do some quick math.

The Triumphant Windrunner’s Battlegear set alone has eight sockets: 1 meta, 2 red, 2 blue and 3 yellow. Let’s say we use a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, Delicate Scarlet Rubies, Shifting Twilight Opals and Glinting Monarch Topazes. Those eight gems give us a total of 93 Agility.

Now, if we use the epic versions of those same gems, we come up with a total of 111 Agility. Sure, that’s only a difference of 18 Agility, but if you’ve got three hunters in your 25-man raid and they’re all using rare gems, that becomes a difference of 54 Agility across your Hunter team for no other reason than people were just feeling cheap. For min-maxers, that’s not an acceptable excuse.

Sure, if you’re a casual player doing content that isn’t considered cutting-edge and you’re not really looking to squeeze every ounce of potential out of your character, rare gems are just dandy. But the big boys use epics.

Agility or Armor Penetration?

The short answer is: Agility.

If you’re getting Armor Penetration from gear, chances are good that it’s coming at you fast and furious. There’s no need to gem for it. If you’re not seeing a whole lot of Armor Penetration on gear yet, it’s not worth it to gem for it to try to compensate for the lack. You won’t get enough Armor Penetration from gems to make enough of a difference, especially not at the expense of the Agility you could be getting instead.

Socket Bonuses?

There is an Agility gem for every socket color, which means you can meet every socket bonus and not gem like a fool in the process. However, that doesn’t always mean you should meet every socket bonus.

Your first priority should be making sure you have adequate gem diversity to meet the requirement of your meta gem. For the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, that means you need one of each color (red, blue and yellow). Once you’ve got that, you’ve got some wiggle room.

If you’re short on Hit, use Glinting Ametrine in your yellow sockets. If you’re really short on Hit and the combination of hit food, Focused Aim and possibly the Draenei racial (for you Alliance folks) won’t get you there, then you’re allowed to use Rigid King’s Amber. No one should be in that boat though (and if you are, your Hunter card is hereby revoked), so the Ametrines should be sufficient.

If your meta gem and Hit are covered, now it comes down to whether or not the socket bonus offers more Agility or Attack Power than you can get from a Delicate Cardinal Ruby. If the socket bonus in question will give you more than 10 Agility or Attack Power, use a gem whose color will match the socket. The combination of the 10+ Agility/Attack Power from the socket bonus and the 10 Agility you’ll get from a matching gem will outweigh the Agility from a Delicate Cardinal Ruby alone, and typically those gems will cost less on the Auction House. (For some reason, red gems are almost always the most expensive.) If the socket bonus doesn’t give you more than 10 Agility or Attack Power, use a Delicate Cardinal Ruby.

What Gems to Look For

Now that you know how to gem, it’s time to look at what to gem. These are the gems you should be looking for on the Auction House when sockets need filling.

You’ve no doubt noticed by now that the prefixes on a gem denote what stats you’ll find on the gem while the suffix denotes color and quality.

Red Gems

Cardinal Ruby – Epic
Scarlet Ruby – Rare
Bloodstone – Uncommon (and if I catch you using these at 80, you will be flogged)

The prefix you’re looking for on red gems will always be: Delicate. Delicate gems provide pure Agility, and work for any spec.

Orange Gems

Ametrine – Epic
Monarch Topaz – Rare
Huge Citrine – Uncommon (you better not have these at 80)

The prefixes you can look for on orange gems are: Deadly and Glinting. Deadly gems provide Agility and crit rating while Glinting gems provide Agility and hit rating. If you’re hit capped but you need a yellow slot filled, go with Deadly.

Purple Gems

Dreadstone – Epic
Twilight Opal – Rare
Shadow Crystal – Uncommon (don’t make me come over there)

The prefix to look for on purple gems is: Shifting. Shifting gems provide Agility and Stamina, and these are the only gems that will match a blue socket and provide Agility.

Therefore, your options are:

Jewelcrafters

If you happen to be a Jewelcrafter, don’t forget to take advantage of your Dragon’s Eye gems! You can use three of them and they’ll give you the best stats a gem can offer. Fill any red socket you have with Delicate Dragon’s Eyes until you can’t use any more. If you haven’t got three red sockets, stick one of those babies in another socket whose bonus is cruddy.

Go forth and gem.

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Lookie What I Finally Got

Lassirra — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:57:51 +0000

To cap off what appears to be a week ear-marked for borderline off-topic discussion, I wanted to show you what I finally managed to get this week. A lot of you who have been visiting for quite some time will understand exactly why this is significant.

Not the drake, specifically (he’s been sitting in the bank for months), but the ability to use him. I finally managed to save up for my epic flying skill. I know, I know. It’s easy to get, I should have had it over a year ago, but I fail at saving gold so it took me a ridiculously long time to finally get around to it. But I finally did, and yes, you were right, it was totally worth it.

On an unrelated note, I’m still wading through the deluge of emails I’ve gotten recently (which is not a complaint, mind you), so if you’ve emailed me, don’t worry, I’m getting to it.

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The Last Word on QQ

Lassirra — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:50:50 +0000

This post is going to be the end of the discussion (at least as posts go, the comments section is fair game). Rather than reply to each comment on my previous post within the comments section, I wanted to dedicate a separate post to this for a couple of reasons. One, because I appreciated the time each and every one of you took to reply–especially you first-time commenters–and wanted others to recognize your efforts as well, because you deserve it. Two, because I wanted to clarify my position and tie the whole thing up in a nice shiny bow. So here we go.

First and foremost, I want to thank each and every one of you who commented on yesterday’s post. It was a post that’s been stewing in my brain for a very long time, and I’ve hesitated posting it for so long because it’s precisely the opposite of the type of post I normally publish. It’s so far removed from my normal style that, in all honesty, I was very afraid it would get a poor reception from people because it was so different from the expectations we’ve established here.

However, I’m human just like everyone else. While it’s a fine thing to be able to say “I write for me”, and that’s always true to a certain extent, everyone still wants to feel like their work has value and merit and that’s it’s appreciated, no matter how altruistic their intentions may be. I’m no exception.

I’ve spent time asking my readers what they want over the years, but I don’t think I ever told all of you exactly what I’ve wanted here. So, let me do that now, briefly. You can tell me how successful (or not) I’ve been at it.

My goal has been, as I said yesterday, to provide a resource for the community. Which, I think, I have done. But I’ve wanted more than just that. I’ve wanted to provide information to the community, but I’ve also wanted a place for constructive discussion as well. No one person or site has all the answers, and I’ve always felt that, through discussion, we come to greater understanding. I think that’s where I’ve fallen short and where my frustration stems from. It’s felt like the discussion has been lacking, and I haven’t been able to figure out why or what I might have done wrong in that regard.

The thing I found most rewarding when I first started this site were the comments from folks like BRK and Pike and many others and the stories they shared where they had taken something I’d written, applied it in game, and noticed how their skills improved as a result. Or they would ask questions for further clarification on a certain aspect of the game and the conversation would grow from there into a blog post all it’s own. My favorite comments are always ones from new Hunters saying things like “This is my story. I found your site, and this is how it has helped me grow as a player. But now that I’ve gotten better at that, what else is there to work on? How do I improve further?” Comments like that were extremely common in the early days, and I thrived on them. They provided fuel for the fire, and it felt really good. I haven’t seen many comments like that in a very long time, and clearly I’ve felt the lack.

That’s the crux of the issue.

Now, having clarified somewhat, I’d like to move on and respond to some of the wonderful comments you’ve all left for me. Because you deserve acknowledgment as well. If you haven’t already, go read the comments on the previous post so you’ll know what the heck I’m responding to here. If you’re looking to skim for my response to you, I’ve responded to comments in the order in which they were received. And to those that chose to email in addition to or in lieu of leaving a comment on yesterday’s post (of which there were a surprising amount), I got your messages and I’ll be responding to all of them very soon.

Nochecazador – Your unflagging support has been invaluable to me. Your constant encouragement has really helped to keep me going, and I can’t thank you enough for that. I’ve seen the effort you always make to comment, even on the short newsy posts, and I want you to know it definitely hasn’t gone unnoticed. It’s folks like you that keep me going even when I start to doubt myself. That in itself has a value that defies description. So, thank you for that.

Gauntlet – I understand how you feel, and I’m sure others feel the same, but allow me to make my feelings on that clear: I don’t want anyone to be afraid to comment and share their story, even if it’s only marginally relevant. As long as the attitude behind the comment is positive, honestly, you can post whatever you want, and I’d be happy to read it. (As an aside, I’ve got an 80 paladin myself, so I’d welcome stories about your other adventures as well.)

Sitalk – You’ve touched on precisely what I’ve tried to do in every post I publish: clear, concise insight that’s easy for anyone to understand and apply. I know others have tried to dress it up in amusing anecdotes and been successful, but as you mention, that’s never been my style, and that’s okay. It’s nice to see someone “get” what I’ve tried to do as precisely as you have, which seems like an even greater achievement since our native languages differ. It felt really good to read your comment and think to myself, “Yes, that’s it precisely. That’s what I’ve tried to do all along.” And you’re right, I should be writing for me. And I do. But part of it is also, as I’ve mentioned, that I thrive on the discussion as well. Making that connection, however brief, with new players that have come here to learn is extremely important to me.

Brigwyn – “Screaming into the void” syndrome, I think, is something only other bloggers can truly understand (regardless of what they choose to blog about). Every blog author starts out just writing to amuse themselves and visitors be damned, but there does come a point when we all wonder “Why am I even bothering with this? Is it worth it?” and a major deciding factor in that can come down to how engaged you feel with your own community. No matter how staid or stoic someone is, we all have moments of insecurity where we wonder if people are listening or care. The internet, by it’s very nature, feeds that isolation and it can be extremely difficult to take it in stride all the time. Perhaps there should be a blogger support group for that.

Wertez – While you raise an excellent point, the flaw in the logic–which you couldn’t be expected to know since I don’t talk about it–is that if that were the kind of knowledge I had been seeking from the start, I wouldn’t have needed this site to find it. On a marginally related note, I first became interested in web design/development back in 1997 (yep, before CSS even existed) and taught myself how to build and manage web sites. Since that time, I’ve consistently had one project or another (either offline or online) in the works as I add to my repertoire. I was a web design and development major in college. My point in mentioning all that (since, yes, it is largely irrelevant here) is that, basically, this site wasn’t necessary to expand that knowledge/skill set and would not have been the major driving factor behind my interest in any of that. But, you are right in that there are memories here that can’t be replaced.

Trollii – Let me start by saying that I love your attitude toward the game. I can feel from your comment that, even with the characters you no longer play, there’s a connection and an emotional investment. I always like reading comments like that, from players who really care about the game and the time they’ve invested in it. Also, it’s always a really good feeling to read comments from folks who have been playing the game for just as long and have been there to see the changes in the community. While I’m not of the opinion that time spent playing equates to the quality of the player, I do recognize that there’s a certain perspective towards the game that newer players just can’t fathom because they just don’t have the experience behind them to really see how the community has evolved over the years. If we tried to explain what experiencing Molten Core was like back in vanilla, we’d get blank or incredulous stares. WoW just isn’t the same game anymore, and sometimes it just feels good to have someone to reminisce with that can say “Yes, I remember exactly what that was like, because I was there too.” The spirit of the player base was entirely different then, and I definitely miss that old feeling. Having someone else say “I know just what you mean” is a really good feeling.

Angry Raider – Re: additional authors, I’ll admit that that was something I had feared at the time, but decided to give it a try anyway because I felt like I just couldn’t deliver the same quality and quantity of information that my readers had come to expect at the time, and I needed some help. Even though I wasn’t “feeling it” at the time, I knew I wasn’t ready to give up on the site, and just needed some help to keep it going until I was ready to pick it back up again. Maybe that was a mistake, or maybe the decline was indicative of some more pervasive and subtle symptom of decay. I’m not sure. The problem with maintaining a consistent theme to the site is that my style of game-play in general is anything but consistent. I’m constantly trying different things, and my experiences dictate what I’m able to write. My writing has always been a “flying by the seat of my pants” affair, and it’s a system that has seemed to work. One thing I can always say, at least, is that people haven’t had complaints about my style of writing, so I stick with that. As a result, it does mean that the subject matter isn’t always consistent.

Bob Hope – If you don’t know Pike, you should go check out her site. She’s a sweet gal and has a lot to offer the community. As ornery and curmudgeonly as I am, even I can’t find fault with her, ever. But, I think you might have missed the point of all my rambling here. It’s not fame I’m really after. If I wanted that, I could have it and know how to get it. (Staying on as a writer at WoW.com would have accomplished that for me.) It’s really just reader engagement that I’m after. I don’t necessary want more readers, I just want a closer connection with the ones I do have.

Gnomeaggedon -You’re exactly right, of course. And, yes, I’ve always known that when you’re doing something right people tend to just smile and nod and be on their merry way. But sometimes that knowledge is cold comfort and you yearn for something more. That’s really what this is all about, I guess. Knowing something deep down is one thing, having people actually come to you and confirm it is another thing entirely, and sometimes you just need that confirmation that, yes, what you’re doing is important and affects others.

Muron – You’re right, I’m sure that is true for most readers. Which is really too bad, since the last thing I want is months of silence and then someone popping up to say “Hey! You fucked up!” It’s not a good feeling when the only feedback you’re getting is negative. It’s extremely draining. I understand that the intent isn’t negative, but the affects can be. Re: Scattered Shots, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I am extremely ashamed of my tenure there, which is why I quit. It wasn’t because the commenters were big fat meanie heads, or I felt like I couldn’t hack it. I knew they weren’t and I knew I could. The problem was, I also knew I wasn’t hacking it. I was dialing it in. I didn’t put enough thought or effort into my posts there, as I normally would, and it showed. It’s my firm belief that my work on Scattered Shots is some of the worst work I’ve ever produced, and it just had to be where the most people would see it. I am deeply ashamed of my time there. It was definitely an eye-opening experience, at least, and it’s a mistake I’ve since learned from. But it was a bitter pill to swallow.

Ardent Defender – I want to reiterate (for the sake of clarity) that I don’t begrudge anyone else their success in the slightest. The only reason I brought any form of comparison into it in the first place was as a point of reference for my confusion and frustration. It’s not at all that I’m mad that anyone else has more readers than I do or what have you. I’ve never cared about that. It was just more that I didn’t understand certain things and only have other sites as a point of reference, like “This works over there, why not here?” As I’ve mentioned in response to others, part of what makes this whole process enjoyable for me is the interaction that comes as a result. The lack of that interaction, which used to be fairly prevalent, is what’s got me going “Err, what the heck is going on?”

Armagon – One thing I have always striven to do is make sure that this site is a resource not only for players whose mains are Hunters, but also for the scores of Hunter alts floating around out there. I’ve tried to strike a balance between covering the basics and the more advanced topics so that both audiences would find something of value here. I’m not sure exactly how successful I’ve been at that, but it has been something in my mind from the very start that I’ve tried to accommodate.

Dechion – Hah, yes, I’ve posted some miscalculations a time or two (mostly the result of a caffeine deficit at the time of posting) and you’d think I’d committed blasphemy in the house of the lord or something, hehe. But, I guess what it comes down to is that the style of post I most enjoy writing seems to be at odds with what I hope to get back from all my effort. The cold, academic posts are what I have the most fun writing, but I want to feel a connection with my audience as well, and the two just don’t seem to mix. Maybe I’ll find a way to reconcile the differences, maybe I won’t. Time will tell, I guess.

Windsoar – I usually level two or more alts per expansion, so I know how you feel. I’ve got a lot of sites in my feed reader that have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m currently playing, but I’m always happy to read posts that are well written and informative. One thing I would mention regarding your commenting habits (and you can take it or leave it as you like) is that, even if you’re not familiar with the finer points of the class, there’s always room for folks to come in and ask for further clarification. No doubt there are always others in the same boat that would benefit from expansion of the discussion.

Steffi – Thanks for de-lurking to say so. You might be surprised to know, it’s always the quiet folks (usually they’ll send a brief email rather than commenting publicly) that I appreciate the most because it goes against their nature to make themselves known, but they took the time to say hello to me despite that, so it just means that much more to me. So, thank you.

Teskareth – I can’t say much, because I’m just as guilty when it comes to feeling like I have nothing constructive to add to the conversation sometimes, but it’s something I’ve actively been trying to get better at because I know how much better I feel about the work I do when it gets feedback. For THM, the one thing I can say definitively is that no comment whose intent was positive is ever useless to me. That aside, I tinkered a bit with a feature very similar to what you’re talking about, and it wasn’t widely used. People that visit the site directly mostly find me via Google and just skim enough to find what they need and don’t bother rating posts while those that would be most likely to use the feature seldom do because they view the site via RSS almost exclusively. It was a nice idea in theory, but didn’t work out so well on paper unfortunately.

Khendruk – Let me first apologize for not having put my best foot forward for you and other new visitors. I can only imagine how it must have felt for you to be inundated with my baggage so soon after finding the site. So, I apologize for that. I want to thank you for going out of your way to comment, since it’s not something you normally do. I do realize that’s a big step to take, especially for a site and an author you’re not particularly invested in. My new readers are every bit as important to me as the ones I’ve known for years because, even though I’ve established connections and histories with my older readers, it’s usually the new readers that really inspire me to keep going with their questions and insights, so I do hope you’ll stick around, and don’t hesitate to ask any questions you might have.

Ashazzar – I’ve always tried very hard to cater to both casual and hardcore play styles, because I’m a bit of both myself. I don’t know how successful I’ve been at that, but it is something I’ve tried to do. I know that not everyone plays the same way or finds the same aspects of the game interesting. Personally, I like it all, so I actually enjoy trying to cover multiple facets of the game. If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. That’s why I do this in the first place.

ieatkittens – Nochecazador responded to certain aspects of your comment much better than I could have myself, displaying very excellent understanding of my personality and motivations which you evidently lack (which is not a short-coming, mind you, I may not have explained myself clearly enough). And begging for hugs? Maybe so. Everyone wants to feel like they’re important to someone, and as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a social butterfly of any sort, so what better place for me to solicit social interaction than the very place I’ve built a captive audience of supporters for myself? As to the rest of your comment, yes, there does come a time when you start to feel like you’ve said all you can on a particular subject. The simplification of the game over the years hasn’t helped matters in that regard, either. I often find myself fishing for topics to cover, which is part of why interaction with my community here is so important to me: more often than not my readers give me plenty to talk about just by asking questions I might not have thought of. That’s yet another reason why interaction in the comments is such a big deal to me.

Bikutanda of Nazgrel – I certainly intend to keep trying. Whether or not I’m successful remains to be seen.

Pete – You’re absolutely right in that I have achieved some measure of success, and I’m proud of it and thankful for it. As I’ve mentioned to others, sometimes you just want to make a connection with others in the process, and the only way to do that is via comments (or email). From day one, I’ve had a vague image in my mind of what I’ve wanted this site to be: a place for people to come to find the information they need to be better players and connect with me and others and share information and experience in the process. I guess I’ve just felt like I’ve fallen short on the second part of that dream lately, and couldn’t understand why that was.

Will – I’m starting to notice a common theme here. Let me reiterate: I don’t ever feel like comments left with positive intent are superfluous. Even if you just want to share a story of something that happened in game that may be related to the topic at hand, or have a quick question, your comments are always welcome and appreciated.

Vaeku – New players are the ones I always want to hear from the most. They have questions about things that, for veteran players, are often taken for granted and provide a lot of food for thought. You’d be surprised how many people have the same questions you do but just don’t think to voice them. And those always make for the best posts. As for the traffic THM gets, I’m very well aware of it. I watch analytics like a hawk, mostly to see which posts do well and which ones don’t so I can determine what topics still need to be covered, etc. but as I’ve mentioned, you can be aware of how many folks are seeing your content, but unless someone actually speaks up, you don’t really have any idea of how well received your work is. Numbers can only tell you so much, and I would trade all my analytics data for a few comments any day.

Angelya – Yes, I do enjoy doing the research and it is still fun, but as I’ve explained to others, for me that’s only half the equation. The other aspect of this site that I enjoy is taking the time to get to know my readers, learn their stories and feel for a moment like I’ve made a friend because of the work I’ve done. I’m not a particularly social person, so those connections are just as important to me as the work itself.

Awesome Mom -You know, I wish I knew more about arenas. I PvP on all my alts and enjoy it, but for whatever reason I’ve always been really bad at Hunter PvP and we get a ton of questions about it. I wish that was something I could cover in more detail here because I’m sure there are folks like me who are great at PvE, want to PvP as well, but just aren’t very good at it. Maybe I should try harder at it and share the experience here with everyone. (This exchange is a perfect example of why I love getting comments: you folks are really an inspiration!)

Pike – I remembered. You know, after I saw the first couple comments I thought to myself “Oh crap, she’s going to think I’m trying to dime her out or something” which was absolutely not my intent at all, but then I thought “Nah, she knows me better than that” and it seems you definitely do. That right there is exactly what I’ve been trying to recapture. We have a friendship going back years now, and it started here in the comments. I’ve been trying to figure out what changed and why the comments stopped, and haven’t been able to come up with a definitive answer. You were one of my favorite commenters back then, because you always had an insatiable curiosity about every aspect of the class and you were always coming up with some new question to stump me with, and that fueled my desire to write and share what I knew with the community. Without the comments of Pike, THM would not be what it is today, of that I am sure, and I just don’t want to let that go. I want scores of little Pikes running around in the comments with all sorts of questions for me to answer and stories to share. It’s a great experience. I’m just trying to figure out how to get that back.

Gildor – Of course I remember! (I may be an absent-minded professor sort, but there are certain things I manage to hang on to, and the members of the community I’ve built here certainly fall under that category.) Your time here was a learning experience for both of us, so it has value if for no other reason than that. We both made new connections with other players in the process, and that’s all I could ask for.

LM – I don’t mind when people disagree with me. It’s a fact of life that people won’t always agree. But, it’s hard to accept negative feedback when you’re not getting any positive feedback to balance it out, which is yet another reason why receiving comments and making those connections is important to me. Additionally, I’m more likely to respond positively to criticism from someone I know and have interacted with before because then it won’t feel like I’m being poked by yet another troll (of which there are many out there). For example, if Pike were to say to me “Hey Lass, you’re being a dumbass” I’d be likely to say “Oh? Yeah, you may be right there” because she and I have an established relationship of trust and respect, whereas if a stranger said to me “Hey Lass, you’re being a dumbass” I’d be likely to say “Oh yeah? Well, you smell funny!” (hyperbole, of course, but you get the gist). I don’t mind being called a dumbass (particularly when it’s merited), but I don’t want that to be the only feedback I get. It’s just too stressful for me.

Feen – Heh, you and me both! (Although that’s made this reply post into a text beast of epic proportions, for which I apologize.) Also, congrats on busting your comment cherry! I’m honored to be your first. I’m glad you’ve found the site helpful, and I hope you won’t hesitate to come leave comments again in the future if you have any questions or stories you’d like to share.

Pookster @ Zenedar -Even if you don’t have additional insight to add, stories or questions are always welcome. Your encouragement means a lot; it’s folks like you that have kept me, and this site, going for so long. I’m always happy to read whatever tidbits you have to share, even if it doesn’t seem like much to you.

Larísa – As ieatkittens suggested, this may all have been a lame attempt at hug-begging, but hey, ask and ye shall receive, right? And sometimes a good hug is all you need to keep you going, so thanks for that. And you’re right, I’ve never been one to be deliberately controversial for the sake of generating comments. It’s just not my style. But, like I’ve said, it’s still nice to feel a connection to your audience. That in itself can be a big motivator, and motivated authors always produce a higher quality of work simply due to the nature of emotional involvement in the work. There are so many reasons why interacting with my readers is important to me, and this discussion over the past couple days has served to both illuminate my needs and meet them at the same time. It’s nice to remember what that level of interaction felt like and experience it again.

Messi – I will certainly try.

Barryhn – I’m guilty of the same, though I’ve been actively trying to be better about it as time allows. One thing I do check, for those that use Google Reader, is to see who uses the “Like” feature there (though it seems very few do). It’s a shame there isn’t something similar that works universally across RSS readers that’s similar so that folks using any feed reader can do the same and it’s visible to all.

The Troll Hunter – It does seem to be a common malady, doesn’t it? I’ve said before, I’m guilty of it myself from time to time, but I do try to comment at least once a month on the sites I read regularly when I can. I guess I’ve just been wondering if there was something I changed to cause people to comment less or if it was just a natural progression, and if I could do anything differently to encourage more commenting.

Jenna – I’m never irritated by questions, quite the contrary in fact. If I didn’t want to answer questions, I picked a horrible business to be in. As I’ve mentioned to others here, it’s the questions I get from visitors that continues to fuel the content found here. Without questions from folks like yourself, I’m stuck writing about whatever I happen to think of, which can get boring and one-dimensional after a while. By connecting a question to a person with their own story, it gives the information here color and substance, which is vastly more interesting for me to write and people to read.

Tgauchsin – It’s easy to forget sometimes that the silent majority are just that because they’re happy with the content being produced, and that the site would not have the number of subscribers it has if it weren’t useful. Especially after being at it for so long, that’s something that becomes increasingly difficult to continually remind yourself of, particularly when you’re nearing a stage when you start to feel like you’ve covered everything you can. That’s when community interaction becomes even more important; it helps keep the train on the tracks and chugging along happily. (And that’s easy to forget as well.)

Jov – That’s a big part of what I’ve tried to do here, so it’s good to hear that I’ve achieved some measure of success in that regard. The thing I’ve always kept in the back of my mind was that I’m not the best theorycrafter out there. Far from it, in fact. I can manage it, but it’s by no means my forte, and if that’s really what folks are looking for there are many other more well known and respected resources for it. Making sense of all the numbers, though, is something I can do so that even the most casual player can make use of that knowledge at any level. So, I’ve tried to be both general and specific, casual and hardcore: a balance of both so that there’s a little something for everyone. It looks like I may have been successful at that, at least, which is no small achievement. Now if I could just develop a community of discussion around it, I would be able to say that I have truly achieved everything I wanted out of this.

Kivshani – I think you might have missed my intent here. It wasn’t a one or the other deal, “I need advice” vs “Tell me how wonderful I am”, but a combination of both. I wanted to know that the work I did was useful, and I wanted to know how to continue to make it better by encouraging discussion. I also wanted to make it clear that while the majority of the content here is academic in nature, there’s still a human being behind it all with feelings and needs which many people seem to forget. I’m not asking for a fan club, I imagine such a thing would grow tiresome after a while, but I do want a community. You don’t have to care about me to meet my needs, which is simply discussion. Discussion is the basis of everything the WoW community as a whole tries to accomplish, and without it, we would all suffer. Individual sites are no different. We grow and evolve based on the discussions surrounding our own little corners of the web. If there is no discussion, there is no growth.

Fugazi – I’m glad you decided to come back here for information after a break from Huntering! I play several alts myself, so I understand that, at least for some, the game isn’t “All Hunter! All the time!” and sometimes you just need to step back and relax for a bit. That’s another thing I’ve tried to incorporate into the culture here, that it doesn’t have to be all about Hunters exclusively, and that there are other aspects of the game to enjoy. That’s why I’ve tried posting general interest pieces here as well now and then, and they’re usually well received. I’d like to do more like that, but I’m never quite sure where to draw the line between what my readers would find helpful and what they wouldn’t. If you have suggestions, I’m all ears.

Tzia – You’d be surprised at the insight just such a comment can provide. Additionally, it gives other readers a feeling of rapport because I’ve no doubt that others have made the same mistakes. (I probably have myself. After all, that’s how I learn and pass it on to others.) We learn from our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others, so sharing a story where you’ve made mistakes helps others to feel like they’re not alone in that and that they can improve because here’s someone else that was in the same boat and was able to overcome the same obstacles. Those are the stories that are really valuable and really help to establish a sense of community.

Jamie – I used to leave commenting open indefinitely, but found that I was getting a lot of comments on really old posts from folks that didn’t seem to check the publish date (in other words, they were thinking the information they were reading was current and having a fit because it was clearly incorrect data) and didn’t know there were more recent updates available. I know, it’s a rather round-about way to solve the problem, but I will selfishly admit that it cut down on my annoyance factor significantly. Also, I disable commenting on older posts (this is actually done automatically by WordPress) because people seldom go back to check it once they’ve already left the discussion, so to speak. I also figured, if people saw older articles that they wanted to bring up again, the forums are available for that. Now, that’s not to say your suggestion is a bad one, I’m just explaining why I’ve chosen to do things the way I have. As for movies, that’s something I’ve tried before with some success, but it’s not something I’m very good at and it’s extremely time-consuming to get it just right, so I tend to leave it to the folks that are better at it than I am for the most part. I would like to do more movies, but I’m not sure it’s a constructive use of my time. (If that’s something folks really are interested in, though, I’d be more than happy to give it another go.)

Yuurei – Hehe, that’s what I had hoped the forums would accomplish, but so far I’ve seen only a slow trickle of people there. By the time I get a new member on the forums, I try to give someone else a chance to respond rather than responding myself directly (so it doesn’t seem like I’m monopolizing the discussion), and when no one does, the new member vanishes. Rinse and repeat. I just haven’t had enough frequent visitors to really make the forums take off like they should, and being socially inept as I am, it’s not something I’m personally equipped to improve. I’ve just sort of crossed my fingers and hoped someone would show up with the interest and commitment in it to help the community grow. I would love to see the forums blossom into a warm community for people to come and share their stories, questions and expertise, but I also recognize that it’s probably not something I’ll be able to make happen myself due to my own personal limitations. But, I can still hope.

Sirfwalgman – You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s hard to remember sometimes that the amount of interaction a piece gets is not necessarily indicative of it’s quality or value to your audience.

Fizz – Your gripes about the game are ones I share myself. I’ve bemoaned the reduction in skill and time investment required to be successful since Wrath was released, and while I can appreciate that it gives casual players access to more content, I can also recognize that it’s not the type of game that can keep me engaged. I’m more the old EQ style player where challenge and time invested are more engaging to me than just being able to see whatever content I wanted with minimal effort. I want the things I accomplish in game to mean something, and they don’t anymore. (At least not in the raid scene as it is.) My solution, because I do still love this game immensely, has been to find other means of entertaining myself aside from just raid progression, and that focus shift has been extremely rewarding for me. I do recognize that it doesn’t work for everyone, though. So, whether you continue to play WoW or move on to greener pastures, I hope you find something you can enjoy.

Okay!

Whew! Holy shit that was a giant wall of text, wasn’t it? But, it was very important to me to make sure that I addressed each and every person that commented on the previous post, because you all took the time to talk with me about something that was a very serious concern for me and you all lent me your support and well-wishes, and I wanted to make it very clear how much that meant to me. So, I apologize for the giant text crit for over 9,000, but I felt it was a necessary evil.

If you left a comment after I finished typing up this post and I missed you, I’m very sorry! Thank you for your kind words and well wishes, each and every one of you. You’ve all helped me to reestablish in my own mind what’s truly important to me, and you’ve given me back that feeling of accomplishment and connection that I’ve needed sorely for a long time now.

I hope all of you will continue to read and comment and share your unique stories and experiences or ask any questions you might come up with. You’re the folks that help me keep this place going, and as you can now plainly see, without all of you, it’s just not THM. I’ll try my best to continue to make this place worthy of your support, and a valuable resource for the Hunter community just as it has always been.

Thank you.

And now, to reward you for wading through that gargantuan pile of text, have a kitty:

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In Which Lass Pisses and Moans

Lassirra — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:51:08 +0000

There’s going to be nothing of educational value in this post, so most of you will probably skip it. And I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest. This is going to be precisely the type of post that, if it were written by anyone else and appeared in my feed reader, I would “Mark as Read” without a second thought. Most of you will no doubt do the same. For those of you who do actually read this post, my apologies.

When I started this site three years ago, I had a very clear purpose. Hunter resources were all but non-existent. I could barely find the information I needed to improve, and I consider myself fairly skilled at combing the web for minute pieces of information. With that in mind, I thought to myself “If I’m having trouble finding information about this, a lot of other people must be having the same problem” and so I decided to publish what information I was able to find or discovered through my own process of trial and error in-game on a single site that would provide a cohesive guide for players of the Hunter class.

And it worked. Players casually searching Google for Hunter information found my site, got the information they needed, shared some of their own experience, and all was well in the world.

Over the past year or so, something has changed. Drastically. And I didn’t get the memo.

I’m not sure exactly what changed, when it changed, or why, but I am aware that something has indeed changed, and I don’t like it. (I’m a creature of habit and like things to stay familiar and comfortable.)

I don’t know whether the change was the result of the changing tenor of the game’s community as a whole or the result of the changing face of the WoW web site community, but I do know this: I fucking hate it.

Now that I’ve set the scene a bit, let me explain my primary gripe.

Over the past three years, I’ve worked extremely hard on this site. I’ve designed and developed this site from the ground up, single-handedly (with the exception of the few short-lived co-authors that have tried their hand at a post here and there), trying to build it into a valuable resource for the community. I’ve gone through 14 different WordPress themes that I designed and coded myself, 442 posts, various side projects (including JavaScript tools like the Pet Talent Calculator and DPS Calculator which have since become unnecessary), I’ve spent countless hours answering emails, poring over analytics reports in an attempt to improve the quality of the content here, spent hours working on the forums and other site features in an attempt to provide a quality community for other players to congregate and share information, and I look around and wonder “What the fuck?”

I feel, with increasing dread and disgust, that I’ve wasted the last three years of my life screaming into a vacuum.

As time has gone on, I’ve attempted to cull the “useless” posts from this site in attempt to improve the overall quality of the site. I’ve felt that most people searching Google for Hunter information don’t care what I did in-game last night, so I don’t post about it. Instead, I restrict myself to posting useful guides and editorials, thinking that’s what people want.

I’ve asked people what they want, repeatedly, I’ve tried to make my best guess about what people want and attempted to deliver. And I get no response.

I look around at other sites, and I see people posting about their dogs or their kids or what their guild did last night, and these posts have literally dozens of comments. Consistently. Or I see other sites that, basically, have ripped off the entire premise (and in some cases even individual posts) of THM but just happened to have no compunctions about whoring themselves to any other WoW site that would have them, soliciting links like a door-to-door salesman (which I have always flat-out refused to do–I have never emailed anyone asking them to link here), and those sites also see much greater degrees of engagement. It boggles my mind.

Now, let me be clear. I do not begrudge anyone their success.

My problem is simply that I don’t understand how sites that offer little educational value or whose owners behave like virtual prostitutes with their content while pasting on a shit-eating grin about all of it have managed to upstage a site that was the first to broach the subject in question and has consistently produced quality content spanning the course of several years.

I see these sites that have been around for a year or less getting double or even triple the comments this site gets, and I wonder why. I see these sites continually growing, finding additional contributors or partners lining up to work with them, and I can’t even pay people to help me the fuck out here.

That’s right. I was willing to pay authors to help me continue to produce quality content here, just to keep the site going when I couldn’t keep up with the demand of it all myself. And I still couldn’t get people to help me.

I’ve stalled more projects on this site than most webmasters have even bothered to start because I couldn’t generate enough interest to get the help I needed to get them off the ground.

And I don’t fucking get why.

I realize that I’m socially inept. I’m a very gruff and not particularly approachable person. But I’m never downright rude to people. I’m courteous and respectful (until given a reason to be otherwise). I’m patient, for the most part, and try like hell to be helpful when I can be. I’ve tried my damnest to produce quality content for the community. There have been times where I’ve spent more than 40 hours a week working on this site. And my only expectation from any of it, from the very beginning, has just been that I wanted to feel like I wasn’t wasting my time.

I wanted to feel like I was being helpful and doing good for the community. I wanted to feel like the work I’ve done has been appreciated.

And it’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt like it was all worth it.

For months, I’ve wrestled with whether or not I just wanted to throw in the towel and call it a failed experiment or not. For months, I’ve wondered if the last three years of my life working on this site have been completely wasted. And with ever-increasing disgust, I’ve felt that yes, it has all been a waste of time.

I can count on one hand the number of commenters over the years that I recognize and remember. With over 1,000 RSS readers, I feel like I should have more to show for the past three years’ worth of work than just a handful of loyal supporters who comment on one out of a dozen posts.

I see people who I taught to play the class in the first place going on to become larger figures in the community. People will say “Oh yeah! I know that person, I love their site! They’re freaking awesome! Woo woo!” and then say “Lass who?” And I don’t begrudge others their success or popularity, not in the slightest, but on the other hand I end up feeling like I’ve been taken advantage of. I feel like I’ve been brushed under the rug and all the hard work I’ve done over the years counts for nothing.

Anyone remember Damh? I do. He’s more commonly known as Big Red Kitty. Years ago, he used to be a regular commenter here, and he and I would swap stories and have a good laugh. I haven’t spoken to him in years. Not because I haven’t wanted to, but because he rarely has the time to respond to individual comments anymore.

Anyone remember Stephanie? No, you probably wouldn’t unless you used to avidly read the comments section here about two and a half years ago. But I’ll bet you know Pike. They’re one and the same. She used to stop by here on an almost daily basis, asking questions and sharing stories as she leveled her first Hunter, and I always looked forward to the conversations we used to have. Her questions in the comments provided quite a bit of post fodder in the early years here as I built up our catalog of class guides.

My gripe is not that these folks, and others, have become popular. I’m happy for them. They’re getting to feel like the work they’ve done has meant something. I just wish I knew what that felt like.

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Hunters vs Rangers, WoW vs EQ2

Lassirra — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:42:32 +0000

On a lark, I spent some time playing EQ2 this weekend, more for just a change of scenery than anything else. I played the original EQ (though not for very long and not very seriously), dropped it like a bad habit when WoW came out, and never looked back. Well, this weekend my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take EQ2 for a test drive. I’d like to spend some time today talking about the different things I noticed between the two games.

The first character I rolled this weekend was a Dark Elf Wizard. In any RPG, I almost always play elves–dark ones if they’re available–and so my choice of race was extremely easy. I chose to play a Wizard because I’m a big fan of just nuking the ever living hell out of stuff (I get a big kick out of just charging into stuff guns blazing), and I wanted to try something that was a little different for me. I wanted to step out of the “Hunter Box”, so to speak. So, I picked a Dark Elf Wizard, and leveled her to about 13. It was at that point that I started to realize I was a little bored and wanted to give something else a try. I gave in to the inevitable and rolled a Wood Elf Ranger.

It was about ten minutes into my second character that I realized something: it doesn’t matter what game I’m playing, I’m destined to play a Hunter.

On my Ranger, I had a lot more fun with just about every aspect of the game. I got her caught up to my Wizard in short order, and was pretty pleased with the switch.

But what the hell does all this have to do with WoW?

Well, if you spend five years playing one game almost exclusively for at least a couple hours every day, it’s inevitable that any game you pick up after that will be the subject of constant comparison in your mind. And so it was with EQ2. Everything I did in-game this weekend, I either consciously on unconsciously compared to my experiences in WoW, and in a lot of ways EQ2 did not come out of it looking all that shabby.

Hunters vs Rangers

One of the first things I exclaimed aloud while playing my Ranger this weekend (and no, I wasn’t just talking to myself, I was playing with a friend) was “YES! THIS is what I had always hoped Hunters would be, from day one!”

And, to a very large extent, that’s true. There are only a few aspects of the Ranger class that I’m not particularly thrilled with, at least in terms of “Gee, I wish Hunters were like this”, and that’s more related to the general game-play mechanics of EQ2 as opposed to the Ranger class specifically. (Basically, I’m not a huge fan of their version of the Talents system, although that could be largely due to the fact that my understanding of it is minimal at best at the moment.)

But I digress. For those of you who have never played EQ or EQ2, let me give you a brief run-down of how Rangers work.

Stealth

First, Rangers can Stealth. In combat, out of combat, doesn’t matter–they can stealth. And using Stealth does not affect their movement speed adversely. I spent quite a fair amount of time running around Stealthed for no other reason than I could and there was no reason not to. I even used Stealth for it’s intended purpose, scouting ahead through enemy territory to find quest objectives more easily. I know, it’s pure insanity.

Melee

Second, Rangers are good at melee combat. My first fledgling steps into the Faydark, I stayed in ranged combat. Because that’s what I was used to, and over the past five years it had been indelibly programmed into the deepest recesses of my brain that melee = bad. But, as is so often the case, curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see what this baby could do. So I took a few tentative steps forward, testing the waters, and whacked at some stuff with my axes. And it felt good. It felt right. I found that, at least in the early levels (I can’t speak to performance at later levels, yet), Rangers perform just as well–if not better!–in melee combat as they do in ranged combat.

And that’s when I decided Rangers are everything I had hoped Hunters would be.

The rest of the class differences I noticed faded to insignificance next to this jarring and glorious discovery.

Rangers in EQ2 are exactly what you would expect them to be, if you’re the type of person that reads a lot of fantasy literature. They excel at scouting out terrain, slipping into combat unnoticed, carving up their enemies efficiently in both ranged and melee combat. They’re versatile. They’re quick, they’re agile.

They completely lack the Hunter’s fatal flaw: complete ineptitude in melee combat.

The Rotation

Let me break down my usual rotation that I was using on my Ranger so you can get a better idea of why I was so amazed.

First, I would enter combat from Stealth with an ability that was akin to a Rogue’s Backstab (without the cumbersome weapon-type requirements). Then I would use another two Rogue-like abilities to deal some heavy damage in melee range (since I was already there). From there, I would either use another Rogue-like ability that would simultaneously deal significant damage and toss me back into Stealth so I could start the rotation over again, or if the target was facing me, I would snare it, step back into ranged combat, fire off a couple shots (of which there are few to choose from at low levels), and then close in again to repeat the process.

So, the rotation breaks down something like this:

Melee attack from Stealth
Melee attack
Melee attack
If flanking enemy, another melee attack (and start the rotation over again)
If facing enemy, snare and step back to range
Ranged attack
Ranged attack
Rinse and repeat

Nearly equal time spent in melee and ranged combat, both are equally effective, lots of moving around.

It was a dream come true. There was no point in time where I was standing still, yawning and spacing out or watching tv while I mindlessly poked the same few buttons over and over again. I was constantly doing stuff. And the fact that I was equally viable in either melee or ranged combat meant I had a lot more options available to me. What if I ran out of arrows? No problem, melee combat. What if the terrain didn’t allow distance between me and the target? No problem, melee combat. What if the target was pooping out all kinds of localized AoE damage? No problem, back to ranged combat. What if I needed to pull one target from a group of several? No problem, ranged combat.

Talents

As I’ve already touched on briefly, the one aspect of the game where EQ2 seemed to fall flat was their talent system. Now, I’m willing to concede that perhaps my feelings on that system are colored by my inexperience or lack of understanding. It’s entirely possible; in fact, probable. But the fact remains that I wasn’t particularly impressed.

The talent system in EQ2 is a lot less intuitive than WoW’s version. While there are clearly delineated paths which you might follow to excel at this or that aspect of combat, it’s unclear, at first, second and fifth glance, why you would want to. By reading WoW talent tooltips, you can easily figure out things like, “Oh, this talent would give me more health and mitigation and therefore make me better at tanking” or “This talent would increase my spell power making it easier for me to heal or deal damage”. The benefits are easily discernible. Not so with EQ2.

Now, I will argue that part of the fun in a game (at least for me) is having to figure that kind of stuff out. However, I want to be able to read tooltips and come out of it having at least a vague idea of why something would be beneficial to me or what specific aspect of play they’ll improve for me. For example, take the Hunter talent trees: Beast Mastery, Marksmanship and Survival. The names of the trees alone give you a basic idea of what type of game-play they favor. If you really like your pet, Beast Mastery is probably a good option for you. If you’re a big fan of just blasting stuff in the face and damn the consequences, well, Marksmanship is probably your thing. If you want to be a bit of a Jack of All Trades, Survival’s probably a decent choice. My point is, the very names of the trees themselves speak to the kind of play-style they’ll enhance. With EQ2, it’s more like… well, let me just show you instead:

And the tooltips aren’t much more enlightening than that image is.

I’m sure this is a problem that a little experience and some guess-and-check will solve, but I’m not that committed to the game yet and so I’m still in that “I have no idea what the hell this is all about” phase.

WoW vs EQ2

While, by and large, the Ranger class seems to blow Hunters right out of the water, a comparison of the two games overall tells a bit of a different story.

Graphics

First, EQ2 lacks the visual polish and shine that WoW is famous for. The interface is distinctly “blah” by comparison. For example, the minimap in EQ2 is a pixelated and ugly affair. Your character is represented by a red arrow and your group members are shown as blue dots that, frankly, a 5th-grader could have produced. The attention to detail here is distinctly lacking, which is something Blizzard is extremely well-known for excelling at.

The graphics in the game (keeping in mind that EQ2 is a fairly old title at this point) leave something to be desired. While the world itself looks rich and engaging, as I mentioned, there’s certain attention to detail that the game lacks, and after playing WoW for several years, it’s a difference you can’t help but notice again and again.

The armor and weapons were another aspect of this difference that was marked enough for me to comment on aloud as I played. In EQ2’s favor, the armor sets look realistic. Which is to say, you won’t find any Plate bikinis here. Everything looks practical and efficient, as if your characters were real beings seeking items that put function over form. However, the drawback to this is that, as a result, there’s very little variation in how different items look–basically every item I picked up was simply a re-color of the item I had before that, which is a bit visually boring after a while.

Community

Another major difference I noticed between EQ2 and WoW was the community. As I worked my way through the starting zone, chatter in general chat was steady which, in itself, was not unusual. However, it was the quality, not the quantity, of discourse that amazed me.

People asked questions in chat. A lot. People would ask how to find this or that NPC, how crafting and research worked; all manner of game-related questions were asked. And for each of those questions, there was a polite and helpful answer. There was no snark. There was no “lrn2play, noob!” There was mutual respect and appreciation. People asked questions, got answers, and thanked those that helped them. And it happened over and over and over again.

And, of course, there was also the usual chit-chat going on. But there were no mentions of Chuck Norris. There were no “your mama” jokes. There were no insults flying, no crude and borderline-offensive comments. People behaved like adults. And furthermore, everyone seemed to really know and mostly like each other.

At one point while I was on, a guild must have been raiding because periodically server-wide announcements were made that this person or that person had looted some “phat loot”. The general response from the community? A stream of “Grats!!” the likes of which you never could have dreamed of in WoW. No “Scrubs!”, no “Noobs!”, no “We totally got that last week” or anything of the sort. Just a communal outpouring of support and congratulations.

I was in awe.

And it was at that point that I said, “You know, this game may lack a lot of the polish that WoW has, but I think that right there just made up for it. Big time.”

EQ2 will never be a “WoW-killer”. If it was, it would already have done so. But, for people looking for a more grass-roots gaming experience that will take you back to the “good old days”, EQ2 is just the breath of fresh air you’re looking for, and I think the biggest contributing factor to that is the (comparatively) very small community within the game.

Will I give up WoW for EQ2? Absolutely not. I love WoW, despite it’s flaws. But, will I keep playing EQ2? Very probably. It reminds me of the time when I first started playing WoW, when the community was made up almost entirely of EQ converts and General Chat was more helpful and players in general were a kinder breed. And that’s a really good feeling.

WoW got a lot of things right (thanks in large part to Jeff Kaplan–an EQ convert), but one thing they just can’t replicate is the tight-knit community that EQ and EQ2 have fostered. While I congratulate Blizzard on the smashing success of WoW and don’t begrudge them a dime, I can’t help but feel that if it hadn’t been such a roaring success, we might still enjoy that communal bond that still lives within EQ2, and I grieve the loss. It was that feeling of community, early on, that really made the game a fun experience.

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Great Expectations: Hunter Raid Performance

Lassirra — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:33:41 +0000

While browsing the official forums this morning, I came across a very interesting thread discussing raid DPS and how the performance of the various top-DPS specs for each class compare across the first bosses of Icecrown Citadel and Trial of the Crusader (25-Man versions). The purpose of the compilation of this data was to illuminate the disparity between the performance of various classes in an attempt to identify weaknesses that Blizzard could potentially fix to bring about balance across the board.

Musclemelt was kind enough to share the compiled data with us to establish a point of context upon which to base the rest of the discussion.

(Note: I’ll be summarizing quite a bit of what was contained within the original thread, so please refer to the thread for full disclosure of the parameters of the discussion.)

General Class Performance

After averaging the culled data, Musclemelt found that class performance across all eight encounters was distributed thusly:

Mutilate Rogue – 10,853 DPS
Arcane Mage – 10,526 DPS
Unholy DK – 10,491 DPS
Marksmanship Hunter – 9,601 DPS
Affliction Warlock – 9,085 DPS
Fury Warrior – 9,077 DPS

Putting Hunters at the mid-to-low end of the pack across the eight encounters included in the data. Now, keep in mind that these figures are averaged, which means there are bound to be those of each class/spec that over- or under-perform, but this information represents what we can expect on average for performance.

Musclemelt also went on to break down the averages for each of the eight encounters in an attempt to address encounter-specific mechanics that could affect the outcome.

Hunter Performance

Here are Musclemelt’s findings for Hunter performance, broken down by encounter, for each of the encounters included in the evaluation:

Marrowgar (25-Man Normal), Hunters placed 4th at 9,058 DPS
Lady Deathwhisper (25-Man Normal), Hunters placed 2nd at 9,264 DPS
Deathbringer Saurfang (25-Man Normal), Hunters placed 6th at 9,657 DPS
Northrend Beasts (25-Man Heroic), Hunters placed 3rd at 8,784 DPS
Lord Jaraxxus (25-Heroic), Hunters placed 3rd at 9,865 DPS
Faction Champions (25-Heroic), Hunters placed 3rd at 6,093 DPS
Twin Valkyrs (25-Heroic), Hunters placed 3rd at 15,086 DPS
Anub’Arak (25-Heroic), Hunters placed 6th at 9,000 DPS

Things to note from this:

Hunters were placed last on 2 out of the 8 encounters included in the evaluation (25% of the time)
Hunters never placed first on any of the encounters included in the evaluation
Hunters placed in the middle of the pack on 5 out of the 8 encounters included in the evaluation (63% of the time)

Now, part of the reason I’m sharing this data is to help provide a sense of expectation for all of you for these encounters. People often ask “How’s my DPS?” and also often assume that if they’re not topping the meters every time that they must be doing something wrong.

What this data shows us is that, just because you’re not topping the meters every time doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. As the above data shows, on average, Hunters don’t top the meters on any of these fights. As I mentioned above, there will of course be players that over- or under-perform on these fights, as the data we’re working with is averaged, so if you’re topping the meters, you’re exceeding expectations (give yourself a pat on the back). If you’re not meeting the average performance data, then you know you have some work to do (either improving your spec and/or rotation, or improving your gear).

On Theorycrafting

I did want to highlight an especially good response that was posted in the thread on the forums, though, from Strawberry of the Scarlet Crusade server:

Interesting, but you really have to be careful about trying to prove something with data about the game, particularly when you’re trying to make generalizations.

Basically, you’re trying to remove error by introducing a bunch of extra variables and hoping that things balance themselves out. But it really doesn’t work that way – in fact, the more fights you bring in, the more your data gets skewed by mechanics (such as multi-target or AoE, relative expected DPS on each fight, the degree to which people do well on “stand still” vs “mobile” fights, etc, etc).

To look at an extreme example for illustration, imagine if you had one fight where everybody was doing 100x normal DPS, and that particular fight favored melee. Since melee would be doing better on that one fight, it would drown out other fights where mages may be doing better by a little bit.

Even with Blizzard’s data (which could potentially be far more comprehensive and reliable than anything we could come up with if they wanted to collect it – and they might, I don’t know), it’s impossible to “solve the equation” for the game. No amount of data will get you to a point where you can say “class X’s DPS needs to be buffed/nerfed by Y% in order to achieve balance”. If it were that easy, we’d have had perfect balance years ago.

I say this often, but it’s always worth repeating: Game design is, by necessity, intuitive. You have to look at the data, sure – but instead of expecting to find the answers, try to figure out what doesn’t “feel right” and then figure out why it may be happening.

Maybe your data says that DKs do too much AoE damage. Maybe it says that warlocks are too low across the board. Maybe it says that hunters need help on multi-target fights. But the question is – why is it? Is it really that somebody is too high/low, or is it that somebody else is just too high/low and it makes them look too good/bad by comparison? Is it a problem with their mechanics, or their numbers? Is it that people just don’t generally get how things work, or is it that the way things were designed in the first place don’t work as well in reality (well.. as close to “reality” as WoW gets) as they do on paper?

So I guess the question is… what do you want your data to say?

This is an extremely important point to remember in any theorycrafting exercise. Essentially, it’s extremely easy for someone to manipulate data in order to illustrate a point they’re trying to make, so rather than trying to draw empirical conclusions from data such as “This is how the classes are performing, so because Class X performs worst on most fights they must be in need of a buff”, it’s better to look at the data as a point of reference that allows you to say “This is how most members of my class are performing on these fights, so I can use that number as a benchmark to evaluate my own performance on those fights”.

Sure, you can extrapolate further than that in an attempt to make broader statements about overall game design and class comparisons, but keep in mind that those arguments are always going to be tenuous at best because there is no hard-and-fast rule for how performance should look as a whole and there are simply too many variables involved to make concrete statements that will be applicable across the board.

That said, it’s an interesting exercise despite its inherent flaws, and the culled data can be found useful for other purposes, such as we’ve applied here in providing a benchmark for average Hunter performance on these particular encounters.

If you haven’t already, definitely go read the thread on the forums. There are a lot of nice gems throughout the discussion.

Happy Hunting!

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Clever They Are Not

Lassirra — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:02:43 +0000

I recently found an email on my personal account, in the spambox (I check it now and then in case something legitimate got caught) that made me giggle and shake my head and I thought I’d share it with all of you.

This is the email I received:

From: wowaccountadmin

Subject: World of Warcraft – Potential Risks

Greetings!
Some evidence indicates that you are trying to sell your personal World of Warcraft account(s).
As you may not be aware of, this conflicts with the EULA and Terms of Agreement.
If this proves to be true, your account can and will be disabled.
We will gather more information through further investigation.
If you wish to not get your account suspended you should immediately verify your account ownership.
You can confirm that you are the original owner of the account by providing the following information:
* First and Surname
* Date of birth
* Address
* Zip code
* Phone number
* Country
* Account e-mail
* Account name
* Account password
* Secret Question and Answer Or WoW CD-Key
Show * Please enter the correct information
www.worldofwarcrcraft.com
If you ignore this mail your account can be closed permanently.
Once we verify your account, we will reply to your e-mail informing you that we have dropped the investigation.

Regards,
Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment

Somehow, I think if the mass email accounts listed in the To: field (which I omitted here to protect the other innocent potential victims) didn’t give them away, the Yahoo! email address might also have been a tip-off. And note the extra “cr” in “Warcraft” they used in the URL they provided.

Your petty scare tactics won’t work on me, gold farmers! I’m too wily for such trickery! But thanks for the laugh, anyway.

Note: Blizzard employees will never ask for your password. If you’re contacted by someone supposedly representing Blizzard Entertainment and they ask for your password–it’s a scam. Be sure to report all such falsified contacts to Blizzard directly so they can respond accordingly to protect the interests of their players.

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Dungeon Finder Bingo

Lassirra — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:09:09 +0000

Cruce on the Scarlet Crusade-US server shared a really great idea on the official forums recently: LFG Bingo. The intent of the game was to have a little fun farming Emblems while grinding your teeth through bad PuG after bad PuG, and I thought the idea was a lot of fun and an extremely creative way to make the best of what could potentially be a very bad situation.

So, first of all, big kudos to Cruce for sharing the idea with us! (And to WoW.com for tipping us off to this great find.)

Now, with credit given where it’s due for this awesomesauce from concentrate, let’s get to the point of this post, shall we?

The folks that follow me on Twitter know that I like to have fun messing around with PhotoShop putting together random images from source material I’ve taken from the game or other game-related sources. What does that have to do with PuG Bingo? Simple! I threw together my own version of LFG Bingo!

Cruce’s versions of the Bingo cards were clearly intended for level 80 players doing heroics, but what about all those alts out there working their way through classic content? There’s plenty of baddies running around in the 15-60 range to make you gnash your teeth in frustration (I know, I’ve seen it–if you can imagine a way to wipe a group in BRD, I’ve witnessed it in the past week), so I put together a Bingo card for the classic crowd.

If you’d like to create your own Bingo cards, I’ve got a blank template of the card shown above that you can download here. What would you add to your Bingo card that you’ve seen happening frequently in your classic dungeon PuGs?

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THM Newsletter Issue 2 Today

Lassirra — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:38:05 +0000

Just a quick note to let folks know that our second issue of The Hunter’s Mark Newsletter is going out today, so if you haven’t already, head over to the newsletter page to check out a quick overview of what you’ll find in each issue and subscribe. This month’s issue covers many of the changes in the latest content patch, as well as some strategy guides for the new instances, guides to the new gear available and other goodies.

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If You Could Run THM For a Day

Lassirra — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:42:27 +0000

I asked this question on Twitter a while back, but didn’t get much feedback (aside from a couple nice back-pats that, while appreciated, didn’t tell me much). I realize that’s likely my own fault. While our Twitter account does have a respectable following, it’s certainly not where our primary audience hangs out. (And you’re totally missing out on some completely random gems there, people. Hint, hint.) Anyway, I thought I’d throw the question out there again to see what I get back.

If you could run THM for a day, what would you change?

What would you do differently?
What would you talk about?
What features would you add?
What features would you get rid of?
What kind of content would you want to see more of?
What kind of content would you want to see less of?

If you were the Big Boss Lady/Man, how would you run THM? Would you try to get more guest posts in here? Would you favor shorter posts over longer ones? Would you post more gear or instance guides? Would you post more personal stories? Would you post more screenshots? Have some contests? Change the way the site looks? Post more reader emails? Talk about breaking game news?

If you could take over the reins of the site tomorrow, I want to know what you’d do with that kind of power.

I’m usually pretty good at anticipating the needs of my visitors, but I’m no mind reader and the best way for me to improve the site is for all of you to tell me what you’re looking for. I may not always be able to deliver, but rest assured I’ll try like hell.

And yes, I know the site’s had a lot of downtime issues lately and that’s probably #1 on many people’s list of what they’d change about the site. Believe me, I’ve been working on it consistently all this time. I just haven’t found a long-term solution yet. (Although it’s been doing well the past couple days…. cross your fingers.)

So barring downtime fixage, I ask all of you: if you could run THM for a day, what would you do?

Light up the comments, people. You know you want to.

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A Quick Note on Ninja Looting

Lassirra — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:38:43 +0000

It’s extremely rare for me to encounter a ninja. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of ninjas I’ve personally encountered in the five years I’ve been playing WoW. I know some people have dealt with them fairly regularly, but despite the amount of PuGing I do, I’ve been pretty lucky in that regard. This morning, I encountered my first ninja using the new LFG. Heck, (s)he was the first ninja I’ve encountered in years.

Before I jump right into my delightful little anecdote, I’d like to make something perfectly clear in an attempt to curtail potential drama before it starts. I don’t want anyone harassing this individual. This is more of a public service announcement than anything else. When someone does something wrong, it’s my belief that they should be held accountable for it and if possible, I should do my part to make sure they don’t get the opportunity to repeat their mistake. Additionally, this is by no means about the item they took. The item itself is basically worthless (which, in reality, makes this situation more comical than anything else).

So, don’t go harassing them. Just avoid them if you see them.

Now, on to the dramaz! (It’s not really drama.)

I was running BRD on my Druid this morning with a Warrior from my home server that I’d met in a previous PuG and three other random people. (The group consisted of my Druid as the healer, a Paladin tank, and a Warrior, Mage and Warlock as DPS.) After we finished the designated section of the instance (Lower City), 4 of us decided to continue on with the dungeon for additional experience. (I also had the quest to pick up the Shadowforge Key, so I was hoping to clear past the Ring of Law.)

The run was going reasonably well. No deaths, no major “oopsies”. The tank was setting a bit faster pace than I might have liked (I barely had time to loot before they’d already pulled another two groups), but it was nothing I couldn’t grudgingly deal with without mishap.

So, we’re cruising along, clearing the hallways around the Ring of Law, etc, and then make our way into the Ring itself. The event starts, and I’m just tossing HoTs, yawning, and thinking I’ll be glad when we get past this part so we can move on to the next and I can finish my key quest. The event ends, the boss dies, and this is what I see on screen:

Shayn, our Human Paladin tank from the Bleeding Hollow (US) server, apparently really wanted the Savage Gladiator Chain. Enough so that (s)he decided to Need roll on it after everyone else had already Greed rolled on it, then drop group without so much as a word about it.

Now, I can understand the allure of purple pixels. Especially if you’ve never seen an epic drop before. But honestly, if Shayn had really wanted the item, they could have asked and the group would probably have gladly let them have it since no one else in the group was interested in it. And then I wouldn’t be writing this post right now, Shayn wouldn’t be yet another entry on WoW Jackass and they wouldn’t go down in ninja history.

And if that weren’t enough to make the whole thing ridiculous, assuming Shayn doesn’t actually intend to use the item for DPS set, the only thing it’s good for is vendoring. The item is Bind-on-Pick-up. It can’t be sold on the Auction House. It vendors for a whopping 3 gold–an amount you can easily get in one run of BRD.

So this person felt that 3 gold was worth making a public ass of themselves, when they could easily have just asked for the item and gotten it with the group’s blessing. Well played, Shayn. Well played.

As an additional moral to this lovely story: you never know who you’re in a group with. The person you’re stealing from or pissing off today could have a web site with thousands of subscribers and visitors who will all be laughing at you tomorrow.

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2009 Year in Review

Lassirra — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:15:42 +0000

I was tagged for this by Nochecazador, and who am I to refuse? So here you have it, my 2009 Year in Review. However, I’ve chosen to dress my version of this meme up a bit with pointless video. After all, why use text when video is so much more time consuming? Bon appetit.

Lassirra’s 2009 WoW Year in Review

Tagging

I can’t say I’ve really been paying much attention to where this has been making the rounds to, so if you haven’t already been tagged by someone for this, go ahead and consider yourself tagged.

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Leveling in LFG: The Problem With Uldaman

Lassirra — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:14:10 +0000

I’ve been using the random dungeon feature on the new Looking For Group system pretty frequently on my alts recently, and I’ve noticed a problem cropping up in 95% of the Uldaman groups I’ve run. It’s time to get the word out about this problem so I don’t have to keep bouncing my head off my desk every time someone screws it up.

Loot the Medallion AFTER You Loot the Shaft

I’m pretty happy with the new Looking For Group system. Even on my low-level DPS alts, I get groups quickly and easily and work through content (and levels) at a pretty decent rate. There has been one blight on this otherwise idyllic experience: Uldaman.

It’s unclear whether this is a bug Blizzard intends to fix or if things are actually “working as intended”, but this is a problem none-the-less and the more people who know about it and the solution to it, the higher the likelihood that I’ll be able to maintain some shred of sanity.

Here’s the skinny.

The Staff of Prehistoria

In order to summon Ironaya, you have to loot the Gni’kiv Medallion from Baelog’s Chest, shown below:

And then you have to loot The Shaft of Tsol from Revelosh. Once you’ve looted the two items, you combine them to create the Staff of Prehistoria, which you then use in the Map Chamber pictured below to summon Ironaya.

The Problem

Players don’t seem to have any issues understanding that you need to acquire and combine these two items in order to summon Ironaya. What players do, however, seem to have a problem understanding is how looting and trading works.

Only one person in your party will be allowed to loot The Shaft of Tsol from Revelosh
Anyone can loot the Gni’kiv Medallion
You cannot trade either of these items across servers

The Solution

Kill Revelosh first to see who is able to loot the shaft, and then have that person go and loot the medallion.

I repeat: KILL REVELOSH FIRST, THEN LOOT THE MEDALLION.

That way the same person ends up with both the medallion and the shaft, they can create the Staff of Prehistoria, and then you can summon Ironaya.

Why?

Why does it need to be done this way? The short answer is: because the shaft is a loot drop from a mob, just like any other.

Just like Silk Cloth that drops on normal mobs can’t be picked up by any old group member whenever they want–each mob is assigned to one player to loot–the same goes for bosses. When loot that isn’t “shared” (universal quest items) or disputed (uncommon/rare/epic drops) drops from any mob, it’s assigned to a group member as their share of the booty for taking part in the instance. And, because the shaft isn’t considered a quest item and it isn’t disputed loot, it is therefore assigned to a party member as their share of loot for running the instance.

The medallion differs in that it is looted from an object, like a treasure chest, that any player can access whenever they want. And because it’s a “common” item, it isn’t disputed (i.e., rolled for).

So, because one of the two items will be restricted to one player having access to it and the other is something anyone can grab, you should always go for the restricted item first to guarantee that the same player ends up with both.

Why is it important that the same player loot both items? Because, even though you’re able to form groups across servers, you’re not able to trade these items across servers. Therefore, if two different people end up with a piece of the Staff, you’re stuck and can’t summon Ironaya.

Kill Revelosh first, loot the shaft, and then have that person go loot the medallion.

Get the word out. I’m begging you.

Happy Hunting!

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WoW Hunters Wiki

Lassirra — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:33:06 +0000

I’ve recently begun working on a side project whose time I think has definitely come: the WoW Hunters Wiki. Similar sites have been around for quite a long time but, unfortunately, don’t seem to have been updated since the early days of The Burning Crusade and much of the information available on those sites is extremely out-dated. This is something I’d thought about doing numerous times over the past few years, but never quite got around to and now seems to be about as good a time as any to finally get it off the ground.

The wiki is still very much under construction and few pages are up and complete, but every site has to start somewhere. It’s definitely a bit of a surprise just how much work goes into creating and maintaining a quality wiki, but I think with a little help we should be able to turn it into a very valuable resource for our community.

I’ll be continuing to poke around with it over the next few days trying to get the really important pages up and populated with the necessary data, and would definitely welcome some administrative assistance from the other class experts out there. If you’re interested in helping moderate the site, feel free to drop us an email. (Be sure to let us know what you feel qualifies you as a class–or wiki–expert!)

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Hunter Loot From Icecrown Citadel Raids

Lassirra — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:49:23 +0000

We’ve already discussed the shiny new Hunter loot in the three new Icecrown 5-mans (both normal and heroic), so now it’s time to take a look at that fancy new raid loot–the best you’re likely to get (unless they surprise us with something in 4.0, which is doubtful) before the gear reset when Cataclysm comes out.

Icecrown Citadel

There are five “wings” of Icecrown Citadel: The Lower Spire, The Plagueworks, The Crimson Hall, The Frostwing Hall and The Frozen Throne.

The Lower Spire consists of four bosses: Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, the Icecrown Gunship Battle and Deathbringer Saurfang.

The Plagueworks consists of three bosses: Festergut, Rotface and Professor Putricide.

The Crimson Hall consists of four bosses (three of which are part of the same encounter): the Blood Prince Council (Prince Keleseth, Prince Taldaram and Prince Valanar) and Blood-Queen Lana’thel.

The Frostwing Hall consists of two bosses: Valithiria Dreamwalker and Sindragosa.

Finally, the Frozen Throne consists of a fight with none other than the Lich King himself.

Note: An updated version of the list of Icecrown Citadel Hunter loot can be found here.

Normal 10 Loot

Precious’s Putrid Collar — Festergut
Stakethrower –Blood-Queen Lana’thel
Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts — Deathbringer Saurfang
Linked Scourge Vertebrae — Lord Marrowgar
Bone Warden’s Splitter — Lord Marrowgar
Saurgang’s Cold-Forged Band — Deathbringer Saurfang

Normal 25 Loot

Leggings of Northern Lights — Lady Deathwhisper
Nerub’ar Stalker’s Cord — Festergut
Snowserpent Mail Helm — Lord Marrowgar
Bloodvenom Blade — Deathbringer Saurfang
Band of the Bone Colossus — Lord Marrowgar
Distant Land — Festergut
Deathbringer’s Will — Deathbringer Saurfang

Heroic 10 Loot

Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts — Deathbringer Saurfang

Heroic 25 Loot

Bloodvenom Blade — Deathbringer Saurfang
Deathbringer’s Will — Deathbringer Saurfang

It’s worth noting here that the loot tables in their entirety are still largely unknown. We’ll be updating this post once more is known, but with the information currently available, these are the Hunter drops to keep an eye out for.

Tier 10

Of course, in addition to the loot described above, Icecrown Citadel is also home to our Tier 10 armor sets.

2-Piece: Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for 10 seconds.

4-Piece: When your Serpent Sting and Wyvern Sting abilities deal damage, you have a 5% chance to gain 20% Attack Power for 10 seconds.

Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Battlegear

Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Battlegear

Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Battlegear (Heroic)

And that’s it for the information we currently have. As I said, we’ll be updating this as more information becomes available.

Happy Hunting!

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Update: Hunter Loot from ICC 5-Mans

Lassirra — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:12:16 +0000

About a month ago, we took a look at some of the 5-man loot from the new Icecrown Citadel instances. At the time, there wasn’t a whole lot of information readily available about which bosses those items dropped from and which of the three instances they could be found in. Now that the patch has gone live, we know what’s what and we can clarify some of that information. So today, we’re going to revisit the loot tables for the new 5-mans in Icecrown Citadel.

First, it’s worth noting that you can’t just jump into any of the three 5-mans you want right off the bat. You have to complete the first 5-man, The Forge of Souls, on either normal or heroic before you can gain access to the second, the Pit of Saron, which you then must complete on either normal or heroic to gain access to the final instance, the Halls of Reflection.

The Forge of Souls

There are two bosses in the Forge of Souls: Bronjahm and the Devourer of Souls.

Normal Loot

Accursed Crawling Cape — Devourer of Souls
Heartshiver — Devourer of Souls
Tower of the Mouldering Corpse — Devourer of Souls

Heroic Loot

Eyes of Bewilderment — Bronjahm
Nighttime — Bronjahm
Blood Weeper — Devourer of Souls
Essence of Suffering — Devourer of Souls
Needle-Encrusted Scorpion — Devourer of Souls

The Pit of Saron

There are three boss encounters in the Pit of Saron: Forgemaster Garfrost, Ick and Krick, and Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Normal Loot

Ring of Carnelian and Bone — Forgemaster Garfrost
Krick’s Beetle Stabber — Ick
Scabrous Zombie Leather Belt — Ick
Rimebane Rifle — Scourgelord Tyrannus
Gondria’s Spectral Bracer — Scourgelord Tyrannus
Horns of the Spurned Val’kyr — Scourgelord Tyrannus

Heroic Loot

Barbed Ymirheim Choker — Forgemaster Garfrost
Spurned Val’kyr Shoulderguards — Forgemaster Garfrost
Felglacier Bolter — Ick
Belt of Rotted Fingernails — Scourgelord Tyrannus
Band of Stained Souls — Scourgelord Tyrannus

The Halls of Reflection

There are two boss events within the Halls of Reflection, one of which is an event that encompasses two separate bosses: Falric and Marwyn, and then the Wrath of the Lich King event.

Normal Loot

Muddied Boots of Brill — Falric
Ghoulslicer — Falric
Frostsworn Bone Leggings — Marwyn
Crypt Fiend Slayer — Lich King
Hate-Forged Cleaver — Lich King

Heroic Loot

And that’s it! Next, we’ll be taking a look at raid loot for hunters.

Happy Hunting!

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Ammo Controversy in Patch 3.3

Lassirra — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:21:05 +0000

I’ve been following a discussion over on the official forums the past couple days regarding the new ammo that will be available in Patch 3.3 (which, for those who haven’t heard, is hitting live servers today). Ghostcrawler has made a few appearances in the thread, but not much appears to have been accomplished by his comments aside from deflecting the primary issue and further frustrating those trying to coax answers out of the development team.

The New Ammo

In case you haven’t seen it yet, we’re getting two new projectiles this patch:

These projectiles are crafted by Engineers. In order to purchase the plans, the Engineer must be Honored with The Ashen Verdict. Only Gnomish Engineers can craft the arrows, and only Goblin Engineers can craft the bullets. One stack of 1,000 Iceblade Arrows requires 2 Crystallized Shadow to craft and One stack of 1,000 Shatter Rounds requires 2 Crystallized Earth.

The Complaint

The primary complaint on the forums regarding this new ammo is that Blizzard has placed too many restrictions on obtaining the ammo, particularly given that Blizzard has stated that they hoped to make the process of obtaining ammo vastly easier in Cataclysm. The complete 180 here at the end of Wrath seems to have upset the Hunter community greatly (and that’s the understatement of the century if you take the time to read the thread in question).

In The Burning Crusade, we obtained ammo directly from vendors (based on reputation standings). In this expansion, we obtained ammo from Engineering recipes that all Engineers could craft. In Patch 3.3, we see a reputation prerequisite, a crafting prerequisite and a crafting specialization prerequisite for obtaining the best ammo available, and that’s the rub. We’ve gone from one restriction on obtaining ammo to three.

The question on deck is: are all these restrictions being placed on the new ammo unfair?

Let us know what you think in the comments!

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The Hunter’s Mark Turns 3!

Lassirra — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:51:01 +0000

The Hunter’s Mark has officially been a black mark on the landscape of the internet for three years! I kid, I kid.

Two days ago, The Hunter’s Mark had it’s third birthday, and we’d like to invite all of you to help us celebrate!

We’ll be having a contest to mark the occasion, and the winner will receive a free one-year subscription to our monthly newsletter. To enter the contest, email us your answers to the following questions. The contest will close this Friday, and the person with the most correct answers will be declared the winner!

1. What was the name of the podcast Lassirra co-created prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King and Patch 3.0, and who was the other host?

2. What was the name of the series/segment of posts in which Lassirra discussed the alts she was playing?

3. Who was the first person Lassirra let guest post on THM?

4. What post on THM received the most comments?

5. What server did Lassirra originally play on?

6. How many people participated in the Hunter Island contest, and who were the winners?

7. What was the highest level of raid progression Lassirra reached during The Burning Crusade?

8. What spec does Lassirra least enjoy playing?

9. What zones does Lassirra like the best in the entire game?

Bonus: What’s your favorite THM post of all time?

Now we’ll see who’s really been paying attention all this time! Email us your answers by this Friday in order to be eligible to win a free one-year subscription to our monthly newsletter! The person with the most correct answers wins!

Good luck, and happy hunting!

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