Mordicai <Circle of Sages> Garona-US

Before we get right into the nitty-gritty of Mordicai’s submission, I wanted to take a moment to recognize a very special pet that was brought to my attention. Along with his submission, Mordicai sent along a photo of the pet that’s helped him get where he is today: Padme, more commonly known to the rest of us as Echeyakee.

Padme was Mordicai’s faithful companion throughout the leveling process, and as such, Mordicai felt that Padme deserved a special mention as well, and I was inclined to agree. Now, on to the Spirit Beasts! From Mordicai:

I tamed them, after much camping, in the standard order; Loque’nahak, Gondria, Skoll and finally Arcturis. It’s been a fun ride! I’m hoping Blizz sees fit to give us a few more stable slot for new future spirit beasts.

My pet names are as follows:

• Loque’nahak – Panthera
• Gondria – Tigris
• Skoll – CanisLupus
• Arctuis – Ursus

Loque’nahak

Gondria

Skoll

Arcturis

Congratulations to Mordicai on obtaining all four Spirit Beasts and being the second Hunter to enter the Hall of Fame!

Keep an eye out next week for our next inductee into the Hunter Hall of Fame. If you’ve tamed all four Spirit Beasts and would like to be entered into the Hall of Fame, check out this post for more details.

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We received an email last week from Haerich tipping us off to a new blog that takes an in-depth look at rare spawns: Glimpses of Azeroth. From Glimpses of Azeroth:

Bringing you an ongoing journey through the Warcraft universe to find the rare, unusual and the odd. Celebrating the rarely-seen inhabitants of World of Warcraft, the rare mobs.

The new site’s tag-line pretty much says it all. If you want detailed information about rare spawns, Glimpses of Azeroth is the place to go.

Each post on Glimpses of Azeroth features a different rare spawn found in-game and provides information about where they can be found, along with screenshots of the spawn itself and it’s location. Where applicable, lore is also provided about each of the rare spawns to add a bit more flavor (and potential RP fodder for you role-players out there) to the experience.

Thanks to Haerich for the tip, and thanks to Dragonshade for starting up this unique site–a comprehensive resource for rare spawns has been needed in the community for a long time, so thanks for starting one up and keep the great information coming!

If you enjoy checking out rare spawns, definitely head over to Glimpses of Azeroth. Check out the great information already up on the site and be sure to thank Dragonshade for all the hard work that’s gone into compiling the information.

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Mizzie <Searing Blade> Icecrown-US

Mizzie’s story, as told by her husband (who sent in her submission):

My wife is a stay at home mom.  As such she has more time for things that to me are silly but give her enjoyment.  One of them she started doing, not long after she was 60, was to go around and tame all the Rare spawns in the game.  I have not audited her, but I am pretty sure at one point or another she has had every rare pet out there.  She would keep them for a few weeks and then bid them a heartfelt goodbye to make room for the next visitor to her stable.

We both love our hunters, and were lucky to have the ability to do the Hunter quest chain from vanilla wow.  I have always said that quest line, completed at 60, makes you a better hunter.  Whoever designed that quest definitely loved Hunters.  We both retain the Bow/Staff/Quiver in our bank bags today.

When Wrath hit and we got more stable space, I think all Hunters were happy campers.  She was ecstatic.  When she learned of the first spirit beast in Sholazar she spent large amounts of time searching for him.  As I recall it took her roughly three weeks.  With each new spirit beast to be added she has gone out to obtain it.  I will say this, the Wolf and Bear ones took considerably less time to acquire.  For the Bear, she had it the first day it was out and I suspect she was the first on our server with it.

We both raid as MM due to 25man viability of the spec.  But we both love BM, and would raid as such if it was not for the huge gap in DPS output between the two.  I saw the entry on your blog site and knew I had to submit her for your Hall of Fame.

Loque’nahak

Gondria

Skoll

Arcturis

Congratulations to Mizzie on obtaining all four Spirit Beasts and being the first Hunter to enter the Hall of Fame!

Keep an eye out next week for our next inductee into the Hunter Hall of Fame. If you’ve tamed all four Spirit Beasts and would like to be entered into the Hall of Fame, check out this post for more details.

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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ARGENT TOURNAMENT – A GRAND, COLOSSAL FAILURE

ICE CROWN – A shocking report from a whistleblower within the Argent Crusade has revealed disturbing facts about the much-vaunted “Argent Tournament” and its major attraction the “Trial of the Crusader”.

AN INTENTIONAL DEATH TRAP
“The place is a death-trap…” Our source (who wishes to remain anonymous) reports, “…And Tirion Fordring knows it.”

This faux news publication from the AP (Azeroth Press) goes on to detail the faults with the design and implementation of the Argent Tournament in a decidedly tongue-in-cheek manner, citing gross negligence on the part of the Tournament’s organizers for the deaths of many would-be heroes and by-standers alike.

If you haven’t read the post yet, definitely go check it out.

While it’s clearly intended to be an entertainment piece, it does raise some interesting questions. First, from the point of view of our characters, was the Argent Tournament a wise choice as a method of weeding out the good from the bad in order to amass an army to take on Icecrown Citadel itself and face the Lich King? After all, this was it’s stated purpose. But has it succeeded? As a result of the Tournament, are our best and brightest going on to face Arthas and his minions, or has the Tournament been too lenient in it’s appraisal of our skill and sent those unequal to the task off to their deaths?

Second, as players looking at it from a game design standpoint, did the Argent Tournament feel like a logical stepping stone into Icecrown Citadel? Looking over the progression of the storyline as content patches and expansions have been released, does the Tournament feel like it fits within the greater context, or does it seem like we’re looking at an SAT question and being asked: which of these doesn’t belong?

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There are a lot of Hunters out there that love to collect pets, Spirit Beasts in particular. Well, we’ve decided to give folks a chance to have their moment in the spotlight. If you’re one of those Hunters that loves to collect Spirit Beasts, listen up. Moving forward, every Sunday we’d like to feature a Hunter out there that has been officially inducted into the Hunter Hall of Fame by taming every Spirit Beast in the game.

What We Want From You

If you’ve tamed every Spirit Beast in the game, get screenshots of you with each of your Pew-Pew-Lazer buddies and send them to us. Along with your screenshots, let us know:

• Your character’s name
• The server you hail from

If you’d like, you can also include a shout-out to your guild and a link to their site as well or a link to your own site if you have one.

Optionally, if you’ve got a story you’d like to share about each of your snazzy pals, feel free to include it and we’ll post it along with your screenshots.

The Guidelines

To keep the look and feel of our Hall of Fame posts uniform, we ask the following of those submitting screenshots:

• Do not include any UI elements in your screenshot (action bars, unit frames, etc)
• Do not crop your screenshot

And that’s it! Here’s a good example of the type of screenshot we’re looking for (one for each Spirit Beast):

Each Sunday, we’ll post new additions to The Hunter Hall of Fame in the order in which they were received.

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Now, in an attempt to be fair, after thinking to myself that this run was doomed to failure right from the start, I caught myself and thought, Now that’s not fair. You’re a Hunter too. Maybe this will go just fine. My sense of fair play was grossly misplaced. (Note to self: go with your instincts.) After the run was finished, I remarked to my healer friend that I should have recorded the run to put here on the site as an example of what not to do as a Hunter running instances. It would have been a prime example.

The first part of the instance, the jousting, went just fine, as it usually does. The first boss encounter was a bit sketchy, but was still reasonably smooth. The only issue was that the Hunters were using Volley rather than single-targeting the mobs. This wouldn’t have been so bad, except that of the three mobs we got on that encounter, two were ranged, so I had issues getting all three in range of my AoE. The result? One of the Hunters pulled aggro on the troll. A taunt here and there solved the problem, but it shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. Strike one.

On the pulls before the second boss encounter, I had already told my healer friend before we even set foot in the instance that I intended to pull all three groups at once. My pally is overgeared for the instance, and my healer friend is overgeared for pretty much everything at this point, so I knew it wouldn’t be a problem for either of us. So, as the second encounter began, I hit Holy Shield, tossed Avenger’s Shield at the first group, dropped Consecration as I ran past the second group, and hit Hammer of the Righteous as I got in range of the last group of three mobs, which gave me at least some threat on all the mobs before I settled down into my normal rotation. As I collected up the mobs and settled into my usual threat rotation, the pungent stench of failure filled the air.

A Paladin’s threat rotation is simple enough to allow me the luxury of watching everything but what I’m whacking at in front of me once I’ve gotten mobs under control. That being the case, as I settled in for a good long whack session, I had the opportunity to leisurely glance around and see what everyone else was up to. (Mind you, this entire process takes mere seconds.) I checked to make sure my healer friend was still prancing back and forth happily tossing heals, and then glanced around to see what the Hunters were up to. What then escaped my lips was the sigh of resignation heard round the world.

I looked up to see two Argent Priestesses hanging around the middle with arrows raining down on their heads. Strike two.

Now, let me clarify. It’s good that the Hunters knew enough to kill the Priestesses first. However, this brief show of intellect was overshadowed entirely by the fact that, were it not for the intervention of the Hunters, those two Priestesses would have been in the pack of mobs surrounding me, getting caught in my AoE and getting the brunt of my full range of threat-generating abilities, rather than standing in the middle of the arena tossing heals and attacking the Hunters. Not to mention the fact that Volley for two mobs is probably the least efficient way they could have possibly dealt with these stray Priestesses.

I could have taunted the Priestesses off them. In fact, I should have taunted the Priestesses off them. I didn’t. Truth be told, I wanted to see what they would do. What happened next was precisely what I had assumed would happen, and it was not good.

My hope was that the Hunters would Feign Death to drop aggro and then assist my target off me and proceed to DPS, and if the squirrely Priestesses had an eye for my healer friend at that point, I would taunt them off and all would be well in the world.

That was not what occurred.

Nope, the Hunters proceeded to entirely ignore the giant pack of mobs I was whacking away at and continued to DPS the two Priestesses. Narry an Aimed Shot was fired. There was no Feigning of Death. Just three determined Hunters and their choice of prey: two Argent Priestesses. My facepalming was audible. But, I was resolute in my decision to let the chips fall where they may, and I let the Hunters have at it. I could hear my healer friend gnashing his teeth from three states away, but he was doing fine on mana and my health bar wasn’t in any immediate danger, so I was content to let things play out as they would.

It was at around that time when one of the Hunters went offline. As it so happened, it was the Hunter that was lower on the damage meters than I was, so I can’t say that I was particularly disappointed by that turn of events. I demolished the pack of seven mobs I’d been faithfully whacking away at, ran over to the two Priestesses and finished them off, and it was on to the actual boss fight.

Not much of import occurred during the actual boss fight. We got the gal that summons a memory of former whoopassedness, I did my tanky thing, my healer friend did his healy thing, and the Hunters did whatever it is they chose to do. I had long since stopped paying any real sort of attention to them by that point. I can only assume that, because the boss eventually died, the Hunters amounted to something. Or maybe my Prot DPS is just that studly. One of the two.

And so on we trotted to the final event: The Black Knight. This fight was the entire reason my healer friend and I were there in the first place. So help me, I wanted my damn trinket. I’ve been farming the instance at least half a dozen times each day for several days now, and I was determined. It was my hope that bringing my friend along for once would serve as a good luck charm and the trinket would finally drop. No such luck.

The event began and the two remaining Hunters scattered to opposite ends of the arena. Strike three.

Now, let me explain why that constitutes a strike. My healer friend? Shaman.

I know some of you are sitting there thinking “So?” Allow me to illuminate why the fact that my friend plays a Shaman is significant in relation to the Hunters scattering to the four winds. Chain Heal.

(Not to mention the fact that it would have made picking up the spawns during the fight much easier for me if they’d all been standing together.)

There are no mechanics about The Black Knight fight that prevent ranged players (DPS and Healers alike) from stacking to make the most efficient use of Chain Heal. I watched as my healer friend attempted to dance back and forth across the arena in an attempt to get himself in range of both myself and one of the Hunters in order to make efficient use of Chain Heal to cover the incoming group damage during the fight.

The Hunters were completely oblivious to his efforts, stood their ground at opposite ends of the arena, and just (I assume) zoned out and watched tv as they ran through their rotations until the boss finally died.

I was somewhat awed by the sheer level of “Duh” going on. My healer friend felt slightly different about it. He was pissed. It’s for that very reason that he never PuGs anything. I felt like an asshole for making him do it and subjecting him to that level of fail. For my own part, I was largely immune to it. I PuG everything, I’m used to retards. When the run was over and we were standing back in Dalaran, trinket-less and a bit more worse for wear, I chuckled to myself and shook my head.

I should have recorded the run.

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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From Eyonix:

Our ultimate goal is make gear a more interesting (and less confusing) choice by making each stat valuable to more players. While the reasoning behind some of the following changes may be clear, we understand that you may have questions about some of the less obvious alterations, and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have here on the forums.

To that end, Eyonix has endeavored to explain what the changes will be and how they will affect players moving forward. Stats we’re already familiar with will be changed while others will be removed from gear entirely to have their effects added to primary attributes.

Familiar Stat Changes

Haste

Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you “do stuff” more often.

The reason this change is of interest to Hunters despite the fact that they reference melee classes specifically is that in Cataclysm we’ll be making a transition from one resource to another: mana to focus, therefore, presumably Haste will be of interest to us in returning focus more quickly enabling us to fire shots more frequently.

Resilience

This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.

Currently, resilience affects the chance for players to be critically hit, reduces the amount of mana drained from such spells, reduces the amount of damage players take from being critically hit and reduces the amount of overall damage a player takes. For PvP players, this change will amount to an extreme nerf in the usefulness of resilience on gear, effectively reducing it’s usefulness by half.

Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating

These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details — such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) — are likely to change.

What needs to be highlighted here is the fact that these stat values on gear will become much more important. For example, while Hunters do currently focus on Agility, we also focus on Attack Power. With the removal of Attack Power from gear, the focus will shift entirely to Agility as a source of power behind our shots. Currently, you can get Attack Power from both Agility and Attack Power (as its own separate stat), in Cataclysm, Agility will be our source of Attack Power.

And, as with each new expansion, the amount of Hit Rating and Crit Rating required to get 1% of each value (Hit or Crit Chance) will scale to accommodate the new level cap.

New Stats

Mastery

This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It’s directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We’ll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.

The concept of Mastery is a completely new feature exclusive to Cataclysm. While the specifics of how the Mastery system will work are still unknown, we do know that depending on how deep you go in a specific talent tree you will receive additional passive bonuses that are in keeping with the theme of that tree. This new system is designed to replace existing talents that provide passive bonuses seen as necessary which prevent players from spending those points on more “interesting” talents elsewhere in the tree.

Examples of how this new system would work were cited for both Rogues and Paladins, but no information pertaining specifically to Hunters has been released.

Stats Removed from Gear

Attack Power

This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.

For Hunters who were playing prior to Patch 2.0, this will come across as a bit of waffling back and forth. During Classic, Hunters received 2 Attack Power per single point of Agility. With Patch 2.0 (and the release of The Burning Crusade), that ratio was reduced to 1:1. It seems we’re now shifting back to the original 2:1 ratio to accommodate the loss of Attack Power as a separate stat on gear.

Armor Penetration

This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.

The fact that this stat is being removed from gear entirely means that talent builds founded on stacking Armor Penetration will become largely obsolete depending on how what Armor Penetration remaining in talents will scale.

Expected Changes to Gear

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
• Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
• Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina. Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
• No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

I suspect the changes coming our way will be a bit more far-reaching than they seem at first glance, particularly as they relate to the changes to Armor Penetration and the shift from mana to focus as our primary resource. While I’ve been giving these changes some thought since they were announced, I still haven’t reached a definitive opinion about them. This is a concept I’ve been playing with on the forums, but it’s extremely difficult to make value statements on these changes when so little is still known about what will become of the Hunter class.

My intent at the moment, now that more is known about how our gear will be changing at least, is to spend some time reviewing what we know and comparing that to existing gear. Today, I wanted simply to share the new information that was made available with a few brief notes on each. I’ll be addressing each of these changes in further detail in future posts once I’ve had time to stew about it some.

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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1. Pulling Before The Tank Is Ready

Yes, Misdirection is a handy thing to have. Yes, tanks generally like it when you serve them up free threat on a silver platter. However, they don’t like it when you do it before they’re ready. If you’re using Misdirection to pull another group while the tank is still focused on the current group, all you’re doing is inciting chaos. If the tank isn’t ready to pull another group and you do it for them, you’re making them feel rushed and flustered which does not lend itself well to peak performance. Before you start pulling additional groups, make sure this is something your tank wants you to do. Often, tanks prefer to set the pace of the instance themselves. This is so they can manage their cooldowns and priorities appropriately and get positioning right (for example, in the case of line-of-sight pulls). Before you start rushing things, find out if this is something your tank would appreciate or not. Your tank knows what they can handle and what they’re comfortable with–don’t take those decisions out of their hands.

An even worse transgression is pulling before the tank is ready without even using Misdirection! I had a Hunter in my last Trial of the Champion group that loved to do this on the second boss fight. As we were fighting the three packs of three mobs each, the Hunter attacked the next group before we’d even killed one of the mobs from the first pack and hadn’t even bothered to Misdirect them onto me. So, instead, we ended up with a pack of three mobs running around the middle of the arena willy-nilly. The Hunter didn’t even attempt to kite them, she just pulled them and then let them whack on her until I taunted them off her. When confronted about it later, she said “I wanted to tank and you came along and started beating things up.” Needless to say, I was not impressed, and henceforth resolved to let her have aggro on whatever she wanted. (Only The Black Knight fight was left by then, so it didn’t become an issue, but it was still jaw-droppingly stupid.)

2. Attacking Before The Tank Has Threat

New players never experienced the days of “5 Sunders!” and many seem to be perfectly content to let fly with whatever attacks they want whether the tank is ready for them to do so or not. Let the tank sort it out.

Have you any idea how infuriating it is to pull a pack of mobs, get yourself positioned, and then just as you’re hunkering down into your threat rotation to have half that pack of mobs go running all over creation?

Tanks these days have no problems establishing and holding threat, but you need to give them a chance to actually hit stuff before you go nuts on it. This was something I encountered time and again while I was farming Halls of Lightning for my trinket. I would pull a pack of mobs, and before I’d had a chance to hit all of them, DPS would already be throwing every AoE spell they had at the pack of mobs. Matter of fact, in one run, I would consistently see the Hunter’s pet go charging into a pack of mobs before I’d even pulled them. Bad Hunter, no biscuit.

Let me explain something here: Paladins have very strong AoE threat. However, Avenger’s Shield and Hammer of the Righteous only hit three targets at once. Until they drop Consecration, that means they may not have any threat on some targets. If you’re attacking a mob before the tank has had a chance to hit it with anything, you’re doing it wrong.

3. Attacking a Different Target Than the Tank

This can be a fairly minor transgression, but it does bear mentioning. While tanks have a lot better AoE threat generation than they ever have before, it’s still not an infallible system. The best way to avoid pulling threat off your tank is to attack the same target your tank is attacking–that target will be getting the brunt of your tank’s threat-generating abilities. The only time this may be an ill-advised policy is when you have a tank that tabs through targets frequently throughout each fight. This is something Warriors do frequently because they have the weakest AoE threat of any of the tanking classes. Additionally, tanks will occasionally swap targets if a mob gets loose in order to taunt them back. If you start attacking that target, you’re making the tank’s job of getting that mob back under control that much more difficult. When in doubt, ask your tank to mark targets.

4. Leaving Growl On

While tanks these days typically have no problems holding aggro from a pet, even with Growl on, it’s still inconsiderate to make them have to. This is generally more a matter of principle than anything else. There’s absolutely no reason why you need to have Growl on in an instance. The one exception to this may be in a situation where you’re attempting to avoid a wipe and you turn Growl on to help pick up loose adds and keep them off your healer. Otherwise, Growl should be off. It’s okay to forget sometimes, we all do it, but when you do, quickly fix the problem.

If your tank happens to notice that you have Growl on and asks you to turn it off, don’t fight with them about it. Simply turn it off, thank them for the reminder, apologize for the inconvenience, and press on with the rest of the instance. Nothing is more infuriating for your tank (and the rest of your group) than having to ask a Hunter to turn Growl off and then arguing back and forth about it for the next 15 minutes. (“It’s not on!” “Yes it is!” “No it isn’t!” etc) Whether they’re right and you do have Growl on or they’re wrong and you don’t, just thank them for the reminder and move on. Fighting about it will accomplish nothing but annoying everyone.

5. Running Away When You Pull Aggro

As Hunters, it’s instinct for us to back away from mobs coming at us. However, this instinctive response is counter-productive in instances. By running away from mobs and trying to stay at range when we pull aggro, we’re making more work for the tank. They have to chase us down in order to get within taunting range of the mob that’s coming at us. If Feign Death (and Shadowmeld for us Night Elves) is on cooldown and you pull aggro, either stay where you are or run at your tank. This will ensure that the mob you’ve pulled is within taunting range of your tank and will also bring the mob back into any AoE your tank has laid down.

When tanks are forced to chase down stray mobs, they’re faced with having to turn their backs to other mobs attacking them. Damage dealt from behind a target cannot be Blocked, Dodged or Parried (this is why melee classes and our pets always position themselves behind mobs they’re attacking), which means if your tank has to run after you to chase down one mob, they’re turning their back to the pack of mobs they were already dealing with which will result in an unnecessary damage spike that your healer will have to compensate for.

Be Considerate of Your Tanks

Tanks already juggle a lot of different responsibilities. They have some of the most stringent gear requirements to progress through content in the game; whenever they make a mistake, everyone notices and often jumps on them for it; they’re expected to know every instance in the game and the mechanics of every mob, and so much more. Yes, tanks do these things because they enjoy the challenge and responsibility, and they’re rewarded for their efforts with faster queue times, but we don’t need to make their jobs more difficult than they already are. Everyone zones into an instance with the hope that their tank will be up to the task of guiding them through it successfully. Tanks also expect DPS players to be responsible in their chosen role. Don’t disappoint them, and don’t make the rest of us look bad. We’re trying to discredit the “Huntard” moniker, not make it more prevalent.

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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1. Track-o-Matique

This add-on was designed with Improved Tracking in mind. This add-on provides configuration settings for automatically switching your tracking settings depending on what you’re currently targeting.

2. Ammo-matique

Ammo-matique helps streamline the process of managing your ammo. You can set this up to help to swap out different kinds of ammo depending on the situation–this is particularly helpful for Hunters who use Saronite Razorheads for farming and Iceblade Arrows for raids, for example. It will also alert you when you’re running low on ammo and keep your inventory organized by moving ammo automatically to a designated bag.

3. ViperNotify

For those forgetful Hunters out there who have a tendency to swap into Aspect of the Viper and then forget to swap back to Aspect of the Dragonhawk, this mod will flash a large warning on your screen when you’re in Viper and your mana bar is full (or nearly full) to remind you to swap back.

4. Gun Silencer/Suppressor

If you’re using a gun and are tired of that ear-splitting crack every time you fire your weapon, this mod is a godsend.

5. ShotAndAwe

This mod helps to improve damage output by displaying shot timers and priorities, customized by spec. You can think of this as a visual representation of your shot rotation and it’s associated timers.

6. Tyra Misdirect

This add-on streamlines the process of setting your Misdirection targets using quick set-up macros straight from your interface unit frames.

If you have any Hunter-specific mods that you use, feel free to share them in the comments!

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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Herding Cats

If you ask a raid leader what it’s like to do their job, in most cases they will grunt, groan, sigh with resignation and tell you “It’s a lot like herding cats”. Imagine yourself in a room full of screaming five year olds, all wanting your attention and all wanting different (and often conflicting) things that often have no basis in rational thought, and you begin to get an inkling of what being a raid leader is like.

Casual players often make the mistake of assuming that hardcore guilds run like well-oiled machines. In some cases, I’m sure that’s true, but not in most. Most hardcore guilds come with the same baggage casual guilds do: drama, favoritism, arrogance, loot arguments, and so forth. In fact, it could be argued that hardcore guilds have it worse in this regard. Why? Because emotion tends to run high when you get 25 disparate people all feeling a sense of entitlement because they’ve all worked very hard to get where they are.

Additionally, the expectations placed on a raid leader are extremely high. Raid leaders are expected to know every single class in the game inside and out. Why? So they can make informed decisions about who to bench that week, or who deserves what piece of loot the most, or how Mage X could stand to improve their spell rotation, or why Tank B just exploded in a fiery ball of death and destruction when all of the healers were still alive and healing them, or where the hell those 40 adds just came from, or OH GOD THE PALLY JUST PULLED THE ENTIRE NEXT ROOM! WIPE! JUST WIPE IT! OH GOD!!

You begin to see why these people are usually extremely high-strung.

Raid leaders are expected to know every class, every fight, every drop. And that’s on top of playing their own character at a hardcore level. Raid leaders have to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to wa– sorry. Got sidetracked.

My point is, raid leaders have to do everything the average player has to do… for 25+ other people and themselves. They also have to work out the logistics of scheduling and populating raids, which doesn’t sound difficult on the surface, but if you’ve ever tried throwing a PuG raid together, you sort of get a feel for what it can be like to do that every week. You get about a dozen people whispering you back and forth constantly, asking what gear set to bring, what spec they should use, who else is going, what bosses they’ll be focusing on, what the strategies are, what loot will drop, etc etc ad infinitum.

And let me tell you a little secret: I have not adequately captured the experience in words. It’s actually much, much worse than this, but it defies description. Just think about the most frustrated you’ve ever been in your life, multiply that by about 30, and now think about feeling that way every single time you raid. That’s probably pretty accurate.

Goosestep to My Tune

Now, having explained to you what a day in the life of a raid leader is like, you can begin to understand why:

1. These people are insane
2. These people are assholes
3. These people have the shortest tempers on the planet

It’s not because they like or want to be like that, but because the crazy retard raiding circus has made them that way. Truly told, most people that end up becoming raid leaders were at one point some of the nicest people you ever could have met. They showed up on time, they were considerate of others, they brought consumables for themselves and others, they offered help to guildmates when it was needed, etc. And you know what? That’s exactly how those people got wrangled into being raid leaders in the first place. They put in some extra effort, and as a result, they get the thankless job of herding cats every week.

Which leads me to how we got to the “my way or the highway” mentality.

If you had on your plate the same amount of crap as a raid leader has to deal with every time they log in, you’d probably get pretty short-tempered too.

When a raid leader is newly minted, they will try to be accommodating just as they had always been. They will make sure everyone is happy, or at the very least feels like everything is fair. They will go out of their way to make sure the feelings of all their raiders are taken into consideration.

Right up until the first wipe.

When a raid fails, especially under new leadership, the first responses from players is to:

1. Blame the raid leader (after all, they were the one calling the shots)
2. Offer their advice (because clearly something went wrong)

Now, get 24 people all suggesting a different approach to a fight because the raid leader is clearly a window-licking moron (nevermind the fact that the raid would not exist in the first place if not for that person’s hard work), and I’m sure you can see how that can develop into “sit down, shut up, and do what I tell you”.

Without a heavy hand to guide things, players will quickly turn to bickering. Things will get out of control, and nothing will ever get done. Most players have seen this happen: you get about five people on vent all arguing about how a certain boss fight should be done, while the other 20 people stand there with thumbs in rectums, maybe busting out emotes and non-combat pets just to break up the monotony and ease some of the resentment of being made to stand there doing nothing for 20 minutes because people can’t decide what the heck is going on.

If you don’t have a raid leader that is willing to say “Enough. It’s time to get things done, and we’re going to do it my way.” you’ll see more and more of that same scenario.

It’s All About the Bottom Line

We now understand what raid leaders have to deal with and how they came to the mentality they demonstrate, but how does that affect the average player? Well, as we’ve seen, most players want to play the spec they want to play come hell or high water. That’s perfectly fine if you’re not in a progression-oriented guild. However, a hardcore raid leader is going to tell you to respec or go home.

Why? Because they have enough other crap to deal with, they don’t need to baby-sit you on top of everything else.

In a raid, it doesn’t matter if you can trap 30 mobs simultaneously. You don’t have to. In a raid, it doesn’t matter if you can kite. You don’t have to. There are two exceptions to that in all 53 raid encounters in this expansion. That’s 3% of the time where kiting could be used. It’s not a major concern to raid leaders. All that matters to a raid leader is whether or not you’re above the tanks on the damage meter, and by how much.

That being said, you might be thinking to yourself “Well, as BM I’m way above the tanks! Sometimes I even out-dps people in better gear than me!”

Fine and dandy. Give yourself a pat on the back. But guess what? Your raid leader doesn’t care.

Want to know what your raid leader cares about? Whether or not you’re bringing as much dps as you possibly can. Want to know what else? Your raid leader is well aware that Marksmanship and Survival will perform better. They don’t care how, they just know that it’s true.

Your raid leader is aware of what spec performs the best for each dps class in the game. They may not know why each spec is considered the best, but they don’t care about that part. All this information means to them is that when someone comes to them asking how to improve or they notice someone not performing up to expectations, the first thing they’ll do is go look at talents and then say “Oh. You need to be spec’d to X.”

The reason they do this is because they don’t have the time or patience to argue about it with people. Raid leaders see this as very cut and dry, and whatever rationalizations you have for your spec are irrelevant to them. If they let everyone spec however they wanted to, they’d have a raid that didn’t get anywhere because collectively you’re throwing a ton of dps out the window just because you wanted a giant stompy dinosaur or something.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that raid leaders are nice people that want things to be fair? That’s still true, to a certain extent. A person’s entire personality doesn’t change just because they’ve had a big responsibility foisted upon them. Your raid leader wants things to be fair when that luxury is available to them. Want to know how your raid leader makes things fair? They set the same expectations for everyone: you will use the best spec for your chosen role. Everyone will. No exceptions. Because if they make an exception for your laser kitty, they have to make an exception for everyone, and in so doing, they just threw several thousand dps out the window and now Oops! bosses aren’t dying, and they’re getting blamed for it.

Your raid leader’s primary goal is to make sure the raid is successful. That’s their job. If that means having to be a complete dickwad in the process, a lot of them are willing to be the bad guy just to make sure shit gets done. If they relent, people will take advantage of them.

Your Permissive Raid Leader is the Exception, Not the Rule

If you have a raid leader that is willing to let people spec however they want, consider yourself lucky. Most hardcore raid leaders won’t allow it, for the reasons outlined above.

Permissive raid leaders have a very distinct attitude: as long as bosses die, it doesn’t matter how it happened.

What separates these raid leaders from a lot of others is priorities. Most raid leaders want things to be as smooth and efficient as possible because it lightens their own load. That’s why a lot of raid leaders will be jack-booted nazis about how people are allowed to spec. They already have enough to deal with, they don’t want to have to keep track of how so-and-so is spec’d this week on top of everything else. Permissive raid leaders, on the other hand, are willing to take on this added responsibility so that their players can have fun in the process.

The fact that you’re allowed to spec however you want means additional work for your raid leader. If you have a raid leader that allows you to spec however you want, be sure to thank them. You’re having more fun because they’re willing to have even less.

The Road to Understanding

Now that you understand the sheer volume of HOLY SHITBALLS that can go into being a raid leader, and even just a regular hardcore player, I hope that casuals will come to be a bit more understanding of the hardcore mindset.

I see a lot of bickering between the two factions, casual vs hardcore. Casuals complain that hardcore players are being dictators, hardcore players gripe that casuals have no idea what goes into what they do. Both are correct. The other side has very limited understanding of what it means to be what you are.

If you’re a casual player and you find yourself confronted with a hardcore player that’s being an elitist dick, take a minute to understand where they’re coming from. They’re under an extreme amount of pressure every single day to perform, and if they don’t perform, they have to worry about whether or not they’ll be cut from the team. They’re resentful of your freedom to do as you please, despite the fact that the work they’re doing allows them to enjoy the game how they like.

If you’re a hardcore player and you find yourself continually frustrated by casual players, take a minute to understand their perspective as well. They don’t always see the hard work that goes into playing the game the way you do. Instead, they see you in similar gear getting to experience higher-end content and don’t understand why they can’t see that content too. They’re jealous because you’ll be bored of fights they’ll never even see.

In the five years I’ve been playing this game, I’ve been a casual player, a hardcore player, a hardcore raid leader, a casual raid leader, and back to casual player again. I’ve been given the opportunity to see both sides of the coin, each having their own unique trials and rewards. No method is more valid than another and each has their own mindset. Try to be more understanding of those that play the game differently than you and perhaps we’ll be able to get back to that sense of community we all started this game with.

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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It’s common knowledge at this point that Beast Mastery under-performs in a raid environment all things being equal (skill, gear, etc). As a result, raiding as a Beast Mastery Hunter is often frowned upon. But why? It still gets the job done, doesn’t it? It does. But the question isn’t whether or not Beast Mastery can perform, it’s a matter of how well the spec performs in relation to it’s counterparts.

I’ll be frank with you. I don’t like Beast Mastery. I never have and I likely never will. I use a Beast Mastery spec for soloing purely so I could tame Loque’nahak. (Even the most unfeeling of players would have a hard time resisting the allure of Pew Pew Lazer Kitteh, I’m convinced.) And even then, I rarely actually switch over to my BM spec even when I’m out farming. My point in bringing this up is that I’m not defending Beast Mastery because I secretly have a nerd-on for it. I don’t. Long time readers know perfectly well how I feel about Beast Mastery, and my opinion of it isn’t particularly favorable. Even when Beast Mastery was the spec du’jour, I went out of my way to make a Survival spec equally viable (which eventually caught on as players moved into Black Temple).

So why am I bothering to weigh in on a topic centered around a spec that I don’t even particularly like? Because I dislike asshattery more than I dislike Beast Mastery.

The crux of the issue comes down to: are you a hardcore raider looking to min/max, or aren’t you?

The Hardcore Crowd

If you’re a member of the “hardcore” crowd, then the answer to this debate is extremely simple: you’re not allowed to raid as a Beast Mastery Hunter.

What separates the hardcore crowd from the casuals is priorities. Are you there to have fun, or are you there to perform to the best of your class’s capabilities? (Of course, it’s worth mentioning that performing to the best of one’s class’s capabilities is considered fun to many.) Distill that down further and the differentiating factor becomes: are you willing to play whatever spec performs the best compared to your other options in order to squeeze every ounce of potential out of your character, or do you want to play only the spec you like the best come hell or high water?

The hardcore crowd will always tell you they’re going to play whatever spec happens to be performing the best at a given time. At the moment, that spec is not Beast Mastery, and that’s why many players look down on it.

No matter how you cut it, Beast Mastery cannot match Marksmanship or Survival right now, all else being equal.

The Casual Crowd

The casual crowd, on the other hand, tends to be populated with more “spec loyalists” who don’t sway with the breeze. They play the spec that gives them the most personal enjoyment, and try to excel at whatever that spec may be in order to try to close the gap between their chosen spec and the “top” spec.

The debate is not about how dedicated or skilled a player may be. The debate is not a value statement about whether a spec is good or bad or a player is good or bad based on their choice of spec.

The debate is simply about what separates casuals from hardcores: priorities.

Is It Okay to be Beast Mastery?

The answer is yes.

It’s perfectly okay to play whatever spec you want. It’s your $15 every month, you can tap dance on Kel’Thuzzad’s corpse if that’s what makes you happy.

The issue is really: your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.

When your choice of spec starts impacting other players, that’s when they feel they have a right to weigh in on the subject. And, to a point, they do have that right. The deciding factor in whether or not another player has a right to tell you how they think you should be spec’d comes down to the level of involvement.

If your game-play and the game-play of another player are deeply entwined, as they would be for hardcore guilds raiding several hours per night multiple nights per week, your choice of spec stops impacting solely your own experience in-game and starts affecting the experience of others in-game as well. As a result, other players should be allowed to have a say in the matter, either by making suggestions for your spec or by choosing to bench you in favor of someone else who is willing to be more accommodating.

For casual players whose choices have very little impact on the game-play experiences of others, the rights of other players to have a say in your decision making is significantly reduced.

What this all really boils down to is that you, as an individual, need to make a choice. Are you casual or hardcore? And you need to come to terms with the limitations placed on either choice. That choice is not a reflection of your skill or dedication to the game, but what you enjoy most about the game.

Hardcore players make sacrifices in that they’re extremely limited in the gear or talents they’re allowed to use. Casual players make sacrifices in the content they’re allowed to experience. However, those sacrifices offer other opportunities. Hardcore players get to experience more content in exchange for limited personal freedom. Casuals, on the other hand, get to experience nearly unlimited personal freedom in exchange for seeing less content. You need to decide which is more important to you: access to content, or personal freedom.

There is no “right” answer. There is no “right” spec. There is no “right” way to play the game. It all comes down to what you enjoy most. Your choices aren’t a reflection of your skill but of your personal preferences. However, you do need to accept the fact that whatever choices you make, there are benefits and sacrifices that come as a result. Whether you’re hardcore, casual or somewhere in between.

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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10-Man (Hard Mode)

The Lower Spire

• 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
• Protector’s Mark of Sanctification – 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 (Hard Mode)

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

• Carapace of Forgotten Kings – Festergut
• Nerub’ar Stalker’s Cord – Festergut
• Distant Land – Festergut
• Dual-Bladed Pauldrons – 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

And that covers the hard mode loot as we currently know it!

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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10-Man (Normal)

The Lower Spire

• 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:

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

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)

• Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Handguards
• Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Headpiece
• Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Legguards
• Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Spaulders
• Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Tunic

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

• (Heroic) Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Handguards
• (Heroic) Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Headpiece
• (Heroic) Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Legguards
• (Heroic) Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Spaulders
• (Heroic) Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Tunic

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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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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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.

1. 2/2 Cobra Reflexes – While you do sacrifice a bit of short-term damage with this talent, the long-term benefits outweigh the loss.
2. 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. 3/3 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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!)
8. 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!)
9. 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.

1. 3/3 Great Stamina – A scaling increase to your pet’s health that will increase as you level.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Thunderstomp – This talent is a must for Hunters that intend to AoE grind, as it helps your pet establish threat on multiple targets simultaneously.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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!)
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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. 3/3 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.
4. 3/3 Culling the Herd – Another talent shared with Ferocity pets. (See above.)
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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!

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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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!

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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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.

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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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!

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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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.

1. 5/5 Endurance Training – This is a talent you won’t need or want at the level cap, but it does help while leveling
2. 3/3 Thick Hide – Again, this is one you won’t want at the level cap, but it’s handy for leveling
3. 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
4. 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. 5/5 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
6. 5/5 Ferocity – Similar to Unleashed Fury, this talent provides a much-needed buff to pet damage
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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)
10. 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
11. Bestial Wrath – This talent should need no introduction; it’s a corner-stone of every BM build, and there’s a reason for it
12. 3/3 Ferocious Inspiration – You’ve buffed your pet’s damage, now it’s time to buff your own (and your groupmates’)
13. 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
14. 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
15. The Beast Within – Like Bestial Wrath, this talent is a must for any BM build
16. 3/3 Cobra Strikes – Guaranteed crits for your pet definitely helps boost your total damage output
17. 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
18. 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)
19. 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.

1. 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
2. 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
3. 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!)
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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…)
8. 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
9. 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
10. 3/3 Ranged Weapon Specialization – What’s not to like about increased damage for your ranged weapons?
11. 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
12. 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
13. 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
14. 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
15. 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
16. 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
17. 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
18. 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.
19. 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
20. 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.

1. 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. 2/2 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. 3/3 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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
10. 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
11. 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
12. 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)
13. 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
14. 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!)
15. 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
16. 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
17. 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
18. 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
19. 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!

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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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:

• Delicate Cardinal Ruby or Delicate Scarlet Ruby
• Deadly Ametrine or Deadly Monarch Topaz
• Glinting Ametrine or Glinting Monarch Topaz
• Shifting Dreadstone or Shifting Twilight Opal

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.

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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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.

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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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:

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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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.

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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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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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:

1. Mutilate Rogue – 10,853 DPS
2. Arcane Mage – 10,526 DPS
3. Unholy DK – 10,491 DPS
4. Marksmanship Hunter – 9,601 DPS
5. Affliction Warlock – 9,085 DPS
6. 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!

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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