The Toxnation

Transmogrifabricantankerousion!

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 02:05:00 +0000

...That's not a real word. Transmogrification is though! And is exciting news! I can cover up ugly pieces of gear that don't match with good looking pieces of gear that don't match! I get to bust out the good old Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes and Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle! But crap! I'm gonna have to gather the stuff to make the shoulders again, 'cause I sold them for EVER ago. I'm in the middle of compiling a good looking set to wear on a regular basis. And no matter what happens, that gun will be in it. Best. Gun. Ever.

Aside: You know how long ago that I posted the "One down" thing? Yeah, I've seen that same binding drop for Tox at least 4 times now. And the other one has dropped for Franny. And they both dropped on the same night for the wrong toons....I was peeved to say the least. It's now become a race between the two to acquire the second binding. I have a gut-wrenching feeling that Franny'll get 'em first, and that irks me to no end. Oh, and Q's gotten both of them when running solo. And she can't use them. So. Annoying. And we have yet to have anyone in the guild see an eye drop from Raggy.

Okay, other stuff. So, fun fact, Fann (who was a good friend of mine back in the BC days) is back! 3 year hiatus? Sure. Was she still on my friends list? Yes. Yes she was. And is. And is now in my guild and prospering. I think. Lemme double check, I haven't actually been on in a while, something about my bank and visa screwing something up yadda yadda and my subscription expired during that time, so yeah, fun times. Anyways, Fann's back! Yay! And I gave her bunches of stuff! And she thinks she owes me something or some crap like that, but she totally doesn't 'cause it's just what I do for friends! Yay!

So yeah, winning, friends back, MC still hates us, we've been downing stuff in Firelands, I was actually in on our two first kills (which is shocking, 'cause I never get first kills), I'm an occifer again, other good stuff. Still the Designated Driver, and I think I should probably say hello in vent or something...I'm gonna go do that to make sure that they know I'm not dead.

Anyways, that's pretty much all I have to say,

Cheers,
~Tox

One down...

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:44:00 +0000

...and one more to go. Left Binding, Check. Enchanted Elementium x10, check. Essence of the Firelord, guaranteed drop, so essentially check. Right binding? No, not yet.

Well, the first one only took 8 months-ish, not including any hiatuses, hopefully the next one will show up faster. We may have discovered a secret to getting things you want to drop (highly unlikely though), we went in with like 14 guildies (we normally go either duo or solo) and we got like 3 patterns to drop (one which we've been for as long as we have legendary drops), one of my bindings, and a sulfuron ingot for which to make another sulfuron hammer for whoever else may want to try for The Hand of Ragnaros. Plus it took all of half an hour to finish, we got a bunch of old school guild achievements that night.

I should really record our drunken raid nights one of these days...And no matter what it is that we're doing I always end up leading the charge. If I haven't referred to it before, I'm what we call the "Blue Square." Basically, any time I get the blue square I'm suddenly the one that everyone's following around the raid, doesn't even matter what it is or if I've got any idea where I am (which is next to impossible currently, aside from current content that I haven't gone into yet). Either way, that's one of the main reasons why I run the Drunken Raid Nights. I know where I'm going and I know most of the fights.

Different note: We're FINALLY on the brink of actually finishing Ulduar, and killing Algalon, so that's awesome. I've wanted to kill Algalon ever since I heard about him, and this song just amplifies that want more. Plus, dwarves are my friend, being one myself and all. Plus we may go in and get the meta-achievement for the rusted proto-drake too! That'd be awesome, I'm currently 1 mount away from my Blue Dragonhawk. There's a few things I'm sorta half aiming for to finish it off, but the Rusted Protodrake would be up there for sure.

Aaaany way, not to brag or anything, but even without being able to raid I already out-gear heroics, am hit capped (~962 rating, for those who care), and being that SV is still currently OP, I'm pulling top numbers on nearly every fight. Yeah, alright, go me, I'm awesome...yeah, not hard to "be awesome" when your class is currently overtuned, it's getting tweaked in the PTR currently, nerf to SV, buff to the other two, I'll probably stay SV for raiding, but I may use BM more for solo stuff. Doing some other tweaking things, like autoshot on the run, so chances are it won't go down that much, and I can constantly be on the move if need be.

Anyways, best of luck to me and Q on our Legendary hunts, only 2 more drops needed and our guild'll have 2 legendaries.

We are Legendary!

So You Want to be Heroic SV, eh?

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:24:00 +0000

Well then it's time for a little rundown of how to spec properly to perform admirably and kill things efficiently. But not only that, we currently need CC in pretty much every heroic and we just happen to have a CC that's pretty much universal. I'll go over that post spec development.

Here's what I have yet to actually gotten around to changing my talents to but I'm pretty sure would prove the most beneficial to you: 0/9/32 aka:

You'll notice that there are some fun little things like Trap Mastery and Survival Tactics and some may be wondering "WTF, where's teh pure deeps?" Well that's wrong of you to think. Bad. Bad person. No cookie for you. Plus if you look at it the only other really viable options there are Hunter vs. Wild and Point of No Escape. But for very valid reasons, which I'll discuss after the rest of the spec breakdown, Trap Mastery and Survival Tactics are your best bets.

Tier by Tier Breakdown

Tier 1: 3/3 Pathing, 2/2 Improved Serpent Sting

SV is now the perma-fast spec. Crazy, I know, BM got booted out of that spot when it lost Serpent's Swiftness. Pathing helps with that, and haste is your best friend now that most of our abilities trigger only a 1 second GCD. Well maybe not BEST friend, but definitely a great companion. Improved serpent sting is pretty much raw damage increase hidden in neat little side effects. No strict % increase damage, but it does initial damage and has a higher crit chance, both of which prove very useful.

Tier 2: 2/2 Survival Tactics, 3/3 Trap Mastery

I may have mentioned something about CC earlier. These are big ones to make sure you can actually do it. Trap mastery jacks up your freezing time to 1 minute and 18 seconds, (1.3 minutes), and Survival Tactics reduces the chance it's resisted. That along with being appropriately hit capped should ensure that your trap (if placed properly) works every time. The other side effects are nice, and trap mastery does improve overall damage done, but I like it for the CC enhancing personally.

Tier 3: 3/3 Thrill of the Hunt, 2/2 Lock and Load

Focus regen for our 2 major shots? Yes please! And LnL is an absolute must as SV, plus if you're freezing stuff you get it to proc immediately, killing mobs faster, meaning less worry for the tank and healer.

Tier 4: 3/3 Resourcefulness, 2/2 T.N.T.

Faster traps and Black Arrow is always a good thing, especially if you miss seeing and invisible wall behind you and you launch your trap onto it so then it's just floating there. Stupid invisible walls. And T.N.T. makes your lock and load proc from doing damage a couple different ways (both having proved their usefulness to me in heroics fairly recently).

Tier 5: 2/2 Toxicology, Wyvern Sting, 2/2 Noxious Stings, Hunting Party

So looks like we took everything this tier had to offer. That's 'cause they're all sweet. Toxicology doubles crit damage from Serpent Sting and Black Arrow. Wyvern Sting...well that's actually more mandatory than awesome, but It's definitely proven useful when tanks don't realize that mages can't sheep dragonkin. Noxious Stings is damage improvement while Serpent Sting is up (you may notice a theme here...) and Hunting Party is physical haste to you and your party, and like I said before Haste is a great companion.

Tier 6: 3/3 Sniper Training, 2/2 Serpent Spread

Hunters do their optimal DPS while standing still, Sniper Training utilizes that to enhance your damage potential. Serpent Spread, while it may look somewhat bothersome and not worth it, is probably one of my favorite talents. You know those times when there's just a craptonne of little mobs and everyone's AoE does like zero damage?*cough*whelps*cough* Well the mechanic behind serpent spread negates that problem (to a degree, your multishot will still do very little damage). It applies serpent sting at half its normal duration but otherwise the same as your regular one to everything that multishot hits. It's not treated like an AoE, it's treated like I individually targeted each of them and applied the DoT. That mixed in with Improved Serpent Sting means you can do the most AoE damage on massive groups out of any class/spec. And even on small groups it's still very useful, and coupled with Trap Launcher + Explosive Trap, you've got yourself entirely viable AoE now that we don't have Volley.

Tier 7: The Final Tier, Black Arrow

It's pretty much the same as it's always been. 15 second uptime, does damage, increases damage done, chance to proc Lock and Load. Still useful and something you shouldn't be without.

Now that we've got SV fleshed out nicely, where do we go from here?

I'll tell you where, the MM tree. The first two tiers of BM just don't have anything very worthwhile as an SV hunter.

MM tier 1: 2/2 Go For the Throat, 3/3 Efficiency

It's always nice to have your pet do more damage, focus regen for your pet is gonna be more useful to you than Rapid Killing is. Efficiency is kind of a no-brainer. Lower costing Explosive and Arcane shots? Yeah, definitely a good thing.

MM tier 2: 2/2 Sic 'em!, 3/3 Careful Aim

More pet damaging skeels! And Careful Aim is a pretty potent skill for what is the starting equivalent of the Killshot health range. Actually, I'm kinda torn between 2/2 Sic 'Em! and 2/3 One with Nature, though the focus regen of AotF is only when you take melee damage, so it's not really that great for PvE.

SPEC OVER, DISCUSSION BEGIN!

Alright, so spec's been hashed out. Shot Priority time, goes like this:

Kill Shot > Black Arrow > Explosive Shot > Arcane Shot > Serpent Sting > Cobra Shot

That's the general priority, but Focus conservation comes into play quite majorly when attempting to optimize damage output. Basically what that comes down to is this: You're Explosive Shot has only got 1/4 of its CD left, and you've got enough time for either an Arcane Shot or a Cobra Shot, but not enough focus to use both Arcane Shot then Explosive Shot. What do you do?

Answer: Cobra Shot. Focus regen, and Explosive Shot is undoubtedly a higher priority than Arcane Shot. Basically, you only ever want to use Arcane shot when you've got an excess of Focus, which does happen every now and again, but more often than not you're going to rely more on Cobra Shot for those times when your major 2 shots are on CD. Plus Cobra Shot increases the duration of Serpent sting, so you rarely ever have to re-apply it on boss fights, unless there's big adds that need killing. Which happens.

Mkay, shot priority's done...what's next...CCing I guess.

Trap Launcher + Freezing Trap. If the tank likes you, he'll let you pull with it. If he doesn't, well then your attempts to freeze stuff have to be placed in a spot where the mob will run over/near. And if no one else has viable CC, you do technically have 2 CCing skills. Just make sure that the Sleeping one is higher on the kill order than the frozen mob.

Pet options, there are so many of them! It comes down to what buff they'll provide and group composition a lot of the time, so if you've got a dedicated group of people you run with, you can cater to it and support the team. But if you don't want to have to worry about that and are just using the dungeon finder a lot, go with something like a Wolf, Cat or Raptor. I like using a wolf, increased crit chance is always nice, especially for SV hunters (though it doesn't stack with Leader of the Pack).

And with that I think I've covered just about everything I need to for Cataclysm Heroic SV huntering basics (spec and priority, I'm still not entirely certain about secondary stat importance). Most of it will apply to raiding too, so this should carry over into it nicely.

Cheers,

~Tox

Tox & Q Adventures: Molten Core

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:37:00 +0000

Ragnaros at 80+ 101:

Hit 'em hard, Hit 'em fast. Have either a tank or a healer with you.

That being said, I think I could actually solo Ragnaros currently, just not a bunch of the bosses before him. Trust me, I've tried. At 85 I'll probably be able to pull it off though.

Cheers

~Tox

Thoughts on things and stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Focus, totally OP in short fights where I can just blast Bestial Wrath right off the bat. I think I pulled 11k soloing old dungeons, no buffs, arcane shot spamming (with a side of kill command) on those short fights. Yeah, just BOOM, you be dead sucka. Though I would love to get my Boomstick back.

Ferocity Pets, they just WRECK mobs. Especially as BM. I've been running around with a tenacity pet for so long that I forgot how much damage they actually dish out. 12k kill command crit by Rage (Loq, spirit beast), without the proc or Bestial Wrath going. The only time I've gotten that with Bjarn (bear pet) was when he had ALL his procs/buffs going. Man, BM is awesome again and I'm loving it. Plus the new skeels we have to work with (Focused Fire, the new form of Kill Command, and Fervor), it's a lot less "spam steady shot" than it was in days long past, and much more interesting. Good times, I'm loving the BM right now

On that note, I'm an achievement ho. And keeping in mind that I can't really raid currently and missed out on a lot in the early era of 80s (Naxx and Ulduar) along with the "I don't really PvP, like ever." thing, I think I'm doing rather well. I'm at, what, 7160 points? That's pretty decent, I remember when I was just shy of 3k. That was a long time ago...

I'm at 90 mounts, hoping for 5 more from old dungeons/raids I'm soloing (keyword: hoping), maybe some from the Argent Crusade thing as there's 7 more I can get from there, so we'll see, I'd like to get the 100 pre-cata, but that's kinda unlikely. Got my Wintersaber rep done. Only 2 outlands reps I'm not exalted with (excluding the scryers, I'm not THAT crazy...Q is though) and they're both endgame 25man raid reps. Same deal with Vanilla reps, all I've got left are the Brood and the Waterlords as far as 'cheevos goes. But dangit, waterlords is slow once you get revered. I should still get the Goblin Towns to exalted, that'll put me over the 40mark with some give and take to switch my Oracles rep to Frenzyheart and get those achievements.

Still working on Thunderfury, guild Legendary Achievement would be nice to have... (Which also means I want Thoridal...and the Warglaives on my Rogue....and heck, Sulfuras on my DK, but those ones probably won't happen, whereas I'm actively grinding for Thunderfury)

Gaaah, 1 tabard away from my Tabard of the Achiever! And I'd have it already if I had the honor for it! *sigh* well, guess I'll just grind something out sometimes soon...(which I'm actually doing quite actively. Yay grinds? Sure, we'll go with that.)

And I know I've said this before, but Vanq is back, again! He's got a shiny new computer to boot! I'm glad he's not cooped up in the middle of nowhere again, it's always good to have him around. Everybody loves Vanquishor.

Anyways, enough chit-chat, time to find me some mounts...hopefully.

Cheers,

~Tox

Schoooool. It deters my WoW.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:51:00 +0000

Scholastic pursuits, they're good, I likes them. And so far so good, Calculus is slowly coming back to me, Chem and Physics seem easy enough for the time being, Spanish and Psyche seem to be rather cake-walkish.

As such, I have a lot of homework. And a lot of "Oh crap, I forgot how to do " Which is kinda annoying, and like as soon as I re-learn the material it's easy enough.

Anyways, as for playing me some World of Warcraft, well, that doesn't like to happen. I've gotten on a couple times and shown my face to the people that apparently miss me. But as far as getting anything done, that much eludes me (in game anyway). No MC runs, which means no Thunderfury (yet, I'll get you dagnabit.), no nothing, not even brewfest which is, as a dwarf, the most festive time in WoW for me. Granted, I got all that done last year with Tox, so I don`t really care but I wouldn't complain about getting a shiny mount.

But yeah, no raids, no Shadow's Edge, no Epeening, no manipulating the AH in my favor, none of that. ./sad.

At least I'm showing commitment to my school. That's definitely a good thing.

Random note: I've dabbled on the PTR a bit, and Focus instead of mana really throws me off my game currently. Plus they got rid of like all the CDs that used to determine my shot "rotation" (again, I prefer priority...currently) in at least my Beast Master spec. Haven't really checked out the SV stuff. But ALL OF THAT PALES IN COMPARISON!

Twenty. Five. Stable. Slots.

The possibilities, Imagine them. Keep imagining....keep going......aaaaaaand.....Stop! Did you see it? Did you see all the potential?! SO MUCH! Seriously. I'm gonna have sooooo many pets. No longer will I be limited to just 5, none of which are replaceable. (Devilsaur, Spirit Beast, Wolf, Hydra (unobtainable), and a Rare Bird (parrot)). With 20 additional slots, I can actually get a bear! Though I think they got rid of swipe, which saddens me. They gave it a demo shout though, which may work, but I think I'd prefer the swipe for my soloing efforts. And I'll get Strife back! You know, the rarely seen but gorgeous black wind serpent that I got out of ZG at 70? Yeah, that one, He's gonna make a comeback.

Oh, and they got rid of Volley, but we get Trap Launcher + Explosive Trap to make up for it? Yeah, sure, I'll go with that. Sounds like fun.

I'm gonna miss being the only really physical DPS that needs Intellect (Melee shammys rely heavily on elemental attacks more than their physical damage, I don't consider them truly "physical"), making Hunters the smartest of the physical damage dealers. If I were an RPer I may have qualm with that. But I'm not, so it just kinda saddens me.

But yeah, overall I think Focus is an improvement, if only to my ability to solo stuff. No more annoying mana-burning bosses to kill me that way. I'm lookin' at YOU Baron Geddon. I will solo you yet. *shakes fist*

Alright, rambling done, I may test some more stuff on the PTR, but school will probably pop up before then.

Cheers Folks,
~Tox

Know what sucks?

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:25:00 +0000

How apparently my guild goes through a major split approximately once a year. And it happened yesterday. Uuuuugh. I'm the only one left technically classified as an officer. GM and sub GM are still there though. But frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm keeping a promise I made ages ago I'd probably be in the new guild that was formed from the split. And I know for a fact that everyone in it would have me in a heartbeat.

On the upside, it may very well be a good way to keep me from poorly prioritizing once school starts up, and possibly do other things like socialize. We'll see, but chances are high that I'll be playing less.

Also: Ugh, drama, ugh. *sigh* I hope that Lisa's (GM) not being manipulated by the people who re-joined the guild after the split last night....though there's definitely a possibility of that. Either way, I'll do my best to help her out and all that jazz.

Cheers,

~Tox

edit: redundancy fixed.

RL blogs hey?

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:55:00 +0000

So I did this whole "start a RL blog" thing. And I may or may not have appropriately named it "Indiscernible Ramblings" 'cause, well, they're probably gonna be me rambling a bunch. Carrie, for some reason I'm expecting that you'll visit it. Pass the word around if anyone else remembers me. I've lost a sizeable chunk of my blogroll and don't have connetions anymore.

Oh yeah, WoW, right. Guild's doing 10man Hardmode ICC now. Fun times. Mage is level 60, I'm probably gonna cap her at 70 and force my guild to run stuff like Sunwell and BT in an effort to gear her out her arse for that level. (level 70 mage gear looks better than the current stuff, according to me). Grinding Wintersaber rep, finished Zandalar last night, still looking for legendary drops in MC with Q, all in all it's going over rather okay.

Mkay, well, I'll probably have more to say on my other blog. Cheers.

~Tox

Heh, I'm funny.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 04:03:00 +0000

So I went back and read some of my old posts. Man, I'm hilarious. So funny...so very funny indeed. How do I come up with those things? Like the warning to anyone who stole my name. And the all around randomness. And the lots of other stuff. I find myself highly amusing. And the slight BRK worshiping. It was a phase, mkay? One that probably could have persisted had he not retired for entirely logical and understandable reasons that I admire. He taught me almost everything I know about huntering, or at least got me started down the path to being a good hunter. And the jump shot. He also basically got me to embrace my gun-loving dwarfisms. huh, apparently dwarfisms is a word. Neato. And he was great at story telling, which is a skill I lack for the most part. I can do it, it just takes me a lot longer to get everything worked out in my head than it does for those natural born story tellers.

Random note: My academic strengths lie heavily in the maths and sciences, though I've got a weird flare for drawing and am innately pulled into music. (music and math go hand in hand though.) I just hate literature and its ilk. Totally bad at finding any depth or meaning or foreshadowing or, like, anything that people who are good at it find in books. But I can spew out random trivial facts like there's no tomorrow.

Also: kinda new theme (color changes) and a new banner that took all of 5 minutes to whip together on my end. I stake no claim in being able to draw like that, I had it commissioned.

Side note: I kinda like how I separate the majority of my posts and ramblings into "notes" with the "side note:" and "random note:" and "also:" things, gives it a twist I don't remember seeing in blogs, but seeing as how I have entirely neglected reading just about any blog for like two years, I have no idea if anyone else does it.

Anyways, I'm not sure what my intentions are/were for doing this. Possibly killing time, possibly distracting myself. I'll try to figure out what I was doing prior. Cheers Asara.

...I'm fairly confident that you're the only one that reads my blog. If I'm wrong, please inform me those of you who aren't Asara. Comment or something.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Survival Hunter Raiding 101

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:13:00 +0000

Yeah...informative post....more for my guildies who are up and coming hunter alts. They said they want "to learn from the master." And who am I to deny their request? Okay, not master, but definitely best SV hunter in guild, by a lot. The other high end raiding hunters are MM.

Anyways, breakitdown!

BASICS:

Primary Stat for Survival hunters is Agility. This is an undeniable fact, we receive a greater bonus from agility than the other hunters and one of our major procs is based and scales with it. Most SV hunters stack it like crazy ignoring slot bonuses and the like. However, I'm a sucker for gem bonuses, and due to a certain talent, blue slots aren't useless for we of the SV. 15 stamina is 5 ranged attack power and increased survivability, pure win in my books.

Shot Priority:

It's not a rotation, it's a priority. This is the one most commonly informed to people who are just looking up a quick rundown on the interwebs.

Quick rendition, Rapid Fire -> Kill Shot -> Explosive Shot -> Black Arrow -> Aimed Shot* -> Serpent Sting -> Steady Shot.

I know, Rapid fire's not a shot. And frankly, that one's dependant on the fight. If you know for a fact that you're going to need high burst at a specific time, save it for then (Twins in ToC come to mind...)

Kill Shot is always your highest priority, but for the majority of the every fight it's not useable.'

Explosive shot should, ideally, deal the majority of your damage. Auto-shot's normally a close second though.

Black Arrow, so useful. Increases damage dealt, can proc Lock and Load, deals shadow damage, and just all around goodness.

**Note: I tend to get black arrow up before my first barrage of Explosive shots, due to the damage increase. Frankly, if I have booth of them off CD, I'm gonna toss up black arrow before Explosive Shot.

*Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot. If you took the talents in the MM tree to get Aimed shot, use that over Multi-shot in single-target fights. Otherwise, they're both decent physical damage and something to keep you from spamming Steady Shot.

Serpent sting should be up at nearly all times, the only exception being at the beginning of the fight when you're unloading all your other shots.

Steady shot is your go-to when everything else is on CD. Not something you want to constantly be spamming, but definitely a good (and the only) filler when you've got nothing else.

Tips and Tricks:

One of the things I see new SV hunters screwing up on is the weaving of shots with a Lock and Load proc. Here's what I mean by "weaving shots." Basically, when you've got your L&L proc, you can launch 3 explosive shots in a row. This is a bad idea. Very bad. The length of time that it takes for it to tick down and utilize all its killing power is slightly greater than that of the GCD, meaning you cut it off prematurely. As such, if you just launch 3 in a row, you're gonna lose at least 2 ticks of your explosive shot, and if your gear is anywhere near mine, that could be anywhere from 6k-18k damage your missing out, depending on other procs, the fight, and what shots you've recently launched.

Here's what you do about it.

A) Make sure you've got some way to know your L&L is proc'd, I use powerauras, but if you pay attention it's got a very obvious animation, and battle text tends to tell you when you get buffs mid-fight.

B) After the first explosive shot, fire a different type of shot. I don't really care what, but it's better than wasting a GCD waiting for the explosive shot to tick down. Remember: if all else fails, steady shot. Oh, though you may want to check to see where your serpent sting's at, and if it's still got a bunch of time ignore than and use steady shot instead.

C) Explosive shot again! And then repeat part B, though you probably want to use a different shot.

D) Last explosive shot, now continue on with your shot priority until your next Lock and Load proc, rinse and repeat.

(the term weaving comes from how you go from one shot to another back to the first and so on, making sure that everything comes out even and clean, and basically how you throw in another shot in between the explosives to maximize awesomeness.)

Mkay, I think that wraps up most of what you need to know to get started as a SV hunter raiding. Naturally, raid awareness and quick reflexes are always an integral part of your raiding experience, but that should go without saying.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Things and stuff, Alphabetized Edition.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:31:00 +0000

A) Arthas = Dead. Kingslayer = Me. Aaaah, yes, the triumph is complete. Arthas slain, and I've got the title to prove it.

B) Blog. If I'm gonna blog more, which now that I've got some more spare time and a different, more better job I'll actually be able to if I want to (we'll see what happens), then I'm very inclined to redo my banner. I mean, look at that thing, it's dated. Plus we're no longer recruiting 'cause The Toxnation is now just my bank guild.

C) Cool Stuff. So I went ahead and got myself a tablet to better enhance my drawings electronically, and while it'll totally work and so far has quite nicely, it really takes some getting used to, mostly 'cause I'm not gonna spend the stupid amounts of money to get one that's got a screen built into it and as such not looking directly where my pencil/pen/whatever is placed throws me off. But hey, I got it yesterday, it's gonna take me longer than an hour or so of fiddling around to really get the hang of it. Kinda like Mouse Turning after being a keyboard turner for ages. You can do it, but it feels weird and at first it's really awkward, but you get used to it and you find that it actually improves your skills over time.

D) Drama, I hates it.

E) Elitist, which I can be sometimes, but more often than not (even though I'm up there as far as hunters who know their crap in my guild) I doubt that I'm actually good enough to call myself an Elitist Jerk. The helping people out who I don't even know and not being super judgemental helps reduce the jerkiness.

F) Finally. Finally downed him (arthas). Man, was he a jerk....though my random totally unintended two-to-three week hiatus that happened (finishing up last job + Monster Hunter Tri) probably didn't help the guild out in the whole "trying to down him" thing, but they've got other very competent hunters, I can't be the best...can I? (yes I can, and I like to think I am sometimes, makes me feel good to know that I can pass on what I know to others and get them to better themselves...as far as huntering goes.)

G) Grinding rep, Currently working on the Wintersaber Trainers, that's a niffty mount. Added bonus of Rugged Leather selling very well currently and I'm a skinner.

H) Hot. Stupid living in a desert (only technically, I'm in a city on 3 lakes), messes with my computer and forces the fan to run much louder than normal.

I) Intellect. Will no longer be necessary for hunters. Like, WTF? They're turning us into long range rogues. Oh well, frankly having to manage mana kinda stunk, and focus makes sense for hunters to use. Plus, have you SEEN Aspect of the Fox? That's gonna make movement fights soooo much better. Auto-shot while running = Win. (I know, I know, they'll probably nerf it or remove it sometime soon, but whatever, it's in there now.)

J) Just found out that I actually will be going back to school in the fall. That's quite a relief, I was rather worried about it for a while there. And for anyone who pays any attention to this site (which is probably very few if anyone[I know that you still pay attention every now and again Asara]) my intentions of heading through post secondary are to eventually wind up being a Professor. Lofty goals, but the only real ones I've ever had for my life, I'm gonna do it.

K) Kill Shot, still awesome, especially the Blood Queen fight + Crit + Black Arrow + Serpent Sting (talented, SV FTW) + ICC buff. I don't know my highest, but it's something kind of ridiculous. like 75k, maybe more. Can't remember....

L) I know I had something for L....and really, it's why I kept going on about stuff that didn't really matter....Hrmmm...I'll get back to it. Oh! I remember. LEGENDARY. Well, that's what I'm aiming for. Stupid very low drop rates and we wanting to drag a healer along to MC...Thunderfury, you shall be MINE!!! Oh, and thoridal would be neat too, but we actually need like a full group for that.

M) Misdirection, definitely something that all hunters that have it should use, like all the time. Especially if the tanks they've got in the LK fight are doing crazy things that involve the warrior intervening the pally for the soul reapers and knocking off large chunks of threat. Yeah...not so great, I definitely died that time, and I know for certain I was trying to kill vile spirits when Arthas attacked me. Feign Death is also a good idea.

N) Now, why did I start doing this whole alphabetized thing anyway? I mean, did I actually think that I'd have something for every letter of the alphabet? I know pretty much for certain that I didn't have that much at the beginning, but I'm pretty good at BSing it so we'll see where I head from here.

O) One Shot. Did I mention that we one-shot Arthas for my kill? Aaaah, sweet sweet vengeance.

P) Pondering. That's what I'm doing right now, as to what I should do post blogging...

Q) ...crap, this one's hard...and the one that immediately pops into my head is Quiyla, the lady I run MC with in order to get legendaries. And she's a druid, who can't use swords, where I'm a hunter, who can't use maces, so we're going for different legendaries. She's also weirdly in sync with how I think...or maybe I'm the one in sync with her...dunno, either way, she's not around to see this and I don't think she knows my blog's site address.

R) Reading. Books and stuff, I kinda have recently obsessed myself with Lore, and I'm in the middle of reading a bunch of the WoW books. And hey, they're not bad reads, plus you find out more about the history and the stories that are currently playing out from them, it's kinda cool.

S) Seriously, Why did I decide to do this? Ah well, I'm at S, let's just finish it, though some of the letters coming up may prove problematic.

T) Tanking. Heh, I got the tank gun to play around with. And 'cause it's not selling it went to Offspec roll (we normally go mainspec then bank for BoEs, but we got one last week that hasn't sold) and due to my more frequent tanking than anyone else I got it and can play around with it. Certain spreadsheets have told me it's a better option for me than Zod's. I'll have to find out for myself, 'cause I'm a hands-on kind of guy.

U) Undying. Dangit Orph! We were so close....and we were yelling at you! How could you stand in that void zone on Kel'thuzad! We were like 20% away from getting that title! I know, I know, you feel terrible, and yes, you're sorry. I get it, I really do. It just pains me that none of us got it, including yourself, because of one small crash in your train of thought. Don't worry, we still want you around.

V) Verve-Bladefist represent! We're doing pretty well for ourselves, though we've suddenly found ourselves lacking healers, which proves problematic for our 25 man attempts. Being a casual raiding guild, it's not easy to get 25 people together more than once a week, and considering that we didn't even do that this week and we still downed the face-roll bosses in there, I'd have to say that the buff definitely helps. But yeah, could use some more peeps. I know, it's summer, lots of people not around and all that crap.

W) Winterspring, totally my hearth currently. Cheater Tabard for the win. Definitely helps with the grinding of rep with the Wintersaber Trainers.

X) Xavius, he's one nasty dude. If you don't know who he is, he was Queen Azshara's advisor up until he was turned into a tree during the War of the Ancients, then *cough*spoiler*cough* we find him returned as the Nightmare Lord in the book Stormrage, and the reason why Malfurion hasn't been around in WoW to date. Chances are WoWwiki has more information on him.

(Also: that was just a ploy to get X covered)

Y) Yeah...these are getting rather weak of me...I should really wrap it up.

Z) Zandalar? I guess. Yeah, sure, why not, I'm kinda half grinding their rep too. Whatever

And with that, I bid thee farewell.

Good Hunting

~Tox

Tales of Roguedom: Professionalism

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Thu, 27 May 2010 05:58:00 +0000

One might say that I'm an intelligent and logical being, but intellect and logic would be wasted gifts without honor and loyalty. I like to think that I've an honorable rogue, I fight with dignity and give my respect where it is deserved. While I do stab people in the back, it is strictly due to obligations of loyalty to those in command, leading the charge against our enemies (and as we all know, rogues do it from behind). It's my job, and I do it with gusto.

But even one such as myself has his limits when dealing with asshattery. When someone comes around thinking that they're all that and trying to flaunt it in your face but they clearly don't know what they're talking about, that's when you step up your game and show them who's boss. Don't be blunt, they don't respond well to that. Don't insult them, that's taking the low road when clearly you are above them. Be tactful, be courteous, be polite.

It's a simple matter really, just do your job, and do it to the best of your ability. If they have any wits about them they'll notice that you're stepping up to the plate while they're still sitting on the bench. If they're on the more intelligent side of things they might even ask you for advice as to how to up their own game. If this is the case, take this chance to impart the wisdom of experience and improve the lives of that person and those around them. By doing so, you not only set an example of how to handle oneself professionally, but you may actually leave a good impression upon them. Do NOT rub it in their face, that's just rude and will always be taken poorly.

Being professional in while working with a group of random people will keep you in their good books (even if they don't prove themselves to be worthy of being in yours) and get you asked back for future projects. This is always a good thing. If you're in high demand, you can pick and choose with whom and where you work. If there is no demand for you then you're the one who has to beg and plead to be brought along, which just looks tacky and will rarely get you asked back, resulting in a downward cycle.

While rogues themselves are a dime a dozen, a skilled rogue is hard to come by and something to extraordinary to behold. Don't fall into a slump of "Oh, I'm good enough." Constantly try to improve yourself, strive for a higher goal, don't settle for anything less than your best effort. If you know you could have done better, you weren't doing your job properly.

Keep it classy, keep it professional, be someone that people want to have back.

In the shadows I dwell,

Dramthar

The Possibilities are Endless

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:17:00 +0000

Endless I tell you! For we are the ones for whom the world turns. The Heavens shall tremble before us, the earth shall pave the path beneath our feet!

But alas, we seek to bring about change that will soon be forgotten, the world and all its denizens having us fade from memory before....Holy crap, that is a big loud bee that just flew into my window. I guess the rain that just started falling is getting the bumble bees to look for cover.

Anyways, I don't know where I was going with that prior rambling, or even why I was rambling about it. But for those of you who remember me, you'll probably remember my tangential thought processes.

And I may or may not be blogging due to some infamous hunter starting up his old blog again for the cataclysm alpha. That and I've got like half an hour to kill before I've gotta head out for work and figured I might as well dust off the old blog.

I commissions a picture of Tox avec Wrath from Fyreuni over at Daily Quests and it turned out really well. I really like her style, and she's all awesome and such, what with the being in Canada and all that jazz.

I'm still doing the officer thing over in Verve, and apparently I'm the guild techy, or at least that's what the other officers decided without me. And the crazy thing is that they actually want me to be, and ask me my opinion on stuff. Not just the technical stuff, but all sorts of other things too. It's like I'm actually useful or something, which is crazy, I know. Or that my opinion counts for something and has valid backing and sound logic behind them. Which clearly can't be the case, as I've somehow managed to push all of Canada into South Dakota using my boat, which I ran over Orphée (French Canadian guildy) with, while he was wearing his sea lion costume, after pouring hot coffee on him and his children (also in sea lion costumes), while sinisterly twisting my moustache (which I don't actually have), after a rousing bout of boomkin killing, which keeps me quite svelte.

If you don't get that last part, don't worry, neither do I. Q and Raz just keep adding on to this messed up story of theirs that is basically just a way to abuse me with illogic as a way of getting back at me for unintentionally abusing people with logic. I swear I don't mean to! It just happens, the logic is just sooooo ingrained into my system that I can't not use it. I regularly hear "Dagnabit Tox, quite with all the sense making and stuff." Seriously can't help it, logic abounds within this crazy mind of mine.

Vantox is a leet effin' hunter, Top of the guild, second most OP according to guild lore (next only to Iacobus, our guild's Chuck Norris), and currently looks rather awesome in his fully matching Ahn'kahar Blood Hunter gear.

Dramthar is becoming creepy as all get-out with the collection of his geist-looking apparel. Seriously, ew. Decent deeps though, granted, he is a rogue.

François is once again a viable tank, so much so that our best warrior tank said to me the other day in VoA "Holy crap, Tox puts out a lot of threat, I'm not accustomed to this." The key is to spam Icy Touch.

Adeata is my latest project, she's a treebear. More tree than bear, and I've been picking up tips on being a half decent healer from Bell of 4Haelz and the guild forest. Yeah, it's a forest, and I'm helping it grow.

Okay, so Verve, my guild, is what you'd call a casual raiding guild. RL comes first, and we don't have the expectations that hardcore guilds do, just if you sign up, show up, and know what your class and role is supposed to do. If you don't, we're pretty helpful and willing to show you the ropes. Anyways, my team (we've got 2, currently trying to get the tanks for a third) is currently 10/12 in 10 man ICC, and we're doing it together, which makes it far more enjoyable and rewarding than going into a guild that's already downed and being carried through the last boss fights. We're currently working on Sindragosa, and last night before I got on and the rogue had major internet problems my 10 man team got her down to 7%. We've just about got her, and I'm stoked to see her die and experience the Lich King. And we've done it all together, and we're all quite determined to get them down, and that's just another reason why I love my guild.

Well, that's enough out of me.

Cheers

~Tox

Stuff, and more stuff.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:15:00 +0000

So yes, I'm still alive, as a few of you out there may have realized.

You know what the worst part about my lack of blogging is? It's 'cause I'm actually playing WoW in place of writing blog posts. That's right, I'm abusing the creative media of my blog more than I am the blog itself. Granted, I started a blog for it because I enjoyed the game enough to think that people might be inclined to find my rants and ravings about it amusing, potentially even insightful, so I guess it's not that bad after all.

Alright, let's get me up to speed. Tox is ICC worthy DPS and apparently one of the most sought after hunters in Verve, Dramthar actually looks like a legitimate rogue now (and due to the mutilate spec, surprisingly high DPS), François has decent gear to tank with and is working on his DPS set as well (the 3.3 changes to triumph badges from EVERYTHING helps a crap-tonne).

Theories:

Tox could quite potentially do more DPS as a Marksman hunter, but likes his coveted position as one of the best-derned Beast Master hunters on Bladefist, and still out DPS's the marksman hunters in his guild. Not that I'm bragging or anything...

Dram could, in all likelihood, go into ICC and perform admirably, and gain the ability to make me kick-arse arrows. That may happen in the future, but currently he's basically just a toon I use to farm Primordial Saronite. (Aside: I highly advise you get at least one or more toons to farm those for you, both for the selling potential and the crafting/recipe buying one)

Franny may make a better tank once I get him some evasion gear. Currently he's got too much of a defense rating and stamina focus, he needs to dodge and parry more, so until that time, I'm gonna keep running heroics on him as DPS. (Which also gives me time to farm saronite/titanium/eternals for titansteel/gems/ammo/whatever the crap else I want)

Story:

The wind was gliding softly through the frozen forest, the soft patter of paws and feet the only stark relief from the otherwise silent pines. Not alone, but with his most trusted companion the hunter sets out, in search of greater prey. A tuft of hair ethereal here and there, the occasional broken twig are all that he has to go on in this tireless search. After scanning the endless woods for a brief period, a slight nod is all that is needed to start his beast stalking what he now knows is close...

Quietly, ever so quietly, he closes in on his prey, his other half circling around to ambush it. A low whistle is let out, they both start moving in. Stopping, he draws his bow and nocks an arrow, taking aim and watching as his companion creeps ever closer. *Thwip* The arrow flies, its aim true, its trajectory perfect. With a flash of light, the beast attacks, arcane energy pulsing from within. The flurry of claws and fangs that follows is but a blur to all but the most experienced eye. Arrows continue to fly with similar ferocity and speed. They make short work of the poor dragonkin unfortunate enough to have wandered into their part of the woods.

"Now see what ya did there? Ye entirely mangled the scales, and we've been asked to gather as many as we could. Try not ta do that agin, alright?"

"Mreow..."

"Ah, dinnae worry about that 'un, there's plenty more where he came from. Now, hows about we sit down to a nice meal?"

"Preow!"

It's a simple camp, but that's what how they like it best. Wilderness surrounding them, the ever present light of the moon or stars, and a hearty meal to see them sleep well through the night. A nice, bright fire to give warmth and cook the food, a stump for him to sit on and some soft leaves for his pet. This is just what how they wanted to end their day.

"So zis is where I find you? Out 'ere in ze wilderness, feasting on ze fat of ze rhino?"

"Now tha's no way to greet an old friend, ye fiesty little frenchman. What are ye doin' around these parts?"

"He came to see what's been happening to all the messengers that the Kirin Tor have been sending out this way."

"Blast, ye sneaky rogue! Quit yer sneaking up on an old dwarf like that."

"I apologize for nothing, it's part of what I do. If you don't like it, deal with it."

"So...what, may I ask, are these messengers carrying that the blue dragonflight or scourge or whoever want so badly? It cannae be that important, can it? I mean, tha Kirin Tor mean well, but they're just a bunch o' mages that think they can control tha world. Now if it was from th'Ashen Verdict I could understand, but I highly doubt they'd have messengers running through Crystalsong, all things considered."

"And zat is why we 'ave to find ze messengers, so zat we can find out 'oo zese culprits are."

"Bah, the old goats probably just wanted ye to get out of there hair for a bit, ye pint-sized deathgnome."

"Either way, we're being paid surprisingly well for such a mission. You want in?"

"Ye can always count on me and Rage for a good hunt. Wadda ya say boy?"

"Rawr!"

"Looks like we're in. But let's get some shut-eye first, eh?"

"Alright, but we leave at ze first sign of ze light."

"If ye say so, 'til then, I sleep."

TBC'd.

Sign off:

Alright, that was cooler than expected. Sweet. I'll catch y'all later.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

iPod bloggin'

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:26:00 +0000

Soooooo.... Have I been posting, like, ever? Nope, didn't think so. I so it's either time to retire the blog or just start fresh. I'm leaning more towards the retirement end, but I know that I had at least a couple people who read and coresponded with me through this. So I'm gonna try posting every now and again. I assure nothing to no one, and chances are that I've been removed from most of the blogrolls I may have ever been on... Oh well.

I'm currently in a coffee shop, blogging from my iPod, drinking a strawberry tea latte, and basically just killing time. So here are some thoughts on raiding hunters while I wait.

Tox is currently one of the few remaining raiding BM hunters I know of. The other hunters in Verve love the BM spec, but they're either MM or SV. I,ve got decent gear, but a couple have better. And we all know that the BM hunters were heavily nerfed post naxx, and understandably so. They were out performing the other specs by a little too much. Currently, I'm not entirely sure what of the specs is most popular for raiding, but I can tell you that it's definitely not the beastmasters.

Here's the catch though, I regularly out perform the other hunters in the groups I'm in. I'm not sure why, it could be that I don't experience as much lag, I could have a more efficient shot rotation, or maybe I've just itemized my gear to match My spec more efficiently. Granted, my pet does more than 30% of my total damage (generally around 35-38%) and when we're both fully raid buffed we benefit much more greatly than individual hunters and their weak pets do. In groups that don't have many buffs to offer my performance can be significantly lower than what I expect of myself. That helps to solidify the pet-buff theory.

Also: with 3.3 looming around the corner, I am one heckuva happy BM hunter. new, epic, craftable ammo ( rogue engineer, he's still super handy... And does a surprisingly large amount of damage considering how much time I've put into him), new emblem trinket that will actually be good for a hit capped hunter, a 232 belt (and another trinket to upgrade that's 232 as well.), the edging quel'dalar, and AMAZING T10 bonuses. I'm totally stoked or this coming patch. You'll see me running the 10 man and downing arthas soon enough, but probably not the 25 due to time restraints at the same time that verve normally goes into the 25 man raids. I'll attempt to, chances are slim.

I think that's all for me tonight.

Good hunting,
~Tox

Ah, good old patch days...

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:26:00 +0000

First and foremost: I most certainly was not online when I was promoted, I didn't find out until an hour later that Q had only *thought* I logged out when I hadn't even been logged in, when it was really someone else entirely that has a similar name to my Dramthar.

I foresee a lot of druid playing in my future, and all my alts getting mounts, which could very well convince me to play them as well. But Adeata will be mature enough for the 100% mount and I really want to get her inscriptions up, added bonus of the new kitteh an bear forms to boot. Thamlack will be getting what I like to call "cheap flying" and has already made a rug for himself to fly on, he's moderately excited. Oh, he also looks significantly less like a tool, 'cause he hit northrend...pretty much strictly for the professions.

Tox'll be working on the dailies at the Tourney for a while, he's gonna try and get a new and improved hippogryph, the Silver Covenant one. It's pretty posh, brilliant colors, and just all around great looking. Not to mention a bunch of other stuff that'll be niffty and handy.

Now I'm mostly just killing time, as we all know, the servers are down for a good long time, and Bladefist was down for longer than a lot of the other ones due to hardware maintenance (started ~3 hours earlier). But once things start rollin', Verve'll be taking a swing at the new 10 man and I'll be a part of it. Fun times ahead, I've heard rumor of a jousting fight, and I'm a brilliant jouster apparently, from what I've heard about the struggles other people have with the jousting dailies.

There will be many a heroic run in my future, I wants me some nice gear, so gash dernit, Ima get me nice gear. Plus everyone else will want to run 'em too, so I'll bring along some friends, hopefully Vanq (who hasn't been mentioned in quite a while, but a good friend who is now in Verve and enjoying it), 'cause I promised him that I'd take him in with me if I were to run an instance and he was online.

I think that's about it, I'll go do something for about half an hour and check back to see if the servers are up.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Many, many congrats to ya, Mr Tox!

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Well, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Tox on his promotion. I, as well as all the other officers think its been long overdue. Sad that he decided to log out just as the GM was hitting the promotion button while Dram was on! I wanted to do it while he was on but alas, the GM is not the patient type. Sooo, hopefully, his congrats will come from the memebers when he logs in since it is written on the MotD.

Welcome to the club, Tox!

We sure dun Killed Jaeden....I hate my puns...

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:11:00 +0000

We went out of our way back to the Sunwell to take down some old timers, and they got rather rocked. Verve of Bladefist, we win.

Enter the Flame.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:22:00 +0000

Warden that is, I've been getting that title on a few different characters. No PvP, no hassle for me! ('cause, if you didn't know, I don't like PvP.)

Rumor has it that Vantox and any alts he has in Verve are going to become officers at some point. The fact that I made this rumor up is trivial, the guild master herself has essentially promised me that the next time they decide to promote someone to a ranking officer it'll be me. Obvious hints include "You're on the top of my list, and if they don't agree with them then they'll get the /gkick!" (her exact words, almost, pretty close to it anyway), along with a request of mine to one guild master for help with a couple of toons taking down Ahune for the Flame Warden title and having 3 officers come along for the ride (two on alts that also wanted it). I'm not entirely sure, but I *think* it may have been some form of initiation. Three officers and the GM helping me on something that is very minor like Ahune? They must really like me or something.

Also: I totally killed stuff in heroic Ulduar, and netted the current best bow I could possibly hope for (no way in hades that Verve will be downing 25 man Ulduar bosses on hard mode). Siren's Cry to be precise, HUGE upgrade from my Angry Gun which I loved dearly. Autoshot DPS upgrade of ~50 due to haste. That alone is big, not to mention the added benefits to my special shots, my DPS has increased significantly. One problem with it though: It's a bow. I already miss mah Boom Stick. I loved him like a son...well, not really, but I thoroughly enjoyed him and his bonus crit due to dwarf skeelz.

Aestara, whom I have taken under my wing, is doing very well and has managed to make her way to Northrend, the Howling Fjord to be precise, and is now out to CONQUER THE WORLD!!!

...

Not really. But she *is* coming along very nicely and surprisingly good at face-melting. Well, I guess that's not so surprising considering that she's a shadow priest, that's like what they're made to do. She's another Alchemist, so I'll try and convince her to specialize in something that Dramthar hasn't, I'm thinking elixirs.

Also: Dramthar, with his Transmute Specialization, will be a highly requested alchemist come patch 3.2, what with his chance to proc multiple epic gems with no cooldown. 5 proc on a Cardinal Ruby? Yeah, stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it. Engineering's fine and kinda meh, but it's getting some small buffs and removing the need of wearing goggles (which, for him, are still the best thing he can use), so I don't plan on dropping it and picking up something else anytime soon.

Thamlack is still a tool. Tailoring is very close to 400 though, so he'll be able to make some niffty spellthreads soon, I may finally have a use for all that northrend silk I've got kicking around everywhere! That's exciting news. OOooh, and when he can he'll have a flying carpet! Sweet. That'll be fun.

Adeata is an exceptionally skilled Scribe for her level, she's more skilled than she should be. She has a skill level of 300 at level 44, so she needs to get to level 50 soon, she's very excited to be able to make darkmoon faire cards to both sell and help out my toons with. Man, Noble's decks on any of my toons? That'd be freakin' amazing. Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a lot of luck and materials, but if I can supply them myself I don't really have to care about the cost.

All my little alts and altlets have been profiting rather majorly due to the Fire Festival, they've all gained at least one level just from throwing and juggling torches. Well, all the ones on Bladefist anyway. Sorry friends on other servers, but I'm just so invested in Bladefist, I can't really go anywhere else and expect to keep myself there.

I think that's just about everything. Ooooh, except the Silver Covenant Hippogryph that I'm gonna get come 3.2, Tox is all about the hippogryphs now apparently. So pretty...I needs it....*schemy fingers*

Anyways, I'm off to go do whatever and hoo-haw, probably something involving washing dishes.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I figured I better post at least once a month.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Yeah...well, it's better than never I guess. Still not like exceedingly good, but whatever.

Sooooo....It looks like I'm going for the Seeker and Loremaster achievements now. I've become a Chef, I'm a Champion!, I've got the Argent Hippogryph, I've wrangled me a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth (Yeah, that's right, I can carry people around and have my own vendors), and the eldest Toxnation Brethren has converted to being a Dwarf Hunter. I think things are working out rather nicely for me.

Verve still uses me as a filler in Ulduar, apparently I'm one of the hunters they like to have around. There are only one or two people in Verve who I regularly run with that can significantly out DPS me. One's a feral kitteh, the other's another hunter with better gear.

I've also apparently got a friend who, if I ever decide to leave Verve (which I probably won't, I'm pretty committed to the current GM who some of you may or may not recall seeing a post of on here), is willing to attempt to get me into , which is apparently a decently high ranking guild that regularly goes into 25 man Ulduar and has most of the bosses and is recruiting hunters. Like I said, it'll probably not happen, but I've got a friend who would like having me there.

EDIT: Crikey, she either started or was a charter member of Adrenaline. Man, I didn't know that... they're doing really well for themselves considering that they became a guild in May.

I've taken a shine to Soloing level 60 raids and/or bosses. Onyxia is significantly trickier than Azuregos due to her second phase where she'll all flying and whelps are coming out after me... the fireballs are less than pleasant. Plus soloing Azuregos can net me a helluva lot more cash, he drops like 160 gold just himself, not to mention anything else that could have massive selling potential *cough*Sinew*cough*. Zul'Gurub's pretty fun to solo, aside from those bosses that I can't... stupid bat priestess and her massive heal combined with my lack of interrupts...

Even better though is running around with my Bro on my Mammoth and watching him go freakin' crazy and TRY to aggro like 20 mobs knowing that I've got his back. It's loads of fun. Plus I just like helping people, brethren especially.

Well, I'm gonna go work on stuff and junk, potentially a picture that I promised a friend, but I'm not really sure.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I HAD a topic...I just forgot it.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:44:00 +0000

It happens to everyone. You come up with a great idea, plan a big long essay-ish post about it, but you forget to do anything with it.

It happens to me All. The. Time. Just when I think I've got a fantastic, hilarious post ready too. And only rarely do I actually remember them in the future. It's hella annoying.

You're so excited about the topic, you have big plans, it's gonna be the breakthrough post, with this you'll make the big leagues! Everything is going so smoothly, it just all seems to easy. That's because it is. You forget what you were going to talk about in the next hour and can't recall anything about it for the next few days. Eventually you have a similar idea, but nothing really striking or thought provoking occurs to you like it did the first time. You figure the idea is bunk, so you toss it in to the imaginary trash can of your mind, never to be looked at again.

Thus is the conundrum. Great ideas that fall by the wayside, never to be heard from again. Where do they go? Are they just lost for an eternity, never to be spoken of again? Or do they slip into a different stream of consciousness and get passed on to different people without either of the participants knowing that it happened?

Now I've got a question for you: Where the hell did that all come from? I mean, I THOUGHT I was going to do a post about WoW or something, which, if you hadn't noticed, is the primary topic of this blog. Guess I was wrong.

TOPIC CHANGE.

Dramthar, he's doing well. He's averaging about 1900 DPS in 5 man heroic instances, out performing rogues of higher gear and entirely different spec. I've stuck with my Combat Swords, I think I'm running a 15/51/5. Most rogues now adays seem to be running a Mutilate spec of sorts. That's fine and dandy, but it focuses on a whole lot of small damage followed by a really big crit. That doesn't seem dependable to me. Combat Swords doesn't have the really high crits, but what it lacks in that it more than makes up for by having a higher mid-ranged damage and the double-swing procs from both weapons. Plus it's got Killing Spree and Adrenaline Rush. Both of those are basically just win (though using them together is just a waste, I suggest using KS first, preferably when you've got 2-3 combo points as it lets you build up your energy to max them out and either Slice and Dice or Rupture).

Have you noticed how easily people tend to forget that a newly forged level 80 toon who has engineering has engineering? There's most definitely been claims of "Dram could have used that helm...." With my immediate response of "Nu-uh, he's a geer," which is often followed by a moment of hesitation until they realize that "geer" is short for "engineer."

Ooooh, that reminds me, I need to make Tox more bullets. Some of the best gosh-darned bullets out there, too. Just need some more 'splody stuff to put in my saronite....I should go farm it or sommat.

Anyways, I think I'll go head out and work on a different something or whoosit, I dunno.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Things of Note.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:25:00 +0000

Dramthar, ding 80, nearly instantaneous 700 AP upgrade via guild bank gear, stuff I made for him and enchants.

Thought that crossed my mind once: "Man, I'm a jerk sometimes. Oh wait, no, I'm a rogue."

Sometimes people don't know help when they see it. I was attempting to aid some hordies by not attacking their mobs before they did and quite clearly not planting my ebon blade banner in the corpses. That's like the most a rogue can help, and they spat on and shoo'd me. I was slightly disheartened, but it's just 'cause rogues are all misunderstood.

A new friend of mine, another rogue, and I very much want to run raids together competing for loot. Luckily he's daggers and I'm swords, so there would be no argument over weaponry. I think it'd be a blast, but unfortunately my schedule doesn't really allow me to run when he would. Slightly miffed at that, but otherwise more power (and better loot) to him.

Attempting to grind Ebon Blade rep as fast as possible is not an easy task. And I *NEED* that sword they sell at revered, I'm still using my old Season 2 PvP mainhand weapon, and that's brutally bad for what I need it to be doing. I don't think I'll allow myself to run heroics until I get it.

Not much else going on for me currently. Peace out hombres.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I Almost Hit "Publish" Without a Title.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:34:00 +0000

Hey howdy fellas and femnauts. What? Where'd that come from? Sheesh, I need to stop saying what pops into my head...

Anyways, How goes it? I'm doing pretty well. Life and actually playing WoW have kept me rather occupied. Vantox is the man of the hour lately, high focus on the Argent Tournament with a dash of high DPS when called upon to raid by Verve. Gear upgrades are slow but still there, and I can't remember if I said anything about his badassery last time, but it's definitely there and working nicely for him. He got one of them fancy Ulduar cloaks last night, and is very pleased with the change from a purple cloak to an eye-catching red and black. And he's got that very angry looking gun that Kel'thuzad drops on the ten man version too. I'm very pleased with it.

Dramthar's finally voyaging to get to 80 and is doing so at record speed (for me anyway), focussing on Icecrown as soon as he got to level 77 in order to get Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade rep. I highly advise any rogue or feral kitteh druid to do the same as the chest piece and boots that can be obtained from those factions are incredibly good for those classes. Along with the epic gear, the Ebon Blade has the key headgear enchant for all physical DPS, so you should build that reputation up as soon as possible if you're any physical DPS class. Plus you can start the Argent Tournament at level 77, so that's just an added bonus for rep, leveling and decent gear to start off at 80.

Franny's been a little neglected as of late, but he's still kickin' around and a pretty decent 5 man heroic tank. I'm rather happy with both his specs currently, though I think I might be able to pull off higher DPS if I went with a blood spec for DPS as well as for tanking...I'll play around with it sometime and figure it out.

I've picked up a couple heirloom shoulders for some of my alts with the intentions of eventually getting them up to 80, the next one in line is going to be Thamlack in an effort to aid Aestara get his tailoring up to snuff so he can help out my clothy friends and alts and stuff.

You know what I find weird? Paladins that are tailors. Now that just doesn't seem to make sense to me. I mean, yeah, niffty flying mounts and good spellpower pant enchants that don't cost an arm and a leg, but seriously? Tailoring? Blacksmithing just makes so much more sense. You can give yourself 3 additional sockets along with crafting your own weapons, shields and plate armor, not to mention that tailoring is only useful for holy paladins. If people refute that logic then they probably need to get something checked out. Mind you, I'm not saying that they can't do it or shouldn't do it, it's their own choice and they should play the game as they see fit. I'm just sayin' that blacksmithing is a logical choice is all.

Well, I think that's all I've got to say currently. Oh, and I'll be back from time to time, hopefully more regularly, but we'll see how it goes.

To quote the immortal John Madden, "If you're gonna catch the ball, the quarterback has to throw it."*

Good Hunting,

~Tox

*Not actually a John Madden quote, but I'm pretty sure it sounds like something he'd say.

Dangnabit, I should really post more frequently.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:37:00 +0000

That being said, I had hit a MAJOR lull in WoW. Franny got geared to tank, Tox was too affected by the BM nerf (I SHALL NEVER BE ANOTHER SPEC!), and the game just lost its sheen.

But now that 3.1 is out, BM hunters are back in the running (Hurrah for moar pet talentz!), and Tox is actually performing very well. Seriously, better than I've seen him do in a long, long time. Verve likes him (friends with the GM and a bunch of the officers, who'da thunk?) so they occasionally call upon him to fill in for DPS that drops out of their raids. Only reason why he's not a regular part of them is due to scheduling conflicts... again... Why does everyone on Bladefist live on the East Coast? Seriously.

The Argent Tournament's fun, and I'm totally dedicated to it enough to get the Argent Hippogryph It'll take a while, that's for certain, but I wanted one of the white and brown hippogryphs ever since I first saw them flying around the Grizzly Hills. I'm excited for this, in a way that I haven't really been excited about anything in WoW for quite some time.

Also: What the.... When did Tox get all those epic pieces of gear? I don't remember this happening...I'm down to having 3 ilvl 200 Blues, everything else is epic. Bwha? That doesn't seem...proper. Back when BC was out and everyone was just getting up to 70, it took me for freaking ever to get any epics. I was in mostly blues for an eternity. But now all-of-a-sudden I've got epics coming out my wazoo. Hell, I've even got T7.5 gear on him. At 70 I never had any Tier gear. Granted, I did make a bunch of LW pieces for myself that were better than a lot of the tier gear, but that was strictly due to massive funds and me wanting the pieces incredibly badly.

TOPIC CHANGE!

Franny. His specs got effed. I need to find new tanking and DPS specs that have a good feel to them. I miss Howling Blast in my tanking spec to no end. That skill's like Franny's absolute mainstay. Anything else just feels wrong. So I'm probably gonna go at least 51 points into frost for his tanking spec along with his DPS spec. (Frost is my shtick, if you didn't catch that). What I really miss though are the 7k forced crits on 10 mobs at once. That was hella fun but only doable with the previous patch in a 0/32/39 hybrid spec.

I will admit that DKs were over powered. I was pretty dang good tank and DPS pre-3.1, but now everything's more even and I don't blow all the DPS with similar level gear out of the water anymore. I'm still good, but I'm most certainly not the best.

Though probably my favorite thing that's happened wow-wise is the ending of lent, which means that Aestara's back in action and I'm leveling up/questing with her on Thamlack. He's getting a promotion apparently, no longer a DE mule, he has been upgraded to "DE mule/questing partner", which is actually a lot of fun. Probably the most fun I've had since...I dunno, but it's awesome. Though "learning" Ulduar's pretty awesome too. I'm a glutton for punishment, I love the challenge and all the deaths. No, seriously, I find that stuff to be incredibly fun.

Anyways, I'm outy, gots ta get me some valiant tokens.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Sometimes, People are Stupid.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:41:00 +0000

So there I was, minding my own business, looking for a group for Violet Hold and asking around, when I find a potential group in the LFG and the note says they need DPS. I talk to the leader saying something along the lines of "You need DPS for VH? Well it just so happens that I'm DPS." and the response I get was less than underwhelming. To quote the person exactly: "Would you like some Asprin for that swelling?"

Now you can probably understand how I had no idea what in the world that meant. I'm not going to go into the gory details of the conversation, but it turns out that a gear check was done on me and they were looking at the wrong stats. There was mention of "only 3017 AP" (Which was true, for my Melee, RAP was 3700 something with Aspect of the Dragonhawk and it took me a while to figure out where in the world that number came from), and "only being BM" and classifying my DPS as "1200-1300." Thoughts of the tank out-DPSing me came up from the group leader.

Problems with those statements:

3017 was my MELEE Attack Power. I'm a hunter, who knows how to play my class, I. Don't. Melee.
My DPS has been averaging (admittedly while buffed) at 2000-2100. That's a lot higher than 1200-1300 now isn't it?
As proven by BRK, a competent BM hunter with similar gear can keep up with an SV hunter as long as the SV hunter doesn't get a massive crit-streak.
I have never, for as long as I've played this game, been out DPS'd by a tank, and I don't plan on starting to be any time soon.

I was just LIVID. The fact that this person would also go out of his or her way to insult me when I was being more than reasonable in my explanations and defensive statements didn't help.

Fortunately, I will no longer ever have to hear anything they do or say as we're both ignoring each other. And I also found a different, less uptight, far more accepting group which I got some new friends out of and did, by far, the most damage in as proven by this recount just from the two runs we did last night.

(I'm the one at the top, and the only one that starts with a 'V')

So my night wasn't completely ruined. I got some new friends who were referred to me as "One of the best randoms I've seen in a long while" or some such jargon. And the other hunter was SV, I just out-geared him significantly. Oh, I never once had Blessing of Might, the pally gave hunters wisdom, and I'm not gonna complain about mp5 in a group that needs me to be doing damage for longer periods of time.

Anyways, I'm glad to get that out of my system... Thanks for listening?

Good Hunting,

~Tox