Have, however, been doing some battlegrounds. I’d like to get my paws on the S2 pants so I have something a little better, even if it is a “welfare epic.” People, I know that PvP gear is not meant for PvE, but it’s an attainable upgrade to what I’ve currently got. I thought about getting badge pants, but I decided that since Kara just will not drop a new ranged weapon for me, I’m going to drop the 150 badges on that uglier-than-a-male-Orc-in-a-dress crossbow. I need to work on some arenas; I want to get the S3 axe, as well. So my badges and my arena points are already called; that leaves honor points, and given my desperation for new pants, I’ll settle for S2 right now and pray, in the meantime, for Karazhan to have some flipping mercy and give me what I need already.

Actually, I have a pretty extensive gear planner worked up in Google Docs. I make notes often about my progress toward specific items, my goals for other items, and what I need to be doing on a regular basis to keep improving my gear. I should publish that and link to it on here sometime; it’s definitely a key part of my game-play.

I don’t think this post will help me much in that last thing… I really feel pretty silly for not GETTING this sooner, but in the course of reading through one of the hunter Q&A threads, I found a post by Zogeth about shot rotation, and suddenly I understood.

“Your hunters need to understand that steady shot is the perfect ‘filler’ special shot. Special shots consist of:

steady shot
arcane shot
multishot
(any others, but irrelevant)

Because arcane shot and multishot both do more damage than steady shot, these should have precedence, then, only when these 2 shots are on cooldown, you feed in your steady shots to keep up the damage.

So, ideally the sum of all steady shots + arcane shots + multishots should be equal to the number of auto shots fired. This is a 1:1 rotation, one autoshot, followed by one special. Doing this wills see their DPS increase DRAMATICALLY.”

AND THE LIGHT BULB HAS COME DECIDEDLY ON.

I GET it. HOLY COW.

I mean. Okay. I’d read a bunch on shot rotations. I knew I needed to maintain Auto, Steady, Auto, Steady. But, somehow, the whole… firing arcane or multi and then using steady shot WHILE THEY WERE ON COOLDOWN never quite clicked in my head.

Yes, I am dense. I know. I’m sorry?

I can’t wait to get back into Karazhan and see what this new understanding does to my DPS. I was in there last night, and I hit 936.9 DPS on the Shade fight, my personal best. Honest to God, I’m not sure how, but between the buffs, my shot timing and my attention to BW and Rapid Fire, IT WAS ON.

God, I love the taste of revelation in the morning.

(Also, I made new friends! A warrior and a shaman, who were both made of win. I can’t wait to run with them again.)

In the end, though, I couldn’t bring myself to finish that post. Honestly, I get upset just thinking about it. The warrior was downright mean, downright rude, and… although the comments were poorly spelled, totally ungrammatical and generally unintelligent, they still struck a nerve with me, because I’ve been working for so long to develop a reputation as one of the few, proud Good Hunters.

Frankly, I just didn’t think that would be a good way to make a return to my little blog. Instead, I come bearing Phat Lootz!

I’ve been working hard to better my gear outside of Karazhan, because I don’t really get opportunities to raid between my schedule and my very casual, pre-raiding guild–a whole nother post I need to make, because honestly, I really want to start raiding on a regular basis.

This past Friday, I finished farming for a particularly pretty little piece of gear:

Ain’t it shiny? Not twenty-four hours later, I finished farming for another shiny item:

And my stats–and performance–are suddenly quite a bit prettier. My tooltip damage is sitting at 320.3, a number I am quite proud of, especially since I went into Karazhan last night and saw higher numbers than I ever hoped I’d see. I hit a personal highest boss-dps on Illhoof with 813 DPS. I averaged about 580 for the whole raid, and we downed everyone but Netherspite and Nightbane, because we ran out of time. I need to work on hitting the Kill Command every time it’s up, and I need to work on mana efficiency. Need to brush up on my traps again, too. In the two months or so I was away from Warcraft, I’m sorry to say I became pretty rusty at chain trapping.

As I get back into things on sunny Dragonmaw, I’m planning to start posting again, as well. It’s been a while, but it’s good to be back.

I auditioned for a play on Saturday. I’ve never acted before… At the arts high school I went to, I majored in creative writing, and since then I’ve dabbled in other areas of art, but I never imagined I’d get involved in acting. But the university news update mentioned these upcoming auditions for The Vagina Monologues, and I couldn’t resist. I’ve never seen/read/heard it before, not entirely, but I know it by name, theme, criticism and controversy, and when I saw that auditions were coming up, I thought, “How awesome would that be, to be able to say ‘I acted in The Vagina Monologues?'” So I auditioned. I found out yesterday I made it, and tonight I go for a read-through and the cast assignments.

The performance is March 29. Rehearsals aren’t all too often, but it does mean I’ll be shorter still on time. So you can expect fluff posts here and there for a little bit. I will try to sit down soon and break down the actual posts into more manageable pieces so I can get back to blogging about the important stuff (and playing WoW, period) as soon as possible. In the meantime… hey, did yall hear that in patch 2.4, Improved Mend Pet’s chance to remove a Curse/Disease/Magic/Poision effect will go up from 15/50% to 50/100%?

Well, I put some serious time into questing this weekend, and for one shining moment I saw 750 gold, at which point my best friend Saint signed on and bought his Green Windrider. Needless to say, I am back down to 250. I keep telling myself I will save up, hardcore, for my epic… but Saint comes first. He’s a Priest, my best friend and the totally platonic love of my life. What am I supposed to say to that? “No, I’m not going to help you; go get your own gold!” Of course not.

Alas, I’ll save up that 5000g sooner or later. I even have a vague plan worked out to do it. I really need to be better about diligently doing the dailies. Vaten, my other best friend (also, boyfriend and pet Warlock), and I did the starter quests for Ogri’la yesterday, which opened up a few dailies. If I can do those and the daily BG, that’s a little chunk of gold every day. I need to power level skinning so I can use that while I’m farming Apexis Shards. It wouldn’t hurt to circle a couple zones for mining nodes, either, and farm up some ore. If I do that, work on some primals here and there, farm some netherweave… Surely, one day, I’ll see that 5000 mark.

How did you fund your epic? Or how are you planning to?

In an ideal world, I could get involved in a raiding guild, raid once a week and stay on top of a job, an academic career, my family and a social life. Unfortunately… we all know that’s not the case.

For example, this week has been extraordinarily busy. Classes and the holiday have me away from my computer more than usual, so I haven’t been able to blog (or play) as planned.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m 20 years old. I’m a full-time university student, and I’m due to graduate next May. In the near future, I’m looking at taking the GRE and applying to graduate schools and internships. I also work part-time as a secretary for a church and play bass guitar with the band at said church. Even outside of my basic obligations, I try to spend some time with my family, and I spend a couple nights a week with my best friend and my boyfriend.

At this point, I consider my offline life more important than my life in Azeroth. I play WoW for fun. It’s entertainment; it’s a way of escaping real life for a short time. Although I’d love to get involved in a real raiding guild, I have to put my offline obligations first.

Maybe when I get to graduate school or when I get a standard, scheduled job, I’ll be able to arrange things so that I can devote a regular block of time to the game, but, at least for now, I can’t afford to balance my life offline and my life online. As much as I’d rather be playing WoW sometimes, my offline life has to take precedence. So. I’ll see you in Azeroth… when I have time to play.

For other bloggers’ opinions on the matter:

• Trackhoof (Survivalist Hunters’ Anonymous)
• Pike (Aspect of the Hare)
• Alda (Life Is a Balancing Act — moving soon.)
• Claz (Rage Against the Lich King)
• Tenryuu (Sin’dorei Lineage)
• Annalira (Keine Ordnung)
• Bansidhe (Musings from an Angry Bansidhe)
• Hyouzan (Hyou2)
• Yashima (Yashima Plays)
• Softthistle (Softthistle’s Spot)
• Tepisor (I Tank Stuff: The Life of a Protection Paladin)
• Auryann (Lifebloom and You)
• Euripedes (Critical QQ)
• Lifebloomer (Lifebloomer)

…eheh. Let me just say it is ridiculously addicting, and I have hardly touched WoW since I brought my new toys home. I almost feel bad about it. Almost. I’ll be sure to get a post up tomorrow, though; don’t you worry.

Often, party members fill more hybridized roles. Hunters and Mages are used on a regular basis as equal Damage Dealers and Crowd Control. Druids can tank and do serious damage. Paladins can, conceivably, tank and heal. (I’ve seen it done: one Paladin playing both Main Tank and Main Healer. That man is disgusting. He deserves fresh, home-made cookies.) Some classes, like Warriors or Rogues, may fill one role more than any of the others throughout a fight.

I’m really not sure WoW needs another role. I’m certainly no authority on game or party dynamics, but, based on my experience, I can’t think of any roles a party might need outside of the existing ones. As long as friends are staying alive and enemies are going down, I’d say the current system is working.

For other bloggers’ opinions on the matter, check out these links:

• Fumbleknock
• Perpetuus Mos
  
• Rakel
• Euripedes
• Llanion
• Thuenderman
  

Now I feel I should explain my Hunter, because if you look at my blog and then look at Hemera in the Armory, you might be a little confused. I am, at heart, a Survival girl. I love the Survival talent tree. I really do. That said… currently, Hemera’s spec is 43/15/3 in favor of Beast Mastery. I feel like I’m lying to myself, sporting such a talent build, but I know it’s for my own good.

See, I’m one of those crazies who believes that you can’t say you like one thing best until you’ve tried the alternatives. I leveled Survival, and, when I hit 70, I came to the conclusion that I should probably give Marksmanship and Beast Mastery a try, too. Partly, it was because I had been reading BigRedKitty’s blog since about level 62 or so, and I wanted to see for myself what made BM so fantastic. Partly, I just wanted to learn my class. Each spec highlights different aspects of the Hunter class, and I think you need to be familiar with all of those aspects in order to become a good Hunter. So. At least for the moment, Hemera is a BM Hunter.

My little foray into Beast Mastery has thus far been entertaining, at least. I’ll be honest; I get a little (okay, a lot) excited when I see Pixel go all Red Hulk on things’ faces. Still, I really miss my super effective traps, Expose Weakness, seeing those crit numbers… I promise I’ll go into just why Survival is so fantastic soon. There’s a lot to be said for it.