WOTLK – extra stable slots – WOOT!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8557246019&sid=2000&pageNo=2#24

“There are 2 additional slots in the stable.

Integrating hunter / warlock pet management into the new mount and companion UI has certainly come up already. Let’s give the new UI a whirl and see if it works and then we can consider if it makes sense to integrate the stable or anything else into it. “

Ghostcrawler (a Blue) posted the above statement on the wow forums.

If this goes ahead, this will mean hunters can have 5 (count em, five) permanent pets.  Also the bit about the new UI links it to the new system for carrying around mounts and non-combat pets without taking up bag slots.  It is possible that they may allow hunters to be able to swap pets out in the wilds, out of combat, without having to return to a stablemaster in town.  WOOT and double WOOT!

So, having said all that have to go away and plan my 5 pets…. hmm that condor looks real nice :>)

Gearing up your hunter (part 4) – rings, necklaces, trinkets

Oops this was supposed to be part 3 – but here it is Part 4 of my gear series covers the bling – rings, necklaces and trinkets.

I have only really included those things that are easily accessily through BOE ah purchases, rep rewards, or quest chains, or bgs.  I have not included random BOP drops from instances, where it is more difficult to farm for a specific item.  Also this is not an exhaustive list, I might have missed some things. 

Rings

Pathfinders band - BOE from ah

Truestrike ring – BOE from ah – this one is usually horrendously expensive and nice but not usually worth the price

 Band of Anguish – Shadowmoon Valley quest chain ending with News of Victory

Leafbeard Ring – Bladesedge quest Exocising the Trees

Kaylaan’s Signet – Netherstorm Chain quest ending with Deathblow to the Legion (but the rewards also include a really good pair of hunter gloves)

Lightwarden’s Band  – bought from Aldor quartermaster at revered

Violet signet - Once you have done your kara key chain and run the huntsman once or twice you should hit friendly with the violet eye.  You can get this ring from one of the NPCs standing outside Karazhan at friendly rep, and upgrade it with the NPC every time you go up a rep band.

 Necklaces

Shattered Sun Pendant of Might – Purchasable from the shattered sun quatermaster on Quel’Danas at exhalted.  Work hard for this one as soon as you can, its epic, and will be better than anything that drops in Karazhan, especially if you are an aldor.   To get the proc to go off you have to be exhalted with your faction (aldor or scryer), before that it is still a nice kara entry piece.  The aldor proc adds +200 attack power for 10 secs; the scryer proc gives an arcane strike of 333-367 damage.  The proc has a 45sec cooldown and around a 10-20% proc rate.  I have it, and it seems to proc fairly regularly.  On a Dr Boom test this necklace increased my dps (with the procs) compared to the Worgen Claw Necklace, which drops off the 1st boss in Kara, Attumen the Huntsman.

Natasha’s chocker - from Blade’s Edge quest chain ending with The Hound Master

Earthen Mark of Razing - Nagrand Quest chain from Throne of Elements ending with Gurok the Usurper

Necklace of the Deep – crafted by jewelcrafters – put a couple of Delicate Living Rubies in this and you have yourself a very nice neck piece, especially if you wish to boost your agility.

 Veteran’s Pendant of Triumph – PVP reward

Chocker of Blooded Feathers – End of quest chain The Skettis Offensive, although you can get better by this stage quite easily.

Talon Lord Collar – Brother Against Brother (Skettis Halls, Dungeon quest reward)  – I mention this one becuase it has a lot of +hit on it for those of you needing to improve your hit rating.

Trinkets

Terrokar Tablet of Precision - Torrgos!  End of a quest chain in Terrokar Forest/Bone Wastes.  This has loads of +hit so its great if you need to increase your hit rating.  Don’t throw it away when you get it, it might be worth swapping in and out as you change gear later on, if you find yourself down on hit.

Bladesfist breath – pretty good, but you should have had this a long time by now, time to be on the look out for an upgrade, unless you really really need the extra crit (remember agility also gives crit).

Ogre Mauler’s Badge (horde only) – frome Bleeding Hollow Supply crates.  still not the best you can get.  Uniting Charm (alliance version) – ditto.  From Corki’s Gone Missing – Nagrand.

Core of Ar’kelos – end of netherstorm quest chain finishing with quest Ar’kelos the Guardian.

Alchemists Stone (alchemists only)  – recipe available from shat’ar quatermaster at revered.  You can I believe have both an Alchemists stone and an Assassin’s Alchemists Stone, but since one Alchemists stone is consummed in the making of the Assassin’s version, this becomes quite heavy on the mats.  You get the static stats increases of both, but I understand that the 40% increase to the effectiveness of health potions does not stack if you have 2.  If you are working on your rep or this, start building up the mats in your bank, so that you are ready to make it once you have the pattern.  If you are doing all the transmutes yourself, it takes around 5-7days, if I remember right.

Assassin’s Alchemists Stone (alchemists only) – recipe available from shattered sun quatermaster at exhalted.

Badge of Tenacity – AH BOE – overpriced usually – uber feral druid item (extra armor as well as agility), but also good for hunters (as long as you use the proc often), though usually not for the prices charged.

Abacus of the Violent Odds – final boss in Mechanar (12% drop rate) – I know I said I wouldn’t mention random drops, but a lot of hunters do go framing for this and the piece of the beast lord set he drops.

Hourglass of the Unraveller - this is another instance drop you see many hunters sporting.

Figurine of a Felsteel Boar (jewelcrafters only) – want a second pet to confuse your enemies?  And one that gives you extra attack power into the bargain?  Well here it is.

Figurine Shadowsong Panther (jewelcrafters only) – really aimed at rogues and feral druids, but nice for hunters too with all that extra attack power.  I wonder if that increase to stealth affects shadowmeld?

Bloodlust Brooch – 41 Badge’s of Justice (BOJs) – this should be your 1st BOJ purchase.  It’s an excellent hunter trinket and will last you a long time.  It is better value for badges than the cloak/bracers/necklaces you can buy with early badges, as you are more likely to be able to replace the other pieces quicker than you are this trinket.  Get it and use it.

Battlemaster’s Determination – 75 badges of justice – or 30,000 honor points and 30 alterac valley marks of honor.  A pvp orientated piece with pve uses.

Hmm interesting

I was about to put this on the No list – then I thought about it – for Kara it’s really not bad, as everything you are fighting more or less are undead:

Seal of the Dawn – reward from The Active Agent (Scholomance Dungeon quest)

No, you should not still have these equipped going into kara

They were good for their time, but they are passed their use by date.  Compared to the items above, many of which are fairly easily obtainable, there is no excuse for still having:

Devilsaur Eye

Devilsaur Tooth

Essence or Power Infused Mushroom

Royal Seal of Eldre’Thalas

Strength of the High Chief

Make the most of your trinkets and items that proc

A lot of trinkets (and some other items) have an on use effect, that you activate, and which usually has a cooldown, e.g. the Bloodlust Brooch (trinket) gives a static +72ap and then a whopping +278ap for 20sec on use (with a 2 min cooldown).  When I first used trinkets, I didn’t get the most out of these on use effects, as  I always forgot to click on the trinket to make it proc.  Now I use macros that incorporate the use of the trinkets.  There are 2 ways to do this:

a) create a Big Bang macro (or somesuch) that you use every time you want to open up burst dps and take something down quickly.  Add things to it like your trinket use, rapid fire, and bestial wrath.  Pop the macro to add extra dps when you absolutely, positively have to kill something quickly.  E.g.  I use it when the boss is at 20% or in a tight spot in a battleground.  Here is my macro:

#showtooltip rapid fire

/cast rapid fire

/cast Bestial Wrath

/use 13

/use 14

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

 

13 and 14 refer to your 2 trinket slots on your character.  You push the button several times to get everything to go off, else if rapid fire is on cooldown, it will try and cast bestial wrath, etc. 

b) Add the trinket use to a spammed spell/shot, now you will use your trinket every time it is off cooldown.  This method uses the trinket more often (good thing), but gives you less control over when you want to use that extra buff to your damage (bad thing).  E.g. my shammie has a macro that tries to use her trinket, increasing spell damage, every time she casts a lightning bolt.

A Hunter’s Guide to Karazhan – Part 1 Attumen to Moroes

My Karazhan posts are rather indepth, if you want the short overview version see here.

Attumen the Huntsman

• Attumen is located in the stable block, which is through the archway to the left, directly after entering the front door of Kara.
• To get to Attumen you have to clear the undead trash, consisting of spectral horses and stablehands in groups of 1-5 (most are 2-3 pull groups).
• This trash is on a 25min timer.  As soon as you attack the first one the timer begins, you must get to and kill Attumento stop the timer.  If you don’t get to and kill Attunmen in 25 mins the trash will respawn and come to his aid, resulting in the group wiping.  The timer means your group needs to be quick, a couple of wipes, or too many rests, brbs, afks, or d’cs will result in you not completing this in the time.
• Group’s should be careful as the trash has a wide aggro radius and the horses fear.  There is also a patrol.
• Unless you have an abundance of priests in your group, as a hunter you will be expected to trap and chain trap through this trash (read my post on How I Trap, watch BRKs chain trapping video’s, and practice, practice before you go in.  You will really help your group if you can do this well).
• For the first couple of pulls, the tank will normally pull them back through into the entrance hallway.  He will then either try and snag the patrol, or the group will move into the back of the stables to the right of the arch way.  
• As  you work your way down the corridor try trapping by the right-hand wall, I find that works well.  Remember, for this, and the Moroes fight, points in clever traps and 2 pieces of the Beast Lord armor will help enormously, although it is doable without, you just need a bit more thought to your traps cool downs, and to move around a bit more.  Unless you are really over geared (as in T5+) don’t try and melee your mob if he gets lose and your trap is on cool down, unless the alternative is him eating your healer; you will die very quickly, but you are more expendable than the healer.
• The final two pulls before the boss are a 4 and then a 5 mob pull.  Even if you haven’t been trapping up to now, you will probably be asked to do so here.  Make sure your raid leader has marked all the mobs, and you know which is your’s to trap.  Place your trap away from where the tank will be fighting.  Make sure, once you have your mob trapped, that you are assisting the tank/main assist on the groups dps target, while still watching your trap.  If your trap is one of the first to be killed, and you have a spare trap, place it in front of the squishiest healer, in case something else breaks cc.
• Congratulations! you have made it to Midnight (Attunmen’s horse) – and hopefully with 9-10mins to spare.  If you only have 3-4mins, you’d better start the fight quickly, you probably won’t have time to finish it, before the trash respawn.
• For this fight the group needs 2 tanks (we have done it with 1 good and over geared one).  It is possible to solo heal it with a very good over-geared healer (Anelf has done it when the 2nd healer died at the very beginning), but 2 or even 3 healers is better.
• Tank 1 engages Midnight.  When his has built up some aggro, the dps begin to attack Midnight.  When Midnight is at about 95% health, Attumen will appear.  Tank 2 has to be on his toes to pick Attumen up very quickly, because he will run at the healers and one-shot them.  If you are ready as a hunter, you can also grab Attunmen with a Misdirection onto Tank 2.  (But make sure you have your misdirection set up right, you don’t want to misdirect him onto anyone other than Tank 2.)  Everyone except Tank 2 continues on Midnight.
• When Midnight is at about 25% health Attumen mounts up.  Everyone should stop firing and the tank who will tank this part of the fight grabs aggro.  If you didn’t misdirect Attunmen to tank 2, you could use your Misdirection now to help the tank establish aggro.  Once the tank has aggro, dps continue to burn him down.  
• Tip, when mounted, Attumen charges random ranged players.  Everyone should gather close up around Attunmen’s butt, it seems in our experience that this stops the charge.
• Loot:  Attunmen drops some great hunter loot, including Stalker War Bands, Worgen Claw Necklace, Steelhawk Crossbow, Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation (leather but a good option especially for survival hunters as high on agility), and Schematic: Stabilized Eternium Scope (if you or your raid mate is an engineer).  

Moroes

• After finishing off Atumen you may wish to clear the couple of mobs behind Midnight’s stable to get to the quest giver, if people in the group have the quest, and/or visit the armorer.
• When you are ready, return to the entrance hall and then climb half-way up the stair behind the doorman.  Stop on the stair, while the raid leader marks the wandering elites at the top of the stairs.
• For the next part, the groups I run with make a series of pulls onto these stairs to clear the route to Moroes’ room.  These pulls will either be single elite mobs or groups of non elites.  There are a couple of groups of elites up there, but your don’t need to pull those and can skirt around them.
• For the single elites its a normal tank and spank.  Wait for the tank to gain aggro, send in pet and pew pew.
• For the non-elites its aoe time.  Tank gains aggro (useful if you have a pally or aoe tank here), then everyone lays down their aoe.  Don’t worry if the mages and locks surpass your dps on these groups, you can use your immolation or snake trap and volley or just pick them off one at a time, but they are the kings of aoe.  I don’t usually use my pet on these groups either.  Firstly, they die too quickly, and secondly, becuase of this it is easy to target one of the elites up the stairs on the landing, which could bring a group of elites down on the group’s head and cause a wipe.
• Moroes room is to the left.  Moroes is on a dias with 4 special dinner guests, he also has banqueting tables full of non elite quests, elite skeletral waiters, and pairs of elite valets.  Our tank normally pulls at least one waiter and the 2 non elite groups from the back table onto the stairs before telling us it is safe to follow him into Moroes’ room.
• When you go into Moroes’ room, hug the wall to the left.  There is an alchove on the back wall opposite Moroes.  Having already cleared the back table, we assemble there, and then clear the rest of the room before dealing with Moroes.
• The 2 pairs of valet (?) servants standing by the wall at either side of the room are nasty.  They put a debuff on the tanks, making them drunk and doing lots of extra damage.  Tanks shout out when they get this, and need extra healing.  I try and keep scorpid sting up on these guys to help out, and just burn them down as quick as possible, especially if they make the tanks drunk.
• OK now for Moroes.  This fight still makes me nervous, lol.
• Moroes has 4 special guests with him from a possible 6, each with their own abilities:

1. Millstripe – Shadow Priest – has mana burn and shadow word pain and mind flay
2. Dreuger – Ret Pally – Hammer of justice (stun) and seal of command
3. Von’indi – holy priest – heals others, shield, dispel, low health
4. Berrybuck – holy pally – shield, cleanse, holy light
5. Daris – Arms warrior – whirlwind, mortal strike
6. Ferenice – protection warrior – disarm, shield bash, shield wall

• You will read some post that say you need a priest for this fight – you don’t.  Or that you need 3 healers – you can do it with 2 good ones.  What you do need is good crowd control – that can be provided by priests or hunters chain trapping, and an aoe tank who can pick up 2 or 3 of the adds.
• Our group usually consists of warrior tank, prot pally tank 2, druid healer, pally healer, mage x 2, warlock, hunter x2, and then either another pally healer, a priest, or another hunter depending on who’s available.  As long as we have 2 forms of cc and the pally tank we do great.  Without our pally tank we struggle, but that’s just us, and I am sure there are ways of doing it without too.
• I will talk you through with 2 hunters chain trapping Dreuger and Daris (the hardest 2 to trap).  We usually take down the casters first if hunters are trapping, and chain trap the melee mobs.
• We kill off 3 or 4 of the adds before killing off Moroes.  We used to kill off just 3, I would keep the 4th chained trapped until we had killed Moroes and then we would finish him.  But this meant that my dps was gimped slightly on Moroes (and I am usually top of our damage), plus I died at least once becuase everyone was celebrating and had forgot all about my trapped mob, even though I’m yelling at them, ‘there’s still one left, dang he resisted my trap (or words to that affect), hey stop dancing on Moroes’ corpse and help me out over here, err a rez would be nice! ’ So now we kill them all before blasting moroes.
• Depending upon who is on the stage, and where they are positioned, we will either start by trapping on the right, fighting on the left, or visa versa.  Healers and casters will normally stand on the table in the middle.
• Mobs are marked, everyone has their targets.  As a hunter I am usually asked to trap either Drueger, Daris or Ference. Ference is easiest, Drueger hardest.  Dreuger has a ranged stun, so you have to remember to stand well behind your trap, as he will stun you as he runs towards you.  If he stuns you before you have got your trap down, or stuns you and then resists your trap, your’re in trouble. Daris’ whirlwind can also be tricky, if you have to drop the trap on his head, or he gets loose and gets in with the healers and clothies.  When he whirlwinds he stands still (like Herod) and won’t run towards you until he’s done, no matter how much you shoot at him.  Never had any problems with Ference.
• For us the main tank will pull moroes, and the pally tank will gain aggro on the 2 guest to be killed off first.  As they make the pull the cc’rs pull their targets into their traps.  Re-lay your trap between you and your trapped mob, if your trap is off cooldown already, then start pew pewing the 1st target as soon as the main assit has aggro.  Remember don’t hit Moroes.
• If Millstripe is there we kill her first, she has a nasty mana burn, which can suck the healers (or hunters) dry of mana.  We then either kill off Von’indi or Berrybuck (whoever we have) before turning on the traps.
• Keep an eye on your trap and relay your trap as soon as it is off cooldown.  If you know its safe, you can drop it over the other trap.  Otherwise drop it a little way away and just before or as the other breaks, shoot at your trapped mob to drag him into the next trap.  I have found that chain trapping in this fight, with so much healing flying around, requires me to either drop it on his head or deliberately break my traps and continue to build up aggro on the mob, otherwise he runs for the healers.
• If you do not have points in Clever Traps (and I suggest you respec to get these just for this fight if you are new to it) and/or 2 pieces of Beast Lord armor, you are going to have to do some serious kiting around the room.  I used to spec survival for this fight.  Now I stay BM, but slap on my 2 pieces of beast lord I carry in my bag, and then kite the mob around the back of the room.  By standing a distance away from the trap and then making a concussed mob run into the next trap, I buy myself some time.
• For a chain trapping hunter the most important job you have in this fight is your cc.  However this is a dps intensive fight too, so you need to try and maximise your dps on the group’s target too.  Make sure when you are swapping between the two that you have correctly selected the group’s target and are not shooting at an untargeted mob.  Keep your pet on that target at all times.
• The other major thing to know is Moroes’ garrotte which is a DOT that does massive damage.  Periodically, Moroes vanishes.  When he reappears, he puts this DOT on a random player.  Some players have ways of getting rid of it (usually on a cooldown though).  If you are a dwarf for instance, you can use Stoneform.  Your healers may be able to get rid of it, but they probably need to save their remove for the healers or tanks as it is not something they can cleanse off multiple players.   Hunters can stop themselves getting it in the first place.  A second or two after Moroes vanishes, Feign Death.  Stay Feigned until he reappears.  If you are Feigned when he reappears, he will not put the garotte on you (except he did garotte me once when I was feigned, as he resisted my feign death – but usually this works).  (The only caveat to this is if you are still chain trapping, if the trap needs doing or has broken, it is more important to take care of your cc than worry about the garrotte).  The healers can heal through garrotte, but its intensive to do that.
• And that’s all there is too it!  It’s tricky to master, and can still go wrong, even for groups that have done it many times.  But it’s usually straight forward for us now.
• Hunter loot from Moroes…..will add this soon…
• If you want to see a video of us killing Moroes – here’s the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4cjhudX4w  – please excuse the quality (and my lock friend’s crowded screen).  This is an early one for our group (I still have my steelhawk crowsbow).  For this one we have 1 hunter trap and 1 priest shackle.  We kill the pallies 2 adds, then the shackle, then my trap, then moroes.  Notice, I feign death as they attack my trap to lose the aggro I had built up on him, and also each time Moroes disappears.  I think I retrap about 4 times – I’m beastmaster spec with 2 pieces of the best lord armor reducing my trap cool down by 4 specs.

WOTLK Pet Changes

This has just got to be the most exciting news from WOTLK so far.  The stuff they are proposing for hunter pets just has me salivating for WOTLK.  Head over to Petopia and see all the furry goodness for yourself.  And when you’ve done, go to WOWhead and play with their Pet talent tree calculators.

So what’s got me so excited?  My cats still going to be the queen of raid dps, right?  Probably, yes (although watch out for moths in raids!)  But this complete overhaul of the pet system means that each family of animals comes with its own unique skills, and some of them are very interesting indeed.  These will branch out the number of different pets you see hunters running with, and bring some loved but less useful pets back into vogue.  Added to this, every pet has its own talent tree, and in each talent tree are skills like dash. It appears that, even your turtle and crab will now be able to dash!  In addition, pets will automatically learn the next level of their skills, so there will be no need to tame wild animal to learn these skills, freeing up all 3 stable slots for permanent pets.  (Unfortunately I can’t find any news of extra stable slots – give us at least one more blizzard /beg.)  When tamed an animal that is lower than you in level, will jump up to 5 levels below you (so you can go and grab those pets you always wished you had tamed or kept at the time e.g., Humar, the Razor Fang Kraul pig, the ghost saber).  Finally, with all the new pets in Wrath, as well as newly tamable current species such as moths, and you have a bundle of furry (and fluttery) goodness.  So what does this all add up to?  Well for me:

• I love bears.  I leveled from 48-70 with a bear as my main pet.  From 56 that was a white Winterspring bear, named Beren.  I sadly let him go when I needed to train up a cat at 70 for raiding, and because I finally faced fact that he was not going to get dash or any special skill anytime soon, no matter how much I grumbled about it on the forums (and boy did I grumble).  Well Blizzard have listened to us bear lovers (and all those other lovers of off-pets).  Through the talent trees bears get dash!  And they get swipe (striking 3 enemies at once) as their family ability.  I used to use Beren to tank instances I was over-level for.  Now it looks like he will truly be able to tank, or at least off-tank.  What’s more, a tanking pet with its improved growl and taunt abilities should make a great soloing pet, hopefully overcoming some of the aggro management problems hunters are having.  I say ‘he’, but of course I will need to go train a new Beren.  I guess I can either get a Winterspring bear and train it up the 5 levels to 70, or wait till 73 and then snag one of the white bears Petopia list as inhabiting the Dragonblight.  Either way, I am one happy bear lover :>)
• I will of course keep the faithful Gwind for raiding and when I need high DPS.  Cats retain prowl as their family skill.  Currently I find that most useful in BGs (paired with my nightelf shadowmeld), however there seem pets with other skills even more exciting for BGs.  Gwind was a labor of love too.  I leveled her up from 60-70 when I was already 70.  At the time I had one of those black stiped cats you can pick up at level 70 that every hunter had.  I wanted to be different so I snagged Gwind, unfortunately by the time I had leveled her I found everyone else had the same idea, and now Shy-Rotam skins were more common that black stipes!  Still its much nicer, so I don’t regret it.
• I started to train up an owl recently for screech, to try and find a pet that could hold aggro better when soloing (like many hunters, I can pull mobs off my pets just by auto shooting, even after letting the pet build up some aggro).  Owls are being reclassified as Birds of Prey and instead of screech get the interesting, but probably not best family skill, disarm (good for arena maybe, but that’s not my thing).  So I will probably get rid of my owl,  to free up the spot for Beren II.
• My third pet is currently my beautiful timber wolf, Red.  He looks just as a hunter pet should look, and has stayed pretty large after taming.  I am really loath to give him up.  However, furious howl was never that great, and for my third pet I would like a pvp orientated pet.  There are some pets with some interesting skills out there for pvp, some might be more arena orientated, some more useful for BGs, or world pvp.  It would be nice to try out a pet in the utility tree, since my bear would be the tanking tree, and my cat dps.  But at the moment, the pet that appeals for BGs and world pvp the most is another dps pet – the hyena.  It has a hamstring ability, reducing the targets movement speed by 50% for 6secs.  Just think of all those fleeing flag runners or enemies with less than half health you are just itching to finish off.  I don’t know how many times I’ve chased down a fleeing horde in a bg, only for them to get away on a mount or with a run speed enhancement.  Add a high dps hyena with an increase to outdoor movement speed and dash through talents, and his tendon rip ability, and no more fleeing horde :>)
• One thing that could change all these musing though… that mysterious end talent in the beast master tree… what is an ‘exotic pet’?  Watch this space.

WOTLK Hunter Talents

Generally I’m not the kind of person who likes to wait in a state of unknowing for the big unwrapping.  As a kid, I always searched for, and found, the Christmas presents my mum had hidden around the house long before Christmas.  I’m far too impatient.  So I’ve been pouring over every piece of information I can get on Wrath.  Grrr, if only I could get into that beta lottery.

At first glance, I was most interested in the changes to the survival tree.  Recently I’ve been experimenting with different specs, having been a die-hard BM up into 70.  I’ve tried 0/20/41, 0/21/40, and 0/31/30 builds as well as variations on my good old 41/20/0 build.  No I don’t think you’ll get me trying a 0/41/20 build this side of Wrath, nor probably come the expansion.  Anyway back to Wrath talents, some of the survival tree looks yummy (giving mana, runic power, rage, etc. back to the raid, anybody?)  Being someone who 10-mans with a melee light, caster heavy group, this is much more useful than expose weakness.  However, paired with the awesomely drool inducing changes to pets and the introduction of pet talent trees, You’re probably going to find me sticking to BM for leveling during Wrath.

I’ll be updating this post with some experimental builds.  Be interested on people’s comments.

The first is a heavy BM, focusing on dps.  I was toying with careful aim in MM, or going down to get Clever Traps in Surv.  I am not sure how some of the dps choices I have made in BM weigh up against not taking careful aim?  I’m also likely to feel the need to take Clever traps for raids, as I am known for my trapping skills (when I have these talents).

 

EDIT:  I wrote this post a little while back now, and boy have there been a lot of changes since.  The changes have been coming so thick and fast they have made my head spin, and I have delayed writing a more detailed post to discuss talents, as it could all change again the minute I post.

I have noticed a lot of hits on this post though, so I will be writing something shortly.  The builds seem to be solidifying a bit more, and people who are better theorycrafters (and I dare say hunters) than me have been crunching the numbers.  I will try and pull my reading together with my beta experience into a summary of where we stand.  So watch this space.

And as the commenter pointed out, my I was a bit dismissive of Marksman, which has received a lot of love.  So I will try and make up for it in the coming post.

56/10/5

Huntard’s Guide to Instances

The Huntards Guide to Instances :>P

Tongue is firmly in cheek here…

Ensure you have plenty of empty bag spaces for loot before you set off, by reducing the pet food and arrows you bring along with you, other party members will be happy to share.

Ensure your pet is on aggressive; this will increase the damage you do with your pet.

When attacking the same mob as the tank, spam growl with your pet (and Intimidation if you have it), to try to take the aggro off the tank and onto your pet, the tank will thank you for this, as it will reduce the damage the tank takes.

When jumping down or across any areas, don’t worry about your pet, he will find his own way around and will join up with you at the bottom.

When your party is ready to pull, make sure you shoot before your tank does.  This will help ensure the priest stays aggro free if they throw a heal on the tank at the wrong time.

Use tab targeting and spam auto-shot and multi-shot when it is off cooldown.  This will maximise your damage, allowing you to quickly attack any mob in the vicinity.  Tab targeting and pet attack also works well to send your pet in quickly.

If your party is in a tough fight, feign death early and stay feigned for the remainder of the fight.  This will save on armour repair costs and the annoying run back from the graveyard.

  When playing with warlocks, frost trap the mob they have thrown DOTs on, you can then leave the mob in the trap to die. (Warlocks should be told to DOT any mob you are about to trap before it runs into the traps for the same reason.)

Kill any critters you see in the instance, especially if you see one just as people are ready to pull. Critters can be dangerous if annoyed by AOEs and should be eliminated.  Killing critters helps your party, and is in no way distracting to other players.

Roll need on any maces you see, they usually have good stats for hunters.

Roll need on any items with strength and/or spirit on them, these are the best hunter stats.

Heck, roll need on all blue weapons, all weapons are hunter items (except maybe wands, you can let the mages and warlocks have those, they need all the dps help they can get compared to an experienced huntard).

Get yourself a sporebat pet, they are without doubt the best pet, accept no substitutes.

Oh and I more thing…

You regain health and mana faster if you sit down between fights, so type /camp to rest between pulls :>)  (please don’t try this at home unless you are a die-hard huntard)

And before you think, is she talking about me?  I didn’t have anyone I know in mind when I wrote it, it’s just a bit of fun, turning the advice on it’s head.

41/20/0 vs 31/30/0 vs 41/20/0 dps

The following post is pasted from a bookmark I had on my pc to the hunter forums at:

 http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=82081426&postId=819744830&sid=1#0

but for some reason I couldn’t get type this out on my mac, and was too lazy to copy it across.  I’m mainly posting it for my own reference as he links some builds close to the ‘cookie-cutter’ build on the 3 main builds.  Thanks to Balogna in the guild Hordecore on the Blackwing Lair server.

Dps done on Dr Boom. Done in intervals of 50 000 damage. On all tests, using an “arcane instead of steady” rotation. Steady -> auto -> arcane -> auto -> steady. Pet DPS is not being used, and Multishot is not being used due to Multiple mobs, multishot damage would skyrocket.

Hybrid Spec 0/31/30 – Long’horon – 1792 rap – 26.01% crit
Build:http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?0000000000000000000000505201215013050100003313002312300310500000

1. 51160 damage – 20,0% crit – 500.8 dps
2. 51495 damage – 28.0% crit – 543.4 dps
3. 52146 damage – 25.3% crit – 558.2 dps
4. 52578 damage – 30.7% crit – 555.8 dps
5. 53166 damage – 35.1% crit – 644.1 dps
6. 47448 damage – 20.0% crit – 528.7 dps
7. 51877 damage – 25.6% crit – 568. 7 dps

Average DPS is Approx 550 dps.

Hybrid Spec 0/31/30 – Skyfire Hawk-bow
Build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?0000000000000000000000505201215013050100003313002312300310500000

Not Available Yet.

Marksman spec 14/44/3 – Long’horon – 2110 rap – 18.45% crit
Build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?5520020000000000000000505201215013153135100300000000000000000000
Note: that I’m not using Multishot, which favours a MM build slightly ( or heavily, for those who believe we have infinite mana pools)

1. 52583 damage – 13.3% crit – 532.4 dps
2. 52249 damage – 19.8% crit – 589.6 dps
3. 52564 damage – 16.3% crit – 559.4 dps
4. 54466 damage – 18.2% crit – 564.3 dps
5. 52722 damage – 17.6% crit – 563.7 dps

Average DPS is Approx 560 dps

Marksman spec 14/44/3 – Skyfire – 2110 rap – 18.45% crit (close enough, different bow)
Build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?5520020000000000000000505201215013153135100300000000000000000000

1. 51505 damage – 22.7% crit – 603.0 dps
2. 52911 damage – 18.8% crit – 600.0 dps
3. 51362 damage – 12.4% crit – 599.6 dps
4. 55405 damage – 25.4% crit – 624.5 dps
5. 47511 damage – 20.5% crit – 590.0 dps

Average DPS is Approx 600 dps

Beastmastery spec 41/20/0 – Valanos’ Longbow – 1635 RAP – 19.5% crit
Build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?5120020052501215310510505201205000000000000000000000000000000000
Note: Did not use TBW
-used Valanos’ longbow because speed is ideal for BM hunters
-remember that the pet is not being used here. Therefore, I’m not getting any Focus inspiration buff which would up my dps.

1. 51325 damage – 21.6% crit – 600.5 dps
2. 53181 damage – 18.0% crit – 580.0 dps
3. 51876 damage – 22.3% crit – 585.5 dps
4. 52881 damage – 23.3% crit – 584.3 dps
5. 50801 damage – 15.6% crit – 575.0 dps ( used The Beast Within for this test)

Average DPS is Approx 585 dps. This is hunter only. How can people say that BM is not a raiding build?

Survival spec 0/20/41 – Long’horon – 1674 RAP – 26.01% crit
Build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?0000000000000000000000505201205000000000003313002312300310530251

1. 53177 damage – 39.0% crit – 566.0 dps
2. 52942 damage – 29.2% crit – 504.7 dps
3. 50327 damage – 25.6% crit – 520.0 dps
4. 51551 damage – 35.9% crit – 567.1 dps
5. 53553 damage – 31.0% crit – 550.0 dps

Average DPS is Approx 530 dps

Survival spec 0/20/41 – Skyfire – 1674 RAP – 26.01% crit (about, new bow)
Build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?0000000000000000000000505201205000000000003313002312300310530251

1. 53875 damage – 32.2% crit – 566.2 dps
2. 53156 damage – 26.7% crit – 558.0 dps
3. 52077 damage – 31.0% crit – 550.0 dps
4. 52027 damage – 38.8% crit – 617.2 dps
5. 53156 damage – 26.7% crit – 560.3 dps

Average DPS is Approx 565 dps

Now people may wonder why im posting these numbers. I have a few reasons.

1. Hunter dps doesn’t suck. yes, im sitting there in a perfect, non interrupted environment. But, i’m self buffed. Add in MOTW, BOK or BOM, agility pot, RAP food, Fel strength elixir, sunders, Pet DPS then hunter dps goes up a lot.

2. 31/30 build viablity. A lot of hunters have been asking if it’s a good build. In my opinion, it’s an amazing build. The only thing i lack, is my silencing shot It’s a very minor dps increase to go marks (remember, compare the Long’horon stats, not the long’horon and the Skyfire stats in 31/30 and MM) and you gain the trap abilities, surefooted. What i lose, and miss is Imp AOTH and focus fire.

3. A little information about bow speeds. Most hunters should know by know, that an autoshot takes .5 seconds to fire after a steady shot. So, mathematically you would like a 2.00 bow speed. Skyfire goes down to 2.09, giving a little bit of error.

4. this is dps without my pet. A well managed pet adds a good 100 dps at least.

The reason i dislike Skyfire, is because with AOTH it’s very very hard to take your steady shots w/o delaying autoshot. I thought, i should use Long’horon because the delay in autoshot gimps me. I was wrong, the dps increase in Skyfire and the Speed benefit outweighs the fact that i may be losing some autoshot timing.

Overall Comparison

MM: Lon’horon – 560dps
MM: Skyfire – 600dps

BM: Volanos’ – 585 dps

Hybrid: Long’horon – 550 dps

Survival: Long’horon – 530 dps
Suvival: Skyfire – 565 dps

Hopes this helps guys.

how I Trap

I don’t claim to be the best at crowd control in the world, but I’m not bad, and it’s part of the hunter game I like and am constantly trying to improve.  Good trapping in an instance group makes a huge difference to the success or failure of the group.

For those of you likewise constantly looking to improve your crowd control, this is the my experience. Please add any tips you have in reply.

Intro to Freeze Traps

Our partner in cc is the freeze trap -   Lets look at its tooltip:

Freezing Trap:  (Rank 3) Instant cast; 100 Mana.  Place a frost trap that freezes the first enemy that approaches, preventing all action for up to 20 sec. Any damage caused will break the ice. Trap will exist for 1 min. Only one trap can be active at a time. 30 sec cooldown.

Freeze trapping is first learned at level 20.  At level 20 the trap only lasts 10 secs.  Rank 2, learnt at level 40, increases this to 15 seconds, and Rank 3, learnt at level 60, to 20secs.

Freeze traps can be uses on any type of mob, unlike a mages sheep or a priests shackle which are powerful but have limited uses.  There are a few mobs that are immune to it (often ones that are immune to frost spells or to all forms of cc).  Freeze traps can also occassionally be resisted.

Only one freeze trap can be open on the ground at any one time.  However, once a mob is trapped, another trap can be placed if the cooldown is up.  This trap can await the trapped mobs escape or can be used to trap a second mob.  It is not something I regularly do, but it is possible to trap 2 mobs at once, before going back to chain trapping one of them.

Freeze trap has its limitations.  Beside some of those mentioned above, it can be removed from mobs or players in pvp either by themselves or by their friends through spells such as mage ice-block, pally .  It also breaks on any damage, including DOTs or stings on the mob (except scorpid sting), consecration, arcane explosion, multi-shot in the vicinity, etc.  But the biggest issue for chain trapping is its cooldown.  Without armor or talents to improve your freeze trap, the mob remains trapped for 20secs but the cool down on the trap is 30secs, so if the mob was trapped as soon as the trap was laid, then there will be a 10sec gap before you can lay another one.  10 secs = dead when Moroes’s friend Drueger is running after you.

How I Trap

I  am going to talk through a dungeon situation, where your group has to pull several mobs at once, and you have to keep one mob crowd controlled throughout a long fight. Meaning that you will have to re-trap the mob at least once.

This is not dropping a freeze trap in a reaction to extra adds, as you might do when soloing, but pre-planned trapping. You place the trap before the pull, target your mark, and when the tank pulls shoot at your mark to peel him from the group and into the trap.

 Before the fight begins, survey the area.  If in doubt ask the tank where he is going to fight the mobs, and find a good place to put the trap, which is out the way of the melee and any AOE (area of affect spells). This will usually be well to the side or behind the main fight. I usually make sure the group, and especially the tank, knows where my trap will be.

 Check whether you have a caster or a melee to trap. For most hunters (except those with silencing shot), melee is easier, as the mob will run towards you. We will deal with trapping a melee mob for now. I will make a note about casters later. For very tough fights, you might want to know what skills the mob you are asked to trap has. For instance, in the Karazhan Moroes fight, I am usually asked to keep a mob trapped until Moroes and his other 3 cronies are dead – several minutes. One of the mobs is a paladin (my best buddy Drueger) with a hammer of justice, if you are trapping him you have to stand well behind the trap or he will stun you before getting trapped.

 It is helpful if the group leader users raid target icons to mark the targets, so that you and everyone else know which you are trapping. If there is only one hunter in the party the convention is to use the Blue Square for the freeze trap.

 Make sure everyone in the party knows not to attack your mob. That means, no DOTs (damage over time), and no AOE on your mob or near your trap. If the trap breaks they should know to not attack it and give you chance to re-trap, unless you specifically call for help.

 The mobs are all marked up. Before the pull, place your trap, stand behind it, and target the Blue Square.  Remember your trap will exist on the group for 1 min before it fades, and then 20secs while something is trapped in it.  It’s hard to know exactly when the tank is going to shoot, but try and place your trap about 30secs or so before he does so.  This way you eat into your cooldown, meaning that your trap will be off cooldown by the time the fight starts.  This is useful for 2 reasons.  Firstly, if your first trap gets resisted you can throw down another.  And secondly, as soon as the mob is trapped, place the next trap down, so that the cooldown is ticking down at the same time as the life of the activated trap.  Doing this means you are less likely to have a mob breaking from a trap before your cooldown is up.

We are all set.  Wait for the tank, as soon as he pulls, start shooting at your mob. As soon as you draw aggro stop auto shot, otherwise you will break your own trap.  Rather than relying on remembering to turn off auto shot, I usually use a little macro to pull. It goes like this:

/Cast Distracting Shot

/Cast Arcane Shot

/Stopcasting

 

 Addons can help with trapping a lot – 2 addons KHunter Timers and Cool Down Timers 2 can help a lot with this. The first tells you how long your trap will exist untriggered on the ground (and later how long it will exist with something trapped in it, if it doesn’t break early); the second tells you how long before you can lay another trap. If you time it right, you can have a trap on the ground but be ready to lay another one when the tank pulls.

 Once you have him successfully trapped, switch you target to assist the tank, and start adding your dps to the groups kill target. But all the time watch your trap and its cool down.   You might read some advice telling you to set your trapped mob as your Focus, so that you can switch back and forth between them easily.  (Read about focus and focus macros elsewhere on this blog.)  Actually, from habit I do this the other way around.  I make the Main Assist or Main Tank my focus. Once I have my mob trapped I can then quickly switch to lending dps to the focus’s target at a push of a button.  When I am ready to re-trap, I either manually target, or tab target (with auto shot turned off) to my blue square.

 I use three different methods to re-trap depending upon the situation:

 Method 1: Drop a new trap between yourself and the mob when the cooldown is up, and when the old trap breaks and the mob rushes at you it becomes re-trapped. Pros: Simple, little dps down time, maximum trap time. Cons: If there is a lot of healing flying around, it is possible that when the trap breaks the mob won’t run at you, but will run off at the healers.

 Method 2: Drop a new trap between yourself and the mob and just before the trap breaks, shoot at the mob, to deliberately break the trap and pull it into the new trap. Pros: Your’re in contol, you are building up more aggro on the mob, he is not going to run off and eat the healer. Cons: You are switching off the dps, need to make sure you don’t break your own trap. Also if you do this for a long time, you will have built up a lot of aggro on the mob. When the tank is ready to break the trap, stand away from it and feign death, so it doesn’t rush at you.

 Method 3: When the trap is close to breaking, run over and physical drop the new trap on top of the old one. pros: you are less likely to break your trap accidentally, you keep the mob in one place. cons: If it breaks as you approach it, and your mob has a stun or cc affect or high dps, you might be in trouble.

 Trapping a caster – if you are able to silence the caster they will run towards the person silencing them, and thru any trap that is in the way. If you don’t have a means of silencing the caster to pull it thru your trap, you need to either do a ‘long pull’, work with ‘line of sight’, or ‘drop the trap on their head’. Marksman hunters have silencing shot which could work (I’ve never specced this far into the MM tree), some priests specced into shadow and some other classes also have a silence or interupt, if they stand between your trap and the caster they could also pull the caster thru the trap, but another party member may have other tasks. I usually use the other three methods:

 Method 1 caster trapping: the long pull. If you have a clear area behind you, and quite a narrow space to pull the caster thru, you can shoot and run, once you get out of their range they will follow you, hopefully thru your trap. Pros: When it works its fairly easy to do, and can be done when you can’t run over to the casters starting position. Cons: The caster might miss the trap, some areas are more suited to this than others, you might take damage and get out of the healers range.

 Method 2 caster trapping: disrupt line of sight. If you have a handy corner or curve, you can run around it disrupting the casters line of sight, making them follow you, and trigger a well placed trap. This can also work well with the high level hunter spell – Misdirection – which allows you to shoot at the mob but the mob things the shots (and so the threat) is coming from someone else. Usually you misdirect onto your tank or your pet. They can be hiding around the corner to begin with.

 Method 3 caster trapping: drop the trap on his head. If it is safe to run up to the caster, wait for the tank to initiate the fight. Don’t shoot at the caster or draw its attention, just run straight up to it and drop the trap on its head! Pros: often a good solution, though your dps may be delayed a bit. Cons: you can’t use it in all situations, as running over to the caster might bring you close to other mobs, which you could aggro causing adds, wipes, and gripes.  Also, the trap only lasts 20secs, as the mob is trapped as soon as it is dropped, this is not conducive to chain trapping, especially without additional trapping talents.

 What happens if my trap breaks early and freeze trap is still on cool down? Communication is key. Whenever my trap is out but I am re-trapping I make a habit of saying on voice, “re-trapping.”  If you need help ask for it calmly. Say something like, “trap out, trap on cooldown, need help.” The groups I regularly run with know if I say something like this, I can’t retrap. But even if your trap is on cool down, you don’t always need the off tank to come to the rescue. If you can buy yourself a few seconds, scatter shot, wing clip, run, concussion shot, kite the mob, tank it with your pet for a bit, even run, spamming you trap hot key until you drop it in your wake (if there’s room to do so safely). Be careful using feign death to shake off a mob from a broken trap, it’s going to run straight to the healers. You should only use if you’re quick, you spring up straight away and pull the mob back before he has reached a healer, giving you a second or two more on your cooldown.  I need to try this one out, but I’ve read you can use Wyvern Sting (deep survival tree talent – great fun in pvp), which puts the mob to sleep for 12 sec but leaves a damaging DOT on it when it wakes, as long as you remember to replace the DOT with a scorpid sting before re-freeze trapping.

 Do I need special gear or a survival spec to be able to trap successfully? The simple answer is no. But both can make your life a lot easier especially for heroics, kara and beyond.  Armor and gear to improve trapping:

Two pieces of the Beast Lord set – set bonus for 2 pieces – reduces the cooldown on your traps by 4 secs.  The pieces drop from breastplate (final boss in Botanica); helm (final boss in Mechinar); shoulders and legs (final boss in Steamvaults).  I have the breastplate and helm, and even though I now how my Merciless Gladiator pieces, which I better, I keep these in my bag for the set bonus.  If I have to do a lot of chain trapping, I throw them on.

Two pieces of the Beast Lord set which drops in level 70 normal 5-mans, gives a set bonus which reduces the cool down on your traps by 4 secs. Clever traps a tier 3 talent in the survival build increases the duration of your traps by 15%. I have trapped successfully without these things, but having them helps. Further down the survival tree are other trapping talents. However, to get clever traps does mean you have to major or minor in survival and a Beastmaster/marksman 41/20 build tends to be the cookie cutter raiding build if all you want is the highest dps you can manage, so its up to you.

Talents for trapping are mostly found in the survival tree:

• Clever Traps (Survival Talent): Increases the duration of Freezing and Frost trap effects by 15% per rank (2 total ranks) and the damage of Immolation and Explosive trap effects by 15% per rank.
• Trap Mastery (Survival Talent): Decreases the chance enemies will resist trap effects by 5-10% (2 ranks).
• Resourcefulness (Survival Talent): Reduces the mana cost of all traps and melee abilities by 20% per rank and reduces the cooldown of all traps by 2 sec per rank. (3 ranks total).

If you don’t have any enhancements to your traps, just try to lay your first trap a little before the tank pulls, starting your cooldown counting down for your second trap, and once your mob is trapped, if you have room to move, run well away from your trap, so your mob will have to run between you and the trap buying you some time.  Remember to keep laying your trap as soon as the cool down is up, to eat into the next cooldown, and remember to kit a mob or use other skills such as scatter shot and wyvern sting if the cooldown isn’t up yet.

 Can I trap 2 mobs at once? Yes. Currently you can (they changed it so you couldn’t at one point). It takes timing, and you can only really chain trap one of them (or at least I can). Here’s an example. In the new 5-man Magister’s Terrace there is a room with the 1st boss in, with 2 groups of 6 elites. Each group comes as a 6 man pull, and they are tough. but there is a nice narrow corridor between them and an area you can fight them. This is what I do: Have the tank stand next to me (everyone else is back where we will fight them). Lay trap 1. Wait for the cool down allowing me to lay another trap (don’t lay it yet, you cant have 2 untriggered traps on the ground at once). Misdirect the mobs with multi shot onto the tank, then both run down the corridor, wait for the noise, icon, addon, whatever you have to show you your trap has been triggered, then drop trap 2 in the corridor, emerge into the fighting area, another mob gets trapped in trap 2, the mage sheeps a third, and now you only have 3 to deal with, much better odds! When one of your trapped mobs gets loose, you may be able to retrap it, but the tank needs to be ready to soak up the other one (hopefully they were hit by the misdirection so have some aggro towards him).

 Some extras: Either you, your pet, or your tank can run a mob thru a trap, using a pull then run, or proximity aggro. If you don’t much mind which mob you trap from a group, try placing the trap and then misdirecting the group onto the tank (who is standing behind the trap) using multi-shot (which will slap him on the hate list of 3). If you are not specifically being asked to trap, place a trap between your healer, or a ranged dps who often draws aggro and the mobs (they will thank you for it when the mob runs at them, even if it is immediately broken it buys a second or two).

 What about traps other than freeze trap? In instance, I only usually use my other traps if we are doing AOE pulls (i.e. burning down non-elite groups), occasionally for boss fights or running away. The reason I don’t use them to add to dps, even if not being asked to cc, is that I like to keep the cooldown of my freeze trap up, for emergency cc. But for AOE pulls you can either use explosive trap or snake trap (lvl 68). Snake trap is my favorite. However, be a bit careful, if you group kills the mobs very quickly, or the trap triggers late in the fight, the snakes will slither off looking for other prey and may pull adds. Its surprising how far they will go before they die. Frost trap can be used to kite mob, particularly when you are running for the exit after a bad pull.  Frost trap can also be used to kite the Coilfang Defenders in heroic slavepens.  These mobs are immune to all forms of cc, come in pairs, and hit real hard.  We usually tank one and kite one.  They are pretty easy to kite as a hunter with a combination of frost trap, concussive shot, aspect of cheetah (if needed), and wing clip if you have to turn around and come back through him.

 Things a trapper wishes their group wouldn’t do (not that my regular group does)
- DOTs the mob to be trapped, this breaks the trap
- AOEs (arcane explosion, consecration, dragon breath, thunderclap, etc.) near a trap, this breaks the trap.
- Come to my rescue too early if the trap breaks early, I can’t re-trap if you are hitting the mob
- put a heal on me just as the trap breaks, I know you are trying to save me (ty), but try and wait till I have hit him again or he will run straight for you
- Pull the fight next to the trap, this makes me twitchy
- Tank/melee break the trap without looking to see if there are any other loose mobs to take care of (I can keep him trapped, but not if you blow my cooldown)
- Tank/melee break the trap I have been chain trapping, while I am standing next to it, with no warning to me, and no immediate taunt, trap mob is going to kill me if I have built up a lot of aggro. Give me warning, I can move away and feign death to dump aggro.

 HOMEWORK TIME!!!! Go out and practice. Go and practice even before you are in an instance or group. Find a favorite spot where you can practice your trapping skills, work out how the addons work, and generally get better before you join a group. This will give you much more confidence. I like to use the Clefthoofs of Nagrand as big hairy guineapigs, but pick whatever you like. I chain trap clefthoofs from one end of Nagrand into Telaar and leave them as a present for Cookie’s Dad, before running away. I try multi-trapping on them and the talbuks; different methods of pulling; test out my addons; etc. This has hugely improved my trapping.

Hope this helps – please share your hunter tips on this forum – I want to learn from you too 

Tinuviel’s Diary: Our first trip to Zul’Aman

For once everyone turned up on time, Cain behaved himself (our raid leaders 2 year old son), Letin had his Ramen all read to go, and excitement and nerves were high.  I had the walk thru printed out, and off we went.

At first we had a minor hiccup which caused some lol’s – we couldn’t bang the gong to open the door, and Harrison Jone’s got fed up with our efforts and reset himself.  Obviously, 5-6 of us were too puny.  We tried again with the whole party banging away (that sounds so wrong!).  Have you ever seen a resto druid in tree form wacking a gong?  It’s not elegant.  We even tried a badly coordinated effort at, ‘all hit it on 3…’  Finally, Harrison’s ear drums had had enough, he realised we weren’t going to go away, so he let us in.

Now came the pulls as described in the walk through.  The research was worth it, as they were exactly as described.  And it was easy!  Almost too easy.  We were sailing through it, wondering when it was about to go pear shaped….

Penultimate pull before the boss – pear shaped :>(  2 trolls on bear mounts.  The idea is that one tank pulls the first troll to the left side of the platform, the other tank pulls the other to the right side of the platforms.  The group stands in the middle and burns, first one then the other down.  At 30% health the troll and mount split, and the mount usually races for the healers.  It can be cc’d at this point (hunter freeze trap in front of squishy group).  That’s the theory anyway.  Basically, we hit a crunch point, mostly because some of use didn’t quite have the gear to withstand the rigors of learning the encounter.  Obviously, when you are new to a fight things don’t go as smoothly as they otherwise might, as people are figuring out where to stand, what to target, the level of healing needed.  This is when better gear might save your butt.  Our pally tank in particular (who is our lifeline in kara, and without whom our kara runs are so much harder), was going down too quickly, and decided he needed to go away and beef up his defense rating.  Personally, I think he could have coped if we were more practiced at the encounter, and had the timing right.  For now it has at least served the purpose to focus minds back on later Karazhan, which some of the raid were seeing as old hat, but which I for one hadn’t finished with (we haven’t got to the Prince or the dragons yet, due to the limited raid time we have to run).

Gearing up your Hunter (part 3) – Gems

The Message of the Day is – Don’t work hard for your armor and then fail to enchant, armor kit or socket it. Your’re in a guild with lots of crafters, there’s no excuse for running around with holes in your armor where gems should be.

Gems

Rare (blue quality gems for hunters) 
sockets they fit and prices very approx uncut/cut on ah (prices are very approx. and based on my server.  They have risen dramatically recently with the advent of season 4 arena and new BG gear, and a bug with no green gems available as drops through mining, so they may fall in future.)

Delicate Living Ruby* +8agi Red 50g/65g
Shifting Night Eye +4agi/+6stam red/blue 35g/45g
Smooth Dawnstone +8crit yellow 25g/35g
Glinting Noble Topaz* 4agi/4crit yellow/red 35g/55g
Wicked Noble Topaz* 4crit/4ap yellow/red 35g/50g
Jagged Talsite 4crit/6stam yellow/blue 7g/15g
Solid Star* of Elune 12stam 

Uncommon (green quality gems for hunters)

Delicate blood garnet +6agi red
Balanced Shadow Draenite 6ap/4stam red/blue
Glinting Flame Spesserite 3hit/3agi Yellow/red
Jagged Deep Peridot 3crit/4 stam yellow/blue
Ridged Golden Draenite 6hit yellow
SHifting Shadow Draenite 3gi/4stam red/blue
Smooth Golden Draenite 6crit yellow
Solid Azure Moonstune 6stam blue
Wicked Flame Spesserite 3crit/6ap

The uncut gems cost around 2G each at the moment on the ah. The cuts vary from 2G to 15Gish – prices vary wildly on my server.

Meta Gems 

These fit in a helmet slot. They usually have requirements you have to meet for them to work, e.g. must have 6 red gems. This means you must have 6 red gems socketed on the armor you are wearing (any armor obviously not just your hat). Remember red, doesn’t just mean rubies or garnets, it also mean purple or orange gems that count as a red and a blue gem. If it said 2 reds and 2 blues and you had 1 purple and 1 orange you would meet the requirements, as the purple and the orange each count as both a red and a blue  

If a JCer can cut the meta gem you want, you need to supply them with either an uncut earthstorm diamond or an uncut skyfire diamond. Alchemists can transmute these with the ingredients below. Alchemists can make one transmute per day. If you ask an alchemist to transmute a gem for you, its polite to offer a tip, as they are using up their daily transmute.

Earthstorm diamond ingredients for transmute: 3 deep peridot, 3 shadow draenite, 3 golden draenite, 2 primal earth, 2 primal water

Skyfire diamond ingredients for transmute: 3 blood garnets, 3 flame spesserites, 3 azure moonstones, 2 primal fires, 2 primal airs

However, if you intend to buy the ingredients check the prices against the prices of an uncut or cut gem on the ah – the prices of the ingredients are so high at the moment it might be cheaper to buy you uncut or even cut direct from the ah.

Relentless Earthstorm Diamond +12agi & 3% increase to crit damage (requires at least 2 red gems, 2 yellow gems, 2 blue gems) {this is the best hunter meta imo – however the requirements are quite restrictive and may not make it better than the Swift Skyfire Diamond – as the latter gives you the option of stuffing all your sockets regardless of color (except for 2) with Delicate living rubies}

Swift Skyfire Diamond* – 24Ap and increased run spead (by 8%) (requires at least 2 yellow gems and 1 red gem) – second best hunter gem imo

Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond* = 12 critical strike rating and 5% snare and root resist (more of a pvp one but still probably not better than those above) (requires more red than yellow gems)

Swift windfire diamond - 20ap and run speed (by 8%) – slightly lower stats that swift skyfire but here’s the nice part – this one is purchased with Spirit Shards – those green things u pick up in the Auchindon instances and wonder what they are for. 8 spirit shards gets you a meta gem. For the alliance – you buy them from Spirit Sage Zran in Allerian Post (he’s standing outside the broken tower left hehind the inn).

To meet the socket bonus or not?
If you match the correct color gems to the sockets you get a socketed bonus. Sometimes however, it is not worth blindly meeting this, if using a different color gem might be better for you. Tinvuiel is often specced as a survival hunter which is all about agility and goes for delicate living rubies where ever possible.

Wot no epic gems?

You might be wondering why I haven’t mentioned epic gems here.  The reason is, I don’t consider them to be good value for money for most players.  And if you are a player who has both the armor and the money, to make them worthwhile, then you probably don’t need this guide.  Most of the epic gems cost around 500G each compared to around 30-70G for an equivalent blue gem.  But for that, almost 10 fold increase, you only get around +2- +4 to your stats.  If you are socketing these in armor that is not T5 or above, the gems are likely to be worth more than the armor, and it’s possible you may find an upgrade for that armor piece in the near future in any case.  This is not to say that I don’t encourage you to slot and enchant your armor, I do, I just bulk at the price hike on epic gems.  Roll on WOTLK when hopefully prices will fall.

There are a couple of exceptions to the note above – firstly epic gems that drop in heroics.  Anelf my partner’s druid has collected several healer epic gems from heroic Slave Pens :>)  And epic gems that jewelcrafters can craft for themselves only (they are BOP) from rare blue quality gems.  Soupdragon my shaman alt has a couple of these, they tend to be unique equipped, so she can only wear one of each type.  The quest to kill the final boss in normal Magisters Terrace also drops a nice epic gem for hunters – just make sure you slot it into something you are not going to replace in a hurry :>)

Final Note:
Rare (blue) jewelcrafting patterns are hard to come by and prohibitively expensive on the ah. If you do get a good one (especially for hunter gear, because we’re biased right?) you might want to consider offering it to a guild jewelcrafter for a fair price before ahing it. That way you and the other hunters get cheaper gems. However, the jewelcrafter might not be able to offer you the full ah asking price, so don’t feel it is your duty to do this. You need money same as the next player, and it was your lucky day when you got the pattern, so don’t feel bad if you decide to ah it.