Buxology v2

Update vol.2

2010-06-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

I'm still here, waiting for better times. It really sux, but there's just not enough time for a proper geek marathon any more. Hopefully I'll get some chances to do this during summer, which means the start of July. Yeah, the exams will last for whole June, and I dare not to reenter the whole thing until I'm done with them. The old guild is rebelling as well, some are transferring horde, so that was a major letdown; I knew it would be hard for me to get a hold of a credit card, but I really wanted to transfer back to Frostwhisper and rejoin Order of Azeroth, even if it means we'd just hang on ventrillo and do 5-mans. And now most of them are going horde. Now I don't have anything against horde, but my hunter, Duco, will definately not faction change! I want to have a night elf bitch for the rest of the days.

So yeah, I really don't know what's gonna happen... Time will tell I guess, let's just hope my enthusiasm lasts until summer. It would be great if it did.

Update

2010-03-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Since my last post on this blog was from January this year, I guess I should really tell a bit more why I'm not into WoW at the moment. Or, to be more precise, wannabe excuses. Of course I want to play it! The most significant problem, though, is that I've lost contact with the game. After... 3 years? it is the first time I've stopped reading World of Raids / MMO-Champion alltogether. I don't know (as of current) how the Icecrown Citadel looks like and if Arthas has been killed yet. It sux, I know. And the worst of all, for which I'm really disappointed about is that I don't even know the active situation about hunters any more. Gah! My heroin, my hunter!

And it's the first time in my history I've been so detached from the game - I reactivated the account for 2 months, but probably spent 4 hours of that 2 months in-game. I'm so out I can't come back easily. Obviously I could come back if I had enough time, but with couple of hours a week, it's really hard. Especially when you know you'll have to invest heavily into catching up.

So what have I been doing so that I'm so busy with the faculty that I can't play. Well, for one I'm not sure, I just try to do more sports, I've been quite busy with playing the guitar (although I'm not there yet :P), and I try to socialize, do more stuff you know. The only game addiction I have is playing CoD MW 1 with 2 mates on weekends. It's lots of fun, although when I think about it, WoW might be the more obvious choice.

But I've not really been lying to my colleagues from the old guild - I really want to come back and if not else, my last deadline is June after the exams. The problem (real!) is also a credit card holder that would let me use it to transfer back to Frostwhisper...

So yeah... I miss WoW, but it just takes so much time (even casually!). Totally fitting for summer nights <3.

So, cya in Azeroth, bitchez! Sooner or later!

Well well well

2010-01-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

It appears I'll have to rename this blog :). If my wishes come true (ofc they will, they always do! gah!) I'll return to my old server - and, hopefully claim my old name, Duco, back. So I dunno how I should rename it ... hmm

FTW Disbands

2009-09-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

Well, it wasn't disbanded as of this writing yet, but it's gonna hit pretty soon. I haven't been in-game lately so frankly all I know about the reasons is what I've read on the forums. And frankly, that really sux big time. First there were some raiders leaving, most of them the long-standing members of the guild. Reason being them not having fun any more, or that they wanted to play with their IRL friends etc.

Sadly you can't do much about that. The problem is that those were the small pebbles that stroke an avalanche of guild departures, climbing up the ladder rank, and more and more excuses were made because "So many old members left I don't enjoy it any more".

Reasons are all valid, but frankly, it's the way WoW works. There will always be people leaving for IRL reasons, going casual, getting a GF and cancelling accounts (hehe), and new players coming in, some horrible, some weird and some brilliant. All you have to do is open your eyes and try to get by with the new people, because otherwise, you'll just bite the dust, be it sooner or later. And that's what exactly happened to the guild. I don't blame anyone, but I don't think disbaning a guild because you think it's not a good feeling any more is the right way to go. It just proves you want to leave the crisis and remember the old guild in its bests, and go for a new start. I understand guild leaders and/or officers doing that, because frankly, leading a hardcore raiding guild is an insane dedication job. But still, going for a new start will not bring you back with old people.

I just find it a shame that nobody wants to stand up to the challenge of leading the guild. Hell even if it'd be a social guild of 10 ppl, seriously, why disband it??

Even in Kara days when I freshly dinged 70 I remember leaving the guild after GM said he's gonna make it casual guild for his irl friends, and we had an insane amount of talented people in there. It's just against my logic to simply disband it.

So meh that's it. Now I need to ask my IRL friends what they're gonna do, but if they're gonna apply to Lost sadly I won't follow them. I don't really have that much time.

Should rethink why I transferred in the first place...

My nostalgy knows no limits...

2009-06-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

And indeed it doesn't! The reason for this post is that I'm just so undecided about what to to with my WoW situation. I have all, and I mean it all options to raid hardcore. I've got good guild, full of skilled people that have a dedication to raid 24/7. That dedication's what's killing me. The thing about our guild is that (especially if 3.2 patch is coming at the end of summer) we will almost 100% still raid 5 days out of 7 (and 10-mans other 2 days) for hard modes. We've got quite some of them already, but Mimiron's gonna take his toll, of that I'm sure. Others are not that much of a problem to be honest, but Mimiron and then Algalon (if we're that good yeh!) will require weeks of wiping. Well, not Algalon since he's on 1 hr despawn timer, but Mimiron will.

And here is where my uncertainty begins. I've got only 1 week and it's my last exam. I'm not really concerned about that, but I'll have 2 jobs during summer, and even now I can just see I'll be flooded for first couple of weeks. Flooded with work that is. And the few hours I'll have free I really wish to spend them with my IRL colleagues, not in WoW. Or, not raiding hardcore and become a zombie.

The thing that has arised is that if I continue raiding (and I haven't raided almost a thing in last 2 weeks or so), I should really get 2 raiding professions on my hunter (enchanting + LW), and I'd trade herbalism and skinning on my alt. And the idea was to transfer my 70 priest from Frostwhisper as well. She already got herbalism so I'd just have to level skinning, which'd be fast, and get her to 77. And I got a promise from a friend he'd even give me the 5k gold for epic flyer, since I'm so clueles at making money.

But that won't be the case. I'm really deciding about going to casual or even social status in the guild. Reason being that for the free evenings (I'll have many of those, whole July & September) I just don't want to raid intensely for 4 hours, and during weekends farm all the neccesary mats. Last time I had it much the same, but it was a bit better, I was not in such a hardcore guild, and it was only a month or so.

After transfer I thought it'd really be joy playing with IRL mates, and to a degree it is. It is awesome, I don't deny that. But I think I'll just go for casual. I know guild won't like it, and neither will my irl friends, but hopefully they'll join me :P. This raiding thing is too much of an effort for mere mortals. I mean if I had no job, I'd prolly easily go for it. Now though, I'd rather spend some evenings outside, go on some trips etc., you know, after all even if I'd ever have an Ironbound Proto-Drake, it doesn't really matter. New mounts will come anyway.

Hopefully if there is somebody from guild reading this, he won't take it as an offence. I really wanted to experience Ulduar first-hand, you know, when you are together with 24 other people pulling your guts out to kill that boss, and it was an amazing experience. Besides I'll still be available for raids, and I'll always be prepared and do my best if I come. I just don't want the responsibility to HAVE TO raid 4 nights a week or so.

The second thing is that I really miss Frostwhisper, the Order of Azeroth is just a thing of a lifetime. I miss playing with great people for the sake of playing and socializing with them, or even just chatting about random nonsense. It doesn't afford any in-game achievement or adrenaline rush like when you down a hard mode, but it's much more personally rewarding and a thing you'll definately remember. It's the point of WoW, which is still, after all, MMO. And now after so much raiding (okay, I admit lots of people raid way more, but I guess I'm just not the no-life kind of guy in this way), I just feel WoW is my 3rd job and a routine that, except the thrill of progress, doesn't reward anything else.

So yeah... that's why I won't transfer my priest to Ghostlands but try to level her to 80... and in doing so, refresh some connections and social bonds with people on Frostwhisper... while still be available to my guild on Ghostlands for some evenings. If I'll have more time I could also actually level my 2nd character, a mage which has almost full heirloom gear, and he can be a skinner&herbalist then. Plus even after this, I'll be more free in organizing my time.

So um yeah, that's about it. I'll see how things go, but that's my current situation and plan. Frostwhisper, I'll come back.

.... now you see why my nostalgy knows no limits :)

Some people will say that you sometimes have to leave past behind, but I just can't. I'm just too afraid I'll eventually lose touch with people from Frostwhisper if I leave them alone for so long (I'd never play with them again if I decided to leave past behind), and that would seem such a wasted opportunity for me. Don't know why, just have that gut feeling. I'm one of the few believers that do think online "friends" can be a bit more than the guy you're raiding with.

Onwards into the Ruins

2009-06-12T04:36:00.000-07:00

I told you that Zul'Gurub (almost) clear won't satisfy me. So here I am, wondering if I should try and go into Ruins of Ahn'Quiraj (AQ20), since many classes (including a prot pally in our guild) are said to be able to solo it easily. I've never really been to AQ20 before, so it was all new experience for me. And what an experience it was!

Okay, first thing I learned is that trash has way larger aggro range than what trolls in ZG had. And even moreso, if I just remember thinking Blood Drinkers in ZG are annoying, trash here owns them in terms of annoyance. Bees that charge you every 5 seconds, enraging gladiators with too much hp... It's not hard really, my pet was surviving really nicely, but it's very annoying. Especially from the start, because you need to clear an area around the first boss otherwise you'll just wipe. Later in the instance, it gets better since you can mostly just walk around, and if neccesary, run through some guys and then Feign Death. So, let's proceed with the strategies. Oh, btw, I one-shotted all bosses, but I admit I've read some WoWHead and BRR's info before attempting them, so I had some knowledge how things work.

1. Kurinnaxx:

Okay, so this boss is really not much of a challenge. I had more problems clearing trash (wiping once because of massive aggro range) than actually killing him. He has a Mortal Strike-like debuff that stacks, but with Glyph of Mend Pet and all the talents for +healing received, my pet didn't really have any problems surviving. When he stacks the debuff Gorilladin's health went down to like 13k or so, but it quickly recovered back to 21k when the debuff faded off. The second thing he does is every 7 seconds or so he'll spawn some moving sand thingie underneath "random raid member", therefore you, and you need to run away from it before it's complete (like Anub'Rekhan in AN), because you'll get damage and -75% to hit, which is not a nice thing. So it's just that... oh, don't take aggro from your pet because boss will insta teleport you to him. Easy to be honest.

2. General Rajaxx:

In my opinion the hardest boss of the instance. As you can see from the screenshot I was really on low health after the kill, and I once barely survived at around 30% (got to like 500 hp!). This fight is also long, but phase 1 is easy. You talk to Lieutenant General Andorov and say you're ready, and you follow him and 4 other elites with warblades towards the area where Rajaxx is. Then there will 7 waves of mobs consisting of some gladiators, some flying women, and each time a different Captain. As usual, just wait till they all get in range, set auto-cast on Thunderstomp, throw Misdirection on Gorilla and Mend Pet, and I just nuked down one by one. Each of 7 Captains has different ability, but apart from 1 they aren't dangerous at all. One of them has a self-enrage though, on that one I killed him first while using Tranquilizing Shot to cool off his enrage everytime he did it. After 7 waves, all 5 of the allied NPCs were dead, but who cares :).

At this point, Rajaxx will rush towards you. He's basically got 2 abilities that in combination make fight quite more intense than other bosses. First is that he'll do an AoE knockback that will always reduce your current health by 50%. So first time it'll be around 12k, then 6k, then 3k etc., down to 250 or so. That stuff doesn't affect pet, but it's so long range you can't really outrange it (at least I couldn't). The second thing is he will occasionaly (after knockback) attack you instead of your pet, where you have to use Feign Death/Deterrence. Sometimes you'll just have both on cooldown, and with low health (you'll never be on high health due to constant knockbacks) he can really scrap your health down fast. That's why I used bandages and herbalism heal everytime I could. That's about it, keep it going and he should go down (hopefully) before you die.

3. Moam:

This boss is very easy. He will drain your mana and, after reaching a certan mana amount himself, turn into a statue and summon 3 sparks. At that time he will start doing some heavy AoE, as will the sparks. Luckily, our pets get -75% damage from AoE, so no worries :D. Just single target nuke sparks down, and boss will return to normal state again with 0 mana. He resets aggro though, so throwing Misdirection did help. Oh, and the thing I did I also used Viper Sting everytime off CD, to slow his accumulation of mana. That's really it. Keep Mend Pet up, and nuke. Really easy for us hunters, since we can't really go oom (Aspect of the Viper ftw).

4. Ossirian the Unscarred:

The first thing here is that you should clear the whole grounds before this boss, since you'll be kiting him around. There are around 8 of those huge walking guys over here, and you should nuke down each of them fast. Reason is that they randomly cast a Comet that, when hitting you, deals 13k (actually it's split between everybody hit, but since you'll always be the only one hit...), so you don't want to get 2 of those to land on you. Other abilities of them are not dangerous, they summon some low hp adds, do some DoT, explode on death... usual stuff.
So, after clearing the area it's time to pull the boss. The boss has a very hefty buff that increases his damage by A LOT. The only way to dispel this is to use the crystals that spawn (1 at a time can be up) when he's near. The first crystal is, luckily, in front of him, so I just hopped onto mount, pulled him down to the first crystal, dismount, Misdirect on the pet and start nuking him. One thing - you always try to save Bestial Wrath, Deterrence and Feign Death for when he will stun your pet, so you can unstun it / tank the boss for that 5 seconds. Keeping Mend Pet up should suffice for all incoming damage. More important thing is that as soon as you use one crystal, you start looking for the new one. Normally (80% of the time) they'll spawn somewhere close nearby, so you don't have to run much. Put pet on passive, follow, and move to next crystal. Also, you should use the new crystal around 5 seconds before the debuff from last crystal runs out, because it takes some time for it to affect him. The only thing that's a bit harsh is if there's no crystal in visible range. That means it's farther away. Put pet on passive and follow, and start looking for the new crystal straight away, otherwise he'll get bonus damage and you'll be dead meat. Repeat this, and he should go down. It's not really a hard fight, but it's really fun to do. He also got loads of health so you're fighting him for like 10 mins or so. Awesome fight.

Generally, I'm really surprised at how awesome the fights are. Except from the first boss the strategies are really innovative and fun, also there are 2 bosses I didn't try because they are rather hard for hunters, but so far as I've read on them they're fun as hell as well!

I really encourage any class that has some solo capabilities to come here. It's really lots of fun, if you don't let it scare you from first look.

Slaying the Blood God

2009-06-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

I decided that I would try to get the Gahz'Ranka in Zul'Gurub today. Seeing how much effort&gold I've put into getting my pet tanking gear, it was a test I was really looking forward to. I remember that I once went ZG with PvE spec and PvE pet, and I couldn't even kill the first (snake) boss. It was horrible, and it kept me out from ZG for quite some time.

The first thing I had to do is to go into ZG, get to a special area called Pagle Point (there's alcohol bottles scattered all around the place, heh), pick up some tape that once belonged to Nat Pagle, and return it to his owner. Sadly, Nat Pagle is currently residing in Dustwallow Marsh, which is way off ZG. Luckily you only need to do the quest once, then you can buy Lure from the man. I bought 20 pieces (each costs 1g). Then you have to go back to ZG, and in the waters around the Altar of Hakkar there are some "Muddy Churning Water"-s, and you need to fish 5 Zulian Mudskunks from those pools. Then all you have to do is combine the lure and the fish while in Pagle Point, and Gahz'Ranka will spawn. As you will see, Gahz'Ranka encouraged me to clear more than half of the instance, so I'll go step by step and comment on what I think is important if you're a lost hunter trying to solo ZG (well, any class really).

1.Gahz'Ranka:

Basically this fight is trivial and really really easy. The only tough thing about it is that she knocks the tank back occasionaly, so check my pic. See that huge stone head in the top left corner? Tank it there, and the tank will receive no knockback. Her hits are quite low, the only thing about this fight is that it lasts long because she/he got a really large health pool. It just comes to keep Mend Pet on pet all the time, and Feign Death when neccesary, and nuke. One-shot.

2.High Priestess Arlokk (panther):

I was not aware at all of this boss's strategy, but nevertheless I made it by the way. The boss does some DoT which you can't do anything about. Then it's the second thing, she will cast some kind of Mark on you (never on pet) which spawns loads of panthers that come in waves and attack you. Sometimes during this time she will also disappear for a minute or so. What I found out was that when I have the mark and boss is not present, I'd just Feign Death and let the pet take care of panthers. They hit very low and got almost no life, so couple of Thunderstomp should finish them off. Otherwise I'd just use Explosive Trap and Volley to AoE them down quickly. And that's all there is... Just keep repeating this and you've won. The key here is only that you avoid taking too much damage from panthers, because you don't really have time to bandage. One-shot. Sadly the boss despawned already as I returned for screenshot.

3.High Priest Thekal (tiger):

This boss was the first one that was a bit trickier. One thing about the trash (I wiped once!!), send pet in and let it grab some solid aggro on tigers, and then nuke down one by one. If you get a pack of those tigers on you you're dead man. They will perma-stun you, really. It's so annoying.
Anyway, the boss. I've read about the strategy and made 2 macros, which I'll post here:

/tar zealot zath
/cast scorpid sting

/tar zealot lor'khan
/cast viper sting

Firstly when you start the fight nuke the 2 tigers down, they die fast. The boss himself has 2 adds, one is kind of rogue, while other is kind of priest. Rogue will do some insane damage, and occasionaly gouge you or the pet. The priest will keep silencing you (or Thekal, dunno lol), and he'll be healing. Note that the damage rogue and Thekal output is quite high, and counting that you'll be silenced 80% of the time, you really need to spam Mend Pet. First time I wiped because I wasn't keeping Mend Pet up 100%. It's extremely vital! So even if it's on half of duration and you don't have silence, refresh it. This also means you'll be loads more in Viper, but it's neccesary if you want to kill the boss. Then I nuke down one by one, first Thekal, then the rogue and lastly the priest, while spamming both macros everytime Viper Sting is off CD. Of course priest will heal them so you'll have to switch some targets in between. Anyway, when I got one to 10% I put Thunderstomp on the pet on off, and nuke them each separately. They need to die in 10 seconds between each other, otherwise they respawn with full hp and mana. After you've done this though, you've won. From here on the fight is piece of cake. Misdirection on pet, keep Mend Pet up, and nuke the boss. At around 30% the boss started spawning some tigers, I just ignored them and nuked the boss down. Sadly no mount, but I'll definately be farming this boy for it now I know how to kill him. 2-shotted.

4.High Priest Venoxis (snake):

This one's such a cake. Really. You go in, send pet, wait till snakes rush on him, and start spamming Thunderstomp. The damage it'll receive is minimal, keeping Mend Pet up will result in it having 90%+ health all the time. I just waited a minute or so for pet to get aggro, and then nuked the boss. I ignored the snakes completely. One-shot.

5.High Priestess Jeklik (bat):

Basically this boss is not hard in itself, it just lasts long. First time I've wiped, the reason being because I didn't know that she's an avid self-healer. Give her 3 heals, and she'll heal 100% of her HP back. I don't know wheter Pummel from Gorilladin or Intimidation worked on interrupting heals or not, I was getting Immune message although people on WoWhead say that's only for the silence effect. Basically she transforms to human form at 50%, and the bat riders start running in, and if you can't nuke her down you'll just be overrun (the bat riders don't actually join in the fight, they just fly around and throw fire bombs at you & pet). Solution: drain her mana to 0 before getting into phase 2 (getting her to 50%). Here's what I did. Pet was just tanking her for like 3 minutes or so, while I was just Viper Stinging her when it was off CD (I didn't attack her!). After pet got a sufficient aggro I also put pet on passive and stay, so the boss was basically smacking my pet while pet didn't respond, and the only thing I did was Viper Sting her. This is because even if pet was just attacking it she'd be at 50% way before she'd reach 0 mana. Oh, the bats that come in, I'd just put Explosive Trap down and Volley them to death, they die in around 4 Volleys (interruption counted in), so no hard deal. After 50%, it's nuke (pet can attack again), and keep her Viper Stinged everytime it's off cd. That's crucial, she can cast heal with barely few mana, so it's essential she's on 0 as much as possible. Two-shot.

6.High Priest Mar'li (spider):

This boss was a bit trickier, but as I read the strategy in advance I managed to bring her down in first try. It's not really hard either. When she's in troll form, nuke her, and more importantly, nuke the spiders she summons. They don't have that much health, and with luck you can bring them close to your pet where it can AoE tank them. Then you just single-target nuke them down. Keep Mend Pet up, and nuke the boss. When the boss switches to spider form I normally just pop Bestial Wrath, so first time she'll try to snare pet with web it's immune. Also, keep Mend Pet up here, she hits a tad harder. She will eventually manage to web your pet though. Use Master's Call to get rid of 2nd web on pet. If she manages to web the pet for the 3rd time, she'll go after you. Just feign death or pop Deterrence, whatever you prefer. This is the whole fight, keep doing this and she should go down quick. One-shot.

7.Hakkar:

After all 5 priests were dead I decided to try Hakkar, since he's much easier without the buffs from priests. You can skip all the trash on the Temple itself with some clever moving, so you can get to the back of the pyramid, away from the pats. Pull Hakkar, and kill him. It's that easy. It's your normal tank'n'spank fight with little incoming damage. The fight kinda feels more like Patchwerk, but only because of the insane amount of health he has, not because of his damage. Mend Pet should keep pet on basically 100% all the time. And if you're wondering if his soul drains will do anything... he only got 1 player to drain :). It's really easy... One-shot. Piece of cake!

So that leaves me the 3 optional bosses which I'll definately try. The Bloodlord Mandokir for the mount, Edge of Madness because I've never done it before and Jin'do the Hexxer well... just for the sake of it. I'm really looking forward to more adventures though, I'm sure I could kill more stuff in AQ20 and finally solo those TBC 5-mans, maybe even some heroics. It really makes difference having right glyphs, right gear and right talents.

Intense

2009-06-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hmm, with so many hunters applying lately, I wonder if I'll get a spot on raids any more?

Just a note

2009-06-07T01:03:00.000-07:00

Heya! I'm not dead as it seems, I'm just kinda busy with all the faculty studying, so I don't really have time to play WoW at the moment. It's gonna be better this week already though, after Wednesday I only have 2 exams left and that is, each one week, which means plenty of time to learn.
So until then, farewell. I'm definately coming back soon.

Karazhan, try 1

2009-06-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

For those about to solo Karazhan, we salute you.

Well, not really. It's quite a feat though. It's been done by paladins (no shit Sherlock), and Death Knights. The reason is that both classes are powerhouses for soloing in disguise. Paladins with their never-ending mana and hybrid spells that range from utility, damage, control, threat and ofc healing. And Death Knights because they're plainly overpowered as it is, and got a nifty self-heal that's more than enough for old content. We hunters, on the other hand, cannot heal ourselves. We can heal our pets, but what does that do if I get damaged. That's why Shade of Aran is kind of impossible (unless you're gearing for 300+ resistances.

That's what I learned today while attempting some solo stuff. Trash is most often easily doable. My Gorilladin didn't even take much damage, especially the ghost packs in the Library are a cake.

I've done 3 tries on Curator and just found out he's not doable either unless you get yourself an awesome resist gear. The only situation I didn't try (because I don't have SO much money) is that I'd go for pure dps spec and have Gorilladin as tank and tanking glyphs. In this case I might be able to insta-shot (Explosive Shot, Multi-Shot, Aimed Shot) Astral Flares fast enough to kill them before they get in 10 yards or so when they start to damage you. And still there's that insta damage that he does every 20 seconds or so, I forgot. That still deals some damage on lvl 80.

So, .... that's basically it. I'll probably do upper Karazhan with paladin friend, shouldn't be a problem at all. Attumen, on the other hand, is I'm sure totally soloable. Which means a slight chance for the mount. Oh, I also almost soloed Big Bad Wolf last week. It's so easy, it's definately 100% soloable. The only problem is that it's 1/3 of a chance. But then again, other events might also be soloable, although I have doubts.

So until next time, /wave!

The lonely path...

2009-05-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

Since the faculty things finally caught up on me (luckily they did, I've been slacking more then I'd want to), my raiding situation is kinda fragile at the moment. However, considering how my gear levels went up in the past month (replacing 75% of Naxx 10/heroic level items with Ulduar 25 or Ulduar 10 items), and a limited playtime, I reconsidered soloing the old (and new!) instances for fun and profit. Reconsidered and decided, actually.

I've already got my Gorilladin on the way to 80, since it was so easy to AoE farm and level with it. The "only" thing to start on this project was to pull out my rusty Gorilladin from his stable, go to class and pet trainer and respec my secondary spec (which is, btw, already BM - for Spirit Beast) to a pet tanking spec, and my Gorilladin spec to kind of optimal pet tanking spec. That was the easy part though. The harder part is to get sufficient gear for pet tanking.

For non-hunters, our pets get percentage of hunter's Stamina, Attack Power, Hit, Armor and some other, not so important stats.

The formulas are quite complicated (you can check them at Big Red Rhino though, it's an awesome resource from which I learned a lot of information) so I wouldn't discuss them here, but pet hit is 8%, and it scales 100% from hunter. The problem is that "tanking" gear doesn't have much of it on, hence the +3% from talents. Of course you want tank to be hit capped.

Now the biggest crack is to get a great tanking gear, which means loads of stamina, all mail, and still not completely ditch AP and hit, since my pet will have to hold aggro, and that means it needs Attack Power that it gets from hunter. Luckily, since most of my gear is close to BiS, or at least from Ulduar 10, that means I can basically replace half of items with pure tanking items and the other half of pure PvE dps pieces will still compensate for a good amount of attack power and hit, thus maintaining pet threat while greatly boosting its survivability.

I've already got 2 pieces of Frost Resist mail gear (Icy Scale Boots&Belt), which is attractive not because of frost resist but because of large quantities of stamina, and 4 sockets. Combinating that with Deadly Gladiator's Chest (which I regemmed with 2 stamina gems and +18 LW enchant), and Deadly Gladiator Neck, the only armor item I'm currently still in process of getting is WG mark epic PvP mail helm, which will also get the "+32 Stamina and 2% more armor from items" meta gem. And one of the "+Stamina +Res" head enchants (sadly, defence rating doesn't transfer to pet). Then I'm all ready.

I've also reglyphed. It was a bit hard on this part since there's no definite guide on what to glyph. 2 are quite obvious though, the new Glyph of Mending is awesome because it boost our Mend Pet by 40%, and Glyph of Bestial Wrath (reduces cd even more) is also a no-brainer.

The only thing I really lack is 2 pieces of Tier 5. Tier 5 set bonus is just so awesome for soloing people on 80 that do solo stuff still wear it, regardless of its low stats budget. Sadly I don't really have time and will to organize old raids just for that, so I'll have to do it without.

But I'm really happy. This is one sphere of hunter playstyle I haven't touched much yet, and it's awesome doing something new and it's just great because it's not practised by the masses of huntards all around.

I've still got loads to learn, but so far my pet has off-tanked Attumen, Moroes, main tanked Maiden and main tanked Big Bad Wolf (this boss is sooo soloable, wasn't even hard). And didn't really had much problem outlasting it, friend said he rarely even fetched a heal (that was before I got new gear and glyphs). I'll definately be soloing at least some Karazhan (gief mount! :P) on a weekly basis if I'll have time.

Especially now I feel more powerful with new items and glyphs.

The other objective I currently have is to start doing ZG... some bosses are quite nasty, but most of them are soloable. I wonder how will I fare without the 2t5pc bonus though, but I suppose it's best to just give it a try. The attractive thing about ZG is also the fished boss, Gahz'Ranka, that has like 25% chance to drop Book of Polymorph: Turtle, which is still a good money-maker (ppl were buying that for 6k at the end of TBC on some servers!), and it only takes a minimal effort to get it.

So, that's it, there's way more to tell, but well, I don't have all day. I can just say it's awesome doing and researching something new.

Oh, btw in old days Gorillas were taken as a tanking pet of choice because of their ability, Thunderstomp, which is basically a pet Consecration :). But now Blizzard gave that ability to all Tenacity pets (well, a talent), and Gorillas get a Pummel, which I hope will still prove useful - it's a normal spell interrupt. The pure tanking pets now became Turtles because of their special ability Shell Shield, which is basically a pet Shield Wall.

Happy hunting!

The Aftermath

2009-05-28T13:02:00.001-07:00

On that bloody tuesday, we finally killed Yogg-Saron. I just didn't have will to write of that yet, but I was quite relieved after finally managing to bring the Old God of Death down. T'was no easy feat, and I'm bloody proud of everybody that night, we actually had quite a bad start in phase 1, but perfected phase 2 and phase 3 laters on, so that was about it. For you unbelievers, here's the proof:

So yeah, that's it. Now it's time for hard modes. As I knew before and told to my guild, I won't be raiding much but I do wish them all best with hard modes, I intend to hop on the crazy train later on when I clear faculty things :).

I still insist that the fight is annoying, but seeing how good we did last night while also having some bad luck, I guess I was exaggerating about RNG and it was just that not all 25 people got the fight properly yet. I still can't imagine him with 0 watchers though :O.

Oh btw, it's really not a good fight for hunters on damage meters, especially if you're on finishing duty in p1, in portals in p2 and on adds in p3 ;).

Ramblings&Yoggy

2009-05-26T03:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we've been wiping on Yogg-Saron again for 4 hours. I'm really starting to hate this fight. After like 5 nights of wipes (or something, lost count to be honest) we can dish out a perfect try, and yet RNG's gonna screw us in the end. The only positive thing about last night was that we really got some tries in phase 3.

Our best attempt was 2.9%... Yes, bloody 2.9%! We basically all thought we had it. If couple of people wouldn't have died at the 30%-20% period, he would be dead. And when you miss a kill by mere 3%, you know you get pissed when you reach that in first hour of the raid and, for the remainder, barely scrap to phase 3. It's so annoying and demoralizing, and mind you that I (well, besides a laggy attempt when I screwed up entire raid) was doing my best and was focused basically 100%.

If I was in Ensidia I'd probably say Yogg-Saron is awesome. If we had 100% focused and skilled people we would have reached the stage we reached today weeks ago, and we would have enough tries to get Phase 3 down as well. But even then, the fight would have way to many RNG elements for my liking.

I'll take an example of our last try, when everybody did their best. We wiped at around 28% in phase 3 or so. The first critique I have is transition from phase 1 to phase 2. On our best attempt (2.9%) we screwed up 2 adds (meaning we didn't kill them near Sara). Yet we managed a transition from phase 1 to phase 2 with only 1 add alive on low HP to nuke, therefore the dps outside could start nuking Crushers in time. However, on our last attempt last night we had perfect phase 1 (no screw ups), yet we had 3 adds on transition from phase 1 to phase 2. It's not completely random, but it's way from controllable so it's pain in the neck. If you don't have good transition here the only reason you want to carry on is if you want to get some more practice on phase 2 (which we frankly master now). That's the problem with Yogg-Saron fight, if you screw up transition from phase 1 to phase 2 it's game over. You can make phase 2 (easily tbh), but you won't make phase 3 as there'll be Crusher and lots of Corruptors which will eventually drain your raid in phase 3.

My second bitching goes to how Crushers&Tentacles spawn in phase 2. Tentacle grabbing a melee that's supposed to go in the portals (mostly on the opposite side of where majority of the raid is, which means he's gonna miss the portal anyway) happens almost every second attempt. Still, we somehow have some backup (mostly me or another melee/hunter), so he jumps in instead if there's a need. Okay, still it's managable, but very annoying.

Last but not least, Crushers. On our last attempt, as I said, we had a perfect run in phase 1 and phase 2. Now after meleers got brains to 30% inside Yoggy's mind, just before the transition, a Crusher spawns right at Yoggy's mouth. Imagine 10 ppl being thrown right into the untanked Crusher. I somehow managed to survive by using Deterrence while being thrown out, sadly most people didn't have the reaction to pop survival mode. Or their classes don't have a form of such defence. Basically we wasted like 8 minutes in phase 1 and 2 just to get instagibbed in phase 3.

I'm disappointed by Blizzard's preferrence to random encounters. I guess since this is the "final" boss of the instance the only way they could guarantee it's difficulty was to incorporate some RNG elements. Which sux to be honest. It's just a stupid little timesink that makes longer to kill a boss and is frustrating as hell.

If he doesn't go down tonight I quit raiding for a long period. Not because I'm beaten but because IRL's gonna press hard and I've (apparently fruitless) put much effort into it just to come on Yogg progress raids.

Spirit Beast

2009-05-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

So today I've just decided hey, if I'm already BM specced I should really get the Spirit Beast. That was my original plan why to spec BM, and it's only because of this I've replaced MM with BM as my secondary spec. So I've been easily farming Loque'Nahak, but the devil's really hard to tame. So hey, today I decided let's try this other Spirit Beast, Gondria from Zul'Drak. Got him (her?) on my first pass in the northeasternmost spawnpoint. Damn I'm lucky, first Time-Lost Proto Drake, now this beauty :D.

Glyph of Kill Shot

2009-05-20T11:08:00.001-07:00

After slacking with my farming, I finally took time, get the funds and replace my Glyph of Steady Shot with Glyph of Kill Shot. On paper, it doesn't look that awesome, basically way less awesome than the Steady Shot Glyph. I must admit Glyph of Steady Shot was my favurite simply because hunters lack any imaginative designs already. Just check our Glyphs or better, tier set bonuses. This Glyph wasn't a reduction in CD, nor a 10% increase in something. It always feels better when there's some fancy combination/synergy behind.

Sucks even more that our Steady Shot was nerfed to ground and is really useful only as a filler nowadays. Any other shot is better, and as such we don't use Steady Shot nearly as much as we used to in TBC (that was overkill as well, though).

Still, CD reduction on Kill Shot doesn't sound that good either. From the first glance that is. Even on a single boss with no adds, which basically means he got quite some HP, this CD reduction helps a lot at putting his 20% life down faster. Dishing 13k crits with 6 seconds less CD is, even here, not bad.

But so many bosses have one way or another to bring in some adds that Kill Shot will be used even more frequently. And that is why it's way better than 10% better damage on Steady Shots, which really hit like a cow nowadays.

I'll just focus on Ulduar now, but the list of bosses on which Kill Shot is useful besides normal 20%-0% spammage, is still massive:

XT-Deconstructor - bomb adds
Razorscale - loads of adds, especially on big ones
Iron Council - 3 bosses, 3 times to spam Kill Shot
Kologarn - 2 arms, 1 boss, that is 3 targets
Auriaya - meh, only if you decide to go for achievement, then it's 9 times for the kitty
Hodir - iceblocks, every time he casts freeze
Thorim - gauntlet/champions in ring
Freya - big adds, the three elementals that have to go down together, Life Binders
Mimiron - Phase 1 spammage, Phase 2 spammage, Phase 3 - Assault & Bomb Bots, Phase 4 - all 3 parts spammage
Yogg-Saron - adds in Phase 1, tentacles in Phase 2 (outside and inside), adds in Phase 3

That's 11/
14, not counting Algalon. Believe me, it's totally worth it.

/rant

2009-05-07T11:42:00.001-07:00

Okay, so today I'm gonna write about the phenomen WoW is to a normal, sane person that never experienced serious gaming before. Lots of people have, at one point or another, had the struggle that World of Warcraft was carrying them away. Basically, the situation looks like this: your girlfriend starts complaining you're wasting your time and not focusing on her, and it might actually go much further than that (just check some youtube videos which are made for fun, but still); ravaging parents on their battlemarsh against computer gaming which glues you to the computer and ruins your future careeer, or any other friend telling you you're wasting your life and you'd be better be ff joining them in getting drunk the 721th time.

Now I've experienced all of those situations (well, except the girlfriend part tehee), and I'm fed of people comparing computer games to an addiction, social problem, waste of time or anything partially related to "you're ruining your life" sentence. Computer games are games indeed, but they're much more.

I don't say the general public view doesn't have a grain of truth in there... Definately there are many people who start doing this stuff and can never end, they lose al creativity and initiative they had and become "hooked". The real problem, however, is that those individuals have mostly been unwilling, unenthusiast, uncreative and jerky before starting playing. I know couple of such cases myself, and it's not a game problem. It's like if someone's depressed and falls into drug business, and we blame ONLY drugs for that. What about society that refused and depressed this man, what about his environment?

On the other hand, individuals that are constructive, initiative and productive won't start their downfall after picking up gaming. Now I agree there are many hobbies out there that are awesome as well, and it's common perception they're better than gaming, but besides sports, I think not (sports are first choice because they provide healthy life, calm your mind down, give self-respect and provide others with an idea you care a bit about yourself - that's of course my opinion). Other than that, EVERY HOBBY IS A WASTE OF TIME in that light! "Sorry mum, I know playing computer games will not help me in my future career, but playing the flute will!?? Or oh yeah, sorry, forgot that collecting stamps is so productive! I feel so enlightened after giving half of my income for a piece of paper.."
From what I hear, girlfriends would also rather see us lying on couch than playing computer games. I just don't see how folks can still, in 21th century, got such views, even now computer games are actually becoming mainstream. For those of you that don't know, computer game industry earns more in one year than Holywood and music industry together.

And I, and I know a great deal of others, are not brainless zombies who stare into monitor 24/7 (well, we do) and pour money into great corporations, but we learn a great deal of things. As any hobby, we do stuff with our heart. Believe me that every computer game player, in the end, does it because he likes it. Even those for whom WoW becomes second jobt. Even if it's all zeroes and ones in the end.

I'll give you my example: Since getting into high school, I've started having more interest in computers in general. After playing Thief and getting hooked with it for a time, I joined a team of fans with an idea to make our custom campaign. And I did some level designing with Unreal3Ed, while also experimenting a bit with Milkshape (now old) and 3D Studio Max. Frankly, I lost interest, but I do know how those things work now very well. Later on, I was also fiddling with composing some music, although I found out pretty soon I'm not a virtuose :). During Warcraft era (strategy game) I learned how to skin and how textures work.
Then came the WoW era. Obviously, first months it was just playing and having fun. But before getting to 60 I started using addons. It was not until level 70 that I really realized the potential WoW had to hook you up, not just about playing the game but about socialising as well. I continued to use addons, and at the end of last year, started to learn LUA programming language a bit, connecting it with XML. Last year I've also been filming some thingies in WoW and started fiddling with film editing, using program Sony Vegas. I'm also thinking about joining an open source project that's basically a program that calculates everything that can in WoW conserning your characters. With former co-worker we might also start doing a new portal for our guild.
Also playing in a pure english environment for 3 years definately makes sure your english never rusts and you learn many new things.

I know if I've been working in this sphere I'd learn more, but for a hobby, this is damn lot! Now how on Earth is watching movies/series, hanging out randomly, wasting time doing nothing, oversleeping, drinking or going into fitness more productive??? Tell me, please, because I don't know. The only reason those activities are (or so they say) better is that you socialize, but people with their right mind won't have a problem with that if they're spending their time in front of the computer or not! And I'd pick 2 hours of WoW over 2 hours of Facebook (which I consider a waste of time!) any time you want.

Inconvenience

2009-05-06T23:02:00.001-07:00

As always, Wednesday means server and instance reset. That basically means we got to kill all bosses again, and grab all the new shinies by the way. Since we're still in race for some realm trophies, we're not really doing any hard modes, which means Wednesday's basically "on farm". That means lots of bosses and drops and not much progress work.

The thing with that, however, is, that at the time we started making a raid group there were 37 guild members online. Obviously, everybody wants easy epics, so even most casuals come online. I must say that it's not a bad thing so many people are online, but the fact that when we come to progress days we can barely scrap up a whole 25-man raid group isn't encouraging in light of this. As usual, you can see who wants progress and fun and who wants epics.

Still, I've luckily got an invite. I guess Raider status does have its privileges. We go in, steamroll (literally!) Flame Leviathan, and carry on. Next's XT 002 Deconstructor, where I die in first minutes! Obviously it was my mistake, since I never heard any real strategy for this dude I assumed that if I get a bomb (and a huge skull above my head!) logically I'd run away from others as far as I can. That's not really the case here, so all I did was outrange our healers so they couldn't fetch me a heal and save my life. You can imagine I didn't feel I deserved the staff the boss dropped, the best-in-slot melee weapon for hunters at the moment. Still, we got no feral druids and our other hunter already has the weapon, so it was still self-explanatory I wishlisted (frankly, I screwed up here as well - read on) the item.

We left Razorscale and Ignis for later lulz, and proceeded into Antechamber of Ulduar, where we left Iron Council and went for Kalagorn. Where we had 1 (or 2?) wipes, trying to beat the hard mode, and actually not missing it by far on our last attempt. Doesn't seem too bad for hard mode to be honest, we should be able to do this once we get a bit more practice and gear. Now here comes the "inconvenience" part. He drops the gun. Obviously it's expected hunters need on this. Frankly, I didn't.

Reasons are 2: firstly, I hate guns. With all my heart. Now if I was playing a dwarf, I'd hate it, but dwarfs at least look cool with a huge boomstick in their hands, but night elves... just no. Also, gun shooting sound is the most annoying sound in WoW (besides Screech, that is!). There actually exists addon called "Gun Silencer" and all it does is it mutes your gun firing animation.
Second reason is the fact I was still hoping I'd get the bow on next boss (seriously Blizz, good thinking, 2 bosses in a row that drop hunter ranged weapon), called Siren's Cry and is best-in-slot at the moment.

Our other hunter, on the other hand, did need on the item (no hard feelings for that, since it'd probably go to some melee class otherwise, and the fact is that it IS an upgrade, gun or not), and of course got it.

We proceed on the next bad lady in row, Auriyana. Guess what drops! Siren's Cry. Now here comes the weird part. As you know I'm new to this guild. So when raid leader says whisper for the bow, I whisper "mainspec". Nobody told me I have to whisper "wishlist" if I have that item on wishlist, which I have. So other hunter gets the bow instantly, while I go like wtf. Luckily, he agrees that we roll for it after I explain my situation on ventrilo. I roll higher and win.

So now I'm here, waiting for GM to contact me, which will probably have to wait until evening. The other hunter made a ticket and that's it for now. We then proceeded to kill couple more bosses eventually, but this was one hell of a stressful raid. Now say epics don't give headaches!

Promotion!

2009-05-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

I finally got promoted to Raider status yesterday. Since joining the guild on Monday, 2 weeks ago, I've been attending raids like crazy, regularly lurking in-game and trying to prove myself worthy of a true FTW member. I finally got rewarded yesterday, although I'm a bit sceptic how long will I be able to have the Raider status, since off-game matters will soon take even more time. I might have to consider taking the Casual status for the time being.

No matter though, now it's Ulduar clearing time, and we're still in race to get the 2nd realm kill of Yogg-Saron (basically Ulduar final boss, although there is one more coming later).

Still, getting the Raider status was kind of relief to me. Through all 2 weeks I've been attending raids, even the ones from 1 to 4 a.m., those being 10-mans because that was the only place I had a chance of getting some items. And the thing is, I'm far from being loot-whore, but I got "horrible" gear when I joined the guild, at least for FTW standards. I was doing content suited for T7.5 with some wannabe T7 gear. Ulduar 10-man did deliver quite some upgrades though, so I'm really grateful guys in FTW realized I could really use that stuff and give me some of it even if I was still a Trial.

Now there's a whole new story though. As pointed out earlier, I'm not at all a loot-whore, but passing all kinds of items from actual Tier Tokens to normal heroic Ulduar drops to enhancement shamans, or our other hunter, being very "slight" upgrades for them, while I was wearing blue leggings from level 77 instance!

I understand the situation very well though, being in leadership of a guild for like a year, it's first rule of business. Give it to trial only in case it'd get DE'd otherwise. You just get so many ninjaers nowadays that abuse your system, grab the loot and leave with everything but nice words. To be honest now that I think of it, that actually proves that guild is serious and stable if they do consider trial seriously and promote only when they're certain.

As for me, there's no need for them to worry about me. I got my real life friends there, and that's gonna be enough for quite some time. Especially if we plan to do a new guild site with one of them, but it's still mostly an idea though.

Tonight is Ulduar from scratch again, and first time as Raider! I must say I will be more firm considering I have some chance for upgrades. Plus, if not else we'll get plenty of Emblems!

Over and out until next reporting.