An Empyreal Ascendance (?)

ICC10: Tuesday Edition
After nearly forgetting that we had a run last night (was nicely reminded by Trinka to get my butt on Monolith for the run) we had a relatively smooth run. After an initial wipe when we had the bad luck of setting off all four traps at the same time we quickly regrouped and headed back in to face off against Marrow. Marrow himself(?) went down pretty durn easily and the organization the group has is superb in how to handle him. The nice part was Monolith was finally able to upgrade his weapon..rolled the ole double buckets for the Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore. It a nice lil weapon although I really don’t need the hit given even without it Monolith is hanging out at 300+. It’s definitely a nice lil jump in overall DPS for him…although probably not the best weapon (the axe from Saurfang would be nicer for the ArPen) I will still use it and be happy…which I am, very much so.

Deathwhisper and the LootShip (really nothing more that a loot give away as its not hard at all) went down without a hitch and went journeyed on to saurfang. Speedbump. We wiped a few times before calling it an evenin. During the encounter Monolith is kiting one of the blood beast by getting attention with Icy Touch and the Chain of Ice till the cows come home, using Dark Command as needed. The idea being it provides some breathin time for the ranged to deal with the other blood beast first then when it drops they burn mine down. I then run up to saurfang whack on em a couple times then drop back for another round of blood beast kiting. The issue we ran into last night was someone was doing something to pull more aggro from my blood beast…seems like it was one of the tanks doing some sort of aoe type attack or taunt as every so often my guy would ignore me and just hang out on stage… very frustrating… after a couple wipes we went a ahead an called it an evenin as our time was up. I believe we should be able to drop em the first time on Thursday.

In Other News…
Nothing. I ran a few instances on Snowlyon but didn’t really do anything or get anything. Spent the time between instances flying around Scholazar Basin for herbs. Otherwise it was pretty tame. I even did a lil time on Snowlyne, but I think I am going to swap her out for Empyreal the Shaman. I just aint “feelin it” on Snowlyne… Empyreal I enjoyed a good bit so I will swap him in once Angelheart hits 20, which is his current level. I know Angel won’t mind, and given my “playstyle” I think he will be a better fit for us both while still providing some healin love so we can churn out the quests as we make our way up through the levels. I will need to check his heirlooms and gear. I believe I set him up completely when I started him…but I need to check for sure. He may even see a lil play time tonight…

Tomato Tomaato

Gear Swapmeet
Last night I swapped out Snowlyon’s Neck piece and his recently acquired ring. The end result was crit rating holding steady at 45% and his ArPen rating dropping to 35% from 40%. The other big effect was my hit rating skyrocketed to 300 when all I really need is 230. given I use the mark of supremacy I am kinda stuck as I can’t really remove it as I would fall well short of 230 and I am not really a fan of doing so and then have to regem for hit rating to get back to 230. if I did that I “believe” that my dps would take a major hit and drop a good bit and not a fan of that loss in dps or the overall cost in changing over. Given that, I will stick with the huge hit rating for the time being.

Over all observation was not a real change in DPS and may have actually increased slightly but I need to do a few more instances for a better feel over all. I suppose I am not overly concerned at this time but I did bank the items swapped out (like I normally do when I change out items) just in case I need them for some odd reason.

Frost Badges
I am slowly putting together the next batch. Given my overall lack of raiding and such (which I am “trying” to change) my major source of income is the random daily and the weekly raid, when I can get into them. As such it will be a few weeks till I can get the nightraven belt which is what I plan on getting next. It’s a long haul to be sure and as such I will be trying to get into all the VOA’s I can as well.

Where am I?
The biggest question I always find myself wondering is where I rate DPS/Damage wise to comparably geared folks, specifically hunters. Am I at the low end of the scale or am I in the middle? I seriously doubt that I am at the high end so I typically don’t entertain that particular thought. What I have seen in general is that in most PUGs I enter I am typically pushing out the largest dps and in raid I am usually in the upper half if not top 5. I suppose that is well enough but it’s still that overall wondering of…”am I where I should be with the gear I have and am I doing this right”.

One trend that I notice though in my dps…it is typically slightly lower on the mobs than it is on the boss. This is, I assume, due to a few factors. The first being that I start out “slow.” this meaning getting target marked, ensuring tank has misdirect on em (if avail) and then getting that first serpent sting on target. After that, it starts moving up the chart. The other part being that if I am in a group of well geared individuals the regular mobs just die to damn fast…given I have to basically do the set up for each (HM and SS after initial target) means less time for me to do actual damage, when they are hitting off the get go on each one. The final thing, which really applies to those groups where mobs die fast, is I rarely get off a kill shot. By the time it lights up and I “click” on it…the mob is already dead so I lose out there for that lil boost.

Bosses tend to work the other way though…on them I typically see the ole DPS meter jump up from the mobs and usually by a good bit. Not that I am complaining but it is a difference I have noticed. Ah well…better to go up than down I suppose. heh

I dont wanna Die!

“…bring out yer dead!”
Last night was a night filled with death. Over and over and over again. I typically don’t mind it but it was getting to me last night…praise the stars for my lowbie Snowlyne who I eventually jumped over to for a bit before logging. The reign of death started with Monolith in ICC10, Rotface. It was 2 hours of death. While the group is making headway, it really is frustrating…especially given we had em down to 8% at one point. Not much else to say there…we died and died a lot and I had multiple repair bills…joy. Not.

After the group broke up for the evenin (we only “raid” for a couple hours) I hopped over to Snowlyon to make another stab at them booties in the Halls of Reflection. Turned out to be a reflection of what just occurred earlier…more death. I am unsure what happened there but for what ever reason we could seem to get it together as a group and as such we kept kissin dirt during the relentless waves. Eventually we were able to drop Falric (or whatever his name is) and low and behold…no booties. Crap.

I swear, spent like an hour in HoR (a bad reflection on my tenacity at wanting to try and complete something) and ended up eventually just bailing on the group when we died again on the fleeing part from the big bad lich king. I don’t really feel bad on bailing as I was there an hour and it wasn’t a random. Plus, I was just tired of dying over and over.

DING?
Snowlyne is slowly creepin along with Angelheart in making levels. Currently 18 and still toolin along. I am still unsure what I want to do with her. Do I keep going or ditch her? I could keep her going for the dps aspect of shadow but after the lil journeys into the healin realm with Snowlynx I know I really am not cut out for it. So, I am in a dilemma on whether to keep pushing forward with Snowlyne or move over to something else… dunno… probably keep with her, who knows…maybe it will all grow on me… I dunno.

testing for idea in works….

Boots made for Walkin

…and so there he is, Snowlyon. I have been spending more and more time on him as I find that I really do enjoy playing him the most of all my characters. I am unsure what exactly “it” is that enjoy so much about the hunter as a class but I really do have the most fun when I am running around Draenor with him.

This weekend was pretty much like all the others, with one small exception. I finally picked up Epic Flight for him! That’s right, after having him for years I have finally picked up the ability to fly fast. Zoom Zoom! Already I see the difference it makes in his gathering of herbs and flowers for his herbalism. Sooo much easier and faster. In addition I finally get to ride one of the drakes I have picked up, so I don’t have to buy him one. Currently two epic mounts, which basically every one has: the blue drake from OCC and the bronze drake from CoS.

Boots made for the Snow
My current “Quest for Fire” is boots. At the current time they are the lowest item that I have on him being item level 200. I have been hitting the Halls of reflection with the hopes they fall from the first boss (a pair that rates at 232) but hasn’t happened as of yet. Still, I go back with that idea of “maybe this time.” Given boots, for some odd reason, can’t be bought with badges means he will be wearing the ones he has for a good bit till either new ones drop in HoR ooorr I am able to sneak him into a raid and get a drop there. Either case, it will probably be a couple weeks (if I am lucky) before I see any new shoes.

On a related gear note, I did get into an ICC and while we didn’t even get past Marrow (tank issues on stacking and they couldn’t resolve) I was able to pick up “friendly” rep rate with the Ashen Verdict. This meant a shiny new ring, although I am not wearing it at the moment. The reason is that it lacks ArPen…which I know I should disregard at the moment given it is all about the Agility but damn its hard not to. The current ring he has isn’t all that bad really and I find it pretty durn hard to jump and lower my ArPen rating when I am trying to increase it. Stat wise for Crit and ArPen I am running at 45% crit and 40% ArPen. If I swap out the rings ArPen will drop to roughly 38%. Not a huge drop mind you and really I should just go ahead and make the change. It is the best move over all and would be a nice increase to the ole gear rating, especially if I really bite the bullet and swap out my neck piece as well (I have similar thing happening with neck pieces as well.) if I change over both I would see a lil jump in gear rating but I am unsure if actual damage output would be increased. My gut feeling is it would remain pretty much the same and it is purely a “mental thing” on my part stopping me from actually changing over. Perhaps I will go ahead and do that tonight….

All I want for xmas…

…I have always been a fan of the lynx offered forth as hunter pets when they were first introduced. I like the slightly “feral” look they present and personally think they are one of the best “cats” in overall look currently out there. Their biggest downfall, and reason I don’t actually have one currently, is the lack of variation. They are all brown. That’s it…just brown. I have yet to see any “special” versions out there in any other colors and havent come across any in Petopia.com since the last time I was there. A shame really…when running around with Angelflame last night on our lowbies (Angelheart and Snowlyne), I was reminded once more how much I really like how they look.

Now…if they could only offer one in white, we would see Winterwraith go back to his original cat species… I swapped from the lynx to the white lion, that one can get in the barrens from the quest, and never really left him since then till recently. Love Winterwraith to death…but man do I wish they had another color for the lynx available other than boring brown…. Ah well…a hunter can dream.

snowlyon~

My Kingdom for a Raid

I didn’t do anything on Snowlyon last night, not even the daily random. Tonight, I plan on spending a good amount of time on him and get a healthly dose of randoms in. Also plan on trying to get into any VOA’s that roll through trade and possibly an ICC10 this weekend if I can manage it. Given I run pretty much solo on the whole, even though in a guild, it is par for the course. I don’t mind it but does drastically slow down gear development when going ad-hoc for raids…but again…I’ll take what I can get.

Given I took a few months off completely and have been back only for a few weeks I am waay, behind the curve for ICC in general. Given this all the ICC stuff is still very much new to me and while the parts I have encountered are enjoyable I find I really need to do it on a more regular basis if I plan on really improving. Not sure what else though I really can do at the current time other than what I have been…

Wipe-Wipe-Wipe-Out

…it was two hours of wipes on Rotface last night. I was on Monolith in the Tues/Thurs Raid Group (really need to come up with something catchy for them just for ease of reference) and it was a trial patience to be sure. Thus far it is probably, imo, one of the hardest fights I have encountered thus far. It’s not that the mechanics are all that hard…just that general chaos is in effect. The “hard” part I encountered was when infected and having to kite the lil blob to the big blob. Given monolith is melee I was stacked up on his leg and when infected I found it hard to track down where exactly the other lil blob or offtank is with the big blob so I could drag my lil toxic buddy over to them. The biggest help was the offtank given he was runnin circles on the outside so could give “traffic directions’ to the folks infected.

The show stopper for us though tended to be the healers droppin like flies about half way through. We were runnin with three, but if one ended up with the blob it seemed like the other healers wouldn’t heal the infected healer as they kited their lil toxic buddy. We did well enough otherwise overall I suppose and have him down multiple times with the final attempt at 800k.

The current plan is to try and get together for another go on Monday. I am skeptical it will happen at this time, but am hopeful. While it was wipesville, it was still a good experience and I had a good time…albeit a bit frustrating at time. Ah well…it’s a good group and I have enjoyed “raiding” with them…big thanx to Tathia for the invites…and to Trinka for getting me the initial invite after a “trial run” of sorts. 🙂

snowlyon~

Battle of the Battered Hilt

…last evenin was pretty well as expected. I was able to get my daily dungeons out of the way and as an added treat was able to get the weekly raid out of the way on Snowlyon and Monolith as well. Currently they are both just a few days out from being able to purchase their first piece of Frost Badge gear (60) should they choose to do so. More than likely I will do so for sure on Snowlyon, really needs to get on the ball for gear upgrades. As such figure I will be picking up the Nightraven belt for him when he gets enough badges. Monolith is a bit more questionable and really need to look though those items available…my gut feeling at this time is that he will wait a good bit before getting his first piece, unless of course something really jumps out at me at the cost of 60…but I aint holdin my breath on that score.

In other happy news, was able to finally grab the Scorpion from FoS for Snowlyon. It basically replaced the aging Banner from hTOC and thus far I have been pretty happy with it. Given I don’t do a lot of raiding I am relatively happy with where he is gear wise but am ever looking to improve his gear, like everyone else is. This is especially when true when I see the likes of Mettall (GHT guidie) who has a ton of ICC10/25 gear and just kills the DPS meter when he does anything with us. As such, I do what I can in order to get into Raids, whether in guild or not. Figure I will start hitting the Trade channel this weekend (possibly) trying to get into an ICC10 group. He has gone once but could stand to go a lot more often at this time…heck…1 more run and he can get the ability ring for reaching “friendly” status with the Ashen Verdict, so yeah…would basically like to hit ICC10 on a more regular basis but will take what I can get in the end…wipes and all if via PUGs. Heh

ICC has an epic drop from the trash known as the Battered Hilt. This item gives a basic quest of turning it in for a reward, which is basically a sword which comes in different version statwise. It is a weapon which rates out at an item level of 254 (iirc) and given, for example, agility bonus on it is 144 it becomes an item to seriously consider should you run across it. There is a debate though…as the hilt itself can be sold in AH the question we have to ask ourselves is do we go for the shiny new car or go for the cold cash? Currently, they are running on average 15k….so it is a debate for sure. Personally, I would probably go for the blade versus the cash. Given I am perpetually poor it would be no real loss and as I also don’t raid all the time it would be a really nice upgrade… soo…Battered Hilt, keep it or pawn it? What will you do…I know what my plans are?

Tonight’s Adventure

Tonight, a repeat of the normal stuff. Daily dungeons and then probably jump back over to Snowlyne and get a bunch more quests out of the way in the Ghostlands, if not try and clear it out completely. This is assuming there isn’t any room for Monolith in the raid he was invited to…given he missed out on Tuesday due to lack of room won’t be surprised if same occurs tonight as it is a continuation from Tues. The downside there is they made it to Rotface which means no chance at that shiny weapon from Saurfang. 😦 ah well…if I get the invite, great…if not, no worries, plenty else I can be doing. Time will tell…

snowlyon~

Marksman DPS : Part II

…more thoughts and what I am looking at for Snowlyon, my Marksman Hunter, and the choices I have made for him with regards to his overall DPS. I am far from an expert in these matters so please feel free to sing out if something seems amiss. As I am not the expert I gladly take an advice given. 🙂

Armor Penetration

I am speaking of the “ArPen” builds that are out there. While eventually I would like to go to it I cant at this time. The reason being that from everything I have been able to find looks like it really doesn’t become viable as a spec until your Armor Penetration is around 800. what I am unclear about is whether this should be the cap to shoot for through gemming or not. I will not make any moves until at the very minimum having an ArPen rating of at least 750. until I can reach such a point…which at the current rate is way the hell down the road…it is all agility.

Glyphs

Minor Glyphs

I use the following as there really isnt anything else really useful:

Feign Death, Mend Pet and Revive Pet

Major Glyphs

These are some of the most common ones out there and I use em as they “work”

Kill Shot, Serpent Sting and Chimera Shot

…an option one could go with is Steady Shot as I am starting to see a lil swell about it being viable once more but I have yet to actually try is out. Given Steady Shot is affected by ArPen I believe I will give it a go and see what happens…in this I will be replacing Chimera Shot with Steady Shot.

Food

Given the current idea is Agility is our best friend the best food you could go with is the food buff to agility. The downside being, if you can make it, is that it pretty much cost a fair bit and given I am a poor hunter means I look to other foods. Recently I have been going with the ArPen food which when taken pushes my current ArPen rating percentage to over 40%. The more common suggestions out there is go for the Attack Power food…which I used pretty much forever but wanted to try something else just “to see”. Plus…I’ll admit, I was getting tired of culling the Mammoth Hordes and wanted to do something else. More than likely will be moving back someday soon…prbably by weekends end I will be back to whacking mammoths versus the rhino’s.

I have been slowly working on fishing so I can make the Agility food…but damn…is fishing boring. Currently I do my fishing while waiting on Monolith in the random dungeon que. I will be glad once he gets to 450 as then I wont have to get another character to level it up…casue once is more than enough for this kid….

Pets

The current cream of the crop is the wolf, and its not so much as he does more damage…its because he give out a buff. Unfortunately, kitties don’t do this which means I have recently succumbed to the masses and become yet another lemming swapping out Winterwraith, who I have had since I was level 18, for a white wolf. I have him temporarily named Mozart…once I figure something out I like it will change again.

Outside the buff wolves give there is no real difference between pets as they have been “standardized” by WoW. At some point I fully expect to move back to Winterwraith, but for the time being I have a wolf…and honestly, not a real fan but the buff is nice and not to be completely scoffed at.

hope this stuff helps and as always, feel free to point me in the right direction if I have wander off the path. 

snowlyon~

Hump Day

ICC10 : Monolith

…well, I was unable to go to ICC10 as they were full on people.  I cant really complain as I recently joined and there is a decent sized list of folks ahead of me that are part of that group who wanted to go.  still, kinda bummed about it so I suppose I will try and get into some PUG group that floats through trade this week.  really want a new weapon for him and the ax from Saurfang would be awsome but dont see that happening anytime soon unfortunately. 

Journey’s End : Snowlyon

it finally came to an end last night when he was finally able to get his hands on the crossbow from PoS, which almost didnt happen.  there was a DPS warrior in the group who also selected “Need” when it popped up, and per my normal luck I lost the roll.  this was to much for me though and I mentioned in party chat: “…are you kiddin me!?” 

group tank was taken aback as well and actually offered to instantly boot the warrior as he didnt understand why he would select need when there was a hunter “needing” a hunter based weapon.  well, couple minutes pass and the party is standing around and the warrior comes over and opens up trade and coughed up the xbow.  thank the stars!  …fortunately, the rest of the trip was uneventful and over all we actually worked well as a random PUG group with very lil if any talking and pretty much blew through like it was nuthin. 

so, now I have the xbow and already did a random with it and maaan, what a difference it makes.  not only in the dps uptick but the SILENCE.  it is really weird that after months of the noisy ass rifle from hTOC to have a weapon firing that doesnt have this loud report everytime it goes off.  I found myself constantly checking to ensure I was actually using it.  indeed, the only major sound que that happens now is the Kill Command “bang”, otherwise its just “thhwiip thwiip”…which is easily buried in all the other combat sounds, except for those few more quiet times when you can just make it out.  

so, next up is to continue hitting randoms and start trying to get him into ICC10 whenever possible for some other gear upgrades.  there are a few items here and there in FoS and PoS that are minor upgrades but on the whole the gear really needed is raid based at this time. 

Angelheart and the Snowlyne

well, we (Angelheart and myself) cleared out the initial beginner quests and are currently 12 heading into the Ghostwood.  Angelheart was able to get her kitty and I was able to….ummm….watch!  heh  wasnt so bad, actually very happy for her and was able to help.  over all, extremely easy…almost to easy.  given we both are relatively experienced players this is all pretty durn easy especially with the two of us.  we are blowing through the quests pretty quick.  I suspect Ghostlands will be more of the same and after doing all those I suspect we will be around 22 when we head out to the barrens.  in the mean time…just playing to play and its good company so I dont mind one bit.  plus…maybe I’ll actually have a priest make it to 80!?   kinda hope so actually.  like the idea of having a class focus’d on something other than DPS.

Tonight’s Adventure

Nothing major planned.  Daily randoms for Snowlyon and Monolith.  Flower picking on Snowlyon and nose picking on Monolith (he doesnt actually have a gathering prof).  Figure I will probably spend a lil bit on Snowlyne and get a few quests knocked out.  otherwise, should be pretty laid back.  tonight is supposed to be GRN (guild raid night) but I dont know if that will happen.  I would like to see it go down though and am hopeful at this time.  if it happens figure we will go to Ulduar and knock out the Weekly Raid which is to take down XT…pretty easy stuff really.   if that happens I will try and go as Snowlyon…but will go as Monolith as needed.  

the game isn’t the enjoyment….its the people in the game who I interact with that keeps it fun.  it is the people that keep me there and not the content, make no mistake.

snowlyon~