Onwards and upwards.

Well that demonic entity known as Arh'ell raised it's ugly head at the weekend and prevented me from joining Chaotic Divinity on Friday or Saturday night for a moderately successful MC run and a less-than-successful Onyxia run. Sunday and Monday made up for it though.

Sunday saw us zerg through bosses five through nine in Molten Core. Baron Geddon went down first try, as did Shazzrah and Golemagg. We wiped at Sulfuron Harbinger, but we got him down second time easily. Then we went on to Majordomo Executus and got him down first time. Once again, the coveted leaf failed to drop, but on the plus side, we now have two priests who will soon be equipped with an amazing staff.

Feeling understandably chuffed at our progress, we proceeded to push our luck and make a couple of attempts against the final boss, the Fire God Ragnaros (you can see him leering in the background of that group shot). Fucking huge doesn't do him justice. From my vantage point a good 30 or so yards from the main fight, I still couldn't see all of him. Now I know how our meleers feel. Our two attempts were successful in different ways, the first time we managed to take him down to 64% health before wiping, the second, we managed to last until he sumerged and released his Sons (which he does after 3 mins). With a bit more damage dealing ability and a lot more Fire Resistance gear, I think we can take him.

Then, last night, we proceeded to take down Onyxia first try, an as-yet unprecedented feat. I wouldn't go so far as putting her on farm status yet, but we're definately getting better at managing this fight. Once again I'm chuffed to be working on all this stuff with a group of people with a similar level of experience as me. Whilst I could arguably enjoy easier success with a more established raid group, I'd miss out on the experience of taking down these bosses for the first time.

CD fucking rocks!

Happy-Haps.

There's been a lot happening in Chaotic Divinity since my last update, so I'll fill you in on the salient points.

On Friday, Chaotic Divinity took down Sulfuron, the eighth boss in Molten Core. Not only was this an awesome event in it's own right, it also allowed four members of CD to complete the Hands Of The Enemy quest that's needed to summon the ninth and penultimate boss, Majordomo Executus. Wulfsblood was sadly not present as I'd decided to start farming Rugged Leather to get Wulf the Amulet Of The Darkmoon. That said, I did take a brief break from my skinning to join a battle in Alterac Valley. I was finally able to get Honoured Reputation with them, which enabled me to buy some nice ammunition.

On Saturday afternoon, the folks of Chaotic Divinity made their first one-day Zul'Gurrub run. They managed to kill all five aspect priests and Hakkar The Soulflayer in four hours, with enough time left to also down one of the side-bosses, the Bloodlord Mandokir. Wulfsblood was once again busy farming leather.

One thing I was determined not to miss, however, was the fight against Onyxia, the Broodmother on Saturday night. The fight was difficult, as they always are, but in the end we triumphed and she went down for the first time to Chaotic Divinity. In the end, a rogue won the head and the glory of our first Onyxia kill, but the sheer adrenaline of the event, and the subsequent mounted parade through Stormwind was amazing!

On Sunday, I was prepared to grind more with Wulf, but a shortage of online Hunters saw me join another one-day run through Zul'Gurrub. We didn't quite have the pace of the first day, but we got Hakkar down in the end. More to the point, Wulf got a really nice necklace, which kinda rendered the grind work he'd done for the Darkmoon Faire one worthless. I ultimately decided to let another Hunter in CD have my accumulated leather so that he can get his Amulet when the Faire's next in town. He can then give me leather back until I've recouped my grinding. Then I might just get it for the heck of it.

Sunday night saw us take our first run at Majordomo in Molten Core. It's a difficult fight, since you have eight additional enemies to deal with on top of the boss running around causing all manner of mischief. I'm sad to say that despite something like five tries, we didn't get him down, but we left with the resolve to do better next time!

Monday saw us take on Onyxia. Unfortunately, despite some good attempts, we were unable to repeat Saturday's success. Ah well, soon we'll have the fight down to the trivial skirmish it should rightfully be!

And then last night, we made our last run at Majordomo before the instance resetted. We made four attempts in total, but we finally managed to kill all of his guards, which caused him to run off leaving us with a chest full of phat lewt and a clear run against the Firegod Ragnaros.

I would just like to reiterate how amazing it has been seening CD go from a beleagured alliance of friends who were hit by setback after setback just before Christmas, into the indomitable group of hardcore raiders we are today. After a shaky start, I never expected us to get this far this quickly, but it's been amazing to see.

Chaotic History.

Chaotic Divinity's been through something of mixed fortunes lately. Just before Christmas, we were wiping at Lucifron in Molten Core, we'd had limited success in Zul'Gurub, four of our core players had left and morale was at an all time low.

In the new year, things really turned around. We had a sudden influx of new blood, and a newer, more hardcore raiding schedule (one raid every day, two a day at weekends) meant that we were making progress like never before. We breezed through a further six MC bosses in the first fortnight of the new year, often taking them down first try, and we're now farming the Bloodgod Hakkar twice a week. We've even had one of our departed players slink back to us cap in hand, although why we let him back in is beyond me, not like we're short of applicants, even with our generous membership cap of 80 members.

Old habits die hard though, and for the last fortnight, I've signed Wulf up to every raid I could make. This, on reflection was a mistake, even for a perma-player like myself. For one thing, the life of a hardcore raider is tiring, as you have to be on the ball all the way through a raid. A mistake can not only kill you, but also several of your raidmates. Also, it's financially draining. Armour repairs, pet food, ammunition, potions, all eat into your cash pile, and the bosses and trash mobs don't drop that much cash, and if you don't take some time to farm/grind cash every once in a while, it's difficult to continue.

To this end, I decided to stop running Zul'Gurub with Wulf for a few weeks. Instead of fighting the Bloodgod and his possessed priests with CD, He shall instead be wandering the Burning Steppes with his trusty Wolf, hunting and skinning Dragonkin in order to trade in for this cool amulet when the Darkmoon Faire hits Elwynn Forest in early February. With last night's effort and what Wulf's accumulated thusfar, he's around a third of my way to that goal. I reckon he can make the rest of the difference up with some concerted dragonslaying. Wulf also made around 50G last night, and found some nice drops which should fetch a pretty penny in the Auction House.

It's also pretty relaxing, which is the other point of the break really.

Chaotic Divinity FTW!

So tonight in Molten Core, we took down Golemagg on our first try. He was dissapointingly easy after Shazzrah and Baron Geddon, but hey, I'm not going to argue with the DKP Wulf got from the crazy bidding on the epics he dropped. Afterwards we tried Sulfuron, but he proved to be too tricky for us. Three wipes and we called it a night. Still, four of the top five places on the Damage meters were held by Hunters, and the top slot was yours truly.

Tomorrow night I'm supposed to be leading a ZG raid. That'll be fun in a way that's totally not.

Huntar Weapon FTW?

When Blizzard designed the Hunter class, they obviously had the Ranger class from Dungeons & Dragons in mind. Why else would they give a ranged weapon specialist class the ability to weild almost every single weapon type in the game? (I think the only types we can't wield are maces and wands). Add to that the fact we can wear a large range of armour, and have stat crossovers with several popular classes (Paladins, Rogues and Shamans), and it's no wonder that certain bitter folks have branded a great many Hunters ninjas. They've even gone as far as to make a blog about it.

Amongst my friends in CD, this is a joke, something we'll have a giggle about, but it's also something I'm deeply concious of, especially in light of CD Rule Number One*. Whenever I'm presented with an interesting weapon I ask myself:

1. Will this help my ranged damage capability?
2. Will this help my ranged damage capability more than a weapon I currently possess?
3. Is there another group member who can make better use of the weapon?
4. Do I need the weapon or just want it?

Wulf's been lucky when it comes to weapons, I'll freely admit. On my first Dire Maul North run, he got an amazing sword dropped that no-one else needed. That was his main weapon for a while until he was lucky enough to get a great axe from a run in Zul'Gurub with a friends raid group. Upon getting that, it became his main raiding weapon and he retired the sword to Player Vs Player confrontations. Recently, over the new years period, he was lucky enough to pick up two hatchets on consecutive runs in Stratholme with CD. On the first run, the Paladin present declined to roll against me so I could get it. These two hatchets presently give me the best ranged damage, and are used most of the time in raids with CD. In a fight where I need the extra mana, I'll equip the axe from ZG, and if and when I start running the battlegrounds again, I'll pull my sword out of mothballs. All in all, I consider Wulf sorted for melee weapons this side of Blackwing Lair.

Then yesterday, Hakkar dropped an incredibly rare and silly/cool-looking sword. The other hunter in the raid had orgasms about it, but since he'd got a necklace of Hakkar on Thursday's run, he wasn't allowed to roll on it (and did he moan?). And I admit, I was temped to roll, for all of five seconds.

I looked at it mathematically: The melee damage is impressive, but since I melee around 10% of the time if things are going well, that's useless to me. The Stamina's nice, but once again, only useful if things aren't going well. The attack power, even when enchanted with extra agility, is less than that provided by my two hatchets. So yes, whilst it would have been cool to show off the sword and make all the n00b Warriors jealous, I'dve been a bigger n00b if I'd rolled on it. In the end, I passed and a Paladin got it. I felt bad for him in a way, because he'd just blown a load of DKP on an epic mace in Molten Core on Friday.

One day Wulf might get that sword, once we've made Hakkar our bitch so often that all the Paladins and Warriors who want it get it, then I'll maybe get it. But by the time that happens, chances are the sword'll be so common on the server that it'll lose some of it's coolness. Ah well, I take solace in the fact that Wulf's an amazing damage dealer and that, in itself, is cool enough.

*Chaotic Divinity Rule #1: Don't be an asshole.

What a weekend!

I haven't posted all weekend, because I've been playing practically every waking hour, but it's worth me updating now why this has been such an amazing weekend, both for Wulfsblood personally, and for the entirety of Chaotic Divinity.

Friday night was Molten Core. Still buzzing from the rush of downing Hakkar for the first time on Thursday, CD was on fire as we took the zone. Not even the loss of our two regular main tanks to a combination of RL issues and another raid group could take us down. We had an early setback when we ended up fighting two Molten Giants, a Firelord and two Ancient Corehounds at the same time (wipe x2), but once we were back up to speed we were unstoppable. We took down Lucifiron and Magmadar with the minimum of fuss and no wipes whatsoever. We wiped twice against Gehennas, but we nailed him on the third go and then proceeded to take down Garr first time. Those four bosses represented CD's successful takedowns to date, so managing them all in one evening was a rush. Plus, Wulfsblood got the very ugly Giantstalker Boots to add to his modest but growing collection of epic-quality items.

Saturday afternoon was spent in Zul'Gurub. We took down the Bat, Snake, Spider and Panther Priests with minimal problems in an afternoon run. We made a couple of attempts at the Tiger Priest as well, but we couldn't get him down. On the plus side, however, Wulf got an amazing breastplate from the Snake Priest.

Saturday night was supposed to be Onyxia, but it sadly wasn't to be. We managed to get around 30 folks to sign up, and despite our best efforts, we couldn't get the battle to it's second phase.

It's frustrating to have a situation like this, because I know that when we finally have Onyxia down on a regular basis, we'll have people queued out the door wanting at her epics. She shouldn't be much harder than some of the bosses we've faced in Zul'Gurub, and is technically easier than some of the Molten Core bosses, but we can't get people interested in her. Personally, I started playing WoW around the time that she was introduced to the game, and it's long been my dream to take her down. One day I will /spit on her smouldering corpse!

Since Ony was a washout, I spent Saturday night helping three members of CD with their Onyxia attunement in UBRS. Nothing I wanted dropped, but I did manage to get around 40 Rugged Leather and 10 Black Dragonscale through my skinning, so the run wasn't a total loss.

Sunday was back to Zul'Gurub to take down the Tiger Priest and then the Bloodgod Hakkar himself. The Tiger is without a doubt the hardest of the ZG Priests. I chatted about this to a mate of mine who's been raiding MC for months, and his group still wipes there 3-4 times before taking him down. In total, I think we managed to take him down in 6-7 attempts, which was nice.

Then onto Hakkar, which is such an embarrasingly easy fight, I'm expecting it to be buffed in the next patch. Basically, you allow the group to get poisoned, and then let Hakkar kill himself when he tries to drain your life. We wiped once due to lag, but took him down smoothly on the second attempt.

After Hakkar, we took and hour's break and regrouped for another Molten Core run, this time against the as-yet unbeated Baron Geddon. We took him down on our first attempt! We then proceeded to take on the next boss, Shazzrah, and after three attempts to learn his moves, we nailed him on the fourth. After that, I called it a night.

Of late, I've installed the Recap UI mod, to test out the damage output offerred by my new spec. As a Hunter, Wulf's role in the group is to provide high ranged damage against a single target whilst needing little attention from the healers. In the first part of that remit, I do great. Wulf's normally in the top five damage dealers, he was second in ZG this afternoon and first in MC tonight. However, I am worried about his aggro management. He takes a lot more damage from enemies than he probably should. Then again, I'm probably worrying too much, looking over the logs from this afternoon's ZG logs, out of the top five Damage Dealers, I took the second-lowest amount of damage. Still definate room for improvement, one can always be more awesome.

Tomorrow night is supposed to be Onyxia. Here's hoping we finally stop toying with that bitch and take her down.

Specs and stats.

Wulfsblood has been my main character since my early days in Wow, and he's therefore the one that I've spent the most time and thought on playing.

Before Patch 1.7, Wulf was a fairly generic Survival/Marksmanship Hunter, since that was really the only viable option for Hunters. I focussed on his Agility and Stamina stats and equipped him with the best 2-handed melee weapon he could get.

After 1.7 came out, I, like so many pre-Molten Core Hunters, experimented heavily with the Beastmastery Tree. The results were quite frankly ridiculous. Before the patch, my pet would account for roughly 20-25% of my damage output. Post-patch, a fully BM-specced Hunter's pet accounted for 33%+ of his damage. I used to giggle like a school girl as I watched an enemy die in a hail of red lines.

However, after joining CD, I quickly realised that full BM-spec wasn't gonna be the best thing for a Hunter. No matter how tough your pet is, it rarely recieves any healing (healers can't even see your pet in CTRA), and as a result, will die from AOE. I'd also all-but-retired from my short and uneventful PVP career as my raiding with CD ate up most of my game time. With this in mind, I looked over a lot of Hunter gear, tried a crapload of different talent specs and finally settled on a talent spec and build philosophy that worked for me. As a PVE DPSer, I reached the following philosphy:

1. Attack power (via agility or +attack power items) is more important than critical chance, but crit chance is still very nice. Never sacrifice crit chance for attack power.
2. Intellect is as important as Stamina, possibly slightly more so.
3. Melee is a last resort, but it's still one you should be prepared to indulge in.

I pretty much gave up on Beaststalker farming, since getting an Alliance group to LBRS is nigh-impossible, and the rewards really don't seem to be worth it. Wulf currently wears a helmet, belt, chestpiece, and leggings from Dire Maul, shoulders from Scholomance, boots from Zul'Gurub, gloves from a raid quest in Silithus and bracers from the Gianstalker set (my first Epic, w00t!). The Dire Maul gear's excellent as it gives me a load of agility, stamina, intellect and crit chance, which is perfect for my build. The boots, gloves, shoulders and bracers all give me a good balance between my three main stats, and as a result, I have a respectable health, mana, base DPS and crit chance. I've enhanced this further with +agility enchants on my gloves, boots and melee weapons, a +int enchant on my bracers and a +mana enchant on my chestpiece.

Moving over to Talents, and again, my build is centered around being the best PVE DPSer possible. In Marksmanship, I've taken five points in Efficency to reduce the mana cost of all my shots, then gone for all the essentials in Marksmanship, extra crit chance, extra range, extra crit damage, Aimed Shot and Scattershot. I placed my one spare point in Improved Hunters Mark because it's a skill I use all the time, unlike, say Concussive Shot, which I rarely use. In the Survival side, I focussed on the two slaying talents from tier one (extra damage is extra damage), then improved Wingclip and improved crit chance with my melee talents, then improved health, better traps (not used that much in raids, but still nice to have), extra hit chance, extra crit chance and finally Lightning Reflexes for a whopping +15% to Wulf's attack power. In my current gear, this agility boost gives Wulf +60 Agility (+120 attack power and +1.15% crit chance).

In a fight, I tend to nuke from the moment the DPS signal is given the tank has generally generated enough hate by then. My mana pool's large enough to handle several MC trashmob fights without drinking, and I'm usually able to get through most of a boss fight nuking without going out of mana. The only problem I have is chain crits, since I have around a 25% crit chance with ranged weapons, but feign death rarely fails to save me when that happens.

All in all, this configuration of Wulfsblood is the one that best combines an enjoyable style of play for me with viability for raids, and the results have been well worth it.

The secret origin of Wulfsblood.

It all goes back to the Summer of 1997. My good friend Leaf (yes, that's his actual name!) roped me into joining an Earthdawn game he was running. Having always been partial to Rangers in Dungeons & Dragons, I created a Human Scout by the name of Wulfsblood, and proceeded to take part in a sprawling 2-year campaign with a rotating roster of characters held together by (or in spite of) Wulf's questionable leadership. The gaming group sadly fizzled before we could bring it to a satisfactory conclusion, but the memory of the character stuck with me.

Fast forward six or so years and the same friend is doing everything in his power to get me to play World Of Warcraft. I resist because I'd had a bad experience with MMO's before (Star Wars Galaxies really, really bugged me.) Finally, after some humming and hawing, I decide to get the game. My first dissapointment is that all my RL friends are playing Alliance, so my dreams of playing a bloodthirsty Orc Warrior are put on the backburner. Looking at my options, I create my first character, a Dwarven Rogue called Norge. I picked the name after a song by Thorr's Hammer about Norway which I loved, but on reflection it was a mistake. I spent most of my first few days replying to tell after tell from people who thought I was Norwegian. I'd severely underestimated the Scandinavian population on the server. I also really can't get on with playing Rogues.

After three days with Norge, I decided to reroll. Looking at my options, I decided to look at a more Ranger-y option. The Hunter class seemed to be a good fit, but sadly, Human Hunters weren't an option. Deciding I didn't want to roll another Dwarf, I created a Night Elf. I was stuck on naming him, until I realised that some of the old Earthdawn players were reusing their old character names. Wulfsblood seemed to be as good a name as any, so the character was born, a nod to the past and a shared injoke with some mates. I levelled him up to ten or eleven on a monster eight hour session one Friday night, and I've been playing him on and off (but mostly on) since then.

On lag and flayed souls.

Well apparently Wulf's laggy, buggy home of Earthen Ring will be closed today to allow them to upgrade the hardware. (EDIT: It transpires this isn't for a hardware upgrade after all, dammit!) Looks like I'll have to play with his namesake over on The Venture Company tonight. Kinda sad, since I wasn't able to get on last night due to RL, and I won't have much time tomorrow night for a similar reason. Still if the end result's a faster, more stable server, then I guess that's a small price to pay.

In other news, because of tomorrow's absense, it looks like the folks of Chaotic Divinity are gonna score their first kill of Hakkar The Soulflayer without me tomorrow. Ah well, can't be helped, but I wish them all the luck on this fight. Hopefully, I'll get my chance to take him down with them at the weekend.

Panther-pweening and serpent taming.

So last night, Wulf and the good folks of Chaotic Divinity were supposed to go try the Broodmother Onyxia. This was, however cancelled because of a lack of willing and attuned bodies, especially in the healing side. I, for one am now glad that we've now made Onyxia Attunement a prerequisite of membership, because it's a bloody disgrace that we've got 50+ folks willing to do Molten Core with us, but we can't get the same amount of folks interested in Onyxia.

So, instead of fighting the mother of the Black Dragonflight, I passed my time beating up some of her kiddies on Burning Steppes and skinning their corpses. I kinda like this kind of mechanical grinding every so often, as the downtime makes a welcome change from the taxing concentration needed on boss fights. Whilst I was brain-disengaged, a call came up for folks to five-man Stratholme Undead. I answered the call and soon our little five man team was underway, all from Wulf's guild, Suprised Survivors. Sadly, although Celice did her best, a Paladin as sole healer for 3 DPSers and a Tank doesn't really work. We struggled through about four wipes before the first boss.

It was about then our fearless (read: Mad) leader Gunvladh came online. Deciding the lack of a raid was a bad thing, he quickly organised what CDers were online into a run at High Priestess Arlokk, the Panther Aspect in Zul'Gurub. Our little 5-man group was absorbed into the 20-man raid and off to Stranglethorn Vale we headed.

Arlokk's still hard work for us in our pre-epic geared state. The fight requires great healing, solid tanking and utterly insane DPS (you have basically three 30-second bursts to kill her in or the fight's unwinnable). We wiped, we wiped again, we ultimately wiped four or five times, but we finally got her. Our tactics were sound from the get go, it was just a case of getting the group balance right and having a bit of luck. In the end, the only time Wulf survived to the end of the fight was the time that she went down.

Afterwards, several of the raid kindly agreed to help me go across to the pyramid in the center which houses Hakkar, the final boss. We weren't going to kill him, just to allow Wulf to tame one of his sons. It took a few attempts, and in my careless, fatigue-ridden state, I confess that I nearly wiped the party on a few occasions, but in the end I got one of the Sons, whom I have now named Felwind. Not a bad end to a potentially dissapointing evening.

Levelling a Low-level pet.

(I originally posted this guide on the Hunter forum at WorldOfWar.net. I've posted it here partly for posterity, and partly to test out the XML feed I've just set up. Enjoy!)

So you’ve just caught the ubermega pet you always wanted. Shame he’s about 20 levels lower than you, does about as much damage as a stiff breeze and dies if an enemy so much as looks his way. If you want to level him to usefulness however, be prepared to grind.

• Preparation
  
  First of all prepare yourself mentally. Your pet only requires a third of the XP you do to gain a level, and it now gains XP based on the level difference between it and the mob you’re fighting, however, this is still capped at around 400XP/per mob, so it’ll still take you a while. Also, since your new acquisition won’t be ready for use just yet, it’s best to hang onto at least one older pet in case you want to instance or PVP in the meantime.
  
  Once you’ve resigned yourself to the grind, it’s time to stock up on supplies. If you have multiple sets of weapons/armour, then pick the most PVP-friendly set. Look for lots of armour, stamina, and a high burst damage output. Also stock up on healing and mana potions, bandages, drinks and food for you and your pet. Unless you have a healer or tank friend who’s willing to tag along, you’ll be taking a lot of damage.
  
  
• Pick Your Spot
  
  Pick a grinding area you know well, one populated with enemies that are green to you. In my late 50s up to 60, I chose the Deadwood Furbolgs in Southern Felwood, they die easy, I know what mobs are linked in a pull and they drop good loot.
  
  
• Fight!
  
  Turn off your new pet’s Growl, set it on Passive and get stuck in. If you’re used to kiting opponents in PVP, then this should be relatively simple, just keep the mob at range, Wing Clip them where necessary and take them down like any other filthy Hordie/Ally.
  
  If you’re not comfortable with kiting, then pull your opponents into an Immolation or Explosive trap using Aimed Shot (if you have it), hit them with a Serpent Sting on the way in and finish them off in melee range. Aspect Of The Monkey should be on constantly to reduce the damage you’re taking. If you draw adds, either swig a potion and take them on, or feign and run, but remember they may turn on your pet in that case.
  
  In between fights, eat and drink back to full before continuing. Also make sure your pet's well fed. Below loyalty level 4, they will be losing at least 1 loyalty a second, even when happy, so try to feed them after every second fight until they've reached loyalty level 5 or so.
  
  
• Instances
  
  It’s also possible, even desirable to take a new pet into instances to level it up. In an instance group, you’ll have a tank and healer to rely on there and you can concentrate on doing damage with your ranged weapon.
  
  However, I would only recommend this in the late stages of the levelling process. Pets have a much smaller aggro circle than players of a similar level, but I still wouldn’t recommend bringing a pet into an instance where the average trash mob was more than six levels higher than it. Once again, leave the pet on passive by your side and disable Growl until it’s levelled to within 2-3 levels of the mobs it’s fighting.
  
  I also wouldn’t recommend bringing a low level pet into a high-end instance like Molten Core or Blackwing Lair. Not only do pets have a hard enough time in those instances, but the XP rewards per hour are simply insufficient to see your pet gaining many levels in there.
  
  
• Conclusion
  
  Levelling up a low-level pet is not a quick or easy progress. However, if you're patient, persistant, or just plain bloody-minded enough to do it, it can be exceptionally rewarding. There can be a lot of grinding involved, but we Hunters can grind better than almost any other class in the game, and the satisfaction of watching your little tiddler grow into a fully-fledged people-shredder is a great feeling.

On talents and Molten Core

Was a busy weekend for Wulfsblood. First of all, I changed his talent setup again, and hopefully for the last time. Before his build was oriented around Marksmanship with some points in Beastmastery to toughen up his pet and some in Survival to enhance the traps he can lay. I decided to change himto a more end-game oriented build focussed around the survival tree. The major benefit to this tree is that it boosts his chance to perform a critical strike (which does 230% damage), and it increases his overall agility (including bonuses from buffs) by 15%.

Before the respec, Wulf had the Crit Chance, Damage Per Second and Agility shown in the following pictures:



After the respec, they'd changed as follows:



Ok, so I lost some DPS, but the extra chance to make a critical strike makes up for it in my opinion, and in the coming weeks, as we load up on more epic-quality items, Wulf's DPS will continue to soar. As it was, when we ran a Recap during an Molten Core run, I came out top of damage dealt:



Which brings me onto the body of my post. This weekend was one of unparalelled successes for the folks of Chaotic Divinity. Friday night we showed up at Molten Core to try our luck at the second Boss, Magmadar.

Maggy, as he's affectionately known, has given CD a few problems on previous runs. He can be a nightmare to deal with because he causes everyone within 40 yards to run in fear every 30 seconds, and he enters a frenzy in which he does silly damage. A skilled warrior can handle the Fear aspect, but it takes a Hunter with Tranquilising shot to take him out of Frenzy. With only two Hunters in the party who knew how to use the shot (including Wulf), we struggled, but as soon as a third Hunter joined, it all fell into place and we took down Maggy easily.



(Picture taken by another member of CD).

Flush with this momentum, we charged on and took on the next boss Gehennas, who went down easily on our second try. Genny was basically just a tough spellcaster and once we took care of his Bodyguards, it simply became a case of hurting her until she died, which is something Wulf excels at.



By that point, it was late on Saturday night, so we called it quits and I went to me bed.

On Saturday, we met up early for a fun-run through Zul'Gurub to warm up for MC later. It was initially intended that we'd run at the Snake Priest, but we ended up taking out the Snake, the Bat, the Spider (all without wiping) and the Bloodlord Mandokir with unprecedented ease.

After that, it was back to MC for more Boss-owning. Next up was Garr, a powerful Rock Elemental guarded by eight less-powerful (but still formidable) elementals. The real wrinkle with the fight is that Garr get's stronger if you kill all of his Bodyguards, so the group's Warlocks have to keep half of them banished until after we kill the boss. It took us about four or five attempts, but we finally downed him as well!



After that, we tried the next boss, Baron Geddon, but he's thusfar proved to be too difficult for us to manage. Sadly it was the same story when we tried him on Sunday night. Hopefully we'll down him next weekend though.

All in all, a fucking excellent weekend though!

Welcome

Ok, at the repeated suggestion of my good friend Manx, I've set up this blog to chronicle my continuing exploits in World Of Warcraft, particularly those of my main character, a lvl 60 Night Elf Hunter called Wulfsblood, and his adventures with his raiding group Chaotic Divinity on the EU roleplaying server Earthen Ring.

Let me start by saying what this blog is not:

1. This blog is not me saying how uber I am. Because I'm not, really. I am at best, a good Hunter, but it would be doing a great disservice to many of the great hunters out there to even class me in their league. What I do have is a knack for number crunching and some sixteen years experience in the black arts of min-maxing.
2. This isn't some limp-wristed collection of fanfic either. Yes, I play on an RP server and I love roleplaying, however I'm too concious of my own (lack of) skill in that department to inflict interminable in-character accounts of my various exploits here. I only wish more fanfic writers were so inclined.

This blog is a dumping ground for my thoughts on my exploits, a place for me to look back in posterity at the character I've been playing on and off since March 12th 2005. I'll be noting accounts of CD taking down bosses, of new tricks I learn, and of any significant events in my time of playing. Wether you choose to read or not is up to you.