FTW!!!!

Tonight Chaotic Divinity downed Ragnaros for the first time, and I was there to help. Chuffed would be an understatement.

OMG, Nerfz0rz!!

Well it was gonna happen sooner or later, but they've finally nerfed Hunters Aimed Shot and Multishot abilities.

Wulfsblood uses the Bloodseeker at present until he can do his Hunter quest and get a really nice Epic Bow. The crossbow, is, frankly sick in terms of single-shot damage because of it's slow attack speed. In fact, it gives Wulf more DPS in a raid than many bows and guns that are, on paper, superior weapons, as this comparison shows. A quest reward that's obtainable at lvl 51 sits 5th on the damage charts above many epic-level weapons.

Since all level 60 ranged weapons at present have a base damage below 200,when a hunter looks at most ranged weapons, they tend to ignore the damage value, and hone straight in on the speed. The speed of the weapon affects how much damage is added to each single shot. A slower weapon does more damage per shot, but this is supposedly compensated by the fact that the faster weapon can fire more often. It doesn't work like that, and ultimately Hunters, like Rogues and DPS Warriors before them found the best results came with the slowest weapon possible. And with a speed of 3.30, Bloodseeker is one of the slowest available. It's been a bone of contention for a long time that Hunters are imbalanced because we have easy access to such a devastating weapon, or it's close cousin, the Carapace Spine Crossbow.

However, it's been announced that in the forthcoming 1.10 patch, the weapon speed on aimed and multi-shots will be 2.80 for all weapons. This knocks my little Crossbow down from 5th to 15th place in the comparison, which I can accept, but it's the secondary effect of it that worries me. Suddenly, with the speed factor normalised, there isn't as much to strive for. OK, now the actual epic weapons are better than Bloodseeker, but they aren't that much better. It's suddenly not worth me aspiring to getting the Crossbow Of Smiting from Blackwing Lair now, since the shot damage isn't significantly better than the Epic Quest Bow (although I seem to have the worst luck getting my hands on that as well.)

This, combined with the crappy upgrade that is Dragonstalker vs Giantstalker makes me wonder if there's any point in going to Blackwing Lair when CD starts there on Friday.

W00t Epixx!!!

Haven't updated in over a week, but Wulf's had a very profitable weekend that I feel compelled to share.

Friday night was Molten Core, where we managed to clear six bosses in one night (Lucifron, Magmadar, Gehennas, Garr, Baron Geddon, and Shazzrah). I remember back in December we had difficulty clearing up to Lucifron, and taking him down was a night's work, so being able to Zerg through six bosses, all of equal or greater difficulty to him in one night is an indication of how far we've come. I also picked up a nice set of leggings for Wulfsblood for very few DKP. The arrival of the leggings proved to be fortuitous, because Veppe, a Warrior friend in CD had just given Wulf a book which he could use to get a charm in Zul'Gurub to further enhance them. Therefore after we were finished in MC, Wulf and another Hunter with a similar book headed off to the Library in Dire Maul to prepare the books for the ZG run the next day.

The next afternoon, Wulf had his first experience of the new, changed Zul'Gurub. To be honest, it was dissapointingly easy now. We spent months working on the bosses and strategies, and now it's a walk in the part taking down the priest bosses. On the other hand, they've finally turned Hakkar from a snoozeworthy fight into something that's actually a challenge. We haven't got him down yet, but we will soon. On the run, the loot kept rolling in. He got the reagents for his class-specific belt, and the final component of his charm, which made his new leggings even more amazing.

That evening, we went up against Onyxia again. We didn't enjoy the same degree of success as past runs, but we got her down on the third try. More to the point, I spent th last of Wulf's current supply of DKP on this helm, which is currently the best Hunter helm in the game.

Sadly this meant that when the Ancient Petrified Leaf dropped from Majordomo Executus in MC tonight, I was in no position to bid for it. But hell, there'll be other runs, ad I've had a frankly awesome weekend.

On Aggro

Aggro management is something of the latest bee in my bonnet. Chaotic Divinity has been doing well in MC and ZG and the epics are flooding in, but it creates as many new problems as it solves.

When we started these instances, we were able to get away with a certain sloppiness with regards nuking, since our tanks were all skilled and our DPS was comparatively low in our basic gear. However, I've noticed as our gear gets better, our damage dealing/healing ability has increased considerably, but our tank's ability to create and maintain aggro hasn't.

I used to smile on the Hunter forums when people used to say that nuking from the word go pulled too much aggro, since it had rarely happened to me in my time with CD. I now realise that it's a lesson I should have paid more attention to.

The way the game works at the moment, better tanking gear lets our tanks survive for longer (gives them better armour, better Defense skill, more resists vs magic, more health), but it doesn't let them maintain the attention of a bunch of be-eppicced DPSers much better. As a result, whereas I could wait 10-15 secs on a mob before going all out with damage, I'm starting to realise that a slow-building crescendo of pain might be the best way to go.

Ah well, I'll try it out in MC tonight, see how it goes.

On starting a Hunter...

I've been asked a few times for advice on Hunter stuff from friends with Hunter alts. When I started playing Wulf, I basically didn't know what I was doing for the longest time, until I stumbled onto the Hunter forums at WoW-Europe.com and Worldofwar.net. Here's some of the collated facts I'd wished I'd known when starting.

1. Professions: Unless you're just gonna use your Hunter for cash grinding, there are three useful options for your profession choices:

• Herbalism/Alchemy: Potions are useful for any class, and excess herbs usually sell exceptionally well at the Auction House. The downside is that having Find Herbs active prevents a Hunter from using his various Tracking abilities.
• Mining/Engineering: Once again, useful for any class, but especially Hunters with a PVP mindset. Engineering will give you bombs, guns, scopes and a free source of better ammo than you can buy at any given level. Mining shares the downside of Herbalism for a Hunter, in that tracking Mineral nodes prevents you from using tracking.
• Skinning/Leatherworking: This is useful for Hunters until the late 40s, and then you won't find another useful recipie until your late 50s. There are usually plenty of other leatherworkers around, so it's not particularly worthwhile. Still Wulf's been a Leatherworker for most of his career, and I have to say, I find it a worthwhile experience.
• Secondary professions: Get em all! First Aid's invaluable in raids to save healer mana, and Fishing and Cooking provide a good source of free/cheap petfood.
  

2. Pets: Your optimal choice of pet depends largely on your playing style. Petopia has a lot of information on this subject, but here are my own thoughts:

• If you want to do solo PVE only, then you really can't go wrong with a Bear. They're tough and they eat anything, which means you can save money on petfood and feed it off drops.
  
• If you're more interested in PVP, then I'd suggest a Cat. They have the best DPS of any pet in the game, and their Prowl skill makes them great for sneaking up on cloth-wearers in Battlegrounds. Since they can eat fish, you can fish for them and once again save yourself a bundle of cash.
• If instancing's your thing, then I'd suggest a Wolf. They're average in stats, so they can fit into a variety of roles from off-tanking to DPS. Their Furious Howl ability can be used to boost other physical damage dealers in your group, so either send it into the melee to buff the Warriors and Rogues, or keep it by your side and let it add some extra damage to your shots.

3. Stats: There is a definate order of preference for stats:

1. Agility/Attack Power: This should be your primary concern, since you're a damage dealer first and foremost. Each point of agility adds two ranged attack power, one melee attack power, two points of armour and a small bonus to your chances to dodge and attack and make a critical strike. On the other hand, Attack Power just adds a flat value to your melee and ranged attack power.
2. Critical Strike Chance: For many Hunters (particularly PVP-centric ones), Crit chance is the holy grail. With the right talents and a decent slow ranged weapon, a Hunter can lay down devastating damage in a short period of time with a few lucky crits. Personally, whilst I do like crit chance, I've always been careful to never sacrifice much attack power or agility for them. Simply put, there's no point in having a massive crit chance if those crits don't hurt in the first place.
3. Stamina/Intellect: These two are tied in my estimation. For PVP, Stamina is most important, but for PVE, you can get away with more Intellect and less Stamina, since you'll normally have either a Pet or another player tanking for you. I personally try and go for a balance of both, favouring intellect slightly where possible.
4. The rest: Spirit can be useful to aid with mana regen in long fights, but it's not worth sacrificing anything else for. Unless you're spending a lot of time in Melee, then don't bother with any Strength.

4. Preparation: Before you go out in the wild/on a raid, always check you have the following:

• A full quiver/pouch of ammo. You can't do damage without this! Also, if you think it's going to be an especially long run, then get some more arrows and put them in your normal bagspace. You can always swap these in later.
• Two stacks of Petfood & One stack of Mana Drinks. If you're going to be working with a mage, this might be less nessesary, but it's always useful to have never the less

This may seem like common sense, but I've been caught out in the past, and I've known others who've done the same.

Well, that's the basic tricks of the trade as I see 'em. Next time I'm bored enough, I'll probably write something about talents.