AV Grind

With yesterday's daily PvP quest being AV on Shadowsong, Gren ventured in for the grind. Ever since the buff on Bal & Vann, it's put a crimp on the Horde strategy of minimal defense, full on zerg prevalent on Reckoning. Now, the AVs we win are the ones where some effort is put into defending or the allies have more AFKers than we do...

While most can argue that the buff isn't that great, it's enough of a speedbump for the Horde offensive that it takes them just a little bit longer to make it to SP, letting Ally win the foot race...

Is it game-breaking for Horde as many are claiming? Not really. I still maintain that the Horde base is a lot more defensible, as long as there are people who want to defend it. Hunters, and properly talented Mages, and Locks on the towers have a very good defensive field of fire. Even if they get hit by the incoming offense, they can take a couple of steps back into the flag room to bandage, using LOS to make themselves safe. Now, put melee a bit behind the gate, with Frost Traps, about six to eight Horde can hold the gates against just about anything besides a full-on zerg of the entire ally offense.

Is the Bridge of Death in Dun Baldar a pain? Yes. But ten Ally cannot hold the Bridge & both bunkers, mainly because players at the bunkers do not have the range to hit Horde on the bridge. But, most players can't be bothered to think this far... *shrug*

Anyway, Gren opened her account with 8 straight losses. I got bored with many simply not trying so I went off to do some quest grinding on my warrior for cash and Consortium rep. Just before I logged off for the night, I ran one last AV, which I think had more than half Ally AFK. That's because we won without them capping any towers, with our D bogging them down trying to cap and hold the RH graveyard (the epic trinket was fun. Res at FW, trinket back to keep and continue to harass... lol).

Anyway, saw this in the Official Forums today.

In our continued efforts to support fair gameplay in World of Warcraft and to provide a positive experience for players, we are currently taking steps to ensure fair and enjoyable competition in the Battlegrounds. Starting immediately, we will be issuing warnings and penalties, including suspensions and the removal of Honor points and recently acquired Honor rewards, for non-participation in Battleground games. We are taking action against thousands of accounts immediately, and will continue to monitor these situations and regularly take action against violators. If you encounter a player in a Battleground who is intentionally not participating in the battle for an extended period of time, please help us track the situation and report the player as AFK. For information on how to complete an in-game AFK report, please go here: (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/battlegrounds/info.html). All reports will be thoroughly investigated, and corrective action will only be taken if the violation is confirmed. Thank you for your support and best of luck to you in all of your games in the Battlegrounds!

- Bornakk 11/1/08

This sounds like they will be keeping track of the number of AFK flags you accumulate. Too many and they will clamp down on you. If that's the case, hopefully it'll lead to less AFKing. At the moment, it doesn't seem to have helped. But when a few of the serial AFKavers get hit, maybe things will improve...

No more Ghosts...

Through a hotfix we’ve recently removed the ability to tame a Grimtotem Spirit Guide. Players who have already gone through the trouble of taming the creature will be able to keep them unchanged. This hotfix only removes the possibility to tame this creature from here on.

The removal of the spirit guide has been debated within design discussions for a while now as to what impact the pet and its precedent has on the game.
The unintended nature of the taming, the undead status of the guide, appearance of the wolf in relation to the feel of the hunter class, and the complex processes of taming were all issues touched upon and discussed.

Ultimately the discussions brought us to the conclusion that this should not be a permanent addition to the pet selection available to hunters; however, those that have already tamed them should be allowed to keep them due to their efforts in obtaining one.

- Drysc 15/1/07

A bit slow to notice this, but it's official. No more taming of the Ghost Wolf...

I did procrastinate on this forever and now, it's not possible anymore... While it's not something game breaking, hunters on the internet are getting up in arms over this 'stealth-nerf'.

Frankly, I'm puzzled that Blizz actually took the effort to sit down and brainstorm this thing through... This is especially since that the 'ghost' effect really had no effect in the game. It doesn't make it harder to see/target in PvP. It doesn't allow the pet to take less damage or do more damage. It just had the distinction of being different.

It takes a lot of effort to get; both in terms of the effort and gold required to gather the required gear/gem and the effort to level it to 70. It's the latter which had given me cause to procrastinate about it. I once tried to level a pet 10 levels below me, and it sucked bad. I cannot imagine having to do it for the wolf, but there are people who will.

In the end, is the nerf good? Actually, I think it is. It gives those who have done it something special to be happy about. For those who missed it, too bad... :p But look on the bright side, you saved 100+G... ;)

At Least We Aren't The Worst

Well, the 3v3 team was formed with Xig & the boomkin and we notched up our 10 games this week... Very embarrassing... But, based on our (especially mine) gear, not too surprising... At least, we did win one game... :p

Hopefully, it'll be better next week as I gather more PvP gear... Should have enough honour by tonight to get the S1 chestpiece.

Over the weekend, Mart also finally got a peak at Kara, at the chess event and Prince. I ended up with this belt because no mages were in the raid and no disenchanters either... :p The 5 badges were really good though. Prince dropped the token for my T4 helm but I passed on it because it's not something I will use, not with my uber goggles.

Arena

Well, I've never really considered doing this as my reflexes/latency/skill aren't just up to it but since not much else is happening, I've also been considering upgrading Gren's gear through PvP.

So, it's got me to research what I can get out of Arena for Gren. The Season 3 weapons and shoulders are a bit out since those require personal and team ratings and I really would want matching gear, it's either grind for Season 2 set or some pieces here and there to go with the Season 1 gear. Now, Season 2 set would require a fair amount of Arena points, and frankly, I don't really like the look of the set so looks like the honour grinding for Season 1 will continue.

However, one thing to get would be the Season 3 Waraxe, which doesn't require personal rating and just 1000 points. Depending on how many points you can get each week by scrubbing out, might want to aim for the Season 2 Crossbow which requires 3,261 points, instead of the Season 1.

All Your Bases Belong to Us - The Sequel

Well, I didn't think we could pull it off again, but we certainly did... Twice in a row! Not only that, but we bettered the effort by keeping Galv alive. I was with the Galv D group (ok... group is a bit generous... There were only 3, then 2 of us...) and after they cleared us, I thought Galv was a dead duck. After res, I went to help retake Iceblood Tower, and when I got back to see Galv as I noticed a few defenders still there and was surprised to see the half-naked Orc still running around...

Anyway, that was the last and only attempt to kill Galv and we sat there watching while the rest of the Defense capped the Towers, and our Offense slowly rolled the Ally Defense and killed Van...

Mart should have enough to get the gem after the honour calculation tonight. I've started Gren on the grind. I've bought the wrists using honour and marks banked from pre-TBC. Most of the S1 gear are side-grades (DPS-wise) but at least I get matching clothes... One thing I did realise is how LACKING her DPS and stats are... Mart was at least able to hold his own and Eld had the excuse that his gear was crap but he still had the stamina. However, Gren, poor Gren didn't have the stamina to go toe to toe with anyone who had some PvP gear & not enough DPS to kill them fast enough... :( Hope the situation will improve as her gear gets upgraded...

Ghost Wolf Pet

To add to the list of interesting and different pets, this baby is the current king of the hill.

It's basically a summoned beast from some of the new mobs in Dustwallow Marsh. Now, that's no big deal, except for the fact that the mob lasts only for 8 seconds. The problem? Your Tame Beast spell takes 20...

Anyway, intrepid hunters have found that this is not a huge problem... How? You just need to get your Tame Beast spell to be faster than 8 seconds!

First, you need a helm with a Meta-gem slot. An easy to get helm is High Warlord's Chain Helm which requires just 12,852 Honour and 30 AV Marks (or grind a bit more for Gladiator's Chain Helm for 14,500 Honour and 30 AV Marks) or Nether Runner's Cowl, assuming you are Exalted with Consortium.

Second, you need to get a Mystical Skyfire Diamond for the helm. Remember that you need more Blue gems than yellow. Now since you are facing lvl 30 mobs, just unequip all your gear with yellow gems. If you have NO blue gems, just buy some random junk blue gem from the AH (you should usually be able to find green (as in rarity) gems in AH for about 1g) and socket it into the helm.

If you are a Troll (with the Berserk racial giving 30% spell haste at 10% health, it has been reported that you can possibly do it solo with just the diamond, but frankly you need a fair bit of luck and almost no lag... Since I'm notorious unlucky where this kind of crap is concerned and I do have lag, I'm going to try to stack the deck a bit. These help:

• Drums of Battle which needs a 350 Leatherworker to use. These give 80 Spell Haste Rating - 5.1%
• Juju Flurry from a quest in Winterspring. These give 30 Spell Haste Rating - 1.9%
• Shaman's Bloodlust (or Heroism, depending on your faction) spell, which gives a flat 30% increase
• Priest MC spell, to better control the spawning of the Wolf

Now, I don't know any Leatherworkers and the mats seems a bit harsh and the JuJu seems like work for little benefit, so it should be easy with a Priest + Shaman. It's not that we have an abundance of these, but I should be able to round them up... In theory, with both Bloodlust and Berserk, I should be able to reduce the casting time to 4.9 seconds, whereas with Berserk (or Bloodlust) only, it's 7 seconds, which is a VERY small window of opportunity.

So, how to do it?

Duel your friends till you get to 10% health. Have the Priest MC the Grimtotem Spirit Shifters. Spam cast the various Aspects until the gem procs, then have the shaman cast bloodlust on you. When you start to grow, have the priest summon the wolf immediately.

You need to them immediately target the wolf and tame! This can be a bit tough so use a macro like this:
/target Grimtotem Spirit Guide
/cast Tame Beast
bind it to a button and spam as required!

Of course, after that, you have a nice grind ahead of you to bring a level 30 pet to 70... I'll wait till patch 2.3.2 where the pet leveling improvements go live before doing that.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer...

My toons went on a kissing spree and Eld was the first to get lucky with the sprig of Fresh Holly... So, on the way to Nagrand to run the Circle of Blood quest, Eld rode a reindeer with sparkly bits behind...



Eld has been running quests in Shadowmoon Valley and while killing some water elementals with Naraa's help, the pattern for Ragesteel Shoulders dropped. It looks like it's something worth making for my grinding set, but the urgency is not there... When I continue my blacksmith grinding, I'll make one of those. Till then, tanking gear takes priority...

I also finally got round to planning and actually training my pets properly. Zeph is now a grinding/PvE pet and Frostie is the PvP pet... It was also during this time to my horror that I have yet to learn Prowl 3... So off to STV I went, tamed a Jaguero Stalker, who also came with Cower 5 (yeah....) and quite fortunately, learnt the skill almost immediately.

I'm a Dwarf wanna-be

Over the weekend, finally got the tickets I needed to get the ram mount. It looks a bit small when Gren is riding, but still quick decent. Something different... :)

Eld cleared some instances as well, mainly BF & UB. I actually had to tank UB which was interesting. It's the first time I really had to tank anything and it's certainly rather interesting. It's certainly more fun than healing, but a bit torn between this and DPS. Of course, this is just the one time and I might change my mind if I had to do it day-in-day-out... lol

Hunter +Hit Theorycrafting

Interesting read for raiding hunters...

Wowinsider: BigRedKitty Smacking the Hit Cap

Bite and Claw

Finally peeked at my combat log last night and I realised that after the initial dump where all the abilities, Dash, Growl, Bite and Claw went off, my pet would not Bite again for the duration of the fight. Claw was going off and Growl also done, but Bite was not there. Leads me to thinking that perhaps training Claw is sufficient and the points can be better spent elsewhere.

Not much has been happening. I've been grinding my Hunter's Consortium Rep and collecting her gear. I figured on trying for the rifle. Warlock comes out for the odd instance run. I've also started grinding my Warrior to 70... So many things to do, so little time...

On the downside, Blizz has not fixed the bug which doesn't allow Blood Elves to finish the Harvest quest. Looks like won't be getting free bread till next year...

T2 Lookalike

With help from some wonderful people (Thi, Bact, Panda & Horse), Gren finished the Teron Gorefiend questline last night. After help from a nice Rogue who cut the Nightseye for me and stopping by Blade's Edge Mountain for a few quests to push the Cenarion rep up to Revered for the Head enchant, I've managed to upgrade the rather ho hum



to the much more exciting



She still looks odd with the helm, but what the heck...

To Crit or To Hit?

First, some basic info about crit and hit.

The StatMod for all Combat Ratings are the same, ie the 'cost' of 1 CSR is the same as 1 Hit Rating. At lvl 70, 15.8 HR = 1% hit and 22.1 CSR = 1% crit

The base chance to miss is 5% (against lvl 70 mobs), 5.5% (lvl 71), 6% (lvl 72) and 9% (lvl 73).

Ranged attack will not cause Glancing Blows and cannot be dodged or parried. Players cannot cause Crushing Blows.

So, for hunter, the attack table consists of the following

• Miss (max 9%)
• Block (max 5%)
• Crit
• Hit

On paper, this seems that given the choice, running about 6% HR (or 94.8 Hit Rating) would be optimum. You'll reduce to zero the miss chance against lvl 72 and below mobs which means more white hits.

However, the crit cap in this case is 86%, which is far beyond what you can reasonably achieve even with the best gear in this game. In addition, for BM hunters, crits proc abilities like Kill Command, and Go for the Throat, and benefits from Mortal Shots (if you have the appropriate talents). So, I would think that for BM hunters, crit is superior to hit in any scenario, even if CSR is 1.3 times more expensive than HR.

Hunter Gear

I was going to just leave her gear as is, but I've decided to at least upgrade with quest reward and crafted gears. However, I think I'll leave out quests from instances, as I'll rather run those with Mart for rep. (The exception is the Grandmother questline as it only requires a quick run of Crypts)

Head: Stalker's Helmet of Second Sight (Teron Gorefiend, I am..., Shadowmoon Valley)
Neck: Natasha's Choker (The Hound-Master, Blade's Edge Mountain)
Shoulder: Earthmender's Crimson Spaulders (Escape from Coilskar Cistern, Shadowmoon Valley)
Back: Dawnstrike's Cloak (Down with Daellis, Netherstorm)
Chest: Felstalker Breastplate (Crafted)
Wrists: Felstalker Bracers (Crafted)
Hands: Ar'tor's Mainstay (The Cipher of Damnation - The Third Fragment Recovered, Shadowmoon Valley)
Waist: Felstalker Belt (Crafted)
Legs: Mag'hari Huntsman's Leggings (Hero of the Mag'har, Nagrand)
Feet: Boots of the Outlander (already using)

Ring: Kaylaan's Signet (Deathblow to the Legion, Netherstorm)
Ring: Slayer's Mark of the Redemption (Dissension Amongst the Ranks..., Shadowmoon Valley)
Trinket: Mark of Conquest (Hellfire PVP)
Trinket: Bladefist's Breadth (already using)

Main Hand: Ceremonial Warmaul Blood-Blade (already using)
Off Hand: Shani's Crysknife (already using)
Ranged: Consortium Blaster (Rep Reward: Consortium - Revered)

That's based on the use of Mail items only. However, if we include Leather (& based on the rather crappy Mail pieces available in some slots, might have no choice...), the following will come into play.

Shoulders: Talbuk Hide Spaulders (Rep Reward: Mag'har - Revered)
Chest: Mag'hari Scout's Tunic (Hero of the Mag'har, Nagrand)
Legs: Fel Leather Leggings (Crafted)

70 no. 2

Gren dinged 70 grinding the Ethereals at the Heap... So, it's back to grinding quests for money for Mart's epic flying mount.

I'm short about 300g or so. Shouldn't be too tough to make up...

New Pet

Done! Zephyr is now a two-headed white bird!

It was a cake. I don't know why I thought it was an elite (it wasn't). It still hurt though, got me to about 50% life, and I'm four levels above it!

There weren't even that many mobs around. In the end I killed a few extra to learn Screech 5 off the Windroc...

Pet Abilities

One other matter with regards to the taming of the new Zephyr, I'll need to grab Screech 5.

It's a bit fortunate that Greater Windrocs in Nagrand has this. I guess I'll tame a lvl 66 version to bring along as the 'throw-away' pet.

Also, have re-looked at Pet Skills since this was slightly changed. Have settled on the following.

Common Skills (Active)
Growl - Rank 8 (0 pts)
Bite - Rank 9 (2 9pts)

Common Skills (Passive)
Great Stamina - Rank 5 (50 pts)
Natural Armor - Rank 11 (175 pts)
Avoidance - Rank 2 (25 pts)
Cobra Reflexes - Rank 1 (15 pts)

Cat Skills (Active)
Claw - Rank 9 (29 pts)
Dash - rank 3 (25 pts)

Carrion Bird Skills (Active)
Screech - Rank 5 (29 pts)
Dive - rank 3 (25 pts)

This will be retuned based on their expected usage (PvE for bird, PvP for cat), but for now, this is it.

Second Pet

While I do like the blue skin on Zephyr, it's gotten not so special since appearing in Outlands as a normal mob. To be honest, I have yet to see anyone else with one, but still, it's sort of lost that little bit of uniqueness. So, I have yet to even look at leveling Zep, concentrating on Frostbite instead.

Anyway, I think I've settled on the replacement. This little beauty... Trachela, mate of Torgos.

The complication is that she is immune to any form of CC like the usual Frost Trap, or Frost Nova, sheep, etc. So, guess I'll have no choice but to tank her while taming.

I recall the area is crowded with adds though, so might need to bring a trash pet to clear the area first. She also hits a bit like a truck (well, she did when I was that level...), so might even have to bring some healzbotz help...

This'll be a little project to break the monotony of grinding skins and metal...