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Scattered Shots: Picking the right hunter loot, part 2
Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, where real players are hunters and everyone else is just an avatar. I'm Eddie Carrington, aka Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge and THL Podcast. Each week we discuss ways to help improve your hunter. Welcome back to part 2 of our "Picking the right hunter loot" guide. Where each week we take a look at raid loot from WoTLK and help you understand what makes something hunter loot versus loot hunters can use. Here's what we talked about before: Part 1 – We reviewed what item stats make up hunter gear. Also, we explained why every hunter needs to stack hit and strive for the hit cap. We also explained how agility, attack power, critical strike, and armor penetration work with each of the three hunter specs. This week we're going to start exploring the hunter loot that drops in Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader. I'm sure we'll have some spirited debate over the merits of each item. And, I'm pretty sure we'll see druids mangling their keyboards and rogues will throw in a cheap shot or two over our ability to equip almost anything. In an effort keep the carnage at a minimum let's try to keep a few things in mind. We're only reviewing raid loot and how each item affects your hunter and favorite raiding pet's performance. Which means, we're not going to talk about where else to go and get geared. Nor are we going to debate what is and is not considered "Best in Slot" or not. And if you're looking for PvP alternatives? I promise, we'll tackle all of those later on in a different guide. Now if you're wondering why we're not talking about what's over on the PTR for patch 3.3. We'll make sure and cover all of Icecrown when it's released. Then head on back to the other Northrend raids and finish up where we left off. With that said, let's walk through the swirly portal and head into Trial of the Crusader and it's heroic sibling Trial of the Grand Crusader.
Forgetting to hit the "Need" button
Kalon at ThinkTank touches on a subject near and dear to my heart -- missing out on loot upgrades because you forget what you're supposed to want. While on an Ulduar-10 run, he passed on the Kologarn drop Mark of the Unyielding, which is close to being the best-in-slot neck for bear tanks, for one good reason (the other tank raids more than he does at the moment) and one bad one (he couldn't remember just how good the piece really is). Particularly galling, he notes, is that he recently wrote an excellent guide to tanking upgrades in Ulduar in which Mark of the Unyielding was singled out for especial commentary. Ouch.For myself, I don't think anything quite approaches the sheer agony of having accidentally passed on Idol of Worship from Grand Widow Faerlina just because I wasn't paying attention at the time. I don't do much cat DPS, but losing the best-in-slot idol directly affecting the attack (Rip) that contributes the largest share of feral DPS is...again with the ouch. I still ask myself what was so amazingly enthralling about tanking Maexxna trash that night that I could have zoned out to that degree, and -- naturally! -- the idol never dropped again. While I guess it's possible that there are players out there who are practically perfect in every way and have never missed a drop, I have the sneaking suspicion that most of us still find a reason to kick ourselves.
The Queue: Pandapocalypse
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. On Friday I responded to a question regarding Pandaren, and it turns out I'm about half wrong. Partially right, but also partially wrong, which is certainly a problem. My answer was based off of something I talked about with a random Blizzard employee, but in hindsight that's a pretty poor move on my part, they wouldn't necessarily know the little inner workings of one or two departments within the company. What I said was refuted with quotes from J. Allen Brack and Chris Metzen, which I'm willing to put more weight in as far as game lore goes. The Chinese did, indeed, have a problem with the Pandaren being in-game.I was right in that there are no laws against virtual pandas getting shivved or whatever, but there definitely was an issue with the Pandaren race, culturally. It's much more likely it just ran into a lot of friction when it came down to dealing with censors and the cultural shift, and it became not worth it to risk losing players over. I'm sure the fact that the Pandarens' original design was much more Japanese (see above) than Chinese didn't help, but that was shifted in the right direction eventually and may not have had an actual impact at all. And with that said...
Ready Check: Guide to Naxxramas (Arachnid Quarter)
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look at the first few bosses in Naxxramas.Today we'll be looking at a blast from the past, revisiting Naxxramas and providing details on the boss encounters that await those brave enough to enter the dread citadel. For those of you who haven't had a chance to look inside the all-new Naxx, here's your spoiler warning: look away now if you don't want to hear about what's in store.This week's article examines the Arachnid Quarter, and we'll be visiting the other quarters in upcoming articles. We'll look at each boss on both normal and heroic modes, pointing out the differences (beyond HP increases). Generally, if you've defeated the boss on normal mode, there are only minor changes to adapt to on heroic mode (and vice versa).
BoE epics on each Naxx boss
Someone on the forums noticed what at first appeared to be an oversight: Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets, from Grand Widow Faerlina in Naxx-10, are tagged as BoE, not BoP as most boss drops are. As it turns out, this is intended. According to Blizzard poster Verimonde, each boss will have one BoE item on its loot table. This has a few obvious benefits, as Verimonde points out: More trickle-down items from raiding - non-raiders, be they alts, friends, or just random AH patrons, get access to a few raid items More excitement - even if nobody needs anything from the boss, there's still a chance to get a potentially lucrative BoE (and badges, of course) Another income source for raid guilds Although it isn't mentioned specifically, I expect that this BoE philosophy will extend to all raid bosses in Wrath. I think it's a nice idea. Let's say the average 10-man boss has a 12-item loot table and drops 2 items from it plus badges. If one of these items is made BoE, there's roughly a 17% chance to get it, which sounds reasonable. My question: what will raids' loot rules be for BoEs? My guild typically does open rolls for BoE items that aren't needed by anyone present, so that's probably what we'll do. But how will DKP guilds handle it? Will people who need it for their alts get precedence? Will they be auctioned off and the funds added to the guild bank, if nobody needs them? I guess it'll vary depending on the guild. But between these BoEs and Heirloom items buyable with badges, raiding is going to be a lot more interesting for those of us with many alts.
