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Scattered Shot: Jump-Disengage
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. We talk a lot about optimizing our hunters here in Scattered Shots, and then spend almost as much time stressing that skill is more important than gear -- and in fact, more important than those last several degrees of optimization. I've found in the hundreds of emails I get every month that the number one cause of low DPS is lost or delayed shots -- people just failing to execute their rotations correctly. But close on its heels in number two is poor movement management. One of the greatest movement tools in the hunter arsenal is Disengage, and it is also one of the least used in raids. Just like jump-shot, you can use jump-Disengage to Disengage in the direction you're running without slowing your forward momentum. It takes some practice, but once it's habit, jump-Disengage becomes a fantastic tool to let you get where you need to go faster. I believe this is a key hunter movement skill. Rather than trying to explain it in writing, I put together this little tutorial video so you can see how it's done. I even dug a couple bits of old raid footage so you can see it in action. Engineers can have even more fun and more distance by macroing in their Flexweave Underlay with Disengage. One final word on jump-Disengage: the game doesn't seem to track you while you're in the air. This means that it thinks you're still in your starting place until you land. In other words: Disengage is not a way to get out of void zones! You want to be a hunter, eh? You start with science, then you add some Dwarven Stout, and round it off some elf-bashing. The end result is massive DPS. Scattered Shots is the WoW.com column dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. See the Scattered Shots Resource Guide for a full listing of vital and entertaining hunter guides, including how to improve your heroic DPS, understand the impact of skill vs. gear, get started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101 and even solo bosses with some extreme soloing.
Scattered Shots: Cobra Shot and Camouflage
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. I have no doubt that, such astute and learned people as hunters tend to be, you are all well aware of the Cataclysm alpha leaks that have been piling up. If you were to follow your curiosity in hopes of getting a better mental picture of how we hunters will turn out, you would be sorely disappointed. Well, first you'd be disappointed, and then you'd probably get lost looking at pictures of new zones and old zones made new again for far, far too long ... But then some hours later, you'd remember why you went there in the first place and return to being disappointed. Unlike some classes whose talent trees have been showered with presents in the leaks, our talent trees appear mostly unchanged at the moment -- in fact, they're still filled with our mana regen and mana reduction talents. However, there were a couple of little nibblets of hunter goodness hidden in there -- the actual tooltips for our new spells, Camouflage and Cobra Shot. This is not official. The beta has not even started, and even if it was official it'd be subject to all kinds of change at any moment. This is stuff that, frankly, was never meant for our eyes to see. Also, these are spoilers. If you don't want to know anything about Cataclysm until it's released, don't click to read more. In fact, you really shouldn't go any further, if you're being good. If you do click to read more you will be rewarded with naughty goodies of secret hunter info. So those of you feeling just a bit naughty, join me after the cut.
Scattered Shots: Hunter gems
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. If you take the average hunter and strip him bare of all gear and weapons, he would still be a shining thing of such deadly beauty you would ache to look upon it. And should you dare to attack that hunter in all his natural grace, that ache would turn to sharp, searing pain as a fury of fur and fangs descended upon you. But it is important to note that though we hunters are glorious to behold with all our parts exposed, it does not mean that we shouldn't wear our gear. With approximately 90% of all drops designed specifically for hunters, it would be a shame to let them go to waste. And as long as you're wearing you gear anyway, you should accessorize. Grab some gems to accentuate that sparkle in your eye and the lovely flash of muzzle in the face of overwhelming odds. Join me after the cut as we do some window shopping and suggest what gems go best with eyebrow-searing DPS. Diamonds may be forever, but Relentless Earthsiege Diamonds mark the end of all life within range of your gun.
Scattered Shots: Secrets and myths of the world's best hunters
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. Over at the Hunting Party Podcast, we've had the opportunity to interview some of the best hunters in the world. Hunters in the top guilds, like Ensidia and Paragon, and the hunter with more top DPS benchmarks than any other, Kripparrian. One of the interesting things about talking to them, both on and off air, is all the traits they have in common: they're calm, logical and of course, uncommonly good looking. The way they talk about the game and hunter optimization is very similar, too. When you start asking them about hunter advice or how to get the last ounce of awesomesauce out of your hunter, they all say pretty much the same things. And it's somewhat different advice than you'll get from the forums or Elitist Jerks. Personally, I suspect if anyone knows what really matters when it comes to downing bosses, it's these guys. But in talking with hunters in the community, I notice there's a lot of misunderstanding about what goes on in a top raid guilds -- pervasive myths about top raiding teams that don't seem to go away. Join me after the cut as we reveal the secrets of the world's best PvE hunters and find out what really matters, and at the same time take a look behind some of the myths as well.
Scattered Shots: PvP basic stats and specs
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. After a long and frustrating night of progression raiding, you may find yourself thinking, "You know, screw this dragon. It's my teammates that I wanna kill." There are few sensations in this life quite as satisfying as slaughtering other players, kiting weepy melee and glorifying in the lamentations of their menfolk (because believe me, it's the menfolk who do the lamenting in PvP). We're going to start paving the road to lamentation today with a look at how our stat priorities change for PvP and an overview of how the three hunter trees look in a PvP environment. And yes, we'll have some sample PvP specs, too. Join me after the cut as we learn to exalt in the misery of others.
Scattered Shots: Survival 101, part 1
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. After languishing in obscurity for all of vanilla and all of BC, Survival finally burst onto the scene after the great BM nerf of '08 as a leading hunter DPS spec. While it was overtaken by MM with top gear, SV remains a competitive spec with a more forgiving play style. At long last, after so much waiting, those die-hard SV players who have been dedicated to their spec since launch can finally say, "Screw you, fair-weather speccers, I've always been SV. I'm a real SV hunter!" Today, we're going to go through the basic nuts and bolts of the SV spec. As always, the 101 guides are focused on the new level 80 hunter just picking up the spec for the first time. As such, we'll try to avoid going into too many situational things or strategies focused only at top gear levels.
Scattered Shots: Frostheim faux interviews Ghostcrawler
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. This is not actually an interview with Ghostcrawler. I have never spoken with Ghostcrawler, nor have we exchanged emails. In this, we are two lost souls reaching for each other across the vastness of the information superhighway, each seeking that other half to fill the emptiness within us. He by crafting and endlessly refining the perfect class in WoW, as well as nine other support classes to improve the hunter experience. Me by taking apart that creation to revel in the component pieces, to learn how they work and thus better understand him. We are platonic life partners who have yet to meet. Because of this connection we share, this ephemeral bond, I am able to predict exactly how he'd answer if we did speak. If I happened to sit at a bar next to Ghostcrawler in the not-too-distant future and our eyes met over a glass of stout in a moment of magic, I think we can agree that not only would he consent to an interview, but that everything in the following transcript is exactly as he would say it. Except, possibly, for the words.
Scattered Shots: Simply enchanting
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. While compiling the master Scattered Shots Resource Guide, I spent a lot of time digging back through months (and years) of hunter columns here on WoW.com, and one of the things I realized was that some of the key guides were woefully out of date. The game keeps changing and information that was great one day becomes obsolete a few months later. So I'm going to try to fill in some of the more glaring gaps in the resource guide from time to time, starting today. I have not forgotten Survival 101 -- the specter of that column still looms over my shoulder, haunting me -- and we won't be doing dull, boring basics guides every column. We'll continue to look at hunter news, end-game raiding strats, hunter loot, pets and why healers hate them, more ways to use your hunter that Blizzard never intended, and of course Grandpappy Frostheim will make an appearance from time to time. But on the agenda today is a straightforward guide to the best level 80 hunter enchants. If your gear can have an enchant, it should have an enchant. While any single enchant doesn't make a huge difference to our total DPS, all those little things add up to the kind of DPS that has those wannabe DPS shadow priests crying in their decorative orbs.
Scattered Shots: Hunter pets in Cataclysm
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. Throughout the years of WoW, hunter pets have grown better and better with each expansion. In the beginning they were a pain to train and level, and we were rewarded for that pain with a pet that died in every boss fight. But over time, our pets have grown steadily stronger, easier and more customizable. While we still have some pet issues, those issues are no longer that our pets are too weak. Of course while we know how awesome and vital our pets have become, healers are still a few expansions behind on the learning curve. They continue to prioritize the tanks or themselves over our pets. But what are you gonna do? The healer's mind is an unfathomable thing -- after all, they rolled healers in the first place, which already establishes them as somewhat unstable. What I don't understand is why that nurturing impulse doesn't translate to adorably fluffy and cuddly minions of death. So our pets are certified mini-killing machines now, but with that improvement new problems have cropped up. While we still don't know exactly what Cataclysm has in store for our pets, the recent hunter class preview gave us a peek at the direction that Blizzard may have in mind. So join me after the cut as we take a look at the current problem with hunter pets and the possible solution that Cataclysm may present.
Scattered Shots: Grandpappy Frostheim on Cataclysm changes
Scattered Shots is brought to you by Grandpappy Frostheim, who spends his evenings in an Ironforge tavern telling young hunters how much harder things were in his day, when they had to kite mobs uphill, both ways. It seems like everywhere I turn these days all I see is hunters overreacting and complaining about the small bit of Cataclysm hunter changes we've seen. "I hate focus! I hate haste! We're going to become ranged rogues! I'm quitting if they do this! I'm going to hold my breath until they take it back! Huuuumph!" Kids these days, I tell ya. Let me tell you, back in my day ... Well, back in my day hunters complained and moaned about every major change, too. I guess some things never change. While Cataclysm may be the largest change our class has seen, it is not the first major change our class -- or our stats -- have had. Some of you are just too young to know that we've gone through this all before, although to a different degree. So have a seat, make yourselves comfortable, and shut your trap for minute and maybe you'll learn a little something about the way things were back in the day. Like Brann always says, "If ye don't know yer history, yer doomed to repeat it. Then ye'll look like a great buffoon, won't ye?"
Scattered Shots Resource Guide
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. Here at Scattered Shots, we spend a lot of time talking about how to optimize your hunter -- whether for DPS or for leveling or for soloing things we were never meant to solo. We also spend some time talking about the impact of the latest hunter news, what things were like back in the good 'ol days, and making fun of lesser classes and non-dwarves. If you read Scattered Shots regularly, we like to think that you get access to a lot of information that's often useful and hopefully always interesting and entertaining. However, if you're looking for that tidbit of information from some column from a couple months back ... I'll be the first to admit that it can be hard to find. If you don't remember certain key words, the search function will probably not be your friend and you'll be reduced to scrolling through page after page of columns. Well, that's something that I can do for you! This resource guide will provide you links to all of the relevant Scattered Shots guides, with a brief description of the information you can find in each. This is not an index of every column -- this is specifically currently accurate guides with information you probably want to know. So news on the patch 1.5 changes will not be here, but how to level will. This guide will be updated regularly, adding new relevant guides and removing ones that become obsolete.
Scattered Shots: Gearing up without raids
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. For every hunter scaling Icecrown Citadel and duking it out over Saurfang's corpse, there are five more slogging their way through an unending chain of heroics. Sure, those hunters in heroics don't die nearly as often or spectacularly as the raiders -- but they have to tolerate their own pain: death knight tanks and a continuing stream of healers shamefully neglecting their pets (we're still waiting for Dawn to educate priests on this vital skill). Regardless of what content we hit, what we all have in common is the pursuit of the best gear we can get. So whether you're trying to optimize your heroic hunter or building up your gear to start dominating raids, we've got you covered today. Join me after the cut as we take a look at some of the best hunter gear available without setting foot in a raid. And you might be surprised by how quickly your hunter can become geared -- it only takes a couple of weeks to be raid ready if you're diligent and prioritizing well!
Scattered Shots: Rhok out with your Lok out
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. Once upon a time, back before you could get showered in epics within a week of hitting the level cap, the most badass hunter weapon you could wield was Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. This amazingly impressive weapon did a whopping 44 DPS (later boosted to 53 DPS), making it clearly the best hunter weapon in the game. With the same quest you also get Lok'delar, Stave of the Ancient Hunters. Two epics in one! Acquiring the weapon required embarking on the most epic hunter quest the game has seen, even all these years later. When you saw a hunter with Rhok, you could be certain she knew her stuff. Yesterday Dawn talked about the priest quest to get Benediction (and poked me about Rhok'delar in the process). And she has a really good point -- who knows what will happen to Molten Core come Cataclysm? Hunters may not have the chance to do this quest much longer. Even though you can dwarf the DPS of Rhok'delar with a quick auction house purchase these days, I still think that going through the quest chain for Rhok'delar is well worth it for all hunters. So join me after the cut as we go back in time and walk through the quest chain, both how to do it now and some reminiscence on what it was like back in my day.
Scattered Shots: Patch 3.3.3 hunter changes
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. Patch 3.3.3 has hit, bringing some surprises with it. We got the BM buffs we knew about, but we were also slipped some changes that weren't on the PTR. In addition to some truly odd things, Ghostcrawler put on his santa suit and slipped in some nice presents for all the good hunters of the world. Unfortunately some of the patch notes are a bit vague, or they're worded very poorly (in one case implying the exact opposite of what the change really was). But after a bit of legwork and testing, it looks like most of these changes are good things for us. Join me after the cut as we take a look at the more notable patch 3.3.3 hunter changes.
Scattered Shots: Hunting the Frostwing Halls
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. Having dealt with the goth boys and girls in the Crimson Halls, it's time to move on to the big leagues and start playing with dragons. The Frostwing Halls of ICC bring us some fun fights uniquely suited to the hunter skill set. After all, where other classes see big scary dragons, we see potential pets. All they need is a good home and a little loving and they'll become loyal and life-long companions. Probably the best part of the Frostwing Halls is that not only do we get to show off our badass hunter skills, but we even help out on the healing end. I tell ya, there's nothing that we hunters can't do! Join me after the cut as we take a look at the hunter tips for downing the Frostwing Halls. This article assumes that you are familiar with the overall strategies for the encounters and we're just going to be looking at hunter-specific tips and tricks. As always, if your raid leader tells you to do anything differently, always do what the raid leader says. Even if she's wrong.
Scattered Shots: The right pet for the right situation
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. When you get down to the philosophical basics, every class has the same goal in a group or raid: do as much as you can to help clear the instance and kill the bosses. This of course is where the hunter obsession with DPS comes from. Most of the time the best thing we can do to help our group down bosses is to become a radiant beacon of death, to undergo an apotheosis into a DPS god and accept the adoration of the lesser DPS classes. But there are times when it helps our group or raid more to sacrifice some of our personal DPS for the good of the group. Whether it's kiting blood beasts or blistering zombies or shooting down orbs, we are always happy and willing to take the hit for the good of the team. We're just noble that way. And our noble pets can help out the team too, boosting the team's DPS as well as our own. Join me after the cut as we take a look when a different pet choice might be best thing for the team as a whole, even if it means a DPS loss for us personally.
Scattered Shots: Marksman 102: the armor pen years
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. There's a lot of things that separate hunters from the plate classes, and it's not just that we attack from a safe distance. Spreadsheet models also suggest that we hunters are smarter, more charismatic, and across the board we are an uncommonly good-looking lot. Of course there's also the difference of the armor itself. Fortunately we have the opportunity to completely strip all of that armor away with the gear that's currently available in the endgame. With the right gear choices and the right gems hunters can reach the ArP hard cap, and with comes some truly impressive DPS -- in fact the very best DPS available to the hunter class. However, going for ArP at the wrong time can easily lead to a DPS loss. Last week we discussed the standard agility MM build and today after the cut we're going to delve into the mysterious world of the ArP MM build, including when to switch specs, when to change your rotation, and when to start gemming ArP.
Scattered Shots: Marksman 101
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. Marksman was the original hunter raiding spec back in vanilla. After falling out of the top spot in BC and early Wrath, MM is back with a vengeance. MM is topping meters, punting gnomes, and kicking so much ass MM hunters have to use addons to take names of all the ass they can't get to just now, but will get around to kicking at their convenience. The MM spec comes with the most versatile toolbox, the most controllable DPS cooldowns, two optimal raid specs, and the strongest AOE of the hunter specs. However, MM is also one of the trickiest hunter specs, relying more than other specs on proper use of cooldowns and good movement management. Join me after the cut as we go through the nuts and bolts of the MM hunter spec and how you too can learn to punt gnomes and top meters.
Scattered Shots: Hunter stat caps: hit, crit, haste, and armor penetration
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. I don't know whether it's from charity or curiosity, but I often spend time talking with the sad and dispossessed members of WoW, which is to say, other classes. In one conversation I thought we had found a common ground: the trials and troubles of choosing gear. Any kinship I may have felt, however, shattered when they started complaining about having five (or only four) different stats to compare. Yeah, a whole five different stats on gear that matter to you? Cry me a river. Hunters have a lot of stats to juggle -- more than most classes. On any given piece of gear our DPS could be affected by attack power, agility, intellect, hit rating, haste rating, armor penetration rating, crit rating, ranged weapon DPS, and even stamina. Not only does each stat affect our DPS differently, but many of our stats have some kind of cap after which they become much less useful -- or no longer useful at all. Today we're going to head back to hunter school and take a look at the hunter stats that have caps: hit rating, crit rating, haste rating and armor penetration rating. We'll look at the hard caps and soft caps and how these stats change as our gear improves.
Scattered Shots: Hunter set bonuses
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. For me, responding to my email is kind of like working out. As long as I do it every day, it's not so bad. It's just habit. But skip a few days and it starts to pile up and gets easier and easier to put it off. And of course the longer I put it off the worse it gets, until going through it all can seem like an insurmountable task. I've been slacking off lately and letting the email pile up. The one interesting benefit of this, however, is that it makes it a lot easier to see patterns in the questions. A huge percentage of the emails I've been getting lately are about the hunter set bonuses. Should we go for the 4-piece tier 10? Only go for two pieces and get better itemized pieces for the rest of the slots? Keep the 2-piece tier 9? So today we're going to run down the advantages of the tier 9 and tier 10 hunter set bonuses for each of the three hunter specs, and suggest which way you should gear your hunter.
