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Scattered Shots: Ranged weapons from Ulduar
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be taking a look at the new ranged weapons available from Ulduar. With new raid instances comes new gear to covet, and Ulduar is no different. Normal and Heroic modes both have new guns and bows available to help give your shots that much more oomph, and today I'd like to take a closer look at these weapons to help you compare potential upgrades. Before we dive right into the new stuff, let's do a quick recap of the older ranged weapons so we'll have a point of reference to start from.
US Arena qualifier results in
Blizzard has announced the final results of the qualifier rounds on the US Arena Tournament realms, and there they are -- you can see that Death Knights are probably the most dominant class in the lineup. Their teamup with a Paladin and a ranged DPS (specifically a Warlock, though there is a Hunter in there) is pretty devastating so far. Shaman have made a nice comeback as well, serving both as utility and healing on a few teams. And of course the old Arena standby of PMR finishes out the top ten.Blizzard will invite the winners from the qualifying round into regional finals -- they will invite the top eight teams, but apparently, according to a few commenters in the forum thread, both "well then" and "GET TANKED" are somehow the same players on the same accounts (but different characters, even though they're same classes), and the same is supposedly true for The Phuox Den and Almost Eighty on Live. So we're not sure who they're inviting -- either these two teams will get to play twice in the tournament rounds, or Blizzard will pull in some more teams to fill in the spots.Or maybe Blizzard will have to come up with something else: we're not entirely sure about which players are on those teams, but certainly Blizzard can check that very easily. At any rate, congrats to all of the winners so far, and we'll keep an eye out for the next round of Arena battles.
Hotfixes for Hunters over the last few days
Mania's got info on a few Hunter pet-related hotfixes that have found their way into the game recently. There's nothing really earthshaking in there, but there are at least two points of interest: because players can no longer flick the "at war" switch on for the Sunreavers with the Horde in Dalaran, that means Hordies can't pick a fight just to tame the Sunreaver Dragonhawks, which unfortunately were the only "already 80" Cunning pets in the game.And a bug with Hunter pet talents was fixed -- supposedly now, when Hunters switch talent specs, Hunter pets will get their talents refunded. That's surprising to me -- though I kind of appreciate the chance to respec our pets whenever we switch specs, I sure would have thought that our pets would just get two trees as well. But then again, people might want to mix and match pet talents and talent specs, so I guess though it'll be a pain to re-punch in those talents (and remember to do so), it's the better way to go right now.Great insight from Mania as always. And yes, outside of the Hunter domain, I, like many of Mania's commenters am slightly tired of the talent resets. With Hunter talents and all of the shots we learn from each tree, and pet talents and all of the decisions to make there, I'm pretty talent-ed out. Hopefully this 3.1.1 refund is the last one we'll see for a while.
Breakfast Topic: What's the best pun name you've ever seen?
We've all seen some Alliance kiddie named "ikillhoarde" or a Warlock named "ifearyoudie." After all, what Horde wouldn't run for cover from a Hunter who's named after his very death? And woe is the person who actually thinks he can get away from a Warlock's fear. Phear the lock, baby.Add titles into the mix. "Doora the Explorer" is probably my favorite of all time. Every time I see someone named that I yell out "Swiper, No Swiping!" Of course insert the obligatory NSFW Kevin Smith reference here.Another favorite of mine that I've seen is "Highlander the Immortal."What's the best pun name that you've encountered in the game? Ever thought about renaming your character to make yourself pun-famous?
Scattered Shots: The Hunters of lore
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a wide variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be looking at some prominent historic figures in Hunter lore. For Hunters looking to get into role playing, a good place to start is to look at the Hunters that came before you to get a feel for common themes upon which you can base your character concept. There are many prominent Hunters in Blizzard lore that spans multiple Warcraft titles, both for the Horde and the Alliance, which you can look to for inspiration. Today, I'd like to spend some time getting to know some of the great Hunters of Azeroth.
Scattered Shots: Fixing your Hunter's dps
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be talking about how to fix your Hunter's dps! There are a lot of factors that play a part in making up your damage output: your gear, your talents, your gems and enchants, your glyphs, your ammo, your consumables, your shot rotation, your pet, your pet's talents, and even your latency and frame rate. Today I'd like to spend some time talking about all the pieces that make up the Hunter dps puzzle and offer some ways to help you figure out where you might be going wrong. After all, we've all had those nights where our numbers just weren't what we were expecting, and it's important to know how to identify the problem so you can find a solution.
Observations from running a Naxx-25 PuG
I'm very "up" on PuGs. I started my career as a PuG tank and met a lot of great players that way, many of whom I still raid with today. I've always been a stout supporter of throwing caution to the wind and joining LFG for an afternoon to see where it'll take you; it's been my experience that random players on your realm can and often will surprise you. Once you master the art of the 5-person PuG, the ultimate risk is a raid PuG. One-shot the instance, or spend the night wiping? You won't know until you try.I used to run Hyjal PuG's in late Burning Crusade and got to be the person in charge of arranging healers on Anetheron, explaining where to die on Azgalor, and uttering a hollow laugh at suggestions on whether or not Archimonde was in the cards (answer: hell no). I wasn't around for my guild's Naxx run one of these past weeks, and a few guildies were interested in gearing up their alts, so we thought -- PuG a 25-man Naxx? Why not?
BRK fans post a goodbye video
A little while after BigRedKitty closed shop on his blog last week, there was another post from TJ on there asking for help with a "secret project" (that lots of you let us know about -- thanks!). And now, the secret has been revealed: a few of BRK's fans have put together a goodbye video for the knowledgeable Hunter with the big red cat, and you can watch the whole thing above.Very touching, and very cool to see a community come together to thank someone who's done a lot for them. BRK also reported on his blog this week that he hasn't left Warcraft for good, but it does sound like the choice to focus on his real life and family rather than what happens in Azeroth was an excellent one. We've also heard, through the grapevine, that Blizzard may be honoring BRK in their own way in the future, much like they did with Phaelia of Resto4Life. We'll keep an eye out for nay Big Red items we may come across.
Scattered Shots: Pet talents for leveling
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be looking at talent builds for your pets as you level. At level 10, every Hunter completes a series of quests that will teach them to tame the beasts they encounter in the wilds to serve as their constant friend and comrade. Whether your chosen companion is of the Cunning, Ferocity or Tenacity persuasion, your pet will grow in strength as you both progress through levels, and at level 20 your pet begins to learn their first talents (and receives an additional talent point every 4 levels from then on) to improve their skills and their ability to lend a hand during your joint adventures. There are many options available to you in the choice of your pet's talents as you level, and today I'd like to present you with a few options to help you along. The talents your pet will have available to it are determined by the family of pet you've chosen to tame. Cunning pets are considered more "balanced" than their Ferocity or Tenacity counterparts and can be great for leveling when your pet's ability to simultaneously tank mobs and deal damage is an important consideration. There are a wide variety of Cunning pets available in the game even at low levels, so finding one that's both functional and aesthetically pleasing shouldn't be too difficult. From levels 1 to 20 you'll find a variety of Bats, Birds of Prey, Dragonhawks, Ravagers, Serpents, Spiders and Wind Serpents to choose from if a Cunning pet is what you're after. Tenacity pets are also an excellent choice for leveling as their ability to take damage is significantly better than other types of pets, and many Tenacity pets have unique abilities that make dealing with multiple mobs simultaneously extremely easy which in turn speeds up the leveling process. Like their Cunning peers, there are a multitude of Tenacity pets available at low levels, such as Bears, Boars, Crabs, Crocolisks, Scorpids and Turtles.
Scattered Shots: Finding a unique pet
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be browsing the bestiary of Azeroth, Outland and Northrend to identify some of the most unique pets to be found in the wilds ready for taming. As a Hunter, your pet is an extension of yourself and a means of expression your (or your character's, for you RPers out there) personality, so finding the perfect pet can often be difficult. Today, I'd like to take a look at some of the more unique pets available in the game to help you pick out the perfect companion to set you apart from the crowd. Ferocity Because cats are arguably the most popular family of ferocity pets in the game, we'll start with them. All cats come with three abilities in addition to the standard Growl ability shared by all pets: Claw, Rake and Prowl. There are a number of unique cat skins available to help set your chosen feline apart. If you prefer the look of a sleek lion, Araga, a level 35 rare found only in the Alterac Mountains is an excellent choice. She's the only cat in the game sporting this particular skin, so if you favor the sandy coloring sans mane, she's the cat you want. If you're looking for that coloring but with a more manly countenance, The Rake, a level 10 rare in Mulgore is a great alternative. If you're unable to find The Rake, there are three other mobs found in The Barrens that share the same skin: the Savannah Highmane, the Savannah Prowler and the Savannah Patriarch. You like the mane, but not the color? Don't worry, there are other options available! Humar the Pridelord, a level 23 rare found in The Barrens and Pitch, a level 76 found in Sholazar Basin boast the same manly mane as The Rake, but with a much darker charcoal coloring. Not digging the black, either? Try Echeyakee, a level 16 quest spawn from The Barrens or Sian-Rotam, a level 60 quest spawn from Winterspring. Both feature a light white and gray coloring that's sure to set them apart.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Skinner
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirtieth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself. I should say at the outset of this article that I am a vegetarian, and I generally think of animals as cute and fuzzy friends of the human race. I have no moral objection against hunting animals and using their bodies for food or clothing, however. Logically, it makes sense that people have needed this to survive, but emotionally speaking, I find skinning and eating animals rather distasteful. Things would have been different for me if I had been raised on a farm or in a hunting community instead of a city thoroughly saturated with the culture of Disney movies about cute animals singing songs and having adventures, but... anyways, you are what you are. Hunting enthusiasts should feel free to write their own articles on the topic if they have different points of view.So, anyway, as my vegetarian brain started churning around this idea of how skinning can be roleplayed in World of Warcraft, I couldn't help but admit to myself that I don't have so much real life experience of the topic. In fact, my first google search of "Skinning" turned up none other than WoWwiki's page on skinning in WoW, and I realized most people living in cities probably haven't got the first clue of what skinning animals is really like.So I searched again for "skinning animals," and this time I found various articles about how to skin an animal for people who are interested in surviving in the wilderness, or just into hunting in general. One site even had simple hand-drawn animations of the proper way to kill and skin a rabbit, and I was struck by how very different this was from my experience of skinning in WoW. In the animation, we see the head and feet get cut off, a slice go down the middle of the animal's body, and the skin slowly peeling away to reveal all the flesh underneath... while in WoW we just right-click on a dead animal, loot its hide, and poof -- it disappears before our eyes.
Blizzard posts early Arena Tourney standings
Aratil has posted the early US standings, and Vaneras has posted some early EU Arena tournament standings (the actual tournament doesn't end for a few weeks yet, so it's far from over) on the forums. Strangely enough, while RMP still rules the day in the EU (three of the top teams there, including the first place team, are made up of a Rogue, Mage, and Priest), Death Knights have taken over the rest of the tournament. The American side has seven out of 10 teams made up of Death Knights, Paladins, and Warlocks, and another team that subs the Warlock for a Hunter. And on the EU side, five out of the ten are DK, Pally, Hunter as well.Arena players were worried in the last pro tournament that Death Knights might take over the Arenas and it looks like that might be what's going on here. Of course, there are still weeks left to go, so anything could happen, but as it stands right now, looks like the final winners will probably have plenty of Runeblade wielders in their ranks.
WoW Insider Show Episode 81: Same place, new time
This past week on the WoW Insider Show, we mixed things up -- instead of our usual time on Saturday at 3:30pm, we taped the show on Wednesday night, so if you missed it this week, here it is in recorded form. Don't worry -- we'll be back as usual next Saturday, we just though we'd give some new people a chance to tune in live.And speaking of new people, we had Chase Christian return to the podcast for the first time in a while, with lots of great Rogue discussion from his Encrypted Text Rogue column. And we were (thankfully) joined at the last minute by none other than Patrick Beja, from the How I WoW podcast and all the other great shows he does. And as is the case lately, we talked the PTR, patch 3.1, Ulduar, and all of the other good stuff we plan to eventually see on the live realms.Was a fun show -- enjoy the listen, and please do go sign up to follow us on Twitter if you haven't yet. We'll see you again at the usual time, Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern, next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be an Herbalist
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-ninth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself. In this world of constant war, you must choose your weapons wisely: you may be a blood-soaked warrior with a jagged-edge axe of phenomenal power, a maniacal warlock with a lust for forbidden magical knowledge, or a ruthless rogue whose stealth lets him kill his enemies before they even know he's there.You may also pick flowers.Indeed, if you are either an alchemist or an inscriber, picking flowers is probably exactly what you do, no matter how blood-soaked, maniacal, or ruthless you might be. To you, however, the term "picking flowers" may be the sign of ignorance on the part of people who fail to comprehend what powers they mock when they poke fun at the exalted science of herbalism. "Let them have their giggles," you might say to yourself, sheathing your axe in order to bend down and gather some lichbloom, "I'll be the one laughing all the way down the battlefield with my Flask of Endless Rage! Muahahahaha!"
Scattered Shots: ViperNotify and aspect swapping
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be talking about how to effectively swap between aspects to improve your performance. Pike from Aspect of the Hare published a post recently, "Aspect of the Viper and You", in which she describes what Aspect of the Viper is and when to use it. For raiding and leveling Hunters alike, Aspect of the Viper is a powerful tool to reduce downtime when mana is running low. Stopping to drink or popping mana potions is almost obsolete thanks to this great aspect, and Pike's article goes a long way in teaching newbies and veterans alike when it's time to put that aspect to use. Today, I'd like to take that idea further and discuss more ways to help put Aspect of the Viper to work for you. For raiding Hunters, it's extremely easy to switch to Aspect of the Viper during a fight to regen mana and then forget to swap back to Aspect of the Dragonhawk once your mana bar is full again. I know in the past I've had less than stellar numbers on the meters simply because I forgot to switch aspects! Sure, swapping aspects should be a no-brainer, but simple mistakes are easy to make when you're dodging slimes, fire and big ol' dragons. For that reason, I started using ViperNotify. This add-on is very simple and light weight. All it does is notify you via pretty blue alert text that appears on your screen (similar to a raid alert) that your mana bar is full but Aspect of the Viper is still active. It also plays a quick little ding sound (which is, amazingly, not the slightest bit annoying) to catch your attention in case you missed the warning text. There are, of course, several other mods that behave similarly, but ViperNotify is the one I use. This one simple add-on makes it much easier to ensure the best possible performance from your two primary aspects.
Aotona tameable on the PTR
Just a little tidbit (and possibly a bug) for Hunters on the PTR from our friend Mania. Aotona, a parrot-esque Bird of Prey rare in Sholazar Basin, is apparently tameable in the latest 3.1 build. It's not that big a deal -- apparently the bird is just a bird, with the usual skills of that family, but it makes a parrot sound instead of the other birds that you can tame right now (not to mention that it's got some striking coloration that's pretty cool and unique).There is a chance this may be a bug -- we all know it's not the first time that something has appeared tameable on a PTR when it isn't on the live realms. And the parrot sounds could be placeholders or simply just an option that's not toggled the right way. But Hunters could have a new friend to make if Aotona keeps the tamable flag up until the patch drops.
Scattered Shots: Raid consumables for Hunters
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be talking about Hunter consumables.Getting ready to run heroics and raids takes time. You need certain gear, enchants, glyphs and plenty of ammo to see you through the content you face, and there's one more thing you can add to your bag of tricks to help give you the extra edge you need to down those bosses and top the damage meters: consumables. Flasks, elixirs and that handy Well Fed buff are there to help you maximize your performance and it's important to know, as a Hunter, which ones you should be looking for on the Auction House or farming before it's time to zone into your instance of choice.FlasksWe'll start with the easy one first, since there's really only one flask (at least for Wrath-level content) that Hunters need to be aware of: the Flask of Endless Rage. This flask increases your attack power by 180 for two hours, and the effect lasts through death so if you wipe for some reason you're not out the cost of the consumable itself or the materials you used to make it.
Scattered Shots: Dual specs mean double the fun for hunters
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be diving into what hunters will have to look forward to from the world of dual specs.So far the uproar about the dual spec feature coming to us in patch 3.1 has been predominantly from classes that are able to fill multiple roles in a raid environment, giving them more flexibility to swap between tanking, healing and dealing damage based on the needs of their group at the time. The 1000g price tag on this feature may seem a bit daunting to some, but the benefits of being able to swap between tanking and healing at a moment's notice without costly respec fees or inconvenient trips to the nearest not-so-nearby trainer are obvious. This all begs the question, though: what's in it for us pure DPS folks?The easy answer to that is being able to swap seamlessly from a PvP build to your raid build when invites start going out for the night. And lets not forget that Survival Hunters are the new Shadow Priest, right? If you're missing one of your friendly neighborhood mana batteries one night, you can swap into a spec for that at the drop of a hat. There are also plenty of opportunities for enterprising young Hunters looking to farm old world raid bosses solo, and there's a spec for that, too. There's plenty of fun to be had for us Hunters, and this new dual spec feature will make the transition from conquering the wilds of our world as a lone tracker to wiping the floor with the deadliest of raid bosses that much easier.
Petopia back in action
As many of you pointed out through numerous, apprehensive e-mails, our favorite Hunter pet resource was down for a while. As Mania pointed out, however, she was aware of the issue and was working actively to get the site back online. It seems like she's knocked the right heads, too, because Petopia is back on its feet again, supplying us with all the Hunter pet information we could ever want. So as unsettling as Petopia's disappearance was, especially in light of another favorite WoW resource closing its doors, there's no need to panic. Whew.
Ammo changes MIA in the 3.1 PTR
We posted the patch notes as soon as they dropped, and our new Hunter writer, Jessica (a.k.a. Lassirra) did a great job of breaking down exactly what's new with Hunters, but you may have noticed, as a few of our tipsters did, that consumable ammunition was still in the game. There was no sign of the upcoming changes in the patch notes at all.Which isn't exactly unexpected (in fact, we have already heard that it wouldn't make the 3.1 PTR), but even the things that were promised to be in the PTR (no need for ammo pouches or quivers, bigger stacks for ammunition) still don't seem to be there. We still believe that Blizzard has this on the to-do list, but it looks like this change has been put aside for now.Too bad -- that was a pretty exciting adjustment for Hunters. But Blizzard seems hard at work on things like the Argent Dawn Tournament and the Dual Spec system. We'll get the ammo changes when they get around to them.
