Raiding Competence

Hey guys!

So as you may have noticed I've been lacking in the regular posting area, but that is due to life being busy ATM, so please don't keel muh!


Today is just going to be a quick post on raiding competence.
Raiding competence for me, can be broken down into a few main points:

1. Don't die. This pretty much means, moving out of the fire. It doesn't matter how much dps you lose by doing something, if you're dead you don't do any dps.

2. Know the fight. Make sure you know what will happen during the fight.( if you know that putricide will stun everyone at 80% and 35% then you can be sure to refresh your serpent sting just before then)

3. Be able adapt at any time. Be ready at all times for your raid leader to ask you to pick up an add( if the off tank goes down on rotface), or be able to stop all dps on the boss and focus on an add( meaning take your pet off and cancel DOTs).

4. Pay attention to your surroundings. This one is a lot like #3 but is still important. If someone is assigned to dps an add, and they die, sometimes you shouldn't wait for your raid leader to tell you to take over the fallen raid members duty(a good example would be if someone that was suppose to be in a cannon on the gunship died, you hop in that cannon and take over until a B-rez goes out or raid leader states otherwise).


In summary, always be open minded while raiding, and know what your doing, will make you get invited back ;D


thats all for today, till next time...


I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

1 month!!

Hey guy!!

So, I've been posting on this blog for a month now, and I have to say that I am happy with it. Though I would like to go back and re-do some posts so that its in a easier to understand format, so expect to see changes to the site.

Now that I've gotten a lot of the more important things that I wanted to get out there posted, I'll probably be focusing on getting the site looking nicer,and that kind of stuff. I still hope to be posting almost everyday, as well as editing older posts.


I'd also like to thank everyone that has given me advice, and everyone that have sent me emails, If I didn't have some of the advice I got when I started out, I probably wouldn't be at this point. It was much appreciated :D

So this was basically a post to let ya guys know what I plan to do, and to just let you know, you ain't seen nothing yet ^.^


till next time...


I'm Wowsa, and don't forget to pop your flask

Raiding With Lag/Latency

Hey guys!!!


Since most people do have latency issuses, I thought I'd share how I deal with my lag.
Normally in 10m raids, I don't have any lag, but in 25m I almost always do.

A couple things I'll talk about in this post us how you can prevent lag, and give some tips on raiding with lag.

So, first how to help prevent lag.
I use Leatrix Latency Fix and also WTFast .

Leatrix latency fix is a free, lightweight script. Just download, restart your compy and your good to go. This script does help quite a bit.

WTFast is a $5 a month program that you run with WoW, and it seriously helps with my lag.

I don't think I'd be able to raid 25m without these two, if you can't/ don't want to spend money on WTFast, I still higly recommend getting the leatrix latency fix.


Now, when you're in game and raiding, here are some tips that will help you raid with lag:

*RESET YOUR RECOUNT.
Recount takes up a ton of memory if you have data from a couple fights, I always reset it before each boss pull.


*GET OUT OF THE FIRE!!!
fire = bad for your health and latency, even though you shouldn't be standing in it anyways, it's just a little more motivation to get out of there.


* Try to have be as far away from the action as possible.
The more stuff going on the more lag you'll have, the farther away you are, the less lag you'll usually have. But keep in mind that your whole raid probably won't be to happy if you get boned on marrowgar and your in the corner on the far side of the room, or you don't get your stacks on fester because you don't want to lag. Be sure to use common sense, and remember that lag is not as bad as messing up raid mechanics.


*Double click your buttons.
When things come off of CD I always double click them to make sure that the shot gets off. For me this is really important, because if I have really bad lag, sometimes it will just skip my clicks, so double clicking ensures that my shot get off. There isn't really a down side to doing this, you can easily incorporate it into your rotation with out losing momentum.

When all else fails, just blame the gnome^.^


Thats all for today
Dont forget to check me out on twitter(wowsapewpew)
Till next time...

I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask

Raiding Pets

Hey guys!

today's post will be on what pet you should bring to a raid.

Now, if you want to be doing the most dps you can, regardless of what spec you are, you want a wolf. The wolf's ability of furious howl is a lot better then the rest of the pets, but there is an alternative to using a wolf.

A wasp gives a minor armor de-buff to the boss, this de-buff (farie fire)is normally applied by a feral druid( though any druid can apply it, you won't commonly see a boomkin or tree to change forms mid fight to apply it) . So running with a wasp instead of a wolf will lower your own dps, but it will increase the raid's dps, which will be more then you could pull by having a wolf.

So the best pet:

1st wolf (If there is a minor armor de-buff in the raid)
2nd wasp (If there isn't a minor armor debuff in the raid then this should be your first choice)
3rd........use a wolf or wasp.....or I'll send gnomes after you ;D

NOTE: using a wasp has no benefit if your raid already has someone applying the minor armor de-buff. I recommend simply asking your raid if there is someone that can apply it before busting out the wasp(keep in mind other hunters that may also have a wasp).


Thats all for today, don't forget to check me out on twitter(wowsapewpew), and you can always email me for character aduit(thehunterpewpew@gmail.com).till next time...



I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

Rant: Tier Set Bonuses

Hey guys!

so today's post will be on the hunters that think it's a good idea to take high ilvl non- tier V.S. lower lvl tier gear.
In almost every case you all hunters want to have 2 tier set bonuses, either two 2-set bonuses or a 2 set bonus and a 4 set bonus.

now of course if you have the option between some low ilvl tier gear(232 or under) and non-tier 264+ then yea you'll probably want the 264+ see a dps increase, but for you to have those options would be pretty rare.


But the main reason I'm writing this post is because, I see a lot of hunters that have 25m ICC 264s(which means they could probably have 251 T10 if they wanted). They're mostly just too caught up with trying to get a higher gear score.

My current tier gear is 2-piece T10(251 head and 264 shoulders) and 2 piece T9(232 legs and 245 hands). This (for my gear anyways, using the spreadsheets) is better then taking 4 pice T10, yes replacing a 245 and 232 would be a nice gear score upgrade, but My gear score is high enough that when I pug VOA and the weekly, people do hesitate to invite me, also I wouldn't care if my gear score is so low that people didn't think I could pull off the numbers I tell them I can. So long as I'm doing the most dps I can, I'm content.


thats all for today, till next time....


I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

Gems/Enchants: BiS V.S. Trash

Hey guys, todays post is about BiS gems and enchants V.S. crappy enchants, and how much of a difference it makes.This post will mainly meant for newer hunters.

Now, I went to the spread sheet, replaced all my epic gems with their rare equivalent(except for dragons eyes since I'm a JC, and dragons eyes are cheap) and all my BiS enchants with one step down enchants(except for my ring enchants, which again are dirt cheap).

So, without BiS gems and enchants, I lost 173 dps unbuffed. Now thats actually quite a bit of DPS.
I also looked into what the cost difference is between BiS and trash gems/enchants, and on my server, since rare gems tend to be more expensive then most servers, the cost between have BiS and trash was about 650g.

Now, seeing as I don't know how much gold you have, I don't know if you think that 650G is a lot or not, but lets say that it is.

The easiest way to be able to get BiS gems/chants would be to grind heroics, hopefully you can find a tank in your guild, or maybe some guildies are grinding heroics to get their alts geared, either way, for every 4 heroics you do, you will have enough emblems to get a cardinal ruby(unless you get PoS 4 times in a row XD). Plus if you have an enchanter in your grinding group you should have a nice stash of enchanting mats after a while(don't forget that you also get 13g per random,so that will also help with costs).

So, know you know how much of a difference it makes, and an easy way to get BiS gems/chants, I'd like to share my opinion on what lvl of gear should have BiS gems/chants.

If you're just gearing up(eg. if you can still get upgrades from emblems of triumph) then don't really worry about it, untill your done getting gear upgrades(I would just toss greenie gems in my gear for a little while). Once you're at the point where you can't get upgrades from emblems of triumph, then it would be a good time to get BiS gems/chants, because really it's not hard to get enough gold to get the BiS stuff, and people that see you with junk gems and enchants will probably not take you seriouly.

My rule of thumb:

Put BiS gems/chants on gear thats:


* ilvl 232+
* ilvl 219+ gear that you won't be able to upgrade for a while.

Trash gem/chant gear thats:

*Under ilvl 219
*will be upraded within a day or so.


In my opinion, anyone without BiS gems/chants shouldn't be in ICC, only because ICC is progression for most people, and by not bringing your A game, your only wasting time.



thats all for today, till next time....


I'm Wowsa, and don't forget to pop your flask

EPIC FAIL!

Due to the lackage of people not logging on when they said they would. As well as being unable to get a tank, we were unable to go into ICC last night as planed.
So professor putricide was not downed, and no blood princes were pulled on. :'(


So seeing as I have no footage to show you as I had planed, I'll be sharing my EPIC FAIL that happened this weekend.

Now I wanted to re-stock up on gems I need for transmutes and make a bit of easy gold while I did it. So I went to the AH and bought about 100 stacks of saronite ore, cleared out all the things I wouldn't be needing while prospecting and put them in my bank. After a long binge of prospecting I was done, sent the gems off to my bank alt, and grabbed my stuff out of my bank.
To my luck, my 2v2 partner came online just as I'd finish prospecting, so we grouped and poped in que.

when we zoned in, we got buffed and did the usual pre arena prep. About 3 seconds before the match started.....I remembered that I forgot to grab my arrows out of my bank.
Upon telling my mage 2v2 partner that her partner had no ammo, well.....I heard huntard and stupid, but I wasn't really listening because I was trying to think how the crap I was going to pull this off. Luckily the other team decided to let us come to them, so I had some time to sit and think. After about 20 seconds the other team came over to say hi, and I decided to just rush them, I poped traps and any thing else that might distract them to give my partner a couple of seconds to try and burst them. Regardless I was killed extremely fast(I know that I'm one of the worst pvp hunters out there...XD ), and really didn't do much of anything.

But the most humiliating part of this story is that my partner won the match without me doing anything but distracting them for 5 seconds XD.




Thats all for now, till next time:


I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

Nearing The Crimson Halls

So, our guild's second 10m group is currently working on putricide, and we're really close to downing him.
We got 3 pulls in on him last night, with two people that hadn't seen the fight yet, and most of everyone else rusty on the fight. on all 3 pulls we got into the 3rd phase, but we just need to clean up the transition from the 2nd to the 3rd. I have a very good feeling that we'll be moving on to the Crimson Halls yet this week, and since we don't have a warlock in our group, I'll hopefully get to be tanking the 3rd blood prince!!

I don't know why, but every since I saw the video for the fight, I wanted to tank the 3rd boss. XD
So, hopefully I'll remember to start my fraps, and get the fight on video.
I'll be sure to post it so you guys can see it!


thats all for now,till next time...

I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

MORE DOTS!!!!!!!

Hey guys!!

Just wanted to post something, in general about DPS in a raid, and what my opinion on it is.
I think that there is no point, no matter how much dps you're doing(or how little other people are doing) that you can say "I'm doing enough DPS". Lets take professor putrcide for example:

If everyone is doing the bare minimum needed to down him, then great you'll get him down eventually. But if you're doing way more DPS then needed, you're shortening the fight Meaning that less slimes will comes out, and you'll have less time that you can make mistakes, and if you do make mistakes, then you will have room to get back up and start pew pewing. Plus the faster you down a boss, the more time you'll have for other bosses(moar epic lootz plz).

This is the reason I'm constantly trying to improve my DPS. At no point in time are you going to here me say "I'm doing enough DPS".


thats all for today guys, don't forget that you can still email me for a character audit, and you can also check me out on twitter .
Also don't forget to comment ;D


I'm Wowsa, and don't forget to pop your flask

Enchant Guide

Hey guys!! This post will be on enchants, just kind of felt like I may as well put one out on enchants since I my post yesterday was on gems.

So!!First off, enchants are much simpler then gems, you have fewer options, and no socket bonuses to worry about. Now I'm not going to give you a list of enchants, just because Wow-Heroes gives you a list of the best enchants out there, so just check out Wow-heroes.

As MM and SURV you want the top agil enchants the wow heroes lists, but as BM you want the top AP enchants.

Now, the enchants that you can't just buy, are your helm enchant and your shoulder enchant, these both require rep farming. Honestly, I just tossed on a ebon blade tabard for the helm enchant, and once I did the quest chain with sons of Hodir, I just bought relics of ulduar to finish that up for the shoulder enchant. Both these enchants are dirt easy to obtain.

Just like gems we have to option to enchant hit rating, again as I've said previously I tend to take 3 talents in focused aim before gemming/enchants hit. But if I'm still low on hit, and I only need a little bit of hit rating, I'll take the icewalker( +12 crit and hit ) if it's more then 12 then I'll just gem a +20 hit gem, but after 3 talents in focused aim, you'd have to pretty much be trying not to have any gear with hit rating on it to need that much hit.

Lastly, I'd like to address the boot enchants that give a minor run speed increase, such as tuskarr's vitality.
As a hunter, I would not recommend minor run speed enchants, except for fights that there is a ton of movement( I often enchant and re-enchant my boots in a raid if we're working on a progression boss that I have to move a lot in.) but the difference to having it and not is really not much.
If you do decide to go for the minor run speed increase, I recommend trying to get your hands on cat's swiftness ( +6 agil, plus minor speed ) better then tuskarr's, but cat's swiftness is really rare(at least on my server ) so tuskarr's is probably still your best bet.


thats all for today folk, till next time


I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask

Hunter Gem Guide

Hey guys, I'm going to post a bit of a gem guide, just because I've been getting a lot of questions about gems both on from the site, and in game.

So! First off I want to say, that if your not hit capped, you need to be hit capped. Being hit capped is one of the most important things to your hunter, so if your not hit capped, make sure you are, if you need to take a few hit gems, then that is more then ok ( I personally will take 3 talents in focused aim before I gem hit just because, its usually more efficient ).

Now, the only gems you want as a marks or surv hunter are:

* relentless earthsiege diamond ( + 21 agil and 3% increased critical damage)
* delicate cardinal ruby(+ 20 agil )
* deadly ametrine (+ 10 agil and crit)
* nightmare tear ( + 10 to all stats )

* note: if your ARP marks and you are at the point where gemming ARP will give you more DPS, the you want all fractured cardinal rubies( +20 ARP) , except for a nightmare tear to keep your meta active.*

As a BM hunter you want

* relentless earthsiege diamond ( + 21 agil and 3% increased critical damage)
* bright cardinal ruby ( +40 AP )
* wicked ametrine (+20 AP and 10 crit )
* nightmare tear ( + 10 to all stats )

*Important notes*

*Only use ametrines when the socket bonus is worth it( use spreadsheets to get a solid answer, but a good rule of thumb is if you have a red and yellow socket, and the bonus is +4 agil or more, take the bonus).

* Don't use any blue, purple or green gems, their just not worth it compared to what you could be using. (there may be some retarded piece of gear that you may actually want to take the socket bonus that you need a blue gem for, but good luck finding it if there is one. XD )

* Don't gem haste, no matter what kind of gear you have, or what your reasoning is, haste is still the worst stat for hunters(except for hit after your hit capped) and seriously....every time you put a gem with haste into your gear, blizz tosses a basket of kittens into a lake, do you want to be a kitten killer?!?! xD


Thats all for today folks, till next time....


I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

yay.....monday...ick

So its monday........joy.XD


Anyways here is the post that I wanted to write on Friday.


(Heres another link to the hunter preview )

So seeing as we're the only class that is getting a new kind of resource, I'd say that we're probably the class that will be changing the most. Now with change there is always controversy, some people love the change, because it's giving us something fresh and new, some people are skeptical of the change and want to know more bout them before they decide if they like it or not, and some people just hate the word change(these people should probably to back to the playground and hog the one good swing some more ;D ).

the fact of the matter is, is that the hunter class is changing, and I myself am really anxious to see the changes first hand, because I want to know how and what will be affected by the changes.

Now I won't go into the details every little change in the preview, because the other blogs like OUTDPS.com , WHU.com and BrewHall.com have already done that, and have done a much better job then I could have done.

but I would briefly like to go over what spec I think will be the "top" spec for the first little bit of rading in CATA will be. I have a feeling, that unless BM is totally nerf'd when we start raiding in CATA, that BM will be on top, and even if it's not the "best", most people will probably be doing more DPS in it , because when your BM your nerfing the hunter, and buffing the pet so that you have this lil uber melee DOT.
So I think that because BM is so simple to play( unless they decide to make it more complex) that until the theory-crafters have time to figure everything out, the general hunter population will be better off raiding in BM, as we stumble around in the dark as we enter into CATA.

AS we get closer to CATA. , and more information is released I may think differently, but as is I'm think that if the changes stay the same, BM will be on top at least for a few weeks.

thats all for today, I'm hoping to pop out another video sometime this week, so stay tuned.

till next time,

I'm Wowsa, and don't forget to pop your flask.

Hunter Cata preview

The hunter preview is out!!!! You can check it out here:

Hunter Preview

This won't be as long of a post as I had hoped, mainly because I have a raid in less then an hour, and then I'm gone for tomorrow.

but my initial thoughts are, that their not dinking with things as much as I thought they would be, and that focus kinda looks like it will be a lot of fun.

That being said, I think that the first little bit of raiding we do in Cata will be in BM, and I will let you know why I think that in my next post :D.

Let me know what you think of the changes in the comments. :D

till next time,

I'm Wowsa, and don't forget to pop your flask.

Hunter preview today!!!

Hey guys, this is just a quicky, until the hunter preview post comes out, then I'll be re-posting with some of my thoughts on it.

Also, Frostheim's hunter alt raid is tonight. Unfortunately since it starts right when my guild's raid time is, I won't be able to make it, though I do highly recommend going, if you can make it.


Thats all for now

till Blizz posts the hunter preview,

I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

U.I.

Hey guys, I made a video to show my U.I. , and to see how well making a video for that kind of stuff works. I may be making a series of videos on rotations, in the near future.

please let me know what you think :D

till next time

I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

MM and arm pen

* Up to date as of 3.3.3.*


Hey guys, this post will be about the Marksmanship spec and how it works with armor pen.

As an armor pen (ARP from now on) marks hunter, their are a few things that change, for example, once you hit a certain point of ARP you want to take arcane shot out of your rotation(you should still use it if you are moving, and you don't have any other instant cast shot off of CD).
The reason for taking out arcane shot, is because ARP only affects physical shots, and arcane shot, well....does arcane damage.

Here are a couple thing you need to be aware of:


-You need to be aware of the hard caps, with and without a proc trinket.

-You need to be more aware of your auto shots, which will be doing more damage then if you weren't using ARP. Making sure you time your auto shots so that you aren't missing any is a must.


The ARP hard cap(where ARP no longer helps you) is 1400, if you have an ARP proc trinket such as the needle-encrusted scorpion, subtract the ARP you get from the proc and that is what you call the ARP soft cap(soft cap meaning, that if you have any more then the soft cap, that ARP is wasted when your trinket procs).


Here are the proc trinket's and their soft caps


-Needle-Encrusted: Scorpion 722 ARP to the soft cap

-Mjolnir Runestone: 735 ARP to the soft cap

-Grim Toll: 788 ARP to the soft cap


*these numbers below are very general, and won't be the same for everyone, it depends on the gear you have.*


-350-400 ARP take arcane shot out of your rotation, as well as talents in improved arcane shot(you can put them into improved steady shot).

-850ish you can start gemming ARP and you should be able to see a DPS increase.



As I said, these numbers very from hunter to hunter, use Zeherah's Spread Sheet to figure out what the exact magic number is for you.


The most common problems I see hunters have with ARP is that they either gem ARP way too early and lose DPS or they just aren't spec'd right.

Check out these links to other ARP guides for more info:

Euripides' guide

Frostheim's guide


I hope this post helped you, let me know in the comments what you think :D.


till next time.

I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask.

Add-ons

Hey guys! this will be a quicky on some of the add-ons I use for raiding.
But before I tell you my add-ons, its important that we know how much add-ons help us, I know that I can honestly say that I rely on my add-ons a little too much, but I'm always trying to cut back on the ones that tend to make me lazy and don't really help much.

anyways, here are a main ones I use:


-Deadly Boss Mods (If you raid, you should absolutely have this.)


-Death Clock (gives an E.T.A. on when the target will be killed.)


-Omen Threat Meter (threat meter, if you don't use a threat meter then go to curse and get this...threat meters for hunters are extremely important.)


-Power Aruas Classic (lets me know when things proc and are off CD, very useful.)


-Razer Naga(Only for if you use a Razer Naga mouse. I also found it better then using bartender, but thats just me.)


-Recount (just remember to know let it distract you too much.)


-X Bar ( I only use the trap and aspect bar of it.)


*edit: Perfect example here of how I myself am still learning this class, as Euripides said in the comments, so long as you are using one form of hunter tracking you get the benefits of all the other tracking(so if you're tracking beasts, you'll still get the bonus if you're killing undead).*

-Zug Zug Huntar (An awesome add-on the changes your tracking to what ever your target is, I would say that this is also a pretty important one, because most people probably do forget to change their tracking from time to time.)*edit* add-on is pretty much useless,unless you find yourself tracking things like mailboxes and trainers often.*


Anyways, if you don't already use some of these add-ons, I highly recommend at least checking them out.


Also if you have any add-ons you use that you think are awesome(related to raiding) that I didn't include here, please post them in the comments.


That is all for today folks.


Till next time, I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask

MD Macros

Hey guys!!

This will be a short post on Misdirection Macros. Now I personally don't really use macros for raiding, but MD macros are pretty much a must have.

I use two kinds of MD macros, the first one, and the main ones use is: /cast [target=tanks name here]Misdirection . I always have one of these set up for every tank in my raid. The second macro I use is a more general use macro that uses a focused target, this one is useful for when your doing your random daily, when you need to MD something to your pet or any other time you don't feel like editing a macro just for whatever your doing, here is the macro: /cast [target=focus]Misdirection .

So if your not using any kind of MD macro or add-on, I seriously recommend setting them up.

again here are the macros:

/cast [target=tanks name here]Misdirection

/cast [target=focus]Misdirection


Hope you find them useful!

till next time,

I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask

LONG WEEKEND! YAY!

Hey guys!

So it's the long weekend (finally xD ), and seeing as I'll be AFK all weekend, there won't be a Friday post, So this post is just kind of an update.

When I started this blog, I wasn't too sure how often I wanted to post. But with the advice from a few of the big name hunter bloggers, I've decided that my goal is to post every weekday and maybe once on the weekends, if I get around to it.

Also I'm going to start doing basic character audits( making sure your hit capped,not missing anything crazy go nuts and basic stuff like that ), so if you would like me to look up your hunter and give you advice, send me an email (thehunterpewpew@gmail.com ) here is a list of thing to include in your email:

1. Toon's name and your pets name(and digit codes, for special digits like ò ).

2. Sever and region ( US, EU, CN...).

3. Spec(your main raiding spec).

4. What you would like me to check for you.

5. What your end goal is for your hunter.

*If you would like me to do more "advanced" stuff(like when exactly should I gem armor pen or what spec should I be using for my gear lvl) then I'll need as much information on your raiding access and end goal as you can.*


Also if you find yourself bored this weekend, checkout Frostheim's new hunter alt guild on the Icecrown sever( US ). I myself have an alt in there that I'll be working on when I get the time, so pop in say hello, (awesome hunter community in that guild) and feel free to pop me a tell if you see me on. Here is a link with more details : Frostheim's hunter guild post


Thats all for this week.

till next time, I'm Wowsa and don't forget to pop your flask

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