Kara should be fun, right?

Nother Kara run. Didn't go any further than Moroes. Wiped on him twice before taking him (with only a handful still up... including Mabd but not furball... we had to run from the shackles since all healers were down...) According to my DM... I was tops by a large margin.

While still wearing greens.

This has entered the realm of farce. I was so disgusted, I didn't even get a screenshot. Melvin's elemental shammy was off healing. Cuz he decided the holy pal (who was decent) and two holy priests (who weren't, really...) weren't enough. Cuz a kara raid needs 4 healers! Yeah, you gonna kill bosses with that line up! I'm getting tired of being in a situation where noone else understands that the boss doesn't go down without real damage, and you can't expect the undergeared BM hunter to anchor the dps line up...

WTB a good off tank. Where to begin? After the second wipe someone realizing that maybe someone should be dispelling the blind offa the main tank? Cuz the 9k health prot pally (running without BoK OR the armor aura) keeps going down faster than Paris Hilton on a first date... Oh wait! We found out that he'd been running Kara all this time without decursive! Cuz, you know... he's prot.

This is killing me. It got so bad, I broke a shackle... the mob escaped for the umpteenth time, and I threw my pet at him with intimidate... right before he was reshackled. This is the result of not trusting your raid members. And that is BAD. Fustration, yes. But it's beginning to get to the point where I'm not sure it's worth it to put myself through this. I work, if I stay up late for a raid, it kills me the next day. Doing that to myself for a raid that can't even function...

According to Melvin, I focus too much on damage. There are more important things, and if he cared, he'd do more. Not like he plays the only class facing a serious dps nerf in the next patch or anything...

Again, if my DM wasn't wrong (it had to have been. really...) I did 250% the damage he did with his elemental shammy.

Did I mention the fire mage pulled aggro with a pyroblast that landed less than a second after the tank gained aggro? He says he hit the wrong button...

Anyway... the snakes on the plane reference... We did attumen. And I finally had a breakthrough... I was hanging with the mob of ranged dps and healers... waiting for the charge...

And I figured... why not lay a snake trap? I know he's coming...

4 snake traps later, I'm laughing my ass off, and popping feign death as soon as cooldown is up to keep the aggro offa me, I'm doin so much damage.

The one bright spot...

Back to drinking. May I recommend Bourbon?

More 2.3 goodness!

20 and 24 slot quivers/ammo pouchs?

Some things pointed about 2.3...

It took a LONG time for Blizz to get the voice chat function working. So there shouldn't be that much time between 2.2 and 2.3... since 2.2 was suppose to have been released more than a month ago... and the teams have been working the class changes for 2.3 even longer...

Hunter dispells and scalable traps and serpent stings! Woot!
Er... wait, that means Survival and MM are gonna catch up to BM in damage... Oh, we can't have THAT can we?

Weep with joy!

This is floating around the forums, thought I'd share...

2.3 patch "spoilers..."

Hunters get a dispell? NO WAY!

General
Level 20-60 Quest EXP has been increased, while EXP to Level has been decreased (UPDATED)
New Title - Champion of the Naaru: Awarded to those who complete the Tempest Keep attunement quest at level 70. (UPDATED)
New Flying Mount added. Requires 2,000g and Exalted with Cenarion Expedition (UPDATED)
New 10-Man Raid - Zul'Aman!
Guild Banks!
New Arena Relics have been added for more talent specs, and existing Relics have been renamed to create a more consistent naming convention (UPDATED)
1/3rd of +Healing will count as +Dmg

Mages

10% coefficient tax removed from Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt (UPDATED)
New Spell - Ritual of Refreshment: Allows players to pick up food/water (UPDATED)
Evocation now restores 15% of your total mana each 2 seconds (UPDATED)
Arcane Meditation increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration
Ice Barrier will receive additional benefit from +Dmg
Ice Barrier (Rank 5, 6) have had their base absorb lowered

Shamans

New Talent - Elemental Focus: Puts you in a "focused state" after landing a melee critical strike, reducing the mana cost of your next Shock spell by 60%
May equip 2-Handed Axes and 2-Handed Maces without spending talent points (UPDATED)
Frost Shock no longer has Diminishing Returns
Shamanistic Rage will reduce damage taken by 30% in addition to it's current effects
Spirit Weapons will reduce melee threat by 30%
Mental Quickness adds 10/20/30% to +Dmg and +Healing based on your total Attack Power, in addition to it's current effects

Druids
Rebirth cooldown reduced to 20 minutes (UPDATED)
Intensity increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration (UPDATED)

Warlocks
Ritual of Souls has had it's casting time significantly reduced (UPDATED)

Warriors
Tactical Mastery now greatly increases threat from Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst while in Defensive Stance (UPDATED)
Devastate now combines the effects of Sunder Armor into it's effect, and is affected by all talents and items that affect Sunder Armor (UPDATED)

Priests
Power Word: Shield will receive additional benefit from +Dmg and +Healing
Power Word: Shield (Rank 10, 11, 12) have had their base absorb lowered
Pain Suppresion may target Friendly targets
Pain Suppresion reduces Friendly target's threat by 5%
Pain Suppresion reduces Friendly target's damage taken by 40%
Pain Suppresion cooldown reduced to 2 minutes
Meditaion increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration
Prayer of Healing gains additional benefit from +Dmg and +Healing
Circle of Healing gains additional benefit from +Dmg and +Healing
Circle of Healing's base healing has been reduced
Holy Nova (Healing only) gains additional benefit from +Dmg and +Healing

Paladins
Improved Seal of the Crusader effect added to base abilitiy (UPDATED)
Improved Seal of the Crusader now gives the effects of Sanctified Crusader (UPDATED)
New Talent - Sanctified Seals: Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and melee by 1/2/3%, and reduces the chance your Seals can be dispelled by 33/66/100% (UPDATED)
Crusader Strike cooldown is being reduced to 6 seconds

Rogues
Fleet Footed increased to 15% speed increase (UPDATED)
Deadly Throw travel speed is being significantly increased
Deadly Throw snare duration is being slightly increased (1 second?)
Blind no longer requires a reagent
Blind is now a physical attack
Blind now shares the Diminishing Returns of Cyclone
Blind is now affected by Diminishing Returns in PvE
Shadowstep may now be used while not in stealth
Shadowstep reduces threat caused by your next Ambush, Garrote, or Backstab by 50%
Shadowstep cooldown increased to 40 seconds
Dirty Deeds increases damage of special attacks by 10/20% against targets below 35% health

Hunters
Wyvern Sting is now instant cast (UPDATED)
Arcane Shot (Rank 6+) will now dispel 1 Magic effect in addition to damage (UPDATED)
Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap, and Explosive Trap gain additional damage based on Ranged Attack Power (UPDATED)

Engineering
New Recipe - Field Repair Bot: Dropped(?) by Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains (UPDATED)
Flying Mount added for Engineers. Regular and Epic version.

Fishing

Fish Tracking may be learned from a journal, fished from crates
New fish added near Karazhan and Zul'Aman

Cooking

New recipes added for fish found near Karazhan and Zul'Aman

Season 3 Arena Information
Weapon Rating - 1850
Shoulder Rating - 2000

PvP for fun and profit!

That's it, gnome. Pick that flower.

Sniff it.

Don't suspect that you're a dash away from sudden death.

Welcome to my world, you annoying little squishy. Welcome to the wide wide wonderful world of pain.

WHAT?

You want more fish? That lying cow of a resto druid SWORE your worms were gone! Fine. Here.

Dark lady. Can you close your mouth when you chew? Thats disgusting. And the noise. You'll scare the prey...

Doesn't taste right? I told you over and over... squeeze the lemon over it while it's still sizzling.

"Too much dill?" There is no such thing! This is how Bobby Flay makes HIS barbed trout! Cmon, 375 cooking. Don't even go there... "too much dill!" indeed...

Back to the gnome. Oh yeah, now you found a bush. Yeah, bushes are awesome. Much more interesting than the sudden and frightful fate rapidly approaching...

Few things funnier than one of those little feet sticking outta the mouth of a 800 pound carnivore. Cept maybe the girlish screams of a night elf running from a gazillion poison snakes....

Now, gnome, where were we?

/sigh

Why bother? Why should I go outta my way to pwn this poor shorty? I mean, yeah, blizzard wants you dead. But what has blizzard done for me? Ima female orc. Worse dance moves in the game! Worst character design since Jar Jar. Female orcs should look like female kingons. Fangs, curves, and danger. Instead, we're like some inbred hillbilly stereotype.

"Gonna make you squeal like a dwarf! Squeal!" /deranged giggle

I mean, really... it almost looks like I'm drooling half the time. And my gear? Mail? Right. Looks just like the same damn leather crap I was wearing at 20 or 30. And not even cool leather. I mean, Ima beastmaster. I want the grizzly adams look! Something like this!

Ferretina! the weasel queen!

I mean, with a white rabbit trim. Old skool classic! Cuz fur is murder, and the necklace of elf ears ain't intimidating the alliance enough! But nuttin says hard core like a mink coat, choice of rappers, BM hunters and dangerous felons everywhere!

But no... all I get is some lameo leather/mail hybrid with twice the tard. I swear, all hunter gear is designed for dwarves! How else do you explain those friggin giger inspired spiky helms? Only if your goal is to erase dwarf ugly from the face of azeroth with a full helm! Could go leather... but all the cool leather helms are... eyepatches! What could be stupider than a marksman with no depth perception?

... anyhow...

yeah, I know why I'm gonna kill you gnome. Cuz blizz put a bounty on your undersized butt. You worth at least 20 honor, cutie pie! And I can turn that in for better, although equally lame looking gear.

So heads up! Its AV honor holiday, and the new anti-afk measures are up! Epic boots, bracers and gloves await! Melvin claims to average 30k honor per av weekend. True, he's a freak, but thats enough for at least 2 epics.

Turn the growl off, cat. We're goin in!

More on mend pet...

Sorry... I can't post screenshots at work, so I have to do it at home. But I blog at work... so sometimes I'll just post a screenshot and then fill in later...

K... the great mend pet trial is goin on. I need to spend a few more runs though netherwing mines to get a large enough sample. So its gonna take a week or so. I'm really burning the hell out on the game right now. However... prelim... NO DAMN WAY that it's a 50% chance to dispell any and all. Course, that could just be the result of 30 being a very small batch with which to test... when its closer to 100-150, I'll know better.

I posted this shot for the totally bizarro thing that happened... which might explain some of the mechanics of the talent... a failure to dispell result. Never seen this before... and the "You cast improved mend pet" line... we all remember the "You heartless beast! How can you sit and eat while your pet is sick!" bug...

Prob is, I've been doing mend pet a ton... and this is the first time I saw it. Hrm...

Melvin decides to teach me a lesson...

K... didn't want to play this weekend after the crap Kara run, but had to do arena.

It was kinda strange... we had enough people for Mabd to take a few matches off. And we added some people, including a great, if undergeared lock, and a smokin prot warrior. (Yeah, you read that right...)

I'll write more on the whole 5v5 thing, and BM hunter tactics later this week. But it was a milestone in another way. Melvin finally friggin listened to me! Or rather... he decided to teach me a lesson.

Looking at the damage chart, you see what the game looks like when melvin and magebert arent running their pom mages. Well, by the time I joined up, they had cycled melvin's elemental shammy and mageberts holy priest in.

BTW, this is the wrong screenshot. I neglected to take a pivotal one...

We went 7-5. Mabd had 5 games, goin 3-2. 3 of them were against the same team. The team was a druid, lock, mage, pally and priest. Ton of healing on both sides as we had the return of the pog, the crap arms warrior, palm, the decent shadow priest, melvin's elemental shammy, magebert's holy priest, and mabd.

The first match against this team went for like 5 minutes. Noone died, everyone was healing. Then they ran outta mana, and we crushed em.

Now a note. Beforehand, Mabd gives her little lecture to Melvin. "Melvin, we have no CC... you have to stop the healers. I shout "Paladin" and I need you on him like furball on fish."

What does Melvin do the first game? Off heal.

Second game, they get their act together, and concentrate dps on me, while disrupting melvin and magebert. I go down after like a minute, and then we lose. See... the other side looks at these damage meters as well, and prioritizes their target list accordingly...

So another little lecture... Melvin... you gotta stop that pally. "I can't! I have to heal you! You're the dps of the group!"

"Melvin... LET ME DIE. Stop the damn pally from healing."

Third game... to teach me a lesson, melvin goes after the pally, and lets the +1600 healing holy priest try to keep me up...

I fall, the enemy lock falls a second later (cat claws all over his dead demonkissing butt)... and the pally bubbles and RUNS from Melvin's elemental shammy... We crush em in short order :)

Melvin: "Wow. I can do real damage when I need to!"

WTF?

We all have an inner drama queen. Admit it. Right now, mine wants me to start the blog the following way...

I had a friend who cut himself. An awesome guy that everyone loved, but everytime we saw him, there was another 2-3 inch scar somewhere visible... or a cast. Once, he broke his wrist in 4 places.

After last night's Kara run... I understand why he did that to himself.

Cept that's just retarded. Our inner demons are no laughing matter... and it's just a damn game. Lonnie had serious issues, and it is inappropriate in the extreme to compare last night's fustration to what he went through in his life. Still... we all have the inner drama queen.

AND, it's not a good sign when your jaw aches from grinding your teeth, and you keep telling yourself.. "It's just a motherf#%$^#! game, goddammit!"

Kara sucked.

The only thing that could have gone wrong that didn't... guild drama. And even that might have been a welcome relief.

This week the rot group was a little slow on the first night. No real wipes, but we only took Attumen, Moroes, and the Maiden.

Thursday, the group got nothing done. I didn't run with them.

Last night, I was asked to go... I normally don't raid on fridays, and yesterday was kinda weird for me. I went shopping and blew way too much. I tend to get a little weird after doing that. Which explains my passivity when everything went to hell, but anyway...

Now, for a Kara raid... you need a raid leader. You need a good tank. And you need a good healer. Our leader was the best healer in the guild, a resto druid with decent gear, and impeccable timing. However... the raid makeup was... 1 tank (prot warrior). 1 resto druid. 2 holy priests. 2 mages (melvin was one). 2 rogues (one epicced out) . 1 uber elemental shammy. And mabd, the bm hunter.

Only one tank. So we hit the arcane guardians.... and kite one while trying to kill the other... the problem... our tank kept having lag issues. So we wipe twice, especially with the whole kite thing not working because every damn mob in kara decided to bug on us. Then the druid, our raid leader... dc's. And doesn't come back.

K... one of our mages switches in his holy priest. Magebert joins the party. And we start clearing those damn arcane mobs that can only be killed with mana attacks. And the warrior is lagging. And we have three priests... all holy... all undergeared... one with +1100 healing, one with +1000 healing, and the mage's alt has +900 healing. The shammy switches to alt healing... (with +800 spell damage and +20% crit, the shammy was the best healer in the group at this point...)

And we still wiping every other pull. But we settle down, the priests get control, and we're on the next to last arcane pull... when the shammy disappears.

"What the hell is going on!" we're screaming in vent. The response from our shammy...

"I got kicked by a gm. He told me I had to rename my character, and kicked me in the middle of the fight."

Do you understand? A GODDAMN GAME MASTER WIPED OUR RAID!

By the time we straighted it out... and CCNP renamed his shammy to Tiredangel... the mobs had reset, and we had all had to relog. And tired had to take a half hour to redo his ui mods (since they're set by character name...)

We try again. And clear to curator. And the tank is still having problems... its bad when the first thing you see on the mob the tank is pulling is a taunt. And we wipe twice just because he lag runs into mobs before we're ready. And we wipe on curator same way. But we try again... get the curator fight goin... get curator down to 60% by end of first evoke. And the rogues go down, and hateful bolts fill the air. While one of our priests (the one with the most healing...) is running around in circles being chased by a flare.

Then melvin decides to be helpful... "We have too many healers... we need more dps..."

WHY ON EARTH anyone would listen to melvin at any point, I DO NOT KNOW. But they do. And the mage who was playing his priest went back to playing his mage. So we try curator with only two, very undergeared healers... and don't even make it intact to an evoke again in the next three tries.

I'm just gonna watch freaking football this weekend. Screw this game.

Nuts and bolts of molten armor....

So, anyway... Shalkis took me to task, correctly, over my Molten armor post. Molten armor does NOT get the benefit of +spell damage.

My mistake was looking at something that, according to the tooltip, did 75 damage... and seeing 103...

Where did this 103 come from?

Well... after good old fashioned BRK type research... (find a helpless mob and torment it....)

Molten armor is affected by a variety of fire talents. Impact and Ignite you should all know... another one... Imp scorch... for each scorch counter, the mob takes 3% more fire damage. (In the screen shot, the pig has 3 on him for a 9% damage hike)

Fire power (5/5) 10% more damage from fire spells...

Hence this particular screen shot. ( I took a bunch.) Note the earliest MA hit only does 90 damage. Thats MA + FP +ImpSco (x3)

AND that the damage modifiers are applied as...
75 x 1.10 (firepower) x 1.09 (imp scorch) = 89.925
instead of
75 x [1 + .1 (firepower) +.09 (imp scorch)] = 89.25

This damage formula is more clear with the next element.

But the next hits are for 108 base. This is cuz another fire talent kicks in. Molten Fury. Targets with less than 20% health take 20% more damage from your fire spells.

So now it's... 75 x 1.1 (firepower) x 1.09 (scorch) x 1.2 (molten fury) = 107.91

Again, if the formula was

75 x [1 + .1 + .09 +.2] the result would be 104.25

... this could be useful to know.

Anyway, crit for 162. AND an ignite for 65. 227 total damage offa MA armor hit.

Shalkis... that's a healthy chunk. So to end where I began... MA poses a unique threat to the health of BM hunter pets... if you send your pet at a fire mage at extreme range... don't be surpised if he doesn't come back.

Other discoveries... I ran my combustion up to 7 counters... so I had a near 100% crit chance with fire... it didn't affect my MA crits :(

This weekend I'm gonna take the mabd and the fleabag out, and let melvin sheep tuna-breath over and over... while trying to dispell with imp mend pet. Let's see just how effective it is at debuffing...

Oh yeah, nother Melvin story. Call it a reward for scrolling through all the boring numbers....

Melvin does netherwing with his mage. Melvin is constitutionally incapable of passing up a chance to gank a warlock if he thinks he can get away with it. Well.. any alliance, but specifically warlocks. So... whatever happened... he has a running war going with an uber lock named Shaftian. (look this one up on armory... she's just damn nasty...) Every time they meet in the netherwing mines, Melvin calls for help, waits till shaft has aggro, and goes after her.

Melvin has given up on actually beating shaft in anything approaching a fair fight. Or unfair fight. (My fav... he tried to kill her while she was fighting a 71 elite and still lost.) At least with his mage. His shaman, on the other hand...

Well... Melvin, cuz of his obsessive compulsive farming habits, has close to 10k gold. His shaman alt still has a normal mount.

I know, it doesn't make sense to me either.

But he steadfastly refused to buy the shammy an elite mount until the whole shaftian conflict began. He now sees the shammy as his best way of getting revenge. His mage can't beat the lock... his shammy... better chance.

So he's gonna talk himself into buying an elite mount for the alt just to have a better chance to gank some poor lock doin her dailies. *sigh*

But they've already met. Melvin, on his shammy, encountered said lock in skettis. Now this is Melvin. Melvin is many things. Subtle isn't on the list. He totems up (shammy is elemental). And gets ready to rock shaftian's world.

Shaftian drinks an invis pot and gets outta dodge.

"NOOOOOO...." Melvin cried to the uncaring heavens. And then to me, recounting the sad sad story. And now the punch line...

"If only there was a way for my shammy to dot her up so she couldn't do that!"

The unforgivable sin

I had a neat response to my molten armor post.

Lets face it. I'm not really gonna post anything earthbreaking on any class. Just my observations. I know the classes more or less. I've played 5 of em to level 60 or higher. I run on a pvp server, so I have a bit more exp than most of the BRK crowd with tactics. ArmsandFury has been quite gleeful with the difference his all too brief stay on a pvp server has made to his pvp'ing back on the pve server Kelmar is stuck on.

Anyway, here's the response...

Shalkis said...
Molten Armor + Impact procs can be nasty, but if your pet is smacking a mage long enough for Molten Armor to even make a dent on the pet's health.. you're doing something wrong.First of all, any halfway competent mage is not going to just stand there and allow himself to get mauled by your pet, not even when he has the 2-piece Aldor bonus which makes Frostbolts and Fireballs unaffected by pushback. He's trying to CC your pet and get into your deadzone to cut off your dps.

K. Here's my response, and why I wrote the post.

I was running Unbound in terrokar, (Unbound was a 63 enhance shammy at the time).., and got jumped by a 65 fire mage.

Normally... shammys pwn with extreme prejudice any caster class. But I'm a bit slower with unbound, and again, there's a shammy post out there on the subject. The mage got the first shot in (intercepted by a grounding totem...) and it was on. I killed the spider I had aggroed, and ran at the mage. By the time I had closed, we were both near 20% health... and I forgot to purge the little gnome bastard.

I go to melee and the molten armor kills me.

Shalkis, you are absolutely right about molten armor not mattering against a hunter. Except in those instances when you aren't.

Hence the point of this post. When should you kill the pet before the hunter?

When the hunter is doin that attack range of 70' crap. Which happens a lot in arena. Too often, I'll send my pet after someone, and they'll duck outta LOS. When that happens, the damn pet has to come back, or it will die. I KNOW this now. And if the pet dies, the hunter is gimped for the rest of the fight.

SO... Shalkis... you a fire mage in arena, and you get BM hunter aggro.

FIRST. Get the hell outta LOS. The pet will follow, and usually intimidate will proc. If you get behind or under something fast enough, its just you and fuzzy all alone for a bit.

3 sec stun. Then take 3 more seconds for "direct action." That's 4-5 claws, and if ferocity procs, 6-7 attacks. Thats 1300-1800 damage for the pet from MA, depending on how things go. Mana shield, OTOH, should keep the damage you take down to reasonable levels.

And yes. Thats a significant chunk of life outta the pet. Add a blast wave, dragon's breath, and fire blast... and if you managed a fire blast before he got to you... you looking at another 5.5k damage on the pet.

6700-7200... thats kinda close to dead for a pet, especially if they ain't running with endurance training. Add a scorch to put em over the edge. Dead pet in 6 seconds. Hunter turns the corner... and without the pet, the BM hunter is gonna die in a straight up fight against a fire mage.

Gotta have that mend pet up. (And I gotta find out if it can be spell stolen :) ) And you can't let the pet chase the fire mage outta LOS. Frost mage... sure... whatever... go to town. BW will keep em from hurting em... if a frost mage can't freeze you in place, 50% of his damage goes away.

Arcane... well, if the arcane mage wants to blow all his cooldowns on the pet, nothing you can do. Tho slow can be a bitch if BW is on cooldown.

But fire mages pose a specific threat to melee classes and hunter pets. Too damn much control, and 2 additional instacast mega damage spells. (Dragon's breath and Blast wave.) Add combustion to that... combustion... Each fire spell you cast adds to a counter. Each counter adds 10% to crit. Until you've crit three times.

If you get seriously unlucky... they kill the pet, and combustion is at 60%. And then they sheep you for the pyroblast... with a 95% crit chance.

Thats a 7-8k damage spell people. You will join frisky in the afterlife very shortly.

Anyway... props to Melvin. He and Magebert played their mages and ran with Mabd in 3v3 last week. (We went 7-3). One team we hit was made of 3 frost mages. Magebert and I go down, as well as two of the frost mages.

Melvin butchers the elemental, then sheeps the frost mage. (both are at >20% health and mana) Melvin goes invis... then he and the frost mage, both near full health and mana, go at it. Melvin did the team proud. He is actually quite decent at 1v1. If only he could get used to teamwork :(

One thing that screwed the frost mages? They went after mabd first... and mabd, with BW on, is immune to all that frost nova crap. Waste of perfectly good cooldowns... and mega gimp to frost damage.

BM hunters DO have a place in arena. "Have pain... will deliver!"

Just leave the pet alone to eat yo face, alright?

Molten Armor and You

K... this is more of a general info post on why and how mages can be nasty.

Molten armor.

You got three flavors of mage. Arcane, fire and frost.

Deep arcane is kinda pathetic, so we should ignore that.

Deep frost and frost/arcane are their own little thing.

But if ya run into a fire/fire frost mage... this here's a little warning.

Notice majeure is slowly creeping up. And unlike SOME mage players I could name... maj is pretty well equipped for her level. 420 +damage and almost 30% crit are nothing to laugh at for her level. For comparison, a mage can raid at level 70 with about 700 +damage and 25% crit.

For the hunters out there... fire mages crit like survival hunters. So a 30% crit for a fire mage is like a 22% crit for another mage build.

K... mages have armor options. And I aint talkin cloth. Mages take sicko sicko damage from physical. If you lucky, you get 15-18% damage reduction if you go frost. Fire... you looking at 10-12%. Ouchies.

But in return for such magnificent vulnerability, you get ARMOR. Frost mages get Ice armor. Ice armor is nice... and boring.

Fire mages get Molten armor. Now, I'm not saying that frost mages can't use molten armor, and that fire mages can't use ice armor. BM hunters can run with sporebats. Men can marry llamas. Do what feels right. Don't feel obliged to run a cookie cutter build if being strange floats yo boat.

K, for the sane readers. Molten armor pops at level 62. Which is a long damn time to wait, but worth it. For the fire mage, almost every talent boosts molten armor from something nice into something to be feared.

Molten armor has the following effects.
+3% to crit
-5% to be crit against
any attack against you incurs 75 damage.

The first two are self explanitory. + to crit, and reduced crit vulnerability are nice, but not complicated. But the thorns effect... oh... that gets NASTY with mage talents.

First... that 75 damage is modified by +spell damage. With maj's 420, attackers take about 105.

Second. It can crit. Did I mention that maj has a 30% crit chance?
Second part B. Fire mages have a talent called ignite. On a fire spell crit (including molten armor crits) the target gets gifted with a 40% additional damage dot over 4 secs.

Think about this. Yo typical hunter pet comes in, attacking every second... and taking an expected 125 damage each strike. Claw does what, 70-80?

Even nastier with rogues, fury warriors and enhance shammys. :) ...if the last doesn't remember to purge :(

And last... fire mages have yet another talent that gives a 10% 2 sec stun proc to their fire spells. This, also, works with molten armor.

All in all, it makes the aoe grind much more interesting. But can come as a nasty surprise for anyone not quite ready... so slap that HoT on frisky before you send him into play with the mage. His furry ass is gonna need it.

Incoherence...

Went 7-3 in 3v3 arena. Need to do more of that, I think in the long run, its better for points.

I should have a post up later today... Molten Armor and You. Mage crap. I'm not really sure I should be talking tactics about any class, especially ones like hunters and mages, that I play so badly. Anyway, we all know this blog is just a place for me to vent on Melvin.

I'm not joking. I used to have to call Herk every sunday night.. "can you believe what he did this time?" Much easier to write it all down in a place noone will ever read it :)

And Herk needs to start writing again.

T.J. needs to get that damn mount. Grind that faction. Bug killing, feral cat taming, purple stocking wearing insanity is SOOO sexy now. And BRK really needs to be humiliated again. GRIND BABY!

Reasons to celebrate. I got my first troll!

On my lament over no kara drops...

Stropp said...
Lol. That's not always the case. One evening I went on an excursion through UBRS/LBRS with the guild and picked up three or four pieces of the Beaststalkers. Four I think. It was a while ago. So, fortunately, I can't make the same claim of cursage.

Stropp, buddy... here's what you can do.

Post to BRK. Tell him you got the sonic spear on the first time through SL. And the next three times you ran it, (for faction) it dropped and was sharded.

Include your RL address. Go on. It'll be a hoot.

Anyway, gonna do "Molten Armor and You."

Some other post ideas I've had.

"Ice Armor and You."
"Skettis Ganking and You."
"Shaman and You."
"Why I post about WOW at work and am too damn tired to play during the week and You."
"Chainsaws and You."

Although that last one doesn't really capture the essence of the post idea. Another title for it...

"Healing leather dropped in Kara again. RUN TREE RUN!"

I swear to god... let me roll on it, I'll wear it, just let me have a purple.... I'll off heal, I'll tank, I'll do anything... /SOB

Hey, I just figured out why they put carpet on the walls here at work :)

Obligatory Melvin story. Oh yeah, we went 6-4 in 5v5 arena. Slowly, we improve. The trick is not to let melvin play a dps character... I'm getting tired of dying , then watching him run around with his mage not attacking anyone.

But anyway.. Melvin was trying to explain the Prince fight. Meanwhile, I had the fight description up from WoWWiki.

"He casts this debuff. It reduces your health to 1!"

"Yeah, your troll mage should love that."

"What do you mean?"

"Your racial ability. You go berserk and cast spells 30% faster."

"Oh I don't cast spells when I'm enfeebled! That would be crazy! I take any damage and I die...I can't risk the aggro!"

"er... you have to keep doing damage, or the prince won't die and the raid will wipe..."

"Yeah, I just wait for the debuff to go away."

You now know why tanks beat Melvin's mage on damage meters..

Gone fishin...

Kitty was not impressed at my efforts.

Lookit that bag full o pet chow tho! and some raid food!

I hope it stays fresh in the bank :(

The current pvp outfit. Doan Mabd look scary?

Rrarr!

Hunters are cursed...

You know why *THAT* is a hunter drop?

Cuz hunter gear never damn drops, and I gotta roll on something or pick up a chainsaw and go to town on the neighbors.

Second Kara run. Clear through curator,

AND
NOT
A
DAMN
THING
DROPS

Bah. I have a list...
Bah.

Majeure is coming along nicely. Deep fire is very viable in pvp, once you get molten armor. MA is like a bug zapper for rogues. And pallys who, even with a 2h weapon, can't beat the 82 damage that MA does when I'm hit.

I went 2 days without WoW or caffine. That night I dreamt I was playing a level 5 druid, badly. Uber n00b druid. Nightmare, even. The dream with the vampire stripper tax collectors had nothing on this.

In a 5 man. The pally goes down, and I can't find the combat rez on my action bar. I switch to bear to tank, and can't find taunt. Then I aggro the red elite. (Yeah, I know, level 5 druids don't have those skills, itsa damn dream, what do you expect?)

Man, I have messed up dreams. Maybe I need to cut back... on caffine.

Grrrr... Notes to self

Must remember to use scorpid sting in raids.

Ima n00b :(

Must fix macros. Macro upkeep is part of the game, especially now that I found out about #show.

Must fish before next kara run. Golden sticks for the healers, and trout for the furball.

Must steal pens from work, I'm out at home.

God bless this country and keep it safe. I pass the pentagon each day on my commute :(

Never trust a damn gnome.

Seriously... how the hell do you target them? They always hide inside things...

Rot group was running kara2 sunday.. I was signed up, time was 9pm server... I log on at 8, they already in.
And I dunno how to feel bout that.

Ah well.

Went 3-2 in arena, then had to log to watch the LSU-VT game. Had a replacement for me. Get back on, they went 1-4 without me.

"We ran into a group of 3 priests and 2 locks! It was a slaughter!"

"Melvin, tremor totem is THAT hard to cast for you?"

"They wanded it!"

"THERE'S NO COOLDOWN! Keep casting it!"

"How am I supposed to know when to recast it?"


grr...

Still waiting for him to cast blood lust in a raid....

All n00bs are NOT created equal...

I got ganked by a lock in skettis. I was in a group of 5, the lock died almost instantly, and I still died, due to DoTs.

Let's face it people, at this point the nerf hammer blizz is gonna use on locks has to be visible from space. My recommendation...

FIX BANDAGES. It is INSANE that a DoT will break first aid.

"He's gushing blood all over the place! We'll have to wait to bandage him!"

What can you do? That's right... eat.

Spock: Doctor, the Captain's life is being drained by malign forces...

McCoy: What do you want ME to do about it? I'm a doctor, not a chef!


I need more RAP. I have serious RAP envy. 1325 is not enough... OTOH, 26% crit is super sweet :)

26% crit and the gladiator xbow? It's like going through life with yo pet's growl off all the time :P

Now that I know how to make insanely good cream gravy, I miss my stepmom's home made biscuits.

I need to read and write more.

I need to get to work earlier.

I need to level the mage more. Did BF over weekend, was a ton of fun. I miss running instances with parties that aren't overpowered for them.

Must call my relatives and tell them I love them. Been a while.

Desolation

While the rot group ran Kara2 last night (everything after Curator) I was watching my beloved New Orleans Saints get...

HURT

by the Colts. The camera kept switching to Archie Manning in the stands, his noble head held in his hands.

CRAP. 41-10.

Ah well. Life sucks, get over it, wtfomgbbqpwnd. Run back and rez for the next week.

The rot group, in the absence of the most magnificent Mabd, wiped "at least 10" times against the shade. ("Melvin, what do you mean, at least 10.. aren't you keeping track?" sez I... "No." replies Melvin.) No bosses down, no l33t treasure gained. Mabd will run with them this weekend, and see what we can do. I don't know who was in the crew last night. (Besides Melvin's shammy... sigh)

So... watching the squeekie priest answer mail reminded me of a vicious anti-cat attack suffered in the first ever Mabd Kara run.

We're on Maiden... and I ask for a briefing on the fight. Ex laser turkey tells me... "stay spread out... you'll get stunned every so often... you might wanna heal yourself, the healers will be taxed... oh and I'm NOT HEALING THE CAT. So you might wanna just keep it next to you, cuz otherwise it'll die."

I think we've addressed this before.

They come to kill the kitty. And we all know... he ain't gonna die.

Mend pet up... and enough PoM frisbees flying around for a loyal (or not so loyal fish slurping furry bottomless pit) companion... cat was just fine.

Combat log tells the story...

Cat resists
Cat resists

But still... rampant pet hatin going on in the guild. I blame the shortage of decent hunters. And, of course, unacceptable levels of bigotry against feline-azerothians.

So.. one boss wipe on the first ever Mabd Kara run. And all the fault of Melvin's shammy.

This is like, a quarter of the shaman post I been meaning to write.
Melvin plays a mage. Melvin raids with his shaman. His shammy is elemental, and is played just like a mage. As a result...

He will end up switching from dps to healing. Or rather... not even bother dpsing... just healing. Cuz with all that +damage gear, his heals are "AWESOME!"

Some backstory on human nature. We are little ducklings. We IMPRINT. The impressions we gain when we first play stay with us. Melvin is so overwhelmed with a class that can nuke like a mage, and heal like a priest, that he doesn't realize that he can't really do either... and fails at both. My PET almost beat him on the damage meters. Does he respec resto? No. Does he equip +heal gear? No.

Then there are the totems. It took me two months to explain that in arena... You can use BOTH grounding and tremor totems. Cuz one is air, and one is earth. I had to tell him several times.

This is a college graduate, and professional researcher people.

Anyway, he doesn't bother keeping track of the totems. So on long fights... the totems go away, and aren't recast. There was much grumbling over the lack of mana totems...

We do a misdirect pull on those mobs before opera that spam sleep. Melvin has fought them several times. (One of his chars is exalted with violet eye, the other revered) Melvin doesn't see fit to drop a tremor totem. WIPE.

"It happened too fast!"

"It was a misdirect pull, Melvin. You had 30 sec to get ready..."

God help him if totems weren't instant cast...

So we hit romeo and juliet. And melvin has been mostly backing up the two holy priests and the resto druid in healing. With a little dps. (very little)

"K.." goes the ex laser turkey. "We don't have a rogue. We're gonna need Melvin to keep earthshock on Juliet when she tries to heal. Everyone ready?"

Raid ready check

We begin.

Juliet...
heal
heal
heal
heal (stopped by mage)
heal (stopped by warrior)
heal (stopped by warrior)

dead juliet.

Romeo... (and warrior has to tank romeo, cuz pally tank sucks...)

dead romeo (to shouts of PURGE THE DAMN BUFF)

Juliet back
heal
heal
heal
heal
heal

WIPE

K... Melvin... whats going on?

"Oh, I didn't hear you..."
(checks vent... he's still connected...)
Er... you on vent, tho...
"Oh... yeah... but I turn down my speakers at 11. I don't wanna disturb the neighbor."

Why did watching squeekie remind me of this? HEADPHONES!

Convergence....

That little traitor ArmsandFury has fled to the safety of a pve server... fine!

I don't need him. I don't need anyone. If there's one thing playing a hunter has taught me, it's that as long as you have fish, you have friends...

But seriously... first Kara run for Mabd last night. In the short bus group. (AKA rotation group) The prog group gets first pick of people. The rot group gets the people who wear biker helmets when watching sesame street.

BUT

We run kara at the same time as the progression group. And we are led by an ex laser turkey who has his crap down. And druid boy is as hyper competitive as I am... so... through out the night...

"We're five minutes ahead of progression..."
"We're two pulls ahead of those bastards..."

We blew through to curator, with only one wipe (Romeo and Juliet, cuz of Melvin's shammy...)

And took him down in a guild record time. We still finished about a half hour behind progression, but still, nuttin to be ashamed of on my first run :)

Mabd was #2 in damage :)

No hunter drops :(

But it seems today is the day for hunter trapping stories. The group leaders, druid and warrior, seemed happy with my trapping and misdirection l33tness... (I've been studying BRK...) and I got guild rep points for emergency misdirect/distract shots when the tank lost aggro :)

I like that trick.

However, the point of the story is not the clean run. The adrenaline only flows when it hits the fan. My brother, whom I dearly love... plays a druid. And he pvps like a serial killer. His description of arena is the best I've ever heard.

"Walk into the arena like that pat just reversed, and noticed you fighting. You are 15 seconds from the wipe, and a 10 minute run back. BRING EVERYTHING. Every cooldown, every trick."

(On a side note, is it just me, or are druids, in general, the best played class?)

Anyway... we were doing the trash mobs before Maiden. This situation, as another druid pointed out...

"When we encountered the first of the real trash on the way to Maiden, the first thing someone suggested was for the Priest to shackle one of the undead. The second suggestion someone made was for the Warlock to banish the demon in a 4 pull. This progreesed for a few pulls, with some success. When we went for the trash pull in the room with the Journal, and talk was turned to who was going to be banished, or which to shackle, the hunter plaintively said in Teamspeak, "I can trap, too."

My story...

Something happened on one of these pulls. I don't know what, but when the dust cleared, one was dead, one was banished, one was tanked... and one was free... both priests down, as well as melvin's next to useless elemental shaman. Three healers gone leaving only uber druid. It doesn't get more dire...

Over vent, the tank was shouting for the pally off tank to get aggro on the free undead elite before she blasted another party member into oblivion...

And then came the response..

"Hunter has star."

/trap

Party saved, much rejoicing.

On a lighter note... Melvin is thinking about starting a tank. (GOD I REALLY NEED TO DO THAT SHAMAN POST) He has decided upon a druid... which he will level to 70 and run through every instance. Cuz tanks are always in demand. It's gonna be a horde druid. He has just one question...

Again, Melvin has 2 level 70 chars, ran with the guild's progression group in the early kara days, has 30k honor kills between two chars, etc, etc...

His question...

"What race should my horde druid be?"