The Warcraft Hunter

I have been asked by a few players “what is the best food for Hunters?” As with so many other questions in both WoW and life, the answer is “it depends.”

It depends on what level you are, what you are doing, what resources you have, what your stats are and what your skills are. However, it does not need to be complicated. Also, the difference between “good food” and “best food” is a lot smaller than the difference between “good food” and no food at all.

Basic food is food that heals you and does nothing else. You can buy basic food at most inn keepers as well as other vendors, so I will skip over this part. Just bear in mind that it makes sense to have the highest level basic food on you because it will regenerate health faster, thus reducing your down time.

The food I want to talk about is the kind that gives a boost to one or more of your stats. The stats that we Hunters want to see buffed are generally Attack Power, Stamina, Crit Rating, Haste, Armor Penetration, Agility, and to a lesser degree Intellect. Less important, but not useless, are Spirit and Mana per 5 seconds (or Mp5). Strength and Spell Power can be completely ignored, but in some cases they will be part of a package deal with other stats. Which stats you choose to buff will be dependent on what you are doing.

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When you group with a Paladin, one of the first things they will ask you is whether you want Might or Kings. If you have not had this pleasant experience, let me explain this. Paladins have Blessings spells that they can cast on friendly targets that increase various stats. At the top level, without any Talents to improve them, Blessing of Kings increases all base stats by 10%, and Blessing of Might increases Attack Power by 350.

With my current spec, I get Attack Power from two of my base stats: Agility and Intellect. My Agility is currently at 899, and my Intellect at 379, so this translates to about 126 extra Attack Power. This is nothing to sneeze at, but it is less than 350. So why would any Hunter ever choose Kings over Might?

Under normal circumstances they would not, but there are some situations where it makes sense. First, there are the side-benefits to Kings that you need to look at: extra Mana pool, better Stamina and Health, increases to Armor and Crit Chance from Agility…there may be certain fights where these stats are more important than Attack Power.

Second, and more likely, is when you are also grouped with a Warrior who is using Battle Shout. This spell increases the Attack Power of all party members nearby (20 yards) by a whopping 548! The catch is that this does not stack with Blessing of Might, so it would be wasted on you except when Battle Shout is down or you are out of range. In this situation, you would be better off with Blessing of Kings, as it affects the base stats instead of the secondary stat.

The third situation is when you are grouped with two Paladins. If you ever have this happy experience, then you will note that the Blessings do not stack, so it is best to get one Kings and one Might, and the two Paladins will most likely decide between them which one is doing which blessing.

And if you happen to get a third…ask for Blessing of Wisdom, as it will increase your Mana regeneration — which never hurts during a long boss fight!

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I like to learn and experience new things, but at the same time I am a cautious and conservative person. So it’s handy to have someone around who will cajole me into doing something I never thought I was ready for. We have a player in our guild who claims to be able to get lost in a straight hallway, but by following her we are guaranteed to either come to a tragic death or find something amazing. It is the latter that we have dubbed the “omgwtfawesome!” place.

That’s what we found last night. After a quick run through Heroic Culling of Stratholme, I went to make dinner, and a few of my guildies went to Wintergrasp to try to win it for the Horde. When I logged back on I was immediately jumped on by two of them to join them for 25-man Vault of Archavon, which I had never dreamed I was ready for.

Not only was I ready, I somehow managed to top the DPS chart (actually, on my own Recount I had myself in 3rd, but two others had me at the top, so I choose to believe them :)). As it turns out, Vault of Archavon is pretty much just a DPS race between the Raid and the boss, and with only three trash pulls before getting to him. To be honest, the two tanks have to be good at what they do, and the healers have to be on top of their game since there can be some pretty heavy spike damage, but there really aren’t any tricks to this fight. If you don’t have him down in 5 minutes you’re going to wipe, so this is always a fast fight one way or the other.

Unfortunately, I lost out on the gear drops (2 items that would have been good), but I got my first Emblem of Valor…and that ain’t nothing!

Raids and Instances Hunter, Instances, Raids, Warcraft

the first time I played a Hunter, I really had no idea what I was doing. I had no one to teach me how to play, and I did not know which sites to go to in order to learn. I had no clue about training, repairing, gear, ammo, you name it. For several kills I was even unaware that I had a gun, for crying out loud! I only found it by accident by hitting the “3″ key!

My point is, that you don’t know what you don’t know. And this applies at all levels of the game, and all levels of Hunter. So, I am going to make a level-by-level series of posts about the things that change at each level, as seen from the perspective of a Beast Master Hunter who is trying to level to 80. Why Beast Master? Because it has long been the best Talent Spec for leveling, and should remain so through the 3.1 patch.

My hope is to make players of Hunters aware of the things that can add to their character at various levels, and new strategies to use to level faster.

At Level 1 you have very few things you can do, so play style is really simple. All the mobs in the area where you character is “born” are neutral, so you have no fears about being attacked by mobs. This makes it easy to set up your attack and finish off one mob at a time. The simplest method of attack is to get to the max distance of whichever mob you want to attack, and then let loose with the Auto Shot, which should be “3″ on your main Action Bar. This will start the Auto Shot, which will keep firing automatically until the mob dies, goes out of range, goes into melee range, or you run out of ammo.

Of course, the mob will be coming after you after you shoot it, so you have two choices on how to react. Presuming the mob does not die on the way (and it will sometimes), you can either get ready to do a Raptor Strike on the mob to finish it off, or you can try to back up and get more shots in. I recommend the Raptor Strike method for a couple of reasons: 1) you will get skill-ups on your hand weapon; 2) Auto Shot does not work on the run, so you won’t get many more shots in, if you get any at all. I will introduce a new variant on the second method in an upcoming post, one that will prevent you from having to melee much at all.

There are a few important things to mention that are not Hunter-specific, and that will apply for most or all of your leveling, so I will mention them here:

• Check your loot for upgrades to your armor and weapons. At this level it happens frequently, and you may as well take advantage of it.
• Sell your gray items (except for upgrades, of course). Use the AutoProfit add-on or some other variant to do this quickly.
• Get more bags as soon as you can afford them. When you are questing, you don’t want to have to start dumping items that might sell for a bit of cash at the vendor.
• When questing, try to pick the lower level mobs if they have different levels. This applies only if the mobs are neutral to you, or if they can be picked off one at a time without fear of getting “adds”. You want to do this because you have a greater chance of killing the mob before it gets into melee range. You will kill faster, and take less damage.
• Make sure to finish the quests in the area before moving on. Many players will race to the next zone as soon as they can, but I think this is a mistake. “Wasting” quests means that you will have fewer quests done, leaving you to have to grind to get levels later on. Use one of the leveling guides listed to the right to help you plan your questing; they really help you get to 80 much, much faster than by trying to find them by yourself.
• Use the QuestHelper add-on, or some other reasonable substitute, to help you complete quests faster. It will show you exactly on the map where to go, and will tell you your next objective and how to get there faster. If used in conjunction with the leveling guide mentioned above, you will blaze through levels faster than you would believe.

That’s it for Level 1. My next several posts will be on even-numbered Levels, as that is when you get new spells (at least until the later levels).

Basics, Leveling Basics, Leveling, Warcraft

Now that Blizzard has some new digs, it was time to do a little decorating. And for lawn ornaments, instead of plastic flamingos they decided to go with a 12-foot statue of an Orc on a Wolf. (Okay, I think when you ride them, they are actually Wargs, but I am not sure.)

So, what I would like to know is just who is this Orc? Is it Thrall? Simply a generic Orc? Also, is it proof positive that Blizzard likes Horde better?

Or is it simply that they hired the best home decorators ever?

Amusing funny, Warcraft

And this time it is useful! Very useful, indeed!

Monday morning I snuck into Elwynn Forest to see the vendors at Darkmoon Faire in order to turn in my Nobles Deck and receive my Darkmoon Card: Greatness. This lovely little trinket boosts my Agility by 90 on equip, with a chance any time I do damage of boosting it another 300!

This card comes in three other “flavors”, boosting Strength, Agility or Stamina on Equip, but all will boost your top stat of these four by 300 when it procs.

So, how do you get one of these, I hear you asking. Well, you can purchase a Nobles Deck from players, or put together one of them yourself. The deck is assembled by collecting the Ace through Eight of Nobles, and then using one of the cards to form the deck. The cards themselves can be dropped by world mobs or bosses, and can also be created by Inscriptionists (Inscriptors? Scribes?), but they are random when created so it is not wise to trust this method (plus the mats are expensive).

The deck sells for about 9 to 12k on my realm, and the individual cards for a little over 1k each, with some being more expensive than others. I bought mine a card at a time as the deck was expensive compared to the cards.

Next up: Mirror of Truth, as soon as I have enough Emblems!

items Hunter, trinkets, Warcraft

Depending on which kind of cat you tame, you might find that it automatically wants to go into stealth mode. This can be annoying, especially since it slows down the cat, and it will lag behind whenever you are running. In addition, it takes a lot longer for it to attack mobs. Granted, it will do more damage at least initially, but this small advantage is outweighed by the inconvenience.

This is often seen as a bug, much like the Cower and Growl bugs that are well known to hunters. However, the stealth issue is easily resolved, or at least it always has been for me. All you need to do is open your pet’s spell screen, right-click on the Prowl button, which should turn off the auto cast for prowl. This is what stops the pet from automatically going into stealth mode.

Now, to remove the pet from stealth mode, all you need to do is click on the Prowl button one more time — a simple left click this time. This is a one time cast, and with the auto cast turned off it is a simple toggle between stealth and normal mode.

My experience has been that this fix does not switch back, even when switching pets in and out of the stable. The only time I have seen Prowl turned on by itself is when I have tamed a new pet. If anyone else has seen it differently, please let us know in comments.

Pets Hunter, Pets, Warcraft

Or is that amusing?

While I was doing my daily quests in onslaught harbor, I happened to get a very interesting drop from one of the Gryphon riders. It was the first time I had ever gotten an epic world drop. However, it turned out to be more amusing than useful. Then again, amusing can be useful.

What I got was the Super Simian Sphere. This is a trinket that when used turns you into a gorilla inside a pink bubble! While there are no increases to any stats while this occurs, the reactions from the people around you are worth far more than any stats could possibly give you.

This effect lasts for five minutes, and has a one hour cooldown. I cast it once while I was still in onslaught harbor just to see what it looked like. The next day I ran an instance with my Guild (Utgarde Pinnacle), and I kept it in my bags but did not wear it. Once we killed the final boss, I quickly switched out my trinket and used my Super Simian Sphere. The reaction was well worth it!

One of my Guild mates got a screenshot of me as a monkey on the throne of King Ymiron, with my trusty cat at my side. Once I talk him into forwarding the picture, I will post it for all to see.

One day, I hope to have a large gathering of people in some major city all casting this trinket at the same time. If you happen to have this trinket, please comment and let us know your faction and realm. Let us amaze and amuse our fellow players with this awesome ticket

Amusing funny, items, trinkets, Warcraft

One of the coolest pieces of software I have ever seen in a long time is a program called Wow Matrix. It helps you manage your Warcraft add-ons, removing the necessity of searching the Internet for the various add-ons that you might want to use, get updates for, or even search for. Not only that, it will install them for you as well as update regularly.

When you open the program, you have two tabs that you can look at. One shows you the add-ons that you currently have installed and whether they are up to date. The second tab shows a long list of add-ons that are available to be installed. On both tabs they give a short description of what the add-on does. This makes it really easy to pick which add-ons that you want to add.

I would be careful about adding too many add-ons at once though. All add-ons affect the user interface in some way, and too many changes at once could be quite confusing. Until you get used to using an add-on, you don’t always know how to manage the configuration. If you have more than one new add-on, it might be confusing as to which of them is affecting your user interface in a negative way. I currently limit myself to one new add-on per day, so I can get used to what ever an add-on is doing for me. Then once I have the configuration exactly the way I want, I can add a new one without fear of getting too confused. And at my age that’s an important thing!

Wow Matrix is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux… but I have only used it for Windows, so I cannot speak to how it works on the other operating systems.

Add Ons, Basics Add Ons, Basics, Hunter, Resources, software, Warcraft