WoW Hunter Guides, News, Resources and Musings
Meet the latest Vault of Archavon loot Piñata, Toravon the Ice Watcher. If you beat on him long enough he’ll drop some ilvl264+ gear, and maybe even an epic mount. Unlike the other 3 bosses in VoA, Toravon only drops 3 pieces of epic loot, but who can complain..?
If you haven’t yet attempted this boss, I suggest you do so. Difficulty wise, he’s maybe a tad bit harder than Koralon and easily PuG’able. [Read more…] about New epic loot dispenser in VoA
Names have been obliterated to protect the innocent. The subject we’re about to tackle is fraught with misconceptions, half-formed opinion and occasionally a self-satisfied, self-serving attitude that’s both completely unjustified and (in the worst cases) completely silly.
We’re talking gear score vs. skill. Here’s the typical trade post: “LFM 25 ONY MUST HAS MIN 2500 GEAR SCORE OR DON’T PST KTHXBAI”. Practitioners of the gear score philosophy know only numbers, and believe that given enough gear, any scrub can handle any sort of content. Much to the chagrin of the evident multitude of acolytes to this laughingly false idea, they’re wrong, and I’m going to use a couple of methods to illustrate this fact.
What we can learn from the NFL Draft.
I may lose some of you here, so I’ll keep this brief, but I’ve learned that using multiple types of examples to illustrate a point can be helpful.
Let’s quickly discuss 3 quarterbacks: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Ryan Leaf. You most likely have heard of the first 2, even if you’re not a big football fan, the last guy, maybe not so much.
Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are two of the better (if not the best) quarterbacks in the game today. Peyton Manning was drafted #1 in his draft class, no one else was picked ahead of him, he had the highest “gear score”. Tom Brady was picked #199 in his draft class, so 198 guys were picked ahead of him, his “gear score” was terribad. Ryan Leaf was picked #2, right after Peyton Manning, same draft class, they went 1 and 2. Ryan had an unbelievable gear score, and was almost picked ahead of Peyton.
Here’s where I make my (now lengthier than I would have liked) point: Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are two of the best, Ryan Leaf is out of football fighting addiction to painkillers, has been indicted for burglary and is basically of very little use to anyone. These guys were picked based strictly on their “gear score” coming out of college, and it shows that just because it looks like you have all the tools on paper, real world application of said tools can be a little more difficult to pull off.
Okay, let’s move on quickly, that may have been a stretch for some of you, but think of it as broadening your horizons a bit, it builds character.
Let’s discuss an example from the last VoA 25 I PuG’d. [Read more…] about Gear Score vs. Skill
As I’d mentioned earlier, I decided to go Survival once I ditched Beast Mastery as my PvP spec. Oddly enough, at this same time I also elected to go Survival for raiding as well. This may sound strange to those of you who follow the site, because I’d stated a few times in the past that Survival had been my least favorite spec.
I’ve had a change of heart… what can I say.
The reasons I went Survival for PvP should be pretty obvious to most. Survival is currently the most dominant spec for arena due to the combination of burst, survivability and crowd control. I had contemplated Marksmanship, but it’s a little too squishy for my tastes and I don’t like that the spec’s heavy burst is reliant upon a setup shot. Too many classes have the ability to dispel Serpent Sting, which in turn negates a lot of Marksman’s burst. For BGs, Marksman is a blast, but I’m not brave enough to venture into arena with it just yet.
Now, as far as Survival for a raiding spec… The reason I chose this route is because I found that my absence from raids hadn’t been helping my DPS any. I was falling behind gear-wise and still rocking a 141 DPS crossbow. With Marksmanship being more dependent upon weapon damage than Survival, I felt it may be time for a change.
For kicks, I decided to plug into Zehera’s Online DPS Analyzer and see if there was some room for improvement. Much to my delight, I managed to configure a Survival setup with my then current gear, which showed a 12% DPS increase. Needless to say, the next evening I respecced SV and profited.
The irony is, immediately after this change I obtained the high damage weapon my Marksmanship spec so sorely needed. 😉
The first screenshot is from a VOA clear, and the second was from Northrend Beasts just after we dropped Gormokk the Impaler. Both of these occurred before I obtained my new crossbow. So as you can see, Survival allows you to get away with a lot more damage in lieu of a good weapon because the bulk of the spec’s damage is based on attack power.
I may end up returning to Marksmanship at some point, but probably not until I upgrade from my *cough* Valorous 2pc bonus. I am really feeling comfortable with Survival now, plus I like the mana efficiency of the spec. Not only did I manage to avoid Viper during our 25 man ToC raid, I don’t think my mana pool ever went below 80%.
Now I’ve never been one to go with the cookie cutter spec of the day just because it was the best possible DPS. I typically spec what I enjoy playing and squeeze every ounce of DPS possible from it. Yet, last week I felt like my contribution to the raid was lessening, hence the change. In the end, I’m glad that I did because it forced me to revisit the spec and finally learn to play it effectively.
In my next post(s) I’ll offer up a few basic tips and fundamentals concerning Survival and how to get the most out of it for both PvE and PvP, so stay tuned…
Oh, and by the way, here is my spec: 0/15/56
This will do.
I’m beat, so this all you get until tomorrow – a screenshot of me posing with my new ilvl 245, 212.2 DPS crossbow from 25 man ToC, aka Talonstrike. I’m rocking my PvP gear in the pic because I was in Wintergrasp at the time farming crystallized shadows and leveling my new PvP pet. I was hoping for some Horde player to swoop down and jump me, but no takers. I saw a few of them hovering and circling above me, but I think they caught a glimpse of what sort of pain I’m bringing now and got scared. 😉
I have loads of of stuff I want to post, but free-time has been scarce. Tonight I blew off the blog to get some VoA and ToC in. Good thing I did. 🙂 No regrets there.
As I said, there’s a lot I want to cover including the overview of my UI which I’ve put off now for weeks. I also want to discuss my new found love affair with Survival Huntering. I’ll try to crank some of this stuff out in the next few days, I promise, but as my son would say, it’s nigh’night time…
Zzzzzz…
Last night I stuck around after the Wintergrasp victory to join a 25 man VoA run. I didn’t get lucky with the loots, but I did have good fortune with the damage meters. Thankfully there were no Survival Hunters in our raid group to make me look bad. 
Being that this was my very first 25 man in WotLK, I was pleasantly surprised with my results.
I didn’t top the DPS chart, but I did eek past the top DPSers for the number one spot for Damage Done. I narrowly edged out a very well geared Arcane Mage for the top slot.
My shot rotation was manual and I basically threw everything I had at him when it was up. I also threw in some Aimed Shots while on the run avoiding the clouds, cave-ins and spikes. My self-buffs included: Blackened Dragonfin and an Elixir of Mighty Agility. Sadly, I was not using any Mammoth Cutters or I might have pulled away from the pack.
I’m sort of enjoying this new underdog spec. I love Beast Mastery and I’d rather find ways to increase my beloved spec’s damage rather than hop on the Survival bandwagon. Seems so backwards now. Anyway, I’m just keepin’ it real is all. 😉
I can’t believe I just started doing VoA this past week. I have seriously been depriving myself of easily obtainable gear.
