Let’s face it, DPS classes are a dime a dozen. Trying to find a tank or a healer for a group takes forever. However, you can always find a ton of DPS classes ready to go at just about any moments notice in /trade, /lfg, maybe even your own guild. Heck, sometimes they just hang out in front of the instance they want to go in and ask people going in if they are short. “Looking for Work. Will Pew Pew for food.” They’re just everywhere.

So how do you make yourself stand out? Simple. Don’t die, don’t cause others to die, and DO FANTASTIC DAMAGE! I emphasis the last part because that’s the part because people tend sugar coat. Claiming that doing a ton of damage isn’t all there is to being good DPS. Staying alive (do not stand in fire), not pulling aggro (Omen), and not getting the entire raid killed by doing something stupid is what makes you good DPS. And that is true. If you’re so focused on topping the meters (Recount) that you’re willing to put yourself and the rest of the raid at risk, then, yes, you are “bad” DPS. However, those that are able to do the raid dance and pull great damage at the same time are the people that are remembered. These are the people raid leaders will look for when they want to progress or attempt hard modes.

To put it simply, you should not be content to simply survive the encounter. Dominate the encounter! Do all the tasks assigned to you, stay alive, and do your best to top those meters at the same time.

That sounds great, but how do we do it?

Know thy class
You’ve heard this mantra before, but it’s still the first step to even come close to achieving your potential. If you don’t know your rotations or spell priorities, you’re not going to come close to those who know the most effective techniques. Make sure at least one of your specs is tuned for super DPS. Finding this info for your class isn’t hard. Check out WoWwiki.com. Or the forums at Elitist Jerks has a ton of information if you have the time to sift through it all. For Hunters, I’m working on another article with some of the basics. Stay tuned.

Properly gear yourself
Know what gear is best for your class. Know what hit caps you need and try to maintain them as you gear up. Know what stats your class favors and how they affect your spec. Improving your gear (and thus your DPS) is a game of inches. It’s gonna be rare that you’re going to find some huge upgrade that is going to send your DPS through the roof. As your gear improves, your DPS will improve little by little.

Give a damn
I can’t stress this one enough. Care about your damage. Be proud of it (don’t rub it in other people’s faces though). You should want to be Flasked and Well Fed at all times. Blow money on the mats if you need to. Do it because you care. And for the love of God, enchant and gem ALL your gear. I know you’re just a few emblems away from those new pants and you don’t want to spend the gold or mats on new gems and enchants, but that’s just slacking.

Oh, Hunters? Buy the good shit. You can use vendor ammo when your farming, but when you go into raids, hit ‘em with the hard stuff.

Monitor your DPS
Get an addon like Recount or log your raids with something like World of Logs. Better yet, do both. Sure, watching Recount during encounters can be dangerous. You can fall victim to DPS Tunnel-vision and end up standing in some purple goo that kills you. However, having it there is subtle reminder that your are trying to perform here. It keeps you honest and prevents slacking. You want to be toward the top of that thing. Don’t slack. Flex that epeen! Using a more robust logging tool like World of Logs is great for analyzing the post game. You might find some areas where you could improve.

But… I’m doing all this already.

OK, so you know your class, you’ve got decent gear and it’s enchanted to the gills. You monitor your DPS and compare yourself to others to try and better yourself. You give a damn, you really do. As a result, your DPS is pretty damn good. But somehow you feel you’re still coming up short. You’ll find other raiders that are similarly geared that can still surpass you. You’ve even asked them about their rotations and spec and things seem similar. What do they have that you don’t have?

Craft your UI
This is the big one in my opinion. Efficiency of your actions will help give your DPS the boost it needs. Laying out your User Interface in a way that streamlines your job can really tighten up your game. This isn’t something I can tell you how to do step by step. Everyone plays different and you should customize your UI to what feels comfortable to you. I can give possibly give you some ideas that may at least give ideas of what you can do.

• Using Macros can help you string together some abilities to make them go off together. Using a powerful ability like Rapid Fire and Call of the Wild at the same time can yield some great results. Why not toss any “on use” trinkets you have in there as well. Not only does this allow you to stack abilities to make some big numbers, but you can also take advantage of situations where the boss is susceptible to great damage as well. Using your macro when Icehowl is stunned for example.

  I have some example hunter macros you can modify for your own purposes.

• Addons are great for adding functionality to your UI. Bartender 4 is a great start. It allows you to add move, scale, and even add more action bars on your screen. You can do some great stuff with it.I’m a big fan of Power Auras. There is just so much you can do with them. Time your cooldowns, test for whether debuffs have fallen off your target, check for buffs that you are receiving. While all of these thing are in you buff bar and on your targets debuff bar, there are a lot of shifting little icons that are kinda hard to see when your also trying to watch your feet and not stand in fire. Power Auras allows you to make custom auras that appear over your character when certain conditions are met. This is great for monitoring buffs or debuffs that you care about most. Plus, the auras are iconic and unique, so you don’t need to read a little tag of text. Which could improve your response time. In addition, by placing the auras over your character, you’re able to watch your character and make sure your not standing somewhere where you shouldn’t be.

  I have some example Hunter Power Auras (which are easily importable) you can modify for your own purposes.

• One thing to try is increase your camera distance. By zooming out, you can see more of the things that can hurt you and possibly take action early to avoid them. The code below will, once entered, allow you to zoom out further. While you can’t teach “situational awareness,” zooming out might give you an edge on it.

  /script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",30)

These are merely suggestions that might help you raise your DPS from average to exceptional. You want to out-perform your gear level. In the end, this may help others recognize you as a skilled player who can bring the pain when you need it.

Some of you hunters may have noticed your Call Stabled Pet has a longer cooldown than the 5 minutes listed. How about 25 days!? It’s a bug and Blizzard is aware of it. In the meantime, they offer this fix:

1. Oueue for an Arena Skirmish. To do so, visit any major city and visit the Arena Battlemaster. You do not need to be part of an Arena Team in order to queue for a skirmish.

2. Once the match starts, join it and enter the arena. This will remove the cooldown and allow you to utilize your pets as normal. You do not need to stay until the end of the match and are welcome to leave at any time.

Wow. That’s a hell of a fix. Tried it and it works like a charm though. Hope this bug doesn’t crop up too much till they fix it.

Made a video of our guild’s first Lord Marrowgar kill. We’re coming for you, Arthas!

I still see a lot of hunters looking for groups to go out and kill Chillmaw. This is a shame because for hunters, Chillmaw is fairly easy prey for us.

For those that don’t know, Chillmaw is an elite frost wyrm that is the object of the quest Threat From Above. In order to do the quest, you need to first be a champion of the Argent Tournament. The quest recommends three people. Most likely a tank, a healer, and a DPS.

Hunters have a built in tank in our pet. We can heal that pet via Mend Pet. We certainly have the DPS angle taken care of. We’re like a one man party! So what more do we need?

1. Tanking Pet
Well Chillmaw hits pretty hard for a typical pet. So you definitely want a Tenacity (tanking) pet. My bear, Burger, fills this spot in my stable. Here’s the pet spec I use for him:
» Burger’s Tenacity Spec

You definately want things like Blood of the Rhino as it’ll make healing him easier. Thunderstomp will help gather the adds that Chillmaw drops during the fight. Wild Hunt increases stamina by a lot and Silverback will help heal him as well.

2. Dual Spec
Dual spec? As a hunter? I thought dual spec was just for hybrids?

Dual spec can be just as useful for your hunter as it is for a hybrid class. You can dual spec for raiding and PvP for example. For me, I like to solo stuff when I’m not raiding (I tend to use my raid spec as my PvP spec anyway). So I spec for Beast Mastery with an emphasis on pet survival. Check out this spec:
» Cotar’s BM Pet Tanking Spec

You’ll notice I opted for Endurance Training over Improved Aspect of the Hawk. We’re more concerned with staying alive here rather than maximizing DPS here. We also pick up Catlike Reflexes. Another commonly ignored talent in the BM tree, but pretty good for keeping the pet alive. You be surprised how much damage your pet can take without needing heals at all.

3. Don’t Forget Glyphs
While Bestial Wrath and Serpent Sting are great BM Glyphs, the Glyph of Mending is going to be key to your pet tanking spec. Mend Pet isn’t a great spell by itself, but enhanced by hunter and pet talents and then boosted with this Glyph you can keep a HoT up on your pet that will heal him up like a pro.

4. Gear Check
Depending your gear, you may want to make sure you get some addition buffs on you and your pet. A food buff is easy enough. Pet snacks as well. You may also want to consider Drums of Forgotten Kings, Drums of the Wild, and Runescroll of Fortitude as these are great buffs not available to a solo hunter. Again, if you got good gear, these may be overkill. I use the drums as I’m a leatherworker and typically have them on me anyway.

5. GO GET HIM!
Now your ready to go kill Chillmaw and his pals. Just Misdirect Chillmaw on to your pet and start shooting. I usually cast Bestial Wrath as soon as Chillmaw hits the ground. Save Intimidate for later. Toss up Mend Pet and then hit Rapid Fire to start working his health down quickly.

As the fight progresses, some of the of the Cultist Bombardier’s will start to dismount Chillmaw. If your careful with Multi-Shot, you can keep them on your pet, but chances are you’ll pull healing aggro eventually and have to deal with them. When you start the fight, drop a Freezing Trap at your feet. This will at least take care of one of the adds when he comes to beat on you. The adds also chuck bombs at you. You can see them coming and you can generally avoid them on the ground. Don’t forget to keep Mend Pet up on your pet.

After you freeze one of the cultist, start kiting the rest. Depending on your DPS, Chillmaw should dying pretty soon at this point. When he dies, try to kite your adds back to your pet. Use Intimidate to get the closest add off of you. Then just blast away and kill the adds one at a time.

Playing DPS, Tank, and Healer all at the same time can be a bit of work. So don’t feel bad if you die the first time. It may take a bit to get the hang of it. When your done, you collect your gold and Champion’s Seals all without having to look for a group and wait for them to show up. Not only that, you’ll find you can now solo lots of elite mobs you may have needed a group for before. So pet tanking spec can certainly come in handy for more than just this one encounter. You might also be able to fill in for a tanking certain encounters when you can’t find a proper tank. Tanking Holiday bosses like the Headless Horseman or Coren Direbrew being prime examples.

I shot a video of this in action. I kinda messed up the end, but I thought it was funnier that way.

Have you pet tanked some stuff extreme stuff? I’d love to hear about it. Leave me a comment.

Starting from the top of the patch notes:

Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets.
I guess Onyxia will no longer be knocking our pets around. I don’t think they ever spawned whelps, but either way, good news for pets.

Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
This is a nerf to all forms of AOE, not just Volley. To put it simply, they are capping the amount of damage AOE can do. So I guess no more huge DPS spikes on large AOE Packs.

Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.
Now pets may last 2 seconds instead of 1 in PvP. Seriously though, this is good news for PvP hunters. It’s also good for those Hunter’s that like to solo harder stuff with a pet tank.

Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
Swap pets more often! While this isn’t the great news ever, it does make playing with different pets for different encounters more likely. Maybe try a bear on AOE packs for Thunderstomp and Swipe. Or whip out a Crab for the Faction Champions. Then easily slip back into your Ferocity pet of choice. Fun times.

Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.
This is our own little immunity field now. Now even other hunters can’t hurt us with Deterrence up.

Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
This is the shit. No more will you worry about hitting some low aggro shot and consuming a MD charge. When cause damage to the target, for the next 4 seconds, all aggro will transfer to the tank. That means you want to unload fast! When you’re starting an encounter, try placing an immolation/explosive trap and maybe even a snake trap (Snakes!) at the feet of your tank. Cast MD and when the tank (or you) pulls, even trap damage should count towards his aggro. What’s better, all hunters can do this, not just one. This is probably one of the best changes in the patch for us.

Intimidation: If the hunter’s pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet’s next swing or attack.
Basically it means quicker Intimidation. Which is good if you’re trying to interrupt a spell. Good stuff.

(Pet) Avoidance: This talent has been replaced by Culling the Herd. Hunter pets now innately take 90% less damage from area-of-effect abilities like all other class pets. This does not apply to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
This gives us some more pet talent points to play with and doesn’t take away Avoidance. It does kind of suck for PvP hunters, but hopefully the resilience scaling will make up for this loss.

(Pet) Cower: Redesigned. This ability no longer affects threat, and instead reduces damage taken by the pet by 40% for 6 seconds with a 45-second cooldown. While cowering, the pet’s movement speed is 50% of normal speed. Cower now only has a single rank and is available at pet level 20.
This is a welcome change as cower has been pretty useless for… well, as far as I can tell, forever. Going to be hard to manage it in some fights, but if you know there is a period in a boss fight where damage risks get high, it could be helpful. I see this mostly be useful for Hunters that like to tank with their pets.

(Pet) Culling the Herd: This pet talent has replaced the Avoidance talent in the pet trees (Hunter pets now gain that benefit automatically without expenditure of talent points). Culling the Herd increases pet and hunter damage by 1/2/3% for 10 seconds each time the pet deals a critical strike with Claw, Bite, or Smack.
This is just a straight up buff to hunters. While BM Hunter’s pets crit more often, the duration of the buff should make this good for all hunters.

(Pet) Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes.
This makes your Vultures pets more attractive if someone in the raid isn’t providing this debuff.

(Pet) Improved Cower: Redesigned. This ability now reduces the movement penalty of Cower by 50%/100%.
Not seeing a good reason for taking this, but it complements the new cower well.

Pet Leveling: Hunter pets now need only 5% of the experience a player needs to level, down from 10%.
Getting new pets shouldn’t be as much of a grid anymore.

(Pet) Venom Web Spray: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
(Pet) Web: Range increased from 20 yards to 30 yards.
Mo range. Mo better.

(Pet) Wolverine Bite: This talent is now enabled when the pet lands a critical strike rather than from the target dodging the pet’s attacks. In addition, this talent no longer has a prerequisite.
Damage buff to Cunning Pets.

Also, there were a number of Hunter Bug Fixes:
Concussive Barrage: This ability is no longer subject to spell reflects.
Explosive Trap: The damage from this trap will now scale properly with the hunter’s attack power.
Glyph of Immolation Trap: Now properly increases damage by 100%. In addition, this glyph will now modify the tooltip of Immolation Trap correctly.
Glyph of Mending: This glyph will now modify the amount healed in the tooltip on Mend Pet.
Point of No Escape: It is no longer possible to gain benefit from this talent multiple times by having a target affected by multiple of the same hunter’s traps. In addition, Freezing Arrow will no longer incorrectly provide a critical strike bonus to players beyond the hunter with this talent.
Roar of Sacrifice: Corrected tooltip error.
Silencing Shot: Updated tooltip to include the functionality that this ability also interrupts spellcasting on NPCs.
Volley: The tooltip for this ability will now update properly from haste.

This is mostly just affect playing the Hunter class. There are ton of new changes and additions to the game. I’d suggest giving the full patch notes a read to learn more about Icecrown Citadel, other classes changes, and the new Dungeon Finder.

http://www.megasmack.com/gearing-up-for-progression-raiding/

Happy Raiding!

Enjoy.

Blizzard has done a lot lately to make getting gear much easier. So I thought I’d write a post that would help folks gear up quickly so that they can start working toward progression level raiding. This may be common knowledge for a lot of you, but things change a lot in the game and some of you may not be aware of all of it. So I’m writing this with the idea that if you have a toon at 80 (or nearing 80) and you’d like give raiding a try, this might be a helpful read that will get you ready for it… at least from a gear point of view.

Item Level
All gear has item levels (you can actually see it if you turn it on in your interface options). Level 80 Epics start at Item Level 200 (some blues are 200 as well), but not all epics are created equal. Currently Item Level goes all the way 258. Different levels of items drop from different instances.

Item Levels for Dungeons and Raids:

5 Heroics: 200
5 Heroic Trial of Champion: 219
10 Man Naxx: 200 (KT drops 213)
25 Man Naxx: 213 (KT drops 226)
10 Malygos: 213
25 Malygos: 226
10 Sartharion: 200 (2 Drakes Up drops additional 213)
25 Sartharion: 213 (2 Drakes Up drops additional 226)
10 Ulduar: 219 (hard mode goes up to 226)
25 Ulduar: 226 (some weapons are 232, hard mode goes up to 239)
10 Trial of Crusader: 232
10 Heroic Trial of Crusader: 245
25 Trial of Crusader: 245
25 Heroic Trial of Crusader: 258

If you’re a fresh 80 and you have limited play time and are looking for a “good loot to time spent” ratio here’s the path I’d recommend.

Step 1
Start running Heroics.  This step hasn’t changed really.  Except now heroics drop Emblems of Conquest. You can buy two pieces of T8.5 Gear (Item Level 226) with those emblems.  With two-piece bonuses, those are likely to be your strongest pieces out of the gate. There are many other 226 level pieces you can buy with emblems as well.  Plus you can grab what ever 200 level gear you can get and replace those blues and greens.  Try to run Heroic 5 ToC whenever you can.  It drops Ulduar 10 equivalent gear. Also, try and hit the daily heroic when you run 5 mans.  The Emblems of Triumph will help your raiding career later.

Step 2
Run VoA whenever you can. Aside from dropping decent PvP gear, the bosses drop a random piece of Tier gear.  You may get lucky and these raids are generally fast and fairly easy. So if you see one of these forming up, jump in.

Running Naxx, Malygos, and Sarth doesn’t hurt, but there are potentially better ways to spend your time. Even Ulduar 10 man isn’t as important as you can get a lot of high level stuff elsewhere. So if your time is limited, I’d at least avoid Naxx.  It can be a lot of work that you could be spending getting badges more readily from 5 mans. Which should be far less frustrating to run.

Malygos is pretty quick and drops decent gear, so it wouldn’t hurt. Sarth can seem quick, but he has a fair bit of trash.  These are still great instances to run for raid experience and achievements. You’ll cut you’re raiding chops in places like Naxx, OS, and Malygos. Same thing with Ulduar 10.  The Item Level may be lower, but the experience there will help you in Ulduar 25. Which is where you really want to be.

Step 3
Once you’ve replace a lot of you’re early gear with 213 or higher, hit up Ulduar 25. This is where you’re likely to start finding serious progression raiding gear.  If you’ve grabbed a lot of Heroic 5 ToC gear and got your two pieces of T8.5 gear, you should be in a good position to start working this place and maybe pick up some more T8.5. You may also want to start thinking about Normal 10 ToC toward the end of this step.

Step 4
If you’re wearing a bunch of 226 level gear, it’s time to start looking seriously at Trial of Crusader. This is where progression raiding is at right now. And the place is no joke. This is where gear and skill really come into play.  Be prepared to learn, adjust, and wipe a lot.  If you’re not into spending a night wiping and no loot to show for it at the end of day, then progression raiding is not for you. However, if you love to keeping trying and get off on the rush you get when you finally down a new boss for the first time, then this is it!

While given enough Ulduar level gear and enough skill, it’s probably reasonable to assume you can do well in Normal 10 ToC, Heroic 10 ToC, and Normal 25 ToC. But chances are, you’ll want to grab gear out of Normal 10 ToC in order to do well in Heroic 10 ToC and Normal 25 ToC. Skill is most important, but gear can make things easier. More health means you’re easier to heal. More healing power makes healing easier. More DPS makes encounters quicker and shortens the time the raid is in danger (plus there are those pesky enrage timers).

Given that you need to beat the normal modes of ToC before you can attempt the Heroic versions, that’s a good measure of where you should be.  My guess is you’ll want some of the 245 level gear to be able to hit Heroic 25 ToC.  Again, progression.

Step 5
The goal of this is not only to see this content, but prepare for content to come. Is there anyone here that DOESN’T want to fight Arthas in Icecrown? I’m guessing he’s going to require some serious skill and gear to get down. So start workin’ it!

Battle on heroes!