Saturday, September 4, 2010

Serpent Sting in Cataclysm

It looks like Serpent Sting is going to play a major role for survival hunters in Cataclysm. With the first tier talent Improved Serpent Sting, the fifth tier talent Noxious Stings, and the sixth tier Serpent Spread survival hunters are going to be great for AoE. While AoE isn't going to be as prevalent as in Wrath of the Lich King, it will still play a big role in dealing with adds from bosses. Now that Multi-Shot has no maximum number of targets, Serpent Spread will will apply 6/9 seconds of your serpent sting to any targets hit by your Multi-Shot.

Here is a thread on MMO Champion with some beta testers who have tested out this new combination.

Hyolith

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Preparing to Raid

Preparing for raids:
Step 1: Know the damn tactics
Step 2: Come prepared, all your gear is properly gemmed and enchanted, you have enough flasks and statfood for the entire raid (and then some) without relying on someone to drop fish feasts for you all night long, you have enough ammo with you to last you well over one raid, you have enough food and drink to last you the entire night if there is no mage and your gear better be repaired and at 100%.
Step 3: Know your limits, don't try to get into raids you can't handle dps wise.
You might get some fat loot there, but you'll also make a bad impression on the raid.
Making a good impression and building a good reputation for yourself will get you much further.
Step 4: ASK QUESTIONS. really, you'll make a much better impression on people by saying "Hey, I haven't done this boss before. I know all the strats but could you give me a quick run through of how you do the fight?" than by keeping quiet and @#%^ing up or performing badly.

There's a few key elements that make you an awesome raider.
And suprisingly (*cough*NOT*cough*) is that it's all between your ears.
Use your brain, learn from your mistakes, pay attention to your surroundings.
Don't stand in the fire for 2 seconds, know that it can come and be prepared to run out (run, don't jump! jumping can cause WoW to think you're at the place you jumped from until you land making you take extra ticks of damage).
Being able to not @#%^ up is a massive part of being a good raider.

It's a normal thing for everyone to mess up from time to time, it happens and if you're unlucky it even wipes your raid.
No big deal, as long as you're man (or woman) enough to admit that you made a mistake and smart enough to learn from it.

Another thing you need to do is have vent/ts and a microphone.
Announce when things happen to you that changes how people interact with you.
Do you need extra healing? did you mess up and need someone to cover you in whatever you had to do? are you taking over for someone because they can't make it? need to do something people need to react to? SAY SO!

But your guildies don't have/use microphones? so @#%^ing what, you can.
You can't use it for another reason? find a way to fix that.
You don't have a mic? they're only $5 for a cheap one, no point not having one.
You're afraid to talk over vent/ts? stop being shy and just talk, people won't hate you for it.
Even if your voice is annoying as hell they'll appreciate the communication.
 (Written by Aethien from Allakhazam)
 I just wanted to point this bit of information out. It's really good for anyone to read over and learn. This will help speed up the learning curve for hunters and raiding. If you follow these steps it will surely help out your ability, confidence, and your raid.

Hyolith

Pet of the Week 9/2

Today's pet of the week is a carrion bird, the two headed white vulture. While a menacing yet elegant creature this bird can provide some essential benefits to the owner. First being demoralizing screech, which reduces nearby targets attack power. The other is that this carrion bird can't be effected by frost trap or sleep effects.

This pet is tamable in Terrokar Forest by the name of Trachela located on Carrion Hill.

So go out and catch your two headed white vulture today!

Hyolith

Latest Hunter Changes

With the new build for Cataclysm comes some interesting new changes to hunters.

Beast Mastery

* Viper Venom and Scorpid Venom seems to be gone.
* Widow Venom no longer mentions "Only one Venom per Hunter can be active on any one target.", I guess the 2 previous venoms are indeed gone.
* Focus Fire now has a 15 sec cooldown. Down from 30 sec.
* Improved Kill Command now Increases the critical strike chance of your Kill Command by 5/10% instead of reducing its cooldown.


Marksmanship

* Kill Shot now deals 150% weapon damage (down from 200%) and scales with 30% of your Attack Power (down from 40%). Base damage reduced by 50%. Cooldown increased from 6 sec to 10 sec. Focus cost removed.
* Multi-Shot - Fires several missiles, hitting your current target and all enemies within yards of that target for x% of weapon damage. / 40 Focus, 5-35 yd range, Instant
* Aimed Shot no longer deals 300% of weapon damage, now deals [ 40% of RAP + 681 ] damage. Cast time increased from 2 sec to 3 sec.
* Arcane Shot base damage reduced by 60%, now scales from 19% of Attack Power, up from 17%.
* Chimera Shot no longer deals 190% weapon damage, now deals [ 24% of RAP + 401 ].


Survival

* Serpent Spread - Targets hit by your Multi-Shot are also afflicted by your Serpent Sting equal to 6/9 sec of its total duration.
* Point of No Escape no longer affects Freezing Arrow.
 O-Boards
There has been a lot of discussion all around about these changes. Some people are saying they are good and that some are buffs, but a lot of people are complaining that there are a lot of nerfs to hunters in this build.

A few of the biggest concerns are the loss of Viper and Scorpid Venom. This is a pretty big hit to hunters and pvp. Another hit has come from the dmg reduction of Aimed Shot. According to some people aimed shot was critting (self buffed) for about 30k. They also increased the cast time of aimed shot by 1 sec. Kill Shot also had its damage reduced and its cooldown lengthened but it now requires so focus cost which could really help for that last 20% of a boss.

A lot of the hunters shots are being changed from base damage to a percentage of their ranged attack power. There is no real calculation yet as to whether this is actually a nerf or a buff, but we can all assume it's a nerf with the damage that has been reported from beta.

Everyone needs to remember that it's still really early in the beta process and that things can and will change by the time Cataclysm is released. Blizzard is working hard to balance classes and things should be cleared up by release.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Want to be a writer?

I know this site is very new and still trying to get started in articles and the look and feel but I would like to recruit someone to help write articles.

The position in the beginning will be for a "contributor" meaning that you can write articles that will have to be approved by me before being published. Eventually being able to move up to author and be able to publish your own articles. This is just something to do for fun with no incentives right now.

I would prefer someone with the cataclysm beta to write articles about the progress of hunters in beta. If you are interested in this position please leave a comment with a little info about your knowledge of hunters and if you have been invited to the beta or not and I will get back to you.

Or please email me at landoforcs@gmail.com

Thanks for anyone interested

Tame an Oil Stained Wolf

Look here!

Zeilla8 on the MMO Champion forums has found a way to tame those Oil Stained Wolves in BT while also keeping the oil stained color. Unfortunately these can only be tamed as allies or with the help of an allie friend. This is also in live so it can be done immediately!





Here is the video she posted





This is all from the MMO Champion Hunter Forums found here

So go out and catch your oil stained wolf allies.

Hyolith

Multi-Shot Change

Our current version of Multi-Shot has not target cap. It's a little like Fan of Knives.
This definitely makes up for not having volley. With the changes already to Multi-Shot with having no cooldown and not sharing a cooldown with Aimed Shot, this could potentially add Multi-Shot to a rotation,
with the MM talent
Bombardment
When you critically hit with your Multi-Shot your next Multi-Shot's focus cost will be reduced by 25/50%.
And the SV spell
Serpent Spread
Targets hit by your Multi-Shot are also inflicted by your Serpent Sting equal to 30/60% of its total duration.
This should still allow hunters to feel they have some sort of AoE even if it won't be as relevent as it has been in WotLK.


Hyolith

Possible Talent Builds

I've been playing around with the talent trees at WoWTal. I believe some of these builds could be possible candidates for end game play in Cataclysm.

First off is a BM PvE build (first 31 points)



I believe this will be pretty much the standard BM PvE build. It incorporates all the DPS talents will also including a little survivability with Spirit Bond. It can easily be changed around to get Improved Mend Pet if your pet has a problem surviving. This still gives 10 point to put into the other trees.

The MM PvE build (first 31 points)



This will probably be the basic cookie cutter build for the first 31 points in a MM build. If Cataclysm goes back to the roots of CC then you will see end game builds with points in Silencing Shot and Concussive Barrage. Resistance is Futile could be a good talent if it has a chance to proc anytime the target simply moves. If anyone has any information on that, that would be great. Unless a lot of adds spawn on end game raid bosses I don't see Rapid Killing being all that useful. The 4 talents that has not been chosen are all situational.

The SV PvE build (first 31 points)



This seems like a really solid foundation for a SV build. The only problem I'm seeing in these first 32 points are Hunter vs. Wild and Point of No Escape. Since Hunter vs. Wild has been changed around and does not increase AP for stamina, that makes Hunter vs. Wild a survivability talent with no dps increase. Point of No Escape would be good in conjunction with Trap Launcher to throw out a frost trap and receive the crit increase, but frost trap offers no dps increase and you would be wasting a GCD and 30 focus. So if the 6% increase in crit outweighs the cost of trap launcher and the GCD then it will be worth it.

I've only taken a look at the first 31 point builds. With the exception of SV which I used 32. These are all pretty solid starts to each of these talent trees. The final 9-10 points will of course most likely be spread across the other trees.

Some excellent talents that should be grabbed after finishing a tree would be:

BM: Improved Kill Command, One With Nature
MM: Efficiency
SV: Improved Tracking, Improved Serpent Sting

I hope this gives a little bit of an insight on the new talent trees and some builds in Cataclysm.

Hyolith

Flashback! Thor'idal the Stars' Fury

Thor'idal the Stars' Fury



I'm sure most of us all recognize this legendary item. The hunter item of all hunter items from "The Burning Crusade." If you are new and don't recognize this item, this is the legendary bow from Kil'jaeden in Sunwell Plateau. While I never had the chance to play this raid at level 70, I started about 2 months before the release of "Wrath of the Lich King." I did have the opportunity of running SWP right when I hit 80. I was excited because this was my first raid ever in WoW and was dying to have this bow in my inventory. Since this was a pug raid we struggled on a few bosses but eventually got it done and arrived at Kil'jaeden.



Excited and hoping to replace my green bow we start the fight. Dead, we finish him off in one attempt and lo and behold. The bow of all bows from BC drops. Hunters rejoice, rogues and warriors get all uppity hoping it might be a free roll for them. Luckily the raid leader was nice enough to make it a hunter roll only. Three hunters total, including me...we roll, first ones a 10, sweet, I still have a chance. I roll, 43, not the best but one more left, 54...Ouch! I was very disappointed that I did not win this amazing item.

So, my first time ever to experience SWP the legendary bow drops. I unfortunately did not win, but it was a fun experience none the less. So, in conclusion, hunters look back and think about the memories of SWP and possibly setting your eyes upon this masterpiece. With the new expansion comes new opportunities and better weapons but we can all look back and remember the old days.

Account Security

At the Allakhazam forums that I am a member of, I see a lot of threads about potential scams and compromised accounts. I would like to post some helpful tips and software that you can use to help secure your investment into WoW.

1. Use an authenticator! Here for users in the US, and here for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America.



This little device that only costs $6.50 can save you a whole lot of hassle if anyone attempts to compromise your account. The authenticator adds an extra level of protection to your account by forcing the user to enter a 6 digit number into their account upon log in to either the game, battle.net, or the official forum boards. The numbers generated are specific to the S/N associated with that authenticator. The numbers are also timed and will change approximately one minute after being generated.

2. Be careful of what sites you visit. As some people have said, "if it's too good to be true, then you probably shouldn't do it." Most scammers get people by telling them they can earn an awesome item if they just click and enter their information. Pretty much the only way an item or reward would be given out through blizzard or anyone else would be from a contest. If you are not being directed to a offical blizzard website or a forum board that you know and trust, chances are you will be scammed. Plus, Blizzard nor will forum boards ever ask for your WoW account information.

3. Watch out for scam emails. A lot of scam emails will tell you that something is wrong with your account and that to need to visit some website to verify everything is ok. NEVER click on any link, or give anyone your information without first checking it's authenticity. First, Blizzard will never ask for your information, if they ask you for your account information that's a dead give away that it's fake. Second, check to make sure they links are sending you to where they say they are. If you hover over the link it should tell you the location it will send you, unless the scammer has masked the link info. Finally, if you have any doubt, call customer support. If there is in fact anything wrong with your account they will be able to tell you.

4. Look into protection your computer with anti-virus software such as, Avast!, AVG Free, and more. You can also get some free software that will scan your computer for any harmful components such as Malware Bytes, Ad-Aware, and more. Running these programs can greatly decrease your risk of having unwanted programs and files being installed onto your computer.

With these tips and software I hope you are able to secure your account and your computer to provide for more worry free play.

Helpful Tools for Calculating DPS

Most of you probably know these tools, but some people looking to better themselves might not have discovered them yet. I'm talking about DPS tools such as FemaleDwarf and Shandara's Spreadsheet that can be downloaded from the Elitist Jerks site.

These tools are extremely useful when trying to determine your DPS. They allow you to import your gear and talents from the offical armory. You can change your gear around if you think another piece might be better to check what it does to your DPS along with being able to change gems and enchants. This is very useful if you decide to go from AGI to ArP. You can also physically change your rotation around to determine the best possible rotation.

Here is an excellent guide on how to get started using FemaleDwarf.

And here is an excellent guide for using Shandara's Spreadsheet.

Hunter Macros and You

I would like to share some simple hunter macros with you. I wrote a thread on this on the Allakhazam Forums which you can view here. These are simple to use and easy to create. All you need to do is type /m on your chat bar and it will open up the macro window. Type the name you want and choose a symbol or leave it as a ? and the #showtooltip will do the rest. Then just type in the code and apply the macro to your hot bar or hotkey.

The All-in-One Pet
#showtooltip
/cast [combat] Heart of the Phoenix
/cast [nopet, modifier:ctrl] Revive Pet
/cast [nopet] Call Pet; [target=pet, dead] Revive Pet
/castsequence [pet, nomodifier, button:1] reset=15 Mend Pet, null
This is a very simple macro to use and can be altered anyway you would like. The tooltip shows Call Pet, at least for me, but you could add Mend Pet or whatever you like to see. If your pet is dead and you are in combat it will cast Heart of the Phoenix. If your pet is dead and not targetable you will need to hold down a modifier, in this case ctrl and it will revive your pet. If it not out and alive it will call it, if it is targetable and dead then it will cast Revive Pet, lastly it will Mend Pet if it's alive and out the reset is at 15 so that you're not wasting mana overlapping mends.

Aspect Switching
#showtooltip Aspect of the Dragonhawk
/castsquence !Aspect of the Dragonhawk, Aspect of the Viper

Now I know there are addons that will do this for you but I like to save memory and just simply press my hotkey. Simply put, it will cast Aspect of the Dragonhawk if not already cast. It will cast Aspect of the Viper on the second click, and clicking again will put Aspect of the Dragonhawk back on. I have had some problems in raids where when needing to go into Viper it would either cast Dragonhawk again or cancel them, but this should work just fine.

Misdirection
#showtooltip Misdirection
/focus [modifier:ctrl] target
/stopmacro [modifier:alt]
/cast [target=focus, help] Misdirection; [target=pet] Misdirection
I find this misdirection very simple and easy to follow and prevents people from having to go into /m and altering a tanks name every time they need to MD. Simple to use, click your target and hold the modifier and click, this will set focus to your target and cast MD onto them. If you don't hold the modifier it will cast MD onto your pet.

Hunter Buffs
#showtooltip Rapid Fire
/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Berserking
/cast Readiness
/use 13
/use 14
I know some people will do this a lot differently than I have right now, wanting to save their Readiness and such for a specific time like BL or Heroism. This is for a troll hunter but could remove the /cast berserking and leave Rapid Fire and Readiness. Trinkets are added to the end with the /use 13, and /use 14 line respectively. This sort of "all out" macro can easily be adjusted to the persons tastes to maximize cooldowns.

Hunter's Mark
#showtooltip
/stopmacro [noexists]
/cast Hunter's Mark
/run for i=1,GetNumTrackingTypes() do local n, t, a, c = GetTrackingInfo(i); if string.find(n, UnitCreatureType("target")) then if t~=GetTrackingTexture(i) then SetTracking(i); end end end
This was supposed to be an auto tracking Hunter's Mark macro. It works perfectly in a solo situation but I can not seem to get it to work while in a raid. You don't need to specifically track the target to get the bonus damage anymore, but sometimes it helps to track what you want to be killing. If you are in a solo situation you can add /petattack at the end so when you cast hunter's mark your pet will be on his way.

Steady Shot
Quote:
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast !Auto shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/cast Silencing Shot
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
This is a steady shot macro with silencing shot in it. You can macro silencing shot into any of your shots to make sure whenever it's off cooldown that it will be used right away. Since silencing shot is not on the GCD it will be shot and you will also begin to cast Steady Shot. Also if your pet is alive and has a target it will use Kill Command. Some people like to save Kill Command I always just go ahead and use it when it comes up. When Cataclysm comes out you won't want to macro silencing shot to anything anymore, it won't do any damage anymore and will strictly be situational.

Pet of the Week

I would like to start a weekly segment called "Pet of the Week." Every week I will pick out a cool looking pet to be the pet of the week.

This weeks winner is:



The Grey Bone Spider! They can be found in game under the name of Carrion Fleshstripper and Necrotic Webspinner from Icecrown and the Rare Elite Terror Spinner found in Zul'Drak.

Spiders are a very popular pet for those in pvp with their web ability and if you are like me you like to have a good looking pet by your side to help defeat your foes. Simply put the grey bone spider is a menacing looking creature and something I wouldn't want to find in my house either!

Hunter's Power Aura Icons



(Source MMO-Champion)

Blizzard has decided to implement their own "power auras" into World of Warcraft. These are the icons that will be used for hunters when one of their spells procs.

If you don't know how Power Auras works, it has an icon that shows up, usually around your character when a spell procs. This allows the player to not have to focus on their buff bar to determine if a spell has procced. Power Auras has become a very popular add on for raiders and will definitely help players out in Cataclysm.

Volley is Gone!!


Volley removed from the game

(And of course when I don't report a missing skill because I think it's a bug, it's actually gone for real)
It's gone. We want to make Multi-Shot the spell hunters use for AE.

Channeling a spell that makes arrows fall out of the sky doesn't feel like a hunter ability and doesn't even really match the name of the spell.

(Source MMO Champion)
Welp, the best and almost only AoE hunter spell has been removed from game starting in Cataclysm. While volley being gone is nothing game breaking, nor will it drastically effect pvp or pve it was still a fun move for hunters to use when soloing or power leveling characters in lower instances. Or having fun looking at your dps go to 25k during trash pulls in ICC.

Welcome to Land of Orc's

I would like to welcome you to Land of Orc's a site designated to providing information about the hunter class in the popular mmo World of Warcraft. I will try to provide all kinds of useful information from pvping, raiding, macros, pets, addons, and more.
My name is Hyolith, I am the owner of this site and I hope you find this information useful and would like to welcome you.