The Engineering Ultimatum

Engineering so far is going extreamly smoothley, i have been lucky enough to of had alot of support from a good freind (and our Guild-Leader) to level it up at mimimal cost, i am only at 278 at the moment but seeing as i have only spent about 2hours working for the skill points enduring the Arena, Dailiy and Daily Trial of the Champion to try and get my Marrowstrike (which i have not seen drop once yet by the way) is a pretty good skill-up rate. but now i am knocking on the door of 300 Engineering i simply cannot decied between the Gnomish or the Goblin routes so its time for a little pro's/Con's List

Pro's Gnomish------ Pro's Goblin

Gnomish detah----- ray Rocket Launcher
World Enlarger-----Seforium Charge
X-ray goggles?----- Global Sapper Seforium Sapper Charge!

i suppose the thing to decied from is that Gnomish is alot more fun and light-hearted while Goblin is all about blowing stuff up! and i like the blowing stuff up part. i have always thought about going Goblin Engineering but now the time has come to actually make a choice i really cant decied. i think i will end up going Goblin simply for the Global Sapper Seforium Sapper Charge having this to help blow-up doorway's and siege vehicles etc would be very usefull, not to mention it also hurts players (and myself i think) aswell, i think i'm going to go for goblin, seeing as they are all about blowing stuff up but with a few more usefull additions than the gnomish....X-Ray spec!....woo...naked people?

Goblin i think it is.

The 3v3 Challenge, and 2v2 Addition.

So this season i am determined to try the arena out alot more seriously in both 2v2 and 3v3 (possibley 5v5) so this means as many games per-week as i can muster with my partners.

now seeing as 2v2 has lost alot of ''meaning'' i have turned to 3v3 and i must say it is alot more fun, especially when we get our CC rotations spot on, and comsidering me and my team mates have only done 31 matches together, it went pretty darn well alot of the matches we lost where down to focusing the wrong target, and generally getting used to our tactics, i must say both guys are great fun to arena-with and i'm looking forward to getting back to bussiness!

we went 18-13 (58% win rate) i reckon we could of gone 22-9 if we was expecting some things the teams where going to throw at us.

----

Meanwhile in 2v2 i added a new addition to our team a druid (Trueomega) the one that is also in the 3v3 team. trebreh seemed ok with the addition which is what i was hoping for.

we went 16-14 which is good, but if we didnt hit all the Priest + Rogue teams we would of got a
better ratio, either way a good second week never the less!

Friday/Saturday/Sunday will be time for some more 3v3 and alot of 2v2 with Trebreh.

Wish us luck!!

The Engineering Factor

So, while im working on my PvP movie i've been trying to figure out how to make it more fun to watch, and the thing that springs to my mind is the one and only profession, Engineering!

Parachutes
Rocket Boots
Pyro Rockets
Bots
Random stuff
Wormholes
Planes
Bullets
Random stuff
Useless Stuff
SEaforium Bombs (Goblin)
Bombs
More Explosions
Coloured Explosions
Sheep


.. you get the picture, i will be training Engineering, oh and a teaser for my PvP movie will be posted within the week

The Mammoth Conga Line....Literrally!

So there i was minding my own bussiness gemming my new helm to get the most out of it and suddenly all these Mammoths went past in a conga line, i thought ''What the hell!?'' but it just appears that this was a RP event on our realm, and what a fun one it was!

this Screen shot i shall post is near the middle, there was alot more, stretching nearly the circuit of Dalaran;

Double Wammy!

I couldnt beleive my luck last night first of all i ran The Culling of Stratholme with a pug, lost a roll on the bronze drake, now i didnt mind but the guy who won decided that i would put it to alot more use simply as he hasnt got epic flying yet, now i had no problem with loosing the roll or Kernal taking it but never-the-less he wanted me to have it so just wanted to say a big thanks for that, i really appreciate it, and i owe you a drake Kernal!


now secondly i went into herioc Trial of the Champion and to my disapointment they where allready on the Black Knight but as i was only going for the gun i thought i may-aswell stick it out and they where another nice bunch, 2 of them was from CORE the top-rated PvE Progression guild on my server Darkmoonfaire and come the end of the fight i could not beleive my luck, the gun dropped! i was the only one who the gun and it was safely in my hands, not a tremendous upgrade but it will definatly make a difference, plus it looks awesome.




items left on my wish list;

Banner of Victory from normal Trial of the Champion
Marrowstrike from Herioc Trial of the Champion
and any Conquest Badge Gear upgrades

My favourte PvP changes for 3.2

I am very, very suprised to find that Kill Shot's ''melee range'' buff on the PTR made it into the live version of 3.2 new Tooltip, notice the minimum range has been removed it used to read
5-45 yd range;

Kill Shot	Rank 1

7% of base mana	45 yd range

Instant cast	15 sec cooldown

Requires Ranged Weapon
You attempt to finish the wounded target off, firing a long range attack dealing 200% weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.40 + 410]. Kill Shot can only be used on enemies that have 20% or less health.

Source: WoWhead Clicky

its very nice to see hunters have a buff like this in PvP so now when players get low on HP and increase there efforts to hug you with that black arrow or immo trap ticking away and your shots here and there while there healer is silenced, stunned, sleept or froze then its bye-bye to the low HP melee hugger, there technique has just gone flying out of the window as now kill Shot can be performed at point blank melee range, there going down!!


Also the Glyph of Freezing trap has had a much revised effect, and here it is;

Glyph of Freezing Trap
Major Glyph
Classes: Hunter
Requires Level 20
Item Level 25Use: When your Freezing Trap breaks, the victim's
movement speed is reduced by 30% for 4 seconds

Source: WoWhead Clicky

Armor Pen (AkA: ArP)

I've had alot of hunters asking me latley

''when should i change to marksman''

''should i go MM or Surv at 8O''

''Should i stack ArP as Surv''

Needless to say im fed up with explaining the whole Hunter + ArP situation so here goes;

For end game raiding marksman is best (T8.5 and/or some BiS gear. Ulduar and above.).

As Survival you should:

1. Stack agility + Crit
2. 30% crit is deemed to be a ''good'' amount to stop stacking it at, most i know try to get 35% (even 30% would put you over 41% fully raid buffed in a well balanced group)
3. you can never have enough Aglility (Always stack agility over Attack power as survival)

General Rule of Thumb: Stack agility + crit until about 30% then continue stacking and enchanting Agility.



As marksmann you should get:

1. 569 armor penetration + Mjolnir Runestone (662 arp at proc) so you can hit 1232 arp at proc (99,95%)
2. 620 armor penetration + Grim Tool (612 arp at proc) so you can hit 1232 arp at proc

After 569/620 arp from gear you should stack agility again...

General Rule of Thumb: at about 600 ArP it is about time to switch over to Marksman, this at the moment is only from high end T8.5 + and some BiS (best in slot) gear.


one last thing the hit cap is 8% (about 243 or 263 if i remember correctly) make sure you get this.

The Arena PvP Situation

Now that me and my 2v2 partner have been working together for a while we can now hold our own against any-team though sadly it seems very hard for us to break through and stay above that 1500 barrier for very long, and withthe changes to the reward system in 3.2 i think its time to get a 5v5 team together, now ideally my 2v2 partner will be included in it as he is my first choice of healer over anyone so we'll see whathe says im sure it will be a yes though, as for the rest of the team i want these classes. (note: fulle team list)


Hunter: Dothias (me)




Paladin: (Trebreh, Existing 2v2 Partner)




Druid: (Unknown Player)




Priest: (Unkown, though perhaps my old freind Ciraman)




Shaman: (Unknown Player)





If there is anyone on Darkmoon Faire that wish's to partak please contact me.

Ghostcrawler on hunter PvP

This thread is an extreamly interesting and well thought out one, Ghostcrawler seems to understand exactly what it is the hunter needs within this thread and has explained the players mentality perfectly, so i just thought i would bring this to your attention, its a good thread and worth a read;

MMO Champion Thread Link

My top 3 Machinima Video's

hands down this video is by far the best and most seemless i have watched.

No. 1) The Craft of War: Blind


in the second spot is one which i thought the story was very strong and the video again was pretty darned good

No. 2) Divided Soul

in number 3 is one that i think will take over No.1 for me when it is released, and i hope its soon!

no.3 ) The Hunt

Word of the week #2

so the word i have been using this week alot is:

''Shazam!''

so there you have it my random and kind of...camp word for the week, but none the less its the word of the week.

PvP Changes for 3.2

I've just had a look at the 3.2 changes to hunters and some look very intreaging;

detterence

finally it gets a 360* effect this change is long overdue in my opinion and its about time they put this in.

Traps

The change looks very nice but however I understand that they all trigger global cooldowns so its instantly not as nice, they should have there own global like our aspects this would make them a lot more fommidable and overall more usefull especially on the CC front.

a glyphed immo trap with 100% increased damage is going to be very fun! Cant wait to finally use this glyph again, let's hope they don't change it although sadly I am expecting them to.

Kill shot

After playing on the test realms this shot now has no minimum range but this is not in the patch notes so I am guessing this is a bug though the tooltip suggests otherwise so let's hope! This would give melee something more to think about when there low on hp and zerging us down or trying to.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The Mysterious Ban....

(22/07/09) - Update: so the reason for the Guild forum being down is quite bluntly that our hoster hasnt paid his bill to the server side people so theyve pulled the plug, and unfortuantly i cant get onto out ''Temp'' forum well that sucks but at least its a better answer than i feared.




I had a lovley suprise when i tried to log onto my Guild (The Regiment of Stormwind) a few moments ago, it appears i have been banned from the forum, this comes as very strange news to me, i shall be logging onto WoW tonight for the first time in what feel's like absolutley ages (just over 2 and a half weeks now) so i shall get to the bottom of it tonight. i do hope though that we have not disbanded.

I'll cross my fingers and i shall update tonight.

Now from my blackberry

So I am now able to blog from my blackberry so expect some posts full of theories, thoughts and a few nutty ideas!

By the way my blog has been quiet since I have been on a holiday and sorting out a new car but now that's done its time to get back to WoW and blogging!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Caging the Beast

So just as the title says, i am now Caging the beast, i did try BM and while it was fun it just simply wasnt for me my heart definatly lies with Survival closely followed by Marksmanship.


the good news is we have gone 15-3 this week in the arena. now it's time to rock the 3v3.

Unleashing the Beast Within

Last week in the arena me and my partner faced alot of rogues, deathknights and druids. now actually taking one of these people down isnt that hard as long as you manage to get a good nuke set up but the teams we where playing where obviously aware of this as the healer's and dps alike hugged there post extreamly well. so did we i might add but anyway streight to the point;

we where getting beat just as much as where winning but 9/10 times that we lost it was because my nuke was interuppted by a movement imparring effect, a fear or otherwise so this week if we face the same type of teams again i will be going for BM to see how this works, thus Unleashing my inner beast on anything in our way.

so i have come up with this Beast Master Spec

its more or less a hybrid, my pet should have in theory very good damage especially along with me nuking aswell also the reason i have taken scatter shot is beacause i think its extreamly usefully to help you survive a nuke when your partner is CC'ed though if it is not much use then i will go with this other spec here or if i see there's no point in taking anything from Survival this one

the last one will work alot better for nuking but the first one i think alot better for survival, so now its time to test it out.

I've considered trying BM for a while now and the simple fact is that longetivity and the glyph gives it a very, very viable cooldown time of 46seconds. the only thing left to try would be readiness in there for 2x traps, this may actually work even better than the scatter shot idea i have. though scatter is much better for fear/cyclone/heal interupts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Longevity - Reduces the cooldown of your Bestial Wrath, Intimidation and Pet Special Abilities by 10/20/30%"

"* Glyph of Bestial Wrath - Decreases the cooldown of Bestial Wrath by 20 sec."

120*0.7=84, 84-20=64s, 64-18 (time that TBW is active)=46 seconds of downtime between Bestial Wrath/The Beast Within abilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Mage that would not die, i even asked nicely.

Me, and my two partners and freinds where playing some 3v3 the other night in the Arena and we thought we had this team in the bag when some one we all ready had killed popped back up to life, we all thought we miss-read that the mage died then it happend again and again and again, in the end i Frapsed the oddity it mind boggled me.





later we found out it was this card that brought her back to life:

Darkmoon Card: Twisting Nether

for the record: We beat the team in the end

The Marskman Verdict

A little while ago i put up this link to a new build i was going to try in PvP;

Dothia's Marksman PvP Spec V1.0

after some trials with this i was absolutley loving the disarm(s) i could do on players expecially the rogue's and Death knights and to some degree Paladins though as always if you keep your distence there not especially hard to take down in a fight (Arena's are a little different offcourse) for the Disarm effect and some extra damage on Chimera shot i was using this macro;

/Cast Scorpid Sting!
/Cast Chimera Shot
/Cast Serpent Sting

this immediatly applies Serpent after the Chimera/Scorpid so to keep a dot up in conjunction with the piercing wounds idea while continuing with the usual Aimed/Tranquilizing Shot/Arcane/Chimera Rotation . i have not used a /castsequence as sometimes these can break or get stuck.

but simply put whilst i was putting out some good DPS it just wasnt the same Burst that survival gave to you when you timed everything for a player burn(aka nuke) this i found wasnt a problem in Battlegrounds or duels as everything you had at your disposal as a marksman was somewhat more usefull than survival was but in arena this quickly changed although i had the Readiness ability to use streight after a set-up player burn it just wasnt enough and that 1.5second cooldown you get after using readiness is somewhat....anoying for instence that 1.5seconds resulted in us not burning down a player while our CC's where all on cooldown and the opposition just getting a heal in the nick of time while kill-shot was on route

sadly put: Marksman is missing its Viper Sting in my opinion for the mana drain game set-up if Viper Sting wasnt hit with some of blizzards inspired changes i think Marskman this patch may of had more success than Survival 2x detterence's and 1x hand of protection (i think thats the one pala's use on the freindly target? ) is one mean combination of damage mitigation.

The GIANT Squire!

yup, thats right i was not happy with my little Squire so i made him eat his green's for 2days and now behold the mighty giant squire!

i call him Gigantuar.




after this i couldnt resist making my orphan do the same, i call him Big Orph.

A thank you.

I would just like to say a big thank you to Saphirestar for the very nice complmentary Blog post!

and to the nice comments have now recieved *smiles* on answering one, aye i did try Ulduar dude, we had a massive wipe fest 200g repair's in total! we went back to naxx to vent some wipe tastic moments!

Bear Hugs to all!

Back Again!

So, i havnt posted here for a while, manly beacuse i've taken a bit of an unforseen break nothing serious just had a little ''me time'' .

anywho now im back Arena Season Six has started and just as many of you have done i've started the arena again with the same partner and good freind as before, Trebreh, were having fun though weve been having trouble against a few teams, the most of which include a druid, seems a six and two three's, the other is hunter teams, the same set-up as ours actually holy paladin / Hunter.

now as i was mulling over what we could do enduring a rather boring day at work, i thought to myself why not edge away from survival and try a Marksman PvP spec, with the recent frost trap change the new concussive barrage will help me and my partner kite and abuse the pillars then it also occured to me Chimera shot has multiple uses...ok disarm springing to mind, now with a silence a disarm and a freezing arrow to interrupt the palading allowing time to take down the hunter i was foaming at the mouth with excitment so tonight i will try this spec:

Dothia's Marksman PvP Spec V1.0

this leaves me with one problem, the pet. im going to use a crab still for now though i will try a wolf for the extra DPS and also i will try a Bat/Bird of Prey for the stun and a chain disarm with Chimera Shot (or ''Shout'' as the tooltip says now)

note: appologies for any spelling/grammar in this post, i was rather excited at the time of writting.

Totem heat seeking pet Incoming!

The macro in the post entry below works! finally after hours of fiddling and searching, so thats good, shamans totems are no more!

*kicks a totem back into the earth* and stay there!

Pet and Master's call Macro's

Blue = Tested and Works / Green = Yet to be Tested, May not work

So someone was asking me last night for a Master's Call Macro, so just incase anyone else wants it i shall point them here as it is a far easier to copy and paste the macro's in rather than typing them.

Master's Call For youselelf;

#showtooltip Master's Call
/Target Dothias
/Cast Master's Call
/Targetlasttarget

Master's Call for your Partner;

#showtooltip Master's Call
/Target Trebreh
/Cast Master's Call
/Targetlasttarget

if you have a 3v3/5v5/2v2 and want one button push mouseover for Master's call;

#showtooltip Master's Call
/petpassive
/cast [target=mouseover, help] Master's Call; [target=player] Master's Call

and if your in a tight situation or one of your partners this is the one i find most usefull;


/petpassive
/cast [target=mouseover, help] Intervene; [target=player] Intervene
/cast [target=mouseover, help] Roar of Sacrifice; [target=player] Roar of Sacrifice /cast [target=mouseover, help] Master's Call; [target=player] Master's Call

personally i run with the last two active, the top one for me and the bottom one for my partner, though the bottom one (just above) is the one i use if im also in a tight spot.



i've also just finished coming off of a long search on the EJ forums and apparently this is the macro that works for pets killing totems, so remains to be seen if it does or not!

/petattack [target=Healing Stream Totem]
/petattack [target=Windfury Totem]
/petattack [target=Mana]
/petattack [target=Tremor Totem]
/petattack [target=Grounding Totem]

Season 6 Sets, opinions?

I think that the set designs enot to bad to be honest, if you look closeley they are all based on the current S5 sets, with added parts, looking more spiffy etc, so its like you've ''upgraded'' your current pvp armor which works pretty well, granted they could look a tad nicer but i think everyone apart from the rogue and death knight sets are fine (even if somewhat simular to the previous seasons of arena)

though if compare them to some of the raid peices, it then looks like no thought has gone into the current ones or these ones, bear in mind the hunter set will look nicer as its not moddelled for the humans so it will show up somewhat differently on the hunter races.
on dwarfs/trolls/female nelfs i think the set will look awesome, for the others not so much.

though my major critism is what the hell is up with the heads, they all look pretty bad and tasteless, i for one would much rather than these have a more ''battle worn/torn'' looking set with some gashes out of it ya'know some nice shinies (goes for all classes) and not so much of a plate looking set, hell even the Rogues set looks like a tin can! correct me if im wrong...ar they not ment to be leather wearing jugernoughts?

p.s. the death knight set does not look like something a death knight should wear, needs to be more dark and gothicy in my opinion, though perhaps there saving these idea's for later raid tier
sets.

Click here for a direct link to the screenshot on mmo champion

Macro's

EDIT: as i said i would test these once i got in from work and the Verdict:
Tried on Wednesday 11th March and These DO NOT work.

So i've been attempthing to re-write the old auto-attack pet macro for totems, though it seems through some extensive forum seacrhing (Interface and Macro's Forum) that the ability to do that has been removed, to bad it was handy in the arena, BG's or duels at 60/70 so i've come up with this.

It's a little different but i hope it's going to work, im at work now so i cant test it, but in theory my pet should be killing totems like butter once more,

/cleartarget
/targetexact Grounding Totem
/targetexact [noharm]Grounding Totem
/targetexact [noharm]Grounding Totem
/targetexact [noharm]Grounding Totem
/cast [harm]Serpent Sting(Rank 1)

or

/cleartarget
/targetexact Grounding Totem
/targetexact [noharm]Grounding Totem
/targetexact [noharm]Grounding Totem
/targetexact [noharm]Grounding Totem
/pet attack

well it looks nice, so ill be trying this tonight, if i hav'nt heard anything back about it by the time i get in i shall try this one out.

So today we went into Naxxramas's 10man Plague Qaurter, now i was not there for most of it but i helped out on Heigan, the unclean and also on Loatheb, both went down like a sack of bricks, i got lucky and won a chest peice fron Heigan, but on Loatheb, finally our trusty guildee got his o'so sought after tier raid shoulders, you see he had bad luck on alot of rolls so he was sure to win this time! and Grats mate on those!

on a side note i managed to come second in the DPS meters, i was not expecting to beat one of our other DPS'ers (another hunter) as he seems to be pulling away from the pack atm though i do hope to catch up soon ''evil grin, sinister smile''
the only thing i will say though is i got 2309 DPS which i was happy with though i did miss 1 Lock and Load proc which sucked and died towards the end (had a few seconds to go) one healer went and i had 5k health left and as we know that debuff puts out 10k over 5/10secs so that was painfull so i would be intreaged to see what exactly my DPS would of been if i didnt die or miss that proc.

A view from the top!

So while i was bored tonight in Dalaran i decided to climb it....yes...climb Dalaran!! you can do this by using the balconies in the city itself as ledges to reach one or two roof tops, so to prove it, here's the screenie!

(im that wee' lil' hunter on top of the purple roof with me crab)

The Regimental Training Event (RP)

So tonight brings us to another Regiment of Stormwind training event, this basically has us all meet up in the command centre in old town: Stormwind, where we all undergo our weekly Roleplay Event, this event is always fun, sometimes its very active and others more informative, this week it was more informative.

previously we had one of our mages explain and demonstrate all his tactics in fighting so it was only a matter of time before one of our other Classes did it, low and behold! a Warlock! this was actually pretty usefull as all i do is Nuke down the succubus if that pets out and try my best to keep fear out of the match, getting an insight into what alot of other skills where was great, i know al lthe basic curses and the like but alot of others that arnt that well-known or arnt really ''taken/used'' as a first choice PvE or PvP tool was a mystery but now i know exactly what does what, i've no idea if this will help me against warlocks...but i suppose time will tell!

one thing i do hate though is there teleport, in Battlegrounds i have endless fun with placing a freezing trap/arrow in there circle and watching them freeze themselvs, allowing me to open up with those 3 succesive and destructive Explosive Shots ''Eveil Laugh''

Enter the Cobra

Today when i opened my Mysterious egg i discovered it had a Cobra Hatchling pet inside, great! i like the vanity pets, i suppose im a collecter of sorts though i would much rather of prefered the Green Proto Drake that has a 4% drop rate from the egg, oh well, thats 5 eggs so in theory after ive had 25 eggs i should get that elusive green proto drake!

- wish me luck!

Number one!

I guess nobody will even know that my blog is here yet? even so, I just thought I would right this to say hello out there! and welcome to the Hunters Peak, the blog of Dothias, a world of warcraft hunter, PvP and PvE, i do it all! how good? well...who knows? all i know the game is fun and i love it.

In this first post you will see i have attached a picture of my hunter, Dothias he's equipped in his PvP gear as me and my partner have just finished a good second week in the arena scoring 29-10 much better than our first week, had a few rather long fights that could of gone either way, though switching from healer to DPS seemed to aid in the draining of the healers mana, leaving him wide open to some rather nice nuke tactics, needless to say after that it was a stroll in the park. as for our rating we raised that from 1201 from our dive bomb last week up to 1312 last night so thats a great result.

as for the PvE side of things, in my first raid in OS: 25 i hit 6th on the DPS meters with 1.9k which i was pretty happy with and the luck of the irish was with me as i managed to win the hunter T7.5 gloves and later on, Kel Thuzzad in Naxx25 saw fit to give me his dagger (only one rogue who already had x2 so us hunters rollled)

all in all a succesfull night on WoW!