Droods crymoar

With the introduction of WotLK, agility-based classes have been thrown into fierce competition for weapons—both one and two-handers. With some dedicated research on thottbot I saw a big drood vs. huntard discussion emerging. Let's examine something a bit closer before the HuntardEmo overwhelms everyone.

Agility. A primary attribute of both classes, but arguably the primary for hunters. As of right now, there are only three one-handed weapons with an agility of 43 or better:

• Widow's Fury
• Webbed Death
• Split Greathammer

All of which are raid-content drops, and only two of which a hunter can wield. That sets the baseline for the top-end, agility-based, two-handers at (anyone?...) +86 agility. There are a grand total of seven two-handers out there to potentially benefit hunters that fit this criteria:

• Origin of Nightmares
• Wraith Spear
• The Undeath Carrier
• Black Ice
• Journey's End
• Staff of the Plague Beast
• Staff of Trickery

Of these seven, two are polearms (which, with the advent of druids now being able to use polearms, has further blurred the lines between class-specific weapons). Of those seven, all provide both agility and stamina bonuses. Staff of the Plague Beast and Origin of Nightmares are the only two which provide armor stats.

What does this mean?

It means, kiddies, that you're going to see a lot of hunters running around with staffs - in particular, the Staff of Trickery, since Violet Hold is a ridiculously easy instance that doesn't require 10 or more people to run.

Instead of bitching and whining at the hunters that do roll on staves, take it up with the developers. They are the ones to blame for the latest new weapon competition.

3.0.8 bugs - almost shocking...

Okay, not shocking at all. I can't recall Blizzard unveiling a "new feature" patch without a slew of bugs, gaffs and stability issues.

After finally being able to log in, I immediately noticed my sword enchants finally glowing and... that's about all I had a chance to see before Northrend came crashing down. I didn't even bother checking into Akama, where I am sure ore of the same was happening.

School, dedicated WoW, and time spent with Liz  out-of-game has taken me away from the blog, but there has been some noteworthy progress on Radd. Unfortunately, I have to complete a few projects tonight before I can post specifics. Stay tuned for some screenies!

Love for huntards?

Say it ain't so! Here are the latest PTR notes that I'm loving:

• All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
• Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.
• Aspect of the Wild: This aspect is now raid-wide.
• Call of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to only the Hunter and their own pet.
• Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to "deflect" spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 sec. 60 sec. cooldown.
• Explosive Shot: Damage increased substantially, and additional scaling added to compensate Survival Hunters for the decrease in power of Steady Shot. No longer deals damage to secondary targets.
• Improved Tracking: This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Kill Shot: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
• Kindred Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Venom (Scorpid) has been lowered.
• Readiness: No longer resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
• Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
• Serpent's Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
• Tranquilizing Shot: Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds, down from 15.
• Unleashed Fury: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
• Volley: The damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30% (including attack power scaling).

I'm particularly stoked about Explosive Shot getting a boost, Arcane Shot receiving a cost reduction and the revamp of Deterrence. The QQ I have heard is mainly about normalizing cats and scorpids, as well as the damage adjustment of Volley. BFD.

Blizz still has all sorts of love for Death Knights, but then again, ain't they supposed to be heroic and terribly OP?

Best achievement evah

Really, the only thing better would have been earning the screenshot in Zul'Gurub with Trost making hideous mom jokes at people over vent, Frank AFKing in the middle of a boss fight, Russ aggroing half the instance, and me slurring battle instructions (for the wrong boss fight, of course). This is also probably not the first time I have been tipsey ay 9:30 in the morning... For reals.

Eight hours of in-game between Thursday night Friday afternoon was been spent grinding materials to build an armor set for Ryan. The Eviscerator's Armor non-set "set" should carry him into at least the Heroics. I certainly hope so, since I endlessly did a grind reminiscent of Trostnation with a near-continuous search and destroy for 504 Borean Leather and 80 Crystallized Air! :)

I did take some breaks, though, to adventure some with Elizabeth and help her score some achievements like Friend or Fowl? and also help her with the skinning grind for her leatherworking.

For the finalé Thursday night, we ran super fast, back-to-back runs on The Violet Hold. It was, in my opinion, a really fun and very entertaining Instance.

Gearing up

Reaching level 80 is only the beginning of the real adventure, I think. Wednesday was spent mostly grinding the materials to fabricate the Swiftarrow Armor items and Jormungar Leg Reinforcements, as well as spending a paltry 300 gold to acquire two Savage Cobalt Slicers.

Thursday I hope to secure the high-end enchants on my new lewt, pick up the reputation tabards and help Liz level her "reborn" warlock, Sairendipiti.

Long time, no posts—what gives?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... belated.

No posts since before the New Year?! What gives? To be honest, "a lot" is as close as I can come to summerizing life the past few days. Besides picking up some notable achievements, including, World Explorer and Leading the Calvary, I did finally reach level 80 with Radd. Now, the real fun starts with some research on gear and the level 80/Heroic instances! For those curious, you can check Radd's profile for a complete list of the achievements I accomplished in my short time back.

On the guild-front, Liz rejoined Frequently Reported as Standswafist, and has brought a much needed additional (and fun) persona to the mix, as well as a full stable of toons. Not only does she kick ass playing, but she's a great person, too, and I've had a great time getting to know her better both in and out of game.

We also saw Nick come back aboard playing Lulerskates with some regularity, as well as induct Thai who some may remember as the MeatLife name behind the toon Vator.

This weekend, I'm driving down to St. Louis to hang out with Marc and meet his new love-interest, Hannah. In between beers and hanging out with good friends, I'll try to pop on to say hi to everyone.

Plans now entail getting my sleep schedule back to school-mode since classes start back up next Monday on the 12th at 8:00 AM. I got a seak peek at book-costs, and it doesn't look to be that bad this semester at only $200. I'm really stoked about the classes I have this go-around, with some level II classes that should start building up my portfolio. My time in-game will be diminished since college has to be my first priority, but I decided to keep renewing my account past January 12 so I can keep in contact with everyone.

More stuff accomplished and level 74 attained

The holidays have taken me away from WoW—not that it is a bad thing to spend time with family and friends—but I have had an opportunity here and there to play a bit. I'll be busting my ass over the next few days to try and earn the Merrymaker title, since I'm only two achievements away.

After that, it will be back to li'l ole ugly Mutable for some leveling. She should be at all rested XP, now.