longing for the past

Every Shattered halls run someone shouts “Loot the Dog” as a historical throwback to Molten Core.  Anyone that has been in MC remembers the Core Hounds.  They were about 5 times taller than your toons, so if not looted they posed a visual block that no one could see around.  Also, while the loot was not typically anything worthwhile, the skins were VERY valuable.  Because it was a 40 man raid, you did not see sparlkies very often, so everyone had to be reminded to look and see if it was yours to loot before anyone could proceed.  It was the sign of a good guild if they could make it thru the night without having to remind someone to “Loot the dog”.

I miss the Epicness of looking up at the giants. 

I miss knowing that if I got just a little too close I would pull and one stomp later I was a corpse. 

One pull of aggro and I could wipe turn the dog around and wipe 40 people. 

I miss being “the bomb” and blowing up friends. 

I miss the one time any raid absolutely HAD to have a hunter (/wave at Mags hiding in the back). 

I miss pulling the pats so far that it took two hunters; one for the initial pull and one half way back to take aggro because the mob caught up with the puller. 

I miss getting 4 epics on one boss. 

I miss training new hunters that are so scared by the biggest meanest looking things they have seen that they are about to wet themselves, and I get to teach them how to pull. 

I miss hunter loot that was worth a crap (NO I DO NOT WANT ANY MORE MP5 OR INT!!!).

I miss the extremes of results.  I miss how one night the raid would just click, and the bosses would cough up the loot and no one would die.  I also miss how other nights the boss would go down with one off tank one or two healers and 2 DPS people that had no mana left and had drank 4 potions to get the boss down.  A victory that is scraped out at the absolute last second is one that tastes very sweet.

I when the raid is in a grove.  Things are dying in perfect form.  I miss chain pulling one mob after another and the raid moving around the room like a waltz of death and destruction.  The raid is not told when to move or where to move, it just moves to the next position and the mob is running to them just as they do.  I miss the harmony of motion and collaboration that were those nights. 

Far and away, the best memories I have from MC were of a certain raid leader, and how they led things**. 

 

Ahh…the good old days.

 **Edit: some of the comments that I made were found inappropriate by a friend. **

Guild Banks

Ok, I have heard some rumblings both good and bad about the guild banks.  Here are my personal thoughts: 

-they are good because they let you share rare but not that valuable items with anyone.  I had a bunch of scarabs and some ZG coins in my bank that I was never going to use.  I gave themto the guild bank and someone actually used them.  I picked up the tome of Conjure water to save myself from having to train it.  Also in this category: leather hides and non-standard leathers i.e. chimera, crystal infused, and assorted scales. 

-they are a good way to give BOE items that are too valuable to sell to other guild members.  Recipes top my list here.  Giving that recipe to a guildie means having a free source of that item, whereas selling it is a one time cash payment. 

-it is a good way to give up the crap greens to someone to DE.  Who really want’s the plate with +20 spirit, or the cloth pieces with +defense on it. 

-It is a good place to give away rep items when you don’t need them anymore.  Unidentified Plant Parts, or any of those random Argent Dawn scraps anyone?   

-It is a good way to feed the cooks mats so they can hand out those buff foods that everyone likes so much. 

-It is a great place to trade random things that are not useful to your class, but can be to others.  i.e. I leave behind stacks of unstable healing pots, and pick up unstable mana pots.  My hunter leaves scrolls of strength, and takes agility. 

-it is a good place to leave a stock of mats that a raider running late can borrow from.  We have almost an entire page of flasks, bandages, elixirs, and a few repair bots.  We only ask that you replace the item or the mats after the raid.   

-It is a good way to leave items for others to craft later.  I leave stacks of herbs and empty vials and take potions.  This lets the potion person craft at their leisure, or anyone else use those mats to level up.   

That all being said, I left out the one thing that it is the BEST at doing.  The guild bank tells you a lot about the people that use it.  Watch the transaction log.  Look at who deposits what, and who takes what.  You will see patterns.  You will see someone that constantly dumps in worthless crap (i.e. 8 stacks of peacebloom) and is the first to snatch up the clefthoof armor kits. You will also see page after page of a couple people just dumping stuff into the bank.   The transaction log is a GREAT way to see into someone’s actions.  It should clearly tell you who is the giving kind, and who is the taking kind.   

The problems with guild banks are numerous. 

1) There is a bug that if someone leaves a guild and joins another their guild bank access is not automatically re-set.  So, if someone were to create a guild with themselves as GM, then as soon as they join a new guild they have GM level access.  I have not been able to tell if that bug has been fixed. 

2) The bank interface is not working well.  When new tabs are created most people don’t have access.  It is not plesant. 

3) Theft.  I have heard a dozen different stories of guild banks being cleaned out by players that have been kicked from the guild, or that are leaving the game, or by ninjas, and worst of all by hacked accounts.  I wish that they would password lock the guild bank.  It would make it a little harder for stolen accounts to clean out the guild bank. 

The other way to stop this is if there was a way to make it so so it can be set so that if someone clicks to take an item it asks an officer or the GM if that is ok.  If there are no officers on then the item should go into a pending queue and when an officer logs in then it could ask them and the item would be mailed to them.   

Now,I wish that they would create a guild AH.  I have a lot of items that I would like to leave in the guild, but I just can’t give away something worth 1K gold…and I can’t ask a guildie to buy it.  So, I because I can’t ask a guildie for money, I will AH it.  I would RATHER sell it to someone in the guild for a very cheap price, but a price that reflects the time I took to get the item.  I want to be able to AH the herbs I pick to guildies for a reduced rate.  I want to AH blue gems, and stacks of leather to guildies first, the world second.  Perhaps, there is a way to make it so the normal AH will give a 20% – 30% break off the listed price to someone if they are in the guild.  So, if I see that other items are going for 102G and I undercut them and post the item for 100G, other people would see my sale at 100G, but people in my guild would see mine for sale at 80G.   

Another idea to fix the guild bank would be via a guild AH.  Create a guild AH. When the item sells the seller receives a mail message with the money just like a normal AH, but they have an option to click to return the money to the buyer.  This way if someone tries to clean out the guild bank it will cost them.  Also, there are very close friends that I would not charge for an item, but someone new to the guild I may not be so giving with.   

It would also be nice along those lines to have a guild bulletin board.  This could be used to let people know about new guild members, about events, post “I’ll be 5 minutes late” messages, and WTB notices. 

10 Commandments in WOW

On Big Red Kitty’s website I read the link to “The WOW commandments”.  Unfortunately, that is when my internet went down.  So, stuck here internetless, I decided to write my own: 

1) Thou shalt not play any other games before WOW.

WOW is a social game.  If you don’t play more than a couple hours a day you will never discover that aspect of it. 

2)Thou shalt not beg.In my opinion, begging in general chat should earn a perma-ban. 

There are instances where you can make a mistake and run out of money somewhere inconvenient, if so, ask guildmates for a loan, and repay it by at least double. For example, I hit 60, flew to IronForge, bought a new axe, then hit the trainer. I trained all my new things.  I ran back to the flight master and clicked on where I wanted to go.  It said I did not have enough money.  I looked, and then realized that after training I only had 2 copper.  Did I beg in General chat?  NO.  I ran to Gnomer and slaughtered a few mobs for enough money to catch a flight to somewhere more profitable.   

3) Thou shalt not give up thine password to anyone.NEVER NEVER NEVER give up you password. 

Also, changing your password every once in a while is not a bad idea.   

4) Remember the Raid nights and keep them holy.

Showing up late for a raid is very disrespectful, and a good way to loose your spot not only that night, but also a good way to be replaced if it is habitual. 

5) Honor the veterans, and run their alts thru instances, for their wisdom is deep.

Got a mid level toon?  Find someone that has a level 70 toon of that class in your guild, and offer to run their alts thru deadmines or some other low instance.  Get in Teamspeak / Vent and chat with them.  Get their advice on gear, spec, playstyle etc.  They have been doing it longer than you, they have things you should know. 

6) Thou shalt not Gank NPC’s.

If you spot a level 20 that is flagged in Westfall, gank away.  However, don’t kill flightmasters, inn keepers, quest givers etc.  It does not give you anything, and it just a momentary pain in the ass. 

7) Thou shalt not Raid with another guild.

If your guild is not progressing fast enough for your taste, then do things to help them.  Running off to run with another guild means you can’t help your guild, meaning they will progress even slower.  Next time you are in a raid, look at other peoples gear and see if there are any greens / blues that can be upgraded at the AH.  Buy it and send it to them.  Getting your raid’s DPS / healing up means you will progress much faster. 

Thou shalt not take more from the guild bank that thou deposit.

Guild Banks are a great way to find out who are just greedy bitches.  Look at the logs and you will see what I’m talking about.  You will see one person that deposits a couple stacks of peacebloom and light leather, then withdraws righteous orbs and blue gems. 

9) Thou shalt not page a GM for frivolous matters.

GM’s do not help with quests, and typically can’t do all that much if an instance bugs out.  Their typical answer is “reset it and try again”.   If you page a GM more than once every 6 months or so, that is usually a good sign that you are abusing it. 

10) Thou shalt not covet thine guildies epic mount, thine shall doeth the dailies.

There are SO many ways to get money now, it is insane.  Even if you are not a person that is good at soloing, there are the bombing the eggs in the skettis area, and the gathering quests, and later the boot-o-rang quest in Netherwing.  Also, it is never hard to find someone doing the area doing the quests.  If you are healer / tank (i.e. not good at solo) then you should have no trouble finding someone that wants to group. Even without the dailies, things are just worth more because there is so much available money in the economy. I have even had good luck running deadmines and AHing the drops.  I can also usually find someone that wants a run thru that will pay 2-3G for the run.  Heck, even the wool drops are valuable. 

No real post

I have had a headache since yesterday.  Any time a thought starts to grow as to what to post about, a wave of hurt swings thru like a scythe and lops it off at the ground. 

I feel like someone is splitting my head open with their thumbnails like a large Pistachio.  Sometimes, when I’m really lucky, it only feels like I tripped and feel 36 feet, eye first onto a broom handle, pushing my right eye all the way to the back of my skull.

If got so bad about an hour ago I actually looked at the little 3” scissors that I have in my desk drawer (they are so short it takes three cuts to cut a post it note in half) and wondered if I could slip into the bathroom and trepan my skull myself.

Abopt-a-Noob

So, now that I am married and my life has settled down a little, and more specifically, my schedule has settled down, I am planning things more and more, rather than just playing it all by ear. 

My latest decision is what I’m calling my “Adopt a Noob” program.  Basically, every other Monday I am scheduling a timeslot to help lowbie alts / mains.  We have 3 guildies that are not 70 yet, either because they are new to the server, or to the game, and everyone has a spattering of alts that they want to level.  The hard part is, how do you get together that Sunken Temple run when everyone is focusing on Kara?

The answer?  Lump.  I schedule Monday nights for this group.  The rules are 1) everyone has to participate all night.  You list what instance or instances you want to do.  Lets say you and one other guy lists Uldman.  Then someone else lists Stockades.  You bring your toon (any toon) to Stockades, we WTFPWN it really fast, then we run Uldman.  You can’t show up for the Uldman run, then go off to PVP after we are done helping you.  The only exception is if we do an instance that you don’t have a character high enough to help on, i.e. we run a level 40 main thru Scarlet Monastery, we don’t expect them to bring their 40 to Blackrock Depths. 

The only other rules are no instances higher than Ramparts / Bloodfurnace unless there is nothing else that anyone wants to do, and no running one instance more than once in a night unless everyone agrees, and it is not holding anyone else up from doing what they want (i.e. Two Stockades runs is very reasonable, two full Scarlet Monastery clears is not).  On the runs that are not the one you requested, please bring a toon significantly higher than the requirements.  i.e. don’t bring a level 55 to Mauradon just because you want to use that toon later in BRD. Bringing a level 40 mage to Deadmines is ok. 

Give preferential treatment to people with less level 70 toons.  If we are taking someone’s main level 56 toon into BRD, bring your main.  If there is only me at level 70, and someone has to volunteer to not bring their alt, but rather bring their main, then if you have half a dozen 70’s already, you be the one to sacrifice.  Obviously, you have no trouble leveling alts, help the guy that does. If we can’t agree, then we have to agree to trade runs.  i.e. person 1 on alt and person 2 on main for one full run, then person 1 on main and person 2 on alt for a full second run.

We did a trial run this week.  Me on my 70 hunter ran with a 70 healadin, a 60 lock, and a 65 mage and 60 ret pally ran Dire Maul to get the epic mount for the lock.  Then the same group ran Scholo and got the pally his epic mount, then the healadin changed to his 40 mage and we hit Scarlet Monastery, and lastly, everyone but me switched to level 14-18 alts and we ran deadmines twice.  The second run I switched to my 20 pally, and the healadin came back.  Everyone got TONS of quests done, two people got their class epic mount, all the lowbies picked up a level, and some got two.  The mage got his hat and amulet from the SM cathedral. 

In general, a good time was had by all, everyone progressed a LOT, and we all got to know each other a lot better. 

(That and I got to WTFPWNBBQHEADSHOT the hell out of some old instances, which is always gratifying.)

Secondary Professions

First Aid:
Any player that is not maxed in first aid (that is not a tanks or healing spec) needs to be demoted 10 levels immediately.  If you are in a raid you SHOULD be bandaging whenever possible.  Not because you are in danger of dying, but rather because otherwise a healer has to pay attention to you rather than a tank.  Even if the tank is not in danger at that moment, you are depending on the healers mana pool, when it may be needed elsewhere.  Even you warlocks, lifetap then bandage.  Even you hunters that say “but I can feign, I don’t take damage”. 

Cooking:
The last time I looked at cooking there was not a HUGE benefit to doing it, so I didn’t.  I was herb/alch so I could pot and elixir my buffs.  Now at 60, with the change to only one flask / 2 elixers, buff food has come to be much more important.  So, Friday I set off to increase my cooking.  My cooking was somewhere in the 50’s.  I got it up to 300 after about 200G in the AH, and some farming.  Then I hit a wall.  I need fish. 

Fishing:

That was a LONG time ago.

Raw fish are not on the AH.  Early in the game I found fishing to be very booring, and not add enough to the gameplay to be worth it, ss a hunter there was much more money to be made kill farming than fishing. Crap.  My fishing is about 60.  I hit the AH and got a nice big iron fishing pole and headed to the water.  I got to 225 fishing in one afternoon. 

Everyone has seen those “I would rather be fishing” bumper stickers, hats, and other gear.  Here are my thoughts on fishing:

I would rather be being tax audited than fishing. 

I would rather have flaming bamboo spikes driven into my ears.

I would rather slide face first down a waterslide covered in sandpaper and filled with boiling salt water.

I would rather watch a Spiceworld movie marathon.

I would rather put contact lenses made of salt into my eyes, and then high dive into a pool filled with thumb tacks.

I would rather be forced to skin myself using only a plastic Spork from KFC.

I would rather cuddle with all the women from “The View”.

I would rather be the target dummy at a Feminatzi crotch kicking contest, held with mostly members of soccer and rugby teams.

I would rather be put in a barrel half full of broken glass, roofing nails, and fire ants and rolled down a very long hill that led to the top side of Niagara Falls, only to be fished out, doused in gasoline, set on fire, and ran over with a steam roller moving at one inch per minute than go fishing.

Last, and possible the worst of all of these, I would rather read Al Gore’s book, than go fishing.

Negotiations

In sales I have learned that everything is a negotiation.  Everything is a compromise.  There is what you want on one end of the spectrum, and what you are willing to give on the other end.  You reach a point in the middle and you are done.  Being married is ALL about compromise. 

For example, I hate getting haircuts.  My hair grows very fast, so I get it cut short, then let it grow long so I don’t have to get haircuts as often.  Last night my wife told me that I needed to get a haircut.  I said No, I don’t want a haircut.  I can wait another week or two.

So, tonight I am going to get a haircut after work.  She called me up just now and this was the conversation.

Her: I have an appointment up near (the major business strip) at 6:30, so after work you can swing home and get me, take me to dinner, we can go to my appointment, then you can get a haircut.

Me: but I was planning on going on my way home from work and getting my hair cut, then going home.

Her: And then what?

Me: that was it.

Her: See, the problem with that is I am going to leave for my appointment, then you are going to get home, then I am going to come home to find you and an empty Taco Bell bag playing Warcraft, and the kitchen is going to be a dirty mess, and there are going to be dishes all over the place, and I am going to have a nervous breakdown.

Me: so…you want me to do the dishes?

Her: …. Uhhhh….What?

Me: Well, you said that you were going to have a nervous breakdown because of the dishes, not because I didn’t go with you, so you want me to do the dishes.

Her:  If you go home and unload the dishwasher, re-load it and start it, wash the dishes that are in the sink, and clean the counters and the stove, and start dinner, then I would be ok.

Me: Ok.  My counter offer is I will wash the large pans that don’t fit in the dishwasher that you hate to wash, OR I will un-load and reload the dishwasher, OR I will clean the counters and stove and start dinner, OR I will cook dinner.  Any option other than cooking dinner implies a Taco Bell dinner, or equivalent.

Her: Do all the dishes, clean the counters, start dinner.

Me: Warcraft and Taco Bell.

Her: Do all the dishes and Taco Bell

Me: Do all the dishes, Taco Bell, and I buy the new DVD burner I want.

Her: If you spent any money I will kill you.

Me: Do the pans, or do the dishwasher?

Her: Do the pans, and get enough Taco Bell for me.

Me: Deal.

Her: I want a Taco Salad and a Spicy Chicken Burrito, and you better not get into my Taco Salad before I get home.

Me: I make no promises.
Now.  Some may say that I should do more for her, and that in the end I negotiated her back to my starting position.  However, there is an inside story to this.  I like to negotiate, but I like to make her happy also.  If I do whatever she asks, then I will be taken for grated.  Instead, I prefer to negotiate with her to determine what her minimum amount of work out of me is.  Then one of two things happen.

1) 90% of the time, I go way above and beyond.  For example, tonight I am going to wash the pans, and clean the bathroom, and take the garbage out.  Or, despite my negotiations I will pick her up and take her to a nice dinner. 

2) 10% of the time, I will do exactly what we agreed on.

There is some slight deviousness in my plan.  She is realizing that most of the time she ends up getting more than what she bargained for, so she will settle for a lower amount of work out of me.  If I am feeling particularly lazy, that may be all I do. 
*********************************************************************
p.s.  ok, so I just got caught.  I actually wrote this yesterday, and decided to post it today, just incase there was more to the story.  I was cleaning up yesterday.  I cleaned up the kitchen counter and ran a lap around the living room for stray dishes.  Just as I walked into the kitchen an empty serving tray with a dried up Oatmeal Raisin cookie on it tipped off the counter.  I was 5′ away and my brain suddenly lunged for the 1 key.  (1 is Blink on my mage).  I was sure I could make it, if the rug in front of the stove did not stop me half way.

p.p.s. Taco Bell and Dishes are a green quality action.  Taco Bell, Dishes, and cleaning the bathroom is a Blue quality action.  Taco Bell, Dishes, bathroom, shovel and salt the driveway, and queue up the “Christmas Story” DVD because she Loves Ralphie and his Red Rider wanting dreams…THAT is an Orange Quality action. 

Struggle

I have every epic I want from Attuman, maiden, Morose, and there are only two things from Opera that I want.  Other than that, I have the best gear that I can find between the instances I have ran, some quest pieces, and a few AH items.  The problem that we have as a small guild is that there are only about 12 of us that will raid.  We always seem to scratch together 10 people, but the problem is that it is not always the SAME 10. 

This is bad because what ends up happening is lets say a priest is not there.  The only other person online is a warrior.  The warrior comes, but we are one healer short, and one tank heavy.  So, one of the other tanks drops and comes on his alt mage so the mage that has an alt priest can come.  Now we are a balanced raid again, but we are half alts.  Alts are not geared as well, and are not as talented as mains.  So, the alts end up with the epics, and the mains are not getting geared.  Basically, we are gearing up 20 toons at the same time, slowing down progress. 

This week we finally had all mains online, no alts, and most of us finally have everything from the first 4 bosses, and we had a good shot on Curator.  We have been trying Curator for a long time, and so far all he has yielded is a lot of repair bills.  We finally had enough DPS to keep the flares down, and actually do some damage.  Group 1 was the Tank-a-din MT, lock (hateful bolt soaker), heal-a-din, Priest, and Rogue.  Group 2 (aka WTFPWNBBQ) is composed of (2) Beast Spec hunters, DPS warrior, fire Mage, and Druid healer. 

That is the first time we re-organized the groups to get the DPS stacked up like that.  It was SICK.  This is how my rotation went. 
/target astral
Steady shot
Auto shot
Steady shot
Auto shot (astral dies)
/target curator
Steady shot
Autoshot
Repeat.

We ALMOST had a perfect kill, with no deaths, but at 35% he evocated and we made the decision to ignore the astral that was up an burn him down below 20% so we would stop getting the astrals. One of the off healers bit it while we dusted Curator.  Our goal is usually to get about 20% off his life on each evocation.  That time we took him from 35% to less than 10%.  If did help that I popped Beastial Wrath, rapid fire, and a attack power trinket all at the same time. 

He died, we looted.  No epics for me, but two great drops, and two great Chess drops make a happy raid.  We had two attempts on Aran.  We wiped, but we did good.  The second wipe was an accident…but it taught me a valuable lesson.  The spawns were about to hit so I feigned to not get aggro.  Just after I feigned Flame Wreath popped.  I laid still.  I then remembered reading that motion caused by the casting of a spell would not trigger it.  Aparently, that is correct for character animations such as steady shot, but the act of standing up via clicking steady shot counts as motion.  Boom Dead raid.  I was feigned, and only clicked on the button for steady shot and wiped 8-10 of us. 

Note to self, no more feign death during Flame wreath…that or STAY THE FECK DEAD.

Modified standard spec.

(Sorry for the late post.  Training the new guy at work = no frivolous internet time)

There are a thousand places out there that can teach you to squeeze every possible half a point of DPS out of your toon. People argue about which epic weapons are best, when 80% of hunters never see those weapons.  What you DON’T find is people that teach you how to play when you are NOT on a boss fight in the highest instance in the game.  People tend to forget that not EVERYONE is in Black Temple.  Some of us are in Kara.  Some are not even in Kara. 

I want to share my spec, and some of the decisions I made and why. 

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Arathor&n=Lumpey

I spend a lot of time soloing.  I was wearing a mix of non-heroic gear, quest gear, and AH gear when I hit 70.  My play times are slightly different than the small guild I’m in, so I didn’t see many 5 mans for quite some time.  I was still using a dagger from Underbog when I started Kara.  I had 4 kara epics before I ran my first Heroic.   Still spend 80% of my play time soloing.  I am a cash making machine.  I bought three of our guild bank slots, including the 1000G one. 

1) Imp Aspect of the Hawk.  Attacks have a 10% change of increasing attack speed for 12 seconds.  This is INSANELY useful to Beast spec hunters, because we have a very fast attack speed.  I am currently using a 2.0 speed gun, and traveling with a pally tank that keeps judgement of wisdom up.  If I only use Steady+auto I can usually gain mana. 

2) Endurance.  Pet gets 10% health, I get 5%.  Really good for soloing.

3) Thick Hide.  Pet gets 20% armor, I get 10%.  Again, for soloing.  I have a bear for a pet which has high armor and health anyway.  With 12,000 unbuffed pet armor, he is a surprisingly good tank. 

4) Focused Fire. We both get 2% damage, kill command has +20% crit rate.  High attack speed = lots of hits = lots of crits = lots of kill commands, so this means lots of crits for low mana use (and no global cooldown). 

5) Swiftness. 30% increased pet run speed.  I like it for faster soloing, but may drop this point to re-spend it elsewhere.

6) Unleashed Fury. +20% pet damage.  Combines with kill commands for some hard hits.

7) Imp mend pet.  Being able to remove debuffs / poisons is essential for soloing. 

Ferocity. Increases pet crit rate.  Pet crits cause Furious Inspiration, this is a no brainer.

9) Intimidation.  Great for soloing, can stop casting, can stun mobs to keep them off healers while tank dashes over.

10) Beastial Discipline. Focus regeneration means more growl, more bite etc.

11) Ferocious Inspiration. No brainer, +3% to ALL damage done by party.

12) Beastial Wrath, no brainer

13) Catlike reflexes, increases pet dodge and your dodge. This is good for two things.  Soloing, the pet takes less damage. My dodge is because sometimes I will let a mob hit me a few times while my bear tanks another.  When chain trapping you frequently get hit (someone broke trap), dodge can save your life.

14) Serpent Swiftness, no brainer.

15) Beast Within, no brainer.  +10% DPS, less mana cost. 

16) lethal shots, no brainer

17) imp hunters mark.  I chose this over efficency because it increases all melee damage, meaning pet can tank better, more DPS in raids.  I may put the point from swiftness mentioned earlier into efficency.

18) Go for the throat.  When I didn’t have this, bite rank 3 and growl were emptying the focus bar.  With this it is never empty.

19)  Rapid killing.  The bonus to the next shot is rarely used outside of clearing trash mobs in a raid.  The big bonus here is the cooldown reduction.  Rapid fire, combined with a 2.0 speed weapon, combined with serpent swiftness, combined with a imp aspect of the hawk proc = an attack speed faster than 1.  Combine this with Beastial Wrath and an attack power trinket every mob in a 10 yard radius dies.  I did that last night on Curator during an evocation.  Everyone else was on the last astral when I unleashed on curator.  (with the guilds approval of course).  Normally, we struggle to get 18 or 20% off his life during each evocation.  During that one we did 35%.  That is the difference rapid fire can make.  I only have one point in this now, it may get the point from swiftness.
So.  As you can see, I am not a traditional spec, but rather a modified traditional spec.  80% geared toward just doing damage, 20% toward being better at soloing.  The plus side of this spec is when things go wrong, or are tougher than normal.  Because my Bear is beefier than most pets he lives through more.  Because of that I have off tanked most instances, and tanked Ramparts a couple times.  My bear particularly loves to chew on the archers in Ramparts.  The ones that other groups sheep, and try to Line of Sight pull, I tank and solo them down while the rest of the group deals with the rest. 

Birthday of sorts

So, this is an e-mail I recieved shortly after starting this blog:

“Why did you post 3 long entries when you haven’t even made any efforts to get any readers yet? I think you’re underestimating what a challenge blogging will be if you want to keep it up for any length of time. Personally, for you, I’m betting on a month at the WAY outside.”

Now.  That was dated TWO months ago.  I guess this is the WAY UBER EPIK FAR AWAY OUTSIDE now. I have a favor to ask everyone.  Leave a comment if you read this.  You don’t have to say anything in particular, this is just kind of like those Fourth Friday counts that schools do to see how many students they really have.  Not that I wouldn’t like some comments to bask in my own awesomeness, but they are not necessary.  If you wanted, tell me what you like, and what you don’t like.