Sarth25 3D Video

Our other Hunter officer has started recording our boss kills. Here's our Sarth25+3D kill from this week. I highly recommend you watch it in HD in full screen:



Feel free to laugh at the noob Hunter that accidentally Disengaged at 3:38 >.<

Edit: Ugh, sorry for the width. I need a new blog format...
Edit2: There, trial and error fiddling with html prevails!

Some PTR shots

Thought I'd share some screenies from the PTR:


Tracking is bugged for me. Here I was Tracking Undead, then switched to Tracking Humanoids, but I'm tracking both. Evidently some people have two Aspects up at the same time, but it hasn't happened for me.


I like the new wardrobe system! Once activated, the little chest-icon appears on the character screen, and you can save armor set-ups as you would create and use a macro.


The new Summon Stable Pet is trainable for 24g and is under the BM tab of the spell book.



Once used, you have 2 minutes to have the stable open and the ability goes on cooldown.

I fiddled around with the new Argent Tournament, but got kinda lost beyond getting 5 tokens, so I gave up for the day and went back over to Kilrogg, where we cleared some old instances:


It is a hunter weapon!

I guess they changed their minds...

Ammunition: All types of gun and bow ammunition now stack to 1000. All quivers and ammo pouches no longer provide haste. 15% ranged haste is now built in to Hunter Autoshot.

They tacked on this to the official patch notes.

I am of mixed opinion on this. Yes, this gives us a free bag. Well, a free bag minus 6 slots, if you want to carry as much ammo as we do currently in a 28-slot ammo bag. But I liked having a separate container for my bullets and arrows. Otherwise, I just think of a Warrior with his stack of ammo for pulls, just there in a bag, any bag, nothing special about it . A Hunter's arrows go in a special place, where it can be tracked and buffed.

The removal of ammo's designated place does not sit well with my OCD. I suppose I'll have to get a mod that will track ammunition levels for me... And I'm still waiting for the lvl 80 bullets/arrows.

Real Hunters Have Curves

Pike's most recent post inspired me to talk about why I chose Tauren as my race.

A long, long time about (3.5 years? Bloody hell, I feel old) the Man and I decided to start an MMORPG together to help bridge the distance apart - we chose WoW. He scouted it out, and when I joined him, he said he started a Tauren Warrior. I approved of the choice of Horde (goody-two-shoes-Alliance never appealed to me), and decided to follow his lead as a Tauren, mainly because I could be tall. Yes, the 5'3" RL-me never gets to tower over anyone, so I rolled a lady Tauren so I could be eight feet tall. That, and those curves are real, baby!

Admittedly, Tauren do not have the best racials for a hunter class. Warstomp is nice for PvP and AoE (sometimes), and the extra HP is nice for high-damage fights, but we do not have any direct-DPS racials, like the Trolls or Orcs. But that's okay - racials do not make or break DPS. Hell, if they did, you wouldn't see any Blood Elf Hunters running around... The size is nice, however, for Not-Standing-In-The-Shinies Fights, as I find it easier to keep track of my toon amongst all the other chaos.

Pike also commented on how well gear looks on Lady Tauren, and I really must agree.
This was the first bit of fan-art I did of Neg, in which she's rocking Rhok and my favorite-looking armor set ever. (Points if you can name it!) I mean, look at it! It's the sexiest mail armor I've ever seen!

We Lady Tauren are rare, but then again, the best girls always are!

Now that's a hawt mount

I'm a fan of the protodrakes (unlike a lot of people, evidently), but I have yet to get one due to time or luck. And now that the Black and Plagued Protos are being removed, and the likelihood of being able to pull off The Immortal before 3.1 hits is slim, I have a new goal. Where ever this sexy beast comes from, I want it!

PTRing it up... or not...

Neg has been copied to both realms, and as eager as I am to starting playing with the goodies, the game sees otherwise. The longest I managed to stay on before crashing was a whole 1 minute - just long enough to re-talent. Then the WoW Errors abound. Not sure what my exact problem is - vid card, 64-bit Vista, the PTR forums point in every direction - but most likely I'll have to wait for some variety of patch fix in order to even move 10 feet.

Hopefully I can do something by Thursday - we plan on checking out Ulduar then. Yay vehicle fights!

3.1 Level 80 Spec

With Wild Quiver getting an awesome boost, the change to Piercing Armor, the two-point reduction cost from Ranged Weapon specialization, and the happy option to Dual Spec, the bottom half of MM gets an overhaul.

Here's the 11/53/7 talent come 3.1.

Can't wait!

What is your coin?

I saw this meme over at Wukki's blog: If you had a coin that could be fished from the Dalaran Fountain, what could it say? Evidently it is a fun forum topic as well, but the blogosphere allows the meme to go color!

Here's mine:

Now go to WoW Item Creator, and make your own!
(Note: For some reason, the generator does not like apostrophes. Keep that in mind >.<)

I gave in

I joined Twitter.

This bad idea is on par with joining Facebook during finals week of my first year of college.

Why, you say?


That's why.

Anyway, feel free to Twitter me @Negathle.

I'm so doomed.

Can has patch?

I didn't expect to be burned out by content this quickly. Honestly, I don't think I am quite yet - with the exception of Naxx - but it seems like a lot of people are.

Raids are usually scheduled a week in advance. Right now we clear all of 25 man content in two days. Naxx gets cleaned in about two-forty-five to three hours, Malygos is nearly always one-shotted, and Sarth Plus Three Drakes takes about two hours after that. Ten man content was pushed off to Sunday what with the work required of Sarth+3D, but now it seems we need to start working on Sarth10+3D on Thursday instead. Monday is clean up for whatever was left.

The achievement system is a mixed blessing. Yes, it does inspire people to push themselves, but what do they get? A little bar flashing at the bottom of the screen? E-peen points? Raiding achievements do separate those who raid for the sake of raiding and those who raid for loot. This week I think we need to start pushing Six Minute Malygos, maybe even start on some of those Naxx 25 achievements that actually have to be encouraged instead of simply done as a by-product of the encounter (Arachnophobia). Even if the non-achievement people don't see a point to doing it, it will sure as hell shake up the monotony of the raid.

Still, I'm afraid that we won't get some of these done before Ulduar hits. That same officer from earlier posts said that Sarth10+3D will be easier once we have Ulduar gear. The other officers told him that was entirely against the point. The Immortal sure as hell won't come any time soon - we have too many apathetic raiders; they don't try to die, but they don't put their 100% best effort in outside of Sarth25+3D. But certainly some of that apathy is born from pure boredom. This was the reason we pushed off starting the raiding season until the new year: To prevent this early burn-out. It seems it is inevitable though.

Wanna see a big bug?

This is a Weta! They are native to New Zealand and is a classic example of island ecology and evolution.

When species become confined to islands, the limited amount of resources creates a bottleneck. Some surviving species respond to the limit of resources by reducing or eliminating body parts they don't need, such as wings. In such a case, large animals tend to get smaller - the smaller you are, the less resources and space you need. The best example of this is the Dwarf Elephant. Smaller animals, on the other hand, get considerably larger as to access a greater selection of the limited resources, among other reasons. The dodo is another great example. Not only did this pigeon relative become huge (a meter high!) but it became flightless. These cricket-like insects are also flightless (for the majority of species).

When I saw this guy in my Biogeography class, my jaw dropped in astonishment. How would you like to come across this guy during a hike?

(Picture swipped from http://justsixlegs.blogspot.com/2008/10/giant-weta.html).

Hunter Chit-Chat

Nassira over at Diaries of a Marksman Hunter had a nice little Hunter discussion group tonight. It went well - we discussed Glyphs, the ISS/Wild Quiver/Piercing Shot debate, and Dual Specs.

Right off the bat, I promptly embarrassed myself by forgetting my third Major Glyph. Lawls. Once it's done, it's not something you think about frequently. When I changed from Glyph of TSA (or was it Aimed Shot?) to Glyph of Arcane Shot several weeks (months?) ago, I haven't looked back. Concordance was made that Glyphs of Serpent Sting and Steady Shot are musts, while the third is up in the air.

It was fun, and informative. I definitely felt at ease about the mp5 changes all the healers are fussing about - and here I was feeling sorta annoyed about it.

It should be interesting to hear - don't laugh at me too hard!

Bad assumptions are bad

FYI to everyone that thinks that all hunters have gone Survival: If there is a symbol that looks like this on your buff bar, THEN OBVIOUSLY THAT IS NOT THE CASE.

As officers, we are expected, for the most part, to know raider's talent specs. Details may not be totally important, but where the majority of those talent points lie is something good to know. You really don't have to look them up: if a Warlock transforms into a mini Illidan, then they are deep Demonology; if a Mage discusses Living Bomb, they are deep Fire. If a Hunter's pet turns red, they are Beast Mastery. If you have a buff called Trueshot Aura applied to you every raid, then obviously there is a Marksman Hunter - the one distinguishing feature of the tree from the deepest recesses of vanilla WoW.

One of our officers commented on the number of Replenishments in our OS35+3D raid last night. He counted three, a Shadow Priest and two Hunters. I checked the raid list just to make sure, and indeed, there was only one Shadow Priest and two Hunters, so one of our other SV hunters hadn't managed to sneak in without me noticing. I laughed at him in OChat and shook my head in disgust IRL. This isn't a case of random new icons being thrown on you by healers (hell, I dislike healing and even I know from what classes those HoTs/buffs come from) - this is an icon that sits right up there with the rest of your standard buffs. How can you be so obtuse as to not regard what is being applied to your character, even if it has no buffing function to your class?

Maybe I'm just the product of my class and habitual about multitasking every thing about this game. (Which reminds me - I laugh when people complain about the amount of multitasking required for Sarth+3D. Want a challenge? Try having to deal with a pet and a disgustingly inefficient mana pool while dodging Lava Strikes, maintaining a shot rotation, and not killing yourself OR your pet while the Acolyte is up. Then you can talk.)

Maybe I just greatly dislike egotistical mages.

But maybe, just maybe, I want my spec to be removed from under the shadow of the overpowered talents of the other trees, so that Marksman can be appreciated as the challenging, viable, and acceptable raiding tree that it is. As much as Blizzard claims it is satisfied with Marksman damage as the ideal zone of Hunter DPS, the rest of the raiding force doesn't recognize that.

/endrant

Maybe it's a good thing I clean out my SS folder on a semi-regular basis...

It's the Six Game, where you post the sixth Screenshot in your folder, regardless of what it is. Rilgon over at SES tagged me.

And that's just so convenient, it's scary.

I was planning on posting this today anyway, just to show why I am not a herbalist or miner :P.

So, now I have to tag someone, eh? Okay, I tag Brajana, Kordwar, Sarai, and Fessran.

Spam passive? Really?

It was a fast run through Naxx last night. Had a lot of caster helms drop, several melee weapons, and a Strong-Handed Ring to finally upgrade Mobius Band.

We pulled a little early on Faerlina, resulting in two melee and one Moth being stuck beneath the webbing that covers the door. I sighed in Vent, but one of the other hunters said in hunter channel to spam passive and the pet would auto port to you. So I did. And it worked. Go figure.

It also worked on the passage to Gluth and when Tinea decides to run around on Thaddius.

Learn something everyday.

Bit o' blogroll update

Added: Klinderas at Slow Wolf. I like him. He helps me procrastinate by posting frequently. This is also one of the few times I get up the bravery to link a blog before they link me (it has to start somewhere, right?)

Also Wildpaw of Shock and Paw. I have many an alt that is currently wasting away at the loading screen, so it makes sense :P

A Guilty Day Off

The fiance was in town this weekend; our first time together since the first of January. After nearly four years in a long distance relationship, it's interesting how little I think about it anymore. When I told friends that he was coming up, they replied in the usual fashion: "Awww when was the last time you saw him?" or "Awww that must feel nice!" In all honesty, we've been in this cycle long enough that our periods together and apart have become quite normal - though now I fear being together any length of time will feel atypical! (But not really.)

Since we had all 25-man content cleared by Wednesday, Thursday was unscheduled. I did indicate that I would not be raiding Sunday for 10-man content, though that didn't stop the invite from going out. The Man and I do our typical thing togther: Play video games. The intervals are brief (I PvP or do something else that doesn't involve me for more than 30-minutes at a time, he plays Starcraft on his crappy Army laptop), so we may decide to take a break for a movie or anything else. This is what I tell the other officers, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty as they resort to 8-manning Malygos for lack of DPS.

For the most part I was silent in Officer Chat as both raids went through their frustrations. The 8-man raid finally managed A Poke In The Eye and had Surge Needle Ring drop (grats to the other hunter officer!) to which I offered my excitement. Yes, I would have loved to have been there, but it was more important that I logged off soon after to spend the rest of the evening with the Man than to work on OS10+3D (OMG it looks so much fun). I hope they made some head-way - I was busy cuddling.

Greatness will proc from:

Changing Aspects

Serpent Sting ticks

Mend pet

Drinking a pot

Using a Healthstone

Gaining Replenishment

Thinking about it proccing. (Okay, so that one was a joke, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.)

Yea for remote access stables!

Nethaera: What about hunters? Often their pet talents are set up to match the talents of the hunter. Will they be able to switch their pet specs as well?

Ghostcrawler: We will wipe the pet talents. However we are going to remove the respec cost for pet talents so that players won’t feel like they need to jump through an additional hoop to respec their pet. In addition, we are going to provide hunters a new core ability to let them remotely access their stable on a long cooldown. This way if their exotic pet heads off to the stable, they will be able to get a different pet. We hope to be able to discuss this new spell in more detail when we get a little further along.

Woooot! It's on a CD, but it's something!

Can't be carried

Here is a general warning to new hunters thinking about going Marksman for raid content: Don't expect your spec to carry you. Just like the merciless fights of Archimonde, Illidari Council, and Sarth + Three Drakes, you have to be on top of your game to play MM well - one ability will not carry you to good DPS.

This spec isn't like Survival, where one shot+auto shot will comprise over half of your DPS, nor is it BC Beast Mastery, where a Steady Shot macro is your only keybind. MM requires you to be alert and focused - that shot rotation is your life's blood.

Today was not one of my better days in Naxx (it was a crappy run all around, despite it being one of our fastest). I was distracted by RL stresses, not to mention tired from studying, and lax in my playing. The difference in my DPS was staggering. I was at the bottom of the top ten DPS constantly - even second to last on Thaddius, barely above the tanks! It was embarressing and very much unlike me, but it goes to show how much even the slightest distraction can hurt a MM's rotation.

Unless you want to work, and work hard, for your DPS, don't go Marks. BM had its difficulty bumped with more emphasis on some shot weaving and even more pet realiance, so it's a good intermediate. I dislike Survival's heavy emphasis on Explosive Shot, but hey, if you want to trap dance, have fun with that. Otherwise, roll a mage. We hear magic is easy.

Stupid False Springs...

Another beautiful February day here in Chicago-land. This weekend the temperatures spiked into the 50s-60s and melted the two-feet of snow that has been on the ground for weeks. Now everything is very wet, the days feel wonderful, and people actually smile to each other on the side-walks. Sadly, I spent the weekend inside procrastinating a six-page paper due yesterday, so I didn't get to play in the nice weather.

Though I get this Friday off for Suicide Prevention Day (Undergraduate Break Day, as it is formally called), this week seems packed regardless. Not only did I have to pull an all-nighter to finish the paper for Monday, I have a midterm in Biogeography on Thursday and labs to polish off tomorrow. Darwin Day is also on Thursday, for which I plan on making cupcakes and dressing up for the parties. The fiance is coming up Thursday afternoon for Valentine's Weekend (the long weekend makes it convenient), so I have to clean up a bit for that as well. Top it all off, the Fool For Love event is coming up, and it's a lot to get done in such a short period of time.

And you just KNOW it's going to snow sometime soon.

Good news and bad news

The bad news is that Malygos is a cheap bastard that refuses to drop his Surge Needle Ring. I'm going to be rocking Mobius Band until Ulduar comes out, I swear.

The good news is that we downed OS10+2D in three attempts, ironically on the attempt that I remembered to trade out Tinea for Hctib. We did it with a druid MT, warrior OT, druid, pally, and priest healers, MM Hunter, Affliction Lock, Enhance Shaman, Fury Warrior, and FrostFire Mage. Having no Replenishment sucked BALLS.

And you thought this post had something serious to say :P

Science telling us what gamers already know

Came across this study on slashdot today. Being the bio-nerd that I am, I found it interesting, but not surprising.

The mind works differently in PvE than in PvP. Well, duh. Every gamer knows your thought-processes differ when you are dealing with a boss opposed to a Holy Palidan. Abet, the study is simpler than that (a generic Prisoner's Dilemma), but the concept is the same: You think differently when you are confronted with a human opposed to a computer. And now we have direct evidence for it.

One little tidbit I liked, though I wish they would have gone further in depth, was their analysis of female vs. male neuro reactions. While there is no difference between the sexes in a PvE situation, males react more strongly in a PvP situation than females. The authors of the study makes some assumptions as to why that is (drawing on some of the same-old evolutionary aspects of "woman are better at emphasizing" and "men compensate by being more competitive"), but don't really come to any conclusions.

This is a Feat of Strength?!

Kill Goblins in a group - it took me all of four hours to hit friendly with the Bloodsail. It's very therapeutic killing the green goons - I got what you need: A polearm to the face!

Of all the places

When I say I hate someone, I don't despise them - I envy them greatly. One of my lab partners in my biogeography class is a grad student who works at the Field Museum. She studies diptera (flies), but professes to have more interest in coleoptera (beetles), but I hate her anyway, because she's the entomologist I want to become someday. I can't even begin to explain how much I would love to be her, and just to add insult to my ego-injury, it turns out she raids as a NE Feral Druid.

We were working in the computer lab, analyzing data, when I noticed that the shine on my laptop's spacebar was predominately on the left, whereas all the other computers had their shine on the right. I asked one of my other lab partners where the shine was on his laptop's spacebar (right), and concluded that left-thumb usage is another hallmark of the gamer's keyboard. (I don't know about anybody else, but when I'm surfing the internet, not necessarily typing anything, my left hand automatically sits on WASD.)

When I say this aloud, the grad student perks up, "What do you play?" "Oh, I'm addicted to World of Warcraft." "Really? How far are you?" "We just downed Sarth plus three drakes."

She sorta nods, and we both go back to work. As we finish up for the afternoon, she says "So, I suppose it's time for the obligatory 'What server are you on?'"

We end up talking all the way to the bus stop. Turns out her guild is also working on OS25+3D, so we were swapping strategies and debating tactics. It never ceases to amuse me the initial reaction to declaring your faction. When I told her I play a Tauren Hunter, she gives a little scowl with the reply, "Oh, you play Horde." My response: "Ew, you must be Alliance." Then we concluded that we could no longer be friends and it was going to be painful having to work together for the rest of the quarter.

It's comforting to know that there are more women biologists out there with a gaming habit, though it certainly caught me by surprise to find one so close!

In other news, we cleared Sunwell in an hour last night (sorry, 55 minutes). As sad as it was that we killed Kil'Jaeden before Anveena could even sacfrice herself, the fight had The Coolest Graphics Ever, and I'm glad I got to see it at least once, though I regret not being about to try Muru and KJ when they were a challange.

Oh, and the bow dropped. It went to another hunter :P

Curiouser and curiouser

• Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
• A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
• Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
• Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
• Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
• We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

The wording on the ammo changes is weird. They are no longer consumed and no longer stack? So, they are gone forever, or are they reduced to an infinite item? I... I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, good-bye major gold sink and pain in the ass. On the other hand, ammo has always been part of us. It's been a DPS boost and a reward. Not to mention it further reduces the applications of engineering... Gonna have to wait and see how this turns out.

Nice, new tiers of pet talents. Could be fun. I like boosting BM through the pet and not through something like Serpent Swiftness.

Hunting Party changes are nice - for SV. I want a passive mana talent... Not like it frees up any points though; our SV hunters only put two or three points in it anyway. The Sniper Training is weird. Sure, it sucks for all the moving fights, but nice for close-range fights, like Thaddius or Malygos.

Piercing Shots... how interesting. A rolling DoT, or perhaps it will be replaced by the higher damaging shot? I might just move ISS points into it...

Phew

Malygos - Feign Death not working is "intended"
Feign death not working in actually intentional, but certainly not desired. It was causing a very nasty problem, and we've been trying to figure out a way to handle the particular boundary case without setting the creature flag that ignores feign death.

Neg kinda sorta pulled aggro with a 7K Arcane Shot when Greatness procced the one second after Misdirect faded. It was the first attempt, and only a few melee died (five), but they felt obligated to call a wipe. Oops? Really, Deterrence just doesn't cut it like Feign Death.

Yay, challange!

After 122 wipes, Sarth and his three lieutenants go down!


Woot for progress! It was such fun getting that second drake down with only a few melee dead, then communicating when to jump into the portal, AoE the elementals, and DPS the last drake. Finally, with probably 10 dead, we got him, Bloodlust coming up just in time to burn down the last 15%. My hands were shaking for sometime!

Oh, and the promised update to nakedneg.com is up :P

Thinking About Imp. Steady Shot

Tonight I jumped in for the last two hours of Naxx, from Patchwerk on. I was the only MM hunter - two SV hunters were there for the entirety of the night, one other SV hunter was there for three wings. Here is the WWS.

Times Imp. Steady Shot procced per fight:
Patchwerk - 10
Grobbulus - 5
Gluth - 7
Thaddius - 5
Razuvious - 5
Gothik - 2
Four Horsemen - 5
Sapphiron - 3
Kel'Thuzad - 15

I noticed that I tend to use Arcane once Imp Steady procs, if only because that's the available shot at the time - I want to say that tendency is roughly 80%.

If I move those points out it will be into Barrage to boost Aimed Shot (which is currently my lowest shot), though I wonder if reducing yet another mana efficiency talent is worth it - I go an OOM at around twice in an encounter.

Just thoughts.

Oh, and nerf Ret Pallies (haxxors!) :P


I like where I am here - if this is where Blizzard wants hunters to be, I'm fine with that!

T8, or How Many Old Armor Sets Can You Find!

I really, really, REALLY hope Hunter T8 has not been finalized. More horns?! A gas-mask?! What are we, Plague-stalker?! I mean, how do you stalk a plague?

I'm going to try and forget I ever saw this...

(At least we are not mages, but it's approximately as painful.)

I Can Has Agility?

I'm sure SV can get higher, but I think that's rather pretty regardless :3

Heh, Google'd

"leatherworking dailies"

I wish. No, my dear Leatherworkers, we have no profession dailies, unlike our Jewelcrafting brethern. Whereas they receive their purchasable patterns from the tokens rewarded from that daily, all of our patterns are bought using Heavy Borean Leather or Arctic Fur from Braeg Stoutbeard.

"thrusting hodir's spear"

Spam 1 (Grip) until you get 90 or so, then spam 3 (minor damage) until he swipes. Hit 2 (Dodge), then 4 (major damage). Spam 1 again, then 3, until the next swipe, rinse and repeat. Don't use 4 without a dodge before it - my tolerance is about 3-5 second window, if the CD is almost up. Once you are in it's mouth, pry it maybe 3 times before your first time thrusting, then keep prying until the thrusting CD is up. Wow, that sounded bad...

"moth pet 3.0.8"

Tinea is doing quite well, I am happy to report - she is out-damaging cats consistently. I have not tried working with her without the macros yet, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that they have been fixed to automatically cast Rabid and Serenity Dust yet.

"nerubian chiton"

Major pain to farm, imo. Just run AN or OK imo >.> If I ever have to grind farm it, I'll let you know.

"difference between female tauren and taunka"

None. Lazy Blizzard bastards...

"can i respec my pet's talent points?"

Yes, same way you always used to train your pet back in the day - just go to a pet trainer in any major city.

"fan art of lady sylvanas naked"

o.O

"what happen when you kill a butterfly in the past"

You'll be killed by a butterfly in the future.

Some days, I really love GC

Him putting the smack down on some QQers.

Just some particular quotes I enjoyed:

Even though we can disagree on which hunter spec is the easiest to play, the class as a whole is not easy to play, at least not at the expert level.

We have some long-term plans for mechanics but it is way too early to talk about them. Blizzcon maybe. (Neg is intrigued...)

One more thing I would like to add is that there is no concept of “hunters do X dps.” You can generate numbers on a target dummy, or numbers on Patchwerk, or numbers for Naxx, or numbers for Naxx bosses. All of those are numbers are likely to be different, and that is something we want. We want every encounter to be different. We want some classes to so better on some fights than others. It’s more interesting that way than if every encounter in the game always produced the same classes in the same stack rank. A big disconnect between the community and the developers is that we don’t accept dps as an absolute number. It is relative and it is nebulous. The community with its spreadsheets and target dummies more often views it as an absolute.

That is the absolute mother-fucking truth right there.

I'll believe this when I see it...

Supposed Patch 3.1 notes.

There are a lot of very happy things in there for Hunters, and life in general. Too happy...

• • Dual Talent Specialization: Players can now visit their class trainers to learn a second Specialization. Specializations may be switched at any time as long as the player is not in combat, this will also change your character's Glyphs, Action Bars and Talents. Specialization options can be found in the talent menu.
• • Potency Rating: Haste Rating, Armor Penetration Rating and Spell Penetration have been merged into a single stat. Each percent of Potency will decrease the enemy's spell resistances and armor; it will also increase the player's cast speed and melee attack speed.
• • Replenishment: Now grants 0.5% of base mana every second and can effect up to 25 raid members.
• • A new bank slot is now available for purchase!

All of the above just deserve a WOOT.

• • Removed "Brew of the Year" as criteria for the "Brewmaster" meta achievement.
• • The number of cooking recipes needed for the "Chef De Cuisine" achievement has been lowered to 150.

It won't matter, because I'm still missing my Hallowed Helm from Hallows End, but I'm glad I won't have to wait a full year after Brewfest. The cooking was seen coming.

Hunters

• • Mortal Shots: Critical strike damage bonus increased to 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%.
• • Kindred Spirits: Now increases pet's damage by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20%.
• • T.N.T: Stun chance reduced to 3%/6%/9%.
• • Arcane Shot: Base damage increased slightly.
• • Steady Shot: Base damage increased slightly.
• • Ferocious Inspiration: Increases the damage dealt by Arcane shot by 5%/10%/15%.
• • Aspect of the Dragonhawk: Dodge chance reduced to 10%, attack power bonus increased to 330.
• • Aspect of the Monkey: Dodge chance reduced to 10%
• • Beastial Wrath: Duration increased to 20 seconds.
• • The Beast Within: Duration increased to 20 seconds.
• • Cobra Strikes: Also increases the damage dealt by you and your pet by 2%/4%/6%.
• • Readiness: Now works with Beastial Wrath.
• • Chimera Shot: Mana cost reduced.
• • Silencing Shot: Now interrupts the enemy's spellcast, preventing any spell from that school of magic from being cast for 8 sec.
• • Disengage: Mana cost removed.
• • Explosive Shot: Deals a small amount of damage to targets within 5 yards.
• • Pets
• o Exotic pets have had their health increased slightly.
• o Exotic pets can no longer be dodged or parried.
• o Most boss abilities will no effect pets.

Mana reductions are win, buffs to Exotics are good incentives, and damage/AP increases are always welcome. They seem a little too much, in my opinion, as they will definitely push MM over into that OP zone. I really hesitate to believe this, as pretty as they are, they are just too nice.

There is more, but I wouldn't want to ruin it for you :P We can dream, right?

My science failed me..

Seriously, in what culture is Positive-Left, Negative-Right?!

Tonight's Undying plans for Naxx10 were cut short at the first boss, Razuvious, when he looked at a tank the wrong way. So we decided to go for the rest of the achievements, including And They Would All Go Down Together and Just Can't Get Enough. The Four Horsemen achievement was rather easy and a lot of fun - we did it with three healers and found it was totally dependent on communication. We managed a handful of the other achievements for those who needed them, but I admit, I totally screwed over Shocking! for those who needed it.

In my world, negative is associated with the left and positive with the right, where dials are turned left to subtract and to the right to add and gages move right when positive and left when negative. So when I found out our guild does positive to the left and negative to the right for Thaddius, I literally had to pause for a second to override my instincts. Tonight, I didn't pause, and promptly went right when I had the positive charge. It took me a few seconds of uneasiness to determine something wasn't right, then apologized for nearly killing off half the raid.