Glory of the Hero

I only need three more things to finish off glory of the hero and last night with the ICC 25 being a scratch a few of us decided to give it a try to get them.  We only ended up getting one of them, the other 2 we now know how to get them easily.

Share the Love.  That was a bit of an adventure but we got it.  Got the tank and healer done first being that is the easy part.  Then got the other two DPS done.  So it was my turn, one problem with being my turn is my DPS rocks.  So for me to grab second on the aggro list I had to go all out but could not go all out or I would have killed him.  I am sitting there auto shotting hoping I can get up enough and it just was not happening.  He was down to 14K health and I could not take a shot any more.  We stopped DPS on him completely.  Even if I wanted to one auto shot could kill him now.  My auto shot crits are 8K-10K plus I could always get a wild quiver shot or a quick shot from my bow off which would mean death in one shot.  We had no clue what to do, we where letting him run around spearing people hoping he would go for me.  Then I came up with the idea to just get under him.  I mean as he ran I was running with him.  Low and behold it worked, he speared me, threw it off I dropped a kill shot and the achievement was done.  Wow, talk about close.

Less-Rabi.  Talk about close again except this was close in the wrong way.  We did great interrupting him and had it down.  I fired off my kill shot to end it and while in flight to hit him he started his change as it hit.  The system counted it as he changed even if he died at the same time he cast it.  That is so unfair.  But it shows we can do it now no problem.  I just needed like half a second more to get that kill shot off earlier.  This should not be much of a problem if I can go with the same group.

Zombiefest.  I love the name of that one because I have always been a big zombie fan to begin with.  We did it and just did not pull enough.  Got 86.  Now we know were we need to go next time to get the 100.  Should not really be a problem.  One volley from me should kill them all easily but that will also most likely result with instant death even with misdirect.  They seem to love me as soon as I volley in there.

Those are the three I needed, so 2 more I still need, Zombiefest and Less-Rabi.  We can get them easy enough I think.

I helped them get a few they needed, the best was Watch Him Die.  When I did it was micromanaged it and killed all the little guys first but the tank this time said just go for the kill and that is what we did.  I went balls to the wall attacking him and everyone went down with just me and all of them left.  I dropped a kill shot on him, hit readiness while strafing, dropped a chimera and another kill shot just as he got to me.  He killed me and I killed him at the exact same time.  Ding all around, they got the achievement.  Nice work there.  The idea was for me to be the one doing all the damage and for them to keep him detracted long enough for me to kill him.  Thanks to some fancy footwork at the end that is exactly what happened.

It is amazing how some of these achievement are still kind of exciting to try and get even as over geared as we are.  Actually, if anything, some are even harder being we are so over geared.  Hopefully this weekend, if I can get the group back together again, I can finish off glory of the hero.

Getting Into Healing

I healed a few dungeons yesterday.  AH, Gun, and VH to be exact.  Had no problems this time around but it helped knowing that I had a level 80 shadow priest backing me up if I ran into some trouble and the tank was a someone I run with often. 

While I am doing somewhat well I am still not comfortable with some things in healing such as multi heals.  PoM takes care of a lot of the little stuff but PoH seems to take a year and a day to cast and once last night I went to cast it when everyone was down to 50% and before it was done casting I was knocked back.  I was able to get it off again but there is really something wrong with that.  I was lucky that the tank was at full which allowed me the chance to do it again.  If the tank was low then they would have been my focus to heal and others would have had to wait.  Which could have turned out to mean death.  Wish I had more AoE healing capabilities.

I also need to get into the habit of using binding heal once in a while.  Why waste a GCD on healing myself when I can heal my target and myself at the same time.  All I ever need is a tiny top off most of the time and that is more then ample.

I've already come up with a small list of healing rules that I plan on running with and I am sure that they are conclusions that every healer comes to at some point.  If I say I need mana and you keep going you better be able to beat the packs without me because I am not going to stop drinking to save your ass.  Another one is with large pulls.  Sometimes, even at my level (75) you will end up with some sick pulls of tons of mobs.  I will stick with you and heal my butt off and not give up.  You better not give up either.  So often I see people get overwhelmed and just let themselves die.  If I see someone do that, next time in I won't even bother healing them if they are not even going to try.  I don't care if I die too.  I am a clothie and my repairs are cheaper then yours.

I am liking healing a great deal so far.  I am even thinking of doing some randoms without the comfort of my fellow faction members with me.  I just like having them around.  Many times they tell me things I did not know about having only done this stuff with a ranged DPS and some of the stuff as a tank.  Just as I learned things are different from a tanking perspective I am noticing things are different from a healing perspective.  However, most of the time I think of it as I am still a ranged DPS.  The difference is now I am not burning the enemy down with my hunter I am charging the ally up with my healer.

A little more of this and I might actually be willing to test out my tree spec on my Druid.  I have the gear, I just never used it yet.  I know it is a different type of healing but it is not the style that scared me it was the ability to do it.  I am learning the ability to do it so once I got that down all I would need to do is change the style of play to change the type of healer.

So far it seems to me that healing, while stressful sometimes, is a lot less pressure then tanking felt like.  Maybe that just means I hit my comfort zone with healing now.  I know I never felt comfortable as a tank.  I only tank when a friend needs me too now.  I do not even do dailies for frosts even though I need the gear.  I just do not feel comfortable tanking.

The Wonders of Leveling in Northrend

There was a recent post on the wow forums where someone complained about leveling in Northrend.  His basic complaint was that it was hard.  Needless to say that your first time through it sure is hard but not hard as in difficult but hard as in time consuming.

My first character ever, my beloved hunter, took a total of 31 days played to get to 80.  Yeap, that does seem like a lot but you have to remember I knew nothing about the game.  I also took the time to level everything.  My professions and my secondary professions as well.  I would have to guess at least 1/3 of that time spent leveling was trying to find where the hell I needed to go because I had no clue how to get around.  On more then one occasion I can recall 2 hour journeys to find where I needed to go.

Now when I level a character I can get 1-80 in less then 10 days.  Even possible to do about 5 days time played if I do not fart around a lot.  I have a habit of doing that.  In those 5 days I am still leveling all professions and secondary professions.

In the end it does not take that long to level once you have done it before.  Northrend is indeed the longest span it will take to level because it is the current end game so they have not adjusted it to move you through it faster.  I would guess when Cataclym comes out they will do just that and leveling in Northrend will be a hell of a lot faster.

Thing is, once you have a 80 you can buy cold weather flying for your alt at 68 and once you do that leveling should never be an issue in Northrend.  My second 80 took only 8 days from 1 to 80 and that was even with lots and lots of farming ore.  I made it to Northrend with about 6 and a half days played and it took me one and a half days played to get from 68-80.  Not bad really but I worked on it a lot.  That was my problem and why I think it took so long.

The key to quick leveling in Northrend is simple.  Rested experience.  If you have flying that will but it down a lot too.  If you only quest while rested you can blow through 70-80 in no time at all.  My third character to get to 80 was my DK.  It had been sitting in Dal forever so it had full rested experience.

One Sunday I decided to level it and started to do some questing.  I would pick and choose my quests to maximize my time spent for return on experience and I worked quests in bunches.  At the end of one long Sunday, about 10 hours, I was 75.  The next Sunday came around and I decided I would finish it off.  75 to 76 slowed me down a little.  The pickings for quests that were fast and easy where slim and I had to do some quests that were more time wasters then anything else.  Took me nearly 3 hours to get from 75 to 76 but once I got to 76 they might as well have just granted me level 80.

I went straight to the nessingwary quests.  With rested the experience from kills is insane, everything is bunched close together, and it is easy to do.  I was 77 after I finished all those and some other area quests that I picked up because they were along the way.

The idea is to do them, the crusaders area near Dal, the ebon hold, a few of the argent ones in ZD, the hodir ones and the tourny ones.  All those quest groups are quick, reward a lot and bascially required at some point or another if you want to get stuff later on.  When all is said and done you are level 80.  My DK was 80 before even having 1 day played.  When it dinged 80 it had still been working on rested experience.

See the key there, rested experience.  Which meant that whenever I needed to kill something I got double for killing it.

A quick start guide on what to look for when you want to level fast, this will work from the beginning.

1) Always quest on rested experience.
- Double killing experience is worth playing the character only a short amount each day.
2) Always grab quests that have you going somewhere else.
- You are going to be traveling there sooner or later anyway so you might as well get a little experience.  Never make the trip just to turn in that quest however.  That is a waste of time.
3) Always grab the kill 10 bear type quests.
- Quick quests like that where you are getting double experience per kill are perfect.
4) Do not be afraid to abandon quests.
- Grabbing the collect 10 bear hides type of quest while killing bears for something else is great but if the drop rate sucks and you never got all 10 and you are moving to the next area now it is not worth your time to farm the remaining ones. 
5) Get me this or that quests.
- Boring as it might seem the quests that say go get me a bronze tube is perfect for experience even if you have to go grab it.  You do not waste any rested doing it and you get experience for basically doing nothing.  Just be smart.  Do not send your character to go get it.  Get and alt near the AH buy it and send it to you.  Which brings us to the next point.
6) Never waste time when you do not need to.
- If you do not have a bronze tube on you do not waste your time going to get one.  Park your butt somewhere and log out.  Pop on a alt sitting in a city, but it from the AH and mail it to your character that needs it.  Log back into that character and grab it from the mail box and collect your awesome experience for doing basically nothing.
7) Do not be afraid to drop a quest line.
- You are leveling here.  If you want completion you can come back later and do it.  If the quest line is going to send you to the other side of the world pick it up.  If you happen to be there at some point do it.  If not, when it becomes low leveled and you know you are never going to be in that area, drop it.  Never go there just for that one quest.
8) Do not let the dungeon finder trick you.
- I do not care what anyone says, I have leveled more then enough alts now to know that this new tool, while nice, is not leveling material.  If you have a quest then do the dungeon.  Do not do it if you do not have a quest for it.  The one quest will net you more experience then the entire dungeon will.  You can do 10 normal quests in the time it takes to do one dungeon in some cases with some of the groups you will end up with.  Dungeon leveling is dreadfully slow, even worse if you are not on rested.
9) Leveling professions can slow you down.
- You have to decided on if you want to do this one yourself or not.  I like to level professions as I go but it does slow me down some.  Still capable of 80 in less then 10 day even at that.  Thing is, fighting off 6 mobs to get that herb node wastes your rested experience and your time.
10) Always quest on rested experience.
- Yes, it really is that important.  Also, not killing stuff you do not need to lets you fit more quests in while you are still on rested.  I know rested does not give extra quest experience, but quests give more experience then anything else and you are only playing while rested so you want to get as many in as possible.

Wiping is One Thing

I have no issues with progressions.  Wipes are a part of learning, always have been and always will be but once in a while you have to say enough is enough.  We where on Sindragosa again last night and had a few more wipes.  It is like a dead end lately.  When you see some progression you do not mind do it again and again but when you see it has stalled you eventually have to say screw it.

I am almost to that point.  I am not sure what it is really.  The group that was there is more then capable of doing it.  My DPS is total crap on that fight which I am guessing might have to do with the large amount of down time when Sin is airborne but even at that I think 7500 is horrible being I do 10K without the buff.  Even with the time not DPSing while Sin is in the air I should be doing a crap load more DPS with that 30% buff.  However, as low as it seems DPS is not the issue here.  We get to the final phase before the 5 minute warning even.  So we will never even come close to the enrage timer.

The issue is somewhere else.  When the tanks change to drop the mystic buffet one of them always dies.  It is not an if they die it is a when they die.  I noticed that and decided to make a suggestion on how to get around that.  Being the tank is going to die anyway... let them.  I know that sounds like a strange tactic but there is nothing they can do to keep them up.  One always dies.  And then the dragon goes all freak-o on everyone else if the other tank does not pick it up in time.

The idea was this.  Have one tank go hog wild and do everything they can do to the boss.  Let the stacks build as high as they could and blow all cooldowns.  Do everything they can to survive.  They made it up to 18 or so stacks before dying so healing is not an issue. (then why are they dying?)  As they are about to go down for that final count the other tank picks Sin up.  You know what?  It freaking worked.  A battle res goes out to the sacrificed tank and we continue with the other tank waiting to play sacrificial lamb.

That started to work but then some ice block issues came up and that ended up picking apart the team.  We got Sin down to 12% 3 times I think.  That is where we are stuck.

More DPS can help, the faster we burn down Sin the less tank switching will be needed and the less ice blocks will be placed.  Said part is... my miserable 7500 is still topping the group.  There are some 4Ks in there too which there should not be.

More healing can help, but we where two healing it up to third phase fine when the tanks started dying on the switch and even when we bought in a third healer to help the tanks where still dying on the switch.  Whatever that issue is there it is on the healers.  If a tank dies while there are three healers that know they are going to need lots of heals for the switch then they are doing something wrong because the tank is not getting heals.

There could be some adjustment on the tanks part as well.  Every pull the tank eats it, but it still seems to push the tank back which sooner or later runs them into the wall backing them up.  That is wrong, it should never be like that.  There is no reason the tank should be going backwards until they are up against the wall.  Maybe they can adjust cooldowns to blow them during the switches in phase three.

I can pick it apart all day long and I will never be able to say what is wrong.  The crew I am there with is a great crew with fantastic ability and they can just not get it done.  There is something missing.  I am getting bored with fighting my way to Sin and starting a wipe fest that we have no chance of beating.  Can we really do it?  Is it worth going back in on Friday to try it again?  I am going to have to do some research and see if any other guilds have had this problem.

Gear Score Nuts on the Rampage

A friend of mine was kicked out of a heroic dungeon last night for having a low gear score of 3.8K.  Yes, you read that right.  He was kicked out of a heroic for having heroic gear.  Holy chicken eggs batman.  Since when do you need to have gear from after the content to do the content.

I have always figured it worked this way.  To do heroics you need to have normal gear. You are stepping up to heroics.  I am not exactly sure why or when it changed that you can no longer get into heroics unless you are ICC 25 geared.  The thing is, he was not even the tank or the healer.  He was a DPS.

I know, from running my hunter.  Even if I was the only DPS there.  Just me, a healer and a tank, we could do any heroic Dungeon (except HoR maybe) alone.  We do not even need the other two DPS.  So why kick a 3800 gear score DPS?

I remember the first time I tanked HoL (that is where he was kicked) on my bear.  I had a 3300 gear score.  The healer had a 3200 gear score and the three DPS all had over 5300 gear scores.  The two most vital roles, tank and healer, were lower gear score.  And I know I had no clue how to tank.  I was still brand new.  It was only my 5th or 6th run ever tanking and guess what.  There were a few deaths here and there but there were no wipes and the whole instance took less then 30 minutes.

If the two key parts to making things easier can be heroic geared only and it is not a problem then why kick someone who out geared the heroic when there are also two others doing the same job as him?

When I first hit 80 on my Hunter I read up on dungeons before even thinking of getting into a group for one and I saw that at least 1200 DPS was needed for a reasonable run.  1500 DPS was considered good enough to make the run easy.  Where did things change that now if you can not pull 3K DPS you can not do heroics?

I was doing Naxx before I was pulling 3K DPS.  Heck, I think my first Ulduar run I was only just cracking 3K DPS for the first time.  I really don't think that heroics are harder then raids and require more gear to do.

Funny thing is, that is not the first time I heard someone talk about getting kicked like that.  I've heard some people getting kicked for not doing 4K DPS or a healer getting kicked because he drank to often or a tank getting kicked because he could not pull, pull, pull the entire instance at once.

While tanking I have been in instances that had low DPS.  One time had a Gnome DK pulling a whopping 500 DPS.  No I did not miss a 0.  He did get it up to 800 DPS at one point however.  I never even considered kicking him.  Had a run in CoS where a Dwarf Hunter decided to look into every house we passed instead of killing things.  He did manage to have about 250 DPS.  However I think that was all done by his pet and not him.  He was looking at the real estate.  Maybe he was looking to buy a new house or something but he sure as hell was not there to run an instance.  We still beat the timer without him and I never once considered kicking him.  His DPS was not really needed so why worry.

Am I too tolerant?  I think not.  I just do not care really.  I knew we could move along nicely and the DPS was not an issue.  Instead of wasting the time to click to kick, waiting for the vote and waiting for the replacement, even if it was all a total of 2 minutes or 3, I would rather keep moving.  If the person was a jerk then I would kick them in a heartbeat even if he was pulling 10K DPS.  If we had a lesser geared group and needed the DPS I would kick in a heartbeat someone that was not even trying.  I am actually the exact opposite.  I am not tolerant at all.  I will kick instantly without even a thought about it... if it were needed.  Thing is, in my life of LFD I have never ever needed to kick anyone with exception of a DCed tank.

Heck, one time I get Violet Hold and both the tank and the healer had only came as tank and healer for faster query times.  Neither of them had tank or healing specs.  So here we were, 5 DPS in VH.  I looked at the gear and said, lets just go for it.  We out geared the place so bad it was like one 80 soling deadmines.  A joke.  Nothing lived long enough to be an issue and the 2 classes there that did have healing ability where more then ample to top us off between fights.  So even without a tank or a healer some 80 heroics are completely doable by 5 people that know that they are doing. 

Bosses are not much of an issue for people with brains either if you do not have a tank.  Let someone with a taunt pick them up and run with them.  I distracting shot them across the room and pew pew until they get close and FD then someone taunts them again back across the room.  Just as they are about to get to them I DS again and by the time it gets to me it is dead... if it lasted that long. 

No need for a healer if no one is being hit.  No need for a tank either if even me as a Hunter can tank nearly all heroic content in my mail with my 50% damage reduction and 40% dodge I have more going for me then most tanks did when they first started tanking level 80 content for the first time.

I find it disheartening to have anyone kicking people in a heroic for any reason.  One person in all greens can easily be carried, even if it is the tank or healer.  Why do people need to be such complete pricks?

Getting used to Healing

It is not that I have never healed before it is just that I never really got into it.  Never really took it all that serious.  I did not run dungeons daily and I did not run them if there might be a challenge.  Dungeons where a way for some quick experience for me and nothing more.  Healing just happened to be a quick query and nothing more.

Not exactly sure why I rolled a healer if I was not completely sure I wanted to heal.  Guess it was more because I needed tailoring and a Priest seemed to be the perfect one to learn that skill.  Also, I wanted to try my hand at healing at least. 

It has taken me some time but after doing dungeons for the last few days I am starting to get more of a hang of it.  I still need to tweak my healbot some but the fact that I am getting more comfortable means I am getting better I think.

Did OK last night and I feared doing that dungeon.  The spellweavers are like instant death almost and it scared me. Not to mention so seriously hard pulls in there and the last boss that was never fun even as a DPS (never minded tanking it however).  We had 2 wipes and I would not consider either my fault. 

One was that big room with all those packs.  We ended up with something like11 packs on us at once.  I kept the tank up through the whole thing as the DPS started to drop slowly as I could not keep the tank and them up with the massive amount of damage that was incoming.  Once I ran out of mana it was death.  Over all, I think we lasted a hell of a lot longer then I would have expected.

The other wipe (actually not a wipe but close) was just before the boss.  We ended up with 2 of those things and the damage they do it outrageous. The AoE thing or whatever it is was hitting everyone for more then 50 percent.  And there were 2 of them.  I made it through that damage 3 times keeping everyone up as well as the tank. Forth time was not so lucky.  Lost all the DPS.  I kept working on the tank and trying to keep myself alive.  Just as the damage was about to come again I threw out all I had and died.  The tank was at max health but was now alone against 2 of them.  He killed one almost instantly.  It took him nearly 5 minutes to kill the second one but he did it.  Have to love having a good tank at a lower level.

So not at 74 I am starting to feel a little more comfortable.  However there is one issue.  I've been playing in a safe zone really.  The 4 others with me are all guild mates with alts.  So any chance where I do mess up I have people that understand and people who are willing to give advice.  Not to mention people that will let me drink when I need to.  An issue I have had happen in low level dungeons many times.  I can not tell you the number of times I am at 0 mana and the tank goes and grabs 6 mobs as soon as I sit even after I said I need mana.

I wish stupid people like that could be banned from playing the game outright.  You are too stupid to play a multiplayer game.  Come back when you learn some team work.  Wouldn't that be awesome on many levels?  I think I will be ready to try some randoms without guildies soon.  That will be fun.

Mining for Power Leveling

My Shaman, who is now 65, will be heading to northrend shortly.  Mostly likely after the next time I feel like playing it and bang out those 3 levels.  My mining was already northrend level but my blacksmith ability is way behind.  From questing I noticed there was no way in hell that I was going to get enough ore in those next three levels to get my blacksmith skill up to northrend level.

That is one of the downfalls of blowing through outlands.  Skill leveling is harder.  Also, in turn, it means that items used for leveling skills from outlands are usually outrageously priced. I was left to decided between one of a few options.  Farm it on my Shaman, keep leveling until I am 68 and then see where I am, check the auction market or farm it on an alt.

Farming it on my Shaman is out of the question for a few reasons, one being that it has slow flight which makes farming a  lot longer and the other is that it is only level 65 so it will have lots of fights with creatures for ore.  Waiting was also out of the question because I hate to leave skills behind and if I wanted to 68 to play catch up I would then need to go back and I do not want to go back.  The auction house as well was over priced so it looked like my level 80 druid would go for a few fly overs to gather ore.

After it was all done I leveled my Shaman all the way up and noticed something quite interesting.  A small fortune can be made in the outlands if you are willing to invest your time.  I farmed for a bit over an hour.  Something like one hour and 9 minutes to be exact.  I use my buff duration to keep track of time.  In that time I mined a crap load of stuff.  I did waste a little time in Shadowmoon valley doing a full pass and only getting four nodes.  Apparently that is where the gold sellers have their bots.  There was nothing to be found and being no one ever quests there any more unless they are working on loremaster or for their drakes it is the perfect spot for the bots to go unnoticed.  So if I minus that mistake on my part I will say I farmed for 1 hour.

Below I will list what I got and what the prices are on my server for them.  Mind you, prices on your server can be higher or lower of course.  But this is what I saved myself from spending 1 hour of my own time to farm instead of buying.  This is also what I would be capable of earning per hour if I decided to sell them next time instead.

Fel Iron Ore - 162 - 3g50s = 567g
Adamantite Ore - 183 - 2g50s = 457g50s
Eternium Ore - 17 - 1g = 17g
Primal Fire - 2.4 - 10g =  24g
Primal Earth - 11.7 - 2g =  23g40s

Which means I saved myself from having to spend 1088g90s by investing 1 hour of my time.  In turn, I could have sold all of that and would have make over 1000g for one hour of farming.  BC materials are a gold mine for people that are willing to invest the time.  When you are talking return on investment 1000g for 1 hour is pretty darn respectable.  As weird as this might sound however.  I would easily farm for an hour to save myself from spending 1000g but I am not completely sure I would farm in an effort to make the 1000g.  I can make 1000g a lot faster with all the professions I have.  But for people just coming up or those idiots that keep saying they can not afford their repair bill this is a perfectly acceptable way to make money with a small amount of involvement time wise.

So sometimes power leveling is not as costly as some might make it seem if you are capable of getting the materials yourself and are willing to invest your own time to do so.

The Good Old ArP Test

I've got 2 more raids worth of data to consider for my Armor Penetration test now.  One being ICC 10s Sin fight.  I only did 7700 but I am still learning that fight.  It is not quite the 8K I was looking for and a few of the attempts I was as low as 6000 but over all for the night I ended with a 7700 average on all attempts.  We did not down it with the group I was in.  The 6000 could be from some bad luck runs where I was frozen.  Either way, not a horrible turn out for a fight I was learning so not much data I can take from there.

The other fight that I can take some data from was doing VoA 25.  Only did two bosses, the last one and the fire one.  The last one is a lot of running and target switching so my DPS is always all over the place on that one depending on where the obs spawn and the team I am with.  If they spawn far from me and everyone that should be going on them is going on them then I can usually do 8500.  If they spawn under my feet and I need to move to get ready for them, or if I am kiting them because no one else is fighting them I can be as low as 7000 on that fight.  I did 7500, so that, again, is within my normal.

The fire boss is the real test here.  I normally do between 9500-10000 on the fire boss.  It is a very limited movement fight so it is better to judge with.  I ended up with 10574 for the fight.  Based on the DPS analyzer, with perfect buffs and debuffs I should have 11606 DPS.  So looking at 10574 means I did well as I know I did not have all the perfect buffs and there is always a touch of human error involved.  Over all I think I did really well based on what is theoretically my maximum DPS for that build.  Thing is, with agility gems my maximum theoretical DPS would have been 11504.  So it is not really that much of a difference yet.

One thing that did jump out at me as glaring was that my piercing shots ended up being number three on the DPS meter.  I guess that is the ArP working there.  I did not miss any possible Chimera or Aimed shots which means that the ArP is bleeding a lot more then it normally does.  So that means something is working right.

I have more testing to do on it but I can not wait to see what it will be like when I get some new ArP items.  I think that is when the real noticeable difference will be seen.

I don't think I was ready for ArP

On a good note, even though the guild leader and co guild leader where both a no show like I knew they would be, we still ran last night.  One of the other people assembled the group and I ran the raid.  It went nicely.  We had two unfortunate wipes from some new people that did not know the fight dying right at the start.  Both wipes where with 1.2M left on Fester.  Would have easily killed him if not for those early deaths.  Good thing for us that we had so many ranged.  We moved the offending people to melee range for the third try and he was down with no problems at all.

As for how the ArP did I would have to say the test was a total failure.  We had a very good group makeup, nearly every buff you could want(except warrior tank which would have helped I am sure).  I was pulling max 11K on the dogs and bosses like Fester, Marrow and LDW.  Now that is not really bad right?  Well, being I can normally pass 12K on them and get to 13K sometimes with some good luck from the RNG I would have to say it was horrible.  I would hit 12K with ease with the 25% buff and could not get over 11K with the 30% buff.

I am not switching back just yet.  Still going to play a little more with it.  One run with the new ArP gems is not going to give me enough statical information for me to make a concrete decision even if in my mind I made the decision before I ever even ran with it.  Like I said, the DPS gain on the analyzer was only 47 to begin with.  I might wait until we run tonight and see if the polearm drops from Blood Princes.  If it does, I will keep running with this test for now.  If it does not and my performance in 10m is less then 8K (new bosses so I expect less) I am going to switch back to agility until I get at least three of those four pieces and maybe the boots and marks as well.  I think the one trinket from RS would really be enough to make the move but I do not see myself getting that one anytime soon.

I did happen to see some huge numbers flying at the screen which is why I wonder why my DPS was lower.  My Multi Shot was nearly 10K+ on all three shots every hit and my Kill Shot crits where hitting 40K.  Sure, sweet numbers but why was my over all less then?  Who knows.  It ended late so I did not get a chance to go over the recount and look closer at things.  I will do that when I get home.  It might give me some insight as to why I saw bigger numbers but had less over all.  (I also have to do my standard when looking over the logs and see who was taking damage that should not have been and all those other little goodies that people never even notice or think to look at)

For now the ArP test seems like a complete failure on it's first run.  It is not my rotation because I dropped arcane a while ago and maybe used it 10 times all night when moving and all other instants where on CD.  It is not like I needed to do anything different then I had been doing for ages.

My ArP Wishlist

I am currently sitting at 1090 ArP.  I really should go back to agility and might do that, but in the effort to save myself some work later I made myself a wish list for what I would need to change before I really take the ArP change seriously.

Current / Wishlist = ArP increase

Quel'Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned 91 ArP
Hersir's Greatspear 109 ArP + 2 Gem Slots (+40 ArP) From 10m Blood Princes
Effective ArP increase = 58

Band of the Night Raven 0 ArP (47 Hit)
Nerub'ar Stalker's Cord 63 ArP From Festergut 10m
Effective ArP increase = 63 (but I would lose 47 hit)

Whispering Fanged Skull 0 ArP
Sharpened Twilight Scale 163 ArP From RS 25m
Effective ArP increase = 163

Wodin's Lucky Necklace 0 ArP (38 Hit)
Sindragosa's Cruel Claw 60 ArP From Sindragosa 25m
Effective ArP increase = 60 (but would lose 38 hit)

I am effectively 8.03% hit right now and would like to keep that.  If I just take the other upgrades only meaning the weapon and the trinket would be a 221 increase putting me at 1311 ArP.  That is just 89 shy of the cap.  Upgrading my head and shoulders would give me another 16 ArP putting me at 1327.  Being I picked up some hit from the weapon I can choose one of the upgrades I lost hit on, the belt has the highest, so that would be another 63 for a total of 1390.  10 shy of the cap.  With Hearty Rhino I would be over cap.

Once I am that close I can start considering switching back to the T10 pieces even if I do lose some ArP I will still be over 1300 and would pick up a little hit from the gloves which would allow me to do the other piece that I would have lost hit on with no problem.  That would also get me my 4 piece T10 bonus back which is a plus for sure.

Sounds like I have my work cut out for me.  Only one group on my server has downed RS 25 and my chances on getting in with them for a run are slim to none as they are pretty much elitist assholes from what I have heard.  Yes, heard.  They really never talk outside of their own inner circle.

Edit:
Crunching theoretic numbers from the analyzer.
As is: 6273.13
With 3 pieces: 6406.63
With all 4 and back to T10 stuff: 6386.63
With 3 marks to upgrade T10: 6600.93
Adding RS boots: 6636.76
All numbers are with 0 buffs.
At the end I am 41 shy of ArP cap.  With food I will be 1 from cap.
This is now my goal.  No heroic items were listed as on my server that is not going to happen.
I now have something to aim for that I outlined so I will not forget it like I normally do.
For fun.
With full raid buffs and debuffs: 12386.93
With 30% buff: 16103.01
Wow.  Sweet!

Testing out Armor Penetration

I am still no where near the cap for Armor Penetration (ArP) but I decided that I needed to shake some things up.  I needed to work on something different to spice my hunters life up some.  I have been putting some numbers into Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer (also known as Female Dwarf) and I have come up with some numbers to play with.

I also dropped the 4 piece tier 10 bonus in favor of 2 off set pieces that had 3 and 2 gems spots as opposed to 2 and 1 respectively.  The pieces on their own had more ArP then the set pieces and the added gems slots will help even if I lose the 4 piece set.  Like I said, this might not sound like a good idea but I am testing it out for the hell of it. 

Based on the numbers I threw into the analyzer I would theoretically have 6225.33 DPS with all agility gems and no buffs what so ever.  With my ArP set up I just changed to it would be 6273.13 DPS which would be a 47.8 DPS increase.  Again, with no buffs at all.

What my worry here is that the 18 agility gems that would have given me 360 agility that scales with buff might be worse off being those 18 now give me 360 ArP instead of agility and that does not scale with buffs at all.  I also lose out on some dodge (which means nothing) and about 4.5% crit that way.  But my crit is still over 50% without any buffs so that is not really much of an issue I think.  I worry about the agility.

I will need to run a few raids to see how it works out for me and analyze the numbers with my own eyes.  Theoretical numbers are one thing, actual numbers are another.  With the buffs I have normally I can do as much as 12K with the occasional 13K or 14K blip here and there.  Lucky crits I guess.  Standard, when not balls to the wall I can easily do 10K.  Most boss fights I know well even with movement I can maintain the 10K number at the least.  Ones I do not know well and am learning I tend to drift down to the 7K range.  That is all fine in my mind as I know once I get my rhythm down for a new fight I will be back to the 10K+ range.

If you read my blog you will know that I never win rolls so I never get upgrades.  While that sucks, that is also a good thing for a test like this.  I know what I was doing because I do the same things every week.  It is a solid base of numbers to work with.  So I figured I would go into this week with an easy way to judge if the switch to ArP was worth it even if I am still 300 from the cap.  Now that the buff has been upped to 30% however it will mess with my results.  I'll have to adjust to it.

I tried a few heroic runs but testing DPS in heroics is impossible.  I can get anywhere from 4K to 9K on a heroic run.  It all depends on how many the tank pulls, how much I need to watch my aggro and what the other people in the heroic are doing.  If I am in a group with all sub 2K DPS then I can easily pull 9K over the course of the run but if the other DPS are all doing well, 5K then it is harder to throw up big numbers.  All these variables make for an impossible testing area.

Using the dummy is also another good idea to judge, but as you noticed, without buffs the DPS gain would only be about 47.8 DPS and testing on a dummy 50 DPS difference could just be the RNG working in my favor or against me.  Either way it could sway my DPS 500 either way.  I have seen that in many tests.  So the 50 DPS will be completely unnoticeable.

I can't wait until I get a chance to test it but it does not seem like that will happen this week.  Our guild leader will not be around for our 25 run so being he is not around that means we do not run.  I F'N hate that crap.  Why can't we run if he is not there?  It is not like he is so freaking special and we can't do anything without him. 

On our 10 we extended the lock out so are doing new bosses which is not ideal for me to test either being on new bosses my DPS is always lower then average because I am learning the fight.  Not only me learning the fight but those around me learning the fight.  I have to adjust want I do depending on how fast the tank is learning it, how fast the healers are learning it and how fast the other DPS are learning it.  For example, 3rd phase on Sin I am to keep on the boss at all times, but being the melee have not learned it enough to get onto the ice blocks fast enough I am forever having to switch targets to help them because they are moving to slowly.  This, in turn, hurts my DPS.  So it is not only me needing to learn the fight that hurts my DPS but those around me needing to learn the fight that hurts my DPS.  So with all that said, new bosses are not the place to test my new ArP set up.

I am already thinking it was a total waste to switch yet being I am not at the ArP cap.  If I would have asked myself I would have said don't do it.  I know I should not have but I wanted to try something different.  I have only gotten one new piece of gear in the last 3 months.  I was bored.  I needed a change of some sort.  I hope it works out.

Working on Rested.

Lately I have lost interest in end game.  Raiding has fallen down to a minimum lately and no one wants to raid any of the earlier raids for the sake of getting achievements only.  That is something that I really want to do.  I like getting achievements even if many of them are now walk in the park easy.  It is still fun to get them.

I have never cleared Ulduar and only cleared Naxx once.  I need only one more achievement from OS to finish them all, the one to do it with 8 or less.  I need all the 25 ones from that one as well.  I want to get all those things done before Cataclysm.  Sure, it is easier now but not as easy as it will be later and add to the fact we do not know if they are going to keep those achievements once Cataclysm comes out so I am getting into the stretch of the last few months where I might even be able to get them.

Being I can't get people up to do those things I have become more and more into leveling alts lately.  Mind you that I do not dislike that.  I still have a lot of skills I need to level up and that is something I want to do and I do enjoy the leveling process with the exception of 48-58.  That area of leveling still sucks.

I have a slew of characters to work on and I've decided that instead of grinding just one or two to 80 which I can do quick enough I am going to work on rested time only.  My Shaman and Priest are at or near 0% rested daily being I do a few quests with them each day and that brings along enough kills to use all their rested.  I have my Warrior (which I am leveling with Refer a friend), my Rogue, my Mage and my Warlock to work with.  My Warriors rested will stay at 100% being the refer a friend stuff does not use the rested experience.  So I have to rotate between my other three, the Rogue, Mage and Warlock. 

Thing is that right now my Priest, Mage and Warlock will all need to share the BoA gear so I will have to pass it back and forth.  My Rogue is really behind on leatherworking even if his skinning is already outlands level.  So for him it is either go on a skinning spree so I can make the stuff or to buy a ton of rugged leather off the market.  I will check prices and see what is more cost effective.  If the price of leather is so high that it would make more sense to collect it then I will collect instead.  I'll have to add to the collecting average that at least there I am still getting some experience and lots and lots of meat to sell on the auction market.  So when weighting time vs money I would have to say if the leather is less then 1g per it is worth buying, if it is more then 1g per it is worth grinding.  Then I need to work on leveling lock picking.  Which is the main reason I made the Rogue to begin with.  However, now that I have a blacksmith in the middle of Oulands and over 300 skill already the lock pick skill is not as important as it used to be.  My Blacksmith will be doing 400 boxes before my Rogue will most likely.

My Mage is in the same situation.  I am only level 53 now but need to take a step back to gather herbs to catch my Alchemy up some.  It is so far behind.  I can pick nearly all old world herbs already, but still need tons of the mid level ones to level up Alchemy.  I think that might actually be worth buying over picking.  Firstly, it is not as abundant as leather.  Getting leather also gets me experience and meat.  Getting herbs just gets me into fights to slow me down.  Also, it seems herbs are mostly dirt cheap.  Even the top level ones are less then 1 gold each with the exception of Lichbloom and Frost Lotus of course.

My Priest is really a none issue.  It is Tailoring and Enchanting.  Just from questing I will get all the Enchanting materials I need and all the cloth I need.  Not to mention all the cloth I get from other characters can be sent over as well.  So getting those up will not be an issue, they are both over 400 already with making no real effort really.

My Warrior becomes an enigma when it comes to skills.  I am leveling it without skills.  That is the first time I have done that with any character.  I am thinking that when the time comes I will make it blacksmith and jewelcrafting.  Should not be an issue being I have more then enough other characters with mining to do some gathering for it on any of the things that might end up being pricey.

Low and behold I forgot one other character.  My Paladin.  Wow, I always seem to over look the Pally.  It has leatherworking and skinning for some stupid reason that seemed like a good idea at the time.  Can you tell I created it back before I started reading up on the game?  I am thinking that I might keep skinning and take another gathering profession as well for leveling purposes.  I've never had a double gatherer but being I will have every other skill covered already having a double gatherer is not a bad idea.  Makes money while leveling and gets materials for power leveling other skills on other characters.  So maybe mining might be best being I do have an idea to power level blacksmith and jewercrafting on the warrior.  I could always make the Pally my gatherer.

I wanted to make a gatherer character but wanted it to be a druid.  For a few reasons.  Druids can pick herbs in bird forum and even an undergeared bear can grind 20-30 mobs at a time at level for leather.  So making it herbalist and skinner would be nice.  One problem there.  I am already maxed out on characters on my realm.

So I will mix and match up my characters and work with the rested experience to level at 200% instead of 100%.  It will make life easier.  It also seems that when you are leveling characters, more then one at a time that is, that the only smart way to level is to level rested.  It basically cuts your leveling time to the point where you can grab one level a day on each character at least while always working on rested only.  That is maximizing your time online to translate to faster leveling.

I really want to get back into raiding however.  Just do not have it in me lately.  Maybe it is the heat getting to me.  I do not like sitting there waiting to pull all night long.  It has become a bore to do raids.  I think that might have more to do with whom I am raiding with and not so much the fact that is the raiding to begin with.

My Main & The Alts

Sounds like a great name for a punk rock band if you ask me.  My main is a Hunter and I see no reason to change that.  I like leveling alts because it is mindless work and it gives me a chance to see how other classes work.  Knowing how other classes work helps me be a better Hunter and a better raid leader when those times come where I am asked to lead.  Nothing worse then being a raid leader that does not know what the other classes should be capable of.  However, that was not my reason for leveling alts to start out with.

I started leveling alts for practical purposes.  I leveled a DK because it start out high enough so I could power level some skills to assist me.  Inscription was an obvious choice being my Hunter had Herbalism to begin with so I could get all I needed to level it with a little farming and I would have herbs left over anyway.  I decided on Enchanting to go with it because of a few reasons.  One being that it went well with Inscription as Inscription made vellums and another was because as I got higher on my Hunter and looked to enchants I noticed that some of the ones I would need where 200g each.  There was no way in hell I was going to pay 200g for an enchant so this way I could make it myself cheaper.

I noticed another thing that seemed to cost a fortune, gems.  So when I made my Druid it was a Miner and Jewelcrafter.  No real thought there, it is what I needed.  So I handled all those BoEs, all those extra Herbs, all those expensive items I needed for my Hunter like enchants, gems and glyphs.  So next stop was gear and lock boxes, so a Rogue it was, with skinning and leatherworking.  That would settle those.  I needed a blacksmtih too so my Shaman would be that and I needed a Tailor so my Priest would be that.

I made all my alts support characters for my main character.  I've gotten a couple to 80.  My Druid and DK are both 80 but I never do anything with them.  There are there for their skills and nothing more.  Once in a while I might run something if someone needs a fill in for a 5 man or something but neither of them are gear or will ever really be geared.  Having a bear that can tank for friends once in a while is nice but I never worked on getting it past that.

As time goes on and I am close to having all the skill maxed, only engineering has not been started, I am left wondering what to do.  The only class I have not started is a Warlock.  I have one at level one sitting in an inn so it is at 100% rest but I have not done a thing with it.  I look to the future and see me having one of each class at level 80 and more importantly, one of each profession at max.  Alchemy would have two of course, one for transmute and one for elixir.  Might even make another Tailor for different specialties there as well.

At some point however I am going to need to do something else.  Once I have all classes level 80 and once I have all skills maxed I will have 10 characters on the server and nothing left to do with them.  I only want one main.  I do not want to deal with gearing up more then one character but I do want to have something else to do when I need to do something different.

So what class should I go for?  I know a secondary main would never be like my main.  I will not go for all those achievements likes I have on my main.  I will not try and gear it up like I have geared up my main.  I would just want it to be good enough to join a PuG should I be bored and looking for something to do.

From where I stand this is how I see my characters.

Priest:  I can see this being a second main.  I love to PvP on my Priest which is a plus.  I like healing but sometimes hate the pressure when I am running with idiots and it is nearly impossible to keep them alive.  I also like that as a healer I can still pew pew when the time comes.  The other day in an UK with an 80 tank that all I needed to do was toss a heal once in a while I decided to do some DPSing and was able to get up to 1100 DPS on my healer at level 71.  So all around the Priest is fun and has some secondary main potential.

Dark Knight: Okay, lets get real here for a minute.  The only people that have DK mains are the ones that failed at every other class in the game and wanted to take the easy route of leveling another one up so they started up one that was already 55.  No one made a DK because they liked being a DK, they made a DK because it was easier for them.  Besides that stigma I just do not like melee classes and if I am going to tank this is not my tank of choice.

Rogue: Read earlier.  I do not like Melee classes and that is all a Rogue does.  I am leveling it to pick locks and make leather/mail, thats it, nothing else.

Paladin: I have not played it enough to make a decision on it yet.  Ret is out of the questing as it is melee and while both prot and holy seem nice I am not so sure about either.  I do think that Holy would be the way to go for a main healer because it is easy mode.  Pally healers are normally tank healers in raids so this makes being a raid healer the easiest.  Not to mention, from what I read, Pally healers have less buttons to deal with then any other healers.

Druid: Been a cat, didn't like it.  Been a chicken, didn't like it.  Am a bear and a tree now.  Never played the tree part but really like playing the bear part.  Sad thing is that bear tanking requires smart DPS more then any other tank.  With that said, being there are so few smart DPS, tanking as a bear sucks.  I will only do it with people I know.  I will not do randoms or PuG with it because people are stupid and I really hate stupid people.

Warrior: Still a little young on the warrior road but so far they seem to be the most fun tanking class out of the experiences I have had.  While I hate melee I can see how whirlwind can be really fun and I might test that out some day.  Just because I hate melee does not mean I will not try it.  I dislike it over all but am not adverse to it so much that I will not try it with different classes.

Shaman: Case and point here.  I hate melee but I like Enhancement.  Who knew?  The rotation is difficult enough where you have to pay attention but easy enough that you can roll with it on the fly.  Might change at 80 but where I am now I have all the skills I will need for end game and it gives me more then ample time to learn how to master my rotation for them.

Mage: When you want easy mode this is it.  It has what I like, range, but I just can not see myself sitting there hitting one button most of the time and occasionally hitting another one.  Leveling is fun because there is no thought to it.  1, 1, 1, 1, 2, (strafe), 1, 1, 1, 1... wow, so freaking hard isn't it?  Dungeon AoEs?  Shift 1, shift 1, shift 1, shift 1.  Can you guess what shift 1 is?  Maybe when I want to play but I also what to veg out at the same time this might be a viable class to play.

Warlock: This is last because this is the one class that I knew almost nothing about at the moment.  I never played it and only know what I have heard from others and what I have read is some of the treads I read.  Yes, before leveling a character I read up on them so I can level faster and better.  The reason this one is last is because I do not really think I will like it.  I've been known to be wrong, so it would not surprise me if I loved playing one once I do get around to it.

So with that all said I see no clear up secondary alt there for me.  Priest seems to be the leading option followed by my Druid Bear and Enhancement Shaman.  None of them however would I be willing to do the heroic grind to get gear once again.  I just do not have it in me to go 300 dungeons any more just to gear up with gear that gets replaced the first time I get into ICC.

I still have a long time before I have all 80s and all skills at max.  For now that is my goal before Cataclysm comes out.  So no need to make a decision now.

Finding something to do.

My main server was down last night which gave me the chance to work on some of my other characters I have floating around in other realms.  Of course the first thing I did was go to my baby hunter.  Listed a few of the thing that did not sell at auction the last time I was there and then was lost.  Not sure what to do.  I was not in a questing mood, not even in a raiding mood (which made me glad my server was down) and not really in a mood to do much of anything.  Not sure if it was the weather, which is like africa hot lately, or if I am just bored with WoW to some extent.  Starting new is easy enough and it is can be fun... When you want to do it.  When you are not in the mood for it then it is just stressful. 

My Hunter was level 21, still had lots of white gear and even white weapons.  Not exactly a world killer on the rise for sure.  I decided to query up for a dungeon just for the hell of it and got into one that went smoothly.  Had a decent tank that had a clue which is rare at that low of a level.  Didn't hurt that everyone in the dungeon had BoA gear, except for me of course.  Made for a smooth run.  Had 3 skinner in it which was annoying, could barely get any skins and I really need to up my leatherworking so I can start making myself some gear.  Outside of that one complaint I had no gripes about the dungeon.  I did find it odd that I was the lowest level there and the only one without BoA gear or even for that matter the only one that was still in half whites, not all greens or better.  Was a bit interesting to see how I rocked the DPS charts against the odds like that.  Makes me think that these people do not know how to play.  It is not like hunters have anything to work with at that level outside of arcane shot and multi shot.  Most of the time I was just auto shooting.

One thing I noticed in most all the dungeons I run on low levels is that the tank is usually #1 on the DPS charts and the total damage done charts.  Which for damage done makes sense.  DPS should be giving him some time before attacking so he can build aggro, even more so at low levels.  Leading in DPS however is a different story.  All the tanks I run with on my main server always lead in DPS on the lower level dungeons.  They also always seem to have aggro problems.  Where I was last night the tank was 3rd and the tank never came close to having aggro problems.  Makes me think that my battle group sucks if I have rarely if ever had a good tank and in 3 runs on this server I have had 3 good tanks that all know what they are doing.  Mind you, at that level what makes a good tank is good DPS.  I noticed that the mage was doing just as I did.  The mage let the tank get aggro and waiting before starting to attack.  Maybe that is why our tank was so good.  The DPS where good.

So my couple of dungeon runs made me 22 now.  Woohoo, meant in a sarcastic way.  It was just not what I was in the mood to do last night.  Out of complete boredom I decided to run one of my DKs through some low level dungeons just to make some cash.  Stocks is always the run of choice.  Super quick and never need to leave the city.  Took my time with my fresh out of the starting area DK and looted everything.  When all was done I sold the junk, listed the cloth on the auction house and the greens for 1g each.  If all sells I will end up with about 60g for the run.  Not bad, but enough to buy a nice big bag for my lowbie on that server.

That is the one thing I noticed that I hate about starting new characters.  No bag space.  I can deal with having to take an hour to work some AH magic and start earning some money.  I can deal with having no skills and having to work them up.  I can deal with having to walk everywhere even if it is lame.  I can not deal with having no bad space however.  You fill that stupid starting bag every few kills.  Because of that you need to run back to empty it or start throwing things away.  As a new character the last thing you ever want to do is throw something away.  If anything, low levels need bag space even more then higher levels.  If my main had to throw something away worth 1g it means nothing to me.  If my new hunter has to throw something away that is 12c it means a lot to it.

I know they do not want to give us lots and lots of bag space to start out with but I really think Blizzard should make mobs drop more coins and less items or add lots of NPCs walking around we can sell to.  Would save countless trips back and forth when you really only needed to empty your bags.

5 Man's in Cataclysm

With Cataclysm coming up lots of people are making posts on what they want to see and the pros and cons to each thing.  Most of it is more a want then a knowledge of what it will be as the information we have is limited but it still is interesting to read peoples discussion as long as it does not fall into the war of flames.

5 Man dungeons are a major point of discussion with many people wanting to see them be a bit more challenging like back in BC.  Now I have never played back in BC when BC was end game but I have done dungeons while leveling with the LFD system and have seen many wipes in normal content BC dungeons.  I chalk this up to WotLK and what it has taught everyone.

I see it from my first run through Deadmines on.  All new tanks try to pull everything and have it AoEed down.  Sad part is, at lower levels this is death calling.  Tanks have so little to work with to keep aggro and DPS have so little to work with to reduce aggro meaning that everyone has aggro on everything all the time.  While wipes in lower level dungeons are fewer they still happen with that mindset.

In BC dungeons this becomes a huge issue as the trash mobs are not push overs even to a group of 5 people in all BoA gear.  They can not just be gathered up and AoEed down even after the tank gets more tanking skills and the DPS get more threat reduction skills.  It is not the way the dungeons where made.  They were made to have to use your brain once in a while.  I was in one the other day on my baby priest where the tank kept having to yell to kill the totems first and no one ever listened so everyone was feared and everyone ran into more packs and sooner or later it was 10 or 12 mobs on us.  The tank was great in picking them all up but with 10 packs on you there was no way any healer could keep up with that at level.  Death was nearly instant for the tank and everyone else to follow.  WotLK taught people to just kill, kill, kill and think of nothing else.

With the guild I was in the day the ICC 5 mans came out we went into them and talked strategy on each pull.  I guess that is what the feeling was like back in the BC days.  It was fun, I am a hunter and have tons of ability in this area that I never got to use.  I learned to trap on the fly, to silence to draw a pack to the tank, many other little tricks.  I do not think of myself as incredibly skilled at all but I do think of myself as competent.  That is why I was able to learn that stuff quickly.  Many are not sadly.  They make my competent look extremely skilled which it is not.  I worry about that should CC become a big part of the game again.

Shortly after that we were back into the AoE fest that WotLK had become. When first learning it we used CC and such because we did not know what to expect.  In no time at all we outgeared it and we knew what each pack did so we no longer needed it and it was AoE time again.

WotLK has taught people the easy way and as sad as this sounds there is no going back after that.  People are just way to stupid to be taught now.  They only know one way and that is the fast burn.  Look at every single group you get into when using the LFD when leveling.  All you see are tanks pulling as much as possible even if they shouldn't be and DPS yelling pull, pull, pull and faster, faster, faster.  Waiting for a healer to get mana is also something that never happens.  Their theory is, I never had to wait on my healer at 80. See, they have been trained.  While leveling a healer I learned that needing mana is a almost constant thing.  At low levels I am out on one big pull.  I also noticed that the tank does not care if I have 0 mana, he is going to pull the next 20 mobs anyway because it is my problem, I should be full on mana.  Because I am low on mana is it my fault and I am a bad healer.  If he dies because I have no mana to heal him, it is my fault.  This is WotLK mentality because healers are never out of mana in LK 5 mans.

When Cataclysm comes out and they start asking people to pull as little as possible and to single target and CC people will just start yelling how bad the tank is because he can only take 3 mobs at a time and how bad the DPS is because they can only burn down 1 at a time.  And then whenever someone dies it will be the healers fault because they ran out of mana when they should never have run out.

I will like that for a short time but it will take only a little time to learn and in the end it will turn out to be the exact same as it is now in WotLK.  In a matter of no time we will be running through the same dungeons that were kicking our asses all over the place and AoEing everything down.  Blizzard said they are trying to make sure that does not happen and I believe them, I believe that is their intention, I do not however believe they will do it.  They could do it, they just won't.

Do you want to know why the dungeons will become a cake walk the second we start getting gear no matter how hard Blizzard tries?  Sure you do and I will tell you with a little lesson in history that apparently Blizzard has not noticed yet.

When you moved up tiers of gear back in the day (yes I was not there but I can see the gear and I can read) the increase was minimal.  You had something with +11 agility, the next tier had +12 or maybe even +13 agility on it now.  The one after that had a huge +15 agility maybe.  Things moved up slowly.  That is why end game content was still hard even if you started to gear up a lot because the gear, while better, was not leagues better.  It was better to make things slightly easier but not cake walk easy.

With WotLK you enter dungeons with things that have numbers like +50 agility, while in end game you have things with like +130 agility in the same slot.  You where able to do the dungeon, sometimes easily, with that +50 gear so what do you think will happen with +130 agility gear?  You will steam roll it because you are 4 and a half times stronger then you where back when it was easy to begin with.  Everyone steam rolls things because Blizzard forgot how to scale things correctly.  If the expansion started with items being +50 agility they should have ended with items being +60 agility, maybe +70 for end game heroic raid stuff.  Not +130 stuff that you can get with badges that are given out like candy on halloween.

WotLK was not designed to be easy like it is, it just became easy because Blizzard forgot how to deck out gear.  They think that they want to give us something to make it worth upgrading and they do not realize that we would be just as fast to get the +55 agility item to replace our +50 agility item as we are to get the +130 agility item to replace our +50 agility item.

This is why the Cataclysm dungeons will be laugh fests in a matter of no time just like the WotLK ones become laugh fests.  Look at the itemization on gear now.  If we are getting things with +250 agility then you can guess, at least if they will do as they did in WotLK and make it 4 1/2 times better later, we will be going into those same dungeons we have to use CC and pull small packs with +1125 agility on items and it will once again it will be a laugh fest.

So all this talk is nice, all this talk is fine and dandy but all this talk is pipe dreaming because no matter how great it seems and all those people saying "wow I love the return of CC" will be walking through there like an 80 walks through deadmines now.  Unless Blizzard does something about scaling stats so they do not make "current" content trivial with each small update there is no way to stop this from happening.  If +250 agility on 85 epics is how we start Cataclysm then how we end it at end game raiding before the next one comes out should not be more then +300 agility.  Anything more then that will make all the current Cataclysm trivial way before the end of the Cataclysm cycle just like the gear in the WotLK cycle has made all heroics trivial now.

EDIT:
Some research to back up what I said.  Taking agility off the shoulders to do it on one piece for all tiers as an example.

Agility on Hunter Shoulders:
Classic:
Tier 1 - +16 Agility
Tier 2 - +16 Agility
Tier 3 - +20 Agility
(This is why Classic content stayed challenging, little increase)
Stat jump = 25% From starting end game to ending end game.

Agility on Hunter Shoulders:
BC:
Tier 4 - 0 Agility
Tier 5 - +26 Agility
Tier 6 - +34 Agility
(Nice upgrade but not amazing huge leaving BC content challenging)
Stat jump = 31% From starting end game to ending end game.

Agility on Hunter Shoulders: WotLK:
Tier 7 - +58 Agility
Tier 7.5 - +66 Agility
Tier 8 - +60 Agility
Tier 8.5 - +65 Agility
Tier 9 -+81 Agility
Tier 9.25 - +93 Agility
Tier 9.5 - +106 Agility
Tier 10 - +107 Agility
Tier 10.25 -+120 Agility
Tier 10.5 - +136 Agility
(See how the numbers jumped so high?  That is what made WotLK easy mode for earlier content)
Stat jump = 135% From starting end game to ending end game.

Tips and Tricks: Saving Food

Leveling can be hard when it comes to making money.  Let me rephrase that, Leveling can be hard when it comes to making money if you do not make the best of what you get while leveling.

You will be killing animals left and right.  Some animals drop meat while other seems to be meatless animals.  The ones with the meat will help you level your cooking but once you passed the need for that meat you will usually do one of two things with it.  Cook it anyway because you use that food or vendor it.

Cook it if you need it, it is serving a purpose for you.  If you do not need it do not vendor it.  Save it up and sell it.  Meat, even more so lower level meats, sell for quite a bit on the Auction House.  Maybe not a lot for a level 80 but while leveling selling meat for 50 or 60 silver each can be a small fortune and surely more then vendoring it for a few copper.

Nearly all meats sell for a nice amount and some even go as high as 2-4 gold each.  The best time to list your uncooked food for sale is early Saturday morning or even late Friday night.  The reason for that is that many people like to level alts on the weekend and people with money that level alts never take the time to worry about getting the materials normally, they power level everything.  If you have giant eggs left over that you do not need it is not unheard of for someone to buy a stack of them for 100 gold on a Saturday because they needed it for power leveling their cooking on an alt.

Some meats are even worth farming if you are in an area anyway.  If the kill is quick for you and it is close to you and you are still getting good experience from it, go for it and kill it.  It is win/win.  You are there anyway, it was a quick kill that granted decent experience and it could very well drop something you can sell for a pretty penny.

A list of some of the meats I have noticed sell for those most on the AH: (may differ on different servers)
Raptor Flesh
Raptor Egg
Bear Flank
Giant Egg
Jaggal Clam Meat
Zesty Clam Meat
Tender Clam Meat
Talbuk Venison
Clefthoof Meat
Ravager Flesh

Those are some of the best while leveling that I have seen.  However anything that can be sold is good to make an effort to sell.  White items that are food are always going to be needed by someone that is trying to level cooking and do not think because the meat is not on any power leveling guide that it is not worth selling.  Power leveling guides bring people out to farm those things exactly to sell for a high price.  If I power level something I always go against the guide. 

There are always secondary things you can do to level and you will get the meats cheaper.  Lets say something requires bear meat and all the guides suggest that.  Bear meat will be 1g each on the market but you could also get red wolf meat to level the same skill set but the guides do not mention that.  Sometimes you will see the red wolf meat on the market for less then the bear beat and by that instead.  So if you see bear meat for 1g and wolf for 90s you will buy the cheaper ones to power level.  So that means even if red wolf meat is no on any leveling guides does not mean you can not make a nice amount selling it.  Everything sells.

Once in Northrend nearly all meat is worth more then vendoring as many of the lower level meats you will come across are still used for end game like Rhino Meat, Chunk of Mammoth and other goodies that you first get the moment you step foot into Northrend.  Never ever throw away any food anywhere.  Sell it if you do not need it for yourself.

Just recently while leveling I decided to sell off some meat I had saved up on one of my characters that I was using to level cooking with.  After I was done I sold all the extras, was not much, less then one 20 slot bag worth in my bank, and I ended up with 320 gold.

320 gold just from left over meat, at level 55 now, so when I get to outlands I got my mount, and some, paid for already from saving meat and not throwing it away.  If you are making your first character this can be make or break.  If you already have 5 80s and tons of gold, this is still worth doing.  It takes no time what so ever to list something instead of throwing it away.  Even if you are already at the gold cap would you just throw 320 gold away?  I guess not.  Making money by saving food should be done by everyone.

Stop rolling on my gear!

No, it is not going to be a post because someone rolled on my gear.  It is going to be a post about "My Gear" and what exactly makes something "My Gear".  After the recent events of some half ass Rogue making a scene because a Hunter won a weapon he wanted calling it "My Gear" it made me think more about gear and how it is dictated who it is for.  I also bring a whole new perspective to it having been leveling many different characters lately for the first time.

First things first about "My Gear".  Unless it specifically stats something in the details like a few of the items from Lady Deathwhisper, Zod's Repeating Longbow says on ranged attack, so it is a hunter weapon as hunter are the only ranged attacker that can use it or Heartpierce says melee attack so it really would be of no help for a ranged person or a caster and Nibelung which says harmful spells which makes it for any caster that is not a healer.  LDW is the perfect example of drops that fit the "My Gear" profile correctly.

While a Rogue can use Zod's and the stats are itemized for perfectly for that class it is not a Rogue weapon and a Rogue should never roll on it if there is a Hunter that needs it first.  If no Hunters need it then a Rogue is more then welcome to have it.  However, if I Hunter where to say that is "My Gear" they are 100% right.

The dagger is another good example.  Personally I only see this as a Rogue or Feral Druid item but I am sure others could roll on it.  A Priest could but I really do not see any reason a Priest should ever be hitting melee if they do attack at all.  If a Priest rolls on it while there is a Rogue or Druid that needs it, they are wrong.

The staff is another great example that I know my Disc Priest would love for the stats.  However, my Disc Priest would rarely if ever casts and harmful spells when it gets to the world of raiding.  It is a healer so it really has no right to roll on that if any casters like a Boomkin, Shadow Priest, Mage, or Warlock might still need it.  If none of them need it, then they can roll away.

The "My Gear" concept is when you think of something as something you have the right to roll on and another person does not.  If a Mage and a Disc Priest rolls on that staff and the Mage yells, hey, that is "My Gear" they are right.  It is the Mage's over the Disc Priest's because of the side effects of the item.

There are also the types of items that say Class:XXXX on them.  I do not think it needs to be said that those items are only for specific classes only.

Any time an item is itemized where two people can use it then it is a free roll.  A weapon with Agility and Stamina on it that 2 or more classes can use is open roll for all those classes, none of them have a right to say over the other that it is "My Gear".  A weapon with Strength and Stamina has many classes that can roll on it and none of them have a right to say it is "My Gear" over the other.

I really hate people that claim someone is "My Gear" and start an issue because someone else rolled on something that was "My Gear".  If both can use it and it is perfectly itemized for both then both have a right to roll on it.  Lower levels I see everyone rolling need on everything no matter what.  As long as they can wear it I really do not even care under level 40.  After level 40 you have to start thinking of what is better for you stat wise and not just what can you wear.

Never ever use the words "My Gear" unless the gear is designed with your class in mind only. or something that is much more suited for you then it is for someone else.  And no, just because you swing a weapon does not mean you have more right to it then a Hunter or a Druid that only uses it as a "Stat Stick".  That stat stick will up their damage the same as the stat stick will up yours.  Swinging it or not does not matter.  Stats are stats no matter how you use the weapon and better ones are better.

LFD: The Good.

I could have named this like the movie, the good, the bad and the ugly but for now all I want to write about is the good of it.  I was actually having a conversation with someone yesterday about the LFD system and when the idea of a LFR system came up I said it could never work.  A few minutes later I came up with an idea how a LFR would work.  It would give you 1 random raid boss that you have killed at least 10 times before.  That way, you get a group with people that all know the mechanics of that one fight.  In me saying that I seemed to have forgotten why I liked the LFD tool and why my idea for LFR would be counter productive for what LFD tried to help with.

I only started playing a little over a year ago so me talking about the "old times" is like an 18 year old talking about back when "he was a kid".  What was it?  Like a week ago?  Still, I remembered a bit about the old times trying to find the daily dungeon before the LFD tool came out.

I was one of those people that maybe took the game a little too serious to start out with.  I never even considered trying to get into a group for a dungeon until I could buy enough BoE stuff to make myself viable in the dungeon.  I also made sure everything was enchanted completely.  It did not take long after hitting 80 to do that.  Just a little elbow grease so to speak.  I had read that 1200 is the bare minimum you should do in a dungeon and 1500 was good enough over all.  So I was making sure I could do that.

I would only run the dungeons I knew where easy as hell like Nexus and Violet Hold because I was still learning my character and I knew where the entrance to them was.  I had no clue where the entrances to HoL, HoS, UK, UP and some others even were.  So when that was the daily I never even looked for a group.  Did not want to look like a total noob when I asked how I needed to get there.  If someone said LF 1 DPS, have summon then I would whisper.  Otherwise, I did not do my dungeon that day.

On the days that it was a dungeon I knew well or one I knew how to get to it became a issue of how long I was willing to wait before I found someone willing to go with me.  Some days I would sit and read trade waiting for someone to ask for a DPS for 3 or 4 hours.  If I was lucky, when I found one they might take me.  Might being the operative word there.  Some times I would send a dozen people messages and they would give the spots to someone else.  On a good week I would do my daily dungeon maybe 2 times.  Gearing up like that was hell, pure hell. 

Even after I joined a guild it was rare to see any people on to do the runs.  They only came on before raid time to raid and the few times they did run the daily I would try to get in but they already had their in clicks of the same 5 people that ran together every day and you could not do it twice so even if they were willing to run again with me they couldn't.

I worked as hard as I could.  Making money to buy BoEs.  Reading about my rotation and class to know everything I needed to.  Reading about the dungeons so I knew what to expect.  Waiting n trade for hours on end hoping I can get into a group and still months later I had managed to save up enough for only one piece of badge gear.  It sucked breaking in back then.  Sucked big time.

So that is why I think the LFD tool is awesome in so many ways.  Now the daily is not a set dungeon, just click and go wherever they send you.  Now you do not need to know where the entrance is, it ports you in and it ports you out.  Now I can get on with my life, doing dailies and farming or playing the AH and not have to worry about sitting in a city and reading trade waiting for someone to need me.  Now if all the guild tanks have already did their daily they can still help you with your daily too.  No more being turned down because your gear is soft or because you just hit 80 or any other reason people would come up with.  No more being in a dungeon with three hunters.  No more taking forever to gear up.

LFD made life a cake walk in gearing up.  Now with one full free weekend and some effort you can get yourself into all T9 or better gear ready for the next step into T10.  After one weekend you can stop into ICC and have top end gear with a good ICC 10 and ICC 25 run.  Heck, if you have a lucky roll here and there you can find yourself having a gear score of 5300 or better in less then 2 days thanks to the new system.

Now that is good and that is bad.  Some people can get carried through the randoms and gear up and still not know how to play but over all most people do learn something running that many dungeons even if they are not actively trying to learn something.  Either way, one or two trash pulls into ICC and you will be able to see who knows their role and who doesn't.

It has not changed much for healers and tanks.  Even bad ones got snapped up the old way instantly.  They still do with the system as it is now.  However for DPS it has been a godsend.  I can gear up in no time now if I wanted to.  All you need to do it click the query and go farming or doing dailies.  In no time your dungeon will pop up and you are on your way to being better geared in one day then I was after 2 months.  Also, now you do not need to do what I did and buy BoEs and enchant them.  You can hit 80 in quest greeens and go straight into a dungeon.  I think it went from one extreme to the other but I like it a lot.  If it were not for this system I might still be a noob 80 that would never have seen the entrance of ICC until I out geared it from having cata gear. Well, maybe not.  My guild was doing Ulduar when I joined it and that was just before ICC came out and we jumped right into there.  But my point still stands.  It made life a lot easier.

Mining Ore and Leveling my Shaman.

I decided to play my Shaman for a little bit this weekend.  I had made 60 last weekend and figured I wanted to get to Outlands to do some questing but there were a few things that I needed to address first.  I do not like letting professions lag behind when I move along and being I was leveling so fast on my Shaman that happened.

While my mining was close to where I needed it to be my blacksmith skill was very far behind.  I could not quite go to Un'Goro yet being most of what is found there is Thorium and Rich Thorium.  Thorium is 230 skill and Rich Thorium is 255 and I was only at 220.  I took a few trips around Tanaris mining until I got it high enough to get into Un'Goro and then it was payday time.

Now I needed all the ore I was going to be getting so there was really no profit to be made here but for those that are looking to make money mining this is the place to be.  I spent 1 hour 45 minutes making circles around Un'Goro.  I was level 60 so was not picking up aggro anywhere and in that time only had to stop to fight 4 or 5 times at most.  Mostly because they were sitting on my ore so they had to die.

In less then 2 hours doing circles I minded 524 Thorium, got 32 assorted gems and enough dense stone to build a castle.  Now if you are looking to make money this is a nice way to go, less then 2 hours work and easily you have (depending on your server) 1500 gold or more in sell-able stuff.  Not really bad when you think about it for a level 60. 

For someone saving up for Epic flight could do this for a week, 1 hour per day, and have enough to buy the mount.  I really do hate when I see people say they do not have money to buy the mount and could I loan it to them.  Hey, not my fault you are lazy.  Go make your own money.

Back to the point.  I decided to mine it instead of buying it for a few reasons.  One, to save 1500 gold, 2 hours seems a lot cheaper then spending the gold.  The other was I needed to up my mining skill anyway.  By the time I was done my mining was about 320 and I had more then enough Thorium to catch up on my Blacksmith skill.

I smelted all the Thorium into bars and started making things.  Ran out of Mitril with about 20 skill levels to go before getting into Thorium items.  I had tow options there.  Go farm some or buy some.  I checked the auction house and they were around 2 gold per.  So it was better to buy then to farm.  Unlike Thorium in Un'Goro there is no place to farm Mitril that easily.  I bought enough to get up to where I needed to be and spent a few hundred along the way.

After a while of crafting the items I was all caught up on my skills and was Outland ready.  I am just burning through Outlands.  I am 63 already and not even done with Hellfire's quests yet.  I might even end up skipping most of them.

Level an Enhancement Shaman through that area after doing a Disc Priest through the same area shows me why I love leveling attacking characters.  While I do enjoy leveling my Priest I have to plan each pull a lot more and it takes a little bit of time to kill things.  With the Shaman I rarely even get to cast my full rotation before things are dead.  I fly up and land on something and a Storm Strike, Earth Shock and Lava Lash later it is dead and if it isn't it does not have more then a few seconds more to live.  Chain pulling with a Shaman is fantastic.  I use my proc build up to do a greater healing wave on myself as an instant being I really do not need the instant lightning bolt as I am killing things so fast and I just keep moving being I am never in need of mana or health.  Between Watershield and Shamanistic Rage mana is rarely if ever an issue, that and I get to the 5 proc I need nearly instantly it seems.

I do need to find an addon to follow my shields and procs however.  I notice I am missing a lot of procs and sometimes forget to put on a new shield being I am moving along so fast.  I'll have to take a look around for one.  I am sure one is out there.  Either that or I will just get more used to paying attention to the procs and shields.  Thing is, I hate having to look at my buffs all the time to follow these things.

I have noticed one interesting thing however.  Even if my Shaman kills things in a quarter of the time my Priest did my Shaman does not have the same survivability that the Priest did.  With the Priest at level 60 I could pull a 63 Elite and beat it no problem.  With my Shaman, no such luck.  Why is the healer better at soling elites?  The shield.  That is it, plan and simple.  The shield stops the spells from being interrupted.  If I need a heal it comes on instantly.  With the Shaman, if I need a heal, it better not be a hard hitting fast hitting mob or I am dead.  Happened to me with one Elite I fought.  At 1/2 life I started to cast a heal.  The heal never got off in time.  I was dead because it hit so fast my heal could never be cast.  It kept being slowed.  I have to work on a tactic for dealing with that situation when I do not have a 5 proc built up to throw that instant heal on myself.

I like seeing how all the different characters work and really try to do them all to the best of my ability.  I feel my Shaman still needs work if for any other reason then the fact I never leveled solo.  Up to 60 I always leveled with someone else and that is so different.

What a great story.

I just read something on the official forums that put a smile on my face and showed that sometimes even this grumpy elf can have a soft spot for a sweet story.

there was this lvl 11 mage in ironforge asking trade for 5 silver. that was all she needed to buy a bag sh was looking at in AH, but she had sold everything she possibly could and all her gear was broke so she couldnt go farm for anything. so i went to the AH and bought her four frostweave bags and handed her 20 g. lol she tried so hard to make it up to me by giving me as much conjured food and water that she could make. i didnt want to tell her that at my lvl the food did no good and i couldnt even use the water.

now shes a guild member :D

For some reason I just have this image of a mage making food and water over and over and opening windows to trade them.  Maybe it is the role player inside of me that popped out for a minute but I can really picture this so well in my head and it is a cute image to imagine.

For all the jerkwads in this game, and there seem to be many, there are a few great people that help others and a few honest people that truly are appreciative of the help they are given. This kind of made my day.

Who has the right to roll?

We had some serious drama in our raid last night all do to someone losing a roll on an item.  Bloodvenom Blade dropped off Deathbringer Saurfang and someone that wanted it lost the roll.  Now I know well enough about losing rolls.  Never once have a went into a rage, more so in public view.  Sure I have lost so many rolls in a row that I wanted to quit.  I even joked about it in game saying at the rate I was going I would not get an upgrade until everyone else already had it and they had no option but to give it to me.

This was a totally different case.  The guy that lost said it was wrong that he lost because... get this.
1) Hunters should not be rolling on Rogue weapons.
2) It is only a stat stick for him.
3) He had a better gear score and could do more with it.
4) He had better DPS and deserved it more then the other guy.

Addressing #1:
Okay, let me get this right.  The hunter could not roll on it because it is a rogue weapon?  Have you ever even played a hunter?  Have you ever even looked at hunter gear in your life?  How about inspected a hunter?  Pick one, any one that is standing around Dalaran and inspect them and you will see that all hunters have a weapon that has agility and stamina.  That sword had agility and stamina.  All hunters need Attack Power.  It has attack power.  Armor Penetration is good for a hunter, even more so if they are MM.  It has that too.  Then as it's last stat it has Hit Rating.  Everyone needs hit.  What about a weapon that has all perfect hunter stats means that it is not a hunter weapon?  What makes that a Rogue weapon more so then a hunter weapon?  Rogues, Hunters, and Druids as well as Enhancement Shaman all have a right to say that is their weapon.

Addressing #2:
I want to write an entire article on the concept of a stat stick.  Sure, it is only a stat stick for a hunter because he shoots with arrows or bullets but it does increase his damage done correct?  What does it do for a rogue?  It increases his damage done.  So increased damage vs increased damage.  Seems rather equal to me.  It is as much a stat stick for a rogue as it is for a hunter.  The only difference is the rogue swings it and the hunter has it looking pretty on his back.

Addressing #3:
The rogue thinks that because he has better gear he deserves it more.  Where does this backwards thinking coming from?  Because you need it less you need it more?  I have no argument against this one.  It is just way too stupid of a comment to even consider bitching about.

Addressing #4:
Wow, I wish it worked that way.  I have seen hunters win marks left and right that I have out DPSed by 4-5K.  I should have gotten the marks then being I had better DPS.  You know what, it does not work that way.  Sure, I could have done more with the marks but guess what?  They won the roll.  The guild is not filled with elitist assholes.  We have a roll rule, whoever can actually use the item that wins the roll gets the item.  Congrats on doing 10K DPS Mr. Rogue.  Guess what, I, as a hunter as well have as much right to that weapon as you do and as the other hunter does.  So being I toasted you on DPS my 3K I guess that means I should get it using your logic right?  Fine, then give the thing to me (so we can follow your rules) and I will trade it to the hunter that actually won the roll.  Hell, I am only using a 251 weapon and I did not roll on it.  I could have claimed I needed it more then either of you.  I passed because I do not need any hit.  I also passed because the hunter needed it a hell of a lot more then I did.

So the rogue kept calling out the other hunter after that.  In chat, on vent, making fun of his 7K DPS and telling him he had not rights rolling on a rogue weapon.  Things like that.  Finally the raid leader told him to shut the hell up.  A few more comments later he finally stopped.  In the middle of the trash on the way to Rotface the hunter says on vent.  Stop harassing me in tells.  The raid leader once again tells the guy to give it up and move on.  After rot, when on fester he started all over again with his crap.  So he got kicked from the raid instantly and decided to pull fester which in turn got him kicked from the guild as well.

This is why no one should be allowed to play the game unless they take a maturity test first.  That was just immature to the fullest extent and I am glad to see the raid leader did the right thing and kicked him.  Him pulling the boss before he left was uncalled for and that is more of a reason why he deserved a guild kick as well.

Have to love how people that are always talking about how great the guild is turn around instantly to say how much it sucks as soon as they get kicked.  Of course you think it sucks, they kicked you.  But if you think about it honestly, you kicked yourself by acting like a complete ass.

Let me end this by stating what could have summed this up instantly without all this writing if the rogue had even half a brain.  A person that could use the item won the roll.  The person that won the roll got the item.  Shut the hell up and move along.