Morynne

A little gaming, a little hockey, a little tech... Loads of snark.

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The Hunter's Guide to 5.0.4

We get 5.04 in a week.  Seven days, and we have to juggle all new shot rotations, abilities, and talents.

What am I going to have to do when I first log in?

The first hurdle you'll have to get past is turning off any add-ons that are preventing you from logging in.  I'd recommend starting with all add-ons off, just so you're able to function.  Make sure everything is as updated as it can get, then slowly start turning them back on.  Add-on Control Panel makes this much easier while you're logged into the game.  Once you're logged in, go ahead and sell your melee weapon, and all of the ones in your bank.  It means nothing to you anymore, nor can you use it to Transmogrify.

Also, forget about standing at range, it's not necessary anymore, and frankly, it's nice.  Enjoy your new found freedom to stand wherever. Until there's a stack point for a boss. Then stack.

Once you've made it in, you're going to have to choose what spec you want to be.  If you're interested in still topping damage meters, you'll want to stick to Survival or Beastmastery for the time being.  Once you've decided your spec, take a gander at your talents.

Talents are entirely different, and you get 1 talent every 15 levels.  Your first 3 tier selections have no baring on your DPS, so pick whatever you like.  After that, it gets a little more into how the talents impact your DPS.

Given the fact that you're level 85, you'll only be selecting 2 more talents for now, and you'll get your last one when you get to 90 after MoP releases.  My advice? Play with all the talents.  Learn what works for you and your play style.  If you're chasing DPS numbers, for your level 75 talent, Murder of Crows is the best choice at this point.  Lynx Rush is a little unpredictable just because your pet ends up bouncing around many targets.

Once you've got your talents picked, it's time to learn your rotations again.  The basics for all the specs are the same, but with the talents thrown in, you have some more cooldowns.  The table below shows the suggested shot rotations directly from Female Dwarf's beta site to get you started. Keep in mind, when you get to level 90, your rotations will change slightly, as you'll be getting another talent ability.  Also, if you're Survival, you cannot clip your Explosive Shots, so spam away.

What about this expertise thing?

With 5.04, Hunters are now going to have the issue of shots being dodged if you don't have enough Expertise rating.  Hunters will now need to chase Hit and Expertise equally, and they function much the same.

At level 85, in order to make sure you're not going to miss shots, or be dodged, you must have a Hit Rating of 7.5%, as well as an Expertise rating of 7.5%.  The raw numbers for that 769 of each stat prior to any racial bonuses.  (Draenei have 1% to hit, and Dwarves/Trolls have 1% to Expertise)

Ideally you'll move around your reforging to meet these numbers, and you shouldn't have to re-gem into expertise.  If you're a fan of WoW Reforge or Ask Mr Robot for your reforging, just change the stat weighting in those tools for Expertise to match Hit, and it'll spit out how you'll need to reforge.

I heard Glyphs are different.

It's true.  Glyphs are getting an overhaul again.  There are no more prime glyphs -- just major and minor glyphs.  Minor glyphs are even more minor than before, which is not a terrible thing.

WHU has a good write up of all the glyphs for MoP.

In preparation for MoP, it's worth noting that every hunter should be using Glyph of Fetch. It will save you time leveling.  As with the glyph system from the beginning, there will always be certain glyphs that will be better on certain boss fights.  Be mindful of that when you're making your selection, and keep some dust of disappearance on hand.

Pet Changes

Everyone that has wanted a DPS crab, rejoice!  You can now assign any pet tree to any pet family, and reassign on the fly, as long as you're not in combat.

It's worth noting that your Growl ability for all pets is a true taunt -- meaning they absolutely will pull threat off a tank if not turned off.  If you're soloing though, this ability is priceless.  If you're running in a group, always turn off growl.

So break out your favorite pet model, tell them to be whatever spec you want, and go to town. Tenacity Sporebat? MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Other Changes

Trueshot Aura and Readiness are now standard Hunter abilities.  All specs will have these.

Helm enchants are going away.

Trap Launcher has a toggle on/off making it infinitely easier to use.

Buff frames are consolidated, and if you're in a raid will tell you what you're missing.

Mounts and Non-Combat pets have their own menu icon. (It's a horse head)

Area of Effect looting will work in 5.04 for all you farmers out there.

I think that sums up all the big stuff to get ready for next Tuesday. Can you think of anything big that I may have missed?

*EDIT* Adjustments made according to Whitefyst's suggestions in the comments.

Original Article

[morynne-blog]

Pre-MoP Clean Up

With Pandaria just on the horizon, I am in need of doing some cleaning around the blog.  If you're a regular, I'm sure you've noticed the new layout.  Long-term resources can be found at the top, where categories of blog posts are listed below the logo.  This is in hopes of making it better organized, and more easily continued over a long period of time.

Over the next few weeks, here's what you can expect:

Archiving of outdated pages.  They're not going away forever, you just might not find them displayed quite so prominently.

Updating general guides for MoP.

Updating add-on information for MoP.  I will likely be taking down my strings for Power Auras and start over from scratch.  Don't worry though! If you're a fan of those, I'll try to stick with the same general theme.  Serenity is being pared down to JSHunter Timers again, so I'll draw up something new for those.

For MoP I will have my UI available for download.  I don't know what it's going to look like yet, but that's my plan since there's a bunch of people who have asked for it.

After launch...

I'll be sticking to raid strategy for hunters this expansion.  I know many of you loved the Heroic guides, but truth be told, that was extremely time consuming for Cataclysm, and I just don't have the bandwidth for it this year.

I will likely have some pet-battle information show up on here.  I've played on beta, and I can see this become my "when I'm not raiding" time sink.

I'll also be discussing the new talent selections in detail, and figuring out what's going to be the go-to spec for raiding once that gets started, as well as all the standards of ways to make your raiding life easier, more productive, and down bosses for purples.

I'm getting excited, and looking forward to another great expansion with you!

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Original Article

[morynne-blog]

Cataclysm Retrospective

The Cataclysm happened on December 7th, 2010.

It's hard to believe that we've been working toward killing Deathwing for nearly 2 years.  Some have killed him on Heroic mode, more have killed him on normal, and I'm not sure that I know a level 85 that hasn't killed him in Looking for Raid.

That guy had it coming, though he did bring us some good stories, and changed the way we view Azeroth forever.

I can't say that I've seen all of the revamped content, but I have seen some of the level 1-60 content, and all of the new Cataclysm zones and stories.  Some were outright successes, others had some improvements that could have been made, but here we are, looking back on the last 20 months of how we got to the brink of discovering Pandaria.

The Failures

Cataclysm brought a new mindset with questing and leveling to 85, where you get so immersed in the story, that you, theoretically, will not mind just following the same quest lines through to the end.  I think this was a miss, largely due to the WoW population that has plenty of alts.  Doing the same quest lines the same way for any more than 2 characters became cumbersome, and really pushed a lot of people away from working toward leveling alts.  The leveling was easy for the most part, but the redundancy caused many players to lose interest.

I've always been a big fan of a challenging dungeon, but I think when Cataclysm first launched that the Heroics that were out there were tuned to people who already had Heroic gear, instead of being tuned to people who are trying to gear up.  Granted, Blizzard did tune the heroics down a bit, but it took them awhile to do it.  I know a lot of players were very frustrated during this time.

One thing that also happened in Cataclysm is the first raid tier was actually challenging -- and there was a lot of it!  Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the Four Winds contained encounters that had all new mechanics that many raiders had never seen before.  For that, I think it was a good thing; however, those types of challenges I would have expected in the latter tiers during this expansion.  I'd be willing to wager if you took a sampling of progression minded guilds who struggled with Tier 11 Heroics, you'd find that many of them have cleared T13 due to the difficulty level.  Keep in mind I'm not saying that I minded the challenge in raiding -- I did, do, and probably will for a long time, I just would have expected Blizzard to save their "something different and special" for a latter tier of raiding.

Dragon Soul.  While I liked the finality of the story with Dragon Soul, the raid instance is largely linear, and the mechanics are not totally foreign (like the additional bars for Cho'gall or the sound for Atramedes).  There were coordination challenge fights (Spine, Hagara), DPS race fights (Ultraxion), and LOL encounters (Lootship 2.0 and some would argue that of Spine on regular).  I would have liked to see the expansive more epic dungeon as the final tier (think Black Temple or ICC) versus just having the "epic" dragon fight at the end.  Once my guild is finished getting mounts for our raiders in DS, I don't think I'll ever want to go back just because of 1. how long we've had it, and 2. how systematic and redundant some of the fights are.  Now Black Temple I run as a hobby, and I don't mind going back to ICC every once in awhile -- so just keep that in mind.

The Successes

The Day Deathwing Came. If you haven't done this quest line, launch your game, fly out to Badlands and do it now.  I'll wait.

Did you do it?  Awesome, right?

I loved the stories in the Cataclysm zones.  I loved spending time in Hyjal and Deepholm, seeing the depth of the Blizzard storytellers, and watching their imaginations be put into pixels.

I liked the innovative encounters like Atramedes, and I love a DPS race fight like Ultraxion.  I even liked the reappearance of the elevator boss in Blackwing Descent.  It had been awhile since we'd seen a good one of those.  SSC was the last couple? Correct me if I'm wrong.

I liked Tol'Barad by comparsion to Wintergrasp.  It felt like there was more to win or lose by controlling the island, and was more engaging.

My Hopes for Pandaria

Having played some of the beta, my hopes are mostly going to come true, but I'll go ahead and run through them here.

I want to see immersive story lines like in Cataclysm, but also have the flexibility of quest hubs more like we saw in Burning Crusade.

I'm very much looking forward to pet battles, even though it's going to turn into a massive time sink.

I want to see progressively more difficult raid content throughout the expansion.  The first raid should not be the most difficult, nor should it be super duper easy.

I do not want to ever see 5-man dungeons take longer than an hour again.  That's what raids are for.

So tell me, what did you love and hate about Cataclysm, and what are you looking forward to most in Pandaria?

Original Article

[morynne-blog]

MoP Mindset Shift for Hunters

Cross your arms.

Now cross them the other way.  Did you have to think about it? Was it uncomfortable?

Most likely it did take some thought, and some intentional adjusting to be able to do it.  Brace yourselves, there will be a mindset shift for pretty much everyone come MoP.

Itemization

Expertise is the new stat that we'll need to learn to balance.  What's its function? Expertise governs the chance that the opponent will dodge or parry attacks made by you.  Basically it's your proficiency in anticipating your opponent's move during combat to ensure your attacks land.  This will be balanced alongside Hit rating to make sure you're doing as much damage as you can.

Hit cap against a boss in MoP will be 7.5% (lowered from the current 8%), and against a same-level mob, it will be 3% (down from the current 5%).  That being said, Expertise in its current status in Cataclysm is not how we'll see it in MoP -- it is going to be most closely like hit, and we'll be shooting for a certain percentage of Expertise rating.  The final numbers for that have yet to be seen, as we're still looking at stat shifting in beta.  This does mean though that we'll be actively competing with all Agility based melee classes for items with Agi/Expertise.  Be ready for the competition.

Specialization

This is no longer selecting what talent tree to put your points into, and choosing those abilities based on the "best" spec.  These choices are being taken away, but you'll still be able to select between the three specializations.  There will still be Marksmanship, Beastmastery, and Survival hunters, but you'll no longer have to choose whether or not to go into Readiness, or Improved Steady Shot.  There will be different ability sets for each specialization, alongside the core Hunter abilities.  I'll go into this in more details when we start to get closer to MoP launch.

Talents

Your talents are no longer going to be the point spread in your Specialization trees.  This is probably the most drastic change for everyone to get used to.  There are no inherently terrible talents -- they are all going to be situationally useful.  Some are going to be far better for PvP, and others are going to be amazing for PvE -- it's just going to depend on your focus what you choose.  Some are passive abilities, others are active cooldowns you can use, and there are still more that add certain functionality to core abilities.

It's worth saying that there is still a lot of number tweaking in MoP Beta, which is why I'm not getting into the nitty gritty details just yet of the best specialization, or the best talents.  Based on the number of revisions, I think Blizzard is doing a pretty bang-up job of listening to the community and balancing things out.  I'm excited to see how things will go, and I'll be certain to review each of the talents and specializations once numbers are more shored up.

Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to launch!

Original Article

[morynne-blog]

Morynne, Savior of Azeroth

I know it's been awhile.  It's not you, it's me.

For the last number of weeks my interest in WoW went on a serious decline largely due to my raid team smashing their faces into Heroic Spine of Deathwing. There are so many bloods, and the timing is all funky now that we are looking at the progressive nerfs that are coming out. (Something most of the strategies out there don't tell you)

We spent probably a good 12 hours doing nothing but wiping on Heroic Spine.  We were relieved when it finally went down on Thursday of last week, but it just made the desire to really punch Deathwing in the face even more palpable.

Rewind to Monday, we spent the evening trying to figure out how to time the platforms correctly, so we didn't push tentacles too early, and making sure people don't do dumb things.  No Madness kill on Monday.

Our first attempt on Tuesday involved some getting some stupid out of our systems.  Myself included.  I got caught too close to a parasite spawn, and died.  Despite all that, we got a really solid look at Phase 2, and our motivation returned.

That's when it happened.  We fixed the stupid, got the jitters out of our systems, and got our Heroic Madness of Deathwing kill.  It wasn't pretty at the end. In fact, it was my husband, who Ankh'd and popped an earth elemental at the very end, and some really clinch healing that got us the kill. (Here's the logs from the kill)

I know CQ wasn't the only guild stuck on those two encounters, and I'm going to change it up a bit.  If you're struggling with any encounters (heroic included) in Dragon Soul from a Hunter perspective, leave your questions in the comments, and I'll get you the answers you are looking for.

Original Article

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MoP: Raid Testing Tonight

Oh man, we're getting down to the nitty gritty.  Raid testing starts tonight in MoP beta.  Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to participate because of this other thing I'm going to be watching.

Here's the official Blue:

 For Friday, June 22 we'll be testing just one encounter, the 10 player Normal difficulty version of the Stone Guard encounter in Mogu'shan Vaults. There will be further opportunities to test this encounter. Think of today as a warmup!

The encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Beta Test Realms, regardless of suggested geographical region.

Early Session: 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Late Session: 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid. We might have to change the time of a testing session due to various issues with bugs, builds, server hardware issues, designers being sick, class issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information.

This is where I go back to rely on the hunter community.  If you're going to be doing raid testing tonight, let us know how it went! How the new talents play into it, and what you liked/didn't like about the encounters.  In the meantime, I'm sure I'll be pushing my way to 90 and gearing up so I can play when the next raid testing comes up.

Have fun tonight testers!

  Original Article

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Strategy: Madness of Deathwing

Now you really get to punch Deathwing in the face.  This time it sticks.

Name: Madness of Deathwing

Raid: Dragon Soul

Tanks: 2

Phases: 1-ish

Trick: Platform order matters.

This guide is for the normal encounter.

This is it, we've made it to the end.  Deathwing goes crazy, and you get to knock off his legs, then punch him in the jaw, and I'm going to tell you how to be successful.

The order you do the 4 platforms in does matter -- you get a bonus from each aspect that is left up as you move around, making the last platform before Deathwing's chin the most difficult.  Thrall's ability helps transport players from platform to platform just by running at the edge.

Here's what each aspect can do for you: (also, this is the order of the platforms from left to right, but not the way my guild has found success in taking down Deathwing)

Alexstrasza

Alexstrasza's Presence – The Presence of Alexstrasza increases the player's maximum health by 20%.

Cauterize – Alexstrasza Cauterizes the Blistering Tentacles, inflicting lethal damage over 5 sec. Cauterize also reduces the damage inflicted by Corrupted Blood.

Nozdormu

Nozdormu's Presence – The Presence of Nozdormu increases the player's haste by 20%.

Time Zone – Nozdormu forms a Time Zone at the target location, causing the Elementium Meteor to lapse in time and decrease its travel speed dramatically upon entering the zone. Any enemy creatures within the Time Zone have their attack speed decreased by 50%.

Ysera

Ysera's Presence – The Presence of Ysera increases player healing done by 20%.

Enter the Dream – The Presence of Ysera allows players to enter the Dream, decreasing damage taken by 50% for 2 sec.

Kalecgos

Kalecgos' Presence – The Presence of Kalecgos increases player damage dealt by 20%.

Spellweaving – The Presence of Kalecgos allows attacks and abilities to cause Spellweaving. Spellweaving inflicts 22425 to 23575 Arcane damage to enemies within 6 yards, excluding the current target.

My guild has been successful taking down in this order:

Ysera

Alexstraza

Nozdormu

Kalecgos

Deathwing's chin (Ysera's platform)

Your guild might find success in a different order, but that's trial and error.  There's an achievement for assaulting each platform first on different kills, so keep that in mind as well.

Here's what goes on on each platform:

Assault Aspect – Deathwing searches for his next enemy to assault. Deathwing assaults the platform with the largest number of players and an attached limb.

Cataclysm – Deathwing attempts to finish the job he started by bringing forth a second Cataclysm, inflicting 1462500 to 1537500 Fire damage to all players.

Elementium Bolt – Deathwing creates an Elementium Bolt, sending it to the target platform.

Elementium Blast – If the Elementium Bolt reaches its destination, the bolt inflicts 380250 to 399750 Fire damage to all players and an additional 380250 to 399750 Fire damage every 5 sec until players destroy the Elementium Bolt. The initial damage decreases the further the player stands from the targeted location.

Corrupting Parasite – A Corrupting Parasite inflicts increasing Shadow damage periodically. When Corrupting Parasite's duration ends, the parasite detaches from the player and causes a Parasitic Backlash. This inflicts 243750 to 256250 Fire damage to players within 10 yards of the host.

Corrupting Parasite – After the Corrupting Parasite's duration ends, the parasite detaches from the host.

Unstable Corruption – The Corrupting Parasite casts Unstable Corruption, inflicting 10% of the Corrupted Parasite's health as Fire damage to all players.

Hemorrhage – Deathwing's tentacle begins to Hemorrhage, creating several Regenerative Blood at a nearby location.

Regenerative Blood – The Regenerative Blood of Deathwing forms. Regenerative Bloods gain ten energy every 1 sec. The melee attacks of a Regenerative Blood also cause Degenerative Bite.

Regenerative – A Regenerative Blood heals to full health when it reaches maximum energy.

Degenerative Bite – Melee attacks cause Degenerative Bite, inflicting 1462 to 1537 Shadow damage every 1 sec for 10 sec. This effect stacks.

Limb Tentacle – Deathwing grasps onto each platform with one of his limbs.

Burning Blood – The Burning Blood gushes from the Tentacle, inflicting Fire damage every 2 sec. The damage increases as the Limb Tentacle's health lowers.

Blistering Tentacle – At 75%, 50%, and 25% remaining health the Limb Tentacle sprouts several Blistering Tentacles that are immune to Area of Effect abilities.

Blistering Heat – The Blistering Heat inflicts 2500 Fire damage every 2 sec, and increases its damage by 5% for 3 sec. This effect stacks.

Agonizing Pain – The pain from severing Deathwing's limb interrupts his concentration, stunning him and inflicting 20% of his health in damage.

Mutated Corruption – A Mutated Corruption appears shortly after assaulting a platform.

Crush – The crushing weight of the Mutated Corruption inflicts 100000 Physical damage to enemies in a cone in front of the Corruption.

Impale – The Mutated Corruption impales its target, inflicting 400000 Physical damage to the target.

Now here's how all this goes down:

The first thing that happens is you'll start damaging the limb tentacle, and then the Mutated Corruption appears -- it's a big tentacle towards the back of the platform.  Your raid will want to spread loosely to avoid everyone taking a large amount of damage all at the same time.  Best if it's just a few people at once.

Shortly thereafter, the Elementium bolt will spawn, and your DPS will have to switch to kill it.  Once that dies, go back and kill the Corruption, and switch back to the limb tentacle.  If you're following my guide of Ysera > Alexstraza > Nozdormu > Kalecgos, on Ysera and Alexstraza's platforms you'll entirely ignore the Blistering Tentacles that spawn and kill the Regenerative bloods when they spawn.  On Nozdormu and Kalecgos, you'll end up killing the Tentacles before the bloods - just have to be mindful that the Tentacles have to be single targeted down.  Those take priority.  When you get to Kalecgos' platform, your raid will have to stack up shortly before the bolt spawns to help the healers, and your range will have to burst down the bolt as quickly as possible.  It does a ton of damage.

Each platform has roughly the same mechanics, it just depends on which aspects are still helping you what the best strategy will be to handle it.

Now, when you get back to Ysera's platform to smack Deathwing's chin, there's a whole new set of rules.  Here's what goes on:

Elementium Fragment – Pieces of Deathwing's armor chip off, forming three Elementium Fragments nearby. In 25 player raids, eight Elementium Fragments form.

Shrapnel – The Fragment fires a piece of Shrapnel at a random player, inflicting 195000 to 205000 unresistable Physical damage.

Elementium Terror – Pieces of Deathwing's armor chip off, forming two Elementium Terrors nearby.

Tetanus – The Elementium Terror's melee attacks cause Tetanus, inflicting 58500 to 61500 Physical damage and an additional 19500 to 20500 Physical damage every 1 sec. The effect stacks.

Corrupted Blood – Corrupted Blood gushes from Deathwing, inflicting Fire damage every 2 sec. The damage increases as Deathwing's health lowers. At 15%, 10%, and 5% remaining health, Deathwing hemorrages. This increases the damage dealt by Corrupted Blood.

When you get to the platform, you'll start out on Deathwing's chin, but don't blow your cooldowns just yet.  Fragments will spawn, so all your DPS needs to switch to kill them.  They throw out Shrapnel.  Use your Dream button when the debuff is under 5 seconds to keep your healers happy.  After the Fragments are down, two Terrors will spawn.  Kill one of them, then switch to Deathwing, blow your cooldowns and win.

Congratulations! You just beat Cataclysm.

What does a Hunter need to know?

In the first phase (not Deathwing's chin), Hunters are probably one of the most flexible classes for swapping targets.  Our damage isn't rampy, and the burst damage is pretty good.  Hunters' role on the 4 platforms is going to be shooting the right thing, and multi-dotting as much as possible.  There is nothing wrong with keeping Serpent Sting up on the Corruption as well as the limb tentacle.  If you're Survival, you should know that Explosive Trap + Multi-Shot = Dead bloods.  Try to save up your focus before the bloods spawn, drop your trap when they spawn, and multi-shot your heart out.

When you get to phase 2 with Deathwing's chin, keep your multi-dotting up with Deathwing's face, and you can multi-shot some of the Fragments.  They'll go down pretty quick.  Put some damage on the Terror your group is killing, keeping Serpent Sting up on Deathwing.  When the Terror dies, burn all your DPS cooldowns and Deathwing will surely die, hopefully before the next set of Fragments spawn.

Hunter Loot from Madness of Deathwing

Kiril, Fury of Beasts

Vishanka, Jaws of the Earth

Reins of the Blazing Drake (Bonus Loot)

Still having trouble? Check out Learn to Raid's video.

Good luck, and we'll continue strategies in Mists of Pandaria!

Original Article

[morynne-blog]

Strategy: Spine of Deathwing

Bear with me, we're almost through with Dragon Soul. This is nearly another lootship, but it's more dragon-y.

Name: Spine of Deathwing

Raid: Dragon Soul

Tanks: 2

Phases: 3? Kinda?

Trick: Barrel Rolling Lootship.

This guide is for the normal encounter.

Here's your first chance to punch Deathwing, you just have to squish him up a bit before being able to really take him down.

The goal here is to pop off plates of armor from his back without getting overrun with adds.

When you start the encounter, you'll parachute down onto Deathwing's back toward his tail, and there will be 4 tentacles called Corruptions up, in each corner of the platform you're spawned on.  Your raid will have to choose a kill-order on these.

Those Corruptions will also Grip 3 players in 25-man encounters, preventing them from doing any damage.  Your raid will have to break the grips to release the players.  Typically in a 25-man raid with the current nerfs to content, 2 players is enough, with 2 back-ups in case one of your Grip breakers is gripped.  It only takes about 16-20% damage to break the grip, so your people assigned to breaking the Grips need to be aware of how much damage is being done, and be able to switch targets quickly.

Now, when a Corruption dies, it spawns a Hideous Amalgamation, and leaves an empty spot on Deathwing's back.  The Hideous Amalgamation is the key to this encounter -- he has a special role.  In that empty hole on Deahtwing's back, he will also spawn Corrupted Bloods, which when they die leave a blob on the ground.  If the Amalgamation is run through that patch, he picks up a stack of an Absorb Blood buff.  At 9 stacks of Absorb Blood, the Amalgamation will start to pulse lots of damage, and eventually explode.

So how do all of these parts play together?  Well, let me break down the rhythm of this fight.

Kill 3/4 of the Corruptions at the spawn.

Wait for first Grip to happen.

Raid will stack in designated empty spot on the dragon.

Deathwing will do a roll, knocking off all of the adds.

Raid spreads back out, kills remaining Corruption.

Tank picks up Amalgamation, and holds it away from the raid.

DPS takes Amalgamation down to approximately 30%, then switches to kill Bloods.

Once 9 blood puddles are on the ground, Tank goes for a walk through the blood puddles until Amalg has 9 stacks.

Tank moves close to the plate on Deathwing to one side, DPS kills the Amalg.

Amalg, when health reaches 0 will cast an explosion, blowing off one side of Deathwing's back plate. *Note* It's important that you get as much distance between you and the exploding amalgamation - it will kill you.

DPS immediately switches to the exposed Tendon on Deathwing's back, and kills it.

Plate flies off.

Rinse, repeat.  Total of 3 plates.

Profit.

As you can tell, this is a very rhythmic fight.  It will take some practice, but it's not super difficult.  Pre nerfs on this fight, my raid would use personal cool-downs on the first exposed tendon, blow Heroism/Time Warp/Lust on the second, and anything you have left on the 3rd one.

What does a Hunter need to know?

Put your pet on passive.  You don't want an errant pet DPSing a Corruption they're not supposed to -- they don't have a ton of health, and that can be the difference in winning or losing this fight.  Hunters are excellent for breaking grips because we can do some excellent damage without relying on long-lasting dots.  I tend to get put on grip duty with a mage.  Stay at range as much as possible, and be very aware of the health level of the Amalg.  When it gets close to 30%, make sure you're swapping and only killing bloods.

Hunter Loot from Spine of Deathwing

Wrath of Unchaining

Visual learner? Cool.  Check out Learn to Raid's video.

Good luck!

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Strategy: Warmaster Blackhorn

Lootship 2.0!

Name: Warmaster Blackhorn

Raid: Dragon Soul

Tanks: 2

Phases: 2-ish

Trick: Lootship, less guns, more adds. Standing in bad is good.

This guide is for the normal encounter.

Phase I: Add Phase

In this phase you're more or less dealing with a plethora of adds.  As a range, you really just need to be aware of your kill priority, and to avoid standing in the way of the charge.  Purple swirlies, despite prior history, are essential to be stood in.

The fight begins by talking to the Captain of the boat, and the boss does a fly-over getting dropped in the middle of the boat. If you're ranged, you can do some damage to the adds that will inevitably spawn by going to the right platform (facing the cabin of the boat where the portals are).

Now, on to the adds you'll be dealing with.

Twilight Assault Drake – These drakes strafe across the deck of the ship, deposit their fierce riders onto the deck, and then retreat to a safe distance to bombard the gunship.

Twilight Barrage – The twilight drakes launch bursts of dark energy at a random location on the deck of the Skyfire. Twilight Barrage inflicts 140000 Shadow damage, divided evenly among all players within its 5 yard radius. If the attack strikes the deck of the Skyfire without hitting a player, the gunship suffers the full damage instead.

Twilight Elite Dreadblade

Blade Rush – The Dreadblade charges at the location of a random distant player, inflicting 92500 to 107500 Physical damage to all players in its path.

Degeneration – The Dreadblade carves a swath of destruction with its dark sword. The sword inflicts 38000 to 42000 Shadow damage to enemies in a frontal cone, and 3000 Shadow damage every 2 sec for 1 min. This effect stacks.

Twilight Elite Slayer

Blade Rush – The Elite Slayer charges at the location of a random distant player, inflicting 92500 to 107500 Physical damage to all players in its path.

Brutal Strike – The Slayer strikes a vicious blow with its jagged sword. The strike inflicts 150 Physical damage, and 3000 Physical damage every 2 sec for 1 min. This effect stacks.

Twilight Sapper – Sleek infiltrator drakes airdrop goblins strapped with powerful explosives onto the deck of the ship. These Sappers rush to breach the gunship bridge and detonate their destructive payload.

Detonate – Upon reaching the Skyfire's bridge, the Sapper detonates his explosives. The blast inflicts 243750 to 256250 Fire damage to players within 8 yards, damages the Skyfire for 20% of its total durability, and kills the Sapper.

Now that you know what you're dealing with, the kill orders are going to be different based on your role -- see the below table.

Awesome, right? Notice that Melee priority is the Dreadblades and the Slayers after the Sappers, whereas range should focus on the Drakes, then everything else.  This fight can be a little chaotic, not necessarily because of the add priority, but more so the amount of movement required.

Goriona – Blackhorn's mount throws things at you too.

Twilight Onslaught – Goriona unleashes a massive blast of dark energy at a random location on the deck of the Skyfire. Twilight Onslaught inflicts 800000 Shadow damage, divided evenly among all players within its 10 yard radius and the Skyfire. If the attack strikes the deck of the Skyfire without hitting a player, the gunship suffers the full damage.

You'll easily be able to identify these things by the giant purple swirlie on the ground. Your whole raid needs to stack up in those giant swirlies.  It's worth noting also that there are smaller purple swirlies that are tossed around, and are easily soaked by 1 or 2 people at a time.  You should try to soak as many of those as possible, but it's not the end of the world if a couple are missed.

In order to proceed to the next phase,  you have to survive 3 complete sets of adds. (2 drakes, 1 dreadblade, 1 slayer per wave)

Phase II: Blackhorn Himself

You'll be facing Blackhorn and Goriona together.  I'll get into what you need to watch for, but it's important to look at what each of them does first.

Warmaster Blackhorn

Devastate – Blackhorn sunders his current target's armor, inflicting 120% weapon damage and reducing the player's armor by 20% for 30 sec. This effect stacks.

Disrupting Roar – Warmaster Blackhorn screams fiercely, inflicting 47500 to 52500 Physical damage to all enemies on the gunship. The shout also interrupts spellcasting for players within 10 yards for 8 sec.

Shockwave – Blackhorn strikes the ground, unleashing a wave of force that inflicts 95000 to 105000 Physical damage to enemies in an 80 yard frontal cone and stuns them for 4 sec.

Vengeance – As Warmaster Blackhorn takes damage during the course of the fight, he inflicts 1% more damage for each percentage of his missing health.

Goriona – After depositing her master on the deck of the Skyfire, Goriona hovers alongside the Skyfire and rains destruction down on the players. Once Goriona has suffered sufficient damage, she will break off and flee, abandoning her master on the Skyfire.

Twilight Flames – Goriona launches a blast of dark energy at the location of a random player, inflicting 38000 to 42000 Shadow damage on impact to players in a 8 yard radius. Twilight Flames lingers on the deck of the Skyfire, inflicting 29250 to 30750 Shadow damage to players within 7 yards every 1 sec for 30 sec.

Once again, your raid will be split between melee and range damage groups.  Range will start off on Goriona, and will DPS her until she flies off, then swap over to Blackhorn.  Melee starts off on Blackhorn.

The challenge to this phase is avoiding bad things.

Goriona throws out purple puddles of Twilight Flames that need to be avoided.  They disappear after a bit, but you'll likely be dealing with 3 or 4 of them at a time.  Blackhorn throws out a cone of stun-badness that you need to get out of, otherwise facing potential death.  Range is at a huge disadvantage to start this phase of the fight just due to the fact that Blackhorn's cone can cover the entire surface of the boat if you're unlucky.  Every raid does the positioning a bit different, and it will take a bit of maneuvering to figure out what works best for your raid.

Once Goriona flies off, the fight becomes far easier, and range can get to min distance from Blackhorn, and quickly sidestep any cone quickly.  Obviously the further away you are from the boss, the more difficult it becomes.  This part lasts until Blackhorn is dead, which in the current landscape with the ~20% nerf, is pretty quick.

What does a Hunter need to know?

During phase 1, a Hunter's job is to burst DPS the dragons, and switch to Sappers when they spawn.  Make sure you stack up during Twilight Onslaught, and soak as many of the smaller purple waves as possible.

During Phase 2, focus on Goriona, and stay out of bad. (Shockwave and the purple puddles)  Ultimately, stay alive and damage things.

Hunter Loot from Warmaster Lootship Blackhorn

Crown of the Corrupted Protector

Starcatcher Compass

Belt of the Beloved Companion

Vial of Shadows

Need more clarification? Check out Learn to Raid's video.

Good luck!

Original Article

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Post-Memorial Day Roundup

I have managed to survive the long weekend!  Diablo is dead, and my husband is still moving after his weekend-long hockey binge.  Sadly, his team lost every game, but that's a whole different issue.

I'm hoping this week to really put my head down and knock out the rest of my Dragon Soul normal strategies, and get back into Mists with more information as I can piece it together.  I have some great drafted articles, just nothing concrete enough that I'm comfortable to publish it.  Nature of betas, I suppose.

How was your long weekend?

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I'm a Demon Hunter

I, like many, will be playing Diablo, and have started off with a Demon Hunter. (I primarily played a Monk during beta)

While we're waiting for Pandaria, I will be spending quite a bit of time in New Tristram, saving the world from the demon forces.

Join me! My battle tag is Morynne#1680.

    Original Article

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Porcupine *IS* for Fite

I spent some time this weekend with MoP beta, and quested through the remainder of the Valley of the Four Winds, some of the Krasarang Wilds, and started the Kul-Lai Summit.  I've completed all of the quests in the Valley of the Four Winds, but did not get into any of the cooking specializations.  I have the quests, just haven't done them yet.

I did make a point to go tame a Porcupine over the weekend, since they're tameable now.  They get really small when you tame them, which makes for a funny image of this small spiked creature emerging from a pile of bodies.

Morynne on beta is now level 88, and has had some opportunity to test out Stampede and Call Beast -- both of which are supremely helpful in soloing.  As tenacious and brawny as Snuggles the Porcupine is, he'd die every now and then, which is the perfect opportunity to pop Stampede (it really does make things die quickly), and use Call Beast to keep the mob off of me long enough to make it dead.  For soloing, Stampede is a survival cooldown, and easily during an instance or raid, will be useful as a DPS cooldown with Rapid Fire, trinkets, etc.

I am incredibly spoiled with no minimum range.

Pet battles are still not working correctly, though I think Blizzard has gotten closer to a true deployment.  Every time I attempt to get into a pet battle, the camera view shifts, and my character gets frozen, but the battle interface doesn't launch.  I have to re-log to get my character to release so I can move again.  So closer, but not nearly ready for public consumption yet.

How's your beta experience going?

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Over the River and Through the Woods

To grandma's house we go?

I think I'm nearly out of the work cave of stress I've been in for the last few months, so hopefully I can get back to writing more.  My attention just has been needed elsewhere, and I haven't been able to keep up with writing.  Something had to give, and unfortunately it was this blog.

I've still been raiding, and Conquest is currently 4/8 Heroic Dragon Soul, 25-man.  We're currently working on heroic Zon'ozz.  I'll admit, I'm in the pre-expansion-bored-with-current-content funk.

So, in an interest of keeping things interesting, let's talk about what content you'd like to see up until MoP comes out.  By now, I'm sure most of you have already gone through Dragon Soul, at least on Raid Finder.  Part of me feels like running through the remainder of strategy might be a waste.  You tell me!  What do you want to see until MoP comes out?

[poll id="2"]

Now, this by no means is a comprehensive list of things I'm willing to cover.  If you have some brilliant idea you want to see me talk about, drop it in the comments.

Hopefully this means I'll be able to get back to blogging more regularly.  I miss you guys!

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Morynne's Early Beta Impressions

I've had beta for a little over a week, but the tough thing to remember is that I was on vacation, and away from my computers for a few days -- so the extent of my testing has been pretty slim. I did get a chance to level a Pandaren Monk to 12 on Alliance side, and ran through the majority of the quests in the Jade Forest with my Hunter, and completed the Temple of the Jade Serpent (the first dungeon).

So, knowing I've gone through all of that, what's my take?  There's lots of work to do.  The level cap is currently 86, pet battles aren't implemented yet, pet specs aren't yet ironed out, and things are buggy.  Really really buggy.  I logged in today to a whole bunch of giant pink blocks until I turned down my graphics settings.

I will say that the questing through the Jade Forest is well thought out and pretty fun.  All of the quests have a very Asian feel to them, and give some emphasis into the spirituality of why we're in that area to begin with.  I won't spoil the stories, but just know you do have some great stories to look forward to.

The Temple of the Jade Serpent is also really buggy.  The first time I ran through it, the first boss bugged out, and I had to leave the instance.  The second time I ran it, I didn't have any issue.  I'm going to refrain from talking strategy yet because, after all, it is beta.

The low level Pandaren area is well thought out, and has a good flow to the questing.  Unfortunately Blizzard still hasn't graduated from the "everyone has to go click this one item that only spawns here" mentality. (We all remember the stupid clam in Cataclysm, don't we?)  The stories are fun with exploration and wonder up to the point where you choose between helping the Alliance or the Horde -- which will ultimately set up the latter plot lines in MoP.

Here's my more detailed take on things:

The graphic models are amazing.  I can't say enough about how beautiful and clean the environment looks.  The level of detail in the Asian artwork, and the level of detail is breathtaking.  When you get logged in, take some time to just look at all the work that the texture artists did.

It's good that there are no add-ons for beta yet.  It lets testers really focus on the content and the overall game play instead of how much DPS or HPS they're doing.  I can't honestly tell you what is going to be the best spec just yet -- or even what the optimized rotation will look like -- it's just too early, and I can't even get to 90 at this point in the game.

The opening quest chains are great.  I thoroughly enjoyed running through them.  I will say that as beta gets more and more populated, we'll hopefully show Blizzard that the "everyone has to go find this one thing that only spawns one place, and can only be used by one person at a time" is a bad model -- it makes for a very frustrating experience.  I have not played through to the Horde side, but it's my intention to do that well before beta is over.

For a 5-man dungeon at the beginning of an expansion, I think the Temple of the Jade Serpent is well tuned for levels 85-86.  There are upgrades from normal mode Deathwing there, so don't get terribly attached to your purples from Dragon Soul.  The mechanics have been used before in some manner or another, but have been paired in each boss encounter slightly differently.  I had fun, and I think the Heroic Challenge modes will really make these instances even more challenging for the players who are looking for the bigger challenge.

Largely I think Blizzard has prepared very well for this expansion.  For now, and knowing what stage of beta we're in, I don't see any glaring flaws in what their goal is.  I'm really looking forward to playing through the next few zones and eventually getting to 90.  I'm very excited for the pet battles to be implemented, and really hope that comes next.

So, for those of you in Beta, what's your take on what you've seen so far?

(As a side note, I'm tired of Wordpress not implementing social media commenting, so I've swapped comment systems for now. It will let you comment via twitter, Facebook, openID, and others.  Check out Livefyre.com for more information)

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This.

So yeah. I'm on vacation next week with a couple free days.  Guess what I'll be doing?

Pandaland!

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Mists of Panderia NDA Lifted!

There's all kinds of information to sift through, and frankly, I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to go through it all, so I'll highlight what caught my eye for now, and dive more deeply into it over the next few days.

I love the female Pandaren model.  She's cute, curvy, and has a mischievous look to her.  I can't tell you how pleased this model makes me.  I'll get into all my thoughts on this in an upcoming article. It might be Morynne the Pandaren come MoP, I haven't decided yet.

Every single screenshot that has come out of Press week has been breathtaking.  I can't link nearly enough of them, I encourage you to check out everything that MMO-Champion, and Wowhead have.

Monk information is coming out like crazy.  I love the fact that it's entirely possible to deal legitimate damage as a healer, while still having the flexibility to tank or do straight damage in alternate specs.  I am glad they gave the Monks back their auto-attack, as it will likely make their damage a little more intuitive to work with.  I'm very interested in playing through all 3 specs during beta when it comes around.

**SPOILER** The last raid instance of MoP will be a siege on Orgrimmar, removing Garrosh from his position of Warchief.  It's been awhile since the Horde and Alliance have been fighting directly with each other, then have a really horrifying turn of events to band together for the same goal.  Clearly Garrosh is going to do something that is so horrifying that both the Horde and Alliance agree that he can no longer function as Warchief.  I'm very much looking forward to learning all of this story.

I like the premise that this expansion is going to be largely a return to exploration of a new world.  We don't immediately have a big-bad to take down, or anyone to hate.  Looking through some of the screenshots, how can you hate on some of these critters?

Oh, and did you hear? They're talking about making Stampede a reality! It will likely be a level 87 ability for Beastmastery Hunters that calls all of the hunter's pets out to do 80% more damage for a short time, and on a long cooldown.  I love this.

What do you think about the information so far? Are you as excited as I'm getting?

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Mists of Panderia: Press Week

It's here!

MoP is getting its official press tour this week, but because of a week long NDA, we have to wait until next week to hear more. Blizzard did tease us with this little gem.  We're getting to see female Pandarens well before we ever saw female Worgen -- in fact, we're getting to see them  next Monday, March 19th.

What do I think is going to come out of the press week?

First off, I really like the silhouette of the female Pandaren.  I think they have loads of potential, and am really looking forward to seeing her.

Here's what I think is likely to come out of the press event:

More detail regarding new zones.

Final display of the Pandaren mount. Yaks were brought up, but were never said if they were the racial mount or not.

A smattering of information regarding new raids and dungeons, but nothing specific to encounter.

Lore. This new expansion will open tons of doors for new stories. I look forward to hearing more of this.

More information on pet battle system.

New cinematic.

Expected beta timeline.

Here's what I don't think we'll hear:

We won't see the Diablo III release date. (Duh, it's the MoP press event)

We won't see an exact beta date, or a release date of the expansion.

What do you think we'll see? What are you hoping we get out of this press event?

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