The Switch to ArPen Build

I finally breached 500 Arpen and decided it might be worth my time to respec and remove Arcane from my rotation. Here are the changes I’ve made:

GLYPHS: Swapped Glyph of Chimera Shot for Glyph of Steady Shot

TALENTS: Removed points from Improved Arcane and put one into Rapid Recup, one into Improved Steady Shot, and kept one point in Improved Arc, though that will probably get switched to Improved Hunter’s Mark very soon, since we have had so many hunters recently…

PET TALENTS: Swapped one point in Bloodthirsty for one point in Charge (unrelated to ArPen switch, but I figured I’d mention it)

No, I have not re-gemmed. I don’t feel that 540 ArPen is enough for me to warrant losing such a large amount of Agility, which stacks with buffs and provides two stats and not just one. Perhaps after a few more gear upgrades, I’ll consider it. Even then, I’m not sure it’s the right move, but I’ll do the research soon (and share it).

Between Saurfang the previous night and Saurfang the night after, I gained approximately 550 DPS. This is, of course, situational, as I’m certain my performance was anything but perfect on either night. We also had a different group makeup, which could account for a DPS change as well. However, 550 is still significant enough to warrant keeping the change for now and trying it again with the previous group makeup.

I did find that having 2 points in Rapid Recuperation instead of 1 made a HUGE difference in my mana efficiency, as I was having issues maintaining Dragonhawk after long pulls, and halfway through Saurfang. That could also account for some of the DPS increase, since I did not have to switch to Viper at all on the second night.

So many variables, so little time. I wish I could dive into all of this, but with my new semester starting up, I simply can’t put the same effort into it that I used to. I don’t like taking advice from others when I haven’t done the math myself, and that’s exactly why you shouldn’t simply do what I’ve done in this post and call it a night…make comparisons! Take notes! Do math! Run tests!

Guest-starring That Chick with the Voice

If you men can get over that fact, I actually had some pretty interesting things to say on Brigwyn’s Podcast last Sunday. You can listen to it here -

http://www.brigwyn.com/2010/01/12/thl-podcast-ep-19-the-boys-are-back-in-town-and-decide-to-have-a-3-way/

You can visit The Hunting Lodge and check out more Podcasts from Brig and Daewin.

It was a blast, guys. Thanks so much for inviting me! Let’s do it again soon. <3

Lookie!

Wanted to give a quick post for a new hunter blogger in our community! Everyone, check out the new blog by Hesson -

http://www.thespiritbeast.com/

Enjoy!

Meanwhile: In the World of Nass

DING!

And three days later, I’m sporting 3 pieces of T9, and other nice epics. Oh LFG, how I love thee!

Thoroughly enjoying my new tanking responsibilities, though I haven’t forgotten about my beloved hunter!

Yes, she finally got her Ravasaur! =) Orcs look so awesome on Raptors. Orcs look so awesome. <3

Let me tell you a little story about the Hunter named Nassira:

One fateful day, my then-current boyfriend recommended I try this new game called World of Warcraft. I asked him what it was, and he said it was like Everquest, to which I replied, “What is Everquest? Is it like Descent? Because I love that game.” He said no. I got sad. Then he sat me in front of the computer, opened WoW, and said, “Here, make a character!”

At this point, I didn’t know what “accounts” were or why they were important. So I looked at my options for a character.

Gnomes were an instant NO. Dwarves…meh. Humans? Who plays a human when you could be something you’re not? Night elves…I mean, they’re pretty, but do I have to play with the rest of these things if I’m one? Jeff said yes. I said no. He said, “Good, Horde is better anyway.”

“There are no good looking characters on the Horde side!” I said. “Well, some of the Undead are cute,” he replied. I guess they were, but I decided to keep looking. Tauren were fun, but not me. Troll females were way too bumpkin for my taste, so that was out. Finally, I played around with a female Orc. Most of the faces were hideous, but there were two which I thought were pretty cute. I chose one, made her hair and colors perfect, gave her lots of piercings, and clicked Create.

From that moment on, I was in love.

I loved how she walked. I loved how she talked. I loved her emotes (“You’ll do. Let’s go.”), and I loved her dance (because that’s about as well as I can do on the dance floor, let’s face it).

She was the perfect character for me. “What kind of pet do you want?”

“I GET A PET?!?!?”

I wanted a cat. Not just any cat…a really cool cat. Because who doesn’t want a pet tiger? Honestly. I got several levels. Then Jeff said, “So do you like this game?”

“Yes.”

He offered to buy me an account. No way, you’re not paying for anything.

He said he had an old friend’s account, and I could use that. Welllll….okay.

So I started making another character, the same kind of Orc, and got her in the mid-20’s. Back then, leveling took much longer. ;-) At this point, I did something stupid and got myself banned. Let’s not talk about it. I was 18.

So what to do?? I’d lost both hunters I’d made at this point. Oh my. So I bought my own account, now that I had a job out of school. 15 bucks a month was a lot for me back then, but it was worth it. I started another Orc hunter, and learned from Mania exactly which pet I wanted and where to get it. I got myself a Moonstalker Matriarch, perfect for my Orc skin. But then I stopped being able to afford my own account, and promptly discontinued service.

At this point, still being the noob I was, I didn’t know that I could just pick up where I left off. So what did I do? I bought yet another account about 6 months later when I had money again, but by this time, Burning Crusade was out, and there were more options!

I was absolutely sick of the Orc starting place. I’d run the same quests so many times. I thought, “Well, this character I will DEFINITELY get to 70, but I want to try something new. I’ll roll a Blood Elf, since I haven’t played one of those before.” (I’d made several other alts, including a Night Elf, which I abandoned relatively early)

This time, I had a different boyfriend, who actually also used to play WoW. We decided that for the new expansion, we’d level new characters together. Cool. He rolled a druid, and I rolled a hunter (because I loved it).

Then he wanted to switch servers at level 34. I didn’t have the money. So guess what?

I rerolled. Again.

And that was the birth of the hunter we now recognize to be Nassira.

Race change came out a few weeks ago, and guess what? Nassira was always meant to be an Orc. So that is who she is now. And I’m more than happy about it. I’m ecstatic.

Oh My!

I have NOT been keeping up.

I’ve been sick for almost a week now. It’s been pretty miserable. Not to mention that I’m snowed in with three feet of white, powdery flakes of death.

Let me share with you what I’ve been up to!

Firstly, because of my illness, I’ve only been able to play WoW recently, as sitting up was kind of a difficulty. However, in these last few days, I’ve leveled my Paladin up to 77 (almost 78!) and gone Prot for good. I’ve been tanking randoms with and without guildies, and so far it’s gone quite well. I’m really enjoying seeing this new side of WoW. It’s keeping me interested in the game in an unexpected way.

I’ve also gotten to raid ICC a few times! =D Mostly just 10-mans on off-nights, as our guild could use a few more quality DPS players for the 25’s. It has been FUN. I’m enjoying ICC so much more than ToC. My favorite fight so far is Deathbringer Saurfang. Personally, I think it’s more fun in 10s than 25s, which is usually not what I end up saying. I also think it’s more challenging in 10-man.

Excitingly, I’ve gotten many gear upgrades since my little break, and am back to “At Least I’m Not a Total Scrub” status. As of last week, I’m “Epic” from the achievement. Yup. Didn’t have it until last week, due to my two 200 lvl trinkets I’ve been unable to rid myself of.

And last but not least, in approximately 10 minutes, Nassira is going under the knife.

She’s going to be an Orc.

Finally. =D

And we all know what that means:

TIME FOR NEW SITE GRAPHICS!

The Scoop on Removing Arcane Shot

Having been out for a while, I fear this post may be too late. However, I still believe it’s important to have this information out in the open for all the misinformed MM hunters out there.

Removing Arcane Shot from your rotation isn’t something that should happen with the MAJORITY of standard raiders. In fact, very few raiders will  ever have the level of gear required to make this a worthwhile change. So don’t just jump on the “EJ Told Me To” bandwagon. Let me explain.

The whole purpose behind removing Arcane Shot from your rotation is to do more damage in your extra Steady Shot cast than you could do with that Arcane Shot. This requires the following:

Your Steady Shot must do MORE damage than your Arcane Shot, and not just more damage, but significantly more damage, because of the fact that Steady Shot has a longer cast time and requires a stand-still AND Arcane Shot could be doing more damage if you specced into Improved Arcane (which, if you are using Arcane Shot in your rotation, you SHOULD have Improved Arcane). Let me explain.

A rotation in the MM world is like this: Hunter’s Mark, Serpent Sting (both applied only once at the beginning of the fight), Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot until Chimera has cooled down, repeat and fire as available. In between those shots, you should be weaving Silencing Shot and your per-use Trinkets (like Rocket Launchers or AP boosts) since they don’t use the GCD (Global Cooldown).

If you were to remove Arcane completely from your rotation, the point would be to insert another Steady Shot in its place (because your other shots would not be available do to previously triggered cooldowns). THIS IS ONLY VIABLE IF YOUR STEADY SHOT DOES MORE DAMAGE THAN YOUR IMPROVED ARCANE SHOT!

Make sense? Please, please only remove Arcane from your rotation if the above is true, and your Steady Shot consistently does more damage than Arcane. The only way this is possible is if your Armor Penetration rating is high enough. There is no other way you will ever see your Steady Shot doing significantly more damage than your Arcane – an Armor Penetration rating of at LEAST 600 is required. Even then, please double-check your damage on WWS or WoWmeters to make absolutely sure.

If you do not make certain that this is true, YOU WILL NERF YOUR OWN DAMAGE!

Okay?

Okay.

Glad we had this talk.

Okay, Here’s the Deal

Hello!

I’ve missed you. <3 I’ve been working very hard in school (managed an A in my Design class) and haven’t had a lot of free time for much of anything. However, now it’s winter break, and I have an entire month off!

Let me tell you a story…

A few weeks ago, I was browsing my old guild website, reading up to see how everyone was doing, when I noticed a rather long and heated post regarding two new recruits. Long story short, they weren’t the kindest folks when they left, and it left my guild in a state of unease, because a lot of what those recruits had to say about the guild were, quite honestly, very true. They’re things that simply haven’t been fixed because we’ve had limited options for fixing them. Also, they were in desperate need of ranged DPS. What am I again? Oh yeah…ranged DPS.

Seeing this unrest amongst my old friends kind of made my heart hurt. So…

Here I am. I’m playing again.

And it wouldn’t be playing again without writing again. So yeah…I’m back. And I’m kinda happy about it.

<3 Nass

Announcement

Hello, everyone.

It is with mixed emotion that I write this post today, announcing that I will no longer be playing World of Warcraft on a regular basis.

There are many reasons behind this final decision. The first of these, and the most important, is that I no longer have fun within the game. I don’t like the direction WoW is going, and haven’t truly enjoyed myself since before the release of Wrath of the Lich King. I’ve been playing this game for many years, and I think I’ve finally burnt out. I no longer enjoy raiding, dailies are a chore, and leveling is mind-numbing for me. Too many changes have been made which I believe are for the wrong reasons. It has slowly corrupted the game for me, and has leached my enjoyment from it, not to mention the fact that very little has changed in regards to visual aspects or in-game mechanics – two things which are imperative for keeping my interest. I feel, at this point, that WoW is a dying game, something Blizzard is simply trying to keep alive long enough to bring all the old players into their latest, greatest, next-gen MMO. This latest-greatest is where they’re putting all the effort now, and it’s become apparent by the lack of attention being payed to the parts of WoW which need that attention the most. This is, of course, my personal opinion, so please take it only for what it is.

Secondly, as most of you know, I’ve been attending college again full-time. I simply don’t have the extra time to spend on WoW when I should be improving upon my classwork. As an art major, it’s incredibly difficult to make everything fit into regular time slots, and many of my projects span across days until completion. I simply cannot justify spending over 20 hours a week playing and writing about WoW when I have so many other things to accomplish.

After contemplating these things for several months now, I’ve finally made the decision and have told my guild, <Explicit>, about this decision. I love each and every one of them and will miss them dearly, even if we still stay in touch. There is nothing quite like a beloved guild in your life, and it will be difficult for me to make this transition, but I do believe it is for the best.

I also have a special love for this site and its readers. All of you have engaged me for many months (almost a year!) and kept my interest from waning far longer than it should have, and for that, I’m very grateful to you. I love the community I’ve met here online, and I do intend to stay within it.

On that note, I announce my future plans.

I am, very tentatively, dabbling with the idea of an Aion website. I’ve been slowly leveling a Ranger and am enjoying the fresh gameplay and new sights, as well as the ability to play at my own pace in a peaceful leveling environment. It is possible that during Winter Break and over the summer, I’ll be releasing an Aion website for the enjoyment of the public and myself, as well as to keep my career skills fresh.

I will, for certain, be setting up a personal website, where I will have a personal blog and biography, as well as a small Graphic Design business. I’ll be freelancing projects online, hopefully within the next four months. All information regarding my services will be listed on this new website. I urge you to keep checking back here once in a while for these new websites.

As far as DoaMH goes, no worries – I will be keeping it here, untouched, for anyone to read, comment, and reference.

I want to thank you all so much for your comments and questions and general love of the game which has been such a big part of my life. You’re all wonderful people.

<3 Nass