raiding « Diaries of a Marksman Hunter

Posts Tagged ‘raiding’

Jan

2010

Re: The Switch to ArPen Build

Also titled, “Why the Previous Post Has No Merit”.

After finally getting the chance to go over the two separate fights I was comparing, let me show you exactly why a gain of 500DPS is almost completely unrelated to the changes I made in spec and rotation.

First of all, I was using the only fight I’d done in the same gear – Saurfang.

Let me explain to you how our guild has been running Saurfang: Each hunter kites/kills a beast. This often requires instant high-yield shots, such as Arcane. So I still used Arcane during my post-changes Saurfang fight. Not to mention, there were times when I forgot not to use it in my normal rotation.

Secondly, the first fight was unsuccessful, and because of this, much shorter than the successful post-changes fight. Here are the details:

So you can see here the huge differences in the fights themselves, and also the similarities which actually shouldn’t be there. Just look at the pie chart.

The group makeup was only slightly different each night. Both nights, we only had 24 people (my Marksman self is not included in the following lists).

Group Makeup 1

Assasination/Mutilate Rogue

Survival Hunter x2

Ret Pally

Blood DK

Fury Warrior

Arcane Mage x2

Shadow Priest

Affliction Lock

Feral Druid

Boomkin

Elemental Shaman

Enhance Shaman

Unholy DK

Marksman Hunter

Prot Pally

Prot Warrior

Resto Shaman

Holy Priest

Holy Pally

Resto Druid

Disc Priest

Group Makeup 2

Assasination/Mutilate Rogue

Survival Hunter

MM Hunter x2

Blood DK x2

Fury Warrior

Arms Warrior

Arcane Mage x2

Shadow Priest

Elemental Shaman

Enhancement Shaman

Afflic Lock

Feral Druid

Holy Pally x2

Disc Priest

Holy Priest

Resto Shaman

Prot Warrior

Prot Pally

Resto Druid

So you can see that the two nights are slightly different in makeup. This can account for a number of possible DPS changes.

Thirdly, I know for a fact that my performance with the talent and rotation changes was worse than my performance without them. How do I know? You should always know how well or how poorly you’ve performed in a raid and be honest about it. Sometimes you have good nights, and sometimes you’re just not quite on top of things.

Fourthly, and as Wulf mentioned in a previous comment, I do believe my pet was at mid-range happiness while fighting in the post-changes battle, while in the previous fight, he was very happy. This affects pet damage, and so affects the outcome of the comparison. If I had noticed, and fed Ceallach before the post-changes Saurfang fight, the DPS would’ve been higher.

I also know for a fact that my GUILD’S performance was much better on the post-changes fight than the previous fight. Just the fact that one was a failure and the other a success can prove that. What does this change? This can change any number of things, like for instance, how much target-changing I had to do, or how much movement I had to make to compensate for mistakes. When the guild performs well, it’s easier for me to stand in one place and PewPew.When everything clicks, the fight goes much smoother.

And finally, notice the differences in damage outputs and critical strikes, as well as the number of shots fired.

Because of all of these things, my plan is to dual-spec both particular talents/glyphs, pay more attention to each rotation, and make comparisons which are much more related to one another before coming to any conclusions.

All in all, what’s my point?

ALWAYS DOUBLE-CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF!

Tags: armor penetration, arpen, Damage, output, pet, raiding, talenting
Posted in Damage, Gameplay | No Comments »

Jan

2010

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!

Tags: ICC, leveling, nassira, pally, raiding, rhuna, tanking
Posted in Gameplay, Musings | 9 Comments »

Sep

2009

Everything You Need to Know About Onyxia

Colorful language, don’t watch if you don’t want. But seriously, it’s a classic.

Anyway, in all seriousness, the fight is pretty much exactly the same as the old fight, except much, much easier. We enjoyed ourselves. Here are some nice screenshots.

Tips:

Don’t stand in front of Onyxia. It will kill you.

Don’t run into the Orlando cave and pull more Whelps.

AoE.

DPS.

Win.

Certainly a simple fight for a hunter. Try not to noob it up, or it’s 50DKP MINUS!!

Tags: 25-man, fun, onyxia, raiding
Posted in Gameplay, Rantings | 9 Comments »

Sep

2009

ToC Can Be Fun.

Well, I spoke a little too soon judging the new raid instance. ToC was fun the other night while my guild was running the 10-man Heroic Mode. It was actually a little difficult!! *shock and amazement* We managed to trudge steadily all the way through Jaraxxus. Meanwhile, I felt as though I was actually accomplishing something, and when he finally came down, I was shaking and giggling nervously, like I used to do in earlier BC raids. That has made me very happy.

Another happy event was last night when Explicit downed 25-man Anub’arak. All it took was actually having 25 people online and in raid…imagine that! *gasp*

As it turns out, all my previous bragging about having more free time has backfired, and I am now just about as busy as I ever was. I have 6 classes, I’m teaching piano lessons, I’m working on a new super-sekret web project, I’m swimming in Adobe software homework, and I’m attempting to get more WoW playing in (which isn’t working as well as I’d hoped). So…bear with me on this. My next post will involve a long list of Frequently-Asked hunter questions, and I’m hoping to get that out by the end of this week. If you have any questions you’d like to see answered in this FAQ (which will be a permanent page on my site), please don’t hesitate to send me an email at mmnassira@gmail.com or simply leave a comment here for me to see.

More exciting news : guess what I’m posting this from?? Yes, my new MacBook Pro. =D I’m still trying to get used to it, but so far, I’m enjoying it.

Remember, get those questions to me this week!

Tags: anub'arak, faq, heroic, jaraxxus, raiding, toc
Posted in Gameplay, Musings, Questions | 14 Comments »

Sep

2009

Nice Fix, Blizz.

So, when we first tried to run back into the instance for Anub’arak last raid week, the floor wouldn’t fall through. We couldn’t continue. Now, the floor is gone, but we spawn on a nice little treasure chest in the middle of the room. Firstly, let me just say that no, not all of the water is deep enough. Try walking off the edge instead of running by pressing /. Trust me. Secondly, is that really the fix? They can’t make it any better than that? A floating treasure chest? Wow. Generally, I don’t diss Blizzard and hate when people whine, but this is kinda half-assed. I really hope they’re putting all that extra time into Icecrown. Personally, now that I’ve run the bosses for ToC, I’m disappointed. The fights aren’t particularly fun, in my honest opinion, and we are in the same circular room the entire time. It’s not even a nice room. It’s ugly. Thinking about spending the next month or two in that place over and over again with bosses that are either tedious or repetitive makes my skin crawl.

Now that I’ve got the negative out of the way, let’s look at the positive! I got three new pieces of gear last night, and I’m pretty freakin’ happy about that. I picked up the Death’s Head Crossbow, the Bracers of the Silent Massacre, and from badges I was able to buy the Pauldrons of the Devourer. Hopefully tonight I’ll see a decent increase in DPS, since I was sporting such worn out gear before now.

I also managed to take some fun pictures of all of us falling into the depths of the Coliseum. Yay!

Oh, and during the Ally fight, I got feared through the wall, but not out of the instance. So I just sat there in an empty World and waited til combat was over and I could be summoned. That is definitely not one of my favorite bugs.

All in all, I’m quite bored and waiting for Icecrown. Definitely not enjoying Trial of the Crusader. I’m just not.

Tags: blizzard, raiding, toc, trial of the crusader
Posted in Gameplay, Rantings | 12 Comments »

Aug

2009

Return from AFK

Aaaand we’re back!

It’s been a long time. Actually it’s only been a week. But to me, it feels like a year. I’ve gotten so much done and still have so much to do. I’m finally done with band camp. That went pretty well. Now I have football games every Saturday, practice every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and regular classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wanna know something funny? I still have 3 times the free time I used to have while working.

This means that tonight was the first night in 3 weeks that I raided again, and I am now grinding dailies and staying up late like any NORMAL girl my age. Well, any normal girl who plays WoW, that is.

I managed to get two new upgrades, the Giant’s Bane and the T8 gloves. I’m pretty stoked about that. Finally, I’m not so much of a scrub anymore. I thought for a minute that I forgot to play, but that lasted all of about 30 seconds until I was right back into the DPS swing. It’s like riding a bike, apparently.

My new apartment is all set up, and it’s great seeing family every day. Classes start tomorrow. Unfortunately, I was late in my scheduling, so I have to go to classes and beg to be let in. But it’s all good. I’m feeling very good about my decision to go back to school, and about my choice to go to Edinboro. It’s really a beautiful campus and a fantastic art school.

When I have more to report, and when I catch up on my patch notes, I’ll write a bit more. For now, stay tuned for the belated patch podcast with myself and Rilgon from Stabilized Effort Scope. We had a blast making it, so I hope you enjoy it when I get the chance to upload it.

Missed you all!

Tags: band, podcast, raiding, school, Ulduar
Posted in Musings | 9 Comments »

Aug

2009

Thorim = Groundhog Day

Have you ever seen the movie with Bill Murray called “Groundhog Day”? If you haven’t, go see it! It’s a classic. Basically, Bill Murray plays a not-so-loveable newscaster covering the event of Punxsutawny Phil the Groundhog coming out and seeing his shadow. Random bad things happen throughout the day, he’s generally an asshole to everyone, and eventually he goes to sleep, only to wake up and find that it’s the beginning of…Groundhog Day…again. The same music comes from his radio, the same people meet him on the street, the same general things happen. This continues for several days until he starts to go crazy, trying everything he can to make the day finally end. He even tries to kill himself several different ways, and one day he stole Phil the Groundhog and drove him off of a cliff. It turns out, all he had to do was be a good person (and get the girl), and finally February 3rd comes at last.

The whole point of this is that Thorim, for our guild, has been the Groundhog Day of Ulduar. Each week, we struggle to get him down. And it always seems to be the same things happening over and over again. Near the end of attempts, I’m usually the one suggesting we just steal the effing groundhog and drive him off a cliff. Unfortunately, Thorim would have none of that, and I don’t think I could fit him in a pickup truck anyway.

Also very unfortunate is that being a good person won’t kill Thorim any faster. The only thing we can do is rely on each other and hope we all do our jobs. If one person goes down, generally in the next thirty seconds we all go down. The good thing about this fight is that it trains people in good ways. You absolutely have to pay attention to your surroundings and to what mobs are casting. It makes you aware of which mobs are best to target first and how to control your aggro. Overall, it’s a great guild exercise. You’d think by now our WoW biceps would be massive.

What I’m hoping is that Thorim will help us with Yogg-Saron. If everyone can do their duties on Thorim, that sense of responsibility will pass over into Yogg and allow us to work efficiently as a team, moving on their toes to get the job done.

Which boss is your Groundhog Day, and why? I’d love to hear about it.

Tags: groundhog day, raiding, thorim, Ulduar
Posted in Musings | 14 Comments »

Aug

2009

Oh, Time to Do Kologarn, I Think I’ll Just….ZZZZzzzzZZZZZzzzzz

So last night was my first night in many weeks actually being able to run the initial bosses in Ulduar. Let me preface this story by explaining my night before.

Tuesday night, I had a softball tournament. We played hard, but we lost, and then we had a barbeque. I get back home, hang out with my roomie and friends, and get to bed at the usual time, which is generally around midnight. It’s finally time for me to pass out. I curl up under nice, warm covers and fall asleep. Then I wake up to this:

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Alarm clock? No. I look at my clock and it’s about 2:00. The noise is still happening, and it is very, very loud. Finally, I wrench myself out of bed, put on a robe, and meet my roommate outside my door, who was also woken by this incessant beeping. We look at each other groggily. We go downstairs.

It was the Natural Gas Detector. Weak.

So there’s nothing left for us to do but open all the doors and windows, and call the fire department.

Needless to say, I didn’t get to bed soon after. The fireman told us that all was well, that it was a false alarm, and better luck next time. At least we didn’t explode.

Then I finally crawl into bed, manage to fall asleep, and what feels like thirty seconds later I wake up to my usual Beeep! Beeep! alarm clock. It was 5:00, and time to get up for work. Like the Living Dead, I managed to stalk into work, only to be late for the morning meeting. Work crawls onward, and I finally get home, throw my stuff on my bed, start up my computer, and do all the patching and add-on updates I need for 3.2. Yay! Finally, Ulduar! I’m totally stoked! We do Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, Ignis, XT002, and Assembly of Iron. Then it was time for our usual 15-minute break. At first, I figure I’ll just sit there and chat until it’s time to keep going. But then I look over at my bed, and it looked so warm and inviting. I told myself I’d lay down for just a minute, and get up again when Jailer threw out a Ready Check.

Suddenly, I wake up. What the….OH BALLS! It’s 11:00!!

I had completely missed Kologarn, and was lying dead at the entrance of the instance. I had passed out cold for 30 minutes. At this point, I’m panicking, because how much would it suck to miss Auriaya’s bow, too, just because I’d fallen asleep?? I hurry to rez and run to Auriaya, and we take her down (after I apologized profusely to Jailer).

Turns out, she didn’t even drop the bow.

What a waste…

Tags: fail, raiding, Ulduar
Posted in Rantings | 5 Comments »