Reprint of Winning Hunter Pet Haikus

They dance on the wind
Young gods that spit sapphire bolts.
Electrifying


In stables I lay
The sentimental first pet
Just waiting for you


He governs the stars
The spirit beast Arcturis
Lord of the night sky


Courtesy of Mania's Petopia.

My Haiku: The Tragic Goodbye (pt 2)

I'm not sure if you guys helped or not, but my little Haiku made it to the finals in Mania's contest. I'm #9.

The Practice of Naming

For a while, I had been naming my pets after food spices or toppings. I had a fiery pincer crab called Chipotle, a spotted leopard named Salt, a boar named Bacon, a green ravager named Pesto, etc.

Then I got some cozy names. I had a smiling T-Rex named Chuckles, a tanking turtle named Flash, a MC core-hound named Fluffy, a gorilla named Jason, and a hydra named Malcolm.

Because the changes in wolves almost remove the options of swapping in other pets in raids, I wanted to choose my wolf's name in some isolation. I knew he wouldn't really be part of a stable and naming scheme.

I'm a well-educated metropolitan dwarf. We dwarves fought the dire wolves of the Orcs and the wolf-riding Goblins. We didn't have our own. So I chose an old name from the Elves: Aranroth. It literally means "king" and "wolf" in Sindarin. Sindarin is one of two elvish tongues from Tolkien's LotR.

I have been a computer and fantasy geek for a while. Fifteen years ago, I made a web-based Elvish word generator. It's still running. I also have a whole bunch of systems specifically made for names for other races (e.g.- Dwarf names) and names of places (e.g.- names of highland strongholds). These are all generated on the fly.

I probably should put ads on the pages. 15 years of lost ad revenue might have bought me a cheeseburger.

Photo Trivia: Dual Two-Handed Weapon Wielding!

How does this happen?

Hunters 3.3.3 EDITED TO ADD

Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.

So, is this really the case or just a typo in two places? Looks like a BM annoyance. I have to think that it's really what was advertised before by Ghostcrawler: a damage boost to Steady and Arcane by 3/6/9%.

EDITED TO ADD: It was just a bad typo!

Needle-Encrusted Scorpion: Volley and Explosive Shot can now properly trigger this trinket.

Grats Marksmen and SVs geared a little like marksmen!

Lock and Load: Fixed a bug where Lock and Load always proc'd 100% of the time from the first tick of Explosive Trap and never from additional ticks. It should now be 6% as advertised.

I guess I wasn't aware this was broken. My previous ICC-trash method was: MD-to-tank, drop Explosive Trap, disengage, get LnL proc, fire ES, tab, fire ES, tab, fire ES, multi-shot, Volley. Collect 10k dps on trash. Oh well. 3 mobs, 6% chance per mob per tick means it's a good chance that you'll get the proc in two ticks. The problem will be threat. Chalk this up as a bug fix that nerfs SV hunters - in PvP and trash.

Rapid Fire: Now triggers the global cooldown correctly.

That sucks a CD from our lives. Sucks a couple for Marksmen. Chalk this up as a straight up hunter nerf that wasn't necessary. EDIT: Hmm. Some comments from players at OutDPS think this is a bug fix that lets us use it during the GCD. Terrible wording on the fix if that is the case.

EDITED TO ADD: Actually they made it completely off the GCD. Go figure how that wording makes any sense... Anyway, grats again Marksmen!

Sniper Training: Reduced the time it takes to gain this effect so with lag it will feel more consistent with the 6 seconds stated in the tooltip.

Mmmkay. So, less than 6 seconds, but perhaps more than 5 seconds? Or maybe custom to the client lag? I guess this is an SV buff. 5.x seconds is still a fairly long time on some fights.

Mortal Shots: This talent was not correctly buffing Serpent Sting by the full amount.

Grats again Marksmen.

And the final one is.. Pets will get the ICC buff in 3.3.3. So grats all hunters, but especially to any people that want to re-try BM there. With the FI change it's supposed to be comparable to SV. And SV can do better than MM on some fights.

Working on My Pet Tank Set

I'm working on my tank set. Or actually, I'm working on making a couple variations of a tank set. One will be high stamina, medium-low threat. Another will sacrifice some stamina for more threat generation.

The above snapshot is me just flipping into my stamina set during a raid. I didn't switch talents or pets. It was a little humorous that a healer tossed me a quick heal and then needed to follow it up with a couple more.

I didn't take my flask yet but I do have an Imp buff. I also obtained two new pieces of PvP gear after this screenshot was taken - which I'll use in my stamina set.

This is fun stuff. Then again, I love to make gear sets.

My Haiku: The Tragic Goodbye

The stables are full.
I choose to abandon.
My children cry out.

I've had to make up stories of what happens to the pets when I dismiss them. Who they go off to see. If other people take them on as pets. Who will love them. And so on.

You can vote for it and/or see other hunter pet haikus over in Mania's Hunter Haiku contest. You'll need to do a forums signup or email Mania in order to vote.

Hunter Buffs and Nerfs

Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%.

So, is this really the case or just a typo in two places? Looks like a BM annoyance. I have to think that it's really what was advertised before by Ghostcrawler: a damage boost to Steady and Arcane by 3/6/9%.

Needle-Encrusted Scorpion: Volley and Explosive Shot can now properly trigger this trinket.

Grats Marksmen and SVs geared a little like marksmen!

Lock and Load: Fixed a bug where Lock and Load always proc'd 100% of the time from the first tick of Explosive Trap and never from additional ticks. It should now be 6% as advertised.

I guess I wasn't aware this was broken. My previous ICC-trash method was: MD-to-tank, drop Explosive Trap, disengage, get LnL proc, fire ES, tab, fire ES, tab, fire ES, multi-shot, Volley. Collect 10k dps on trash. Oh well. 3 mobs, 6% chance per mob per tick means it's a good chance that you'll get the proc in two ticks. The problem will be threat. Chalk this up as a bug fix that nerfs SV hunters - in PvP and trash.

Rapid Fire: Now triggers the global cooldown correctly.

That sucks a CD from our lives. Sucks a couple for Marksmen. Chalk this up as a straight up hunter nerf that wasn't necessary. EDIT: Hmm. Some comments from players at OutDPS think this is a bug fix that lets us use it during the GCD. Terrible wording on the fix if that is the case.

Sniper Training: Reduced the time it takes to gain this effect so with lag it will feel more consistent with the 6 seconds stated in the tooltip.

Mmmkay. So, less than 6 seconds, but perhaps more than 5 seconds? Or maybe custom to the client lag? I guess this is an SV buff. 5.x seconds is still a fairly long time on some fights.

Mortal Shots: This talent was not correctly buffing Serpent Sting by the full amount.

Grats again Marksmen.

And the final one is.. Pets will get the ICC buff in 3.3.3. So grats all hunters, but especially to any people that want to re-try BM there. With the FI change it's supposed to be comparable to SV. And SV can do better than MM on some fights.

BM Love or Not?

If it's just a change from Arcane to Steady, it is a dps-neutral change. If it's what it was on the PTR -- a buff to Steady and keeping the buff to Arcane, then it's a good buff for BM.

Hall of Shame/Fame

Lassira told us of Mordicai's considerable Hall of Fame achievement. He tamed all four spirit beasts. Pretty cool. I have to think they aren't as camped as they once were, but still quite impressive.

So I went to the armory page of this impressive hunter. I was expecting ... well ... I was not expecting to see another bad hunter. I was sad. I was angry. I was mortified.

It wasn't because they were a blood elf.

It wasn't because they are 450 in jewelcrafting but don't use any jewelcrafter-only jewels.

It wasn't the four pieces of PvP gear. That can be a reasonable crutch. And hell, I think I'm logged out in my PvP gear at the moment.

It wasn't the 12.23% hit chance and him still using the +hit/+AP trinket and nearly worthless +hit/+haste trinket as a solo talent tree BM hunter.

It wasn't the bad and sometimes not maxed out pet talents.

It wasn't the tank gun.

It wasn't the spellpower/mp5 pants.

It was everything.

Am I too harsh? "Maybe it's just an alt with a lot of time on his hands." "He didn't ask for this scrutiny! Mind your own business!" Do I have some personal deficit for being offended at how bad this person looks in the armory? Or was it just whiplash from expecting them to be top notch?

EDITED TO ADD: Ah. This guy was not disappointing. Of course he's an insane over-achiever and a hunter.

MM > SV > BM - But Not By As Much in 3.3.3

Parse these comments as you will.

For Hunter DPS Completeness

Just worth mentioning in case you're in a cave, when 3.3 comes out (next week?), they will have fixed the ICC buff so it also applies to pets. This wasn't too noticeable for most raiders because the pet generally buffs the hunter. However if you're BM you would have been jonesin'. Then again, you probably don't care too much if you're raiding as BM.

Unless of course, you're pet-tanking. Then that'd be a nice pet buff.

Good Progress

I'm not usually able to attend Monday raids. I have family obligations. I logged in 45mins into the raid just to see how they were doing. I got an immediate raid invite. We made good progress on the Blood Queen. Each pull we had at least one person DC though. And we had plenty of people who had UI problems being able to properly target and hit '1'. Despite that we made it through the transition intact once or twice. So if we can stop the DCs and fix the UIs we're golden.

We also two-shotted Heroic Jaraxxas which was nice. I think some people got some ups.

Then three of us then dove into ICC-10 with the other seven slots filled up by alts of raiders or non-raiders. We got some quick badges off the first four bosses - and got the 10-man quest. There was a lot of DE'd gear which would have been upgrades for me a month or two ago. One item was an upgrade though: Saurfang's Cold-Forged Band.

Any Other Hunters Have This Problem?

I've said before, there is really only one piece of gear I would like from any 5-man. It's the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion. Well, it did drop yesterday in a 5man daily random PUG. Something interesting happened. Not one, or two people also rolled Need. Nope. Everyone did. The tank, the healer, and the other two dps.

Evidently, this is something that is happening everywhere now. I've just lead a sheltered life I guess.

Strangely, in the same run (and same boss loot) everyone rolled Greed on the orb.

So what does this mean?

I pulled over 6k dps on the run. The second was around 2.3k dps. So it's quite possible the dps needed it somehow. The tank was a Warrior. The other DPS were a DK and a Ret Pally. The healer was a Druid. Was I just extremely unlucky? Or is everyone rolling Need on stuff they don't need? Can DKs, Warriors, Rets, and Cats actually make good use of it?

Yay. Putricide Down

Got Professor Petri Cup down and got the simple achievement. Also got Blood Prince Council. And the Beasts of Northrend in Heroic. Very decent night. Putricide is no walk in the park. All timing on the adds. Heroic Beasts is also surprising how difficult it is even with "out-gearing" it.

Also felt good to finally be on top of the meters. #2 on all bosses for the night (melee were a close #1 and #3). And #1 on Putricide. That said, Putricide does favor ranged dps classes. And given the adds switching it would seem to favor SV over MM. Still it was nice.

Oh, and I was at over 800ms latency the first two hours of raiding. NFI why. My traceroutes were 600ms+ from my router to the first hop outside. I reset it but to no effect.

Icecrown Wideview

All Together Now

The Calculation: Switching to Marks

I am interested in switching to an Armor Pen Marksman Hunter. No, that's not quite right. I'm interested in the number crunching to determine on paper if I would rocket my DPS through the roof. The calculations don't look that favorable. I could increase my DPS, but not like a rocket. And I'd give up a lot of utility.

I have an armor penetration rating of 419 from gear. That doesn't sound like a large number when our hard cap is 1400. That is usually from prioritizing Crit over ArP.

I have 20 regular gem slots at the moment. 17 of the 20 slots are slotted with agility. If I swapped 19 of them over to ArP it would land me with a total 799 ArP rating. It would only cost 3,800 gold if I got the raw gems and had someone cut them.

I only have the crappy ArP proc'ng trinket. I probably can't get the raid one, but I could fairly easily get the better five man one. Even still, that is only the soft-cap on-proc world. Not exactly stellar.

And there's that 3,800 gold buy-in with a 3,800 gold reversal fee...

EDITED TO ADD: Oh! And I'd probably feel compelled to put on two of my T9.5 pieces again. I haven't studied it vs the T10x4 bonus.

Tank Set Remade

I spent some time and bought, assembled, re-gemmed, and re-enchanted a pet-tanking armor set. It isn't as well-balanced as I had before, but it has a bit more oomph!

I also used it in a random 5man when the tank got booted (I actually voted to not boot him...). It was pretty easy.

Interesting BM 3.3 Buffage

FI goes from just buffing arcane shots by 9% to buffing arcane and steady shot by 9%. Meat and potatoes nice damage boost for BM. Not enough for even the word parity to be spoken aloud, but nice.