Happy Power Outage Weekend!

No running water, electricity, phone, or internet.  Good trick!

OMG

Second round was awesome.
Watch it all.

Hunter Builds for Mists of Pandaria (MoP)

Wowhead has a new MoP talent tool up.  The particulars of the talents will be changing a fair amount I'm sure.  Some of them just don't quite seem balanced.

That said, give them a try.

Here's my PvE build and my PvP build.

No Minimum Range!

No minimum range!  No worries on melee weapons!

From the liveblog:

1:49PM Hunter Minimum Range - (he's milking this)

1:49PM GONE!

1:49PM Hunter melee weapons gone.

1:49PM "Nothing is a hunter weapon." - GC.

1:50PM Range slot for all other characters gone.

Looking Good vs Feeling Good

I already wrote about my shoulders and how I hate the T11 and opted for the PvP ones.

Well here's the visual of what I raid with, PvP with, and what I think I may transmorg to.

Raiding color assault.

PvP gears not especially stealthy.

A nice authentic Dwarvish look.

Kheldul's Silly Gear State and a Night's Raiding Progress

This post is just about Kheldul's gear. Feel to ignore.

I've been really jones'n to get rid of my extremely ugly, goiterish merlock scavanged shoulders resembling a bubonic plague attack.   I had missed a few pre-nerf Thursday raids where we usually took down Domo.  So anyway, as a backup-plan to not getting any love from Beth'tilac or a fifth T12 token I started dumping Valor into Conquest.  After yesterday's raid I went and got my backup PvP item.  The phrase, "It's better to look good than to feel good" may apply until 4.3 drops.  Of course the agility is nothing to sneeze at.

Oh and in the raid, I got our first heroic upgrade, so my plans on getting the 378 gun are history.

We had putz'd around and killed the spider boss, Bael, and Aly.  We had Heroic Shannox in mind but were hoping our normal raid leader would show up.  But we were standing in Baelroc's cleared room and I suggested it might be a nice place to fight Shannox.  It so happens that it's the place Shannox spawns (right in the middle).  And it was a very nice place to fight him.  There was no clutter, a lot of symmetry, and ranges were easy to understand.  We got Heroic Shannox on the second try.  On the first try our Riplimb tank was using immobilization traps all over (and sometimes way out of range) and not leaving any for Rageface.  That wasn't too bad.  The mage and I kited Rageface to drop stacks, but then there was a rageface on our Riplimb tank who was at extreme range.  But the second shot was pretty simple.

An Agility Gun? From the 4.3 Five Mans?

I know they will probably change it into a crossbow.  I know they will probably have it sound like a bow.  I know it will be replaced by the first raid drop bow.  But it's a gun.  And I'm a Dwarf Hunter.

The Dragonsmaw Blaster.

Overflowing Focus, the Bad BA Bug, and Juggling

If you regularly hit and stay at 100 focus then you're rotation is wrong in some way, right?

My answer is: yes, but I end up doing it now as a marksman hunter.

And I do it much more often now thanks to having the Burning Adrenaline buff active (from 4pc T12).  This can have you completely swimming in focus.  And it has a bug that makes that swim in a lake instead of a pool.

Here's the issue.  Some shots only register when they land on the target.  The Burning Adrenaline buff is only removed when the shot lands.  If you are far away from the target there is a travel time to the target.  Say you're a MM hunter.  You have the buff and have 100 focus, fire a "hardcast" Aimed Shot and then immediately a Chimera Shot.  The buff will be consumed and both shots will be free.

This in theory is a boon, but really it just screws up all sense of rhythm for the MM hunter.  MM hunters always want to do two steady shots in a row to keep their +15% haste buff rolling.  Letting that drop is a bad thing.  They also have a fairly close call on their Chimera Shot.  Letting the sting fall off is a bad thing.  And they're good hunters who have trained themselves that capping focus is bad which is exactly what will happen after allowing Burning Adrenaline to consume an Aimed Shot.

So what is there to reach for for a MM hunter?  Firing two or three Arcane Shots takes a lot of time and will let something in your rotation fall.  Hitting Kill Command eats a big chunk in one shot for a little DPS ... and it might not actually work if your pet isn't meleeing.

I think the right approach is to try and lob in as many Arcane Shots as possible and try to at least start the first SS while your ISS buff is still active.  This may cap your focus a bit too long.  KC may be better.  But choosing Arcanes will set MM up nicely for the T13 bonus and it works for our BM and SV specs too.  Of course BM or SV should prefer to use KC and ES as always, but sprinkling in Arcanes is good for them too.