Rare Pets

If you still need some rare pet tames, you should get to know someone on a low-population role-playing player-vs-player realm (A.K.A. LowPop RP PVP).

I had a friend from such a realm invite me to group.  I phased to his realm.  Then suddenly instead of more than a dozen level 90 hunters looking for Loque, there was just me.  Oh!  And he's right there because nobody has tamed him.  Port over and grab Ghostcrawler.  All done in less than 10mins.

My mind was completely blown.  I had been after those pets off and on most weeks of this year.

Heroic Spoils - Hunter PoV

I recorded last night's Heroic Spoils kill from SoO.  Then I tossed in a whole bunch of annotations that may help you.   Click, then make it full screen, and push it up to the glorious 1080p HD.  If you don't then I wasted time uploading. ;-)  Enjoy.

World of Macros

Generally, I try and keep all these posts about hunters and wow.  Sometimes I slip up and get personal posts in here now and again.  This one is just about being an efficient player and helping out the hunter community.  (Cause who else reads a hunter blog?)

Below are hunter-centric macros.  They are not only for hunters of course and could easily be extrapolated to other classes.  I didn't highlight my Survival specialization macros as I haven't used them in a few months. I use macros to ease my play.  I have grouped them into sections called "Combat DPS Macros", "Combat Utility Macros", and "Everyday Macros".  I've attached some videos so you can see a few of them in action.

Videos

At The Target Dummies (Click for larger)


At The Farm (Click link for larger)


Mounting Up (Click link for larger)

Combat DPS Macros

Kill Command BM DPS Macro

#showtooltip Kill Command

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0

/petattack

/petassist

/cast Bestial Wrath

/cast Rabid

/cast Kill Command

/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

DoT'm Up Serpent Mouseover Macro

(Nicely keybound to middle mouse button!)

#showtooltip Serpent Sting

/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Serpent Sting

AoE Talents Macro 

(Macro name must be the same as listed in the /run command)

#showtooltip

/use [combat] Glaive Toss

/use [combat] Powershot

/use [combat] Barrage

/run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("AoE Talents", G"Glaive Toss" or G"Powershot" or G"Barrage")

DPS CD Talents Macro

(Macro name must be the same as listed in the /run command)

#showtooltip

/use [combat] A Murder Of Crows

/use [combat] Lynx Rush

/run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("DpsT", G"A Murder Of Crows" or G"Blink Strike" or G"Lynx Rush")

Overloaded BM AoE Multishot Macro

(I don't use this anymore as I tend to do many of these manually.)

#showtooltip Multi-Shot

/startattack

/petattack

/petassist

/cast Multi-Shot

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0

/cast Rabid

/cast Bestial Wrath

/use Claw

/use Bite

/use Smack

/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Example of Fast Targeting

/target Foul Slime

/cast Multi-Shot

(Or something like...)

or /targetexact Corrupted Fragment 

Target Weird PvE Sub-bosses

#showtooltip

/target boss2

(You might also want to add in something like the following if you'll definitely target it.  Otherwise they'll just do this against your current target.)

/cast Hunter's Mark

/petattack

/script SetRaidTarget("target",1)

Kill Shot Macro

#showtooltip

/stopcasting

/stopcasting

/cast Kill Shot

Combat Utility Macros

Tank Pull Timer Macro
(Requires DBM addon)
/dbm pull 10

Cancel Immunity
#showtooltip
/cancelaura Deterrence
/cancelaura hand of protection

Mouse-Over Punk Macro
#showtooltip Scatter Shot
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Scatter Shot

Similar Mouse-Over Tranq Macro
#showtooltip Tranquilizing Shot
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Tranquilizing Shot

Interrupt Then Stun Macro
(Have it on a nice keybind, and replace with just a cast if you don't have Intimidation.)
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/stopcasting
/castsequence reset=24/target Counter Shot, Intimidation

Set Raid Marker Macro

(Just an example)

/clearworldmarker 1

/worldmarker 1

Self Heal Macro

#showtooltip

/cast [target=Kheldul][pet] Spirit Mend

Free Self

(Yeah.. could be mouseover with default of @player instead.)

#showtooltip

/cast [target=Kheldul] Master's Call

/cast [target=Kheldul] Intervene

/cast [target=Kheldul] Roar of Sacrifice

/cast Bullheaded

The Previously Famous Hunter Healer Macro

(Lame now that dismiss pet is so slow!)

#showtooltip

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0

/petattack

/cast [@mouseover, pet][pet] Spirit Mend

/cast [pet] Dismiss Pet

/castsequence Call Pet 2, Call Pet 3, Call Pet 4, Call Pet 5, Call Pet 1

/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Lazy Concuss Macro
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=5/combat/target Concussive Shot, Scatter Shot

Extra Action Button Macro

(Example of useful behavior involving the special action button.)

/target focus

/click ExtraActionButton1

/targetlasttarget

Do It All Pet Macro

#showtooltip

/cast [mod:ctrl]Revive Pet; [@pet,dead]Revive Pet; [nopet]Call Pet 1; [mod:shift, @pet] Spirit Mend; Mend Pet

A Proper Death Macro

#showtooltip Feign Death

/petfollow

/stopattack

/stopattack

/cast Feign Death

My Favored MD Macro

#showtooltip Misdirection

/cast [nomodifier, target=focus, nodead, exists, help] Misdirection

/cast [modifier:shift, target=pet, nodead, exists] Misdirection

/cast Misdirection

Everyday Macros

Mount Macro
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift, mod:alt] Spawn of Galakras
/cast [mod:shift, mod:ctrl] Mekgineer's Chopper

/cast [nomod] Grand Expedition Yak

/cast [mod:shift] Traveler's Tundra Mammoth
/cast [mod:alt] Sky Golem
/cast [mod:ctrl] Azure Water Strider

Farm Gardening Macro
#showtooltip Enigma Seed
/target Tilled Soil
/use Enigma Seed

Fetch Auto Loot Macro
/console autoLootDefault 1
/run if not _Y then UIParent:HookScript("OnUpdate",function() if _Y>0 and GetTime()>=_Y then _Y=0 SetCVar("AutoLootDefault",0) end end)end _Y=GetTime()+5
/cast [@target, exists, dead] Fetch
/targetlasttarget
/cast fetch

Super Fast Auto Quest Dialoger
/script SelectGossipAvailableQuest(1)
/script CompleteQuest()
/script GetQuestReward()

Kheldul on Episode 189 of the Hunting Party Podcast

I'm the big eye beholder guy.

BM Hunter's AoE Future - Maximizing Beast Cleave Damage

Current State of the Union
In MoP 5.2, we have one big AoE choice with a few small variations.  You run as a Survival Hunter.  You lay down Multishots and get Serpent Spread.  You drop an Explosive Trap.  If you're rigged for AoE, you run with Thrill of the Hunt and slam those multishots in and toss in Barrage fire.  You also toss in free LnL ExShot procs.  If you are BM you do what you can, but you don't see the enemy health bars drop very fast.


BM's AoE Future
It is very likely that BM will have it's AoE buffed in MoP 5.3.  The big buff is coming from an increase to Beast Cleave damage.  It's going from a +30% to a +75% damage application.  This isn't going to require BM to have special builds to better AoE.  But you will want to do things a little better to maximize your AoE damage.

Maximizing BM Beast Cleave Damage

1. Beast Cleave is a buff put on your pet that is short lived.  Have a timer bar to see that buff duration!  I recommend a NeedToKnow.
2. Don't let the buff drop!  Multi-shot starts the buff.  Ensure that you have enough focus to multi-shot again so you can keep the buff up on your pet.
3. Make sure to have your pet in range of the AoE mobs!  The redesigned Blink Strikes may help squeak out a bit less travel time.
4. If you read the tooltips, Beast Cleave's damage makes the " pet's melee attacks also strike all other nearby enemy targets for 30% as much".  Soon that will be 75%.  So I currently pop Bestial Wrath to boost the pet damage by +20%.  DISCLAIMER: I don't know if this is applied only once to the pet's melee attacks or if it double-dips and is applied to the melee attacks and the bonus cleave attacks, or if it is applied to neither.  I've looked but only spent about twenty minutes trying to determine the benefit or non.  I'll need to be much more scientific and do it without any equipment that can proc with a nice quiet target dummy cluster. 
5. In addition to macroing in Bestial Wrath with my BM's MultiShot, I also have it engage the enemy, send in my pet so it doesn't want to smack something else for a second or two, and kick off Rabid if it's off CD.  I also have it not complain noisily.

#showtooltip Multi-Shot
/startattack
/petattack
/petassist
/cast Multi-Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Rabid
/cast Bestial Wrath
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

What Else Can BM Do for AoE?

1. Remember to drop the explosive trap.
2. Line up a nice barrage or glaive attack.
3. If you have a DPS worm, you might experiment with burrow.
4. Use Focus Fire conservatively as it drains your pet's Frenzy stacks. 

Hunting Tortos - Tips and Recommendations for Hunters

Level 60 and 90 talents are vital.

First my disclaimer:  I've only killed him once and it was close.  Well actually the previous attempt we got him down to 0.01% health so that was closer.  But you get the idea.  I'm not an expert.  And everyone's raid needs are different.  But I am able to do 150-170K dps over the course of the fight so I do have some advice to share.

Now let's talk talents.  You want to be doing this fight as Survival.  Serpent Spread is just too useful here.  I have done a lot of tinkering with trying to optimize Beast Cleave for BM, but it really doesn't compare.

As Survival and AoE heavy, you want to take Thrill of the Hunt.  You'll be doing a fairly ridiculous number of  multishots and it doesn't hurt to make that easier.  And if it procs when multiple targets aren't around, regening focus while tossing arcane shots isn't bad either.  You also really really want to take Barrage.  The cooldown on it is perfect for it to be available once for every bat phase.

Can you tell when the bats are out?

Now since I just mentioned a boss mechanic, let's talk about some fight info.  Most likely, you'll need to be misdirecting bats to a tank so they don't insta-kill your healers.  This means you have to do it with a misdirected multishot or a barrage.  You want to always have some focus for this.  I was running with another hunter in our 10man so we split into sides of the room.  If you're by yourself, you may need to be closer to the middle.  The reason is that it seems like the bats don't always spawn within range of all locations.  The other trick is that there isn't a very good timer for when the bats really appear.  So you'll want a targeting macro you can slap a lot.

Here's the video.  I'm not dead on the ground for the whole fight. ;-)

Hunters and Horridon

Here are my hunter tips for Horridon 10man.  Below my recommendations are the deeper issues of the fight that go into why I'm recommending them.

Recommendations

• Keep your pet on the mobs.  Killing the adds is priority number one and two.
• BM has pet control issues on this fight.  If you have to go BM, Blink Strike will increase your DPS.  But you will still see range and control issues.  Macro'ng /petattack type commands into everything can help.
• Go Survival and mow down the adds.  Entrapment is decent as well.  You will be happier and you'll do much better damage.
• As SV, take Lynx Rush.  Damage on the boss doesn't matter much before the doors go down.  Hold on to Lynx Rush until you have mobs to use it on.  Yes, it's delaying DPS but it's an important delay.
• Do not blow CDs off the boss pull.  Never blow DPS cooldowns on the boss until you're done with the doors.  Blow them on the door mobs once each second wave comes out.
• If you have two good DPS with short interrupt CDs then they should handle interrupts and you should take binding shot and use it often -- but most especially on the third door.  Otherwise, you need to take silencing shot.
• The fight is 11+ mins long.  Blow Stampede on the second door when wave two and three jump out at once.  Destroy the priests.
• Use Rapid Fire and Readiness often.  Sadly, you probably don't need it on the first door.
• Finish off mobs that are 25% health or less before moving on to a different priority.
• If all your buffs are taken care of and you're starting to look at debuffs, then either take an extra interrupt with a Gorilla, or a casting speed debuff with a Sporebat.  I did not have raid experience with hitting the interrupts via a pet, I took the auto-casting sporebat.
• AoE generally isn't worth it.  Glaive tosses always are good.  Explosive traps are worse than a black arrow for SV because of all the mob movement, but okay to do in downtime with MM or BM.  SV multishots to apply stings are good, but you want to remove mobs one at a time not have them all up until they are all down.
• Drop frost traps in the foci of the doorway.  They'll proc your LnL but also control the mobs.

The TL;DR Issues Section

First off: your pet will attack Horridon.  Fine.  But it will always go back to attacking Horridon after you kill a door mob.  Even with another mob right there that you've already started attacking.  The boss will often be positioned away from these mobs by a decent amount.  So much so that BM's Kill Command, Lynx Rush and the like are out of range.  You can counter that with a lot of control-1 commands or macro'ng every shot.  You can also use blink strike.  But it still is a problem.  You can counter it by diminishing the importance of the pet by going with SV instead.

My guild runs a 10man.  Horridon 10man was tuned incredibly tight last week.  This week they nerfed the health of the add waves to make it more accessible to the non heroic-raiding guild.  The issue with the difficulty of the fight isn't actually about DPS and mob health.  But that DPS can help muscle your way through and beat down what you can't deal with otherwise.  My 10man generally has 1-2 warlocks, 1-2 hunters, a mage, a DK, a monk tank, a warrior tank, and a resto druid.  Rotating in are a new holy pally, a holy priest, and a resto shaman.

I'm not going into all the fight descriptions, but suffice it to say, you need to have good interrupts, good slows, and good dispel and cleansing.  Each door is a different type of thing that needs to be removed if it lands on a person.  If your raid makeup only has one class that can cure disease, then you're probably going to hit a wall.  Same goes for poison (though it's much more common).

So with a 24 sec CD on silencing shot, we're not too great on the interrupt front.  But if you run with a mage and two warlocks then you need to take it because their interrupts are just as bad.  On pet selection front, if the buffs are all taken care of and you're mainly looking at target debuffs then I recommend the sporebat.  Yes, he can give spell haste as a buff.  But he also freely gives the casting speed debuff.  And one multi-dot poison can make or break the fight.

We are decent at slowing mobs, and that's the main deal on the third door.  Slow traps, binding shot (if you didn't need to take silencing shot), concussion shot, and I think scatter shot also works.

But disease debuffs will go out and we need to rely on the raid to deal with them.  On our kill, I had 6 stacks of disease and was swallowing over 100k damage ticks crying for a cleanse.  Here's who can do what type of dispelling:

Druid:  Curses,           Magic (if healer), Poisons
Mage:   Curses
Monk:           Diseases, Magic (if healer), Poisons
Pally:          Diseases, Magic (if healer), Poisons
Priest:         Diseases, Magic,             Poisons (if healer)
Sham:   Curses,           Magic (if healer)

Other than that, a 'lock's imp can singe magic, but it doesn't look like an auto-cast.  Good dwarves can remove poison from themselves for the second door.  And a resto druid can Symbiosis a pally and get cure disease.

If your raid is weak on interrupts, you need to be strong in cleanses.  Or vice versa.  If you are in heroic raid gear you can just muscle through 10man with overwhelming DPS.

If you're doing it in 25man, there aren't extra mobs!  So interrupts should be covered a few times over!  That  means there will be far less to cleanse/dispel.  It also means you can focus more on control and nuking down individual important mobs.  25mans can also bring three tanks.  From what I can tell from the dozens of threads on this, in the first week heroic and normal 25mans and heroic 10man raiding guilds got him down.  A tiny number of 10man normal guilds got him down with a perfect mix of interrupt classes and healers with the right cleansing/dispelling.  My guild didn't have a problem with DPS.  But we hit a wall from interrupt & cleansing/dispels.  And it was all just class balance.

Brawler's Guild Talk and Tips

The Brawler's Guild is quite fun and an adrenaline rush.

The fights start off comically easy.  If you've got enough skill or gear you can plow through them.

Then they start getting abilities similar to rares.  The only difference is that there is a general enrage timer (the fire storm you may have seen).  So there's a DPS requirement.

Then they start getting special abilities that aren't at all obvious.  You will die learning the fights or you can hit up wowhead.com for a little rundown on their abilities.  The comments are generally good around what the boss will do.  That said, don't bother with what other classes are doing. Hunters are different!

I'm only rank six at this point.  I only play doing this for a level or two at a time.  I got an invite from a guild friend.  When I get rank seven I'll pass one out to another guild friend.

I've stayed BM for all the fights so far.  One of my biggest challenges has been that my pet will keep aggro even with a dps pet (without growl) and cower-clicking.  Combine that with a situation where my pet bar sometimes disappears and I can't even macro-cast phoenix on my pet.  Quite irritating especially when my opponent is down to 25% health.  A few restarts and deep breaths and we're good.

So first some general tips:

• Join a buff group.  There's usually a raid available and you'll get healthstones and raid buffs.  Drop a feast and you're a champ.
• Be supportive of the others and you'll get their support instead of cat-calls. ;-)
• It's an adrenaline rush and pretty stressful.
• You need to concentrate even more than if you're raiding -- if you want to win.  There's no slack time.
• Use all the tools in your toolbox.
• Flask up on the tougher fights.
• You can pre-pot.  I don't have a timer, but I click it after quickly dropping one or two traps and it usually doesn't count toward the fight.  Make sure to use the cheap Brawler-only potions!  

Now some hunter tips:

• Some bosses will be easy for hunters and hard for others.  The opposite is also true.  Learn and adapt.
• Always drop traps before the opponent comes out.
• Spirit mend is great.  Spirit mend on yourself during a Stampede is [Great]x5.
• Some bosses are good for pet-tanking and make it trivial.
• Some bosses and even some AoE will destroy your pet.
• Always wait for your Stampede and Rapid Fire CDs to be ready before battling.
• There's no excuse for not moving and both kiting and dps'ng.
• Feign death and a dismissed/dead pet will pop you out of the brawl.
• Bind a Brawler agility potion quaff into your best DPS CD macros (e.g.- Rapid Fire). 
• On the harder fights, review your Talents each go around.   Would Binding Shot be extra nice over just a slow trap?  What about Wyvern Sting and an ice trap?  Or is the interrupt required?
• I've come to really like Spirit Bond for brawls.  Iron Hawk is good for when you have a real healer.  That said, I'm also liking Animal Bond for my pet and the Spirit Mends he gives me.
• Consider all the other Hunter Talents available and how they can be used on different bosses.
• Review the list of Glyphs as well.  For instance, if you're going to have a pet tank something impressive, then the Glyph of Mending is a very good choice.
• Consider all the pets you can bring and all their abilities.  It isn't a short list.  Use your tools!

That's all for now.

PS:  I suspect that if you are queued, grouped, and throwing some rotten fruit, then you can get pulled into someone else's brawl.  There might be a requirement that the group is cross-realm via a CRZ.  That sounds good and OP, but your boss will also show up!  I captured one on video and will post it when I get a chance.  It happened to me three times in a row.  It is quit e annoying because while I tried to just help the person who already had been battling for a minute, my brawl competitor annihilated both of us.

Hunter Fetch Macro with AutoLoot

Frostheim has a nice article that has many areas worth considering for hunters leveling up.  I do disagree with many of the points, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth considering.

I want to do maximum damage with the spec, talents, and glyphs that I'm most comfortable with.  I may switch a talent up if I am stopping to heal up, or respec a pet to tank on the fly, but I'm going to plow damage with SV.

I am going with a different set of Glyphs for leveling.
Glyph of Mending - to keep my DPS pet killing
Glyph of Camouflage - sometimes its easier to get XP from quests and skip the mobs
Glyph of Marked for Death - for fast kills (I normally have this one)

I'm also going with the Glyph of Fetch.  I spent a long while trying to get a macro to work smoothly with my play style, that didn't get hung up in weird ways, and that didn't require me to turn on auto looting from the general menu.  Here is all that in one macro:

/console autoLootDefault 1
/run if not _Y then UIParent:HookScript("OnUpdate",function() if _Y>0 and GetTime()>=_Y then _Y=0 SetCVar("AutoLootDefault",0) end end)end _Y=GetTime()+5
/cast [@target, exists, dead] Fetch
/targetlasttarget
/cast fetch

Now if you normally walk around with AutoLoot on, then you can go with a much simpler macro and forget about those first two lines.

Because there is real time between when Fetch is cast and when the loot window comes up you need to have a delay.  Getting any sort of delay logic into a macro is convoluted at best these days.  It took me three hours to figure out the issues, crawl down dead ends and get it all to fit in 255 characters.  I hope you enjoy.

I recommend you keybind your new loot command to something easy to hit.  For me, that's F2.  Here's a simple view of it working.

Oh! and if you're in a group with group loot on, you'll need to target a lootable corpse instead of just the last one you targeted.

Edited to add: Slightly newer more verbose video of it working.

Heroic Hagara for Hunters - with macros!

Heroic Hagara presents a lot of good reasons to bring a hunter.  But it does take a lot of work.  As a hunter you can do things right and make the encounter a lot easier.  You can also do things wrong and wipe the raid.

Speaking generally, she took us more work to get down in 10man than she should have.  (She was our fifth heroic boss downed.)  We had two fundamental strat issues that we didn't have right and that made it incredibly difficult.  (More about those issues at the bottom.) Of course along the way we did a lot of things right.  So while I have only been killing her for three weeks I have a lot of practice with the hunter pieces.


Hunter Duties in the Boss-Tank Phase

In this phase you should be a normal ranged DPS.  You still have to think.  Spread out for better beam coverage.  Coordinate and do a beam dance with another ranged.  Get out at 2 stacks.  You'll likely pick up 1-3 more as you're trying to escape.  Get back in immediately when your stacks drop.  If you're targeted by all the beams, move to minimum range of the boss so others can more easily cover beams targeting you.  If you're targeted for an Ice Tomb, move to the assigned position for tombs.  This is normally not right behind Hagara.  It is often to the side.  You want melee to easily free you and still dps Hagara.  But Ice Tombs create a line-of-sight block and you don't want to make healers move 30 yards just to heal the tank.


Hunter Duties in the Frost Phase

When the frost phase starts you should flip on Aspect of the Pack.  It's also nice if you have the  Glyph of Aspect of the Pack which extends the pack by 15 yards.  Pack aspect will not cause stuns in this phase.  Your group will love you.

You also need to do two things with your pet.  First, you need to call it back to you.  I have the default setup and hit control-2.  If you don't then your pet will die from watery entrenchment while attacking Hagara.  You also don't want it going back to attacking Hagara after downing a binding crystal.  The second thing you want to do with your pet is to have it always attacking a binding crystal even if you can't.  Your pet will not be affected by the ice wall and can survive cutting through the middle zone of watery entrenchment.  The pet just can't stay in there.

Generally we will have melee start on one binding crystal and have range on the next one out, but we keep everyone together.  We move as a group and have people affected by the frost flake stacking slow debuff dip into the middle area.  Once inside we cleanse them.  If they are cleansed while they have the watery entrenchment debuff that you get for stepping in the middle then no slow trap area is created when they're cleansed.  If you have the stacking slowing debuff and it's not being cleansed and you have entrenchment, then you can cleanse it yourself with Master's Call.  You can do this for others if you're handy with Master's Call.  Generally, you want to leave this to healers.

You want to always be DPS'ng crystals.  Use kiting angles to move and fire.  You are the leader and make sure that the rest of the raid keeps up with you.  You'll want to stop and fire steadies or cobras.  Make your movement clear.  Melee tends to want to stay on a crystal too long.  Yell at them.

Various times you may find it useful to hang back.  If you only have one crystal or if too many people have fallen behind.  It is fine to dip into the middle to dodge the ice wall.  You just don't want to do it too often.  You can also disengage through the ice wall.  This is pretty dicey and unforgiving though.  Neither your start or end position can be in the wall or you'll take the massive damage.  You also have to factor in the latency of your connection.

After the frost phase ends you really really want to flip out of Aspect of the Pack.  I hit my DPS power-up while she's stunned with the 100% damage bonus.  This includes a flip to Aspect of the Hawk.  Here it is:

#showtooltip
/use Kiroptyric Sigil
/cast !Aspect of the Hawk
/petassist
/petattack [@target,harm]
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Rabid
/cast Roar of Courage
/cast Furious Howl
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Hunter Duties in the Lightning Phase in 10 Man Heroic

The lightning phase is boring if you're not chaining lightning.  Chain lightning!

When the phase starts you need to do some pet micro-management.  You do not want your pet by your side or anywhere near the elemental or charging conductor.  You also want to flip to Aspect of the Wild to lessen the damage from the lightning.  Attacking Hagara will not cause her any damage but it also will not cause any damage to your pet.  It's a good way to get the pet out of the way.  I was surprised that I could reduce it all to one macro (which I have some crazy lightning as the icon):

/petpassive
/petattack [target=Hagara]
/cast !Aspect of the Wild

This switches your pet to passive so the pet doesn't attack your target or attack any target that is attacking you.  It also has the pet get out of the way by attacking Hagara.  And of course flipping on some protection from lightning.  It does work in only one click.

Click the macro and DPS the elemental.  Make sure not to be in the path of the chaining in case one of the storm pillar AoE [missiles] comes down on you.  You'll need to run that path.  After the storm pillar lands move into position to chain the lightning.  You and your teammate keep a good spacing and chain half of it and keep going until you meet the other team.  You can use deterrence for some meager damage reduction. It doesn't affect the chaining.  Your pet can chain the lightning as well, so you really want it out of the way.  It's not an efficient way to speeding anything up.  It will just add damage to you.

After the chaining is done and Hagara is free to be attacked, reset your pet and your aspect.  I do this via my DPS power-up macro (same as above).




Fundamental Strat Issues in 10 Man Heroic

Our first fundamental strat issue was that we originally never tanked her towards the edge with the only thing on her front 180 degrees being the tank.  (With the beams to her rear of course.)  We had tanked her in the middle. We do the beam partner dance okay but stacks of 5 and an Ice Lances will often kill.

Our second fundamental strat issue was how we linked the lightning.  In heroic 10man there are EIGHT crystal conductors.  In normal 10, normal 25, LFR, and heroic 25 there are only FOUR.  So there weren't many strats for this that we could look up.  You do have to run a lot to chain it.  What we had been doing was using four teams of two linking the lightning.  We'd pre-position two groups at the left and right back second set of conductors and have two groups chain the first four conductors.  Then the second teams kick in.  The theory being they'd take too much damage if it was the same.  Well it turns out that it's a lot easier if you just have two groups of two work clockwise and counter-clockwise respectively.  Healing can be more concentrated on those four and if you want, you can use three healers and let them focus on healing instead of chaining.  There are many tricks here (blink, sprint, heroic leap, disengage), but you don't need tricks to get it done very quickly.

Our third issue -- though nothing we did wrong in particular -- was that we would often have different tanks with different abilities.  During Hagara's focused assault it is nice to GTFO of it.  In heroic you can't just back up.  So with our warrior tank, she'd have a heroic leap, intervene, and defensive CDs.  Our feral would generally just have the defensive CDs.  Our DK would have a huge blood shield and defensive CDs.  The warrior had lots of options, but re-positioning after was an issue for the ice lances.  Additionally, we'd have help from the raid.  Beyond the normal bubbles and what-not, we'd have a priest pull them out of it and have a holy paladin taunt.  Spam heals in 10mans just don't guaranty the tank will live.  So far it seems like the DK tank is the most easy to keep up.  Raid support is just gravy.



Postscript

You can tell which phase (Lightning or Frost) she will send you to by the magic on her axes during her normal tank phase.  They'll either crackle with lightning or a cool frost.

Heroic Ultraxion 10man for Hunters

Earlier this week we downed Heroic Ultraxion.  It's not news of any sort, but I thought I'd share some tips and tricks I learned along the way.  Next week Dragon Soul gets the 10% nerf so more guilds may be attempting it.  Here's my hunter view on the fight and the differences from normal.

Taking Turns with Hour of Twilight
Instead of just one tank staying in for Hour of Twilight, two people must stay in in heroic-10.  When/if a player stays in, they get a debuff which will insta-kill them if they stay in again.  The debuff lasts two mins, which means that you need six people taking the hour of twilights in a cycle in groups of two.  What's great for hunters, is that we have an AMAZING ability with deterrence.  It is available every two mins AND it prevents ALL damage.  That combination isn't that common.  That means you want to step up and do it.

Hitting Deterrence or the Heroic Will Button
Ultraxion's cast time for Hour of Twilight in heroic is much faster.  It goes from five seconds in normal to only three seconds in heroic.  If you have much latency you'll see it as two seconds.  What this means is that you always need to be ready to hit the right button.  Initially, you'll want to just hit it immediately.  After you get comfortable with your timing, you can slip in an extra shot and cut it closer.  But no matter what, you can't be surprised by it.  Know that it's coming and be ready before it's there.

If it's your turn to stay in and deterrence then you should know when the hour of twilight is coming and you should either have a double-stop-cast deterrence macro, or you shouldn't have any long casts that could delay your deterrence.

Thankfully, the Heroic Will button will cancel any cast.

Note: you should only use Deterrence if your raid[leader] tells you to or if you're in the rotation.

Fading Light
The fading light debuff will affect two dps and one tank in heroic-10 -- instead of just one dps and one tank.  This means you have a good chance of taking a fading light.  To make it more fun, the debuff no longer starts from between five and ten second before it insta-kills you.  It seems to start between three and seven seconds.  If I'm playing with 250ms latency it seems to start at two seconds because of the rounding that occurs with debuffs.

Again to address this, you always need to be ready for fading light.  Don't wait for it to reach zero.  Watch DBM for the timers and be ready.  Don't let this screw up a follow-on deterrence or second heroic will.  There is a situation that can rarely occur;  Heroic will has a 5sec CD so it is possible for it be on CD if fading light and hour of twilight occur closely.  In that case make sure to fade for fading light a little early.

When to DPS: Before the First Twilight
There are no fading lights before the first twilight occurs.  Lay into him and blow CDs.  Prepot.  Whatever you can do.  The fight is over five minutes, so Rapid Fire away. It it pure dps with no interruptions.  Since everyone is in-phase and not interrupted, we found it a nice time to hero.  This is the only time to get dps tunnel vision.

When to DPS: Trinkets
If you have on-use trinkets there are times when you'll want to defer using them for five seconds or so. A good time to hit them is right after a twilight.  For the 1.5min trinket this aligns nicely.  You just don't want to have that lovely dps burst interrupted.

When to DPS: Through and After a Twilight/Fading Light
Once you have the heroic will down, you can start to lay in more shots.  As SV you'll have a few options.  The biggest thing is that you want your DoTs to keep rolling while you're not there.  If you have the option to slightly clip an Explosive Shot's DoT right before fading, you should.  If the consequence is to greatly clip the DoT, then don't!

Fading Lights can be very quick.  I was able to pretty easily always fade with less than two seconds left on the debuff.  If DoTs are ticking so much the better.  But Hour of Twilight is a little bit longer of a dps hiatus.  The boss has the casting bar and then it doesn't actually occur until the wave passes over the group.  And it's whereever on the platform the group could be.  Then and only then do you come back to the twilight.

If you are deterrencing for an hour of twilight, you must have a cancel aura macro on hand.  Do the deterrence; wait for the wave to pass over you; cancel the deterrence; hit every dps CD you have and slam into him.  You'll have a second or more of extra dps that you wouldn't have if you had faded.

Surviving
This is a dps race.  You're doing this with two healers and some smattering of other health and healing abilities.  But you need to survive.  Until about 4.5mins into the fight it's all about proper execution.  Some time after that point it becomes about dps'ng while helping the healers.  When you notice everyone's health really low, consider helping the healers keep you up.

Hunters don't have group damage reduction CDs, but they can cheaply help themselves.  If you're a Dwarf, you can have eight seconds of 10% damage reduction.  When you're DPS'ng from the stairs in a nice tight group, hunters can both attack as melee and range.  Don't pass up a big DPS but if it's only an Arcane Shot vs staying alive, go with staying alive.  Smack a glyphed raptor strike.  Healthstones are also a nice thing to chew at that time.  If you somehow fell into bringing a pet for some buff (it better pay off!) who can intervene now's the time to use it on the active tank.

Loot
The kill can net you the heroic chest, bracers, and another shot at the trinket and ring.  In sadness, please note that the ring is both laden with expertise and best in slot.  For the record: I won the chest this past week.  I have passed (for the moment) on the ring for rogues and ferals.

Ultraxion Post-Kill Notes Considering Making it Easier

Apologies if you're looking for a strategy guide.  This is a musing look at making Ultraxion easier for me next time.

I know I wasn't dps'ng at 100% efficiency on the kill.  I could have been doing more things in the seconds right before needing to click the button... but it wasn't a safe option.  Especially when the Fading Light debuff sometimes started at only 5sec and was hidden behind buffs.  I could probably get a bit more dps out with practice.   1-5K dps maybe.  But there are other safer options.

One would be: I could reduce my dps but bring a cunning pet that increases spell damager's dps (via  Lightning Breath). The cat or wolf does 3.1k dps and has direct synergy with me.  A cat brings buffs like Roar of Courage, that may be covered elsewhere -- and a wolf brings Furious Howl.  But I could lessen some of the damage with a few Roars of Sacrifice... though probably the only the last one toward the end of the fight is needed.  I don't know what this will come out to be dps-wise.  We'd have to check all the buffs.  More to figure out... and it'll vary based on raid makeup.

Another idea: ensure everyone is back in shadow before heroism is fired off.  (+2K dps)  I know I missed it at least on one attempt.  The kill graph looks like my dps went down during heroism compared to everyone else.  So I'm thinking it happened and I missed it.

Another idea: don't have a dps die and need a brez (+2K dps)  We frequently had dps die because they watched Deadly Boss Mods timers or screamed wrong things in their ears.  Make sure DBM is up to date and realize that the timers only show when an ability is about to start casting.

Another idea: cycle in people with various 100% defensive CDs.  Deterrence looks to mitigate 100%, so they could stay in instead of a tank taking damage which needs healing.  Pallys could bubble, etc.

Yet another this-time crazy idea: Go with two healers.  Healing is "light" until the last third of the fight.  Bring a person who can do some reasonable dps in the first 2/3rds of the fight and then start healing (with the third crystal's help).  The extra damage might mean far less time in healing-hell time.

Hunter DPS Pro Tip #2: Information is Power You Need to Know

Take four minutes of your busy in-wow time and visit a target dummy.  Do this if you're a novice.  Do this if you're advanced.  Plow damage on the poor wooden thing.  While you're doing that, look at the things you don't normally look at on your screen.  Check your proc'd buffs.  Watch your timers.  Look at your key-presses.  See if your UI is showing you what you need to see and if it's pushing away the junk you don't need to see.

I bet in those four minutes you will find something you want to change -- and it will improve your play.

It might be getting a mod that alerts you to a proc.  I used to use Power Auras but I fell out of love with it.  I want to know the precise duration for a proc and sometimes even the internal timer for it to be available again.  I like a nice visible progress bar, so I use NeedToKnow.

When I visit a target dummy I am there to add something.  I always end up tweaking something else. Sometimes I remove something.  Too much information can be worse than too little.  Your brain starts filtering out stuff and you fail to notice important things.  Changing colors of UI components can help.  Making small macros.  Moving things around.

JS' Hunter Bar a.k.a Serenity

And there's also the opportunity to try new mods out.  Since I know your time is limited I'll only recommend one addon you may not have heard about: JS' Hunter Bar which is now re-written as Serenity.  It presents a focus bar with color shifting levels, shot availability, stings, CC timers, hunter mark status, and if something targeted needs tranq shotting.  I really have to say that it is quite powerful, well-organized, compact and doesn't tell you more than you need.  I use it in conjunction with a few NeedToKnow timers.

Hunter DPS Pro Tip #1: Plan Your DPS

Get a mental picture of the important things you're going to do before you start a boss fight.  Specifically, think about the transitions, think about if you're going to need any burn phases or any AoE phases.  Understand what talent tree will get you and how you'll operate with that spec.   Plan when you want to rapid fire(s) to maximize its use but also to maximize it against specific targets (e.g.- when they're > 90% health).  Plan your on-use trinkets based on the rapid fire and bloodlust/heroism.  Plan when you need to already be at max focus for a phase transition instead of trying to scrape together focus.

Somewhat independent of the particular fight transitions, you should know how long the specific fight will be.  How many times should you be able to use Rapid Fire?  When will bloodlust/heroism kick in?  For on-use trinkets, how and when will you use them?  Will you be using a DPS potion or a health potion on the fight?

Generally, you want to stack your "power up" buffs.  Use your trinkets as often as possible, but do use them during rapid fire.  For proc events, monitor them.  They'll usually pop pretty soon into a fight, when they do pop your manual power ups to multiply the benefit.

This doesn't happen much in Cataclysm, but it used to sometimes be prudent to not blow everything at once.  There were some level 80 boss encounters where you might blow everything and then find yourself incapacitated for a substantial amount of time.  In those types of fights, spreading out some of the risk was more prudent.

Classic Tips inc

I plan on going through my two dozen hunter DPS tips -- clean them off -- prune them for patch differences -- and lay them out once again all nice and pretty.

Hack Attempts

In the past 25 days, I've received 43 forged emails attempting to steal my Blizzard account.  Fun times.  They don't have misspellings.  They don't have bad graphics.  They don't look wrong.  The content of the email is about account suspensions, credit card expirations, game card extensions, account locks due to suspicious activity (Oh! The irony.), automated notices of account modifications, beta emails, inactive accounts, etc.  Basically, they've copied any email that has ever been sent from Blizzard to anyone (and many that would never be sent) and addressed it to me.  The language on the emails is usually perfect and identical to Blizzard's boilerplate support messages.

Here are some of the fun domains the links end up pointing to:

www.garena-cataclysm.com
www.battle.net-wowlogin-admin.com
www.battle.net-wowlogin-Secure.com
www.battle.net-wownotice-login.com
www.battle.net-wownotice-admin.com
www.battle.net-wownotice-Security.com
www.battle.net-wownotice-suppor.com
www.battle.net-wowadmin-notice.com
www.battle.net-wowadmin-management.com
www.battle.net-wowsuppor-admin.com
www.battle.net-wowsuppor-login.com
www.battle.net-wowloginadmin.com
www.battle.net-wowloginsuppor.com
www.battle.net-wowadminlogin.com
www.battle.net-wownoticeadmin.com
www.battle.net-wowsupporlogin.com
www.battle.net-wowadminmanagement.com
www.battle.net-wownotice-supporadmin.com
www.battle.net-wow-suppor.com
www.battle.net-wow-Security.com
www.battle.net-wow-login-admin.com
www.battle.net-wow-login-suppor.com
www.battle.net-wow-notice-admin.com
www.battle.net-wow-admin-notice.com
www.battle.net-wow-admin-management.com
www.battle.net-wow-suppor-admin.com
www.battle.net-wow-suppor-login.com
www.battle.net-wow-admin-Security.com

Tip: Buy the $6 authenticator or get a free app if they have one for your mobile.
 

Pre-Potting and the Long Jump

A problem often arises in track and field's long jump. It's the foot fault. An athlete wants to maximize the distance they jump from the white board out into to the sand pit. Usually they have well-measured strides and know exactly where to start off from. But performance jitters, adrenaline, and changes in speed can throw that off. What results is a bad jump.

In World of Warcraft, Pre-Potting, the consuming of a potion just before combat begins, is a useful skill to get a tiny boost before battle and to not trigger potion sickness. It has plenty of challenges. First, many encounters have a boss dialog with you in combat that is longer than 15 seconds. On the bosses where there is not this dialog you can effectively pre-pot. The challenge is to not foot fault on the non-combat/combat line and end up with that being your one and only potion against that boss.

The classic advice for the super-star long jumper who is foot-faulting is this: Jump a full foot early - that way if you are off a little you're fine. This is especially true in decathlons. So my wow pre-potting advice is this: Pre-pot a good two seconds early ("one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two") - that way lag in vent will not cause you to have potion sickness.

Kheldul's Hunter DPS Tips and Tricks Roundup

I hope you enjoyed my not-so-typical hunter DPS tips. They were mostly about behavior and excluded any talk of gear, enchants, gems, glyphs, flasks, or even shot selection specific to a hunter talent tree. Don't worry - This is not a going out of business sale!

Here's the round-up.

Tip #1: Maximize Yer Powerhouse Cooldowns


Tip #2: Use That In-Combat Pot


Tip #3: Don't Cheap Out


Tip #4: Buff That Pet!


Tip #5: Time on Target and Movement


Tip #6: Pre-Combat Pottin'


Tip #7: Network Latency


Tip #8: Low FPS FTL


Tip #9: Strategies and Situational Awareness


Tip #10: Minimize the Viper


Tip #11: Pet Time on Target


Tip #12: Maur DoTs!


Tip #14: Go Forth and Multiply


Tip #15: Be a Leech


Tip #16: Kill It Dead


Tip #17: Small Pauses Aren't Always Bad


Tip #18: Mind Your Peripherals


Tip #19: DPS for Dummies


Tip #20: A Room With a View


Tip #21: Macros and Saving Steps


Tip #22: The Skin Is Always Greener


Tip #23: KISS


Tip #24: Taking a Metered Approach


Tip #25: Timing Autoshot


Tip #26: Pet Auto-Casts


Tip #27: See What You Need

Kheldul's Hunter DPS Tip #27: See What You Need

Tip #27: See What You Need
So much attention has been spent to good UIs. There's a reason. You don't want too much information. You need some of it summarized and some of it in your face. You can't have too much or you'll tune it out -- and maybe tune out too much. And if you don't tune it out, it will delay your other thought processes. You need screen real estate. You need good addons. You need to try out the features of the UI you make so that it works for you.
Do you need numbers spiraling out at you? Do you need to know who healed your pet? Do you need numbers counting down the milliseconds before the graphical bar shows it is complete? Do you need to see your pet casts? Do you need a timer bar for your Blessing of Kings buff? Think about what you need to remove from your UI as much as what you need to add to your UI.

After you boiled down what you need and don't need, make sure to have space to see what is going on around your character. Clutter is not your friend. If you're using Power Auras, don't make them so they obscure your general vicinity. (Power Auras is a great visual space-saver, but only use it for what is important!) Cast bars can be thinned. Keep what you need to look at front and center. Keep things that you scan quickly to the left and right. Humans, like other animals, grew up in the landscape world and have eyes horizontally aligned. We'll see changes and horizontal movement a lot quicker than a vertical change.

There is a thread over at Elitist Jerks with over a 100 hunter UI screenshots. Check it out for ideas.

I recommend Power Auras for the important stuff; Need to Know for the important procs and target debuffs; and Mike's Combat Scrolling Text to keep the information flow reduced and flowing out of the way. And of course everyone recommends something like Deadly Boss Mods and something for combat stats. There's also help for auto-shot visualization, and viper alarms.

Kheldul's Hunter DPS Tip #26: Pet Auto-Casts

Tip #26: Pet Auto-Casts
Last week, I fell into the old auto-cast bug. It wasn't in a raid, so I suppose it didn't matter much. But it was a good wake-up call and reminder. Pet auto-casts are still bugged. It may only happen when you change pets and/or dual-specs. But if you rely on auto-casts then you need to make sure they are still on auto-cast. Open up your spellbook and click to the pet tab. Do it when you sit down for a food buff.

For special hunter-buffing abilities like Furious Howl, you may choose to add a /cast for them into your shot macros (along with Kill Command). I have avoided doing that for a few reasons. One is that I don't want all specials (even those not usable by my summoned pet) in the macros, nor do I want to edit them or have different sets by pet type. And there are a lot of specials. So they will not fit in the 255 character macro limit. The other is that I've seen different approaches to putting these specials in macros. Some do somewhat suspiciously hacky petautocaston/petautocastoff combination within the same macro for the same ability.

I'm recommending Blizzard default autocasts. As long as they are on and actually firing off, you will not be too far behind yourself if you added them to macros. And you will want to use autocasts for most pet abilities anyway.

And by all means, if you have a foolproof way of macro'ng all pet DPS abilities into your shots please share it!