Lethal Shots

Recently a few of the blogs I read (Leafshine and Anna off the top of my head) have posted about WoW as a social phenomenon, particularly focusing on it as a great way to keep in touch and have fun with friends. While I agree with this, I see it from a somewhat different perspective. Leafshine in particular spoke about using WoW to keep in touch with real life friends that he no longer is able to physically visit due to time and distance. I have used WoW as way to find new friends.

As my real life friends and I have grown older, we have drifted apart in both distance and interest. I still enjoy talking with and visiting them, but those times are becoming fewer and farther in between. We have all moved, went to school, gotten married, had kids. These kind of real life changes cause people to drift apart. I never went to college, but got married, and had a kid. My best friend growing up went to college, backpacked around Europe, and is still single. We have nowhere near as much in common now as we did back in high school.

None of my real life friends play WoW (not through a lack of trying on my part), so when I chose to play the game, I knew no one starting out. But now I am in a great guild with many people that I love to talk to. Sometimes I log on with the intention of doing nothing more than just talking to my guild-mates.

Do I know every one of their life stories? No. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy their company any less. fun to constantly learn new things about people. I really feel like I have built a connection with them, and I find it fun to constantly learn new things about people. For example, 6 months ago I didn’t know that 2 of my guild-mates were married, let alone that they were British. (That was one hell of a surprise when I heard them talk on voice chat the first time.)

I have met some very wonderful and interesting people through WoW that I would not have met otherwise, and I am thankful for it. I may not use WoW to keep in tough with real life friends the way others do, but I can definitely attest to WoW being a Social Phenomenon.

Guess what that is. Go on, take a minute. Research it fi you need to. Got it? Give up? Ok, I’ll tell you.

That is my brand new non-combat pet, a Nether Ray Fry. Yup, and you know what that means. I hit exalted with the Sha’tari Skyguard. Which also means I have a new mount to show off.

Yup, that’s right. That is me sitting on top of my brand new Silver Riding Nether Ray. I am awesome.

2ndNin asked over at Blog Azeroth asked how one would define the differences in player dedication. This really is quite a complex question. Traditionally you have 2 levels, casual players and raiders. But in reality there are many more levels. One has to take into account players such as non-raiders, PvPers, ect.

1. Hardcore Raiders – These are the guys that are making server first kills. They have the best of the best gear. And they do almost nothing but raid, and what little time they don’t spend raiding is spent grinding money and materials to support their raiding. This level of play requires a huge amount of dedication and commitment.
2. Hardcore PvPers – This group is similar to hardcore raiders, but instead of raiding, they focus more on Battlegrounds and Arenas.  While PvP may not require the same amount of game time as raiding, it requires no less dedication. Hardcore PvPers spend tons of time researching and practicing, just to give themselves a slight edge in a match that can be as short as 2 minutes.
3. Casual Raiders – This is the group that most players fall into. They raid, but not at the expense of the rest of the game (or their real life). Casual raiders will usually limit their raiding to just a few nights of the week, with an ample amount of time spent on other in game endeavors. They want to see end game content, but can’t / won’t commit to the time it requires to roll with the hardcore guilds.
4. Casual PvPers – These people are similar to casual raiders in the same way hardcore PvPers are similar to hardcore raiders. They enjoy PvP, but don’t put the dedication into it that the hardcore crowd does. Many people choose this path when they are unable to raid for any reason, yet still want something to do at max level.
5. Casual Players – Next to casual raiders, this group is the second largest. It encompasses people that enjoy the game, but find more enjoyment in the leveling process and lore than in raiding and PvP. They spend their time leveling alts, farming, grinding rep, ect.
6. Extreme Casual Players – These players play less than 10 hours a week. Think casual player, but barely ever online.

Now these are not cookie cutter molds. Some people may fit perfectly into one of my descriptions, but most are going to fall under at least 2. You can be a hardcore raider, that lies PvP casually. Or a casual raider that also enjoys playing alts casually. Not to mention players whose real life causes them to go from one extreme to another as time allows.

I would describe myself as a Casual Raider / Casual PvPer / Casual player. I love raiding, but also enjoy PvP occasionaly and leveling alts. How would you describe yourself?

I am so excited right now. I topped 700 DPS for the first time Saturday night. I was running with some mid-60s guild mates through Underbog, and just for kicks I started my combat log right after we zoned in. Not going to go into too many details, but the run went smooth and we every boss was a 1-shot. We had a 67 Tankadin, so we really didn’t even worry about crowd control.

Anyway, there was nothing spectacular about the run itself. The real excitement came when i uploaded my combat log to WoW Web Stats. As expected, my overall DPS was in the 550 range, but when i started looking at the individual boss fights, I was surprised. I topped 700 DPS. My jaw dropped. It was also at this time that I truly appreciated the complexities of trying to explain the significance of this to some one who doesn’t play WoW, namely my wife.

I can’t remember off the top of my head exactly (and can’t look it up right now die to proxy restrictions), i believe on all but 1 boss I managed to top 700 DPS. Needless to say, I am very pleased with myself and completely sold on a shot rotation macro. When I get home I will look up the WWS report and Post the exact details.

Edit: You can see the WWS report for the run here. Turns out I topped 700 DPS on all 4 bosses, which makes me even happier.

For the longest time I have resisted using a macro for my shot rotation, instead choosing to manually weave my shots. I always felt that it would kill the fun of being a hunter and turn it into 1-button boredom. But after researching it some, I decided to give it a try. I a 3:2 Steady Shot macro:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

This is a pretty simple macro that is supposed to scale with weapon speed.On each press, it first attempts to cast Autoshot, but if Autoshot is on cool down, then it attempts to cast Steady Shot. Also on each press, it attempts to cast Kill Command. The last line is used to clear the error frame so that you are not constantly bombarded with error messages.

The beauty of this macro is that my play style has not changed much at all. I used to use a Steady Shot macro that had Kill Command built in, so what i would do is press that button in between my Autoshots, along with weaving other shots in when needed. With this macro, I still do the same thing, I just have to press the button more often.

Overall, I have seen an increase in my DPS at the cost of some mana efficiency, but the tradeoff is worth it.