Lethal Shots

The other day a friend of mine hit level 80. Not a real life friend, just someone I met in game. She is the leader of the guild that i have several alts in and I raid with her husband. She plays a Hunter, and I have given a little advice and generally tried to help her out from time to time. When she dinged 80, I got the most excited whisper I have ever received.

After congratulating her, I asked her if she was going to get a Nesingway 4000, and offered to craft it for her. Naturally she said yes and asked what the mats were. Well, it kind of burst her bubble some when she saw what was needed. She told me that it would be some time before she would have the mats together.

Well, that got me to thinking. I looked in my bank and noticed that I had most of the mats to make one already. I was just missing some Titanium and a few gems. I figured what the hell and went on a mining run. A few trips around Sholozar got me the titanium needed, a quick trip to the AH picked up the missing gems, and I made a Nesingway.

And no gun is complete without a scope. So I grabbed a spare +40 crit scope from my bank, a couple boxes of Mammoth Cutters, and mailed it all off to her. When I logged in the next day, she was so happy I couldn’t help but smile. I asked her husband later about it and to quote him, “It really made her day”.

Moral of the story? Don’t undervalue the “Feel Good Feeling” of selflessly helping out another player. Its just a game, and sometimes putting a smile on someone’s face is worth more than any amount of gold.

Note: I’m not sharing this to toot my own horn. I told this story to demonstrate that even though WoW is a game, you are dealing with real people with real feelings. You can make genuine friends in this game, and there is no reason not to treat them every bit as good as ones you have in real life.

3.1 has hit the PTR and dual specs are up for testing. The hybrid classes haven’t been this excited since the introduction of Spell Power. But as a Hunter you are a pure DPS class. When you get two specs you get to use one to DPS, and the other to…… DPS. Not very exciting, I know. But I am here to tell you that you do have a reason to be excited.

I don’t think there is a Hunter out there who can argue the fact that speccing BM is the easiest and most efficient spec for solo questing and grinding. On the same note, Hunters can agree that not everyone wants to raid as a BM, or even have the same BM spec for raiding. Or maybe you are a PvP buff. You know damn good and well your PvP spec has no place in a raid. This is where Dual Specs will come in. Now I know there are many options for combination of specs, but what I will cover is what I am going to use.

I do two things in game: Raid and play solo. As I said, for Solo work BM is king. So my first spec will be BM with emphasis on pet survivability. As long as my pet is alive, I’m alive. Now my second spec is where it gets a little iffy.

Currently I raid with a Survival spec. I like the spec. It’s fun to play and I put out enough damage to stay in the top 3 on the meters almost every fight. With 3.1 they are introducing a lot of changes to all 3 specs and the class in general. So I don’t really know what I will spec as yet. Based on what I have read so far I will likely stay Survival for raiding, but we all know that nothing on the PTR is set in stone yet.

Now you don’t have to do the same as me. You could have two specs for raiding, swapping between them depending on the situation or group composition. You may have one for PvP. Really, the possibilities are endless.

What are your plans for dual specs?

This weekend saw my first serious foray into Naxxramas. And it was a blast. Bosses were downed, loot was had, and meters were topped.

Friday night the guild went into 25-man Naxx. This was my first trip into Naxx on Heroic, so needless to say, I was a little nervous. My biggest concern was that I would end up being carried through by my guild. But that turned out not to be the case. It came as a huge surprise to me when I ended up topping the meters on the first boss of the Arachnid Quarter. The rest of the night was much of the same. We cleared the Arachnid and Plague Quarters, one shotting most bosses. The one fight I was looking forward to was Heigan the Unclean. I have read a lot about the fight on other blogs I follow, but this was the first time I ever experienced it myself. I am proud to say that I danced the dance and stayed alive the whole fight.

Saturday, we put together a few groups for 10-man Naxx. The group I was in ended up clearing the Arachnid, Plague, and Construct Quarters in a little over 4 hours. This was only my second trip into 10-man Naxx, so I had some of the same worries as before, but I was comforted by my experience in Naxx the previous night. The run was outstanding in my eyes. We one shot most bosses. And much to my pleasure, my damage meter showed me to be be in the top 3 DPS on almost every boss fight.

Then on Sunday we cleared out both 10 and 25-man versions of VoA and OS. I have already both of those several times, so nothing special there.

I can’t wait for the weekend to roll around so that I can step back into Naxx. Though this time I plan to save my combat log so I can upload it to WWS (or WMO, heard good things about it) since it is more accurate than an in-game addon.

Another week, another reset. Where does that put me in the world of WoW?

• Huge raid weekend for me. 10 and 25-man versions of everything. Easily the funnest weekend in WoW ever for me. Also up there for one of the most expensive.
• My alts are coming along nicely. Not too much leveling lately, but lots of progress with professions. All with the goal taking the AH out of my raiding equation.
• Made someone’s day yesterday, scoring some points with Karma. Lets hope she remembers when it comes to loot this weekend.
• I was very pleased with my raid performance. I didn’t feel like I was being carried at all, despite being rather new to raiding.
• One thing did happen over the weekend that for me was even more exciting than raiding. I convinced my wife to try WoW out. I set her up with a trial account to start (of course linking it to mine so we get the RaF experience bonus) and made an alt level alongside hers. So far we are level 6 after about 2 hours of playtime. More on this later.
• Apparently the PTR is up and the 3.1 patch notes are up for reading. To be honest, I’m not that excited about it. I imagine a ton of things are going to change between now and when it goes live, so I’m not going to gt too worked up about it yet. Plus, there is still a good portion of Naxx that I have yet to see.

So what are you thinking while waiting for the realms to come back up?

There’s been a little game going around the blogosphere lately having tagged people post their sixth screenshot in their sixth folder. It’s been pretty interesting to see what kind of stuff people take shots of.

Brigwyn over at The Hunting Lodge tagged me. She was also kind enough to notify me via Twitter and a comment here. Sorry I didn’t get to this sooner Brig, just been pretty busy in real life lately. And to tell you the truth, I got nothing. My screenshot folder is completely empty. I don’t take very many shots, and the few I have taken I already used and deleted.

But, I always aim to please, so I’ll leave you with this: