Lethal Shots

I know I have been neglecting the blog lately, but I do have a reason this time. In my effort to get into 25-man raiding with my guild, I have finally broke down and fixed my desktop PC, which has been sitting idle for almost a year due to a dead power supply.

My poor laptop can’t handle 25-man raids with Vent running in the background, so I ponied up the cash for a new power supply and have spent most of my evenings this week re-installing Ubuntu, tweaking settings, and rebuilding my UI (desktop is not widescreen, so the UI on my laptop will not work). Tonight I hope to make my first foray into 25-man Naxx. With Vent running on my laptop beside me because my speakers went out on the desktop.

I really need to just convince the wife to be ok with me buying a new laptop.

Another week, another restart. What’s on my mind?

• Valentines went off without a hitch. Italian food, dessert, and a movie puts Santyn in good with the wife.
• Still specced Survival. And topping the damage meters where ever I go.
• Made my first official trip into Naxx with Soulbound over the weekend. 10-man version. We cleared the spider wing and downed Patchwerk before calling it. Patchwerk was a blast, with me topping the damage meter at about 2750 DPS.
• My Paladin hit 20. He is loads more fun now that he has Consecrtion. I daresay I enjoy him more than my Death Knight.
• My Shaman is making slow progress in Borean Tundra. I find myself dieing a lot and constantly out of mana. I am blaming the large gear gap between Nagrand and Northrend. Hopefully I will overcome the gap soon.
• I started a baby Druid. This is my second one. The first one I took Feral, but i hated playing it. This one I am taking Balance in hopes he will hold my interest.

Well, that’s all I got for now. Thoughts and comments appreciated as always.

For now at least. Work has had me in class all week. With an hour trip one way, my evenings have been cut short this week, leaving little time to do anything. I’ve barely played any WoW this week, but I should be able to make up for that over the long weekend though.

So what have I done this week? Well, I mainly leveled various alts. Nothing spectacular really. Play a low level alt until he runs out of rested XP, go level a profession on another guy, then burn through another one’s rested XP.

The one thing of note I did do is spec back to Survival. Yeah, I know. I love Beast Master, but Survival is surprisingly addicting. Beast Master definitely is my favorite for soloing, most of my time is spent in instances these days. And all I have to say is 6 Explosive Shot crits in a row (love Lock and Load) is enough to make even the manliest man Squee with joy. Not to mention the bosses scream in pain. I can’t wait until Blizz rolls out Duel Specs so that I can have the best of both worlds.

Another week, another patch. Here’s what I’ve been thinking.

• Not much posting happening this week. Work has me in a class all week, meaning no access to PC at work and longer hours (due to driving to and from class) means not much post time in the evenings.
• 3.0.9 hit servers today, and I can finally spec back to BM.
• Yeah, BM is supposed to be viable again, but I am actually having fun as a Survival. WTB dual specs so I don’t have to decide.
• Got a nice helm from 25-man OS Sunday. Better stats than my Engineering goggles, but it is ugly as all hell. No other helm in the game beats the cool factor of the goggles.
• The Shaman finally hit 68 over the weekend. He is now leveling in Northrend until he hits 70, at which he will go back to Outland to train flying and finish leveling Mining to 350.

So what’s on your mind today?

As I’m sure you have heard by now, the changes for Hunters in the upcoming 3.1 patch have been announced. While they look good on the surface, some of the changes really aren’t that great.

Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.

Sure, this sounds great, but lets think of the consequences. Right now Engineers main source of income profession wise is ammo (I don’t count the motorcycles since they are too expensive to even think about mass-producing). Take that away and it becomes for the most part a vanity profession. And an even bigger problem with this change is the loss of realism. Ranged weapons need ammo. We’re not shooting wands here. Sure, I want another bag slot as much as the rest of us, but come on. If you really want to give us another bag slot, make the quiver/ammo pouch into something similar to the keyring.

A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.

Ok, I like this one. BM damage needs buffed back up, and this is a good way to go about it.

Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.

Another good one. Not much else to say here.

Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.

Well, Blizz had to do something if they wanted people to ever use the talent. This will be good, as long as the bleed effect stacks.

Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.

This would be good, if you could actually stand still for more than 6 seconds. I don’t know about you, but there are very few fights in the game right now that don’t require considerable movement just to stay alive. If this change goes through, Sniper training will effectively become a useless talent and force Survival Hunters to trap dance.

We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

Better trap functionality is always good. It is nice to see that Blizz is trying to take Surv back to its roots somewhat while still keeping it competitive damage wise.

One thing to keep in mind though is that none of these changes are set in stone yet. There is still a ton of testing to be done meaning these could change at any time. Or be thrown out completely. As always, thoughts and comments appreciated.