Big Update! (it's been 2 weeks)

Well it's been 2 weeks(ish) since my last update so what's been going on in Valilor's world?

Friday's Saturday's Sunday's Yolk

Any Proto-Drakes in AMOV yet? See below....

Valilor/Heloko/Ultradeath

Week 1: Aged yolk (30%) / Nothing / Nothing
Week 2: Cobra Hatchling (19%) / Nothing / Nothing
Week 3: White Tickbird Hatchling (20%) / Nothing / Aged yolk (30%)
Week 4: Cobra Hatchling (19%) / Tick Bird Hatchling (21%) / Aged yolk (30%)
Week 5:  White Tickbird Hatchling (20% /Proto-Drake Whelp (8%) / ? (?%)
Week 6:  White Tickbird Hatchling (20% / Proto-Drake Whelp (8%) / ? (?%)

So 6 weeks in and I'm no closer..sigh. 

Naxx - DPS - Ramas

Volley's damage was nerfed by 30% shortly after Wotlk came out, in patch 3.0.8 I think. Sadly I never got to Naxx before the nerf so I can only imagine how OP it must have been as if you check this short clip below, in moderate gear it causes LOADS of damage on trash!

You'll need to watch it on HQ mode and if anyone was wondering, I died about 2 seconds after that video ended! (I was just trying to get a good angle and lots of targets for the clip)

Could I be any more exalted?

Did you just read that in a Chandler from friends voice in your head? Just wondering...

Anyway...I finally reached exalted which takes me to exalted with all the Wrath factions (minus the frenzy hearts) - at least before 3.1. What did I get for it? An epic fishing rod! The Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole. Whoop whoop. Guess what? I can't use it! You need to have fishing level 300 to use it and mine is less than 200 at the moment. D'oh!

Duel Spec

With 3.1 out everyone can dual spec, which is pretty cool. I thought I'd try out some different things, so I kept my main spec as PvE MM and went PvE Tank as my offspec.....

- HP Sauce

Ok, that's not strictly true - my beefed up HP is from being outnumbered in Wintergrasp. Had you there for a second, right? I actually tested out PvE Surv spec for a little while and while having replenishment is nice, it wasn't a big jump up in DPS from MM, if any at all, as MM got a nice boost (but more on that at a later date) so I'll be sticking as a MM hunter. I've made my dual spec PvP MM, so for the first time ever, everyone's favorite MM hunter is going to take on the world (of warcraft) in Arena!! 

If you've checked my armoury before, you'll probably have noticed that I'm not particularly good at PvP but we'll see how things go this time. So far in 2v2 it's played 23, won 11 lost 12. Not too bad (also, best arena team name ever!).

One in One out

One of my last postings I mentioned how we got a new guildie - well sadly he left. Our late Sunday night raiding time wasn't ideal for him, which is fair enough and I wish him well wherever he ends up. 

One week later and we have a new guildie - A Ret Paladin by the name of NVision. I've done a few heroics with him in the past so keep an eye out for him in future postings/reports!

Valilor of Darnassus

I'm a fan of this place. The vehicle mechanic is quite fun, the dailies are quick and easy (and can be done in one circle from Icecrown > Crystalsong > Dragonblight/Grizzly Hills > Storm Peaks and back) and there's loads of gold to be made, especially when you get to the champion level!

I've been doing these Qs a bit on/off but last night I got my second title:

-Valilor of Darnassus

Sweet. I'll probably do the same for all of the other factions as it's a great source of gold but I don't think I'd use any of their titles - clearly for a Night Elf Hunter, "Of Darnassus" is the best of the bunch.

I think I've pretty much got the horse combat mechanic down too, I haven't lost against an NPC in ages, whether it be a valiant, champion or even Black Night. I even went and beat all of the factions for fun in about 10 mins!

And one other thing I'd like to add about the Argent Tournament is it's design from above. We've put up with those dodgy named dailies from the Sons of Hodir but now this?

- It's been argued for some time now which faction is the b*llocks but this settles it: It's both! The Alliance are the right and the Horde is the left :p

Vault of Emalon

The VoA raid has suddenly become a lot harder with the introduction of the new boss: Emalon. In the first week of 3.1 I entered VoA10 with a PuG, killed Archavon (I now can hit 4.4k DPS!) and then went on to Emalon. No-one had read any tactics or anything and the time was running out - we had 10 mins before the next Wintergrasp battle started so we rushed him....and wiped in about 2 seconds. I was then saved to the raid and unable to get another chance of some Emalon loot!

The second week went much better, I went in and the group started with Emalon (Note: Everyone should do this!). If Emalon dies, Woot, you can get some T8 loot. If you fail, no worries - you're not saved! You can always kill Archavon afterwards, it's miles easier in comparison. After about 3 attempts we got him, some T8 loot dropped and everyone was happy - I think it was every ones first Emalon kill in the group and when the screen fills up with achievements it's a satisfying moment! No hunter drops but I wasn't expecting any - I've only ever seen 1 hunter item drop in all the 10/25 man raids I've been to in VoA and I didn't win the roll either.

- Emalon "Don't call me Emma" The Storm Watcher

Dalamount

When 3.1 launched, the top 0.5% of Arena players in their battle group got their reward, the very cool Frostwyrm Mount.  I downloaded and installed the patch the day it came out, popped to Dalaran and what do I see? The Frostwyrm mount! 

No, it wasn't mine (they don't also give it to the bottom 0.5% sadly) but it was another players. Horde unfortunately but he declined my offer of a duel. Probably for the best really, I wouldn't want to embarrass him ;)

Another cool mount I saw around was a Spectral Tiger.

I hadn't seen one of these since I was on the Burning Legion server (months ago now) but up popped one in Dalaran. I asked the rider how he acquired it and he said it was from the first pack of WoW cards! That's so lucky! If that happened to me, I'd probably sell it on Ebay - they are worth around £700 which is probably more useful than a cool looking mount which can't fly.

Not really a mount but in a recent Naxx PuG I saw a Spirit Beast! That's also very rare, I think i've seen about 2 of them around since Wrath came out so it was good to see it in action. I took a screen shot (see below) the spirit beast is on the left (not the Feast!).

Aggro My Own Vegetables are....

...Famous! We got a mention in the wowinsider Guild Watch post for our Naxx 10 clear :) Pretty cool getting some recognition and also very well earned! We'd never have imagined doing anything like that in TBC so we've really stepped up to the plate! Not only that but our guild name got a mention for being cool - both by wowinsider any by another poster (who wasn't one of use before you ask!). Good Times.

The Guild Watch Post: http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/04/22/guildwatch-this-is-not-a-f-ing-joke/

Growing the vegetables

So what next for AMOV after clearing Naxx? Our next targets, and topic of my next post will be on the Eye of Eternity and OS10 + 1 Drake. If we can master them, get everyone geared up there is only one possible place next: ULDUAR!

AMOV Special: Naxx Conclusions

DPS Progression


After a successful raid run, it's good to look back on how you've performed and how you've improved, as in a PvE progression guild, this is what it's all about.

I've taken everyone's DPS from the downed boss' we had on both runs and compared them to see how, if at all, we've improved on DPS. In run 2 we were missing our mana battery Gloam, the Ret Paladin, which obviously has an impact on any mana using classes *cough*ME*cough* and we were also without any flasks which we had used on the first run. On the other hand, some people may have picked up better armour and also would have more experience which can help increase DPS efficiency so it's a case of swings and roundabouts.

Overall we were slightly up on average on the boss' but this was mainly down to Heloko (Holy Paladin) going to what he likes to call "DPS Mode" ;) If I just take the average across all the boss of the 3 main DPS people above (Ultra, Rose and Myself) we are on average up by 7 DPS - so pretty consistent. This shows that everyone is both getting better and getting better gear as keeping it consistent without replenishment/flasks is pretty good going!

Most boss fights can be pretty random affairs, people have to move around, CC adds, feign death...etc so comparing different runs is quite difficult. One boss does stand out for a DPS test though and that's patchwerk. Looking at the table above my DPS dropped by a massive 500DPS! My rotation/talents/pet haven't changed, I have a sligtly improved trinket but missing Replenishment and the Flask of Endless Rage obviously makes a huge impact!

Luckily though Ultradeath almost made up the whole of my slack, rising by 496 DPS. The lack of replenishment wouldn't have made much difference to him but this gear/skill must have increased a lot more than the value of a flask!

Just looking at the 3 DPS above for Patchwerk, we were down by only 41 DPS on average between us, or 124 for the raid - not very much really. I'm also definitely NOT going to mention Heloko's 337DPS increase either...no way! :p

I excluded Cumulonimbus (who changed name to Xeus) from this table as attempt 1 he was a resto shaman and attempt 2 he was a enhansement shaman, so it wouldn't be a fiar comparison. Deadcreepy was much improved on the 2 boss' he cleared both times, especially Razuvious where it was a 537DPS increase, nice!

Loot

Before going to Naxx, I researched the loot tables and made a "wish list"of some side-grades and some up-grades - how did I do for the upgrades? Let's see:

Heroes' Cryptstalker Spaulders - HIT

Cloak of Darkening - MISS

Key to the Focusing Iris - HIT

Sealing Ring of Grobbulus - MISS

Cloak of Mastery - MISS

Gem of Imprisoned Vassals - MISS

Heroes' Cryptstalker Headpiece - MISS*

*It did drop but I didn't roll for it, I got an upgrade from OS25, the Hyaline Helm of the Sniper

So for loot, not bad, not great! 2 out of 7 could have been a lot worse really.

And there ends the Naxx Special. I'm sure AMOV will go on to clear this out a few times but with EoE and Ulduar to go, there's plenty of us to be getting on with!

AMOV Special: Naxxramas: The Fall of Naxxramas

Well it took 2 weeks but AMOV returned to the 10 man raid which once humbled them to. Did we finally clear it or was it another occasion to be put down to a learning curve?

Been here before...



Starting with the Arachnid quarter again, we quickly progressed through there, the plague quarter and up to Grobbulus in the Construct Quarter and also up to the 4 horsemen in the Military quarter. I won't bore you with the details on those boss' again (you can see earlier Naxx postings in the sidebar) but my personal highlights was getting the T7 Hunter shoulders from Loatheb, Hatestrike from Patchwerk, doing the "AMOV Gothik Strat" (tm) and participating in one of the longest ever heigan fights! I died but not from an inability to dance...!!

The core raiders were unchanged but a couple people couldn't make it this time so we had to get in a few "randoms." Unlike the first time we were also lacking any replenishment (no Gloam - our Ret Paladin) and we also didn't use any Flasks - to mana was a big issue for me on boss fights! Things should be better in 3.1 though :)

Anub Rekhan (wws)


Grand Widow Faerlina (wws)

Maexxna (wws)


Noth the Plaguebringer (wws)


Heigan the unclean (wws) - 15 mins 57 secs!


Loatheb (wws)


Patchwerk (wws)

Instructor Razuvious (wws)


Gothik the Harvester (wws)

Grobbo

After 4 failed attempts on our previous run we were a little scared of this boss but those 4 previous attempts were far from wasted, upon returning to Naxx we were much more efficient and wiped once but on our 2nd attempt we downed Grobbulus in 4 mins 25.


Gluth



Next up was Gluth. This fight isn't too difficult but everyone needs to be on the ball. Starting above the room, everyone drops in and immidetely aggro's the boss on landing, so it's important to make sure the main tank goes in first, then the OT, Healers & DPS and the kiter last. The tanks tank Gluth against a door on one side of the room and have to switch tanks when they get too many debuffs. Meanwhile, the designated kiter has to kite the adds which come away from Gluth as if one reaches him he'll get all his health back. These adds come with approx 500k HP so they can't be killed either, until Gluth does his decimate spell which drops everyone in the raid and the adds to 5% of their HP - at which point everyone nukes the adds. This cycle keeps going until Gluth dies and also Gluth has a soft enrage which can be cancelled with a hunters Tranquilizing shot or a rogues Anesthetic Poison.

I've killed this boss in a few random PuGs and I've always played the kiter. This time a DK (they are well suited to this) - wanted to do it by the name of Tyraxor, as he said he had done it hundreds of times - so we went with that.

Attempt 1: From the strat above, falling in the right order is pretty essential. I'm not sure what went wrong but a healer was first to get aggro and died immidetely so we were down to 9 men for the entire first attempt. Off we went - I was using Tranq shot when necessary and also dropping frost traps down to help the DK. A few mins in I heard "Kiter is down" across Vent - oh crap I though....I turned around to take over kiting but one mob got through and Gluth got all his HP back. Wipe.

Attempt 2: Falling in the correct order, Gluth was correctly tanked and killed with no player deaths in 3 mins 39 secs. Good stuff.

Thaddius


And then we were on the last boss of the construct quarter: Thaddius. This is meant to be one of the harder boss fights in Naxx but I quite enjoy it. To start with you have to seperate into 2 groups and kill 2 mobs within 5 seconds of each other (easier than it sounds), make a jump to Thaddius and start attacking him but watching for your "charge" - and making sure you're with similarly charged people as crossing them can cause some pretty big damage. When fighting the 2 mini-boss' before Thaddius, the tanks get switched around - something I forgot to tell everyone in our tactic chat before attacking him...

Heloko: "Why can't I heal Asaron?"
Mynnx: "Why can't I heal Destromath?"
Valilor: "Oh yeah...one more thing...."

It didn't take much for the healers to correct themselves and we quickly dispatched of the 2 mini-boss' within a second of each other. Next was the jump I told everyone about a couple of times.

Valilor Jumps. Valilor Misses. /Facepalm

Pretty embarassing for the person giving out the strats to mess this bit up...and when returning to Thaddius I also had the wrong charge on the wrong side. Much pain. Being a few people's first attempt at Thaddius there was much to learn and we wiped after 1 min 36 secs.

Attempt 2 was much better, after 3 mins 7 secs and no player deaths, Thaddius and the construct quarter fell to the force of AMOV! Just the 4 Horsement to go and we would be on the final straight....


4 Horsemen

We only used 2 healers up to this point and we knew from our previous run that it would be hard with 2. At first we tried to put to people who could self-heal at the back and keep the 2 healers at the front. At the back was a Enhansement Shaman (Xeus - Formely Cumulonimbus if you're following the guild) and 'lock called Cezil. They did an alright job but the damage was too much for them to self-heal through with the healers at the front...and as soon as one of them died, we wiped (the open Boss nukes the whole raid hard). We also tried it with Mynnx the druid healer using a HoT before the fight started but again, no use. We really needed 3 healers.

Xeus rather kindly volunteered to respec as healer and we also changed things around a little, I went to the back to tank one of the boss' and Cezil stayed on the other. Mynnx came to the back to heal and Heloko and Xeus stayed at the front. After one more wipe as we got to grips with the new tactic, we did it! The military quarter was down and AMOV was on the final straight of Naxxramas.


Sapphiron



After clearing the 4 quarters, 2 boss' remain in Naxx, both Sapphiron and KT. To access them, you return to the start and go through a different portal - one which you also can't go back through so make sure everyone is summoned before you do so!

The Sapphiron encounter looks pretty cool, his skeletons renamiates and you spend the rest of the fight putting it back to how you found it! There's 2 phases to this fight which keep cycling, Sapp on on the ground and Sapp in the air.

While on the ground Sapphiron needs to be tanked facing away from the raid while the raid attack him from his side (he does a tail swipe). While this is going on he also cast's a Blizzard, much like a Mage's but much bigger so the DPS/Healers need to keep out of them. Sapphiron also casts a life drain curse which needs to be removed ASAP as it both hurts the target and heals Sapp. After every 45 seconds phase 2 begins where Sapphiron takes to the skies.

While in the air, Sapphiron will cast Blizzard but also freeze 2 players in the 10 man raid and turn them into ice. When this happens, everyone has to group behind them to avoid Sapp's Frost Breath, which is similar to the Arcane explosion you have to hide from in the Oculus.

And that's about it.

One thing which can happen is that you all group behind an ice cube only for the Blizzard to start hitting you at that spot - you can't get away of you'll get hit with Frost Breath so you just have to hope it can be healed through...obviously at the cost of the healers mana.

Our first 2 attempts were wipes with Sapp being at exactly 58% HP exactly but we carried on and attempt 3 was a clear! From the Sapphiron drops, I managed to win the roll for the Key to the Focusing Iris, which will let me open up the Eye of Eternity (Malygos) raid when the time comes.

Asaron, the guild's main tank also had a nice drop here for him, the massive skeletal ribcage. Also interested in this was our brand new OT recruit Nynth. AMOV don't operate a DKP system, everyone has a fair roll on their main spec if it's an upgrade. Asaron rolled first..94! Surely that upgrade was his, right?

-I'm sure that blue chest is still good though :p

Kel'Thuzad


For anyone keeping up to date with my blog/twitter, you'll know that before this run I only had KT and Malygos to go, so I was pretty happy to finally get this far with the guild! It also means that finally everyone in AMOV has pretty much got as far as me as far as content is concerned as we've cleared all the heroics, VoA and OS - so soon we might be rolling out with the "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" titles, sweet! Almost as long as our guild name too (Aggro My Own Vegetables). Long names/titles FTW!

So on to KT. This fight has 3 stages, the first you have to deal with adds, the seconds is KT and the third is KT with some more adds in a bit of a DPS race. I don't want to bore you with the strategy as it can take a while to type but it can be found here.

So how did we do?

We started this fight at 00:32 am and after clearing some pretty difficult boss' we were all tired and also had to get up early for work the next day. We thought we'd give it a go though....and unfortunately we wiped. It was a good first attempt, we wiped after 7 mins during the seconds phase when 3 people got caught out standing too close together. We then agreed to meet again the next day to finally finish Naxx.

The next day we regrouped, we had a few different faces but the core was pretty much the same. Back to KT we went and after 10 mins 42 secs we one-shotted him!


Most of KT's loot table is pretty good and one item I wanted actually dropped....the Gem of Imprisoned Vassals...a nice upgrade to my current neck but alas, I didn't win the roll. The Neck went to Ultradeath. If he also gets a Proto-Drake drop from the Mysterious Eggs before me I'll....I'll....not be best pleased.

So there we have it, AMOV has cleared Naxx 10! Coming from the Burning Legion server, we were only a very small guild who had only cleared a few heroics pre-Wotlk but wow look how we've grown! VoA/OS would always have been achieveable but for the first time we've cleared a multi-boss raid within a week, which is great as it's quite a time contraint for our "Casual Hardcore" guild.

So what now? I think the answer is obvious..... Malygos and the Eye of Eternity! Once that big blue monstrosity falls we'll have cleared the pre-Uludar content.....and will be Champions of the Frozen Wastes!

Victory Lap

Straight after here, with the raid reset coming up we went straight for OS10. The non-AMOV raiders had left and we were left with 8. Feeling pretty confident we went with those 8 and it worked! DING! Less Is More! Took 6 mins 57 seconds.

Is there anything we can't do?? :D

New Guildie!

Drak'Tharon Keep (Heroic)

- Better off dead more like

4 AMOV guildies (Ultradeath , Valilor, Heloko & Rosentrantz - in height order) were online and looking to do some more heroic achievements. DTK looked like the next best bet (putting off Oculus as long as possible!) so off we went, we were just lacking 1 vital thing...a Tank!

I entered LFG, and asked for any tanks looking for an achievement run in / LFG, /trade and /general (I was in Dalaran) and nothing...until a whisper came in from Nynth. He said that he'd give it a go, was def capped but was also in a lot of blues/Lv70 epics and hadn't been there before - but being the gung-ho, equal opportunity people that we are, we gave him a chance.

First up in DTK was Consumption Junction. Here you have to tank Trollgore in a corner of the room so everyone is out of Line of sight when he does his Consume spell. Everyone caught in LoS when he does this grants him 1 stack of his consumption buff (including adds) - the achievement is to kill him before this gets to 10. The add were very weak, around 2k HP - easily controllable by 1 person but unfortunately we got the positioning wrong and he died with 17 stacks. D'oh! Looks like we'll be coming back...

Next up was Better of Dred. Here you have to kill 6 raptors with King Dred still active. We were a little worried about the warriors survivablity as King Dred hit's hard but Nynth had some pretty good skills and we managed to one-shot this achievement. Great! We were very impressed with his skills generally so we asked him if he wanted to join us, which he did, so it was win - win!

I guess the lesson to be learnt here is that undergeared people should be given a chance (unless there is some gear check somewhere) - especially people with high iLevel Lv70 gear, they obviously needed some skill to get that back in TBC so they obviously know what they're doing!

Update

Another bank goes under....

In todays tough economic climate, many banks have gone under and Valilor's bank(er) is no different! I had to delete Lloydstsb, a Lv1 rogue to make room for a warrior for "Project Alt." I now have one of each class and you can keep tabs on how they're doing on the right side bar.

- So long Lloydstsb, you've served me well ;(

- Hello Valessra, current favourite from Project Alt

Friday Saturday's Yolk

Looks like I have some Green-Proto drake competition now, 2 sneaky AMOV members have joined in on my party! I'll add them to these updates but I'm going to be so annoyed if they get one before me! GRRRRRR

This week I got another Cobra Hatchling, sigh. I stuck it on the AH for 25g and I'll see if it sell. Better than a kick in the teeth I guess, hopefully better luck next week!

Valilor/Heloko/Ultradeath

Week 1: Aged yolk (30%) / Nothing / Nothing
Week 2: Cobra Hatchling (19%) / Nothing / Nothing
Week 3: White Tickbird Hatchling (20%) / Nothing / Aged yolk (30%)
Week 4: Cobra Hatchling (19%) / Tick Bird Hatchling (21%) / Aged yolk (30%)

Another helmet to polish?

No, not more Son's of Hodir dailies or anything else for that matter - I have a new helm! I joined a 25 man Sarth PuG and the Hyaline Helm of the Sniper fell and I won the roll! Sweet.

With a pretty useless socket bonus, I skipped it and put in a Bright Scarlet Ruby and the hunter's fave Relentless Earthsiege Diamond meta gem.

Coming up...

Next part of my hunter guide plus AMOV return to Naxx! Will we kill Grobbulus? Will we kill the 4 Horsemen? Will we clear Naxx? Find out soon!

MM Hunter Guide (Patch 3.0.8) - Part 1; Pets

I've been reading a lot of hunter blogs around and one thing stuck me; there isn't a lot for Marksmen Hunters! BM Hunters have BRK (Even though every time I check on him in the Armoury he is Survivial spec....suspicious!) and Survival hunters have OUTdps amongst others so I thought I'd do a 3 part MM Hunter guide, starting today with Pets.
(Note: I don't do any PvP so this will be 100% PvE)

*UPDATE* BRK has given up blogging/WoW!!

Choosing and Taming your pet

There are many families of pets for hunter to choose from and they fall into 3 classes, tenacity (tanking), ferocity (DPS - Dungeons) and Cunning (Buffs/Debuffs - PvP). For a MM hunter the choice is pretty simple, if you are doing dungeons are raids, you'll want a cat and if you're questing/soloing, you'll want a gorilla.

Cats have the highest DPS output of the pets for MM Hunters and Gorillas cause the most threat generation. DPS is the name of the game in dungeons/raids so maximizing this is key. Some other families of pets provide stat boosts/debuffs to mobs but they don't usually stack with other players' buffs/debuffs so it's best to rule these out.

Gorillas have an AoE move which is great for farming if you couple it with volley and their higher threat generation is important, as unlike sissy BM hunters, we actually hit a lot harder than our pets and we don't want to be getting any of that silly aggro from them!

To find which Cat/Gorrilla you want, head to petopia - it's the best place for pet information on the internet!

- Just you try and tame me...I dare ya!

Once you've decided and found the one you want, taming pets is pretty straight forward; set a freezing trap down, start taming the pet and as it approaches it will get frozen - which doesn't stop you taming - so you'll usually be able to get a pet tamed with minimal damage received. [Note: You can't have a pet out to tame, you can't even have one out and then dismiss it, so to tame a pet stable it and then come out with no pet (unless you want to completely release it and let it free). I can only imagine the frustration for a BM hunter if they are with their much-loved pet and they come across a spirit beast!]

I haven't read quite as much for surv/bm hunters but I believe the same applies for Survival hunters but for BM the best DPS is a Devilsaur.

Pet Talents

Pets now have talent trees just like us, so you need to carefuly select which talents to give them, either to maximise DPS for a Cat or to Maximise threat/survivability for a Gorilla. Here are my recommendations:

Cat Spec
Gorilla Spec

The Gorilla spec is a little more flexible than the cat one so feel free to change it around a little. BM hunters will have 4 extra talent points to spend but this isn't a BM hunter guide!

Action Bars

Most of a pets skills can be left on automatic in the skill book but you can move 4 forward to the action bar to manually use and you should do the following:

Cats

The cat bar from left to right is Attack, Follow, Stay, Growl, Claw, Call of the Wild, Stealth, Aggressive, Defensive and Passive.

Gorilla



The gorilla bar from left to right is Attack, Follow, Stay, Growl, Smack, Thunderstomp, Taunt, Aggressive, Defensive and Passive.

The first 3 and last 3 buttons are the same for all pets, the first 3 are their movement instructions and the last 3 are their stance.

99.9% of the time you'll have you pet on "follow"

Using your pet

For a MM Hunter, your pet will contribute 10-15% of your DPS so if you want to top meters it's important to keep them alive. Not only do they have their own DPS but while they are alive they'll also boost your DPS with Focused Fire.

Questing

Think of yourself as a 3 man team, you play the DPS and the Healer, your pet is the tank. When going after Mobs, send in your gorilla, let it get aggo with a growl, taunt and possibly a thunderstomp and then open up with your shot rotation. In most cases you'll kill the mob before you get aggro but don't forget to heal your pet too!

A hunter can usually solo 3 man Q's too. Select your target mob, stick on a hunters mark, drop a frost trap and then cast heal pet. Heal pet heals your pet over time (it's a HoT) so it can be healing as it's attacking. Send the pet in and start opening up your DPS. You don't need to go too strong as you don't want to get aggro too quickly, so maybe just stick to auto + steady shot. This will keep the mob on your pet and you'll be healing the pet at the same time so essentially it's like you're a one man party! As a MM hunter you'll inevitably get aggro over your pet as your damage is considerably higher, so when the mob comes, strafe backwards while still firing and kite him through the frost trap. If you can't maintain this, feign death and start again.

Occasionally this is quite difficult to do if there are lots of adds. If this is the case, try Freeze trapping one and turning off thunderstomp (so it doesn't break the trap by mistake) and getting your gorilla to tank both while you target the main mob the gorilla is attacking.

You can use similar tactics with a cat for questing but it is far easier with a gorilla as they are tought, cause more threat and can recieve more health from your heals.

A note on your action bar: Keep your taunt abilities turned on but keep your "Focus Dump" abilites turned off. You want all your focus to be used on keeping theat rather than damage when questing which will be reversed later.

For stance, you'll probably also want the pet on "defensive" - this is great for if you're too lazy to send your pet in as it will go in automatically. Be sure to put it on passive when entering a town as some people can attack your pet, it will attack back and then you will be a target of the town guards! Died so many times in Booty Bay because of this back in the day ;)

Dungeons & Raids

With other people in the party, it is important to make sure you control your pet well otherwise it can end up in a wipe! I know - I've done it enough times!

For the majority of raids/dungeon, you'll just send your pet in but with all taunting abilities OFF (Taunt, Growl & Thunderstomp - although you probably won't be bringing your Gorilla). This is important as only the Tank/Off-Tank will want to have Aggro. This is why the Cat is best in dungeons/raids as they have more DPS and less threat. With all that spare focus turn your "Focus Dump" ON - so that's smack/claw - and increase your pets DPS!

In Dungeons/Raids, I like to keep my cat on defensive - this way when I start shooting the cat will automatically go so I don't waste any time pressing the "pet attack" button. Keeping it passive here is ok too. Aggressive is a big no no as it could pull other mobs from another group and cause a wipe.

When tabbing between enemies (if you do), be sure that they are the current group you're targeting before sending in the pet - I've cause a couple of wipes this way when I get lazy and press tab + pet attack too quickly! Learn from my mistakes hunters!

Another usefull ability of a pet is to help out when things go wrong. Sometimes healers can get aggro and as you're usually standing near them, quickly sent your pet to intercept the mob before it attacks the healer and quickly turn growl/taunt on to keep it off the healer. It might die in the process but this is better than a healer dying and it gives the tank some time to get the aggro back. Pets are also good for boss' who trap you as they can come and attack your trap and free you without getting anyone else to help (as long as it's a weak trap).

Finally, pets don't like to jump. In some places you'll have to make a jump, like from platforms in Nexus. As a pet won't jump they will run the long way to get down, which can mean it will pull any mobs with it for a lovely suprise when it returns to you :D Before jumping, dismiss your pet. This is the #1 thing I forget to do as it's a bit of a pain!

There are other clever little tricks you can do with a pet but the above are probably the main tactics to use and doing so can impress in PuGs!

Feeding your pet

Cats like meat, Gorilla's like bread. You can buy both from any inn so you shouldn't have any problems keeping them happy. You should always keep them in a happy mood as their damage will increase by 25%! The higher the level of food the higher the amount of hapiness they get. At Lv80 I find the Salted Venison the best value for cats and the Crusty Flatbread for gorillas.

As well as keeping them happy, you can also get food which gives the pets stat bonus' much like the ones we get. At the moment there are only 3 available and require cooking. Bizarrely, YOU have to eat the food for the PET to get the benefit, you can't feed the pet this food! It doesn't over-write any food buff you might already have (e.g. from a Great Feast) so it's not a problem.

The best 2 Pet Food Buffs are from:

Kibler's Bits

Spiced Mammoth Treats

Kibler's Bits/Spiced Mammoth Treats are the best two but the Kibler's Bits mats are cheaper to come AND Kibler's Bits can be used from Lv55 while the Mammoth Treats is from Lv70.

The other food buff isn't as high as the above two and at that level it probably isn't worth using, as these food buffs are really only worth using in the Lv80 "End Game" - where you're trying to Max that DPS!

Leveling your pet

You pet levels up by fighting mobs which are in the level range for you to level up, which I believe is from 8 levels below you to any levels above you. At Lv80 this is obviously a little trickier, so if possible level them up on your way to 80 or just bring them to heroics/Lv80 areas with you.

3.1 Patch

All the pet tree's are being re-done, Focused Aim will transfer onto the pet AND the wolves AP boost will stack with the Paladins/Warriors, so it's all going to change!

If you're a MM/SV hunter and you've already got a Cat/Gorilla like me, now is the time to get levelling that Wolf :)

I think Devilsaurs will still be the top DPS option for BM hunters.

Coming Soon....

The next step of the guide will be on gear, stats & testing. Stay Tuned!