Dragonflight Transmogs

So when I found out that tauren would be able to be mages in Dragonflight, I knew what I was finally going to do with my orc mage: orc no more!

And then I found out that the dragon wings from the edition I bought worked out really well with mage transmog.

Jezdana, tauren mage

But I have more tauren, and there are four more dragon flights' worth of wing transmogs.

I initially though to change my mage's transmog to the blue flight, because blue dragons = arcane magic and whatnot.  But none of the blue cloth I have works with them, so the mage is keeping the red flight.  Then I thought maybe my druid's transmog would work with it, since it's already blue, but that didn't match, either... nor did any of the blue leather I had.  So even through the green wings slotted in perfectly with the emerald plate transmog my paladin had going... paladin gets the blue flight wings.

Dawning, tauren paladin

It's not even a perfect option with plate; I'm matching on the pink accent color for most of it.  The one whose transmog did slot in perfectly with one of the flights was my death knight, who got the bronze flight's wings.

Greenmoo, tauren death knight

I've had the yellow/blue/shovel transmog going on her for a while.  The death knight wasn't even on my original plans for leveling in dragonflight, until I leveled my fighter and my paladin for their professions and realized I don't like either of their tank specs anymore.  (The fighter I feel like I don't know what I'm doing anymore, and that paladin just feels boring to me.)

Since blue didn't work for the druid, she got the green wings, which seemed thematically appropriate (and she got such a sassy looking screenshot from the login screen).  I've got enough versions of G'hanir to pull together something and still get my flower puddles.  (You may note that I never even considered tanking on my druid; I no longer prefer druid healing to priest healing as of the talent revamp, but I still prefer it for my druid.)

Jezda, tauren druid

 That left me the wings for the black dragon flight, and two remaining taurens that I will play regularly during the expansion: my hunter and my bank alt.  My hunter has been using the same transmog (with occaional exceptions) since... at least 2016?  I'm loath to mess with it too much.  My shaman gets the mail transmog swaps.  So, bank alt it was!  Cloak happens to be the only transmoggable slot she's got right now; I may pop some heirlooms on her so I can put her back in the tux I used to have her kitted out in.

Rainwatcher, tauren priest

Besides my taurens, the toons I'll play at least for their professions in Dragonflight are my priest (tailoring/enchanting), rogue (alchemy), warrior (blacksmithing), and shaman (leatherworking).  My paladin is my jewelcrafter, and the druid is a scribe.  The hunter is, as ever, my engineer.

Features I like(d)

I like some random, inane stuff.  Tiny cute things.  Anything green.  Completely extraneous Easter-egg stuff.  So over the course of WoW there's been a lot of random stuff I've like from each expansion, regardless of whether there were other things that drove me batty (like gated profession stuff and losing both ships on a 92% mission fail).

But this is about stuff I like, so here's some of them:

Fished up bosses.  The first of these (as far as I know) was Gahz'ranka in the original Zul'Gurub.  Unlike later fished up bosses, like the Lurker Below and the Pandaria fishing quest bosses, Gahz'ranka required a process to fish up.  This is also why I was a bit irritated about Nat Pagle forgetting who I was every expansion - he taught me 225-300 fishing skill.  But yeah, I liked that having done what a lot of people hadn't in Vanilla (maxing fishing) was useful for something besides obscure food.

Yes, I still have my Mudskunk Lures.

Long quest chains with both strong emotional payoff and decent equipment rewards.  The Major Windsor escort through Stormwind (and Bolvar's subsequent badassery).  The Cipher of Damnation (Burning Crusade edition).  Alas, Andorhal.  The Battle of Darrowshire.  Drakkuru.  Zul'Drak's troll gods quests.  Terokk's story in Spires of Arak.  When I specifically seek out these zones to quest through again, it means they're doing something right.

Zapthrottle.  So I'm still carrying around my mote extractor.  As an engineer, I loved suddenly having resources that only I could gather.  I may have occasionally frustrated people by being en route to some group thing and getting distracted chasing down balls of gas.  It was worse than ore tracking.

Floating islands in Nagrand.  They're so full of Easter eggs, and they were fun to go hang out on if you had to afk for a bit.

Water with currents.  After how many years of waterfalls and such, Pandaria finally gave us water that would pull us around!  I especially liked the currents off the southern coast of the Dread Wastes.

Phasing that lets us change zones over time.  One of the things I was a bit sad about until phasing went in was that, no matter what we did in WoW, nothing changed.  You go help someone out and as soon as you leave, it all resets.  But in Mount Hyjal, we helped beat back the Twilight's Hammer and start the healing of the fire-scorched areas.  In Pandaria, we contributed to the devastation of some of their pristine areas.  In Deepholm, we repair the World Pillar.  And Gilneas!  Oh, Gilneas.  One of the things that impressed me most in the Cataclysm beta, playing through Gilneas for the first time, was that the moment of the cataclysm itself - so bluntly shown in Kezan as Deathwing disrupts a sports game - you feel it when the devastation hits, and your village begins sinking into the ocean.  It was visceral and amazing.

So, uh, sorry, west coast of North America.  It's going to be devastating when you fall into the Pacific, but it's going to be amazing for your narrative.

Tol Barad.  I liked that some PVP opened up some basically PVE daily quests with mount and pet and gear awards for the related currency.  The zone was interestingly creepy, as well.  I suppose Winterspring was also in this vein, but Tol Barad felt more polished.

The Seahorse in Vashj'ir.  The only thing I didn't like about it was that you could only use it in Vashj'ir.  Going fast underwater was almost better than flying.  It didn't hurt that the place was gorgeous.

The turtle boats in Northrend.  It was slow, but it was a nice thematic touch for the Tuskarr, and when you forgot which zeppelin went where as frequently as I did, it made schlepping over to the other end of Northrend prior to having flying much easier.

Garrison followers.  I love my bird-buddy Ishaal, and a lot of the followers just make me more connected to Draenor in general.  I may hardly leave my garrison, but I do have cool people hanging out with me.  When I'm not making them do random menial tasks.

NPCs that use class-specific skills.  The last boss in Nagrand's Ring of Blood shaman-popping.  Yrel in that Talador cutscene.  Anytime I see NPCs we're interacting with behave the way I'd expect someone of that class to - it's just awesome.  (Seriously, I kinda teared up when Yrel popped wings in that video, because Yes! That is a paladin!)

Rexxar's rat innkeeper.  Because it's cute and adorable.

Pet biscuits.  Because rats bigger than gnomes are awesome.

Argh Profession Gating

I'm a profession junky.  I had all of them maxed at the end of Mists, and four alchemists at 600 (because you can never have enough transmutes).  So garrisons have been both awesome and frustrating in that regard - awesome because it's a new system tied in, but frustrating because you run into gating based on level or resources.

If you don't use ore, your gathering bonus options are limited until later than the mine at 92; you can't unlock the herb garden until 94.  Want more leather?  The barn requires more work for leather than the mine or the herb garden do for their materials.  I haven't started my leatherworker yet, so I'm not sure this is actually going to be a big deal, and now that I know how trapping works, it's not that bad to deal with.  I'm still accidentally killing some things when I try to trap them, and I'm still running into mobs that inexplicably won't set off the trap, but I can go grab seven or eight boars or talbuk or clefthoofs and be good for the day's work orders in fifteen minutes in the right area.  It does seem a bit unfair that you have to tie up a medium building for it, though.

I'm more frustrated by the gating of the intermediary crafting materials than anything else, though.  We've had recipe acquisition gated behind dailies since Wrath, and I hated it for jewelcrafting then, but these are innocuous dailies more along the lines of alchemical and inscription discoveries, so they're not really that bad - you even get to pick which recipe you learn.  But I'm sitting on so much ore on my engineer, and I can't do anything with it.  I've got Blingtron 5k and scopes and pets in my recipe list, but I can't do anything to make them yet.  Delayed gratification sucks, but it also means that there's not going to be any jumping in on the market of selling those pets and scopes any time soon, because I'm saving up to make myself that gun and some goggles.

And that also sucks.  I'm trying to get into Molten Core, but I had bad luck on quest item upgrades at an ilvl that mattered, and so far my dungeon drops have been for slots that I already had 615 pieces in.  My most recent upgrades came from Mr. Pinchy Sr. (who got me into heroics) and 615 shoulders from a garrison mission.  I'll get there, and it won't be horribly slow, but there's no more, "Oh, I'll just drop 5k on mats on the auction house and make myself a piece of gear for that one slot I really need to upgrade."  Having done the silver proving grounds required for heroic dungeons at a 584 ilvl, though, it's a bit frustrating.

But I made my Elekk plushie last night, and my blacksmith has a forge in construction (actually it finished sometime last night), and this weekend I'll probably get all my alts a level 2 garrison so I can have their profession buildings made well before I actually get around to leveling them, so I can stockpile materials for when I do.  Other than herbs, I think I can keep them mostly supplied with raw materials for their cooldowns just from my main.  My death knight might get bumped up in playtime just for herb gathering.  Once I have a follower in the herb garden, that may end up unnecessary, though.

I like the tie-in of hunting down a follower of the affiliated profession and, now that they've got the mission levels fixed, leveling them up to the point they can go to work for you in the profession buildings.  I'm also liking the "cook to learn more cooking," although not so much the five meats/filets to make anything.  The talbuk have been scrawny.

All in all, it's not a bad system; it's just frustrating after several years with only the major pieces requiring delayed gratification for crafting.  Titansteel cooldowns, living steel cooldowns, sure.  Scopes being gated by cooldowns?  Not really sold on that, but it's what we've got.  I've been reluctant to put a scope on my leveling ranged weapons, because who knows when they'll be replaced, and I need those gears for a gun and goggles.


I should have just bought the yak, though.  That 120k I stockpiled before the expansion isn't going to be needed for powerleveling  professions this time around, because there is no more powerleveling professions if you're already at 600.

On the gating flipside, thank God there's a cap on timber stockpiling, because I was starting to somewhat obsessively deforest Nagrand.

6.0 - Initial Thoughts

Patch day has come and gone, and besides Battleground queues being temporarily broken...

I need a 'mog worthy of her now.

First and foremost, my warrior looks amazing. When I first saw her updated model in the beta, I nearly cried. Troll hair has been notoriously... sad, and she just looks awesome now.

My wolf dances again. I started burning party grenades after watching my tauren’s facial expressions while dancing, and I had puppy out from a foray into the new UBRS, and... I may have kind of shouted in excitement to my husband.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I only changed 7 of about 40 faces: three unfortunate human eyebrows; two unexpectedly scowling gnomes; one overly perky night elf; and one troll that has so many awesome options now that I liked better. The rest I’ve been happy enough with, although I might go change some hairstyles now that they’re less blocky.

My rogue won the most-filled-crafting-tab. She’s the one that’s kept one stack of every type of herb.

Yes, that's Blood of Heroes.

I shoved so much stuff into void storage on my main hunter... and then went and did the same on my warlock, because wow, she had a lot of banked gear.

My shaman won the most-gold-from-currency-conversion: ~1400g.

I snagged the Bottomless Bag pattern for <100g. Thanks, combined Auction House!

And soloing... Just, wow. Last time I hopped into Dragon Soul 10N (about 3 weeks ago?) Morchok killed me since my pet wouldn’t tank him. I killed him in 9 seconds last night. Everything up to Spine was a cakewalk; Spine does some weird rolling stuff that’s going to take some work to get down smoothly.

I haven't tried out healing on my priest yet - I have heard mixed reviews.  I'll see how it goes later this week.

Timeless Armor

The Timeless Isle was an interesting addition to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid patch - non-raid content (mostly) that included parts of the legendary cloak quest, some world bosses with current tier for both PVE and PVP, and a reputation grind for another Pandarian dragon mount.

It also brought us Timeless armor tokens, account-bound tokens that we could use to gear up alts and fill in gaps until we got something better.  Lots and lots of Timeless armor tokens.

And you know what?  That's okay.  Timeless armor tokens have some uses beyond just vendoring once you've kitted out your alts.

New character on a new server?  No cash?  Send them a couple tokens!  Five gold a pop.

Short on sha crystals?  Send your extra tokens of the appropriate armor type to your enchanter, make a piece of gear, crush.

Now I'm working on the Bigger Bag achievement, so I'm getting tokens more again.  I should be able to restock my sha crystals, and I can gear up my death knight when she finally hits 90.  It's going to take a while - I got Huolon's mount on the wrong character.

5 Favorite Engineering Gadgets

I've been an engineer since I made my second hunter - the first is a leatherworker, and by the time I got to the second I knew I wanted to be able to make my own ammunition.  Ammunition is, of course, gone now, but that's still left me with a wealth of interesting gadgets.

I'm carrying a 36-slot engineering bag around me for all the ones I'm still toting around with me; after whittling down the list, these are my top five favorite:

5.  MOLL-E:  I looked high and low for a screenshot of my MOLL-E in action, but it's one of the more mundane gadgets I carry, so none immediately jumped out at me.  I'm sure it's in a boss-kill shot somewhere; I just haven't found it yet.  My favorite engineering gadgets fall into one of two categories:  Insanely practical (MOLL-E barely beat out the Thermal Anvil for #5) or randomly deadly.  MOLL-E hasn't killed me... yet.

4.  Zapthrottle Mote Extractor:  The mote extractor was the source of much random glee and obsessive zapping in the Burning Crusade:  it lets you suck elemental motes out of random balls of gas in various zones.  Water (originally life) in Zangarmarsh, mana in Netherstorm, air in Nagrand, shadow in Shadowmoon Valley.  And it puts them on your map now.

3.  Dimensional Ripper - Everlook: This is my favorite of the many transport items available to engineering, because one of the possible mishaps sets you on fire.  I was unprepared the first time this happened and quickly burnt to death; after that I learned to pay attention and eat immediately - percentage-based food was especially helpful.

I... actually have a lot of screenshots very similar to this one.

2.  Parachute Cloak (and its descendant, the Flexweave Underlay):  I love parachuting into places.  It's great now that I can do damage while doing so now - for Galakras I volunteer for the tower groups, and do one of the guns, because I can parachute down and hit stuff en route.  Way back when, I would use this as a shortcut into the Un'Goro Crater from Tanaris.

1. Loot-A-Rang:  This is the gadget I want on all my other toons.  Loot-A-Rang, Fetch, it's all good.  I have both on several hunters.  An excellent follow-up to the Booterang.


So, when I was making this list, I decided to thin out the explosives, since they're not really gadgets, per se, but they were quickly bloating the list.  So here's a bonus list of my favorite explosives:

5.  Explosive Sheep:  Sheep, that explode.  This should not be difficult to understand, especially if you're familiar with Worms Armageddon.

4.  Goblin Mortar (and the Mortar: Reloaded):  Because:

This isn't the only screenshot I have in this approximate position.

3.  Seaforium:  If you ever went through Dire Maul on a tribute run and couldn't get the key to drop...  Also allowed you to bypass that annoying slime tunnel in the Shattered Halls.  And open locked chests.  Handy when rogues are on the decline.  (Or when they hadn't leveled lockpicking, aeons ago.)

2.  Global Thermal Sapper Charge:  Just insert cackling here.  I used to use these in Wintergrasp.  I still have a couple, but the cooldown on them puts all your explosives on a five minute cooldown.

1.  Goblin Rocket Launcher:  We used to use this for the first pull in the Botanica, for the stun.  One of my favorite PVP deaths was getting sheeped by a gnome mage (I was on my priest), and then she follows it up by immediately pulling out this rocket launcher.  It was just awesome.

Still waiting for...

There's a lot of cool stuff coming in the expansion, which I'm guessing is 6-8 months off.  Some of the things I've wanted for a while now don't seem to be included, which isn't surprising, since it's just random stuff.  This is some of it, though.

Emerald drake mounts.  You get to sample them in Oculus, but there's no option to commit.

Such a lovely green.

Built-in UI customization, a la SWotR.  I'll admit I was a bit surprised the first time I flipped that toggle over there.  Still not really playing because of the zoom distance and such, but being able to move your stuff around out of the box is nice.

Only Tol'vir sites.  Seriously, I'm still farming this stupid drake recipe.  Okay, okay, I finally got the Sandstone drake recipe, but 21 canopic jars.  That's like, five complete mummies.  Being able to focus on one kind of archaeology would be much less TINY OASIS MOSAIC frustration inducing.  If my rogue could tile the bathroom in her garrison, she's already acquired enough to do it.

You can totally tell I only leveled archaeology on Kalimdor.

Gnome hunters.  Based on the recent racial changes for Warlords of Draenor excluding focus from the list of what Expansive Mind will affect, gnomes are still not hunters.

A Burning Crusade-era transporter malfunction... as close as we get.

Offspec

I'm a marksman hunter, yeah?  I have been for what, 7.5 years now?

And since the 5.0 patch, I've been doing raids and dungeons as beast mastery.  *shudder*

The results were pretty marked: an 8-10k increase in DPS on Zon'ozz probably says a lot at just how bad I am at marksman sometimes, especially when I'm macroless as BM and have been running with a cast sequence macro on MM.

It also suggests that maybe it's time for me to try running without the macro as MM and see how that goes, as well.  I really like Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot, and I miss them - especially Chimera Shot - in the BM spec.  I could get a self-heal through talents, but it's not the same - it's really just one more thing to cram onto my bars somewhere.  Sure, there's a trap pull-out now, but that's not particularly handy for keybinds.

On the BM front, I've picked up one of the gorgeous green cranes (Lucius) and a black goat (Aurelius - there is a pun there, but it's not really explainable outside my marriage).  They're not exotic pets, but they're pets.  I have four exotics at the moment - Skoll, a devilsaur, a worm (named Larry, because he just seemed like a Larry), and the cat from Hyjal that I'm probably going to dump because I really don't care about it and it's taking up space.  I kinda just tamed it because it was there while I was getting tokens to try for a scorchling.  The devilsaur is pretty, but he may get axed, as well.

In other news:  I spent the first... day and a half? of Mists doing pet battles to get to 250 pets.  Then I finally went off to leveling.  I'm up to 88, and I've discovered that Stampede will just make extra copies of pets if your 5 active slots aren't full.  (Good to know if you want to keep an empty slot to tame something pretty.)

Professions have been much less painful to skill up, other than the Spirit of Harmony requirements for damn near everything I actually want to make.  The engineering pet takes two - two - when you can make the inscription pets for some paper and ink.  I've gotten inscription, engineering, and alchemy maxed, and enchanting and blacksmithing are close.  Jewelcrafting is also close and is currently restricted mostly by my lack of blue gems to bump it up the rest of the way.  I'm not appreciating the inability to mine for gems without a rare-spawn pickaxe.  Cooking is maxed!  Well, the Way of the Oven is maxed.  Working on the others.  Overall, the guild just needs fishing and archaeology to get its heirloom pants.  I've been working some on fishing - it's at ~555 - but got distracted by clearing out the map in Krasarang.  I've caught one rare fish so far, but I'm still a Stranger to Nat Pagle. :(

Despite having played in beta, I'm still impressed by the size of the map and the sheer quantity of stuff to do crammed into it in Mists - the minigames add interesting layers, and the farm makes me want to get all my toons into Valley of the Four Winds.  I need either scallions or leeks for my next recipe. >.<

A New (for me) Warrior Transmog

Several weeks ago, after going through a cash-rebuilding spree following my splurge on Poseidus, I found myself awash in thorium and old world gems.  I was flipping through my various crafting books, looking for something that might make me more cash than the raw ore and gems themselves, when I (re)discovered the Enchanted Thorium Plate.  I was something of a completionist on my blacksmith for recipes 300 skill level or lower, so I did a lot of the blacksmithing quests and went through becoming a swordsmith on her.

So a couple weeks pass with me trying to unload the breastplate and pants on the auction house, but unfortunately my blacksmith is on Bronzebeard and not a fashion-conscious RP server.  What did this mean?  My warrior got a new look:

Boots, for a troll, are of course the hardest part, so I'm still using the Shinkicker boots I put on her as soon as transmogrification was put in.  A lot of the rest of the pieces changed, though.

• Helm:  I keep it hidden, so I haven't bothered.
• Cloak:  Similarly, I like the clean, no-cloak look on my warrior.
• Chest:  Enchanted Thorium Breastplate.  There are some "same model as" options, but none of them have the attacked choker.  I really like the black/gold/steel coloring and the arm detail.
• Legs:  Enchanted Thorium Leggings.  I like the color contrast between the leggings and the breastplate; same color scheme, but the black leggings give the set a better look than if the steel were dominate here.  These pants are decidedly low-riders if you forgo a belt.
• Shoulders: Stormforged Shoulders.  These are a great color match for the Enchanted Thorium look, although they do sharply highlight the improvement in graphics detail between Vanilla WoW and Cataclysm.
• Feet:  My beloved Shinkicker Boots.  A few other boots still available in the game (Gothic Sabatons, Heavy Lamellar Boots) have the same clean lines, but the color doesn't go quite as well.
• Hands:  Ymirjar Lord's Handguards.  I was having trouble finding gloves I liked to go with the set, but flipping through my banked items, I found my tier 10 gloves.  The color isn't a perfect match, but the overall look (dark, metallic, with yellow/gold scrollwork) works overall.
• Wrists:  Since they're hidden by the gloves, I didn't bother transmogrifying the wrists.
• Waist:  The old-school Belt of Might.  I am loving this belt and finding that it goes with damned near anything I want to dress up my troll in.
• Shield:  FOR THE HORDE!  Ahem, still the Tyrant's Shield.  (If you follow the link over to WoWhead, I have the pants... if you can call them pants... in that first screenshot in the bank, but opted against having my troll's cheeks free to the wind.  I'm curious now what they'd look like on a tauren.)
• Sword:  Blazing Rapier.  The sword, like the gloves, was something I was having trouble finding something I liked that worked through the set.  But, as I mentioned, my blacksmith is a swordsmith, and lo and behold, the Blazing Rapier.  It doesn't show up in the screen-grab from the armory, but if you look at the WoWhead link, you can see that it has its own fire aura.  This was especially awesome because I hate how (the admittedly cheap) Mending glow looked.  (If I can get a weapon of a higher ilvl than 346, I'll put something better on it.)

Gem & Sockets

Which gems activate which sockets?

• Red socket: red, orange, purple, prismatic
• Yellow socket: yellow, orange, green, prismatic
• Blue socket: blue, green, purple, prismatic
• Meta socket: meta
• Cogwheel socket: special cogwheels from engineering vendors

Diggerest

So I've got beta access, and Diablo 3 beta access, and I've gotten Duskhawk to 86 on the beta.  And what am I doing?

Archaeology on the live realms. >.<

This weekend I checked off Nerubian, Vrykul, Draenei, and Troll completions (I already had Orc done), which means I finished the Blessing of the Old God, the Nifflevar Bearded Axe, the Last Relic of the Argus (the most awesome thing I've gotten from archaeology so far), and, ahem, Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds.

I love the model for Zin'rokh.  I loved it back in Vanilla (not that I ever got it), and it's still one of my favorite sword models.  Surprisingly, the Troll completion was less frustrating than the Draenei one.  Having finished out the Orcs and everything of the Draenei once except the Last Relic, I had to go through thirteen more common item completions to get the Last Relic into my queue.  Zin'rokh?  I was actually trying to whittle down my only half-done list of Dwarf artifacts.  (Dwarf is still 25/31... I keep getting Fossil sites.)  At least the Dwarf artifacts got me to Diggerest.

Tol'vir I know is going to take forever.  I've completed all of the common ones at least once, and none of the rares, and I keep spawning Troll and Night Elf sites.  With my massive number of completed Night Elf commons, Tyrande's Favorite Doll has to be soon, right?  Right?  The Fossilized Raptor has been the same way for me.

I think the archaeology rares were a good idea in theory, but in practice?  Hardly anyone gets them while they're relevant to the current tier of equipment.  The fun items are far more... fun as rares.  Maybe the usable, Binds-to-Account equipment should have been less than epic, but more common, just to make it useful when you find it.

Beta Mists, 6

Oh, look, a patch.  Download was surprisingly fast.

Hey, Hadrian is back to his normal size!  Unfortunately it doesn't look like this means the pet talents are in yet.

The slicky quest in the Jade Forest that wasn't letting me pick up the exploded slickies seems to work now.  There are spinning turtles here.

Whoops, phasing error.  Maybe I have to complete some more quests to make my turn-in person show up.  But now!  Going in search of pets!

Aw, you can't actually collect battle pets yet.  Sorry, Mr. Mouse!

So far, browsing through, a few pets have abilities in.  The Albino Snake, Jubling, Hawk Owl, Nuts, Armadillo Pup, Baby Blizzard Bear, Core Hound Pup, Crimson Whelpling, Mechanical Squirrel, Onyxian Whelpling, Peddlefeet, Strand Crawler, Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, Willy, Bananas, Gurky, Lil' K.T., Mini Tyrael, Pandaren Monk, Phoenix Hatchling, Spectral Tiger Cub, Stone Armadillo, and Zergling all have abilities, although some of them are obviously test abilities.

Jacob the Test Seagull, with his test abilities

Crimson Whelping - pet abilities

I don't know where Bubbles is acquired, but dude.  Also, the Dimetradon Hatchling appears to have some camera distance issues.  And, dude, the Fetish Shaman?  The otter pup is absolutely adorable.

Bubbles

Fetish shaman

Otter pup

Whoops, flew around, and Hadrian shrunk again.

Checked in at the mining trainer; I really hope Trillium's materials get nerfed down to one of each ore.

First new metal - Ghost Iron

Second new metal - Trillium

Hm, the specialization panes have had their information reduced to just the main spells.  I liked knowing what the specialization spells/abilities were and when you get them.  I also don't know what my mastery ability is - and I have no way of telling what the other specs mastery is without actually respec'ing.  (Feedback submitted on the forum, woo.)

The current incarnation of the specialization pane.

I seem to still have the Master Marksman ability (Steady Shots are still stacking it and proc'ing Fire!), but I can't find anything in my spellbook that tells me I have it.  Oh, wait, there is is!  So I'm still supposed to have it. :)

I went to check my priest's talents, and it's consistently giving me a fatal error.

Logged on the Tauren monk to check what the trainer was like, and, well:

I foresee a lot of new monks falling off the bridge.

Okay, so I went to look at the warlock again, and they've fixed destro's mana regen spell (Chaotic Energy, which is passive), and the new play style is hella fun.  Burning Embers can be used to empower a Soul Fire nuke or to heal - which is helpful, since carrying Burning Embers damages you.  So far I've gotten an 83k Soul Fire, and I don't even know how that compares to live.

Chaotic Energy - Destruction's mana regeneration

Also, there's Fire and Brimstone.  It uses a Burning Ember to splash around Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate, or a Curse - so if you're going to need to AOE, save up an Ember for Fire & Brimstone, and then pop your dot/debuff/nuke of choice on the group and then, if needed, you can follow up with Shadowfury or Rain of Fire.  So you could AOE up Curse of Elements or Immolate, both of which will buff your Rain of Fire, or Conflagrate if you just want to daze them, or Incinerate if that's all it will take to kill or mostly kill them.

Fire & Brimstone, sort of like Soulburn just for Destro

Huh, nice little warlock bug.  Shoot keeps trying to turn on, all by itself, even with no wand equipped.  And keeping me from casting Rain of Fire without manually canceling it.  (Added to the bug thread for it.)

Replay Value

I played through Diablo II (including the expansion) all the way to the end at least four times; I made new characters and played them into the fourth or fifth chapter quite a bit more. Diablo II was a solo player game for me, and I never did its "hard modes" - I didn't take a character I had beaten Baal on and replay the content with that same character.

I did, however, enjoy running through the game with a new character, to try out a different class, or a different playstyle. (Charged bolt sorceress! Woo! Actually, the Amazon with charged-bolt-releasing gear was probably the most fun charged bolt experiment...)

I'm bringing this up for a couple reasons. Firstly, I've got a fairly serious stable of alts: 9 characters on my main server are level 80+. WoW is so much more of a time-sink than Diablo II was; getting characters to similar levels of investment and playability would require more time than my commutes 45-minutes both ways, works 50+ hours a week life allows. Secondly, WoW, to me, is the original Diablo III.

Right, right, Diablo III is still in development, and Azeroth is most certainly not the setting for Diablo II. They're entirely separate franchises.

At the same time, there's a lot overlap in the character classes and basic user interface design; paladins have auras and can heal or tank; barbarians and warriors both have a couple of different fighting styles and utilize various shouts (although I really miss the shout that got me potions... and dual wielding throwing knives, which was awesome); assassins and rogues both use a combo point/finisher style; amazon + druid = hunter + druid; necromancers and warlocks share a few traits; and of course sorceresses and mages.

WoW built on and expanded a lot of what I was already familiar with in Diablo II, which made switching to it as my graphical game of habit fairly easy. (I was replaying Diablo II up until I started WoW, and I've still gone back to it a couple times.)

What WoW didn't initially do was make it easy for me to "replay" it; this wasn't so much a matter of the content not being accessible from scratch, and hey, I could mail my alts money! No, the problem was the time sink. Leveling took time, traveling was slow, and the barriers to entry at higher levels were pretty steep.

For the most part, Blizzard has been really good at improving on WoW's replay value: between changes to the leveling experience and the introduction of heirlooms, a new character doesn't have to repeat content I didn't like, nor do I have to slog through every kill-and-collect quest I did five years ago on another character. Running dungeons lets me collect points for gear, so if I decide to go to alt raids on a character three tiers in, I have a reasonable route to gearing her up.

The biggest remaining time-sink in alt leveling? Reputation grinds. Oh, but there's tabards! Sure, and the tabards help. But I don't run dungeons on my alts nearly as much as I do on my main, and I can hit 85 in two or two and a half zones. Hyjal is nice and fast, and Deepholm is generally the follow-up, at least until I hit a level to go to Uldum or Twilight Highlands.

Skipping out of Deepholm, however, no matter how tired I may be of some of the quests there, locks me out of shoulder enchants on my alts. In Wrath they ameliorated this problem by making reputation based enchants bind-on-account; you could just mail them to alts. It remains to be seen if Blizzard will do so again this expansion. If they don't? I'm pretty sure my alts will never have anything better than the blue shoulder enchant... once I drag them all back into Deepholm to finish the zone and open up the Therazane vendors. I don't do dailies on my alts unless it's for profession tokens.

The Sons of Hodir were the barrier to entry for non-inscription shoulder enchants in Wrath, and you couldn't just waltz into Storm Peaks and start working for them. But maybe three hours of questing and I could unlock their dailies (including turning in boatloads of tokens for fast tracking exalted, prior to the BoA change). Therazane is buried so far in Deepholm (it's the last quest chain, no?) that it takes me much longer to get to and open. The time invested/reward ratio is steeper than my patience is willing to bear six years in.

Don't get me wrong - WoW's replay experience has gotten a zillion times better than it was originally, or (ugh) in Burning Crusade, when running heroics on my alts meant a rep grind again. (Most of them weren't too bad to get to honored, but the heroic dungeons in Auchindoun seemed terrible to unlock.) But tying profession recipes to reputations? *grumble*

For the longest time, Sporeggar was my rogue's (my third most played character's) only exalted reputation... because she was an herbalist and could farm the hibiscus. (Tiny sporebat, omg.) Yeah, yeah, flask recipes on reputation vendors... no, thanks. Don't have that kind of time.

Five and a three-halves toons into this expansion, I really don't have the patience for reputation grinds anymore.

Unexpected delights

Hm... I was especially emo yesterday, no? Today, something more positively reflective!

With the change to focus, et al, that hunters underwent, quite a few changes didn't become apparent until I'd started playing a while with them. Many of these were awesome.

You can Multi-Shot while moving! For the longest time, Multi-Shot had a built in cast time of .5 seconds, which meant you had to stand still for it. Now you can spam the button as long as you have focus while desperately backing up and hoping that the pet-targeted Misdirect you just cast will eventually stick one or more of the bazillion mobs you're trying to get at range with back on your bear/crab/etc. Multi-Shot is one of my long-time favorite skills, and I was including it in my regular rotation in Burning Crusade before an Arcane Shot/Multi-Shot/Steady Shot rotation was de rigueur. There is nothing quite so satisfying as being the unorthodox player whose methods suddenly become, for your spec, the orthodoxy. True, enchanting my 2-handed weapons for Int, or getting +mana librams on my T1 (more mana = less feigning to drink mid-boss), never caught on, but leveling in "of the Falcon" (agility/intellect) gear was more appreciated once the Int -> Attack Power talent went in. Of course, those days are gone.

That green and orange cat in Felwood is tameable! No, seriously! I've named him Octavian, and he's currently my DPS pet in 5-man's just because the color scheme is so hilarious. I need to team him up with a troll feral druid for something...

Glyph of Misdirect is amazing. I mentioned this in my macro post a couple weeks ago - if you're soloing without Glyph of Misdirect, you're missing out on the awesomeness of sending your pet into a pack of a gazillion mobs, dropping Mend Pet on it, and alternately spamming Misdirect and Multi-Shot. If you are like me, you will forget the first two Misdirects and end up in the scenario described under the Multi-Shot entry above.

Trap Launcher is surprisingly fun, if still clunky to use. I have not yet developed good macros for making Trap Launcher more stream-lined, but being able to toss an Explosive Trap on a tank for non-elite adds, or to throw my Snake Trap over at an add on a healer to hopefully pull the aggro off onto the snakes, is really handy. I wish Trap Launcher + Freezing Trap were more useful for something besides crowd-controlled pulling, but it seems like every loose add I want to trap is bleeding or poisoned or burning or in the throes of agony from a curse. Hence the substitution of snakes for adds on the healers.

Camouflage is quite fun, although I've yet to use it for its supposed strength, PVP. Mostly I pop it on in 5-man's as we're moving towards or around groups to avoid my huge cow ass pulling something. (I had problems with that in Nexus for a long time. >.>) The additional bonus of cloaking my pet is great if I don't have the cat out.

The fox pet dances! I got a Black Fox a couple weeks ago (from Redridge) and named him Hawkins. If you don't get that joke, I am disappointed in your movie tastes. "Play" + "Move To" was highlighted by someone else, but for especial hilarity, go to Thunder Bluff and dance your fox back and forth across the pond. I was giggling way too much.

Scatter Shot is a baseline skill! This wasn't a surprise, but despite having it sitting there on my bars, I had mostly forgotten about it until I went to Tol Barad the other day (successful defense, woo!) and oh, God, Silencing is still on cooldown there it was! It was a favored shot while leveling, and having it around again is great. Hawkeye, the other talent Survival stole from Marksman years ago, also sort of went baseline - most of the damaging hunter shots have longer range, although Multi-Shot, Silencing Shot, and Tranquilizing Shot still seem to have the old base range, which means on fights you're going to need them, you have to make sure to move up enough for them. Basically, the two formerly Markman talents that made me put points in Survival in Burning Crusade and Wrath are now mine for free.

Hey, I can get Improved Mend Pet! I don't know if I'll keep it when I put together a raiding spec (and my devilsaur and worm are doomed to a life in the stables), but it's been coveted for a good four years, so it's definitely staying in my soloing spec.

A non-huntery unexpected delight were the quests in Uldum. I love Vashj'ir - it's gorgeous, and the ecological details were greatly appreciated. The ultra-violet canyon is beautiful, and for some reason the secluded emptiness of the Abandoned Reef makes it one of my favorite places. (It is also where Ghostcrawler roams - beware the Nerfbat.) But Uldum - it took a little bit to get into, but as soon as I ran into Harrison Jones, the quest chain just skyrocketed in its level of awesomeness. The end of the chain (spoiler) was unexpected but had me laughing. The reworked Silverpine and Hillsbrad are also amazing for their quests - Siliverpine for the drama, Hillsbrad for the comedy.

There are always disappointments with changes (Aimed Shot's more or less neutering is one of them - if it's going to be only for opening or a proc, at least make it hit hard enough for it to be special - it's our friggin' specialization skill), but I am enjoying most of the changes.

Engineering!!

I'm sure this is prettier over on MMO-Champion somewhere, but I transcribed this straight out of the beta today. I missed the first couple skill level requirements.

Note: Tinkers can be discovered while making other things.

• Authentic Jr. Engineer Goggles (Equip: Makes you appear more gifted and attractive.)
• R19 Threatfinder (Use: Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged hit rating by 88.)
• Volatile Energy Converter (Part)
• Handful of Obsidium Bolts (Part)
• (455) Quickflip Deflection Plates (Tinker: Permanently attaches quickflip deflection plates onto gloves, allowing you to increase your armor by 1500 for 12 sec. Gloves can only be activated once every minute. Attaching teh armor webbing causes the gloves to become soulbound. An Engineering skill of 500 is required to keep the webbing active.)
• (455) Volatile Seaforium Blastpack (Use: Blasts open locked doors and chests that require lockpicking skill of 525 and below.)
• (460) Safety Catch Removal Kit (Use: Removes the safety mechanism from a bow or gun, increasing its ranged haste rating by 88. Using this kit causes the bow or gun to become soulbound.)
• (465) High-Powered Bolt Gun (Tool/Use: Fires several charged bolts at an enemy for 6800 to 10200 damage and briefly interrupts casting. Consumes a Handful of Obsidium Bolts each time it's fired. (2 Min Cooldown))
• (475) De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion (Use: Teaches you how to summon this companion.)
• (475) Personal world Destroyer (Use: Teaches you how to summon this companion.)
• (525) Cardboard Assassin (Permanently attaches a tiny device on your belt, allowing you to create a Cardboard Assassin that enemies will attack. Lasts 15 sec. Can be used once every 5 min. Can only be used on your own belt,a nd doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Requires at least 500 skill in Engineering to use.)
• (525) Deadly Bio-Optic Killshades (BoP, Mail, Head, 1977 Armor, 301 Agility, 512 Stamina, Meta Socket, Cogwheel Socket (2), Socket Bonus 20 Agility, Requires Level 81, Item Level 359, Requires Engineering (525))
• (525) Elementium Dragonling (BoE, Unique-Equipped, Trinket, Blue Socket, Requires level 80, Item Level 333, Requires Engineering (475), Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 212. Use: Activates your Elementium Dragonlin to fight for you for 1 min. (5 Min Cooldown))
• (525) Elementium Toolbox (36 slot engineering bag)
• (525) Finely-Tuned Throat Needler (BoP, Crossbow, 1265-2350 Damage, Speed 2.90, (623.3 dps), 107 Agility, 161 Stamina, Requires Level 85, Item Level 359, Equip: Improves haste rating by 77. Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 63.)
• (525) Gnomish X-Ray Scope (Use: Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged critical strike rating by 88. Attaching this scope to a ranged weapon causes it to become soulbound.)
• (525) Goblin Barbecue (Use: Set out the barbecue to feed your entire raid or party! Restores 64903 health and 45000 mana over 30 sec. If you spend at least 10 seconds eating you will become well fed and gain 60 Stamina and 60 in another useful stat for 1 hour.)
• (525) Grounded Plasma Shield (Tinker: Permanently attaches grounded plasma generators to your belt, allowing you to activate a powerful shield that absorbs 16200 to 19800 damage. Can only be used on your own belt, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Requires at least 500 skill in Engineering to use.)
• (525) Heat-Treated Spinning Lure (Requires Fishing (250), Use: When applied to your fishing pole, increases Fishing by 150 for 5 minutes.)
• (525) Invisibility Field (Tinker: Permanently attaches thousands of tiny mirrors to your belt, allowing you to turn invisible while out of combat. Can be activated once every 5 min. Can only be used on your own belt, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Requires at least 500 skill in Engineering to use.)
• (525) Kickback 5000 (BoP, Gun, 1221-2269 Damage, Speed 2.80, 623.3 dps, 87 Agility, 161 Stamina, Red socket, Socket bonus 10 Agility, Requires Level 85, Item Level 359, Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 73, Equip: Improves haste rating by 49.)
• (525) Loot-a-Rang (BoU, Requires Engineering (125), Use: Retrieves the loot from a nearby corpse. (10-Sec Cooldown))
• (525) Lure Master Tackle Box (BoE, 36 Slot Tackle Box)
• (525) Overpowered Chicken Splitter (BoP, Bow, 1121-2269 Damage, Speed 2.80, 623.3 dps, 107 Agility, 161 Stamina, Requires Level 85, Item Level 359, Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 77, Equip: Improves haste rating by 63.)
• (525) Spinal Healing Injector (Tinker: Permanently attaches a specialized injector kit to your gloves, allowing you to inject a Mythical Healing Potion directly into your bloodstream for increased effect. Only a skilled engineer can activate the modified gloves. Can only be attached to your own gloves, and doing so causes the gloves to become soulbound.)
• (525) Synapse Springs (Tinker: Permanently attaches synapse springs to a pair of gloves, allowing a skilled engineer to increase their Intellect by 480 for 12 sec. The gloves can only be activated every minute.)
• (525) Tazik Shocker (Tinker: Permanently attaches a tazik shocker to your gloves, allowing a skilled engineer to deal 1049 to 1282 Nature damage to an enemy at long range. The shocker can only be used once every 2 min. Can only be used on the engineer's gloves,a dn doing so will cause them to become soulbound.)
• (525) Volatile Thunderstick (BoP, Gun, 705-1309 Damage, Speed 2.8, 359.7 dps, 62 Agility, 93 Stamina, Requires level 83, Item Level 300, Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 41, Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 41.)
• (525) Z50 Mana Gulper (Tinker: Permanently attaches a specialized grip to your gloves, allowing you to power-drink a Mythical Mana Potion for increased effect. Only a skilled engineer can activate the modified gloves. Can only be used on the engineer's gloves, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.)

Undergeared, sure

So Mabs hit 80 on Thursday, 5 minutes before I had to log over to Duskhawk for Icecrown-25. The guild she's in took her along to Trial of the Crusader-25 today to fill an otherwise empty slot.

Mabs is wearing mostly leatherworking blues. So, yeah, her DPS wasn't spectacular - mostly around 2k, somewhere up over 3k on the Twin Val'kyr thanks to empowerments - but I at least know how not to die.

What I do find interesting is that at that level of gear, Dusk was doing about 1300 DPS in Naxxramas. It's interesting to see how much better player I am now than I was about a year and a half ago.

We didn't get Anub'arak (the perils of an alt raid), but afterwards I was able to get the T9 shoulders for her. Not that I could find a Tenuous Dreadstone for them over there (on the Alliance side).

It may take some time to spread the Agi/mp5 gospel before Cataclysm rewrites the book.

Hunter F.A.Q.

So a couple days ago my brother texts me about hunters and Armor Penetration. I'm not a theory crafter - I really haven't got the time what with everything else I do - but I do tend to remember what I read. As such, I'm going to compile the questions I get asked a lot. I'll link back to sources when I can find them.


Q: What's your rotation?
A: After Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, and Rapid Fire, Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Readiness when Rapid Fire falls off, Rapid Fire again, and resume Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Kill Shot as soon as it's available. When moving I may throw in Arcane.

Keeping in mind that I use a /castsequence macro with Kill Command and Silencing also tied to it, if I move, it tends to get lost in the Steadies. So if I have to move, I hit the rotation manually to resynchronize it with the macro.

Q: Does the shot rotation macro work?
A: If you're as bad at doing the rotation manually as I am, yes.

Q: What should I gem?
A: As Beast Mastery, either Attack Power (AP) or Armor Penetration (ArP), depending on your base ArP. As Survival, Agility (Agi). As Marksman, Agi or ArP depending on your base ArP.

The level of ArP at which you switch gemming to ArP is about 400 for BM, and about 800 for MM.

If you want to match socket bonuses, for blue sockets you'll want purple gems with Stamina for BM or Surv, and mp5 for MM. Yes, mp5. Stamina does nothing for a MM hunter's DPS. For yellow sockets you'll want orange gems with either hit or crit rating, depending if you need the hit rating.

Q: Do I really want to drop Arcane Shot as MM at some point?
A: Probably, yes, after you have about 450 base ArP. Drop the talents, drop it out of your stationary rotation, and pick up Improved Steady Shot if you don't already have it.

I don't know if it's worth dropping from BM's rotation at any point, since you probably don't have the points to improve it anyway.

Q: Is it worth hitting Steady Shot over Auto Shot?
A: Steady doesn't clip Auto anymore, so yes, spam it. Your talents and its scaling make it more valuable. If you're not casting something, you're losing DPS. Push a button, dammit.

Q: Haste - should I gem it?
A: No. Just, no.

Q: Where'd you get your wolf?
A: Mulgore. He didn't bark when I tamed him (March 2006).



That's all I've got for the moment - I'll add more as they crop up.

Ready to Raid? Maybe, Maybe Not

I'm not particulary familiar with either Beast Mastery or Survival; I dabbled in them for a few levels at a time here and there (mostly on my Elves), but I drift back towards Marksman pretty quickly. (I like big numbers, I guess. Chimera Shot is critting in five digits now, and it's hard to back away from that.) Despite that, though, I've read enough that I think I can exposit on some general information for more than just my favorite tree.

The question, of course, is, "Am I ready for Icecrown Citadel (10/25)?"

Your raw output will probably give you the best idea, based on the guidelines of the raids you run with. Websites abound which will tell you what your gear has you ready for. The one I look at most often nowadays is WoW Heroes; it gives a good breakdown of where your gear lands you in terms of where you're likely to be successful.

How well you're doing versus how well your toon can do are different matters. If you don't have a DPS meter, both Recount and Skada are pretty accurate. Recount has pie charts that I'm partial to, but Skada is more modular and lightweight, so you may prefer one or the other. If you're not familiar with Elitist Jerks or have no idea how to use Excel, Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer takes Shandara's hunter spreadsheet and puts it into a web form - import yourself, check the rotations for shots you do/don't use, and hit Update DPS without buffs to see what your baseline, unbuffed DPS maximum potential is. Then, while unbuffed, take yourself and your pet over to one of the boss level Target Dummies, reset your DPS meter, and go at it for at least 5 minutes. (Hunter's Mark having a 5-minute duration is a good way to guesstimate your timer if you don't have another convenient way to measure.) To cleanly end the test, if you have Serpent Sting up, put up Scorpid Sting, pull your pet back, and Feign as quickly as you can in succession. Otherwise Serpent Sting will keep ticking and lower your meter's reading.

Compare your target dummy meter with your theoretical number from Zeherah's analyzer, and you'll have a good idea of your stand-still numbers; you can extrapolate it upwards by figuring what percentage of your maximum you're hitting (I hover around 90% on target dummy tests), then go to Zeherah's analyzer and enable best raid buffs and debuffs, take the percentage you're pushing, and you can guesstimate your ideal 25-man stand-still output.

You don't normally get to see these numbers on bosses, though sometimes things like the Icebound Wards will approach them, or, if you get your movement down cleanly, you'll get close on Festergut. They will tell you if there's something seriously wrong with your execution, however. And if your raid leaders tell you they want to see 5k minimum, and your analysis on Zeherah's says your toon's maximum output is 4k with raid buffs, no matter how good you are, you've got some work to do.

So, what can you do to bring your numbers up?

The first, and fastest, thing is to look at your talents. Other people have done the legwork, and there's a lot of information out there. The summary is basically that, at the highest gear levels, the top tree is Marksman, then Survival, then Beast Mastery for raiding output. All the trees can meet the minimum enrage timer thresholds for fights like Festergut, but, especially if you want to raid as Beast Mastery, you need to know what you're doing. If your execution isn't as tight, you'll probably want to try each spec and see which one meshes best with your capabilities. Don't just toss points wherever; respecing is expensive. Poke around the various hunter blogs (I link a whole bunch over to the right) and Elitist Jerks and see what good options are for the tree you're using. (For example, some distribution of 7/57/7 is the most common Marksman raiding spec, but going through Aspect Mastery in BM or including Hawkeye in Survival isn't uncommon or wrong.)

If there are talents you absolutely love but which don't help you with raiding, consider dual-specing to have the talents you enjoy most on your own time in one spec and the talents that make you most productive in a raid in the other.

How are your glyphs? Some glyphs that are great for soloing aren't so hot for raiding, and if you're going to stick with one spec rather than dual spec, you might want to invest in a stock to swap back and forth.

• Marksman will probably want Serpent Sting and two of Steady Shot, the Hawk, Kill Shot, or Chimera Shot.
• Beast Mastery will want some combination of Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, the Hawk, Kill Shot, and Bestial Wrath.
• Survival will probably want Explosive Shot and two of the Hawk, Kill Shot, Steady Shot, or Serpent Sting.

What pet are you raiding with? As cute and lovable as your spore bat might be, a wolf (top choice in most cases because of the AP buff), cat, raptor, or even a wasp or worm for raid debuffs will probably be a better choice for your raiding pet.

Are you pushing the right buttons? Rotation is one of the hardest things to fix if you've been playing a long time; if you've got some bad habits ingrained, it might take a while to break yourself out of them. Unlike some people, I don't consider being a clicker to be a bad habit, but if that turns out to be the core of your problems, unfortunately I don't have a recommended way to break out of the habit (at least for a ranged toon). Kill Shot at 20% and below is important; Kill Shot has edged me over someone I was competing with on meters because when it crits, it's sweet, and it's end-of-fight burst not everyone can match.

• Marksman will, at the beginning of a fight, put up Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting, pop Rapid Fire, hit Chimera, Aimed, possibly Arcane, and Steady Shot until Rapid Fire wears off, hit Readiness, pop Rapid Fire again, and then fall into the Chimera, Aimed, possibly Arcane, Steady x3 or x4 rotation until Rapid Fire and Readiness are off cooldown. I say possibly Arcane because after you get about 500 Armor Penetration (ArP), you want to drop Arcane from your rotation (and talents), because you'll get a better return from physical damage at that point (Steady Shot, Piercing Shots).
• Beast Mastery starts out with Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting, then falls into an Aimed, Arcane, Steady rotation; remember to refresh Serpent Sting as needed. I don't know enough about Beast Mastery to tell you when the ideal Bestial Wrath usage is, but if you're set on raiding as BM, one of the hunter blogs over to the right should have information. At some level of ArP, Beast Mastery will also drop Arcane from the rotation.
• Survival will put up Hunter's Mark and Serpent Sting to start, then go through Explosive, Black Arrow, Aimed (or Multi depending on spec), Steady, refreshing Serpent Sting as needed and taking advantage of Lock and Load procs whenever possible. Arcane isn't even on Survival's radar.

If you're pushing the right buttons but not getting the numbers you think you should be, find a hunter who plays a similar spec and does put out the numbers you want and see if they can help you figure out where things are going wrong. (Browse logs for your server if you don't know of someone to go to, or try the WoW hunter forums.)

How's your hit rating? You want 8%, which is ~263 hit rating without talents; if you put points in Focused Aim it can be as low as ~164 hit rating. This is the only stat that has a hard and fast cap number that you really have to worry about hitting - everything else is either capless or isn't worth going to the trouble of capping unless you're in a top end raiding guild (in which case I really hope you don't need to be reading my guide).

Are you gemming and enchanting right for your spec and gear level? Different specs use different gems, and at different gear levels, some gems are better than others. Meta gem requirements need to be met, as well. Nightmare Tears are always good options for turning on a meta if you're gemming straight through with your best gem stat. Your meta gem is probably going to be a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, but if for some reason it's not, it's probably a Chaotic Skyflare Dimaond. If your hit rating is low or you don't want to invest talent points in Focused Aim, a few pure hit rating gems may be required. If you need to for socket bonus or your meta gem, pair it with Agility (Marksman or Survival), Attack Power (Beast Mastery), Stamina (Beast Mastery or Survival), or mp5 (Marksman).

• Marksman hunters want to gem for Agility until they hit about 800 passive ArP on gear. After about 800 ArP, gemming for ArP will give better returns than Agility. If you want to flesh out your socket bonuses (I'm a little compulsive like that, too), pair Agility with Crit or Hit (depending on your needs) for yellow sockets or mp5 (yes, mp5) for blue sockets.
• Beast Mastery hunters generally gem for Attack Power, but they can start gemming for ArP at a much lower threshold than Marksman. Crit, Hit, and probably Stamina (more pet health) are good secondary parts for orange and purple gems for socket bonuses.
• Survival is similar to pre-ArP Marksman, except that Stamina being a DPS gain for Survival means they will want that instead of mp5 on any purple gems they need. Agility stays good for Survival since they will never switch to ArP.

For the most part, you're going to want to enchant along the same priority as your gems: Agility for Marksman or Survival, Attack Power for Beast Mastery. If a slot only has one or the other, either is fine. Your head enchant will come from the Ebon Blade quarter master, and unless you're a scribe, you'll want to grind reputation with the Sons of Hodir for your shoulder enchant. (It's not as bad as it used to be - after getting to Honored, you can buy about 400-500 Relics of Ulduar and pop up to Exalted.) Beast Mastery and Marksman hunters will probably want Icescale Leg Armor, while Survival may opt for Frosthide. Take advantage of your profession's special buffs - cloak and glove enchants for engineers, extra sockets for blacksmiths, better gems for jewelcrafters, etc.

What's your ammunition? If you're still using vendor-sold ammunition, see if you can't find an engineer willing to become your supplier of higher-end ammunition.

Do you die too often? No matter how theoretically awesome your toon is, dead DPS is 0 DPS. Are you pulling aggro? Get a threat meter or turn on the in-game threat warnings. Omen is the tried-and-true in threat meters, and Skada can act as one, as well. Get the Feign Death minor glyph. (And, you know, use Feign. A lot.) Other than persistant damage (damage that hits the whole raid no matter what, or things like Saurfang's Boiling Blood), DPS shouldn't be taking damage. Yes, when you get a slime on Rotface, you'll take some damage, and your healers should keep you up long enough to merge the slime and get back to DPSing. But taking damage from standing in the slime pools would be your fault. Damage from standing in fires (fiery, poisony, or otherwise) is your own fault, and don't blame your healers if you die from it. If you're not seeing damaging effects, check your graphics settings. Turn down what you can live without if you need to for system performance issues, and make sure projected textures is turned on. Make sure you have Deadly Boss Mods or a similar addon to tell you about damaging effects as they get close. (For example, DBM will tell you when Putricide is throwing Maleable Goo at or near you.)

If you're doing everything else right but just have low ilevel gear, you'll need to invest some time running Heroics and older raids, and then spending badges. Trial of the Crusader runs aren't uncommon still - the raid is trashless and a good run can take less than an hour. If your guild or raid group isn't hitting it still, a PUG on your server probably is. Weekly raids, either in-guild or PUGs, will land you bonus badges and sometimes shots at gear you may need. Onyxia can be a fast, fun run with good gear (particularly a helm and guns). Even if you don't PVP, the Vault of Archavon in Wintergrasp drops tier gear.

If you're not sure what gear to go for, hit up some of the hunter blogs linked to the right, or WoW.com, and look for the various hunter gear lists. Or, do what I do, and go to WoWhead, pull up the Item->Armor->Mail->Slot I'm looking to upgrade and filter by stuff with Attack Power. Then I sort by ilevel, find what I've got, and see what's available that's better that is reasonably attainable.

And when you get to a raid, remember:

• Bring your flasks, food, and any other self-buffage reagents.
• Be stocked up on ammunition.
• Be on time, and try not to need a summon.
• Remember to swap into your raid spec and pull out your raid pet if you have more than one of either.
• Pee before you go! (To quote my husband.)