Mend Pet

So here’s where I ask for advice from my trustworthy hunter friends.

Once we finish Malygos tonight, and I replace my Fool’s Trial with Favour of the Dragon Queen, I’ll be sitting at 244 hit.  That’s 19 below the hit cap.

Now, I know that needs to be fixed.  244 is much too low.

I’ve got two options.

Unfortunately, I don’t have Grim Toll.  It dropped this week, but since I wasn’t planning to use it -immediately- I rolled offspec on it, and instead of replacing my SoRDB, it went to replace MoT on a hunter who already had FotFF.  It’s my own fault, I suppose… I need to be more greedy and roll need on stuff even if I might not use it right away.

Anyway, like I was saying… 2 options – neither of which is Grim Toll.

I have a +16 Hit gem sitting in my bag.  I’ve got a +16 Crit gem hanging out on my chest piece.  I could easily replace it, but I’d still be 3 below hit cap.

My other option is to replace Crusher with Precision on my gloves.  That’ll put me exactly 1 above the cap – but it’ll cost me a boatload of AP.

According to the spreadsheet, my best option is to replace Crusher.  What do you think?

I know there has been discussion of hit rating on the PTR and how it affects pets… should I take this into account?

This week was a strange week for Unemployed.  Some of our raid members decided to take much needed breaks, and this is a good time for it.  We worked our butts off on Sarth last week, and we all need to take some time to work on our strategies and practice our skills.

So we went to 10-mans, both for achievements and to observe and pinpoint any problems we might be having.

Since I’m 100% perfect, I felt like I didn’t need to go.    Just kidding.  I’m working 10 hour days at work right now, and I was hoping to sit out if possible because I need time to take care of myself.  So I got to take a bit of a break on Tuesday.  However, there was a family issue with someone and I promptly hopped in to take his place!

We worked on 10-man Naxx.  It was good to be part of a 10-man.  You feel like your actions matter more, and my DPS doesn’t get pushed down to 9th place because of all the Warlocks and Shadow Priests!

We had a second group working on Sarth+3 (10-man).  I do not envy that group… I can just imagine how stressful it got.  That fight is CRAZY and I think I’d be scared to even give it a try!

We bumped back up to 25-mans for Wednesday night, trying to work on Dedicated Few and the other sub-21 people achievements.  We started with Sarth.  With 18 people.  Only 2 healers.

HUGE props to the healers!  We got Sarth down in one shot, they did an excellent job keeping us all alive.

I was going to go into how I lost a roll for a piece of loot I felt would have been very appropriate for me, but I don’t want to whine about it.  I just wish we could settle on a system for doing loot council finally.

So we only managed to take down 2 of the bosses in the Construct quarter due to needing to bring in some extra heals, lots of DC’s and shuffling people around.  It’s amazing how long the fights get when you’re down to 18 people!

Thaddius gave us some trouble.  We tried working on Shocking since we had less people to cross polarizations, but that just wasn’t quite happening.  In hindsight, we probably should have just focussed on high DPS rather than avoiding damage since your numbers were so low.  But it was good practice either way.

And it was amazing to see how much better we did with only 18 people than our first few weeks with 25.  We’ve all really grown and improved!

Thursday night was more Naxx sub-21.  We kept a full group of 19 and cleared through all of Spider as well as killing Razuvious.

We had a few more tries at Thaddius, but the DPS just wasn’t enough to get him down before the enrage.  We also tried Gothikk, but we didn’t properly distribute the groups and we also pulled a Shade from the next room or something… I dunno, I was kinda sleeping.

But if you’ve got a group and you’re tired of just breezing through Naxx, go ahead and give it a try with less than 20 people.  It’s a real challenge and it will remind you of your first days clearing through!

This Week in Raiding… is my weekly Saturday post where I allow myself to brag about new gear, bosses, achievements, and such.

Come back next week for another dose of epeen and QQ!

It was a short raiding week for me, consisting of just a quick visit to Naxx on Tuesday.

We cleared only 2 wings + Razuvious, but we were going slowly because we were trying for both Undying (or practicing for it, at least) and working with our new loot master mod.

Once I’ve had a little more experience with this new mod we are using, I will write a whole post about it.  Right now, all I can say is it makes looting go sooo much faster.  No need to whisper, no gear linking, nothing!  It even does auto-rolls!  Nice.

We tried for most of the achievements on the bosses we fought, and we were only EIGHT SECONDS from getting [Heroic: Make Quick Werk of Him!].  We totally would have had it, but one of our great Shadow Priests couldn’t stay connected at all during the fight.  We’ll get it next time!

We did, however, successfully get [Heroic: Spore Loser]. While we failed the first time (and by fail, I mean FAIL) by forgetting to turn Ret Aura off, it really wasn’t as hard as I was expecting.  Then again, I’m not a healer.  I have no idea how hard it was for them!  I believe we are just the 4th guild on our server to actually get this achievement… so yay!

Gear?  Not much dropped.  Lost out on [Fool's Trial], but that was because someone was still wearing his old SSO necklace.  Although, he should have spent his own tokens on Pendant of the Outcast Hero (which is what I’m wearing), but hopefully I’ll get it next time, or even something better!

I did pick up [Leggings of Colossal Strides] – but when I really looked at them later, they really aren’t much of an upgrade, if at all, from my [Valorous Cryptstalker's Legguards].  I probably should have rolled offspec on them, but it was too late.  Anyway, no one else rolled need so I didn’t really take them from someone else.  No harm done!

This Week in Raiding… is my weekly Saturday post where I allow myself to brag about new gear, bosses, achievements, and such.

Come back next week for another dose of epeen and QQ!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a “This Week in Raiding” post!  But now it seems I’m finally back to a regular raiding schedule, so I will hopefully be able to keep writing these, as long as something interesting happens.

And there were certainly some interesting things this week!

Tuesday was Naxx as usual.  However, your guild leader/master looter was sick, so I volunteered to take the role.  I figured out pretty quickly that having a separate chat window that displays only Raid Warnings and whispers is extremely helpful for keeping things organized.  Then I can see who said what without having to sift through everything else!  I’m pretty sure Pilsner does something similar already.

Luckily, most decisions were pretty easy.  Most people have the gear they want, so may things went to offspec (everyone just roles for offspec) or to the disenchanter.  However, when we killed Patchwerk… [Arrowsong].  I said at the end of last week that if I didn’t see a new ranged weapon to replace my stupid [Zombie Sweeper Shotgun], I would kill someone.

However, I wasn’t the only hunter.  I honestly don’t want to get into the details, but there was an issue and the other 2 loot council members put me in a really awkward position.  And meanwhile, the raid went on to kill the next boss without waiting for me, which I was pretty upset about as well.

In the end, I was forced to give myself [Arrowsong], and while I was so looking forward to getting a new ranged weapon, and I should be super excited right now… it was a bitter victory, and the weapon is tainted to me.  Honestly, I can’t wait to be rid of it.

Wednesday night was just more of the same ol’ Naxx, although we did managed to get [Heroic: The Hundred Club] and [Heroic: Just Can't Get Enough].  Kel dropped some pretty gear that most hunters would be glad to see drop, [Betrayer of Humanity], [Drape of the Deadly Foe] and [Crown of the Lost Protector], but I opted out of them because there were obviously people who needed them more than me (and I already have the helm).

Thursday night was a very short night.  Sarth+2.  We were determined to get it this week, we did pretty well in our attempts last week, but this week it was a certain thing!  The first two attempts were quite depressing, but our third had marked improvement and, well, 4th times a charm, right?   Unfortunately I ate a Flame Wave from WITHIN the stupid portal and that took me out right at the beginning of the second drake… so I was an observer for about half the battle.  But I’m really glad we got it… maybe we’ll get 3 next week!

I apologize for being MIA the last couple of days.  Came down with strep throat again this weekend… still trying to get past it!

The good thing about being sick is having to stay at home and play World of Warcraft all the time.  If it wasn’t for the coughing fits, the fever and the achiness, I would have had a quite pleasant couple of days.

I started yet another alt, named Anabelle.  She’s on Cenarion Circle, a roleplaying server!  That’s right, I’m going to make an actual attempt at playing an RP character.  I’ll introduce you to Anabelle and tell you her story soon.  You may have seen her name mentioned here before.  Right now, she’s a level 10 Undead Warrior.

I almost finished my [Hail to the Chef] achievement on Monday.  I figured since I missed out on getting [Fool for Love], I might as well get another title!  So I farmed to try to get my cooking up to 450 so I can finally make a Fish Feast… but apparently I didn’t quite farm enough, and ended up with 448 when my mats ran out!  So I’ll have to swing around and try again another time.

Tuesday, I had time to run a couple of Heroics.  First, as is always my first choice, we ran Utgarde Keep.  No crossbow.  Darn it.

I had a really fun time running these heroics.  We had one of our main Paladin healers spec’d prot to try his hand at tanking… and so I got to actually CC! It was nice to practice using my Freezing Arrow and Freezing Trap and pulling skills.  I miss those.

I still had The Nexus heroic daily quest in my log, and so I took my group there.  And this one little heroic Nexus run solved so many of my problems.  First, it gave me exactly 40 Emblems of Heroism, which meant I could purchase Ferguson the shoulders he’s been dying to get.  And then, the [Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood] dropped!  With the 55 hit on that baby, I am exactly 1 above the hit cap.

Which meant I don’t need to spend 60 Emblems of Valor on the [Armguards of the Tower Archer], and instead spent 25 on the [Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak].

I love it when everything just falls into place!

Now all I need is a new ranged weapon, because my [Zombie Sweeper Shotgun] is just not cutting it anymore.

Unfortunately, the chronic disconnections in Naxxramas seem to have returned for a select few people.  After the first boss of the night, I was no longer able to stay connected during combat.  I would get booted every time there was a pull, and couldn’t log back in until everyone was out of combat.  After missing all of spider and plague wings, I asked that they replace me so I could stop torturing myself.

The good thing about this was I was able to hop on Cenarion Circle and witness the battle between Platezilla and Arrens, and observe some enjoyable RPing.

Hopefully things will be cleared up by tonight and even more will fall into place… [Arrowsong] or [Envoy of Mortality], perhaps?