Mend Pet

So yesterday I was dual-boxing on my machine with my boyfriend’s Hunter to help me get Ghugh’s dungeon runs for his Charger quest. It was a very long afternoon, as we had to run UD Stratholme, Dire Maul and Scholomance… and I can sometimes bore easily.  We took turns playing to get it all done, and much frustration was had in Scholo.

When doing the final event in Scholo, I read that if you wipe, you have to reset the instance and do it all over again.  Well, my paladin died from AoE pretty early, and I was not happy.  I tried running him back, but of course the gates were shut so I could get close enough to get XP, but not in the door.  The event seemed to be taking forever, so I figured I had to reset.  Since my Hunter was stuck in the instance, I hearthed them both out and then started the long journey back to Scholo.

It was only then that I read that the event can still be completed after the paladin has died as long as he is… close enough to get XP.  So I reset it and hearthed for no reason at all!  He died again the second time, but the strategy worked, and I finished the event with the Hunter and ran the Paladin in after.  Much rejoicing was had!

I also saved a lot of money by going this way instead of buying the ability at 61.  Since I had most of the mats from being a miner, it only cost me about 230g to get this quest done, rather than the 500g or whatever it costs to just simply train it and buy the mount.  So there!

"Feat of Strength? ... What we have is great Strength of Feet!"

But an interesting little thing happened during this run.

At one point I decided to swap out his cat pet for his Gorilla pet, because… well, it just makes more sense.  So I used Call Stabled Pet, spent Gorilla’s talent points and went on killing things.  Then I noticed the little +s and sparkles that go with Mend Pet… but I didn’t remember casting it.  I look at his buff only to find this:

Huh!  That’s pretty sweet.  Bring this to a raid and you’re sure to top the healing (and overhealing) meters.   And it’s still there today, after logging out and everything… but now there are only 20 days remaining!

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of character jumping.  Raiding on my Hunter, leveling my Paladin and my Mage too.  These three classes do not have very similar playstyles.  In fact, they are almost as far apart from each other as you can get. Ranged with a pet, melee with heals and spell casting clothy.

This makes it difficult for me to switch between them smoothly.  Last night I played my paladin for a bit, then switched over to my mage, who I hadn’t played in a couple of weeks.  It was… a shock.  I was too used to my buttons and keybindings, expecting different things from different abilities, quite a disaster! (Let’s just say Polymorph != Holy Light and Pyroblast != Exorcism)

I realized I need to adjust my alts to follow a similar keybinding strategy to my main.  I need to know where everything is in a pinch.  So I need to decide what abilities I associate between each class.

So here are the major categories of situations/abilities and which spells and abilities I associate them for each class.  Hopefully this will help me sort my keybindings out so no matter which class I’m playing, the same button will have approximately the same effect.

OMG I’M GONNA DIE, GET IT OFF ME! (Aggro drop/damage protection)

• Hunter: Feign Death
• Mage: Ice Block or Mana Shield
• Paladin: (What are you talking about?  My paladin NEVER dies.) A.K.A. Divine Shield or Lay on Hands

Crap, he’s a runner!  Get him quick before he pulls adds! (Intant ranged cast)

• Hunter: Arcane Shot
• Mage: Fire Blast
• Paladin: Hammer of Wrath

You’re trying to heal?  I don’t think so! (Stun/Interrupt)

• Hunter: Intimidation (when BM-spec’d) or Silencing Shot (when MM-spec’d)
• Mage: Dragon’s Breath
• Paladin: Hammer of Justice

They’re EVERYWHERE!! (Area of Effect)

• Hunter: Volley
• Mage: Flamestrike or Blizzard
• Paladin: Consecration

YOU! Stay there while I kill this guy.  kthx! (Long-term Crowd Control)

• Hunter: Freezing Trap or Freezing Arrow (depending on mob/location)
• Mage: Polymorph
• Paladin: Repentance

Any other situations that you need to be readily accessible instinctively?

Raiding as Fire/Frostfire @ CriticalQQ
As Alouette closes in on 80, she’s beginning to set her eye on raiding… but seeing as I have never run a real instance on her, I need serious help learning what’s important to a raiding Fire mage.  Euripedes has some great information for a little spark like me.

Don’t Let Dailies Grind YOU! @ LadyJess
One amazing tip here.  I love that doing the Champion and Valiant dailies nets me credit for two quests at once.  Well, you can do more than just that!

Kiting Boot-camp! @ OutDPS!
Euripides (the Hunter one, not the Mage one) has a nice little guide for a skill that every hunter should have, although it’s become almost a lost art!  This is a great guide for those who never had to do much kiting ‘back in the day’!

iPhone Apps for WoW Players @ Catryalini’s WoW Blog
I bought an iPhone this week!  In fact, the same day I bought mine she wrote this post, so it gave me a good place to start on my path to iPhone App addiction.  Unfortunately, it seems Blizzard has also sent out Cease and Desist orders to several of these apps… so pick them up while they’re still around!

Death By Chocolate @ Sideshow & Syrana
Syrana’s posted a nice little summary of both the good and bad sides of the Noblegarden festival, as well as a short guide.  I know the event is almost over, but it’s a good read anyway!

You can check out all the blogs I read on my list of Other Peoples’ Blogs!

Well, so much for a free respec.

I ended up respecing again last night to test some things out.  I wanted to compare my DPS with two different rotations and specs.  Unfortunately I don’t have any solid numbers from my attempts… they ended up all being almost the same (all had attempts varying from 2400-2700), and I didn’t take my trinkets off first so that also didn’t help.  So instead of numbers, I’m going to talk about feel.  Because if I didn’t care how my play felt, I’d just spec Survival!

The following combinations are all quite viable from what I can see, and it’s mostly just a matter of playstyle preference.

I tested a combination of 2 different priorities, 2 different specs and 2 different Glyph setups.

(I also switched one point from Imp Barrage to Silencing Shot between spec #1 and spec #2… but it doesn’t really change much for the following.)

Chimera/Aimed/Arcane/Steady with spec #1 (imp Arcane) and Aimed/Trueshot/Serpent glyphs.

This is what I was set up to run initially, and the rotation I’ve been using since I switched to Marks except with a shorter cooldown on Aimed Shot.  The problem with it is that Arcane does not proc Piercing Shots, so it’s not quite as useful, and I was wondering if maybe it was best left out so I could get more Steady Shot Piercing Shots.  So I decided to respec and leave Arcane out of the picture.

Chimera/Aimed/Steady with spec #2 (imp Steady) and Aimed/Trueshot/Serpent glyphs.

This ended up being a much simpler priority, with only 2 cooldowns to watch instead of 3.  But it just did not feel right.  Since I had the Aimed Glyph, my Chimera was on a 10 sec cooldown and my Aimed was on an 8 second cooldown.  Since I cast Chimera first, then 1.5 seconds later cast Aimed… they would always seem to come off of cooldown around the same time.  This cause me to push back my second Aimed by an extra second or so, reducing the usefulness of the glyph.

Chimera/Aimed/Steady with spec #2 (imp Steady) and Steady/Trueshot/Serpent glyphs.

So, I got rid of the Aimed glyph.  This actually felt pretty nice, because it basically became a shot rotation insteady of a shot priority, and I could see someone who misses the old shot rotations actually enjoying this.  My Chimera had a 10 sec cooldown and my Aimed had a 10 second cooldown, so with lag/reaction factored in, became pretty much Chimera>Aimed>Steadyx3 (repeat).  It was kind of neat to get back into a rotation… but it felt too easy, and it actually was doing a bit less DPS.  I’m used to watching for cooldowns and not hitting buttons in a particular order.  It’s just not for me.

Chimera/Aimed/Arcane/Steady with spec #2 (imp Steady) and Steady/Trueshot/Serpent glyphs.

This is where I’ve settled for now.  I get the extra damage from the Steady glyph and while improved Steady doesn’t proc as much because I use Steady a lot less with Arcane in the mix, I’m still doing more damage by having Arcane in there.  Additionally, I have more instant casts at my disposal, which is really important for mobile fights.  This is the priority and cooldowns I’m used to, which also helps as I will want to focus on learning new fights rather than learning a new spec.

As I gain more hit gear, I think I’ll move the points into Improved Arcane Shot so I can get the best of both worlds!

I also might pick up the Glyph of Chimera Shot to replace the Glyph of Steady Shot once when they are available, but I haven’t completely decided yet.  I do tend to shoot a lot more Steady Shots than Chimera Shots, but I’ll do some further tests on this later!

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?