The State of WoW

After being back in game for about a week after being away for 2 weeks, I decided to make a couple of changes regarding the game. The first change was that I decided that I couldn’t be in 3 guilds anymore.  I was in a guild for raiding, and 2 casual guilds. The problem was that I felt stretched too thin, and raiding requires too much of a time commitment for me at the moment. So, I made several changes over the weekend.

First, I transferred my raid geared toon from my raiding guild to my casual guild. I enjoy raiding, but I enjoy playing with my guildmates in <Heroes of Lordaeron> (Argent Dawn- US) more.

Secondly, I transferred my PvP toon, my warrior, to Emerald Dream, a US RP-PvP server and joined an all Dwarf guild named <Clan Battlehammer>. So far it’s been a blast. I used to play my PvP characters on Gorgonnash, but the PvP community is so much better on Emerald Dream. On this realm a 2 man gank squad going out killing lowbies, can easily turn into 2 full raids battling it out for hours. I’ve only been over there a week, and I love it.

I will probably also transfer my Hunter over to Emerald Dream as well, since I PvP a lot with him as well. I had a blast with him during this past Alterac Valley weekend, even though there usually isn’t much PvP in that BG anymore. However, there was one pretty epic battle that lasted about an hour where I got 22 killing blows and only 2 deaths, so that was pretty fun.

So, I’ve narrowed down my focus to end game PvP with <Clan battlehammer> and casual PvE with <Heroes of Lordaeron>. I’m pretty happy with where I am in regards to the game, and am looking forward to the next few months.

Well, there were some issues with my orders being processed, so I don’t transfer to my next duty station for another month. I called Comcast yesterday and they are coming today to hook my internet back up.

Well, I am in the process of moving to a new duty station and have discontinued my internet access. I should be back in game the first week of July, and since I will be on shore duty, I’ll be able to raid again, and more importantly, look for a rated BG team, even if I have to transfer 1 of my characters to do so. I have a kitty, resto shaman, warrior, and hunter that I would be willing to transfer 1 of to gear up quickly, and join a quality group of people.

Other than packing and checking out, I have been keeping busy replaying ME2 with the DLC, and playing lots of LA Noire.

I have come to terms that I am in love with the Beastmaster spec. After running Vortex Pinnacle on my 82 hunter last night, and posting respectable numbers on boss fights (7.5k avg), which was higher than the 84 mage and 84 DK I ran with. I plan on running with a PvE BM spec and a PvP BM spec.

I’m never going to high end raid on this toon, so I don’t feel like I have to min/max too much on this guy. I just really like BM as a spec. Of course, I’ll do everything I can to play a BM Hunter the best I can, but I won’t change specs from BM. The most he’ll ever do is maybe some alt 10 man runs.

I will however, be focusing this guy on BG’s and I like the fact that for the BM spec, the pet is more than just a distraction.

The 5 pets I routinely run with are: A Spirit Beast (Dungeons and BG’s), Corehound (if we need BL), Turtle (Soloing elites), Silithid (for BG’s with flag runners) and a Worm (for AOE farming).

For all the other hunters out there, what are your 5 pets of choice?

As posted previously, I respecced my undead Mage to Arcane for more predictable damage. I have raided with it a bit and now feel comfortable to offer a bit of a guide for those interested in checking out this spec.

Since Wrath, Arcane has been the butt of many a joke for it’s simplicity. Let’s be fair, DPS rotations aren’t that difficult no matter what you play. I’ve played a Feral Kitty for years, and that was considered the most difficult rotation to master, but in reality it’s not hard.

I’m not going to cover gemming and stat priorities. I am going to cover the maximum DPS rotation and tell of my experiences with the spec.

In the Arcane rotation, you have 2 phases. A burn phase and a conserve phase. Your burn phase consists of an Arcane Blast spam, and your conserve phase consists of weaving your Arcane Missiles in with your AB’s and using Arcane Barrage while moving. The reason for the conserve phase is because of Mana Adept. The more mana we have, the more damage we do.

Opening a fight: From my experience, I would recommend waiting between 5-7 seconds after the pull, because you are going to be doing massive amounts of damage in a few seconds. The first time I tried the maximum DPS rotation in BH, I found myself doing 27k DPS within the first 30 seconds and had to pop iceblock to keep from dying. After your tank has sufficient aggro, it’s time to unload. This is the Burn phase. Spam AB until you’ve used 12k mana. Then use a mana gem to top yourself up and get the spellpower boost. Now is when you pop your cooldowns, Arcane Power and mirror image. You Spam AB until you’ve reached 30% mana, and then evocate yourself back to full.

The Conserve phase: At this point you enter the conserve phase, where you essentially try to keep yourself above 90% mana by weaving in Arcane Missile procs between every 2 or 3 AB’s, depending on your regen. If you find yourself using a lot of mana without getting AM procs, pop your flame orb. It will proc a bunch of AM’s, letting you regen your mana. It’s important that you know when your group is going to use Bloodlust/Heroism/Timewarp/Hysteria, so that you can make sure you are topped off for that. Once you pop Bloodlust, you enter the burn phase again, and you repeat the cycle.

That’s about it. The only other tip is to try to keep your AB stacks up during movement phases. If you know the fight, it’s possible to plan your movements so that you’ll have time to cast an AB to keep your stacks up.