My Favorite Raiding Glyph

Let's talk about glyphs. Frankly, let's talk about anything other than how the three specs sim and which talents we should take. For good reasons, that's about all the hunter community has been discussing since the launch of WoD. Now that we can play any spec we want, and have more talent options than any time I can remember, I feel ready to talk about something else.

I really like Glyph of Endless Wrath. I love Glyph of Deterrence. But hands down my favorite glyph for raiding is Glyph of Animal Bond. I've talked to many hunters who don't use it. The reasoning is always along the lines of, "It doesn't do anything for my abilities, so why bother?" And yes, it is more fun to enhance one's personal game play. But it's also pretty damn fun to down bosses, and Glyph of Animal Bond is amazing for downing bosses. A 10% increase to all your healing received is going to really add up over the course of a boss fight. At least for me it does. When I'm learning a new fight (or new role in it) I will end up in the bad stuff at some point. I don't think I've survived Tectus yet without a battle res. And even if you're way better at avoiding damage than I am, so many fights have unavoidable, raid-wide damage. At those times, when your healers are doing everything they can to just get the group through a high damage phase, the extra 10% healing could mean the difference between life or death. It will at least give your healers a little extra breathing room. And that's never a bad thing.

To me, this is the real cost of going with Lone Wolf for your level 100 talent. Now, my inherent bias toward the talent is well documented, but that's not what I'm talking about today. I have actually backed off a bit and have used LW in raids a few times. It turns out I'd rather not have a pet then have a long cast time Focusing Shot. I'm trying to like FS, but that's a topic for another time. But when a hunter chooses Lone Wolf they are not going to get the benefit from Glyph of Animal Bond. I really, really hate giving that up in a raid. Any time I consider going Lone Wolf for a fight I ask myself if I should give up that extra healing. If my group needs to squeeze out every drop of damage we can to beat a timer, it's probably worth it. On the other hand, if your healers are struggling to keep up and your group's damage is in a good spot, Lone Wolf might not be your best choice. It will depend on your specific situation, but for me, more often than not the healing benefits of Glyph of Animal Bond are more useful than the 1k dps increase I get from using Lone Wolf.

Christmas Comes Early

This week's buffs to Survival and Beast Mastery mean all three specs are close enough in DPS to allow player choice. Obviously, certain specs will still shine on certain fights, which has and always will be the case. The important thing here is play the spec you want (and hopefully excel at). If people give you crap for playing with a pet (or without one depending on their level of hunter ignorance) they are wrong-not you. Get good at your two favorite specs, grab some pets, and go be a hunter again.

And there was much rejoicing from the hunters.

For about 5 minutes.

I have already seen a TON of comments and tweets about Survival needing more. Some mention the rotation's feel, the lack of on demand burst damage, and no execute ability. These are all valid points. I've said myself (before the buffs) that there is plenty of room for Kill Shot in Survival's toolbox. So I share the feelings of these other hunters. But now that we have decent spec parity, CAN WE JUST NOT FUCK WITH IT FOR A WHILE PLEASE? Clearly balancing hunter specs is pretty hard. Blizzard couldn't get it done before releasing WoD, even with months of beta evidence to guide them. Now that we're in a decent place, adding Kill Shot back into SV is just going to lead to more months of adjustments.

Ok, that said SV does need something. As much as love the spec's flavor and utility ability pruning has left it feeling just a little empty, especially compared to BM. I would propose giving SV better interrupt options than the other two hunter specs. SV seems to be the utility/PvP flavor of hunters these days. On top of that, Counter Shot's cooldown feels long a lot of the time. I mean looooong. I would love to trade Enhanced Entrapment for a perk that gives us a 12 or 15 second Counter Shot. Even an SV only glyph that reduces the CD would work. Or hell, give SV Scatter Shot back and remove the damage part of it.. When you have those fights where you can be the interrupt person, throw on the glyph and go. Managing your dots and procs AND interrupting every 12 seconds or so would certainly add some complexity to SV that so many hunters are asking for. I dare say it would be much more interesting than just adding Kill Shot back into the last 20% of the fight. And it wouldn't effect DPS balance at all.

Final thoughts: Personally, after the last month I'm happier about hunters than I have been in a while. I'm willing to just sit tight until we have to do this all over again due to set bonuses and gear scaling. But if you really want to muck around more with Survival, maybe damage dealing isn't the place to do it. Obviously Blizzard isn't as good at balance as they used to be.

I want to acknowledge the work that Bendak and Delirium are doing these days. Bendak has been really vocal on his blog and the Hunting Party Podcast about this ridiculous spec situation. And Delirium supports the community with amazing theorycrafting I could never hope to accomplish. I owe both of these guys a beer or five.

My last thing: A lot of hunters will be picking up Beast Mastery this week. There is a ton of conflicting information out there about secondary stats and when to use Focus Fire. This post by Delirium convinced me of when to use it, but my point is be a critical consumer of information. Know WHY you believe one side or the other. Also know that we as a community have a lot more testing to do, especially with all these adjustments over that last few months.

Hey Blizzard, I predicted this bullshit months ago.

Impressions of WoD While Leveling

Well, I've been doing pretty much what everyone has been doing for the last week-leveling. I've never been a speedy leveler as I don't really see the point. I'm currently 98 and into Nagrand. I did not complete any of the previous zones, so there may be some back tracking after 100. Here is just a bit of a ramble about my WoD experience so far.

For all the deservedly bad press the Survival spec gets, I've loved it for leveling. The heal you get from every kill is really nice, and combined with better traps and multi dots, you can take on quite a few mobs at the same time. I'm still trying to hit Kill Shot pretty often, but I'll be going to BM here shortly anyway. If you have a hunter yet to level I stongly recommend trying SV. It may be the last time you get to use for a while. Also, the new version of A Murder of Crows is BRILLIANT for leveling. Regular mobs always die before it's done, keeping the CD available constantly. And, you get to really enjoy the graphic on a single mob up close. It really gives me a "Death From Above!" feeling when I use it. Using a flock of birds to kill bird men? Even more win. Use AMoC for leveling! Trust me.

Took me about a minute to get used to the number squish. Wish it had happened sooner. Loved no flying the first time around. Not sure how I'll feel about it after two more characters get to 100. But if we never get flying in Draenor it won't be a big deal. They have designed for it pretty well. Still don't have enough bank or stable space. I probably never will.

Loved every zone except Spires of Araak. Partly didn't like it because the previous two were so damn beautiful. But mostly it was the crazy dark part. Maybe people with high end graphics or better monitors had a different experience, but that shit was way too dark for my tastes. I can tolerate Duskwood, but I'm probably skipping whatever I can the next time I level there. Which is too bad because..

The random quest reward upgrades happen a lot more than I expected. Even before I put a Dwarven Bunker up it felt like I was getting upgrades quite a bit. I went into Draenor with a 573 item level and started getting sidegrades as early as Talador when rewards were upgraded. Dwarven Bunker for the win.

The garrison rocks harder than I expected. It's fun to be there, and a 20 minute Hearthstone is perfect for keeping it from feeling like a chore to get there and back. Love the follower system so much. Great to feel like when I need a break to sleep, work, or watch a football game, I'm still progressing in these early weeks of the content. And I'm not usually a "take it to mobile and consoles!" person, but the follower missions system has mobile written all over it. That needs to happen yesterday. Needs to.

This is probably the most fun I've ever had leveling. That may explain whay I'm not quite ready to be done doing it on my favorite character.

Survival Beta Analysis

I can't give you any first hand analysis of the beta, but others can! Delirium at Thrill of the Wild has several great posts about SV. One on PvE and another on PvP. You should really check them both out. He also has some analysis on Lock and Load in WoD.

Speaking of Survival PvP, Bendak at Eyes of the Beast has an opinion on how the WoD changes will impact SV PvP. It's incredibly well thought out and worth a read.

One of these days I'll get in there..

You Can't Measure Much With a Target Dummy

I'm not in the beta. It's fine. I'm getting my fix as best I can through the amazing hunter community's blogs and podcasts. With all of the ability pruning and whatnot, I'm paying most of my attention to how hunters are experiencing the new versions of our specs, with my obvious bias toward Survival. While there are a lot of different interpretations of how the individual specs feel in their new incarnations, there does seem to be an overall theme that things are "missing" or a certain spec feels "simple and hollow." This may be true. The hunters I'm paying attention to generally have a much better understanding of the class than I do, and again I can't get any firsthand experience myself, but I have to say these opinions seem like they were formed prematurely.

I have to assume a lot of people are judging the specs as they level. Most of us level as fast as we can  for obvious reasons, but is leveling a good way to experience the depth of a class and spec? I usually use very few of the tools available to me when leveling. Maybe some testers are running 5-mans, which is a  much better gauge of the state of a class, but they are still just regular 5-mans. Even at the beginning of Cataclysm I don't remember needing Deterrence or Gift of the Naaru in regular dungeons. Maybe once I got to max level and into heroics. Maybe. And everything I have read analyzing the new state of  hunters was written before ANY raid testing had begun. I don't know about you, but a raid environment is what I care about. That is where you will learn if your newly-pruned spec really is boring. Many beta testers are deciding how the specs feel by going to the worst place on Azeroth to gauge such a thing : A target dummy.

Target dummies are great. I love them. They are an amazing way to practice and compare rotations. But a target dummy can never tell you how fun a spec or class is. There is no strategic use of AoE on a dummy. You don't use traps on a dummy. You don't use utility abilities like Distracting Shot, Misdirection, or Deterrence on a dummy. I think it's safe to assume most testers are not working a regular Camouflage into their target dummy practice, but you can be damn sure you'll be doing it in a raid environment as Survival just for the heal.  One of the most fun encounters for me was Spiderling duty on Bethilac, and I wasn't doing anything close to my target dummy rotation until the last 20% of her health. Running around the lair flinging traps and then burning down spiders with Multi Shot was a ton of fun, but it was absolutely nothing like hitting a dummy for 5 minutes. When you factor encounter mechanics and the new healing model, a hunter's single-target rotation may be a much lower priority than positioning and damage avoidance/mitigation.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe ability pruning has gone too far and hunters need to get something more to feel fun again. But until I get to play WoD myself I'm going to keep the faith. And I'm going to be skeptical of anyone who went to a target dummy to determine if a spec or class is fun to play.

Quivers and Ammo (sort of)!

I havn't been posting enough lately because, well, there isn't a lot to say. I recently hit my goal of having a million gold in the bank, and with that out of the way I'm barely even logging into WoW. I log on every Tuesday to kill Ordos on my priest, and then I clear a few old raids looking for mount and transmog drops. All that takes about 30 minutes. Then I play Diablo (I'm terrible) or just go do something outside. I havn't cleared Siege yet, and I don't care if I do or not. I'm just over this expansion for two reasons. For one it's been out a looooooooong time. Too long. Nothing else really to say about that. Second, we keep hearing about the awesomeness of WoD. It's hard for me to get excited about old content while I'm reading all about the new shinies, like....

Quivers! We are getting cosmetic-only quivers and ammo pouches. That is just fun. Pure fun. We don't yet know how we get them, but as transmog has gotten me really into my character's look for the first time, the idea of a quiver sounds awesome. I was already leaning toward making my hunter a Night Elf (his original race in Classic and BC) and quivers sealed the deal.

We're also getting ammo types. Not literally, don't worry about bag space,  but the new level 100 talent that replaces Flaming Shots gives us a choice of one of three ways to augment our Auto Shots. One does AoE fire damage, one does a nature damage DoT, and one does a movement reduction. A comment on Eyes of the Beast specualted that we will use the first for AoE fights, the second for single target, and the third for PvP. While pure speculation, if the tuning is done right I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm excited about this talent for a few reasons. For starters, it's kind of like 3 talents in one. Quite a bit of versatility, although I'm not sure how many different DoTs survival really needs at this point. I know and love that that's our "thing" but if you take the nature damage one for single target, we will have Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap, Bear Trap, and the new one all potentially on a target at the same time! Kind of nuts. It might take a little bit, but that target is gonna die. Taking the fire damage one will make survival even more amazing for AoE. I love doing awesome AoE, it's just fun. I don't PvP much, but the third ammo type seems over powered. Giving us a ranged slow that doesn't require a key press, much less a global cooldown will bring the complaints from non hunters. It's going to be interesting to watch the development of all this. The big question regarding this new talent is can ammo types be swapped during a fight? I hope not. That seems like aspect twisting all over again, which I personally did not enjoy. But no big deal either way. How many fights are going to really require a lot of swapping? On my old team, I was either doing AoE duty or single target duty. And if you are forced to have the AoE ammo during an execute phase, it's not going to be a huge deal. I'm also happy to just see a 100 talent I would actually choose. I've made no secret about disliking Lone Wolf. I hope to avoid Focusing Shot as well. I've gotten way to used to casting it all while moving and I don't really want to go back. If it were just a way to let more skilled hunters do higher damage I would be excited about it, but also being the focus generating shot seems problematic to me, at least for high movement fights. So this early, Exotic Ammo has me the most excited. The only issue I have with it at this point is the damage types seem redundant for Survival. We already have a single target nature damage ability (Serpent Sting) and a fire damage AoE (Explosive Trap). Damage type doesn't usually matter these days, but I'd like them to switch it up a bit just in case. Call one of them Blessed Bullets and make it holy damage or something. Variety is always good.

Things are shaping up for WoD. I'm really excited about it, which is why I'm barely playing World of Warcraft at all. I may even cancel my subscription for the summer and go fishing.

I'm Back...and Now with Stuff to Talk About!

Wow, I hate going this long between posts. The break began when there was just nothing to write about. End of expansion, no news, less people playing. I'll admit that I'm pretty burned on MoP right now, and maybe WoW in general. Been playing this game for nine years at this point. I even got back into Diablo recently because of how I feel about WoW at the moment. And then my vacation lined-up with the Alpha release. Just my luck. Considering the Alpha patch notes are a few weeks old at this point, I'm not going to summarize them here. But I am going to assume my readers have seen them. If you want great rundowns of the hunter changes go to The Brew Hall or Eyes of the Beast. Now that we have seen the very, very first iteration of the new hunter I'd say things look pretty good.

Button bloat: No real surprises regarding what abilities we lost. I am thrilled that traps are not only staying, but getting more powerful. Especially for survival hunters, proper trap usage is going to be really important. The change to Explosive Trap is so cool. Reminds me of the days of old. Also, survival is losing Kill Shot. While I actually advocated for all the specs to have it removed, I'm going to count that prediction as a win. I totally called that:) More importantly, I think it will really help SV. With Lock 'n Load and all the other cooldowns, our rotation is just chaotic enough to make a new shot that pops up at the end of a fight seem weird. I'll totally take being the sustained, dot based spec.

Differentiation: Blizz did a better job with this that I could have hoped. Only SV has Serpent Sting? Love it. Traps are better, and SV traps are better still? Hell yeah. A solid self heal once per minute? Now we actually live up to our spec's name! I do have to say I wish they had not changed how Serpent Sting is applied. There was some skill involved in keeping it up (especially on multiple targets) or remembering to reapply it after transition phases. But if the choice was between the new system and scrapping the ability altogether, I think Blizzard made the right choice. SV really sounds like THE dot and magic damage spec.

Draenor Perks: Such a cool idea. Some kind of power increase every level, in a random order. By max level everyone is the same, but how they got there will be a little different for everyone. As someone who really doesn't enjoy leveling, I think these could create some replayability for WoD. In any case, they sound totally fun.

Camouflage: Camo, in the alpha notes, is amazing. For a survival hunter camo becomes a nice self heal that one can use every minute without stopping the deeps. Sweet! Awesome! Killer! But here's the thing: we've been burned by camouflage before. In the Cataclysm development process, camo started out really cool and was slowly eroded into an almost worthless ability. I really hope we don't repeat that whole experience. I know it's the nature of game development and class balance, but I'm not sure I can go through that again with camouflage, considering how awesome it looks right now for survival.

I have heard people describe the changes as making Survival into the PvP spec. I can see why they feel that way. Our CC will be better, and the buffs to Camo will certainly help as well. On the other hand, it looks like we will have the lowest burst damage (although we can use some talent choices to mitigate that somewhat) and we won't have an execute button. It looks to me like SV will be a good choice for PvP, but I really hope Blizzard can get the balancing close enough that it is good for more than that. I feel like they did an amazing job balancing the hunter specs in MoP, so why not do it again?

The big SV change in 5.4

Just a quick post about the one big change for Survival hunters in 5.4 (which is 2 weeks from today). Explosive Trap and Black Arrow are no longer on a shared cooldown. I've personally been asking for this for a while. It just never made a lot of sense to me, and it was occasionally frustrating. The trade-off is that Explosive Trap will no longer trigger Lock and Load, and it does less damage. For years, many of us have been using ET on single target fights just to trigger L&L and do some damage at the same time. This will no longer be an option. If you're doing a single target rotation, just ditch ET and use Black Arrow on cooldown. Between this change and the loss of Readiness, we're down 2 buttons, which is a good start in my opinion.