Gearing the Lackadaisical Hunter – Weapons
Earlier this week I spent some time thinking about how to get Mania ‘set up properly’ — where that means improving my glyphs, gear and whatnot, but only so far as it’s easy and convenient. Today I took a first look at upgrading my equipment.
By the way, you’ll notice that I only really looked at pre-Patch 3.1 equipment even though Patch 3.1 just came out. I felt more comfortable focusing on the older stuff because 1) I’m never setting foot in Ulduar myself and 2) if there’s any sexy new BoE gear it will undoubtedly be too expensive for me in the near future.
Ranged Weapon
My ranged weapons is probably the single most important piece of gear I have, so of course I started with it.
I had been using the Sin’dorei Recurve Bow which you can buy from the Horde Expedition quartermaster when you hit Revered. (Alliance get a Sawed-off Hand Cannon instead.)
I hadn’t gone looking for this bow; I just happened to notice it for sale when I was checking out the quartermaster one day. But I was extremely pleased with it.
(Well, I was until I noticed that due to a bug, it used bullets instead of arrows but still got its haste from a quiver. Into the bank it went! But eventually Blizzard fixed that bug (in Patch 3.0.8 it looks like), and now this is a great little bow that I’m quite glad to have.)
And yet … even a cursory look at Thotbott’s list of ranged weapons will show you that my little Sin’dorei bow is pretty far down the chart compared to that BoE Auction House treasure, the Nesingwary 4000.
This Nesingwary 4000 is the gun that everyone and their respective mothers keep urging me to get – cf. Vafrous in the comments of the last thread.
But … I’m just not fond of guns. So I kept looking down the ranged weapon list for a nice bow or crossbow. Unfortunately the only top end non-gun that’s potentially accessible to me is the Polished Zombie Exterminator, a crossbow reward from a group quest. But the quest doesn’t look trivially easy and the Zombie Exterminator is just a bit better than my Sin’dorei Recurve, and so I’m probably better off getting the gun and dealing with the noise for now.
One quick trip to the Auction House later, I had picked up a Nesingwary 4000 for just over 1200 gold. All done, with a minimum of pain!*
Wait, what’s that faint whistling noise? Do you hear it? Sounds almost like … maybe a … ghost? Like maybe the ghost of BRK saying, very faintly, “Buy a scope, dummy!”
No? Well maybe it’s just me. But I did belatedly remember the concept of scopes, and this Hunter’s Mark scope post helped point me at a Heartseeker scope. I’m not 100% certain that I wouldn’t be better off with a Diamond-cut Refractor Scope, but the Heartseeker will do to start. (And anyway it reminds me of my favorite AC1 item enchantment spell.)
I also need to buy a gem for it, I guess. I’m going to wait until I get the rest of my equipment straightened out before I think about that, though. Apparently there’s these things called meta-gems? It seems unlikely that I’ll have many more gem slots, but I might as well wait until I know before I mess with gems.
An Algorithm For Gear
With my ranged weapon out of the way, it was time to move on to my melee weapon. And here I ran smack into a problem: too many items!
See, I was aware of Thotbott’s listing of ranged weapons, and that chart is laid out so it’s easy for me, a gear newbie, to read. Just move down the page until you run out of things you can get. But for melee weapons? Or goodness forbid, something like shoulders? Where do I even start?!
But after searching my favorite ‘good hunter’ blogs (and a well-timed column on WoW Insider), I eventually settled on the following algorithm:
- Look me up on the Armory.
- Use the Find an Upgrade tool to get a list of possible upgrades.
- Scan down the source column and make a list of any items that don’t come from dungeons.
- Add to my list any Bind on Equip items from dungeons. (There’s a handy filter in the Armory to identify BoE things.)
- Use Wowhead’s Item Comparison Tool to compare the items on my list.
I used Wowhead’s built-in Beast Mastery Hunter scoring system to help me compare the items, but I was most interested in Agility and Attack Power, then Stamina. I know that the other numbers — some of them, at least — are important but I’d rather not waste time understanding why unless I absolutely have to. (Lackadaisical, remember?)
I also spent quite a bit looking at the source for each item. Can I buy it off the Auction House, and if so for how much? Will I have to grind rep for it? How long with that take me? Are the improvements worth my time and money?
Melee Weapon
Once I had an algorithm for finding and comparing gear, evaluating my melee weapon was relatively easy. I had been using the Whale-Stick Harpoon, a Revered-level reputation reward from the Kalu’ak.
I found two potentially nicer choices, both also faction rewards: the Runeblade of Demonstrable Power (Revered – Ebon Blade) and the Stave of Shrouded Mysteries (Revered – Kirin Tor).
But I’m nowhere near Revered with either of these groups, and getting there sounds like more trouble than the upgrade is worth. So for the moment I’ve decided to stick with my little Harpoon.
Next up: all the rest of my equipment!
* A Note on Gold
Incidentally, I wanted to call out something about my money situation.
I am a lackadaisical hunter. I do not group or raid. But I have plenty of time to play and I tend to slowly but surely accumulate funds. (I also tend to spend those funds on frivolous fun stuff, but that’s my prerogative.)
In fact, because I don’t play for challenge, I don’t generally spend much on upgrading my character. This little project here is the exception, not the rule! I don’t plan on upgrading my equipment again until … well, until the next expansion. And I certainly don’t spend much on repairs or consumables or those other expensive raid-oriented sorts of things.
So while 1200 gold is a lot to spend on a single item, in the context of this character and my play style 1200 gold is much more reasonable than asking me to group with strangers. *grin* In that sense I find gold to be a kind of equalizer for my play style. And I am very pleased that Wrath of the Lich King included some nice Bind of Equip epic gear that I can get from the Auction House.
73 Comments
Hi Mania,
I used that Sin’dorei bow for the longest time. I first equipped it with bullets and then happily with arrows when it was patched.
I then moved on to the Nessingwary and found it to be a good ranged gun, although noisy, until my guild took me through Naxx and the Final Voyage crossbow dropped. I too like bows much better than guns. The only reason I got to get Final Voyage is all the other hunters in the guild had upgraded ages ago.
As for my melee, it’s the same as yours, that lovely harpoon. I haven’t run across anything better yet. I did put a Titanium Weapon Chain on it, not because enemies cause me to lose my weapon if hit in melee, but because the chain also comes with a +28 hit rating on it. Now my little harpoon has a pretty white glow. You might like to pick up an item enhancement for the harpoon too. One of your preference, of course.
And like you, most of my gear came from the AH or quest rewards. Grinding to exalted with the Oracles is well worth getting one, if not two, of the Oracle Talisman of Ablution. (Sorry I don’t know how to link a reference.) My mana consumption is a lot less now when questing or fighting off foes while gathering.
Oh Mania, I feel your pain. I too, am a lackadaisical hunter. I prefer not to group at all. I have only a few times with either two of my close WoW friends or trusted Guild buddies.
I appreciate these current blogs of yours because you’re helping me decide on how to gear my Hunter in the long run. I guess I’ll be holding on to my gold tightly from now on.
Good luck to you :)
Just looking at your armory I thought I’d throw some BoE upgrades out, some of these you may have considered already from the sound of things :)
From your friendly neighborhood LW, and occasionally on AH:
Eaglebane Bracers (nobody knows why these weren’t toned down when the overbudget items were)
Razorstrike Breastplate
Virulent Spaulders
These should run you at most 100g apiece unless your economy is much different than mine.
From your JC, or on the AH for much more than 100g:
Ring of Scarlet Shadows
Titanium Impact Band
Titanium Impact Choker
The latter two are epics and might be as much as 1000g or more, but expect to pay a few hundred for each of these.
And Boots of the Terrestrial Guardian make pretty sweet BM boots for 30-50g. :)
one quick question, i tried using the find an upgrade for my char but it doesnt seem to make the button on the arrowm works fine when i tried on mania’s, but i go to mine and the button doesnt appear?
could someone search armory for pikaley and pikdeath and see if somethings wrong or im just weid or something? thx
For rep weapon(s) I would recommend Dual Wielding 2x “Fang of Truth” which is a rep reward from Wyrmrest Accord at Honored (which Mania already has achieved). It has Agility, Stamina, Hit and Attack Power and is very cost effective. It also gives you 2 weapons that can hold enchants.
I too disliked guns, due to the noise, but then I discovered the gun silencer/suppressor mod at Wowinterface
Now I just have a nice “phhffttt” sound when my Nesingwary 4000, or anyone else’s gun, fires.
It was fun the first time I went back to Windhammer Stronghold in Outlands, with the mod installed, and having all the Dwarf’s [who are continually target-shooting] guns being silenced.
Very nice.
Hmmm
I tried including the link to the silencer mod, but all I accomplished was underlining everything in my post after the link…
No worries, Tygramun.
By the way, great ideas so far guys! Thanks. :> Unfortunately I’m supposed to be working right now so I figured I’d go over all the comments in detail tomorrow.
I -love- my runeblade, and the quests to get Revered with Ebon Blade are actually fairly numerous, and fun. Plus, since Icecrown is level 80-ish content, it is a goof place to level up any not-as-yet 80 pets you may have in your stable.
Oooh, the Argent quests are where I got a ring upgrade that you could get Mania! It even has a gem slot :D
Hopefully the damn restart is already over with, for petes sake this is the second one that’s hit Hellscream.
There we go, it’s ‘Signet of Bridenbrad’, it’s the reward of a very long quest chain. No grouping up required.
Aaand just managed to get on and check it just before the restart. Do’h.
As for a neck upgrade, I saw one on the AH, it’s one of the Titansteel ones, I forget the name of it, but it was one of the, as I said, purple JC craftables, but the price tag was 1.2k and it’s mostly only for if you want to do better dps in groups.
I still have the same choker as you Mania, but I gemmed for Stam/Intel, green gems = blue/yellow.
And there is a better cloak upgrade somewhere Mania, I forget where, but I finally upgraded the cloak I got from the black dragon scales [Ogrilla/Skygaurd quest], oh and enchants for legs, try to contact a leatherworker for one of the Jourmounger or whatever the purple pants ‘enchant’ is, if I remember right one gives AP/AGIL and Stam.
Or crit.
Same thing 8D
If you’re rev/exalted with SSO [Shattered Sun Offensive] and or Scryers/Aldor, there’s also head n shoulder enchants too. Might be ‘weak’ considering, but if you’re not high enough repwise for the newer ones [I'm a bit behind for the, if there are any], the level 70 versions are better than nothing.
Oh and if they didn’t change it, the bracers that are bought with er emblems of er.. the heroic raid ones, are BoE [strange I know], you could look into seeing if you could pick them up if you want too.
Tho then again it’d be like the JC choker.
I’m using pretty nice stuff from Heroic Utgard Keep; the Enraged Feral Staff and Drake-mounted Crossbow. That’s one of if not the easiest of the heroics to run, and they drop pretty commonly from the end boss there.
They’re more for SV however, but it beats having to run with that damned turbo plasma rifle. Plus, I wanna wait on a friend to level his engineering, because I’d rather have a weapon “made by him” than some random fellow with a silly name.
Also, I don’t use the Staff on raids; I’m still using Fang of Truth as well to help me reach hit cap for bosses. I also used the harpoon for a loooong time, it served me well.
Yeah I’ve gotta agree with Saranette, if you do ever run a HC Mania, UK and Nexus are the easiest ones out there [if you remember to put pet on passive for some of Nexus].
Don’t do AN hc tho.
The spider is evil.
I agree mania, the none too enthusiastic method of getting gear is something I share with you. However I like to group with people and instance. If they’re annoying, well, there’s an ignore list for a reason
PS
Has anyone noticed a problem with the pet talent Wild hunt? From my testing I have not seen this have any effect whatsoever. Some feedback would be great. Spending the talent has no effect on my stat contribution, or on the pets’ stats at all.
Ethgri: Know it’s an offtopic reply, but yeah I’m not seeing much of a contribution at all, and when it does contribute, it seems to be static, either only giving little-to none, or giving atleast a bit more than a little.
As sadly my Devilsaur with 2/2 Wild Hunt and 1/3 Stam has 14k hp compared to Erebus. Yet when I test it out on my lower level hunters, Amarai mostly, Wild Hunt seems to contribute little, if anything.
And even then I had to have my Nuramoc ‘respecc’ about 4/5 times before it took decently.
Edit: A double post- but after skimming over the other replies, I don’t think anyone has suggested that Belt Buckle, that gives your belt a slot.
Two upgrades I can recommend: Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39194) – phenomenal for their price (I’ve seen people selling it for 200g) and Belt of Tasseled Lanterns (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37648) – your run-of-the-mill high quality BoE blue :-)
Also, the Swiftarrow set pieces are a very nice replacement for any greens, regardless of being a bit PvP oriented.
I also have the silencer Addon referenced above by Tygramun. Its a must for any gun users as the noise is far too loud normally, and it’d distract my OH from her soaps! :)
Also silences other gun users so its great.. (its a simple file replace)
Ok for Wild Hunt, the stam buff works. But it’s bugged. You have to mount/dismount to get it to kick into effect.
Growl ALSO seems to be buggy- it’s not the lag. Aria mentioned her turtle having problems holding aggro, and I’ve had Jareth lose aggro after only a couple of crits. And worst seems to be Erebus, I mean only 1 point in Gaurd Dog should NOT be causing this.
It doesn’t seem horribly bad, I mean it’s not uncontrolable. But Doing this does NOT fix tanking troubles, if this is why they did it. A VH run can attest to that, Tank was war. Tank couldn’t keep aggro on half the mobs.
I mean hell I pulled aggro off the warrior along with a priest and mage and I’m the only one with the three oh crap get outta dodge buttons.
But. It was fun preventing a wipe!
Tank died. A clothie died. Jareth and I kited/dps downed the rest.
Then Jareth died D:
I mean good hunters TURN GROWL OFF. And cower on. I always have cower on when it’s a war tank no offence :/
I know this is offtopic Mania but Growl needs to be looked into by someone, Blizz’s little tank fix/aggro fix might have thrown the ohcrap box at us all again.
Hi Mania;
The diamond-cut scope is awful for Hunters, given it only works on autoshots.
I remember when I bought my Nesingwary 4000 and hour later I got a bow in 10 man nax… biggest waste of 1400g ever.
Have you considered checking out what the Argent Tournament will have on offer? http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=857 lists everything and some of those rewards not only look cool, but for people that don’t do much raiding or PvP they’re sure to be a few upgrades.
some advice from a fellow lazy hunter here. (although i do group for dungeons, but i NEVER run in pugs because people generally annoy me). the Runeblade of Demonstrable Power is the better choice for your melee weapon for 2 reasons,
1) i had it for awhile myself, and it’s great. the crit and agility bonus is very much worth it, and if you find yourself short on hit rating, you can fix that with gems and enchants easily enough. also, ebon hand rep is pretty easy to get, i got mine up to revered with my hunter much faster then i thought i would at first, and the quests are very fun.
2) hunters look goofy with staves imo. however, give your sense of humour, that may be a good fit for you anyway :)
happy hunting mania, i look forward to your next gear installment!
Hi Mania,
If you are going pet tank spec, I’d recommend going for the crafted Swiftarrow gear (4 lvl 78 blues, I think) and the Giantmain epics (2 of them) – fairly easy to obtain, and they have a great mix of STA, AGI and INT.
Haven’t decided what ranged weapon to have but given that I will be dual-spec’ed BM and DPS (either MM or SV), I might need two different types of melee and ranged weapons. That Harpoon is fairly good on its own, unless I’m looking to up my hit rating.
Good hunting,
Silvart from Proudmoore
One thing to consider about the Ebon Blade reputation is that they have a lot of REALLY GOOD quests in Icecrown. It’s true there are a lot of group quests in that bunch, but it’s worth playing through those if you like the story.
Agreed about guns. My dwarf hunter trained in bows and not until well into his lvl 80 did he ever use anything but bows. It just seems so counter to being a hunter to use a loud, smoking gun than a bow. If you hunt, you, of course, you can use either. guns for long range, but the report will spook everything around you. Not a sneaky type weapon.
then my engineer was able to make my hunter a nessingwary. wow. so, I got an add-on that changes all gun sounds in the game – to a silenced rifle sound. Oh joy! thubpt thubpt, I are taking em out and *I* don’t have to listen to it.
I found myself looking at my hunter much the same, Mania – I had been grinding up my rogue with guidance from various blogs and friends, and paid attention (for the first time) to the Hit Cap and other specs. what a difference! the rogue is wonderful to play again (he’s just about 78 and 96% into the netherwing questline). Looked at my old hunter who’s hit cap is 84. yep, 84. expertise of 0. it’s amazing he can hit anything. gearing up was much the same exercise. Lessee, what does he have, how can he get some better stuff (given he never groups) and work on that spec deficency. now, a bit better geared, he’s broke. I still have to grind the ebon faction (still using the harpoon).
I enjoy reading your trials and learn much from it. I follow in your wandering footsteps Mania, much thanks.
/shibumi with the silenced nessingwary 4000
@Mania:
I’d careful to use the Gun Silencer mod as it modifies some of the game sound files. I don’t know how far Blizzard’s controls of mod usage go, but I ditched the gun mod because of this.
Just FYI Mania – but as a BM specced hunter – your number one stat should be AP NOT AGI! Attack Power scales better for BM hunters, due to the pet benefits, than AGI. AGI is the stat for MM. Not saying you shouldn’t have oodles of AGI too, but it should be 2nd rank behind AP – and then gem for AP over AGI. (and this isn’t just my opinion, elitest jerks tell me so lol).
Though I agree with you on guns – though I go one step further. I refuse to use a gun even if its the number one ranged weapon in game. There are a few things I won’t budge on due to the “image/personality” of my character and that’s one of them. I just love crossbows, and then bows. In fact as of right now its the ONLY Hunter weapon stat haven’t worked up to 400/400 (I’ve worked them all up- yes that’s right I have like 7 or 8 400/400 weapon abilities included unarmed lol). I don’t even have guns trained :).
I would like to thank you Mania for a great site!! Another lazy hunter here, have yet to group with anyone besides family! Just wanted to remind you that the new expansion Tourney is supposed to have weps and gear available, and though this might be a bit of a grind rep wise, It looks to be set up for solo players! Now if I can just get over my phobia with the whole “vehicle” concept, cannot begin to tell you how many times I die just getting used to the controls each time a quest has one of those!!
Koriani:
Some also choose AGI alongside AP as BM because it increases your crit rate, which reflects onto the pet. Pet crit is often the proc for many BM abilities. Since Mania isn’t raider, it’s not really a drastic need that she has to stack AP as much as a raider would want. Also, some people may be looking into AGI as it makes dual speccing BM/SV a bit more viable =)
I agree with Korzak i.e. “Plus, since Icecrown is level 80-ish content, it is a goof place to level up any not-as-yet 80 pets you may have in your stable.”
Fleshworks is great for leveling pets, once you finish the Ebon quests there – because the area is “phased” into a continuous battle between 80s & 80 Elites against mounted Argent 80s & 80 Elites.
Take your level 75 pet there, and wait to attack a 80 mob when you have support from 1 or more 80s… and wait for one of the Argent Champions to aggro one of the 80 Elites, and then join-in on the kill.
Seems to be as long as I get a hit before the mob is down to ~50% health, my pet will get XP [I'm at 80] and I get to loot the corpse.
If you’re going to level-grind a new pet, might as well do it on 80′s while getting the support of NPCs. :)
And, the trick I learned here works well = Aspect of the Beast to boost pet’s damage, and reduce my ranged dps, while the pet is 3-to-5 levels below me. Don’t want to rip aggro off my L75 pet when we’re fighting those 80 Elites. :)
Nobbie wrote: “I’d careful to use the Gun Silencer mod as it modifies some of the game sound files.”
I was curious about this, as well, before I installed the mod I mentioned.
But, it doesn’t modify any of the “mpq” files. It just adds a “Sounds” directory with sub-directories for the gun sounds.
There is a similar mod to replace the annoying sounds the engineering “roflcopter” makes.
So, the mod isn’t changing any of Blizzards files – but the game will use these alternative sounds if the are added to the correct directory.
Seems to me Blizzard has programmed the game to allow this type of “alternative” sound, else the “Sounds” directory would be ignored by the game.
That is the only reason I felt safe in using it.
Well, I think it *might* be ok, but wasn’t sure. But I have the Patchwerk bow from Naxx-25 now, so it doesn’t matter anmyore ^^
Anyone else getting really tired of the lack of BoE eighty epic bows? Or even just blue bows? I just….dislike guns. I did finally bite the bullet and pick up a Nessingwary, but I miss the sound of my bow…..
I could personally care less what the elite say. The only thing that would put AP over agility is that AP often comes in larger numbers to compensate for the fact that neither mail using class gets 1.8 AP from agility. Otherwise agility affects critical AND AP, and dodge to a lesser extent. Dodge not really mattering in a raiding enviroment, of course. And I lost my train of thought. Hm.
I agree with the lack of bows. For me, it’s not only do I not like guns, but I’m a troll and I like being able to take advantage of my +1% crit with a bow weapon. Plus troll males look gangster when shooting one 8)
Just run Naxx…. Its stupid easy.
Don’t use the Ebon Blade runeblade! Just don’t! It looks like a freaky ugly trianglular… ugly thing!
I’ve also been shying away from the Nesingwary, because I, too, dislike guns. …Well, hate, more like. That gun that drops from KT25? Passed on it twice, because I’m not playing a game with magic and dragons so I can shoot a gun.) I’ve got the Bow of the Elite from, I believe, 10man Patchwerk, and it’s suiting me just fine. Would like the crossbow from 25man Horsemen, but it’s only dropped for my guild once and the guy who won it has NEVER used it. *grumps* At least now I have the most DKP in my guild, so I can take all the pretty Ulduar bows I want!
…I used to stack agi like crazy when I was BM, too. I just like it better than AP, dunno why.
@Ryai
I tired dismounting, relogging, dismissing, zoning… So far I have yet to see wild hunt affect a single point of my pets stats. Perhaps it only works for lvl 80? It’s rather odd that they’d include it in the talents and not have it work. If they fix it it’d be great for solo pets. Until then it’s just an empty talent tree decoration…
Ethgri:
I’m having the same problem. I get no extra AP at all from Wild Hunt. =/ I think it’s just a bug.
You can get a epic Cross Bow Drop from The Uk Heroic :X
The only good thing about the Nessingwary, as far as I am concerned, is it gave me a 4th weapon for the achievement to raise 4 weapons to 400. I had 0 points in guns before that and actually had to train guns when I decided to buy it. The last weapon I raised was the crossbow, which I was only about 150 points away from 400 when it dropped. But I agree. I am totally pissed that Blizz doesn’t have more high-level bows to be obtained outside of dungeons and raids for those of us who prefer the more casual approach to playing. Maybe it’s due to most of the devs at Blizz are males and they only think of “big guns, big noise”? Give me a decent 80 drop Robin Hood bow and I’d be happy!
Tell’em, Patricia! If I want to use a gun I’ll load up and FPS. And besides, my night elf holds his bow SIDEWAYS. You can’t hold a gun sideways! Though if I were a draeni hunter I’d prefer a bow or gun for the reload animation…..
RE Wild Hunt: switch aspects. Someone said that it might have to do with updating when the hunter’s AP changes… worked for me. Switched btw dragonhawk and anything else once or twice and the stam buff at least showed up (wasn’t looking at AP but I suspect it was there too). But the buff gets lost every time you mount/dismount or dismiss/call pet, which _really_ sucks for my habit of landing and starting a fight :( :(
Ben:
I tried that. I tried literally everything. None of my pets are getting the AP buff from their talent Wild Hunt. For now, I’ve just specced out of wild hunt. the Stamina buff isn’t worth it alone for me if the AP don’t work.
Guns:
Man I hate guns. They’re so freaking loud. But the BoE bows really suck in comparison, so I just decided to get the Nesingwary 4000 gun.
It’s times like this I think Blizzard should make a Woodcrafting profession that specializes in making Staves, a few polearms, and Bows.
“It’s times like this I think Blizzard should make a Woodcrafting profession that specializes in making Staves, a few polearms, and Bows.”
That wood be nice. (Hehe, sorry, couldn’t resist.)
I do love guns myself, but the new ones are mostly pretty ugly, and I’m wanting to stick with bows now that I can choose my quiver for cosmetic reasons. I’m lucky enough to have Arrowsong though, so I probably won’t be changing ranged weapons any time soon at least.
So I took a look at the Ulduar loot, and someone (I think Hodir?) drops a positively GORGEOUS bow (it’s even blue <3) on ten-man. …But then there’re like two or three guns that I saw in the loot tables. Of course, some of the bosses weren’t showing loot tables in AtlasLoot, but still. BOWS. <3
Rikaku: Sorry to hear the AP didn’t show up. You did see the stam though, right? I am also ignoring that talent until it gets fixed.
@Guns vs Bows: I’m also in the hate guns category :) I won Pierce’s Pistol (I think that was it) back when I didn’t have a good bow, and hated thinking I would have to use it. Luckily my first time in heroic UK I got the Drake Mounted Crossbow and haven’t looked back :) I was sooo lucky that day!
Just checked, by switching aspects I am getting both the AP bonus and the Stam bonus on a lvl 77 raptor.
Ben:
I have tried doing that, dismount, zoning, changing pets, re-training pets, dismissing pets, calling pets, literally everything. I cannot get the AP buff to go off. I don’t know if I’m getting the stamina one (because I don’t really pay attention to my pets stamina XD).
Even a freshly tamed lvl 75 raptor, devilsaur, wolf, and cat did not receive the AP bonus =(
Rikaku: yuck, sorry to hear that. Sounds like you have done your research though! :P For what it’s worth when I said I confirmed the AP bonus, I had only given the talent 1/2 points… I’ll try to check again but I thought I better mention it, even though I can’t see how it would affect anything. Again, sorry to hear it. Nothing I have done seems to affect it except switching in and out of dragonhawk.
I hate how every time I get a new piece of gear in raids, I usually end up having to shift gems and whatnot around because it puts me over/under the hit cap D= And I hate how Journey’s End wouldn’t drop for me and the hunters on the WoW hunter forums saw fit to flame me for my terrible luck in acquiring Best-in-Slot gear.
My tip of the day: Stay the hell away from the WoW hunter forums. They’re ruthless. You make a simple post trying to help someone asking for advice, and the trolls will swarm ’round and flame you until you curl up into the fetal position and cry yourself to sleep. It’s just not worth it.
And yes, I’m bitter.
/target Nirvana
/soothe
:( My boyfriend had a nasty encounter on the general forums last night, also about losing a weapon. It was really bad – people actually rolled characters on our server to harrass him and spam his screen with walls of pink “lololol nub” – he was threatening to quit the game because of it.
And I totally missed this in my last post, but a woodcarving profession would be awesome. In addition to the aforementioned staves and bows and such, perhaps they could also make wooden maces and mallets, carved jewelry and trinkets (not with gems in them, but deriving their “power” from the carvings), wood caster daggers (since they wouldn’t need to be sharp like metal blades; would make up for the lack of caster weapons at low levels!), and arrows of all levels (like we already have for bullets)! Not to mention all sorts of toys…
The forums started out tolerable, years ago. But the morons have been breeding in force lately, and it has gotten so, so much worse. Avoid the official forums as much as you can, boys and girls, for your sanities sake.
Mania, at least buy the swiftarrow battleFEAR:) It is pretty nice looking, abiout 500g for the set or less and it is way better than bloodlust, look up ridoer in the armory, most of my stuff is boe, cheap from ah and good stats for what its for(If you look it up soon you may see my pvp gear, don’t laugh)
If you do buy the swiftarrow set be sure to get the razorstrike chest piece instead of the swiftarrow one… both LW crafted but the razorstrike is better if you’re not pvp-ing
Actually have something to report about pets, but don;t know where to post it…so i am gonna post it here. Sholazar wasps have been shrunk down now…. but the Hive Queen is still enormous. Wish they would shrink her down too.
Before the patch came out, the slime stream bands were the best in slot bracers for hunters….and they’re BoE! Hopefully with the patch out, the price on them will drop and you’ll be able to get Naxx 25 gear without having to run it. :) They were pricey before, but yeah, with Ulduar out, you may find them in your price range at some point!
Heartseeker is the correct scope, btw. :D And the Nesingwary is on par with the UK crossbow, so you’re set there (though I TOTALLY agree that bows/xbows > guns and can’t wait for my upgrade from envoy).
The runeblade from Ebon Blade is the best non-instanced piece you can get for a hunter stat stick, IIRC. There’s dailies out in Icecrown if you feel so inclined to farm the rep at some point, but yeah, the harpoon should serve you well in the meantime.
Just a quick note before I have to dash off again — the Bloodlust is my hanging-out-in-town suit. It’s not my normal armor. This is the danger of logging out in town after you’ve posted your armory link. *grin*
Also, anyone who peruses my armory link today will notice that I went on a bit of a buying spree, with your kind help and advice. I’ll have a pot about that later this week. But suffice to say I spent too much money and my DPS increased by over 30%.
OK, noticed something add again today that has to do with pets. With my sixteenth point, i was able to put one point into wild hunt….. and to mydismay, my pet is not getting the buff. his AP and Stam are the same before and after i click the point. Anybody know if this is a bug, or am I missing something?
Dweez, dismiss and resummon your pet. The pet’s stats aren’t recalculated until it’s summoned again.
Dweezil and Ansawa, scroll up :) We have been talking about it. And no, dismissing and resummoning doesn’t seem to work, at least for most of us.
@Dweezill/Ansawa:
This is a consistant bug and the talent is 99% useless at this point. Just ignore it until the next patch/hotfix.
This “WILL” be a great tank/group pet talent when they finally fix it though.
@Rikaku:
Your experimentation sounds just like mine lol. Thank goodness for free pet respecs…
I know you don’t like grouping, but at this point most heroics are very very very casual/pug friendly. As far as meta gems go, you could consider running heroic Utgarde Keep for Plunderer’s Helmet. Should you decide to try that, heroic UK is the same as normal UK, and it’s one of the easiest heroics. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37188
Hmm… you don’t PvP, do you? I don’t know if you have the PvP mounts, but since you seem to be a collector, it would be worth your while to do some BG’s for some PvP mounts, as well as Wintergrasp for their awesome War Mammoth. Plus, the honor you pick up could be used for a piece or two of the level 80 blue PvP set. Just a suggestion!
“It’s times like this I think Blizzard should make a Woodcrafting profession that specializes in making Staves, a few polearms, and Bows.”
@Rikaku: I have been stuck on professions forever. I would do backflips for Woodcrafting! This would be a WONDERFUL thing to implement in an upcoming expansion. You should go somewhere with this! :D
Sweetie… http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37191 is exactly what you were looking for, xbow with the same stats as nessy gun.
If you are looking for a nice trinket you should consider the Anvil from Wintergrasp, it’s only 25 marks of Wintergrasp, and you don’t have to group up, all you have to do is tag 3 enemies and you should be counted as contributing to the victory of WG, which is 3 easy marks or 1 if your side loses. so even at 1 per day you could have an epic proc on hit trinket within 25 days :)
Also if I was horde and on your server I’d help you get you all the gear you wanted. Thanks for all the great blogging and great pet info. Happy hunting.
PS. the Runeblade is actually better than one of the staves that drops in Naxx and it just has great style to it.
I have to agree with the gun statement. I have the Envoy of Mortality…it may be an awesome weapon, but it’s a gun. I can’t wait for an Ulduar upgraded bow.
Runeblade would be a good option for you, but I also agree with the duel wielding Fang of Truth. Good hit rating, and room for a couple of enchants. Plus it only needs honored rep (I believe) so it’s easy to acquire.
“Also if I was horde and on your server I’d help you get you all the gear you wanted. Thanks for all the great blogging and great pet info. Happy hunting.”
Very much agreed here. Would run you through heroics and such for some of the easy badge gear. :/
Oh, I don’t know if you’ve looked at the rewards from the Argent Tournament, but you may also find some pieces there to your liking (though I would imagine that vanity pets and such would come first ;) ).
Ooh, I remembered that another excellent hunter piece from Naxx is BoE, the torn web wrappings. That’d be an amazing upgrade for you, if it drops into your price range. (Like the aforementioned bracers, this depends heavily on how fast your server gets into Uld gear.) You also might consider these boots as well. :) And if you don’t mind throwing around ridiculous amounts of gold, the agility greatness trinket is still pretty fantastic. Short of that, the chain in Icecrown that yields this trinket is pretty short. (It’s in the southeast corner of Icecrown.)
Hope this helps!
Hey Mania!
Personally, I dualwielded the Fangs of Truth from the Wyrmrest Accord rep. However, if you only want to really grind 1 rep at at time, I would put effort into the Dark Knights (Ebon Blade?) faction. They sell a 1H sword that gives Stami and +hit. If yo dual weild them, that +hit will be so much better than any agi you might get on a weapon. But, you can always enchant them with agility. If +hit isn’t an issue, then the 2H is awesome! That sword is really worth it. Also, they have one of the best non-heroic/pre-nax shoulders in the game! On top of that, they have an enchant for (shoulders I think, but could be for a head item) that is just the best in the game for that slot. So, Ebon Hold/Kingts/Blade/Faction is one rep that is really worth getting.
More later!
Z
I too hated guns earlier, mostly due to the god-awful noice they make. Luckily there is a way around it, the Gun Silencer Suppressor addon fixes noise issues and gives your N2K a cool, new (albeit non fantasy) soundscheme. The gun silncer can be found on curse here: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9480/
.duk
If you ever run into meta gem troubles … remember the
Can only ever have 1 of those but they fit any gem slot and count as red, yellow AND blue.
Basically this little gem alone would activate a
and what’s best you can buy the needed for 100 Clams you can pick up in Borean Tundra. :)
Hmm … I messed up the html tags … sorry … again without
If you ever run into meta gem troubles … remember the Enchanted Tear.
Can only ever have 1 of those but they fit any gem slot and count as red, yellow AND blue.
Basically this little gem alone would activate a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
and what’s best you can buy the needed Siren’s Tear for 100 Clams you can pick up in Borean Tundra. :)
I like guns. But I’m a Dwarf Hunter. A bow just seems weird on a dwarf to me. Cross bow makes sense somehow, but a big ol bow on a dwarf? o.o The noise doesn’t bother me either. I think if I had a Night Elf or Troll hunter bows seem to make more sense for those races. Seems like I’m a minority in this. I still remember the dwarf scottish “Lock n’Load” from Warcraft 3 with fond memories. heh.
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