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.
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.