Update on the updates. I’ve been able to get moving on various guides. I did put up a notice on each of the guides that may be affected by 3.1 that looks like this:
This guide is flagged for review – not reviewed for patch 3.1 yet.
This was in response to a snarky comment left about the “Reviewed and Accurate” thing, pointing out that it was not up to date. That’s the reason the date is under the reviewed logo, but I guess I need to make things even more clear, so there it is.
Got some of the guides updated, including the SV talent spec, and the SV shot rotation (the BM ones are updated too — didn’t really require any significant changes). So that’s all progressing.
Why Does it Take So Long?
Many of you already know I was just really busy IRL the week of the patch, but even though I now have more time — it takes a good chunk of work to do the research before updating. Though I know at times I’ll make errors (well, maybe), I try as hard as possible to test and confirm all of my assumptions before posting. It takes a lot of time. This is what lead to Hrist’s blog yesterday.
Tuesday night is 10-man raid night for our group. I got home from work, and immediately spent two hours trying to fix some stupid back-end bug with the blog. I eventually got it working, but then was unable to make the user registration work properly (you can log in, but you can’t log out, wtf wordpress? (been trying to get that working for a while due to a lot of requests)).
Anyhow, I finally logged on WoW to let the group know that I would not be able to join them in Ulduar, ’cause I had too much WHU work to get caught up on. The group was, understandably, not pleased.
I explained that I was horribly behind on updating for 3.1, and getting lots of emails about it. At one point Hrist announced out of the blue that he would write my blog for me the next day.
I was very disturbed by Arust’s comment here:
He doesn’t even read the blog daily?! Stupid elves… Anyhow, as much as I appreciated Hrist taking over blogging for a day, I was still not able to go to Ulduar. The point is I can’t just sit down and write the guides — I have to sit in Ironforge for dozens of hours testing on the target dummy, respeccing, reglyphing, respeccing, and shooting forever.
So I did that all night Tuesday night, then I was doing it again last night. In fact I was hanging out gathering the raw data I need to theorycraft the SV glyphs when I got a tell from Party Girl. I forgot to screenshot it, but the conversation went something like this:
Party Girl: You’re always in Ironforge!
Frost: Lately, yeah. Right now I’m gathering data to theorycraft glyphs. There’s so many different ones and the math is different on ‘em all, so I need tons of info.
Party Girl: That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.
Frost: We call it “Paying yer dues.”
Frost: Sitting at the target dummy for hours to gather numbers to do math is not fun. Topping the damage meters in every instance is a blast. The two are related
Party Girl: I’m a healer. I don’t have to do target dummy testing. Thhhbbtt.
Actually, one of the really time-consuming parts was doing some tests to prove that Aimed Shot is no better than Multi-Shot. To make things reliable, it required at least 2k auto-shots fired (plus the aimed shots). Fortunately I was also able to use that data to prove that the hit cap has not changed either.
Coming Soon…
I’m going to keep updating the guides as I get to them (note that stat conversion guide was updated with the new Armor Pen conversion — but the Armor Pen guide will have to wait a while for me to do all the math again). However, I may occasionally do other testing or even new guides before all the old ones are updated. Here’s what’s on my mental to-do list:
- Post about results of Aimed Shot testing – probably tomorrow.
- Blog about the theorycrafting process as I do it for the SV glyphs
- Since I’ll have the data anyway, post the SV glyph guide
- Update whatever I can get around to
- Consult with Arust about finally, finally getting the MM talent build up
- Cook a fabulous dinner tomorrow night
- Beg for someone to help me figure out what is wrong with the WordPress registration, or find a plugin that handles it correctly.
- Work on secret WHU project 2
- Confirm secret WHU project 1 with Arust, and announce it
I sure hope that your recent influx of pushy emails were either fabricated or completely meant as a joke. Even while some folks were kidding a bit, I don’t find them entirely amusing. Here’s the bottom line in my opinion: you work your @ss off to do tedious testing and theorycrafting, and not just for yourself, but you’ve chosen to then share this information and hard work FREELY with the vast community of other hunters out there who wouldn’t dream of spending that kind of time figuring things out for themselves (including myself). So I think I speak on behalf of many, many appreciative hunters out here by saying, “You take as much time as you d@mn well please updating those guides, and the rest of us should be vehemently thanking you for it in the meantime.” Hell, the more time it takes for the guides to arrive probably means more testing and work that went into them (give or take a few random drinking binges), so everyone should be even MORE grateful. As the hunter community recently lost a prominent and resource-dependable figure due to wife-aggro, I imagine your readership and following is increasing exponentially. So you just keep doing what you do, take your time doing it, quit apologizing, and we’ll remain happy and thankful that people like you exist for the rest of us.
ps – I also GREATLY appreciate that you maintain guides/info regarding BM hunters. There are some of us that don’t choose to make the jump to SV (perhaps we enjoy the BM playstyle more), and we’re still able to hang out near the top of the meters in our raids. Unfortunately, it seems like BM info and resources have practically been erased from the internet lately. So I beg you to continue your hard work on maintaining some solid info for Beast Masters. Thanks again!
ieatkittens
Orc Hunter – Anvilmar
Whats for delicious dinner, Frost?
If it’s kittens, sounds like you’ve got a new best friend ^
sucks you missed ulduar :\
i echo ieatkittens sentiments fully (except for the whole “eating kittens” thing… i find them a bit gamey)
WHU needs a PR rep to spam STFU and GTFO messages
im sure you may know someone who has enough rage to deal with the hungering masses when we get particularly insatiable (just a thought 
)
Frost,
thanks for all of your hard work. I never realized how much went into crafting the guides. You are amazing!
Seriously…you owe us no excuses! I never saw this blog as Theorycrafting Only (there are others for that…), but rather one that is written well, with humor and in-jokes that all my other non hunter friends just do not grok.
Thanks for all the hard work, and dont you dare get burnt out – now log on, go play, and HAVE FUN!!
Finally found a reasonably priced Explosive Shot Glyph…….now looking for a Kill Shot Glyph
Doing a great job Frost…..your site has deffinitly helped my game playing out tremendously
thanks again
Daddyo: For dinner I’m thinking chicken breast in a lovely marinade of olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper, garlic, and rosemary. Pan-seared and oven-baked for maximum moistness.
Then my killer garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Some kind of white wine.
looks like youre paying your dues in more ways than one
all i got are these fish feasts :\
Mmmm, that sounds FANTASTIC. I always read your blog from work, and I only had a bowl of soup for lunch. Whenever I make mashed potatoes, I throw in half a thing of herb and garlic cream cheese; it’s always dressed to impress!
Are we entertaining a hairy-chinned, stocky, flatulent, Dwarven lady-friend? Whats the occasion?
Hurry up, Frost, might hunter might be 80 someday >:D
I always agree with kitten-eaters, but especially in this case. Your research and writing ability is highly appreciated by this hunter, and I’m trying to get my guild hunters to join the Union.
Quick question: When I weave in multishot on the heroic dummies in SW, I notice that the shot splits to other, non-heroic dummies nearby. Seems like that would be a problem. Are the heroic dummies in IF farther away from non-heroic dummies?
The IF heroic dummy is on the end of the row, so you can stand out of range of the others to make sure your multi-shot isn’t multi-shotting and contaminating your results with falsely high numbers.
Just another benefit of hangin’ in the greatest city in Azeroth.
It’s just so DARK in IF. My bank alt likes her pretty dresses and she’s afraid of losing her tan in IF. And my NELF hunter gets nervous around lava floes with all those cranky Dwarves lurking around every corner. You never know when they’ll get a wild hair to go NELF tossing.
Thanks for the info. I’m going to waste some serious lead tonite tinkering with my rotation, and see if the patch improved my Spirit Beast’s numbers.
“Some kind of White Wine”
… and you claim to be a dwarf .. I’m almost certain now that Frostheim is a Blood Elf tying to infiltrate the alliance …
Party Girl always reads the blog tomorrow too.
“Hangin in the greates city” it’s like whatever mate.. your hangin in a glorified cave with a furnace in the middle, where the men and the women look the same…
come chill out in darnassus, there are plenty of things to see and you just might find yourself a hot NElf chick to do ya a dance beneath the bows of our beautiful trees…
Now my tank is a dwarf and the good thing about that is, he does’nt block out the view when u need to blast things down…
thats about the only good thing u dwarves are worth…
hhrrrrrrr Ironfogre /shivers
omg, I just had to share this with someone…
today i joined a raid for voa25, and there was another fellow survival-hunter… when we had cleared the trash he whispered to me and asked why he didnt do as high damage as me.. he was doing around 2k, and i did around 3,5-3,7… I though it was strange, because he had better gear then me, so i started to ask what glyphs and shot-rotation he used.. And then i checked his armory…
http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=3&tal=000000000000000000000000000053250000000000000000000003320012513033330503123321301
I have never seen such a stupid survival specc…. and you wanna know what glyphs he had? Glyph of Volley, Glyph of the Beast, Glyph of Trueshot Aura….. Jesus…
I just had to tell someone… Look at the specc he used, I was amazed that there are that stupid hunters out there…
Thanks for listening… Later..
PS. And thanks for supercool blog, Frost!!
sounds like me before i found this site
btw the greatest city in azeroth is silvermoon, heres why
first, get some gnomish xray specs
secondly, drink jugs of bourbon until youre completely smashed
third, find a bench and cat call the lowbie belf paladins
just dont get smashed before getting to silvermoon. youll end up in thunder bluff cat calling nekkid heffers. thats fun for no one.
though i dont think these cities take to kindly to the likes of dwarves and night elves. i suppose you can hang around exodar checking out the lowbie drans
Damn You WHU,
Before i was aware the were dues to be paid, outside of the cost of my Ammo and reputation, My life was simple, but not as enjoyable.
7 level 80′s between me and my old man and I have never had such a comprehensive view of any single class. I have learnt more about how class diversity can truelly effect your playing style and “needs” from this site in the last month than i have in 5 somthing years of wowing my ass off.
You don’t need me to tell you that people are in your debt the same way they were to BRK, and ignoring impatience from the ungratefuls to lazy to spend hours testing themselves should be no issue hard to shrug off.
Incidentally Im not a hipicrit, I haven’t spent nearly long enough Benchmarking a hunter to be considered a hunter who has even half paid a shred of his dues… but intend to try.