Arust and I have conquered nature, and I was delighted to return to the world of the internets to find a lot of great feedback about what you guys would like to see on the WHU. As a small matter of self-indulgence, I’m going to speckle this post with some pics I took of our camping trip — but I’ll be talking about WoW (mostly).
First of all, I should note that when I returned and was going through my pages of emails, I was deleting the various spam that I receive. I tend to select a big chunk of it, and then permanently delete it. At the last second I realized that I was deleting an email from Arthemystia — so if you’re reading this Arth, please resend the email. I haven’t actually read it, and never will at this rate. Now I just hope I didn’t delete anything else.
So, on to the suggestions!
Addons
Good eatin! Red potatoes with salt, rosemary, cooked in bacon grease makes a nice addition to breakfast of bacon and eggs scrambled with onion, pepper, and garlic.
One of the pretty unanimous votes of yea was an addon guide. I am putting this on the to-do list. I’ll probably just include what I think of as the more essential hunter addons, and some brief instructions of how to use them. I probably won’t include things like addons to customize your UI, since that’s more a matter of taste than need.
Jump-Shot / Kiting
I’ve been collecting footage from various fights for a jump-shot / kiting guide. I never really included this on the site originally because it’s something I usually just assumed all hunters knew. But then I grew up in a time of kiting Drak in UBRS, and doing the hunter epic quest. Young hunters these days probably never actually had to kite anything in their lives. Actually, they still don’t. But still, it’s a skill you should have.
There isn’t anything hard or secret about it; however, you do have to move with your mouse and shoot with your keys.
Forums
I am pleased and relieved that several of your share my opinion that WHU forums would, at least for the time being, be more of a detriment than a benefit.
I feel like there are plenty of other places that have good forums, and that those inevitably devolve into mean-spirited name calling and trolling. The effort to moderate it would be significant. And while I’m sure plenty of people would volunteer for the task, from a more selfish perspective — I don’t want to spend my time answering tons of “here’s my armory, tell me what’s wrong” questions.
PVP
This one is probably not going to happen. Simply put, Arust and I are just not experts on PVP. Sure I play the occasional battleground and I used to Arena, but the opinions I would give on PVP are probably not going to be terribly useful.
However, when I get emails about PVP and respond with “I’m not an expert” the next question is always “Okay, then where should I look?” I don’t have an answer for this one, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep an eye open for intelligent PVP hunters and offer them a spot on the WHU, where we can put together a series of PVP-related guides in the WHU style. Not promising I’m going to find this person, just that I will look!
Other Classes
The most dangerous mob encountered. Apparently bees do not like it when you put a lens 1" away from them.
There were a handful of comments about wanting to keep the WHU hunter-specific. Do not worry, that is what it will remain. I’m not sure how that concern got started, maybe my comment about trying to force Hrist into writing a hate tank blog.
But again, I do get a decent amount of email from people who want to know if there is a WHU-like site for their alt class. I understand the desire, and I have to say I don’t spend a lot of time on other classes’ sites (other than TankSpot occasionally, to further my understanding of tanking for the sake of my pet tank). However, again, I’m going to keep an eye open. I’ll talk to some people and try to narrow down to a list of one good site per class and then toss up a blogroll.
Extreme Soloing
We had thunderstorms all the first night. The next morning we gathered soaking wet firefood and started a roaring fire with just one match, thanks to leet theorycrafting skills.
An extreme soloing section was probably fated to happen in any situation except everyone responded saying they hated it.
I also feel there is a significant extreme soloing segment to the hunter community, and I haven’t seen anyplace that covers it really well.
Actually, Arust and I had some significant hunter extreme soloing conversations this weekend. I’m really excited to try out a couple of new ideas to solo new instances – however first I need to get the hunter soloing secret weapon: two pieces of T5 gear! I think I’ll try to lure some guildies into TK/SSC runs by promising them achievements and mount drops. Yeah, that should work.
Boss Strats
We’ll have to see about this one. Frankly the main reason I’m resistant to this is that I’ve only made it about halfway through Ulduar. So I can only give an informed opinion on what you want to be doing for the first half of the bosses.
Raid Gear Guides
Probably not going to happen. By the time you get into raid and end-game gear, your gear choices are going to vary heavily depending on your exact build (and sometimes even based on what your other gear is!). You’re better off using EAP based on your situation to see which piece is an upgrade.
There just isn’t any one clear choice for every hunter. Heck, there isn’t even one clear spec for every raiding hunter – as MM surpasses SV at a certain gear point.
More of the Same
And of course the WHU will still have everything that it has now. We will continue to update the guides as new patches and new information comes out. I’ll continue to relate amusing anecdotes of Hrist hate and raiding shenanigans, and periodically philosophize about WoW-related stuff.
And, of course, we’ll continue to pursue dps with all our efforts, to become the death dealers that we should be.
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It looks like you had a great time!! Great pics as well! Wow! We missed you on our weekend raids… but no matter.. there is another weekend coming right up… after these four days of the weekday:D
Big Red Rhino (http://bigredrhino.wordpress.com/) might be a good resource or link for extreme soloing and pet tanking. He has covered lots of what he calls “Pet Feats”, i.e. known firsts for pet soloing, as well as some theory. I personally would love to see you do guides, theory, and gear coverage for soloing. Some likely targets would be icecrown 5-man group quests, seasonal things (how about ahune if it can be soloed?), and of course instances and raids. Oh, and how about the ring of whatever tournament in zul’drak? I got up to the last boss with the help of a friendly opposite faction hunter (we traded off helping, I had a tanky pet and he had a ferocity) but couldn’t do the last one.
The Haterade
I am all about helping your get your T5, Frost. Many things I never got to see in BC with Hrist and I very much want to go back. So you have a tank, anyway.
anon already said it, but I’ll also throw in support for Big Red Rhino for solo huntering. He focuses on Hunter tanking whether it is soloing dungeons, tanking a 5 man, or off-tanking a raid. Good source of hunter tanking info.
As for PVP, Garwulf over at The Huntsman’s Lodge (http://huntsmanslodge.com/) focuses a lot on PVP. It is not a strict PVP blog, but rather a pretty general Hunter blog; however, he covers more hunter PVP topics than I have seen with other hunter blogs.
Sadly, on the topic of kiting, it has become almost useless in PVE (even for MM and SV). The only time I ever “have” to use it is when I am leveling a new pet, and even then, it is only for a couple levels. There are a few other times it is useful, but 98% of the time your pet can hold aggro just fine, or you are grouped and the use for it is completely gone. Sure, kiting is necessary for when you pull aggro off the tank, but only if FD is on CD (and this would mean we weren’t watching our threat). Even MM and SV would be able to blast away their target before it is able to get in melee range of them. Am I missing something?
That said, the use for kiting in PVP is an absolute necessity. A great way to demonstrate kiting would be to hit a battleground and kite around a pally until you run out of mana, get tired, or whatever; and then just let him pulverize you. Better yet, kite a rogue around and show people why rogues fear us
Excited for the new ideas, and the pics make me crazy homesick.
Contributor
Haha, awesome. I got mentioned in a WHU article.
The email was full of win, btw. I could be cruel and not send it, leaving you guessing forever. But that’s not how I roll.
But damnit. I mentioned the t5 gear in my email, because it concerned soloing stuff. I’m just going to assume you read it and are stealing ideas from me.
:p
Member
I’d be happy to hit up t5 instance except for the fact that I can’t seem to find any time to play much more than the 10 man raids atm. Darling Wife keeps draggin’ me out on real world adventures
Member
Love the site and want to weigh in with the majority that a forum would suck royally. Keep it the way it is. I don’t need yet another forum to sift through.
Extreme soloing and perhaps some duo hunter action would be great to see
Yeah I think addon guide would be cool and if possible UI even if it’s more personal.
On a side note OMG those potatoes look amazing
Member
Looking forward to the new guides. Awesome, awesome stuff.
Just out of curiosity, have you played on the 3.2 test yet and, if so, will you be blogging your findings?
Sup with the T5? Hope to see a post with more about that and the extreme soloing
Also just posted to say, you guys are awesome, and the concept of EAP I picked up here has helped me more than enough times to become the 2nd best hunter of my guild. (Other guy gets into ulduar runs more often, way better geared >.>)
I also want to vote for Garwulf at huntsmanslodge.com as being perhaps the best resource on hunter PVP. That site also has a great Macros page that I suggest you sift through and use to update your macro guides.
I love your site, and your approach to “The Science of DPS”
glad you had a great trip and I bet you loved the break its always good to get back to the great outdoors , love the post and pics too !. I am not a big fan of a forum either all stuff you need to find is here in the guides section and if its not there it will be soon the way you get things done. It great how you seem to answer everyone’s comments too in your own style touch base on each topic this site is just the BOMB !!!! .
Member
looks like fun. I can’t wait until I go camping this summer, but it will be when blizzcon is going on, and I want the minipet, but I’m not going to spend $40 if I won’t be there to watch it. I collect minipets, but it still won’t be worth it. lol, got a lil off topic.
Eagerly awaiting the Addon Guide! Think you’ll get to it anytime soon?
You Solo Guides have been great, I’ve been testing them out and enjoying Hunter Power…