Wolf vs. Devilsaur

“Did Devilsaur get a stealth nerf?” tweeted the Pike this afternoon. “Consistently showing Wolf > Raptor > Devilsaur. YMMV.”

My eyebrow peaked. But Blizzard, I cried into the ether, worrying my coworkers, didn’t you say you wanted exotic pets to be on top, always?

They did. But apparently, they also changed their minds.

I only have three pets at level 80: Mahrou, a wolf; Mijikai, a devilsaur; Murinandai, a rhino. Since rhinos aren’t exactly known for being top-of-the-line dps pets, I squared off Mijikai and Mahrou head-to-head in Silvermoon, my preferred testing ground for all things huntering.

The conditions were static between the two tests: I had one buff (Kings) leftover from a Coren Direbrew run. Each test went for two minutes exactly, using the stopwatch feature as a timer. I would have Hunter’s Mark active before the beginning of the test, and started each test out with Bestial Wrath, punching it one more time during each test. Both pets’ specs were exactly the same. Lastly, I kept on attacking until I ran out of mana, hit Aspect of the Viper until I was up to ~7000 mana again, then turned Dragonhawk back on.

I had Recount running for preliminary numbers, but they were sort of shady so I ended up ignoring them. Then I spent a good half hour switching between log websites until I found one that a) worked, and b) accepted a log without a boss fight. Then I looked at the numbers.

Then I tried not to cry.

Sure enough, Mahrou, my first pet ever from way back at level 10, out-damaged Mijikai the freakin’ DINOSAUR. He hit harder (avg of 640/hit vs. Mijikai’s 590), he critted more often (51 vs. Mijikai’s 47), and buffed my plain hunter damage by nearly 200 dps (Furious Howl). Mijikai just couldn’t keep up, despite being, y’know, A GIANT FREAKIN’ DINOSAUR.

I might be a bit hung up on this, here.

So it seems that wolves have climbed above the TYRANNOSAURUS FREAKIN’ REX. I don’t know if this was a stealth buff, stealth nerf, or if somebody at Blizzard is just really, really drunk. But I do know that Mahrou is by my side once more until further notice.

How exactly do I put this?

At the end of June I went on a self-imposed hiatus from WoW in order to prepare for visiting family. While the preparations were completed, I also remembered that I had other ways to entertain myself in the evenings. So when I returned to WoW, finally, I was far more focused in my efforts, and really only logged on in order to raid.

Then I acquired a new job. This new job is fantastic, something I’d wanted for years and was excited to finally get. Longer hours, longer commute, but far better pay plus benefits. I’m very happy with it, but unfortunately, it cuts into my evening a bit more. So after I get home from work and cook and eat dinner, I have less time to spend with entertainment than I did before.

On top of all that, 3.2 was released and suddenly my guild’s progression was split between finishing Ulduar and doing all the shiny new stuff. Also, my computer’s frame rate during raids dropped from 7 (barely manageable) to 3 (deadly), and I cannot find a reason for it.

So I find myself in a tight spot.

I still enjoy raiding, but I can’t raid without giving my computer a major overhaul (new motherboard to handle more memory, etc…). But my computer still runs all the other games I like to play just fine, plus I’ve been getting back into console gaming. Even when I’m willing to suffer the 3fps to raid, my schedule doesn’t link up with my guild’s raiding schedule anymore, and the raids I can sign up for ultimately get canceled. Additionally, I started taking my Eee to work in order to write posts, but ended up restarting a novel I began writing ten years ago.

Lastly, Cataclysm looks fantastic and I find myself upset that it’s not here now.

The point of all this is that I haven’t quit the game. Nor have I quit writing. My attentions, due to the circumstances, just happen to be elsewhere. So if anyone is still reading this, I promise I will be back. Fer srs.

Summer Slump

In my case, I’ve had reasons. Family came to visit, requiring a two-week blitz to clean up the apartment in time, plus planning a meal that would make my grandmother proud (it did). Then at the same time I started interviewing for a new job, landed the job, then put in my two weeks’ notice at my current job, which means wrapping my job up into a bundle that anyone could pick up (impossible). So, I’ve been busy.

But what’s worrisome is when I’m ready to dive back into raiding and the rest of the raid…isn’t there.

I’ve seen it before. The season changes and people get busy and raiding isn’t top priority, which is honestly a very healthy thing for someone’s life (assuming the top priority isn’t, y’know, a real-life murder spree). But the last time I saw the Summer Slump, it eventually killed an entire guild.

Granted, I don’t think that’s the case here. But the paranoid part of my mind – a nagging little voice who is far louder than it ought to be – keeps reminding me of the last guild that I watched die from the Summer Slump. The problem comes if the Summer Slump spreads into the Fall Slump and once you hit winter, there’s no recovering.

That’s hopefully not the case now. I don’t want it to be the case now. But what doesn’t help is my new job having later hours, getting me home just barely in time for the raid. While the Summer Slump may not kill my guild, it might kill my own ability to raid. And that would, quite bluntly, suck.

We’ll see what happens. Trust that I’ll have more to say when it comes along! I’m itching to write the Kologarn guide, and I haven’t even peeked at the PTR yet.

How are all of you doing? Is summer getting in the way of your gaming schedule?

Ulduar: Ignis the Furnace Master

This post is the third of several giving instructional advice for the Beast Mastery hunter slugging through Ulduar. These posts do not discuss every single strategy for any given boss, and hunters may find that their raid leaders prefer a different approach. For the most part, however, this information should provide a solid starting point for effective pewpew.

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Ignis is found at the Colossal Forge, waiting for the foolhardy raid to come barreling in and get burned to a crisp in the Maker’s fire. He’s also optional, and can be skipped if the raid has more pressing things to attend to, like Kologarn. Ignis is also the closest thing to a tank-and-spank in Ulduar up to that point, so it’s a nice chance to sit back and concentrate on doing damage.

The fight begins with a pull, very possibly from a hunter misdirect. The size of Ignis and the room itself is a very effective lesson in scale and weapon range – a Hunter’s Mark can’t even be applied until one has crossed the dividing line in the middle of the room. One way or another, the boss will be aggro’d on the tank and the fight will begin.

At regular intervals, Ignis will drop a Scorch area. This is a very obvious and very large AoE that blackens the ground and shoots up licks of fire. Get out of it! Find a safe spot among the raid and pewpew. You can send your pet after Ignis and concentrate on your shot priority.

You will need to move as the fight wears on. The Scorches are large, as before mentioned, and the tank will be kiting Ignis around so that the Scorches are placed in a manageable manner. If the raid chooses to have Ignis tanked in a square-like formation, the Scorches will be at each corner.

Unfortunately, while the rest of the raid can get by standing in the middle of the square, Ignis’ hit box is large enough that hunters will be in melee range if they stand in the center. So find the minimum distance and keep moving to avoid where the Scorches will fall. It’s best to wait for a spot in the priority when an Arcane Shot and a Serpent Sting are back-to-back, because they can both be fired while running.

Another fun bit that Ingis likes to pull often is Flame Jets. The entire raid will be hit for fire damage and flung up into the air. The flinging also interrupts any casting, but us hunters aren’t interrupted in the same way spellcasters are. When we hit the ground, we can go back to pewpewing as normal. Thankfully, since Flame Jets is fire damage, it can be resisted and the entire interrupt/flinging incident avoided. In midair, however, is a great time to renew Serpent Sting.

The last of the things Ignis does to the raid directly is the Slag Pot. Ignis will charge a random member of the raid, scoop them up, and shove them in his pantspot, where they will take a massive amount of damage over time. The player can’t do much except heal themselves through any means available to them. For hunters, keep the mouse ready to click your Healthstone in case the heals don’t come fast enough. The player is eventually dumped unceremoniously onto the ground, often right into the middle of a Scorch. Be ready to run!

So, there are the basics of Ignis himself. Unfortunately, there’s always a little bit more that Blizzard likes to throw at us. In Ignis’ case, he has adds that are summoned throughout the fight. These adds are the constructs lining each side of the room – they’ll come to life and start running rampant throughout the raid. An off-tank will need to round them up and have them stand in the Scorches. What this does is make them ‘Molten’, at which point the construct will need to be kited into one of the large pools of water on either side of the room.

When the construct hits the water, it becomes ‘Brittle’ – and can be completely shattered in one hit…as long as that hit is for over 5000. Anything less will do nothing, and when the construct shatters it does so with a nice little AoE. So ranged dps capable of consistently doing over 5000 in one hit will likely be assigned to shatter constructs. The rest of the raid will pretty much ignore the constructs altogether.

Ignis has no phases, just all this chaos going on until he’s finally dead on the floor. In a worst-case scenario, he can be reset by running him back up the ramp to the teleporter. With Flame Jets going on, however, it’s rough to survive that long in case of a near-wipe. But with him down, all that remains between your raid and the next section of Ulduar is a giant robot with a penchant for temper tantrums and breaking his toys. Ouch.

Wait, we did what?

So while our first swing at Ulduar 25 last night felt a bit clunky – we were missing our official main tank and a few regular dps – it was also fantastic in its own way. I would even go as far as to assume that the entire raid read my last post and collectively decided to shove it in my face.

We one-shotted Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, XT, Kologarn, Auriaya, and Hodir. We one-shotted Hodir! We’ve spent weeks wiping on him six times before killing him, and we sweep in without our MT and flatten him. FANTASTIC.

Then, hoping we weren’t pressing our luck, we ran in on Thorim.

Of course, he beats us down, and we wiped for the first time that night. But spirits were still high, and we pushed on with different tactics until we did something we hadn’t done before – we made it to the enrage timer. And then, y’know, promptly died. But still! We’d never survived that long before. At that point it was late and we called the raid, but we called it on a high note – a tactic that finally worked to keep us alive in both sections. Now it’s just down to speed.

As a side note, I’ll be working on the XT writeup either today or tomorrow. I’ll be skipping Ignis at the moment, since we didn’t kill him last night and I prefer to do the writeups while the fight is still fresh in my mind.