Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Why does my fortress of ultimate evil have kicky throw pillows?

By some act of God, Gweryc technically became a tier 6 raider on 11 June, when he entered into the Black Temple, helping to take down Najentus, Supremus, and Shade of Akama.

http://wowwebstats.com/gd3zu31den5nm
91% present; 1,614,949 dmg out; 4% out; 548 dps; 29% dps time

Yeah, my DPS time was pretty miserable, as I was trying to be cautious my first time in. I was watching and learning the fights (I hadn't done my homework because I didn't expect to go), I was bandaging myself, avoiding fires and volcanoes, etc etc. I have screen shots I can post soon, but I wanted to get the data recorded here before it evanesced from WWS. Because this one just makes me giggle:

Shade of Akama fight, Gweryc:
http://wowwebstats.com/gd3zu31den5nm?a=xe8b76c&s=218369-221651

1020 dps.

Yeah, I know, I'm still not on par with the other raiders. But, seriously. I broke a thousand dps. I never thought that would happen, ever.

EVAR

Regarding that breakthrough, and in reply to the recent anonymous poster challenging my "big red" BM-heavy spec, I think that is the sort of compromise I have to make. I have to take performance where I can, and even if that's a 61/0/0 BM build, then so be it. But keep in mind, what I really did was shuffle just a few points around to trade some of my mana efficiency (meh) and a bit of agility for Ferocious Inspiration. On paper, I'm getting the same dps boost from FI as I do from putting the three points back into Lightning Reflexes, and making myself a lot more desirable as a raider by making that boost a group buff.

In fact, a melee hunter with Ferocious Inspiration does something really cool to group makeup. Instead of gimping a ranged hunter by putting him in a melee group to share Ferocious Inspiration, you can put that ranged guy back in a group with a shadow priest for mana returns, letting him use Aspect of the Hawk instead of Aspect of the Viper, and you stash your melee hunter in with a melee group, where they get the Ferocious Inspiration buff, and the melee hunter benefits from Windfury totems, etc.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Disclosure is so important (because) without it we really cannot know ourselves.

For the numbers fans, Kara WWS reports I've collected so far:

2008-06-07: b2zspvasc3n3m
2,575,780 dmg out, 573 dps

2008-05-29: iuznafsrjimfu
1,916,570 dmg out, 514 dps

Thanks to my guild master Daxx for permission to post links.

By the way, in a total abuse of my blog, which is meant to be focused on being a melee hunter, not Other Stuff... we're recruiting a raid healer, if anybody wants to think about joining me on The Scryers! Check us out at www.nerglish.com.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

I doubt my math on this, because it seems unrealistic. I was looking at the WWS report from my last Karazhan run, evaluating my gear, etc., paying special attention to my trinkets. I've been a long-time fan of my Maelstrom card. Last Kara, my DPS time was 1h., 14min (4440 sec.), and the card dealt 31,921 damage. 31921 dmg/4440 sec = 7.18 dps. Right?

But, wait... that number is huge, x-box hueg. Because if 1 dps = 14 AP, as conventional wisdom tells us, then 7.18 dps = 100.52 AP. Read that again, please, because I've got to have gotten something wrong. My level 60 Darkmoon card has more base attack power than a trinket from Black Temple? I've long preached the seekrit powar of using Wing Clip spam to proc things -- is it seriously that effective?