Changing Pace

The website has changed! Did you notice?

Why? It’s simple really.

I got bored.  My earlier theme looked really good, but It got kinda bland.  I don’t think I’ll change anymore, but this was needed.

Besides, it does make everything look fabulous!

Speaking of changing things, I destroyed my earlier Death Knight.

Everyone, please welcome Colemand!

/shuffle

…Hello.  I see you’re all perfectly fine.  Or at least the majority of you aren’t rotting.  Doesn’t matter, seeing as I can’t smell anything other than grave dust…

I bet that you all taste delicious however! I mean, anyone would after eating so many scarlet crusaders.  See, they’re a bit on the spicy side, but they’ve begun to get bland.  And now I can’t eat them anymore!

Wait, what’s that? No eating visitors! Dammit Klinderas, you’re about as much fun as Arthas when he gets his ass frozen to his chair.

And what’s that freak’s obsession with his hair? It’s unnatural I tell you! Does anyone agree with me here? Hey! You can’t do that! HEY! GET YOUR FANCY HANDS OFF OF ME, ELF!

WAAAUUUUUUGH!

/crash

…I would like to apologize for my co-host’s behaviour.  He just needs to get out more often, meet some ghouls or something.

In any case, I hope to have some new information pertaining to Hunters everywhere.  Stay tuned.

I’ll Be Back!

... right after I click this picture!

… and by “I,” I mean “We”.

Beastmaster’s received a small blessing, and bragging rights(okay, we still don’t get these, they belong to survivalists and marksmen), when Ghostcrawler said something along the lines of “sorry.”

What does this mean? Well, beastmasters were nerfed too hard folks, and even GC noticed.

So what does that mean? It means GC wants beastmasters like myself to be able to be a part of the Flavour of the Month club.  To be a honest-to-goodness DPS machine in a tightly wound up package.

More importantly, to be able to share this spotlight with the marksmen and survivalist folks.  And therein lies the problem.

The problem with everyone sharing the spotlight is that it is, in all actuality, impossible in every way.  At least in WoW, balance is a dream and will never happen.

Imagine if every tree was balanced, magically.  If every tree did the same DPS, and were unique in play style… that would be awesome.  It’d be great.

… until the next patch came out.  If stats would increase for everyone by an equal amount, and everyone had the same armor it would end up unbalanced.

Why? Well, unlike our marksmen and survivalist brethren who gain +45 agility, we gain that same agility for us and our pet.  So do they, but the stats and such that we beastmasters give to our pets are amplified by a much larger amount than theirs, thanks to our talents.  As a result, the gain from stats is much larger for us beastmasters than for the other two types of hunters.  As a direct result, an increase in stats is a much larger bonus for beastmasters than for marksmen and survivalists.  This is just one example why there can’t be a complete balance.

This means that every time we get a new patch or expansion, there will be rebalancing everywhere due to the rapid growth in the beastmaster sector, and the turtle-speed growth in the marksmen and survivalist sectors.

What all this means is, beastmasters got nerfed here.  It’s likely, in the future, we’ll become overpowered and be nerfed again.  We’d be rebalanced, buffed, nerfed, and so on, until the day they shut down the servers.

So can everyone hope for a completely balanced WoW? We can.  It’s a very good goal to have in mind, but make a note of this: it is only a goal.  The reality is that there will always be someone ahead of the other in the Hunter class, and there are going to be waves.  Stay fast, or learn to surf.

In closing, for everyone who didn’t see this coming, you are all blind.  Like bats.  Or a drunken dwarf.

Moviewatch: Presto

I think I’m going to make Moviewatch here a regular occurence, simply because it’s so much fun to find these!

This time, I looked at Presto.

For those who have seen it(which is probably a large majority), watch it again.  I guarantee you it’s better the more you watch it.

It’s absolutely hilarious too.  Reminds me of my Saturday mornings spent with Bugs Bunny.

If there’s one thing you hunters will learn from this movie, it’s to feed your pet, or else.

EDIT: The link should work now.

Alternate Timelines and Picnics

It seems people would rather have a picnic than BRK for a president, so I took a moment to think about this.

I guarantee that a picnic would be awesome, but then the entire time line would have to change.

If BRK was to hold a SPK(Small Purple-white Kitty, Lienna’s term) picnic, the series of events would go like this:

The picnic is held.  Every hunter in existence decides to join in, and spend a merry time with everyone else.  However, like most events that huge, there will be asshats.

A character by the name of XxLegolassxX will drink way too much, and will try to do a William Tell impression with his pet.  Unfortunately, he hits the pet square in the forehead, the first time he’s actually hit anything with his +spellpower gear.

Mania and other pet lovers declare this an affront to pets in general, and have him executed.  The D.E.H.T.A will see this as an opportunity to rise as a prominent force in Azeroth, and will establish themselves as the D.A(nd).H(unters).E..H.T.A, thereby making them able to tank, dps, and heal effectively.  The DAHEHTA will then sue SPKWWA for not establishing proper security measures, and will convert all of his followers.

Pike, being a member of the druid community as well as the hunter community, would take over the leadership of of DAHEHTA and would become the figurehead of the group.  With the legions of SPKWWA and DAHEHTA at her finger tips, Pike resolves to do some good, and in her fervor, she decides that all pets should get the same rights as people.

Marching up to Washington, the legions of Pike force congress to pass this bylaw, as a way to honour pets around the globe.  They are forced to acknowledge this bylaw.  The “Pets are people too” bylaw goes into effect immediately.

Due to a misunderstanding, this means that animals can become the leaders of the nation.  Hobbes somehow becomes the leader of the United States, and he gets rid of all other congress.  He manages to do this by killing them all, and failing to replace them.  Any attempts to dislodge the tyrant kitty are met with failure, and Hobbes becomes ruler of the United States of Hobbes.

In a bid to restore power to the people, Hemet Nesingwary vows to hunt Hobbes down, and restore the USH back to being the USA.

Hemmet fails too though, as he hasn’t done any actual hunting in almost 3 games, and as such, his skills were rusty.  He’s eaten for supper.

Hobbes takes pity on his former master, and allows him to become VP.  BRK’s other duties include feeding, grooming, and litter box duty.

Hobbes then falls into a romantic relationship with a stray cat.  His new wife becomes the First Lady-cat.

Hobbes then chokes on a hairball, at which point, he falls into a coma.

The First Lady-cat then runs away, as cats are prone to do, and leaves her litter in BRK’s care.  In which, there is a little one that looks like Hobbes.  BRK names him Junior.

BRK assumes the mantle of leadership, bringing back congress, and eliminating the “Animals are people too” bylaw.  He then steps down, and elections are held once more.

Junior becomes BRK’s new partner in crime, and together, they re-establish their legions.  Pike disbands the DAHEHTA and continues to blog as she used to.

Another picnic is had, this time with a much smaller group.  Cheese and sausage rolls are had by everyone, and everyone went home, and then played some more WoW.

Dear God of Beastmastery

Dear God of BM,

For some time, I felt your presence.  I always knew you were there to tell me how things went, how to be the best beastmaster I could be.

You even sent to us and Avatar of your existence, and he has fulfilled his duty.

But now, even your avatar has abandoned your cause, if only for a little while.

So here’s my question… what will become of us?

…God of BM?

Aw hell, he’s not answering, so I’ll do my best.  Here’s what I think will happen, although it isn’t going to happen for at least a few months.

First, Hunters will find a niche.  Those who didn’t like BM but stayed anyway because it dealt the most damage will now find somewhere else to go.  Maybe they’ll like SV enough to stay there.

Second, hunters will show their true colours.  Those who steadfastly said “I’m never respeccing”, but then they respec, will be noticed.  Die hard beastmasters will remain so, and the number of BM blogs will deteriorate for a bit, to be replaced by survival and marksmen blogs.

Third, Loq will become a badge of tenacity and showmanship.  He will be even harder to find in the city than ever, and this won’t change until BM see’s the spotlight again.  This will also make him easier to hunt, as the number of people camping his spawns willl be reduced.

Lastly, BRK Worldwide Amalgamated will be renamed one of three things: Daniel and Hobbes, Small Purple Kitty, or DY-NA-MIGHT.  The owner’s of Calvin and Hobbes will sue for copyright, only to lose because of the military assault conducted by millions of rabid Howell fans, who will have also taken over Blizzard’s vast fortune.  As a direct result, BRK’s massive ego will be stoked to a point where he will take over Canada, and then with it’s resources, the world.  No one will stop him from taking over Canada because there are too many nice people up here, and we’d rather have him than Stephen Harper anyway.  Unfortunately, Rilgon will go mad at the sight of an Ex-BM taking over the world chair.  He will then assassinate BRK, the first and last president of the world.  His funeral would be held in game, and would be trashed by the local Scourge forces. Rilgon would escape, and continue to lead MM uprisings for the better part of a decade before finally dying in a freak hunting accident.

Slow Wolf will continue to write as a Beastmaster regardless.

That is what will happen until the next patch.

Impressions of a Beastmaster: Survival

I was curious.

I’m sorry, god of Beastmastery, I will not falter for awhile.

You see, I tried survival.  Just to see how it worked.

WOW.  The number of shots I could use! I probably got the wrong glyphs and everything, but with a 50 mana difference between Aimed and arcane, I figured using aimed wouldn’t hurt too much.

So, Serpent Sting, Explosive shot, Aimed Shot, Steady shot priority.  I went for a long ranged build…

Yes, it was a sucky build, but work with me on this one.

I tried it out, and I loved having all those cool new shots! It was great! Plus, kiting was a breeze.  The amount of damage I could dish out while Kiting was ridonculous.  Ridiculous is too normal a word to use here.

… However.  I missed the utility that my pet could bring to the table.  You see, I had a quest where you have to kill a magnataur called Gigantaur.

I could not solo him.  Not possible.  He was also incredibly hard to kite, as he ran incredibly fast, so no kiting either.

So, I tried to get a group going.  We almost got him, but our paladin died(honest! They can die!) and then our rogue evasion tanked for as long as he could.  Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough, and we wiped.

So, I opted to go back to BM, and we could use my worm to tank.  The paladin would heal.

This worked to perfection.  No issues.  The tankadin kept Jormungandr topped up nicely, and he never lost threat.

So, survival? Great mana conservation.  Awesome kiting.  Great damage.

Hard to do anything else? Ayup.

Now, for all your survivalists…

FLAME ON!

The Rejects

Many pets in WoW are based on a real animal, deceased or otherwise.  Hyenas, Cats, Wolves, Moths… with the exception of Nether Rays, Sporebats, Dragonhawks, Core Hounds and Chimaeras, everything is based off of real life.

A great many animals, though, did not make it into WoW.  Though some omissions makes sense, there are some animals that should have made it due to their fighting prowess.

There’s one animal in particular I think should have made it in for sure.  The animal I talk about tests the courage of men on a level unheard of.  Beware, for all those who wish to tame it will face death.  Death by sharp, pointy teeth!

Ye been WARNED.

Moviewatch: Kiwi!

Sometimes, there are things which really make me think.

There’s a movie on Youtube called Kiwi! that my girlfriend showed to me awhile ago.

It’s a good movie.  You should see it! Why? Because stuff this good doesn’t pop up onto YouTube often.  It’s not action packed or anything, but it is something you will like, I think.

So, in case you didn’t click and watch already, here’s the link again.

Now that you’ve seen it, what do you think?

Master of the Arcane

… Well, the Arcane Shot, anyway.

Earlier on in my blogging, I wrote a post detailing how important arcane shot is going to be in Beast master and Marksmanship rotations.  What was my reasoning? Well, it’s the same mana cost as Steady Shot, and now it’s doing a lot more damage.

You want proof? I’ll give you your proof!

The formula for Steady Shot is [RAP * 0.1 + 252] now.  So, lets plug in my stats at the moment…
AP =1613+230
AP=1843
[1843*0.1+252] +Unmodified Weapon damage+Ammo=DAMAGE!
[184.3+252]+364+32 d/s=DAMAGE!
800.3+~48=DAMAGE!
848.3 damage per Steady Shot before Armor Reduction kicks in, and that’s if I am doing top end damage.  I want people to correct me if I’m wrong.

Now lets look at Arcane Shot.
Damage=[RAP * 0.15 + 492]
D=[1843*0.15+492]
D=[276.45+492]
D=768.45

But wait! That’s not more is it?
You’re right.  It isn’t… at face value, anyway.  This bypasses armor though, as it’s a magic attack.  So, it does more damage, although not much more.

But for Beast masters and Marksmen, the fun isn’t over.

Thanks to the talent “Improved Arcane shot“, we can do even more.

Fully talented, Improved arcane shot gives a 15% bonus to damage done by arcane shot.  So…
D=768.45*1.15
D=~883.72

Now, that’s bigger than Steady Shot by sheer numbers! It’s not affected by armor either!
For beast masters, it gets even better.  Ferocious inspiration now grants you an additional 9% bonus to arcane shot, for a total of 24% bonus damage.  Let’s check it out.
D=768.45*1.24
D=~952.88

Wow.  For the same mana cost, Arcane shot does more damage, and bypasses armor.  The only reason this isn’t affecting Survivalists is because they have Explosive shot which does more damage than Arcane shot and shares a cooldown with it.  So, they use Explosive shot instead.

BM and MM hunters, however, are going to need to use arcane shot every time they can.  If they don’t, they’re not doing enough damage.  Not nearly enough.  BRK made a post concerning the Spirit Beast and it’s damage, but an interesting thing he said was that Arcane shot was getting critical hits for around 4k damage.  That’s huge for a shot that’s instant!

So, a word of advice.  Use Arcane shot, or start sweeping the bottom of the damage meters.  Your choice.

And while you’re at it, polish my shoes.  They’ve been trudging around in mud and slush for weeks

Here is the source from where I got my info for the changes.

World of Earth

Pronounced EE-AR-THuh.  Or that’s what I’m told anyway.

It’s some crazy new place that is overrun with humans, apparently.  When we get there in about 4 expansions from now, we’re going to have to stop them from blowing themselves up by killing the bad humans.

We also have to stop Hemet from killing the animals, as they don’t re-spawn there apparently.  Weird.

In any case, I have become FASCINATED with the varieties of frogs they have there! I would like to show you a few of them!

Yes, that one frog is being compared to a watch.  That frog is huge.

…

Why Blizzard doesn’t at least let us tame Murlocs astounds me.  We can tame Gorillas…

/sniffle

I want a combat frog.