This Week in Raiding… How Brajana Got Her Groove Back

As a quondam post of mine can attest to, it’s been a very busy, very messy week.  While the bus strike is still on, exams are over!  Which means I am stuck in my apartment with nothing to do but play World of Warcraft.

Friday, which was supposed to be a day full of heroics, didn’t end up being what I expected.  In the morning, I ran Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle, which of course (like everything else) I’d never been to before.  We made it through fine, but with no thanks to me.

I was a mess!  I don’t know what was wrong with me, but my DPS sucked, I kept face-pulling, and it’s probably a good thing they never asked me to trap.  Seriously, it was a mess.  By the end of the run, I was only about 4% ahead of THE TANK on the damage meters.  Ouch.

I felt like after they’d explained a boss fight to me, I’d immediately forget what they said.  I just was not focused.  I don’t think it helped that I’d never been there before and everyone else had, and I also had three cats vying for my attention, as well as my brother trying to have a conversation with me via text messages (I hate writing text messages!).

I picked up a pair of [Gilt-Edged Leather Gauntlets] in the end, but I actually felt guilty taking them – I didn’t contribute to the run, and didn’t feel like I deserved anything.

It’s probably good I didn’t end up running heroics all day with that group.  It probably would have just been more of the same!

After that, I continued to have more troubles with my computer, and wasn’t able to play most of the afternoon… but after I rebooted and let my video card take a nap, I managed to convince it to stay awake for a couple runs in the evening while  I helped Tigerfeet search for a new tanking staff.

We started in Heroic Black Morass Violet Hold.  It was lots of fun, and I love having Tiger as my tank, she’s a very good tank and more importantly, she is always very constructive and forgiving of silly little mistakes that we all make.  And for some reason, my complete lack of focus was gone!  Huzzah!  Misdirects for everyone!

We had a little trouble learning the second boss, which was Zuramat the Obliterator, the big Voidwalker type guy.  Apparently he is hailed as one of the most difficult heroic bosses around right now.  But after a couple of wipes and researching the exact mechanics, we had no problems… our Shaman healer got to purgin’ and we killed his little minions and all was well.

When we were done, while I walked away with [Twin-Headed Boots] but the staff didn’t drop, so we took our party to Heroic Utgarde Keep to have of either the staff or the crossbow dropping!

Finally, a heroic I’ve done before!  It went pretty smoothly, I can’t say we had any real troubles.  And congrats to Tigerfeet on her new [Enraged Feral Staff]!

I think I’m comfortable with running heroics now.  Which puts me a little more at ease about possibly jumping straight into 25-man raiding next week.  I’d rather get some practice in 10-mans first, but it seems the guild’s priority is to jump right past that.

Lots of Leather! :)

Since I’ve hit 77 and I can fly again, I decided that it is time to get my leatherworking on.  Coincidentally, last night Tharaks (on his 78 mage, Trimk) proposed we do some AoE grinding.

Boy was it fun!  We headed out to the Basin and we’d get on our mounts, we’d each head in a different direction, meet in the middle and AoE down 6 or 7 mobs at once.  Even got him some herbs from the flower mob thingies!

I picked up about 120 [Borean Leather], which isn’t that much when you make it heavy, but with the leather I’d already picked up from questing in Sholazar, it was enough to get me from 413 to 421!  I made a couple [Bag of Endless Pockets] for Raks and another guildy, and went and picked up a couple new patterns.

I put my giant list to use and figured out what upgrades I wanted to have ready for when I hit 78.

I spent another hour farming [Icy Dragonscales].  They drop more than I was expecting, and I had 40 pretty quickly.  I decided to make [Dragonstompers] now, since they only require level 77, and then once the servers are back up after today’s extended maintenance I’ll farm some more so I can craft up my [Eaglebane Bracers].

Oh, and I need to figure out where to farm [Eternal Fire] for my [Virulent Spaulders], no way I’m paying 120 gold for 2 of ‘em!  I was a little flummoxed about whether the upgrade was worth it, because new shoulders will break my T5 healy pet bonus, which I love to bits and pieces… but I figure I can always keep my [Rift Stalker Mantle] on hand for when my pet might be taking serious damage.

Brajana – Level 77 Troll Hunter

• Skinning: 450
• Leatherworking: 422
• First Aid: 413
• Fishing: 392
• Cooking: 400

Upgrades for Anti-social Hunters

Like pretty much everyone else, I have been looking in to upgrades.  For me, I like to focus mostly on reputation based or leatherworking upgrades, since those are not dependent on luck.  I also don’t seem to ever get to run dungeons, it just never fits in to my schedule, and I HATE PUGS, so I usually don’t run anything unless it’s all guildies (most of which are way ahead of me in level now).

Conveniently, I’ve had my work done for me when it comes to researching dungeon and heroic drops.  Let me point you in the right direction:

• The Hunter’s Mark – Lassirra has written a giant post with lots of great info on where to get what and why.  Check it out for sure, even if you just look at the lists of gear (but you should read it all!)
• Stabilized Effort Scope – Rilgon has listed his plans for upgrades, and included gems as well.  While this isn’t so much a guide of where to get all the gear in the game, it’s good to take a look at how some other people are planning to gear.
• BigRedKitty – A list of some heroic gear to watch out for, very short and to the point.

Now, it’s my turn.  These are upgrades you can get if you don’t get to run a lot of heroics, or if you’re trying to catch up to the rest of your group.  Sure, your T5 and T6 gear will be fine in heroics and probably Naxx too, but if you didn’t get a chance to get any of that, you might want to take some time to pick up some of these level 78-80 upgrades.

I haven’t done any serious number crunching on these comparisons, they are just to give you an idea and help you (and me) figure out where to focus efforts.

Note:  The 200-level crafted upgrades require Frozen Orbs, which are obtained from Heroics.  However, they are BoE, so they could potential be purchased before you set foot in a heroic.

Ranged

• [Nesingwary 4000] Engineering 450
  This is an amazing weapon.  You should probably pick it up as soon as you can.  And it’s pretty too.
• [Zombie Sweeper Shotgun] Argent Crusade – Revered
  While it is dwarfed by the DPS and AP of the Nesingwary gun, this might be easier to pick up, and it does have some hit rating.
• [Sin'dorei Recursive Bow] or [Sawed-Off Hand Cannon] Horde Expedition or Alliance Vanguard – Revered
  This is decent enough.  If you happen to be revered with your respective faction when you hit 78, you may want to pick it up.  No agility, but it has some hit, and a marginal DPS increase from the Relentless Strikes crossbow.
• [Hemet's Trophy Gun] Quest – Sholazar Basin
  If you didn’t already have something like the Crossbow of Relentless Strikes or higher, this is a free upgrade.  Otherwise, it just doesn’t quite do the trick.

Weapon

• [Savage Cobalt Slicer] Blacksmithing (395)
  Rilgon has pointed out the beauty of equipping a pair of these.  Hit rating is just as important as anything for hunters, and with 29 Hit on each of these… you’re well on your way to the cap.
• [Whale-Stick Harpoon] Kalu’ak – Revered
  You can easily get to Revered with Kalu’ak just by doing their quests.  This may not be the Slicers, but it’s got a good amount of agility, but also has some much needed hit.
• [Runeblade of Demonstratable Power] Ebon Hold – Revered
  This sword has really nice overall stats, lots of Agi, AP, Crit and even some nice Haste… but what it is missing is hit.  If you aren’t too concerned about hit, or you’ve made up for it somewhere else, you can’t really go wrong with one of these strapped to your back!
• [Icier Barbed Spear] Quest – Champion of Anguish
  Again, no hit, but otherwise quite pretty.  AND FREE!  Quest rewards are free!  So if you are looking to upgrade temporarily, and don’t want to worry about the cost… why not pick it up?

Head

• [Truesight Ice Blinders] Engineering 430
  If you are an engineer, you need not look further.  These also only require level 72, so if you get your engineering up fast enough, it’s a very early upgrade.
• [Helmet of Just Retribution] Quest – Utgarde Pinnacle
  The next three helms are quite equivalent, with just minor differences.  This one has it’s strong points in Stamina and Armour Pen, but it has low Intellect and no Crit.
• [Swiftarrow Helm] Leatherworking 420
  High points are Resilience and Crit, otherwise it’s about average between the three.
• [Toothslice Helm] The Oracles – Revered
  This has some pretty crazy high AP.  Otherwise, it’s pretty on par with the other two helms of this level.
• [Headguard of Retaliation] Quest – Utgarde Pinnacle
  This is actually the leather version from the same Utgarde Pinnacle quest, but it’s got a LOT of AP and Agility.  The downside, of course, is that there is no Intellect.

Neck

• [Titanium Impact Choker] Jewelcrafting 440
  Superior to everything else by far, except it has no crit.  Do what you can to grab one if you’re doing alright on crit.
• [The Severed Noose of Westwind] Quest – Icecrown
  Pretty nice quest reward from a group quest.  Stats are all slightly less than the Jewelcrafting necklace, but it has crit rating instead of armour pen.

Shoulders

• [Spaulders of the Black Arrow] Ebon Blade – Revered
  Really nice shoulders, especially the agility.
• [Virulent Spaulders] Leatherworking 420
  Less nice shoulders, 20 less agility for 14 more AP.
• [Swiftarrow Shoulderguards] Leatherworking 420
  About the same as the Virulent Spaulders, sacrificing some AP for Resilience.

Back

• [Ice Striker's Cloak] Leatherworking 440
  Slightly low on the agility, but it makes up for it with the haste and AP.
• [Cloak of Holy Extermination] Argent Crusade – Honoured
  Nice agility and some armour pen, but only has about half the AP of the Ice Striker’s Cloak.
• [Bloodbane Cloak] Quest – Icecrown
  Meeh.  It’s got average stats all around.  Nothing to turn your nose up at if you haven’t picked up the other two yet.

Chest

• [Polished Regimental Hauberk] Argent Crusade – Exalted
  Okay, you probably won’t be able to get this right away.  It’ll take some time to get to exalted.  But I couldn’t leave this beauty out of my list, since it may or may not affect the order you go for your factions.
• [Gilded Ringmail Hauberk] Quest – Utgarde Pinnacle
  Comparing it to the next two chests in the list, this has Armour Pen but no Crit or Hit.  Otherwise almost even.
• [Razorstrike Breastplate] Leatherworking 425
  Crit, but no Armour Pen or Hit.
• [Assault Hauberk] Quest – Coldarra
  Hit, but no Armour Pen or Crit.

Wrist

• [Giantmaim Bracers] Leatherworking 440
  Actually not that much better than the Eaglebane Bracers.  More agility, and a little more of a few other stats, as well as some nice armour pen.
• [Eaglebane Bracers] Leatherworking 420
  If you are needing in hit, this is actually possibly better to wear than the Giantmaim.  But if you can make up the hit rating elsewhere, this just isn’t as good.
• [Swiftarrow Bracers] Leatherworking 420
  Resilience & Crit.  That’s all.

Hands

• [Grips of Chronological Events] Quest – Stratholme
  Nothing very exciting for gloves at these levels.  These ones have slightly low Agility but it makes up for it with Armour Pen and AP.
• [Swiftarrow Gauntlets] Leatherworking 425
  Like the rest of the Swiftarrow set, this has resilience and crit going for it.

Waist

• [Giant Ring Belt] Sons of Hodir – Honoured or [Waistband of the Thuzadin] Quest – Stratholme
  These are identical.  So you might want to save your gold and do the Strat quest.  Really high AP.
• [Swiftarrow Belt] Leatherworking 425
  Do I really need to describe it again?  Crit and Resilence, obviously.
• [Ranger's Belt of the Fallen Empire] Quest – Gundrak
  Added this in because of it’s hit and agi.  This is the only belt here with any hit, and it also has 8 more agi than any of the others.

Legs

• [Giantmaim Legguards] Leatherworking 440
  Look at all that Agi and AP!  These pants will make you hurt people.  Not much that’s bad about them at all.
• [Swiftarrow Leggings] Leatherworking 425
  I’m not going to say it again.
• [Jormungar Hide Legguards] Quest – Storm Peaks
  These actually aren’t too bad.  No intellect, but more crit than the Swiftarrow.

Feet

• [Boots of Twinkling Stars] Kirin Tor – Exalted
  Takes a lot of rep, but these are nice if you don’t get another upgrade before you make it to exalted.
• [Swiftarrow Boots] Leatherworking 425
  Blah blah Crit Resilience blah blah.
• [Dragonstompers] Leatherworking 400
  The hit rating and AP on these boots makes them very appealing to me.

Finger

• [Band of the Kirin Tor] 7500G
  If you’ve got the money, why not?  It’s so shiny!
• [Titanium Impact Band] Jewelcrafting 430
  If you aren’t swimming in gold, this is a nice alternative.  Or a nice compliment, if you need a second ring.
• [Ring of Scarlet Shadows] Jewelcrafting 420
  Really nice hit bonus for a ring.
• [Ring of Foul Mojo] Quest – Gundrak
  It’s decent enough.  Only if you need a second ring to pair up with another one though, probably.

Trinket

• I’m not going to cover trinkets.  They’re pretty complex, and I get a little flummoxed when trying to compare them.  Once there is more info and data on them, I might do a post just for them.
  

[Veteran of the Wrathgate]

They were all right, it IS cool.

The chain is long, and a bit interesting along the way, but when you get to the end and the post-quests, wow.  Pretty neat.

Anyway, as yesterday was my final day of classes, I took the afternoon and evening to start getting caught up on some play time, since I haven’t been on much in the last couple of weeks.  And it was great.  I got almost a level and a half yesterday!  Like I mentioned, I finished off the Wrathgate line, as well as almost all of Dragonblight.  Next stop?  Sholazar Basin!  I can’t wait.  There is not a whole lot of skinning to be had in Dragonblight, and the blood on my [Skinning Knife] is beginning to dry up.  Not cool.

I’ve got my leatherworking up a bit more though, and when I hit 77 I will likely start some leather and elemental farming so I can make some of that pretty Swiftarrow set when I hit 78.  I spent a good couple hours on Wednesday planning out my 78 upgrades, because I realized I didn’t know anything about which factions I needed to focus on or which recipes I needed to buy, but now I can approach my next couple of dings with aplomb.  I make a point to only plan my upgrades on stuff I’m sure I can get, so quest rewards, crafted items or reputation rewards, because I don’t like to depend on drops.  And it looks like Ebon Hold is my first target, with all their shinies at Revered!

Brajana – Level 76 Troll Hunter

• Skinning: 450
• Leatherworking: 413
• First Aid: 400
• Fishing: 381
• Cooking: 400

I’m a rock star!

Last night, we killed the new temporary boss in Karazhan. Boostah had run Kara earlier in the week, before the boss was installed, and so he had a raid saved with only the new boss left, no trash or anything.  Woo!   So a bunch of us pilled in, looking to get the new pet and such.

Well, of course he dropped the [Arcanite Ripper]… I hadn’t really looked at it before, but I had heard about the sweet Use ability… turns you into Bergrisst of L70ETC.  It’s actually a really amazing hunter weapon as well.  So Boostah, the ret paly (?) and I rolled on it… Woo!  I won!  I felt a bit bad, since it was Boostah’s raid and he had organized everything… but come on, I have been switching between [Hellscream's Will] and [Blackened Spear] since shortly after I hit 70, over a year and a half ago.  It is time for me to get rid of my last blue quality item!

Unfortunately, it does bring me 7 below the hit cap.  I will probably have to shove a hit gem somewhere in my gear to make up for it, if I find that 7 hit rating is making a significant difference.  I think that’s only like, 0.05%, so if it means I’ll be missing only that much on raid bosses, I can probably live with it.  If anyone knows the math better (I’m too lazy to look it up) please correct me!

Oh, and the funny thing… back when I was using [Hellscream's Will] all the time, I always joked about how it looked like an electric guitar strapped to my back, and I always wanted to swing it around and play it… well, now I can!

This Week in Raiding… Unemployed officially enters T6!

Tuesday, some Lurker and Leo action.  Not much excitement there, I just want to say that Leo doesn’t seem to drop the Hunter/Warlock/Mage set piece ever!  We had enough time to spare afterwards to head in and take a look at Vashj though!

It’s a pretty complicated fight, and while I have read up on it and tried my best to listen to the raid leader explain our strategy – it’s always so different to be right in on the action.  And in fact, for me it was more like watching a video… because I was the first to get the static charge, and also the first to die from it.  I think the problem was that when the people around me realized that I had the charge, they also ran away, as I did.  So we ran together for a little while, which in turn meant I needed to run even further and I think it put me out of the healer’s range.  Oh well, it was a good place to observe the rest of the attempt!  And we managed to get her down to 69% on our first attempt… not too shabby!

Wednesday night was more of Vashj.  I wasn’t there, but it looks like a lot of learning took place… and there may have been problems with the changes in the fight at 50%, because it looks like that’s about how far the raid could get her.  Instead, I was out enjoying a fabulous meal at Lago, a belated birthday dinner.  I had a Butternut Squash Ravioli, and it was amazing.  I could eat that everyday.  It was really rich and tasted very buttery, but it was amazing.  I finished it off with a great Root Beer Float with Caramel Tequila ice cream in it… mmmm!

Er, I mean… raiding!  RIGHT!

So, Thursday night we took another stab at some progression and headed into Hyjal.  We didn’t have any serious problems on the trash – actually, it went a lot faster than it had before.  We are really getting the hang of it!  Though I’m sure having 4 warlocks and 2 mages to AoE the trash really DOES help a lot. Our first attempt at Rage Winterchill of the night we didn’t quite get him down.  If I remember correctly, we just had too many loses to icebolts and death & decay.

Second attempt we decided to drag Rage over to Jaina, which we had been reluctant to do before.  From about 25% to 4%, the only people we had alive were 3 DPS (myself included), one tank and one healer, plus the NPCs.  It was amazing how long we lasted… but it wasn’t long enough.

But… third time’s a charm!  It went pretty smoothly the last time, and I noticed that the healers really got their macros working to get a heal on the icebolt target, we hardly lost any to it.  Unfortunately, I died do to a small peccadillo - running into the Death and Decay rather than running out of it… but we still managed to get him down!

It really IS a pretty straight forward fight, now that I think about it.

He dropped 2 pairs of leather bracers, DPS and healing.  I thought about rolling on the DPS ones, but I figured there would be someone who needed it more, and I’ll just wait til something more appropriate for me drops!

Oh, and Friday night was ZA, which I wasn’t scheduled for.  But about 2 hours into the raid, I got a whisper asking if I wanted to go heal for a couple bosses on Ferguson!  Whaaaa?  I was a little nervous, because I’ve only raid healed once, and I’ve only been to ZA about 3 times on Brajana, never on Ferg.  But what the heck, it was worth a try!  We went in and got Dragonhawk down and made a couple attempts at the Lynx boss (which I’d never seen before).  It was fun, I should go to ZA more often.

And the best part?  I got my very first [Amani Hex Stick], never had one before… and what happened on my first try?  [Mojo]!  That’s what happened!

A Hunter in Karazhan: What’s in it for me?

As a follow up to my guide about gearing for Karazhan… this is a guide to how you can replace almost all of those items.  This is the gear that you were gearing up to get.

I’m only going to cover mail armour here, but don’t be afraid to take a good look at the leather pieces available.  Of course, they should go to a leather wearing class first, but if it’s an upgrade, having a few leather pieces doesn’t really hurt on a hunter!

Attumen The Huntsman

• [Steelhawk Crossbow] – It’s time to replace your Valanos’ Longbow… this is a great BM weapon, and will hold you over well until you can get your hands on the Chocobow.
• [Worgen Claw Necklace] – This neck piece is great, and has a nice +hit bonus if you’re still not capped.  I had this until I got the rep up for the SSO necklace.
• [Stalker's War Bands]

Moroes

• Nothing to see here – move along, move along!

Maiden of Virtue

• [Gloves of Quickening] – These have some nice int and mp5 on them, which is always good to have a bit of.

Opera Event

• [Beastmaw Pauldrons] – The best shoulders for this point in the game, pick them up if get the chance!
• [Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle] (BIg Bad Wolf) – This can be considered a side-grade to the Steelhawk Crossbow, it’s a little bit faster and has a nice agility bonus, but you’ll lose the hit rating.  Great for Survival hunters.
• [Legacy] (Wizard of Oz) – Every hunter’s best friend and worst enemy.  It’s got a horrible drop rate, but if you get it, you’re likely to not get rid of it until Wrath hits.   No hit bonus, so if you’re using a weapon for it’s hit rating, you’ll have to try to make it up elsewhere.. but it’s worth it.
• [Romulo's Poison Vial] (Romulo and Julianne) – Really nice trinket, especially for the hit rating bonus.  But it might be more useful for a rogue or other dual wielding class.  Still, if you get the chance – pick one of them up!

Curator

• [Gloves of the Fallen Hero] – Woo, first T4 loot!  Good luck on your roll against all the warlocks and hunters and mages!
• [Garona's Signet Ring] – This ring is great and will probably last you well into T5.

Shade of Aran

• [Drape of the Dark Reavers] – More pretty standard physical DPS gear.  Pretty equal footing with the [Blood Knight War Cloak] that you can pick up with 25 badges.
• [Steelspine Faceguard] – I actually think this one looks pretty cool, I had it for a long time.  It’s the best thing you can pick up before you grab your bucket off of Prince.

Terestian Illhoof

• [Girdle of the Prowler] – Pretty good, good to pick up even if you have the Ebon Netherscale set, for when you have enough hit to break the set bonus.

Chess Event

• [Fiend Slayer Boots] – These are great, you’ll probably hold on to them til Solarian or her trash drops boots for you.

Netherspite

• [Rip-Flayer Leggings] – Finally, you can replace those green/blue pants I’m sure you’re sick of looking at!  Very nice pants, although not as nice as the T4 leggings from Gruul’s Lair.  Hopefully you won’t make the peccadillo of gemming and enchanting them all up and then replacing them with the T4 leggings within 24 hours like I did when they finally dropped

Nightbane

• [Ferocious Swift-kickers] – Another pair of boots worth picking up in Karazhan, although depending on whether you need hit or would rather get some mp5 and int, these may or may not be the boots you want.
• [Scaled Breastplate of Carnage] – The only real hunter chest piece in all of Karazhan.

Prince Malchezaar

• [Helm of the Fallen Hero] – T4 helm.  It’s good, but I recently replaced mine with the PvP helm, which you might want to look into.  The T4 set bonuses suck, so don’t worry about trying to get them.
• [Ring of a Thousand Marks] – The second really nice ring in Karazhan.  It’s really nice.
• [Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix] – Third ranged weapon drop in Karazhan!  That’s a lot.  This weapon is slower, but has a really nice agility bonus.  Again, good for Survival or Marksmanship, not so much for Beast Mastery, but you can still pick it up, it has better damage than the Steelhawk Crossbow anyway!

Trash Drops

• [Leggings of Beast Mastery] – These are super cool.  They give nice bonuses to your pet, so they’re especially nice for (you guessed it) Beast Mastery hunters!
• [Belt of the Tracker]

WTB Moar Health

Alright, so I have a dilemma.  When I gear, I tend to gear focusing only on my AP/Agi/Hit/Crit… and I sort of let my health and mana numbers follow along.  But now I’ve got a problem.  My health is a measely 7704… not nearly where it should be in the late T5 raiding scene!

So this needs to be fixed.  In my race to do the highest damage I could, my peccadillo was sacrificing my survivability.

I heard that in the Naj’entus fight, everyone should have a minimum of 8500 health.  Which means I need to pull about 800 health out of my rear end before we get there…

Any advice? I suppose PvP gear might help, eh?  I don’t really have any, and I have never been able to get an arena team together for some points.  Which gear pieces should I sacrifice for the extra health?

If anyone would be generous enough to check out my Armoury page and make some recommendations… I’d be very grateful!

Hunter: Gearing for Karazhan (on a budget!)

On his post about a post about my apparently pugnacious post, Big Bear Butt Blogger happened to mention an unrelated point that he was looking for a good resource for hunters who are looking for badge/Kara/Heroic level gear.  While I really enjoy the Gearing for Karazhan guides that WoW Insider has provided, and of course BRK has written a nice guide there for Hunters… but it seems that the majority of the items there are BoE Auction House purchases.

I had a different stragegy.  When I hit 70, I didn’t run to the AH to buy myself some sweet gear.  Why not?  Well, first of all, I’m a bit of a penny pincher. I rarely buy things on the Auction House, I’d much rather grind mats and badges and instances to get drops or crafted items. Second of all, when I hit 70, I was automatically in “saving for my epic flyer” mode.  The first time I saw someone zoom past me on a Netherwing mount, I was determined to be just like them!  I don’t have a problem with people gearing up using the AH, I mean, that’s what it is there for.  But I thought I’d give a few additional pointers for other sources!

First of all, if you are a leatherworker it is time for you to start rounding up some mats for an [Netherscale Armor] set.  Between the Bracers, Belt and Breastplate, you’ll net yourself a nice +20 hit rating.  Your first goal as a newly 70 hunter is to achieve the hit cap, attack power, agility and crit will come along in time, but hit rating is really important to work at, and has a set maximum to get to.  These three pieces of BoP leatherworking pieces lasted me straight through until the later part of T5, and I’m still wearing the chest.

If you aren’t a leatherworker, then your best bet is to find one and have them craft up a [Felstalker Armor] set.  This set also the same +20 hit bonus, but the stats are a little less in areas like Stamina (which is pretty important for a new raider).

For a weapon, I can’t recommend the [Hellscream's Will] more.  Do a bit of rep grind for Mag’har and this beauty is yours, and you can even get a pretty mount at the same time!  I have grown to hate it, only because this electric guitar had been strapped to my back for a full year before I finally got a replacement.  The hit rating on this is godly (+42!), and will make it a tough one to get rid of.  If somehow hit rating isn’t an issue for you, two other great weapons are the [Sonic Spear], which drops from Murmur in regular Shadow Labyrinth (but refused to drop for me) and also the [Blackened Spear] (what I’m using now) from Thrallmar rep (Revered), which has more agility and less +hit.

For a ranged weapon, [Valanos' Longbow] is probably your best bet for a bow.  If you are of the Gun Lovin’ variety though, I’d have to say you may want to spend the time and/or money to grab a [Ornate Khorium Riffle].  But if you happen to pick up a [Recoilless Rocket Ripper X-54], from Steamvaults (you’ll probably be running this to rep up for your Glyph), it’s nothing to scoff at either.  In fact, this has got to be one of my favourite looking weapons in the game!  +10 points for aesthetic!

One trinket that I sure hope you held on to is the [Bladefist's Breadth].  A quest reward from a level 63 quest on a 70?  You bet!  This is a great AP boost trinket, and there aren’t many you can replace it with.  Another trinket that I might recommend as your very first badge purchase is the [Bloodlust Brooch] (41 Badges).  And be sure to use it whenever you can, it’s a handy boost that really will make a difference.

The best ring I can point you to is [Angelista's Revenge] – but it’s a bit pricey at 60 badges, so I’m sure you’ll want something to hold you over until then.  Some options are the [Ravenclaw Band] from Sethekk Halls, and the [Ring of Umbral Doom] from Botanica (both available on regular).

The boots I wore for the longest time, in fact I believe they were my last remaining greens – were the [Duro Footgear].  These are from a Netherstorm quest and they’re really decent.  Of course, if you happen to get [Boots of the Endless Hunt] to drop from Warp Splinter (Bot Heroic)… good for you, hope he also drops the neck piece [Jagged Bark Pendant] as well, so you can fill two slots with one kill!   But be prepared to stick with the green ones, as there isn’t a whole lot in between.

What am I missing… ah, head gear.  [Dream-Wing Helm].  This lasted me through til I got my scary-looking drop from Shade of Aran.  You can pick this one up off of Abmassador Hellmaw in Shadow Labyrinth! Edit: Rilgon Arcsinh was nice enough to point out that one of the best helms you can get is the [Surstrike Goggles 2.0], which only Engineers can use.  So if Engy’s your thing… get on it!

For gloves, your best bet is [Handguards of the Steady] from heroic Mech.

Oh and if you didn’t pick up Bloodlust Brooch as your first badge loot, you’ll want to grab [Blood Knight War Cloak] for your back, in fact I’m still using this… and also for your neck, [Choker of Vile Intent].  These are both great pieces, and at only 25 badges each, they’re a steal!  Grab ‘em up!

And if you are lucky on drops and such, the Desolation Armor (Dungeon 3 set) and the Beast Lord Armor set have some nice pieces, they are nothing to scoff at!

If you’re not lucky on drops… well, hit up the Auction House.  Or do some PvP, there’s lots of excellent BG and Arena gear that will get you where you ought to be!  I didn’t cover the PvP stuff because I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to it, personally.  OR just try to get in on a few Karazhan runs and see what you can pick up from there.  even just Attumen drops a few nice Hunter pieces, and luckily the most important gear you need to be a successful hunter in Kara is SKILL!  So get some practise, read some guides, and I wish you happy hunting!

This Week in Raiding… Karathress and Cronies eat some floor!

Monday and Friday were both Zul’Aman raids.  There was a little drama regarding Monday, since not enough people had signed up, and no one wanted to volunteer to fill them empty spots (including me, Monday is my night off to gather supplies).  And there was a LOT of drama on Friday night, when the raid group (again, I was online but not raiding) was having problems downing Bear, and decided to go to Karazhan instead, pretty much ruining our scheduled Monday night raid for next week.  But I don’t want to get into that here and now.

We hit up SSC on Tuesday night.  Lurker went down with few problems, as usualy.  We decided to make our way to Leo the Blind, of course passing Hydross on the way as he taunted me with his chest piece, shoulders and ring that I so desperately need.  Last time we took a visit to Leo, it was kind of messy.  I was hoping we wouldn’t encounter the same problem this time – and we didn’t!  The problem with stopping DPS was complete history.  But we had a different problem.  The Leo fight was pretty smooth for the first 85% of the fight.  But every time we reached the 15% split, something happened.  We panicked.  People were running this way and that, getting hit with whirlwinds, everything was a big ugly mess.  We made a number of attempts, but it wasn’t going to happen.  At least last week, we managed to down him eventually.

Back to Tempest Keep on Wednesday.  I must admit, I almost dreaded going in there… I’m so tired of wiping on A’lar.  It’s getting very tiring.  But when we got to the big bird’s room, we just went right past.  And Brajana let out a sigh of relief.  Void Reaver and Solarian!  That sounds at least different, if not better.  I think I’ve only done Solarian a couple of times, and it’s been many many months since then.  But I figured it’d be nice to see her again so I can thank her for the boots!

We had a strange composition for Void Reaver, only two and a half (off tank druid in cat form) melee DPS in our entire raid.  Heck, that’s a strange composition for ANY encounter.  But we made it through after one unfortunate wipe caused by aggro pull by a ranged DPS.  He dropped lots of pants, and many people were excited, and we moved on to Solarian.  And I’ve decided that I love the Solarian fight.  It has some quiddity that makes me very excited to be in that room – I’ll have to narrow it down further.  In fact, I think I will dedicate an entire post just to that fight next week!

THURSDAY NIGHT! What an amazing raid night!  We went back to SSC to do what we had not done on Tuesday, take Leo down.  And we did!  Even though one of our mages was having serious connection problems, we took him down in one attempt.  And I got a shiny trinket!

We still had lots of time to spare though, so on to Karathress we ventured!  Karathress was the only one keeping us from being 5/6 and 3/4.  /glare.

We’d had a few sad attempts there in the past, but we were really gunning for it this time.  First attempt:  just over 1 minute and one of our tanks goes down.  Second attempt:  The same thing.  Uh oh, this is looking like a wipe-fest   So we juggled the healers around a bit before the third attempt.  And then… BOOM!  Karathress and his henchmen are no more!  Screenshot!

But wait!  There’s more!  Unbeknownst to most of the guild, it was decided that since we were already done so early, we were going to take a little field trip to Mount Hyjal!

It was SOOO much fun!!  It’s really exciting to just have wave after wave coming, and even though we only made it to the 8th wave, we had a blast – I can’t wait to go back in!