Wrath Minus 10

The Hunter

Kestrel went on a Kara clear Friday night, and [item]Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix[/item] finally dropped. Yay! Of course, by the end of the run, I was at 146 Badges of Justice: just four short of the number needed for the [item]Crossbow of Relentless Strikes[/item]. I got two more via [item]Shattered Sun Supplies[/item] doing dailies on Sunday. No, I didn’t get a group for a heroic, although had I tried, I’m sure I could have. But this way, I get to enjoy the Sunfury a bit more.

On Saturday, Kestrel was in a Zul’Aman group. We were able to get three chests, but not the fourth. That was partially my fault: When we got to the Lynx boss, we were running short on time. As we were fighting the second small group before the boss, the MT told me over Ventrilo to Misdirect the patrol to him, to get them engaged more quickly. In doing so, I pulled the boss. Wipe. I was following instructions; afterwards, the RL said there’s no way to do that other than to wait for the patrol to get in range. Would have been helpful if he’d countermanded the MT’s direction to me. (First time I’d ever been in there on anyone other than Osprey, so I really wasn’t familiar with that particular dynamic.) 

At any rate, I did snag a couple more pieces of gear: The [item]Arrow-fall Chestguard[/item] and [item]Coif of the Jungle Stalker[/item]. Together with the [item]Blessed Handguards of Undead Slaying[/item] I obtained earlier through fighting Scourge, I was able to replace three PvP items (out of four). Still need PvE boots, but I’ll live. My stats are down a bit (especially overall armor value) with the new items, but I have this "thing" about trying to be in non-PvP gear as much as possible. My nod to roleplay, I suppose.

I spent a good part of Sunday grinding Kurenai faction (and Consotium, with turn-ins of [item]Obsidian Warbeads[/item]. Over 11K into Revered; might have a Talbuk mount by next weekend! While grinding, I leveled Serenity, my firefly (YOU call it a wasp, but anything with a glowing purple tail is a firefly, to me!), to 70. It’s a decent pet, but frankly, I prefer the cat as a Ferocity pet. (Of course, with the upcoming nerf to Rake, cats may be destined for second-class status.) And if I want a pet with wings, the Chimaera wins, hands down. (WHY do I not see more chimaerae? Tons of Core-Hounds, which really don’t do much for me, but very few chimaerae.)

I also spent a good deal of time this weekend trying to find the optimal shot rotation for Kestrel. Right now, it seems that spamming Steady Shot is the way to go. I thought I’d read that weaving in Arcane Shot was a boon to overall damage and DPS; today, I was told "not so much." This bears further research. (Although I’m sure not complaining about 800 DPS through ZA the other night!)

Finally, I learned  that Kill Command has changed. Who knew? (Everyone except me, of course, because I barely paid any attention to WotLK Beta stuff on the Priest side, and even less for Hunters.) I used to have KC in my shot rotation macro, but since I really don’t have a shot rotation macro anymore, and because it no longer procs off my crits, I’ve moved it to my Pet Attack macro:

Fig. 1: Pet Attack Macro

#show Hunter's Mark

/cast [nopet] Call Pet

/assist [help]

/targetenemy [noharm]

/cast [harm] Hunter's Mark

/cast Kill Command

/petattack [harm]

/petfollow [nocombat,target=pettarget,exists]

The beauty of this is, everything happens at once: Hunter’s Mark, Kill Command, and Pet Attack all occur with a single keypress. For soloing/questing, where your encounters are relatively short, it’s great: The 1-minute KC cooldown is usually up every other fight. Of course, you should keep KC on your ability bar for those times when the timer is up mid-battle (boss fights, for example).

I’m also learning to keep a careful eye on my Aspect. Chiefly, I’m remembering to cast Aspect of the Hawk after dying.¹ And I wrote a nice little macro to flip between Hawk and Viper when my mana gets low or is replenished:

Fig. 2: Quick-Swap AotH, AotV

# showtooltip

/cast [nomodifier] !Aspect of the Hawk; [mod:shift]!Aspect of the Viper 

Very simply, pressing the button for this macro casts AotH; shift-clicking casts AotV. When I get the low mana warning and the target mob is below half health, I go to Viper. When it’s at half health or more, I’ll try to lower its health some more before I gimp my damage by going into Viper.

The Priest

There isn’t nearly as much going on with Osprey. His talent spec is set.² He doesn’t have to make decisions about pets. Since the 3.0.2 patch, he’s been in ZA three or four times, with one upgrade: [item]Cord of Braided Troll Hair[/item].

I’m comfortable healing with CoH and Lightwell, especially with the changes in Lightwell’s cast time (.5 sec) and cooldown (3 minutes). Those are class-changing/class-defining improvments, and make Lightwell a must-have for Holy Priests. It can now be used situationally, and as many as three times in a single boss fight. CoH is now my #1 healing spell (it used to be Greater Heal, which has dropped to #4, behind Flash Heal and Renew). I still need to work on the Flash Heal-Greater Heal combo when healing massive single-target damage, but it’s getting there.

I’d like to be at 1100 Spellpower and 250 Mp5/casting by level 71. I expect even without new gear, re-gemming should get me pretty close. However, I’m waiting until the expansion before I invest in new gems: I’m hopeful Northrend will yield improvements in that regard as a matter of course.

The Plan

• Tame a Rhino for Kestrel (probably the level 69 one)
• Level the hunter and the priest to 80.
• Level the rogues (Jewelcrafting and Enchanting) to 80; weave their leveling in when I’m not working on the two mains.
• Level a Death Knight to ?? Probably at least to 60, just to get familiar with the class. But with four other characters having priority, this is definitely a back-burner item.
• HAVE FUN and lots of it!

And What About You?

Are you ready (define "ready")? Is your leveling strategy formulated? Do you have a meticulous plan, or are you more "play it by ear"? DK on Day 1, or wait a bit? 

And most importantly, are you taking Thursday and Friday off next week?? See the new poll.