Wednesday, April 18, 2018

WoW Hunter and Pet - Soloing Guide Updated for 7.15 World of Warcraft

Hello everyone! Today I’d like to make a detailed thread here to help anyone who’s interested in soloing content, this goes for those who are new to it and veterans soloers! With that said, please keep in mind that this guide will not go into great detail for individual encounters, it is intended to help those who are looking for ideas on how to defeat certain content alone.

 Also, if anything stated in this guide seems wrong or needs editing, please feel free to say so! So with that said, let’s get started!


 Contents!
 1) Hunter’s Pet
2) Specialization\
3) Talents
4) Flasks, Items, and Various Stat Allocations
 5) Rotations. Macros, Videos, and Play Styles

. ----------- Hunter’s Pet ------------

As someone who wishes to solo content, the first thing you need to take a serious look at is your pet as well as your pet’s spec! This is about as important, if not more important than your own spec when it comes to soloing content. Let’s take a quick overview of the pet specs. Ferocity – The damage dealing spec. Tenacity – The tanking spec. Cunning – The utility spec Ferocity In Terms of Soloing – Ferocity is rarely used for any 5 man, 5 man heroic, or raid tier content in terms of soloing. For any questing purposes, ferocity works great for making mobs die faster and will be tank enough just like the other two specs to handle any incoming damage. With that said, I have seen for very difficult fights (fights that are pushing the extreme limits to the hunter class) ferocity pets used for their Heart of the Phoenix ability. With that said, I would not recommend using a ferocity spec pet outside of questing. Tenacity In Terms of Soloing – Tenacity is the go to spec for soloing purposes. The reason for this is because tenacity spec’d pets are the only ones who are crit immune, they receive extra healing from the hunter, have the most armor and health, as well as having Last Stand for defensive purposes. For questing it may make things a bit slower, so I’d recommend using a Ferocity of even a cunning pet unless the quest mobs are doing serious damage to your pet. For any 5 man, heroic 5 man, or raid content, tenacity spec’d pets will and should almost always be your pet’s spec of choice. Simply put, your pet will take too much damage to tank for you otherwise. Cunning Pets in Terms of Soloing – I personally have not seen many cunning pets used for soloing purposes. They will work fine for any quest related soloing content, however I’ve never seen one used to push the limits of the class nor have I seen one used effectively for general soloing needs. With that said, cunning pets are the only one with Roar of Sacrifice, so I’m sure there will be a point where someone finds enough use out of a cunning pet simply for that ability to push a soloing fight to the extreme. With that said, I would not recommend a cunning pet for most soloing purposes. Now that we’ve gone over each of the specs a bit, let’s talk about your actual pet. With so many pets out there, it’s hard to choose sometimes right? So I’ll briefly talk about which pets are typically going to be your go to pet. The Spirit Beast (BM only) – A tenacity spec’d Spirit Beast easily makes for one of the best pet picks out there for a BM hunter. These hard to find beasts will have access to Spirit Mend which can be used to heal either yourself or your pet. Spirit Beasts - Spirit Beasts are a good choice for fights that will involve a lot of damage to the Hunter but NOT your pet. They will be tanky enough for most fights, however they will not be able to endure tank heavy fights. The Turtle / Beetle / Shale Spider / Basilisk / Crab – A pet from any of these families is easily one of the best choices for soloing purposes. Simply put, each of these pets have an ability to reduce all damage done to them by 50% for 12 seconds on a one minute CD. Any of these pets are by far the best tanking pet for any hunter who is not BM. They are also the best pet for BM hunters for any heavy damage fights for your tank (your pet!). Qullien / Clefthooves - These two are both beast mastery only pets and should be consider.

 I don't recommend them as much as any of the pets with the 50% damage reduction, however their ability is also good, especially if you are new to soloing. Upon hitting 40% health a clefthoof will take 50% reduced damage for the next twelve seconds. A quillen is similar, however the damage reduction is only 30% for 8 seconds but it will also heal the quillen for 3% of its health every second for the full duration of the ability totaling to a 24% health regen. These two are easier to use as you don't have to worry about their abilities since they are passive, however their abilities are also on two minute cool downs and cannot be actively used by the hunter. Foxes and Monkeys - Both foxes ans monkeys have an ability to increase their dodge chance by 30% for 10 seconds. They would possibly be a stronger option however this ability is also on a two minute cool down which makes them a weaker choice. Still, being able to potentially avoid damage for a short period of time should be an option to consider. Other Pets – Sadly, most other pets just don't have what it takes to survive very long in dungeon or raid content. Making Effective Use of Other Pets - While many of the other pets will not be used so much when it comes down to tanking or damage purposes for soloing, it is still a good idea to keep some of these other pets with you. The reason for this is so before you begin a difficult encounter, you can quickly summon these pets, use their buffs and dismiss them in favor of your tanking pet. This on average can give you about 50 seconds or more of extra stats at the start of a fight. Keep this in mind if you're working hard on an encounter, and you're close but you just don't quite have the damage. This will most likely make up that difference. For more information about the other pets that you might find useful for your soloing needs, check out http://www.wow-petopia.com/ --------------- Specialization ------------------ So let’s talk about the hunter finally! Let’s go over the spec’s very briefly. Beast Mastery (BM) – This spec focuses on giving your pet more damage and threat in terms of soloing. BM also lowers the cool downs for your pet’s abilities than that of the other two specs. BM however lacks any self heals outside of your artifact traits unless you choose to use a spirit beast. Overall, a BM hunter is an excellent choice for soloing. Marksmanship (MM) – This spec focuses mostly on the hunter doing damage through his or her ranged attacks. MM has in the past been the default soloing spec however due to its extreme emphasis on the hunter, with almost zero focus on their pets as well lacking any threat generation for their pet, MM become the weakest spec to try and solo as. Survival (Surv) – Surv as of Legion is the first true melee spec for hunters. Surv can have good results for soloing world quests / various world content no problem. However surv does not bring many survival tools for your pet or yourself. In addition it lacks any way to hold thread on a target that cannot be effected by your pet’s growl. Surv’s reliance on Flanking Strike can become incredibly difficult and often dangerous to the hunter to maintain. In addition, due to survival's strict rotation and talent choices, dps will take a heavy blow if you wish to solo properly as surv. The main benefit to survival however is the self healing made possible through raptor strike (more on that later) and their passive ability survivalist. The spec you choose to play and solo as is of course, up to you. However, I’ve found that the hunter spec should and will vary depending on the type of content you’re doing, as well as specific boss encounters. So keep in mind each spec’s strengths and weaknesses when deciding which type of content you plan to solo. ------------ Talents -------------- So let’s talk about the talent choices that we have and what we will find best for our soloing possibilities! Keep in mind this part of the guide is mostly personal opinion through the use of personal testing, as well as watching other soloers in how they choose to do soloing content. Talents may also vary from fight to fight. Talents will now also vary from each spec. Some of these choice can overlap from each spec as well. Let's start with beast mastery talents. Tier One Talents – The tier one abilities revolve around how you want to deal damage. Big Game Hunter - This talent increases your chance to crit with auto and cobra shot while a target is above 80% health by 60%. There aren't really many occasions that I can recommend this talent outside of a few niche cases, Odyn in Halls of Valor being a good example. The problem is that it will quickly become useless over the course of a fight, and the fights will typically last longer since you are alone. Way of the Cobra - This talent increases the damage of your cobra shot for every pet / beast you have active by 10%. This talent is my preferred choice. Dire Stable - Not much needs to be said on this talent, it increases the focus regend of your dire beast / dire frenzy by 12. Tier Two Talents – The tier two talents revolve around further emphasizing your damage through active abilities. Stomp - This causes your dire beasts when summoned to do an AOE stomp dealing damage to all enemies near the dire beast. This should be the default talent since it gives free damage at no cost. It even makes it so when you use a GCD on Dire Beast that you are still dishing out damage. Dire Frenzy - This is a strong alternative to stomp. This ability replaces your dire beasts in exchange for giving your pet a buff that stacks up to 3 times. Your pet will attack faster, and it will instantly give you the full focus that dire beasts would have instead of over time. This is a good option to keep in mind as it helps keep agro on your pet easier, and on the off chance you have any leech, your pet can benefit from it just a bit more with the increased attack speed. Chimera Shot - This talent is nice to have to fill out BM’s rotation a bit more. In addition to being able to hit two enemies at once with this spell, it gives you 10 focus for each enemy hit. Unfortunately, it clutters up the rotation a bit too much for soloing due to our need to cast mend pet. Tier Three Talents - This tier revolves around mobility and is the only row to shared across all three specs. Posthaste - This is my opinion the best talent on this row, especially for BM and MM. This talent allows your disengage to not only break roots, but to also give you a nice speed increase of 60% for a short period of time. This can make kiting and even escaping enemies much easier. Farstrider - This would be the other talent I'd recommend. All critical strikes have a 10% of resetting the cooldown of disengage (harpoon for survival). This talent is actually fairly nice for Survival for any fight where the boss can move around a bunch, otherwise posthaste should be your go to talent. Trailblazer - This is probably the least effective talent choice out of this row. When not attacking, your speed will increase by 30% after three seconds. I personally have not found a solid use for this talent. Tier Four Talents – This tier focuses on adding emphasis towards different parts of the beast mastery play style. One With The Pack - This talent increases the chance of your dire beast spell resetting by an additional 30%, bringing your chance up to 50%. Overall your chances for resets will be low still but will make for more exciting gameplay. Bestial Fury – This talent is straight forward and increases the damage bonus from your bestial wrath by 15%. Never a bad option. Blink Strikes – Personally my favorite talent in this row. It increases the damage dealt by your pet by 100% at all times, as well giving your pet a passive ability to teleport to your enemy once every twenty seconds. This can come in handy for mobility fights as well as to simply avoid bad pathing / glitchy pathing with your pet. Tier Five Talents – This tier is about ways in which you can use crowd control. Ultimately, your choice here will often be unimportant but I'll go over it anyway. Binding Shot - This talent lets you launch an arrow at the ground and tether enemies to it. Those who run past the tether range are stunned for 5 seconds. This is nice for add heavy fights that you can't CC for long periods of time. Wyvern Sting - This lets you put an enemy to sleep for a minute. It's nice if you have to clear trash and need to CC an enemy for an extended period of time. Intimidation - While being the most iconic talent for beast mastery out of this row, this is also the worst choice. Almost every boss cannot be stunned, and this will lack on the ability to CC a target for a long period of time or stun multiple targets like the other two options. In addition, this is tied to your pet which makes using it properly harder to use. Tier Six Talents – This is yet another shared row between BM and MM. This tow focuses on mostly AOE and a bit on single target. Murder of Crows – This is a good ability for any encounter in which you want more single target damage. This is the default choice for BM as it also benefits from your mastery. Barrage – I personally do not like this talent for soloing. It is a good choice for any boss with an extreme focus on adds and quickly clearing them. However, it is rather difficult to control and can lead to accidentally pulling more mobs. In addition, it has a high focus cost of 60. Volley – This is your other AOE talent of choice here. This talent is safer than Barrage. Barrage can cover a much larger area. Volley however, requires your targets to be stacked up to be effective. Tier Seven - The most important row. There is really only one choice here, however I will go over all three options. Stampede - On a three minute cooldown, this talent is good for fights when there is not a lot of damage on your pet but there are two or more nonmoving targets. Killer Cobra - Each time you use cobra shot while beastial wrath is active, your kill command will reset. Ultimately, this is a nice bonus to any burst potential you might need. Aspect of the Beast - The single most important talent for soloing currently.

 Assuming your pet is tenacity spec’d, every time you use kill command your pet takes 30% less damage for 6 seconds (right when you can cast kill command again). Ferocity provides a bleed while cunning provides a speed boost for your pet. Ultimately, having your pet spec’d as tenacity with this talent will make your life much easier and is the best possible talent you can take for soloing. Next, let’s move on to marksmen. There will be a little bit of overlap between talents, I will refer back to the previous section for any overlaps. Tier One Talents - Just like with BM, this initial row focuses on how you wish to deal damage. Lone Wolf - This is by far the worst talent to take for soloing. This is great in dungeons and raids as it increases your damage done by 18% but at the cost of not being able to summon your pet. For soloing, this is never a good choice. Steady Focus - This talent increases focus regen by 25% any time you use arcane shot or multishot. This talent will instead work for sidewinders if you spec for it. Personally believe this talent is the best choice in this row. Careful Aim - This talent functions exactly the same as it does in BM. Tier Two Talents - This row of talents is intended to further tailor your particular play style slightly. Lock and Load - This makes your autos have an 8% chance to make your next two aimed shots instant cast and cost zero focus. Overall, a very nice choice. Black Arrow - At only10 focus, this ability adds a small dot to your current target and summons a minion to taunt your current target for you. This is a very strong talent for soloing however for dungeon bosses this ability will not actually taunt the target. True Aim - This talent is pretty straight forward. Every successive arcane shot or aimed shot on a target will increase your damage by 2% against that target with those shots. Tier Three Talents - This row is exactly the same as the tier three talent row for Beast Mastery. As with Beast Mastery, I still highly recommend Posthaste as the go to talent of choice. Tier Four Talents - This row is very similar to the tier two. These choices allow you to simply further define how you like to play MM. Explosive Shot - This talent is not very strong in my opinion because of how hard it is to actually use. It can be useful in situations where there are simply a ton of adds, but due to the difficulty of actually using this spell I do not recommend it. Sentinel - This ability allows you to apply hunter’s mark every 6 seconds in a set area for 18 seconds. This can be good for getting on demand vulnerable on several targets with Marked Shot but it has a minute long cool down. Patient Sniper - I believe this to be the best talent in the row due to this simply increasing your damage output on vulnerable targets. The damage is increased on your vulnerable target by 10% for every 1 of vulnerable. Tier Five Talents - This row is exactly the same as the tier five row for Beast Mastery with the only difference being that it does not have intimidation. Camouflage - This simply gives stealth to you and your pet for a minute and can only be used out of combat. It also heals for 2% of your health every one second. This is great if you want to skip trash and you do not need binding shot or wyvern sting for a particular encounter. Tier Six Talents - This row functions exactly the same way as the tier six row for Beast Mastery. Murder of Crows is the best choice for single target, barrage is the best choice for AOE, and volley is okay if you need safer AOE pulls. I recommend Barrage being the go to spell for MM. Tier Seven - This row focuses on how you damage to vulnerable targets. Sidewinders - This talent replaces your Arcane shot and Multishot. Sidewinders has two charges and generates 35 focus, it hits all targets in its path and applies vulnerable to any target hit. This talent is pretty good, although it will change your playstyle heavily. Piercing Shot - This shot costs 20 focus and hits all targets between you and your current target. The damage is increased to any target with vulnerable. This talent is another good choice, especially if you have the chance to line up your shot to hit any possible adds. Trick Shot - This talent brings the least amount of play style change (and is my preferred talent for this row). This passively makes your aimed shots also hit any nearby targets that have vulnerable for 30% damage. If no other target has vulnerable, then your next aimed shot will do 15% more damage. Tier One Talents - And finally we’re on to Survival. Survival brings the biggest difference in talent choices compared to BM and MM but there are once again a couple talents that overlap with the other specs (though not nearly as much). The talent choices here are also more mandatory than the other two specs in some cases. Animal Instincts - This makes your flanking strike randomly reduce the CD of either flanking strike, mongoose bite, aspect of the eagler, or harpoon by 2.9 seconds. This talent is the best choice in the first row due to how important flanking strike is for soloing as Survival. Throwing Axes - This talent is fairly self explanatory and lets you throw axes from a range dealing damage for only 15 focus. Unfortunately, Survival has major threat issues while soloing making this a poor choice to pick up. Way of the Mok’Nathal - This talent increases your attack power by 3%, stacking up to 4 times and lasting for 10 seconds every time you use raptor strike. This ultimately isn’t a terrible choice due to raptor strike’s healing through your artifact trait, but it is not only hard to maintain but will again cause you to start having even more threat issues than if you were to choose animal instincts. Tier Two Talents - This row either brings changes in how you get mongoose bite stacks or an extra damage ability through Murder of Crows. Murder of Crows - This talent was covered earlier. This is ultimately the strongest choice in this row however due to the added damage that is easy to fire and forget. Mortal Wounds - This makes your lacerate have a 2% chance to grant you an extra mongoose bite charge every time it does damage. The proc chance is so low on this for an already rigid play style for soloing that I cannot ever recommend this talent. Snake Hunter - This talent instantly gives you 3 stacks of mongoose bite charges on a two minute CD for no cost. This choice is strongest if you have very low amounts of mastery. Tier Three Talents - This is once again same as BM and MM! The main difference is that Farstrider is gone, in its place is Disengage on a twenty second CD. Your choice should be either Posthaste or Disengage depending on the fight and your personal preference. Tier Four Talents - This row focuses on improving your traps in various ways. Caltrops - This replaces your tartrap and slows enemies by 70% instead of 50%. In addition, for every second an enemy is walking through your caltrops they will take bleed damage. Guerilla Tactics - This talent is another mandatory talent to take currently. This talent increases your explosive trap damage by 50% and it also improves your waylay effect for all of your traps. Freezing trap will not break due to damage for the first six seconds, Tar Trap reduces enemy movement speed by 90% for the first four seconds, and explosive trap will cause your target to miss their next two melee attacks. The effect for explosive trap as well as the damage increase is too important to pass up. Steel Trap - This replaces your freezing trap and immobilizes and enemy for 30 seconds while doing bleed damage to them over the duration of the trap. Tier Five Talents - This row focuses on personal utility to keep enemy off of yourself. Sticky Bomb - This sticks to your target for two seconds, after which it will knock back all near by enemies. Useful for getting adds off of yourself. Ranger’s Net - This replaces your wing clip. This will root your target for 3 seconds then slow them by 50% just like wingclip for 15 seconds. This is on a 1 second cooldown for only 30 focus making this a strong talent for fights with only one or two adds. Camouflage - Camouflage works exactly the same as it does for MM. This is my preferred talent as it allows you to easily skip trash packs. Tier Six Talents - This row focuses on either proving your aim or focusing on dots. Butchery - This talent replaces your carve and simply does AOE damage to all enemies in front of you for 40 focus. Dragonsfire Grenade - This ability gives you another ranged option and does fire damage over 8 seconds while also reducing the target’s movement speed by 20%. Any enemy near your target will also take take fire damage. This talent has no costs and a 30 second CD. Serpent Sting - The strongest option in this row. While Dragonsfire Grenade does more damage, due to the very strict rotation required for SV, Serpent Sting becomes the best option for soloing. This talent lets your raptor strike apply a dot for 15 seconds on your target. Tier Seven Talents - This row is the most important row just as it was for Beast Mastery. Spitting Cobra - This talent summons a cobra for 30 seconds that does nature damage every 2 seconds and grants an extra 3 focus every one second. This talent is a poor choice due to low damage output and because the focus regen isn’t super important for SV as it is. This talent has one minute cool down. Expert Trapper - This talent is typically the go to talent for SV. This talent applies several additonal effects to all of your traps. This talent however cannot be taken due to SV’s last talent. Aspect of the Beast - Just like with BM, this is the single most important talent you could take. Every time you use flanking strike, your pet will take 30% reduced damage for six seconds. Flanking strike will need to be used frequently anyway to make SV work properly for soloing, making this the go to choice. With all of these talents, I highly recommend picking each of them to your individual needs and to your liking. I may have personal favorites, but that does not mean you cannot find use for any talents you may prefer instead! ----------- Flasks, Items, and Various Stat Allocations ----------- This section is important for soloing due to the fact important stats can be weighted differently for soloing purposes over normal PVE and PVP content. The stat weights also vary from fight to fight, and in many cases the normal PVE stats will work just fine if not the most optimal. Agility – This stat in almost all cases will be weighted as your most important stat to seek. However, for certain fights Stam may prove to be more useful. Stamina (stam) – Although typically not so useful for PVE/PVP, Stam in terms of soloing can be incredibly useful, if not mandatory in terms of pushing fights to the limit. Keep in mind that stam will increase your pet’s health, which in turn increases your healing from Mend Pet, as well as possibly increasing the heals from other sources. For any extremely damage heavy fight in which the time you defeat the boss is not overly important, stam stacking can be an extremely viable way to push your limits. Other Stats – Other stats will typically be weighted the way they normally would be for PVE purposes and should not be overly focused on. In some extreme cases, extra versatility may be necessary. Flasks – Flasks are very important to keep in mind, however there will be only two flasks you should consider for soloing needs. Flask of the Seventh Demon - This flask increases your agility for one hour (two if you are an alchemist). This will very likely be your go to flask as this will increase your damage output. Flask of Ten Thousand Scars- This flask increases your stamina for one hour (two if you are an alchemist). Use this flask for any fight where you or your pet are dying too quickly. The increased health pool for your pet will make your mend pet heal more health. Your exhilaration will also end up healing you more as well. Potion of Ancient Healing - This is a standard health potion. Use this to heal. Potion of Unending Power - This increases all primary stats for a full minute. These can be expensive and annoying to obtain, I recommend using these for fights where you need as much DPS as possible. --- Rotations and Play Styles --- This section is incredibly important, and it’s one of the main reasons why I believe certain talent choices to be less useful than others. I’ll be going into how I solo stuff mostly and my own rotations, however keep in mind that there are possibly other ways to play effectively and you should try out what works for you. This is simply how I play and how I find the best results for soloing. 1) Use Misdirect (if BM or MM) and Mend Pet on your pet before pulling. 2) Use DPS CDs as soon as possible to generate the most threat for your pet. 3) Keep mend pet up at all times, use misdirect as needed. For BM, you may use MD as an additional defense CD for your pet. 4) Use pet CDs as necessary. BM) Along with keeping up with the general rules of thumb for each spec, for BM you need to be able to use KC (kill command) every time it’s off of CD as much as possible. Any extra focus should be used on cobra shot but never at the expense of missing kill command. Kill command will grant your pet an additional 30% reduced damage with aspect of the beast. It will also heal you for a portion of the damage dealt. Use your dire beast (or dire frenzy) every time it is off CD and make sure to pool your focus for BW. MM) Marksmen plays almost exactly the same as it normally would. The main things to keep in mind is to use mend pet every time it is off CD, and to also misdirect as needed. Great times to Misdirect are at the start of the fight, any time you need to get tons of adds onto your pet, and after you feign death to keep building agro onto your pet. SV) Survival has the most drastic change in play style for soloing out of the three specs. If you are doing normal world questing content, sticking to your usual rotation might suit you best. For handling 5 man heroics or harder content, you will need to put an extreme emphasis on Flanking Strike. Flanking Strike is the only ability Survival has to give your pet agro. It also only gives decent agro while you have agro. To start a patchwerk style fight, you actually want to be the one to have the boss’ attention. You will have to open with a flanking strike and very likely take a direct hit from the boss. The longer you can survive (and use flanking strike) before having to pop a defensive / feign death, the better. Once you feign death, you have to watch your threat meter closely and make sure to not over take your pet. For the first 30 seconds after feign death, this means purely using mend pet and just keeping your pet alive. If you are feeling especially risky, you can throw in a flanking strike or a raptor strike to regen some health back. Once your pet has sufficient agro, you will want to use flanking strike as much as possible to keep aspect of the beast up on your pet. The rest of your rotation will proceed as normal while also keeping mend pet up. You will want to watch your threat at all times as survival has the hardest time managing threat out of all 3 hunter specs. ------------- Macros ------------- In this section I'll just quicky post a few of my own macros, and I'm hoping this will allow everyone to have a more successful run at soloing. Misdirection #showtooltip misdirection /cast [@focus,help][help][@pet,exists] Misdirection This macro will allow you to always apply Misdirection to your pet without having to target him. In addition, if you have a focus target that is friendly it will cast it on them instead (assuming they can receive misdirection). Spirit Mend /cast [@focus,help][help][@lazyguide,exists] Spirit Mend This macro will allow Spirit Mend to always be cast on yourself. If you have a focus target it will cast on that target instead (assuming if friendly). Of course, you'd take out my name and put your own in instead. If you want spirit mend to only target you, use this macro. #showtooltip Spirit Mend /cast [target= lazyguide] Spirit Mend Again, changing lazyguide to your own name. Last Stand #showtooltip Last Stand /cast Last Stand This macro will allow you to quickly activate last stand if you find you're having troubles with the pet's action bar. It'll free up space so you can watch more of the CDs. Burst Macro /cancelaura Aspect of the Turtle /cast Aspect of the Wild /cast Aspect of the Hawk /cast True Shot Aura /use 13 /use 14 This macro is useful for any fight where extreme amounts of damage are needed to burst through certain phases. The 13 and 14s represent your trinket item slots, which will allow on use items to be used by just using this macro. This macro is designed to work with all three specs. All of the mentioned macros should make your life easier. I'll continue to update this section as I find other macros to make use of. ------------ Helpful Youtube Channels and Videos --------- This section will remain brief, it will have a small compilation of some of my own more difficult solo'd content, as well as mentions and links to other very good soloers. Festergut Solo[ 10 Man/b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj6Tq3meaU8 In this video, from the proof from parses and from other videos, this is done by me at level 85 making for the third person in the world to solo (as far as I can/could tell). Heroic Wise Mari http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUIik1vxBYM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrmXeETkDm8 This is a two part video of me soloing Heroic Wise Mari from Temple of the Jade Serpent. This was not an incredibly challenging fight, and I believe there is other level 90 content we should be able to solo. Gluth 10 Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9U3RBD2g_8 This video is a video of me soloing Gluth, one of the bosses I personally believes takes more finesse in performing correctly. I did this at 85 however, so it maybe easier now. I'll be making more videos as well, and I have several others if you wish to watch them. Here's the link to my youtube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/lazypeon100 ----------- Reasons to Solo ------------ Over the course of playing WoW for over eight years, I see people ask me this question over and over, "Why would you want to solo stuff when you can play with friends?" It's a good question, and in this section I'll quickly go over just some of the reasons why I find soloing entertaining and how it can be practical for you. This section is a bit more personal, so please keep that in mind. First, I'd like to answer the question as to why would I want to solo content when I can play with friends. I find the answer simple, I do not always have time to play when my friends are currently playing. I'm not one to let that stop me from enjoying my fun though, so with that I gladly take on the challenge that comes from soloing both old and new content. I enjoy pushing myself to the limits, and achieving goals that should take anywhere from 5-25 people feels rewarding to me! By simply going into a raid dungeon alone (let's say Naxxaramas as an example) and you're killing all of the mobs + bosses, you can easily make thousands of gold. By looting each mob, including all of their items (from gray to epic) and selling those items either back to a vendor (mostly for grays - greens) or on the AH (blues or epics normally) you can earn tons of gold very quickly. That's not to say soloing is the best way to earn gold, because it's not. But it is still a viable option if you want to earn money and have some fun while you're at it. Not only that, but you can still do other things (such as dailies) in conjunction with soloing to earn as much gold as you possibly can. ----------- Hunter Path to Success ---------- I hope you’ve all enjoy this guide, and I hope all of you can find success with the tips and ideas used in this guide. Please leave any criticism or critiques so I can try to make this a better guide! Updates will be coming more frequently as well. - Credit for Guide goes to Lazyguide on https://blizz.ly/2qJp0z4

Leveled to 110, Now What Do I Do?

If you're a fresh 110, your best bet will be to head out to Argus and farm Veiled Argunite to purchase 915+ gear tokens. You can get enough to purchase 2-3 tokens simply by finishing the Argus questline. When you get to about 910 ilevel (I think - I don't really do LFR, so I don't pay much attention to the required ilevels) you'll be eligible to start running LFR Antorus weekly, which will allow you to get tier pieces and raid trinkets. Around the same time you can start looking for Normal Antorus pugs for the same purpose. Around 940 or so, start looking for Heroic pugs. If you have friends or a guild who are willing, you can also get carried through Normal/Heroic Antorus and have them feed you class-agnostic gear. Likewise you can get people to carry you through a weekly Mythic +15 for a guaranteed piece of random 960+ gear in the chest in your class hall at reset on Tuesdays. There isn't really a cut-and-dry "get to x ilevel with this, then x ilevel with that" progression though. My Hunter's guild carried an 870-something player through most of Heroic and three Normal Antorus bosses last night to help her get gear. It really depends a lot on whether you've got people willing to help you out. - For a first time player of normal means getting 930 in a couple of days is completely unrealistic. First, in order to get the breadcrumb to start Argus you'll need to do a short scenario once for your account to unlock Broken Shore https://www.wowhead.com/comprehensive-argus-guide But you shouldn't try Argus solo until your gear is over 880 or higher. It will hog stomp your butt and laugh at your mushy corpse if you try to go sooner. Doing Heroic dungeons and World quests in the Broken Isles that reward gear should get you to 850+ territory. Also do at least 1 Legion Assault. Do all 6 world quests and the final scenario should get you almost 3k nethershards a currency that can buy several 850 gear on Broken shore from warmage Kath'leen. Do Looking For Raid. All of them. This should get you into the 880 range. Use your connections in your guild to get help on mythic dungeons. That should be your next step. And use the group finder to look for Raid World Tours and Mythic Dungeon World Tours. These are speed runs let by overgeared players who just need warm bodies (you got one of those right?) to fill spots. They increase their odds of getting legendaries and get artifact power too. Win-Win. LIKE QUOTE

Alliance High Elves as Playable Class - World of Warcraft

It's Time For High Elves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Sr-sadSk4 Taliesin made the video with the purpose of disproving High Elves, BUT after researching as he was making it, he realized that they actually do qualify as an Alliance Allied Race. Here are all his criteria that High Elves meet listed as is in the video: 1. Are they a different enough race to existing playable options? - CHECK 2. Are there enough of them? - CHECK 3. Are they relevant? - CHECK 4. Do they look different enough? - CHECK (4th not an essential criteria: not met by all other allied races) The last 6 minutes of the video where he discusses why Void Elves were the wrong answer for High Elf fans and how Void Elves do not meet the criteria that all other allied races meet. Taliesin even mentions The Alurna Manifest of High Elves and showcases his argument for High Elves by presenting the fan art concepts done by our High Elf supporters! https://youtu.be/C2Sr-sadSk4?t=16m24s I think Blizzard consider this our playable High Elf and there's no doubt that having Void Elves, having these models as Alliance options definitely makes it feel like the 'genuine' High Elves people want are less likely than ever. This [Void Elves] feels like an answer.....except it doesn't though, does it? And making this video has made me realize why: I wanted to make a very fair and even-handed case for each argument, for and against, Alliance High Elves to help myself decide as much as anything. So I created this list of criteria that I think the Alliance races all share to see if High Elves could fit in with that, and as we've seen they do fit those criteria. But I've come to realize, Void Elves don't. NEW April 5th, 2018: WE'VE BEEN NOTICED MY HIGH ELVEN BRETHREN AND LADIES! GET TO THEORYCRAFTING BOYS AND GIRLS! WoW Battle for Azeroth Dev Interview - Islands and Wrathion https://youtu.be/HyDQF0SisAA?t=4m13s Time: 4:13-5:10 (End where High Elves are mentioned)! Perculia: And you've kinda touched on this before, but talking about the Golden Blood Elves a lot of players were really surprised to see that. Especially because Ion at the past Q&A just said it wasn't really a top priority to do customization for older races, so that was really cool to see. Are more little touch-ups like that on the way and was the Golden Blood Elf Eyes something that was a long time coming?.. Or just - it was really funny timing seeing it appear right after it was said it wasn't a priority. Jeremy Feasel "Muffinus": Yeah so as with anything on the World of Warcraft team, the things that we announce and say at Blizzcon may change significantly over the course of the year. I think what we're finding is that we love the ability to add more player customization options, it's super cool. We found that players have been responding very positive to it. So we'd like to continue doing although we don't have anything to announce quite yet. We would love to hear all of your ideas! Please post them on the forums, let us know what you'd like to see. -Points and looks at camera- It's High Elves :) Note: PLEASE extend the thread cap! We don't want to spam the forums with multiple versions of these threads, just a singular place to discuss the topic! Thank you! Reason for this thread: At Blizzcon, the WoW developers asked the community to provide feedback and suggestions on future Allied Races they'd like to see - this is ours! Purpose of this thread: Brainstorming ideas how to EVENTUALLY implement and diversify High Elves, so they don't step on Blood Elves' toes. We will be discussing model alterations, idle stance, animations, customization options, class selection, as well as their overall culture and story. We fully understand that if HE do happen, it won't be any time soon. Probably not until every baseline race gets an Allied Race counterpart (i.e. Worgen>Sethrak; Goblin>Vulpera). Goals of this thread: Aid Blizzard in the eventual implementation of a High Elf Allied Race, in a way that is most acceptable for the majority of the WoW community by providing ideas and suggestions. We do not want "Blood Elves on the Alliance" - those are Void Elves. We do not want to "take away an Allied Race slot" - we are aiming for further down the line, after everyone else has taken their turn. Please note: These threads have been going on for quite some time, and most of the arguments have already been had quite extensively. The below are some examples of the most common, and while people are free to post what they like, anyone making these arguments will likely not get a response. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FAQs/Common Counterarguments: “Aren’t High Elves Just Blood Elves With Blue Eyes?” Leaving the lore differences aside, model-wise, currently, yes. Blizzard has a long track record of having less developed models for races that are not currently playable. If made playable, it is very likely that these models would see some kind of revisiting to further differentiate them from Blood Elves, similar to tweaks Nightborne got in comparison to Night Elves. Common suggestions have been: changing the idle stances and animations, which would change the silhouette, a more “human”-like model modified from the current Human or Night Elf models, slimmed down, or customization specific traits like tattoos, war paints, or distinct hairstyle choices, among others. “There aren’t enough High Elves left, I thought?” The Silver Covenant, the militarized organization of Dalaran High Elves (which have recently been clarified as being more numerous than once thought), have been present for many of the Alliance’s military operations in the past several expansions and have consistently fielded numbers that would suggest there are plenty of them left. Similarly, Quel’Danil lodge in the Hinterlands and the Allerian Stronghold in Outland both show other independently organized High Elf forces that are not suffering in numbers. In addition, Stormwind has its own High Elf population. There is more than enough evidence to suggest High Elves have enough numbers to be appropriate for an Allied Race, especially compared to what has been shown as appropriate for other examples such as the Lightforged or the Void Elves. Source: In-game representation, out of game official canon text such as Chronicle Vol 3 “I don’t want to see any more elves in this game!” This is a subjective opinion, and a valid one, but not a reasonable argument against other people’s ability to ask for what they would also subjectively like to see. "What about Void Elves?” Void Elves were specifically and deliberately set up as being recent exiles from Silvermoon among the Blood Elf population. Their presence does not continue the separate High Elf story in any way and thus is not a reason for them not to be added. “High Elves = Blood Elves = Void Elves” Both the in-game lore and the out of game official canon texts have very clearly set up the Thalassian elves as a split people, and the themes of mutual High Elf and Blood Elf resentment for each other is what led to the creation of the Silver Covenant in the first place. Furthermore, Chronicle has drawn further attention to the fact on some level this split was in the process of happening before Kael’Thas even renamed those who followed him to Blood Elves: tensions existed between the High Elves who chose to live in Dalaran and those who lived in Silvermoon, the latter considering the former to prefer the company of humans over the love of their own homeland. Sources: In-game representation and lore as presented through Alliance questing, as well as out-of-game official canon text such as Chronicle Vol 3. “High Elves will cause population bleed on Horde side.” Considering Allied Races have so far required extra steps, such as having a max level character on the appropriate faction and gating behind reputations, along with the fact that Allied Races also have restricted class options (Death Knight and Demon Hunter are both very popular classes and would likely not be available), this outcome is unlikely. Adding to that, the fact that Horde edges out Alliance population-wise slightly at max level, and the fact that Void Elves, which brought the Blood Elf model to the Alliance to begin with, did not impact overall faction balance, and this is very likely not a very serious concern.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Rage of the FIrelands Patch 4.2 Released on 6/28

The time has come, the patch we have all been waiting for is over...well, almost. We have a release date for patch 4.2 and the date is june 28th, 2011.

Rage of the firelands is very exciting for me, I always love new content and I look forward to killing Ragnaros once more. If only I could count the hours I put into Molten Core in vanilla, oh the memories!

Here is a short trailer,enjoy and get ready cause here comes the Pwneth!


Tuesday, June 14, 2011

4.2 PTR Patch Notes - WoW Catalysm

General
New Quest Chain: Elemental Bonds
•A New quest line is now available to level-85 Horde and Alliance characters, bringing brave adventurers to Thrall's aid. The Call of the World-Shaman, the quest which will point players toward Thrall and The Nordrassil Summit, can be obtained in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.

New Raid: The Firelands
•Located within the Elemental Plane, the Firelands is an all-new 10- and 25-player raid featuring normal and Heroic difficulties! Battle-hardened veterans of the Horde and Alliance now have an opportunity to strike at Ragnaros the Firelord and his loyal servants by venturing into their domain via Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal.

New Legendary Item: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
•Steadfast raiders have an opportunity to embark on a series of quests to create an all-new legendary caster staff. In order to begin the process of assembling the staff, players must first kill a Molten Lord in the Firelands. Once a Molten Lord is killed, players can accept the quest A Legendary Engagement from Ziradormi or Coridormi in Orgrimmar or Stormwind.

New User Interface Feature: Dungeon Journal
•A host of dungeon information is now built into the user interface via the all-new Dungeon Journal. This feature can be accessed via a new button in the Navigation tray from anywhere in the world. Boss background story, encounter details, abilities, and loot can be viewed with the Dungeon Journal for all bosses which have been integrated into the new system (this includes bosses for all Cataclysm dungeons and raids). Additional dungeons are planned to be incorporated in future updates.

Dungeons & Raids
•Raid Profiles have been added which allow players to save the raid window user interface layout based on type of content (i.e. 10-player raids, 25-player raids, Battlegrounds, etc.) for future use.
•Players can select PvE, PvP, specialization, and group size. Each Raid Profile type will then automatically setup going forward.
•The pullout panel will be available for 5-player content as well when Show Raid Frames is selected.
•Raid Profiles can list groups horizontally as well as vertically.
•A Raid button has been added to the Navigation tray which will bring players straight to the Raid window in the Social pane.

Valor Points
•The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.
•The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.
•The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.
•The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 70 in 10-player mode, and 90 in 25-player mode.
•The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.
•The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss on Heroic difficulty in The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four winds is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.

Baradin Hold
•Occu'thar has broken free from his cage and presents an all-new boss challenge to players in 10- and 25-player arrangements who control Tol Barad.

PvP
Battlegrounds
•New PvP ground mounts, the Vicious War Wolf (Horde) and Vicious War Steed (Alliance), will be awarded to players for completing achievements to win 75, 150, and 300 Rated Battlegrounds respectively, rather than for being in the top .5% of the ladder at the end of each season as with Arenas. This award system is to better compliment the spirit of Battlegrounds. One account-bound mount will be awarded for each achievement unlocked, allowing players who obtain 150 and 300 Rated Battleground wins to earn this mount a second and third time. The additional mounts earned can then be sent to alt characters, given they’re account-bound. These mounts are awarded as soon as an associated achievement is unlocked and do not correspond with end-of-season rewards.
•The individual Matchmaking Rating column has been removed from the Rated Battleground scoreboard and replaced with a team Matchmaking Rating.

War Games
•Many improvements have been made to the War Games interface. It now has its own panel for ease of use and raid/group leaders are the only ones who can challenge another group to War Games.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Unholy
•Unholy Might now increases Strength by 10% 20%, up from 5%.

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Feral
•Druids now gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, down from 2. They continue to gain 2 attack power per point of Agility while in Cat Form or Bear Form. In addition, Cat Form’s scaling rate from gear upgrades was slower than other classes, which was causing them to fall behind in damage with higher item levels. To counter the Strength change and improve scaling, the following changes have been made. All numbers cited are for level-85 druids.
•Mangle (Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 530% 540% weapon damage, up from 460%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.
•Rake initial damage on hit now deals the same damage as each periodic tick (and is treated the same for all combat calculations). Periodic damage now gains 14.7% of attack power per tick, up from 12.6%, and base damage per tick has been lowered from 557 to 56. There is a known issue with Rake’s tooltip being incorrect from this change will be corrected in a future patch.
•Ravage damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 975% 950% weapon damage, up from 850%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 532.
•Savage Roar now grants 80% increased damage to melee auto attacks, up from 50%. The Glyph of Savage Roar remains an unchanged bonus of 5% to that total.
•Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 520% 540% weapon damage, up from 450%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.

Balance
•Starfire damage has been increased by approximately 23%.
•Wrath damage has been increased by approximately 23%.

Set Bonuses
•The 4-piece Balance druid tier 11 PvE set bonus, Astral Alignment, now provides a total of 15% critical strike chance with 3 charges, decreasing by 5% per charge, instead of 99% decreasing by 33% per charge. This change was made because the set bonus proved so valuable it was not possible to upgrade out of the set into tier 12. To compensate, changes have been made to Starfire and Wrath (listed at the top of the druid class section).

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Holy
•Illuminated Healing (Mastery) has been adjusted slightly so that if a paladin refreshes an existing copy of his or her own Illuminated Healing on a target, the new absorption amount will be added into the old absorption amount and the duration will be reset. The total absorption created can never exceed 1/3 of the casting paladin's health.

Retribution
•Inquiry of Faith now increases Inquisition duration by 66/133/200%, up from 50/100/150%.

Guilds
Guild Finder
•Long comments will now work and not be cut off in the display.

User Interface
•The User Interface panels have been resized so there is no more need for scroll bars.The
•Addons will no longer be able to intelligently swap items by working with the built-in Equipment Manager.
•Character talent specializations can now be viewed on mouseover of the Battlegrounds Scoreboard.
•There is now a Dismiss Pet option on unit frames.
•The durability character display will now show items as yellow when they are below 20% durability, instead of when items have 5 durability or less.
•The Macros window and Spellbook can now both be open at the same time to allow for more intuitive macro creation. In addition, the Macros window has a Save/Cancel button.
•It is now easier to change the language of the game client to any language available in the region.
•A target or focus target can be selected within the mini-map tracking (does not include enemy players).
•Vendors now display currency types they use.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

How to Farm Capture Firefly Pet 4.1

So you've decided to hunt for the mysterious Captured Firefly from Zangramarsh huh? Well let me first start by wishing you goodluck!

There is no easy trick, but there are a few tips that will make your hunt easier and more enjoyable.

First thing to do is to get a rythm, going from east to west at the top of zangramarsh seems to be the easiest way to kill the most Firefly, to gain the Captured Firefly non combat pet .


Here is a script that will count how many you have killed per session, but remeber it only works if you keep the carapaces and legs in your bag.

/script local count = GetItemCount(25434)
local count2 = GetItemCount(25436)
print("Needlers Killed: " .. (count + count2))



***ALSO, if you are a tank, you can get the pet from the " Satchel of Exotic Mysteries" when Q'ing for dungeons as a tank.

Good luck and have fun, may you capture the firefly soon!
 

Boot Danger's WoW Tips and Tricks