Peter's Blog

Elite Soloing Progress

Killing level 65's in Blades Edge got a bit boring to decided on something more challenging:

• Soloed level 67 elite 'Gutripper' for the Nagrand Windroc mastery quest.
• Soloed random level 66 elite Gronn wandering around Nagrand.
• Soloed random level 67 elite Talbuk for the Nagrand Talbuk mastery quest. Blink died at the end but Damagemeters recorded 545 dps over the course of the fight.
• Found two 66 elites guarding a 67 ordinary in Blades Edge. Fighting two at once, killed first but Blink died while finishing off the second. Ressed Blink, then killed the second one before the first respawned. Used aimed shot on the 67 and got biggest crit ever, 2300! The setup looks like a group quest target so I might be back.
• Blink died fighting level 67 elite Queen of the Elekks.
• Blink died fighting level 71 elite tree in Skettis. These tree's are supposed to be a herbalists paradise, remains to be seen.

It was after all this that Blink hit loyalty level four (two more levels to go) and I'm still training him up in Greater Stamina and Natural Armour. Since there are not enough points available for max rank of both I'm torn as to whether to max out one or the other or to compromise. However, respeccing a pet talents is not expensive so I might just experiment.

If anything I am tending to overheal Blink in fights: it is not obvious when Mend Pet runs out so to be safe I spam it a bit. WTB a Mend Pet monitor addon.

A Use for Alchemy

Some research told me of the existance of the Fel Mana potion, a pot that gives a beefy mana dribble over 15 seconds but with -spellcast and -healing debuffs. This would be a nice hunter pot since neither of those stats matter to a hunter (+healing doesn't effect Mend Pet so -healing shouldn't either). Thottbot indicated that the recipe is a Bind on Pickup that you get grinding the guys at Eclipse Point in Shadowmoon Valley. I fancied some grinding so I went there and the recipe dropped in 15 minutes or so: nice, level 360 blue, if I can find some nightmare vine it may well push my alchemy to the cap.

TBH running out of mana during a fight isn't a big problem to me, I only attack elites on full health/mana and the pet dies long before the mana runs out.

The Eclipse guys also drop Signets for Scryer rep so I may spend some time here. The only annoying thing is the Eclipsian Dragonhawk fire breathing bird things that fly about as it is a waste of time and ammo killing them (XP isn't an issue any more and this changes your perspective). They would make a nice looking pet, I think I've seen them about but I'm addicted to Blink's Warp.

Buff Rotation Macro

Finally set up my buff rotation macro:

/castsequence Uniting Charm, Terokkar Tablet of Precision, Bestial Wrath

I bound it to the \ key and can bang it during a fight for whichever buff is up next, I can even bang it twice for Bestial Wrath + one of the others if the cooldowns are right.

I didn't put Rapid Fire in here since it's cooldown is three minutes minimum (if I invested some talent points) which would make the cycle time for all the buffs three minutes as the cycle would stall at Rapid Fire until it's cooldown was up, even if the other three were available. By leaving it out the cycle time is two minutes so I have easy access to 48 seconds of goodness in every two minutes. It's just a way of mapping three buffs to one key, I can still trigger them individually if need be, albeit with mouse clicks. If I were to use it for regular grinding I have to be aware of the mana cost of Bestial Wrath.

I may be able to include Rapid Fire in the mix by using /castrandom instead of /castsequence and spamming the button until it found a buff that wasn't on cooldown. Have to try that, see if the random element makes it fun or annoying (probably the latter).