A Quick Readjustment of Talent Points

BRK » 18 July 2007 » In Pets, WoWInsider »

Well, we’ve had it with Improved Aspect of the Hawk. Again. Well, really, more like for the 20th time or something.

Our latest Curator fight really made us aware that if we’re not going to be running with a Shadow Priest, Aspect of the Viper is crucial to our efficiency. And since we’re going to continue to be running AotV, IAotH isn’t going to proc. For our current situation, IAotH isn’t helping us at all, so away it goes.

What gets to be on-stage in its place? We’re grabbing 3/3 in Thick Hide and 2/2 in Animal Handler. More pet-hits is more pet-damage and that’s our bag, baby. Thick Hide bumps Hobbes’ armor back above 10,000 again and Felreaver’s - our Warp Hunter - is above 12,000. Basically, our pets get 20% more armor which, according to the tooltips, translates to an extra 5% reduction in melee damage. Are we excited about that? Meh. Big Melee Things should be tanked by players, not pets. Hobbes can tank a caster easily, but without heals he is really no more capable of tanking the Moroes melee adds than he was before. Which is to say he can’t.

But what else are we gonna take? Improved “I can’t keep my pet alive”? Ehhh, no.

As for BRK on WoW Insider, we’re having technical issues in that we cannot log on the site to upload our column. We’ve sent emails full of outrage and crying to the WebLogs folks, but so far no luck in resolving this. Will BRK on WI be delayed? Quite possibly, yes.

We used to have a password-archival utility on our computer for just such an emergency, but The Company stripped all our “non-essential” software - like WinZip, Adobe Illustrator, GraphicsConverter, PDFWriter, WoWWiki.com and the URL to our gambling-for-porn addiction - and then locked down the operating system so we can’t do anything “essential” anymore.

But we do have MS Project now. Yay. /pffft

Pets, WoWInsider | July 18, 2007

Comments

14 Responses to “A Quick Readjustment of Talent Points”

  1. Sam on July 18th, 2007 5:37 pm

    Woot these spec changes are costing me bucks BRK and I’m still 550g short of a flying mount. BTW I had 3/3 in Thick Hide but changed it on your advice and my pet Naipual has been taking a regular tanking since. Having said that I don’t really use AotV. I suspect you will change your mind again soon so I won’t be respeccing for now.

  2. Wowpeon on July 18th, 2007 5:51 pm

    brk said: “Improved ‘I can’t keep my pet alive’? Ehhh, no.”

    Haha that made me laugh out loud in a kind of snickery, snorty way. Great stuff :)

  3. Kent on July 18th, 2007 5:57 pm

    Instead of using Aspect of the Viper, I would suggest investing in Fel Mana Potions.

    Restores 3200 mana over 24 sec, but at a cost. Also reduces spell damage by 25 and healing done by 50 for 15 min.

    They are very nice.

    I would also suggest getting a Mark of Conquest because the mana regen from the proc is nice, and the proc is ~7.5%.

  4. For the Pie on July 18th, 2007 6:48 pm

    You got MSProject?

    Well the Bali Lama told me I had Total enlightment at death, so I have that going for me.

  5. Doomilias on July 18th, 2007 7:12 pm

    ms project is almost as useless as ms frontpage. our company did something similar last week, installing a harsh barracuda web filter that blocked blogger.com as a “social networking site”. i cried and bitched and moaned and got them to reopen sites such as this and wowwiki.com, worldofwarcraft.com, wowhead.com, etc…maybe i should get back to work…

  6. Anonymous on July 18th, 2007 7:34 pm

    i never did go for imp hawk i like thick hide and saphira my warp hunter having 11,767 armor and i could not make my self give up spirit bond it has saved me and my pet a time or two plus i do use viper a lot i only have 153 int unbuffed…..

    Adrus

  7. Anonymous on July 18th, 2007 8:34 pm

    take 1 in thick hide and 2/2 spirit bond. Yes spirit bond is a lackluster talent but health > armor.

  8. sjl on July 19th, 2007 3:48 am

    Damh,
    As a practicing computer scientist I am appalled at the lack of competence of your IT staff. Instead of all the work the did to remove all that software, all they needed to do was remove the mouse and keyboard drivers. same results, must faster. That how we roll here at The Computer Help Desk and Spanish Inquisition Fan club.
    - sjl

  9. Teut on July 19th, 2007 6:13 am

    Improved revided pet you will skill again when you raid the big bosses, aka Gruul and Magtheridon. Your pet can die, and 4 seconds off the damage tab to sabe your 35% damage pet is better than the long revive, as you won’t have time in those fights … you have to constantly move :)

  10. Someone on July 19th, 2007 8:14 am

    Well, you need to update the talent calculator at the bottom; to save you some time, is your current spec: cVbh0gxRwuVoVxbRV

    BTW: When planning my build, I couldn’t care less of IAotH; there were too many nicer things that I wanted! Such as Thick Hide (need it to progress down the line without using IAotH!) and Animal Handler (+4% hit means only 1% miss! I hate when my pet starts a new mob (usually while I’m looting the previous) and it misses then the mob resists or vice-versa: I have to w8 a bit more to start shooting!

    Like I said, I’m only 29 on my hunter, but enjoying it ever more especially thanks to your site!

    As for the internet filters and such, just have your productivity go down for the next few weeks. When they ask, blame it on how cramped the internet is and that every time you try to search for something everything is blocked and as such internet search is no longer a viable tool on your arsenal… Who knows, maybe they’ll see the light! :)

    Best regards from http://someonewowing.blogspot.com!

  11. Carreira on July 19th, 2007 10:06 am

    IMHO if you go low on mana, drink a pot, you can manage your mana well if you drink pots every 2 mins, you can drink the first one when you reach half a bar of mana and keep going like that, i normally don’t give up on AOTH, if gives you that extra dmg and i really not throwing that away.
    I don’t aggree with your changes…
    Thick hide? If you intend to raid? why do you need armor on Hobbes or even on you?

  12. Dwayne on July 20th, 2007 12:35 pm

    Hey BRK,

    Check this spec out. I find in boss fights that IAotH can be up the entire time if you have the following: Superious mana oil applied to your weapon (3 arcane dust, 1 netherbloom, and a imbued vial) and blessing of wisdom. During curator last night with a variation of this spec I had quick shots up 90% of the time

    http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/hunter/talents.html?4420020151501204310510550201205000000000000000000000000000000000

  13. Dwayne on July 20th, 2007 12:36 pm

    PS.

    And I did not run out of mana, with one mana pot popped during the fight

  14. Doyce on July 28th, 2007 3:03 am

    This post really needs labels for both Talents and Build. The labels it has… do not really reflect what it’s about.

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