It’s Twue!
“Dear BRK, while inspecting your profile on the WOW Armory I noticed you’re leveling Leatherworking atm? Does that - by any chance - have something to do with the Ebon Neherscale Set which becomes available when you’ve gained 375 skill points and specialised in Dragonscale LW?
“Whether it is or isn’t, could you give us some advise on that set with respect to its usefulness for Beastmaster hunters. The set has decent AP values, Mana Regen, Armor, Stamina, Intellect as well as considerable Crit Ratings! Unfortunately it lacks Agility. Putting in the BRK approved gems increases that agility a bit but not much. On the other hand, crit is crit, whether it’s obtained via agility or crit rating… and hence, more crit means more Kill Commands. The armor set also has a nice bonus of +20 Hit rating when wearing all three items and a high hit rating is one of the bare essentials for a Beastmaster hunter! Thanks for the advice! Camaxtli & Leo”
OK. So. Here’s the deal. Many of you know BRK has long been an advocate of Dual Gathering, (mining, herbalism and skinning,) to make mucho mondo payola. And for anybody who is not a 70, and for every 70 who does not have an epic flying mount, this is still the case. However we’ve been mulling a thought for a few weeks now and the time has come to implement it.
It is now Our Learned Opinion that once your epic flying mount is safely in your bags, the ability to make quick cash via daily quests surpasses the money-making madness that is gathering. Taking this new philosophy to heart, last night BRK dropped his 375 mining skill and started Leatherworking. Again.
When we were grinding our way to 60, we were a full 300-skill Dragonscale Leatherworker. We found very little to recommend about the craft and soon dumped Skinning and Leatherworking for Mining and Engineering. Throwing our efforts into this profession with a crazed abandon, we achieved a 300-skill level in Goblin Engineering. That bored us to tears too, and the stupid Goblin Jumper Cables XL always failed at the wrong time. We decided to take Make Money as our profession, dumped Engineering, took up Skinning again, and turned our mad grinding skillz into 10,000g over time. Flying mounts, movie stars, etc. were ours.
BRK has the Laughing Skull Battle-Harness and it’s really a fine piece of gear. Replacing it has been impossible. We’ve been trying to get the [Beast Lord Curiass] to drop from Warpy in Botanica forever. We know Nightbane drops a pretty chest piece too. What’s the best way to cause the Loot Fates to make these drop? Spend oodles of cash trying to make the Ebon Netherscale Breastplate, of course.
So yes, that one piece of gear is our primary goal. We considered Blacksmithing and Armorsmithing for the high-armor mail gear that that profession can make. We considered Axesmithing for the nasty Legacy-like cleaver. But in the end, the availability of materials in the Auction House for leatherworking made us go this route.
The biggest problem is going to be the 250-300 grind. We’ve got loads of Outland leather and will crank those 300+ skill levels easily enough. But getting all the Rugged Leather we’re going to want is going to be a pain. Who wants to go to, oh say Winterspring, and farm beasts for a month to get all that leather?
Sure would be nice if we had a friend out in Winterspring already, doing something silly like grinding Wintersaber Trainer reputation, who would sell us all that leather cheaply. Wonder if we could manage that somehow? The plan would be:
A) Convince someone that farming beasts in Winterspring was in their best interest.
B) Convince them to sell all that leather directly to us and bypass the AH.
C) Do it in a way such that once they found out our plan, they’d have no choice but to continue to the plan anyway.
It would be tricky, but we think it could be done.
So anyway, back to the gear. The [Ebon Netherscale Breastplate] is our primary goal. How does it compare to the [Laughing Skull Battle-Harness]?
Ebon Netherscale Breastplate
Chest Mail
846 Armor
+25 Stamina
+23 Intellect
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Agility
Requires Level 70
Requires: Dragonscale Leatherworking
Equip: Increases attack power by 80.
Equip: Restores 8 mana per 5 sec.
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 31.
Laughing Skull Battle-Harness
Binds when picked up
Chest Mail
635 Armor
+28 Agility
+29 Stamina
+20 Intellect
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: 2 mana per 5 sec.
Requires Level 68
Equip: Increases attack power by 40.
Upgrading, we have the following deltas:
Agility: -28
Stamina: -4
Intellect: +3
RAP: +12
Crit: 1% Crit for 40 agility and 1% Crit for 22.08 Crit Rating means the LSBH gives 0.7% Crit and the ENB gives +1.04% Crit, a delta of +0.7% Crit
MP5: +6
Armor: +211
Looking at gems, we have a very pretty red/blue +20 RAP gem in the bank we may just toss in there. And depending on what our helm’s meta gem requires, we may fill the other two slots with +8 agility gems and not worry about the +2MP5 we get from filling according to color. More thought is needed here, but since our leatherworking is only at 143 we have the time. Although we did get our first Primal Nether from Heroic Underbog last night.
And the whole point is that we hope to get a drop before we finish leveling our Leatherworking. But now that we’ve said that, perhaps we’ve jinxed ourselves. That’s not good…
What should be noted is just how good the Laughing Skull Battle-Harness really is. It is available from Black Morass at level 68 and will last a heck of a long time. BRK has been 70 forever it seems, has almost cleared Karazhan and we’re still using it. If you want a Really Good Blue that will stay with you a long time, head to BM and farm for this piece.
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41 Responses to “It’s Twue!”
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Ooh, that’s just…SNEAKY.
hmm…it would seem that someone I know…that is on your server…is going to be grinding a LOT in winterspring soon….perhaps they can sell you some leather.
(I bow to the deviousness.)
You could, were you of a noble as well of devious mindset, make a ‘deal’.
If someone who were, for some peculiar reason, already grinding in the area of frequent rugged leather drops, were to be offered any of the quest mats THAT person got as drops in exchange, I am certain a deal could be made. At least, were _I_ that person, I might make such a deal. On the other hand, I might merely scoff in your general direction, and take up skinning so as to ensure even were you to be around when I obtained my quest loots you could not get the skins.
But then, that’s me.
Crit: 1% Crit for 40 agility and 1% Crit for 15.77 Crit Rating means the LSBH gives 0.7% Crit and the ENB gives +1.72% Crit, a delta of +1.02% Crit
Not sure where you got your stats from for ENB but they are incorrect:
Ebon Netherscale Breastplate
846 Armor
+25 Stamina
+23 Intellect
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Agility
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 31 (1.4%).
Equip: Increases attack power by 80.
Equip: Restores 8 mana per 5 sec.
1% crit = 22.08 crit rating at level 70
She may have to continue the bet, but the AH pays better for leather than you do.
Hey Hell, thanks for the corrections. We always seem to get the pre-patch information when we do stat-research from work. Post shall be corrected.
And TJ, we made a trade agreement last night. We paid up this morning and threw on a bonus, too.
The ebonscale looks pretty nice, but is it really that much better than the arena season 2 chestpiece? Can you post the stats on it too? I’m 33pts shy of the breastplate, which will give me a 2piece set finally that i’ll be wearing for pve and pvp both. FINALLY replacing the battle harness which I too have been wearing for an eternity. Give a comparison on those two pieces please
(the arena2 and the ebon) Perhaps I’ll drop engineering and pick up LW. Now that I have my eng goggles… the profession seems almost pointless. It’s nothing but a money sink at max level. (mine for adamantite and motes of fire/earth, combine them into expensive, aggro pulling bullets)
don’t forget that once you’re past kara and on to SSC, some of the best gear IN THE GAME becomes availiable only through tradeskills
ENS > Tier 4 chest piece for anything but a survivalist hunter. The Glad 2 chest piece isn’t even as good as tier 4 for dps. Realistiacly the ENS set is something to wear into kara->SSC/TK and replace in tier 5 instances. Just like the tailoring gear it is phenominal for dps. Great mana regen, great crit and a nice bit of extra hit rating. With the exception of Gladiator 2 shoulders no pieces are really superior for real bossfight dps, and those shoulders are only better untill you can down voidreaver. Sure arena gear has decent agility and crit but the attack power and intel are terrible and your sustained dmg is going to be poor.
Shifttusk
don’t forget that once you’re past kara and on to SSC, some of the best gear IN THE GAME becomes availiable only through tradeskills
Not for hunters, the boots pattern is boe/boots are bop which is fine, but the chess boots or solarian boots are better anyway.
The belt pattern is bop/belt is boe so any guild member can make it, the belt is awesome but you don’t need lw to use it.
As for other tradeskills, some of the cloth/leather/plate items are nice for respective classes but theres nothing for engineering anyway, and nothing that is BoP for hunters. I can’t sat for the BT/Hyjal patterns though, not looked them up for a long time.
Perhaps I’ll drop engineering and pick up LW. Now that I have my eng goggles…
The goggles need 350 eng to equip them afaik, so if you drop engineering you wont be able to use them, effectively rendering them useless. You may be able to drop engineering while they are equipped, and as long as you don’t remove them you should still get the effect, but one slip of the button and you’re screwed
Season2 Chest:
Merciless Gladiator’s Chain Armor
954 Armor
+31 Agility
+57 Stamina
+17 Intellect
Red Socket
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Critical Strike Rating
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 21 (1.0%).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 21 (0.5%).
Equip: Increases attack power by 32.
BRk, you magnificent bastard!!!
Greatest plan ever!
You think the run to 300 is bad? the last 10-15 points before 375 are AWFUL. And this is from someone who leveled JC back in the early days when gems actually cost something.
All I have to say is, if you’re not Shattar and KoT exalted now, start working on it. Rep patterns from those two are the only reasonable way to hit 375, and it’s just painful to be stuck for weeks at 365 like I was because you don’t have the rep.
Yup, exalted with Shattah, and Drums of Battle! This pattern will skill you upto 375 plus the drums are awsome
Almost managed to drop myself beneath a 1.0 attack speed, just need a shaman to hit that inspiration buff at the right time and I’ll be there!
Thank you Hell for the link to the Arena2 chest. Shift, it appears to me that the arena2 is the better way to go. There is less intellect, resulting in less AP if you’re MM, but if you’re BM it doesn’t matter, and if you’re SV, you’d want the agi from arena set anyway. 31agi + 32ap still = 63AP. It’s only 21ap less than EBS. THe arena2 has 10 less crit rating, but the extra agi more than makes up for that 10 crit rating less does it not? Arena has more stam and more armor also. The only real arguement I can see for the ebs is that it has so much mp5. but the battleharness only has 2mp5 now, so it’s not a big loss. And lets face it, resilience is pretty significant in PVE for anyone but a warrior. Since hunters have no defense stat to get on their gear, the only way to lower their chance to be crit is through resilience. Yes, it is useful in pve in addition to pvp. In addition, if you guys are cramming agi gems into sockets despite not getting the socket bonus, the arena2 gives you two red slots for agi gems and one yellow which you can surely find an orange gem with agi or put a straight crit gem in it, netting you the bonus without gimping your agi. I think I vote for the arena set. And unless you’re already max LW, arena set is one hell of a lot cheaper.
@ Hell… I didn’t think about not being able to wear my eng goggles anymore… maybe I’ll wait until i get tier4 or arena head before I hastily drop eng. Those pieces look cooler, even though they may both be a slight drop in dps. We can’t deny that fashion makes a small part in our decision on gear
heh, and I’m debating going the other direction…dropping LW to get mining up to get my epic mount…
the netherscale pieces also require you to stay Dragonscale LW to equip them…
as for chest pieces… it’s damn hard to beat the arena piece! I used to be down on the pvp/arena stuff… but at least you KNOW that after hours of grinding you WILL get something, you don’t get the 100% guarantee from anything else
IMO, other than the felstalker breastplate there’s no better BLUE than the laughing skull… the beast lord is still a step behind it… the shard-encrusted breastplate is on par, and the felstalker is a little better, especially if you get the 20 hit set bonus…
the mats for the ebon set are obscene… with the exception of the bracers…
my LW is stalled at 369, and I can’t decide if I should get to 375, or just dump LW and mine my butt off for cash…
Zem,
Couple of gripes with your comments:
“The arena2 has 10 less crit rating, but the extra agi more than makes up for that 10 crit rating less does it not?”
It will have higher raw crit% by a little more than .5% but this doesnt make up for a 21AP 8Mp5 difference. Hunters have possibly the worst ability (viper) to regen mana in a raid, and should be specced imphawk preventing the use of viper for way more dps (about 7% increase). Mp5 is the highest valued stat on the AEP formula because hunters have such regen issues. Another thing to note is if the LW can make the chestpiece he can also make the belt and bracer which are better than any kara drops and add another 20 hit rating. This isn’t figured into your stats.
“Arena has more stam and more armor also. “
We’re talking for pve, wasting points on armor is silly (arena gear has “green” armor numbers meaning it has extra). Stam is nice but generaly the pve gear you have provides enough hp to hunter to be effective and not be killed by aoe. In full pve pieces with 1/5 endurance training I have over 8200 hp unbuffed in kara/gruuls/crafted pieces.
” And lets face it, resilience is pretty significant in PVE for anyone but a warrior. “
This is the silliest thing I’ve heard. What is the job of a non tank? To heal or to DPS. Where does this include taking dmg other than aoes (which you should be avoiding)? Can Shatter crit? Can Arcane Orb Crit? Can Cavein Crit? Can Netherspites aura crit? Resiliance is useless in PVE for all classes. There is a reason none of the PVE gear you get as you progress has resiliance. Encouraging a dps class to take resiliance into a raid is convincing them to take gear that sacrifices damage for essential defense. Would you encourage a hunter to come to kara weilding the sun eater? How about chainmail of the stamina or even defense? I didn’t think so. You’re not a tank getting crit is not your concern end of story.
I understand people liking the ease of getting an arena piece or two to have a complete purple set of “pve” gear however promoting Resiliance, Armor, and High Stam as best stats for PVE dps is just crazy talk. You’re almost always better off with the kara drop, the only exception I see is shoulders since the beastmaw pauldrons are absolutely the worst purples in the game. And even then its a sacrifice you need to be carefull about, you’re dropping 10intel 8mp5 for about 1%crit and 10AP. This is only good to do if you have the mana pool and regen on other slots.
This is just my two cents obviously but if you want clarification as to which is better look at some more progressed hunters you will not see hunters in SSC guild wearing G2 chests but you will see them in ENS. Hell Cheeky (sp?) the guy who made the dps calculator is running BT/Hyjall using ENS.
Shifttusk
Hunters have possibly the worst ability (viper) to regen mana in a raid, and should be specced imphawk preventing the use of viper for way more dps (about 7% increase). Mp5 is the highest valued stat on the AEP formula because hunters have such regen issues.
This is important now, but when the mechanics of AotV change I think you’ll see hunters using AotH until mana gets low and then switching to AotV for the remainder of the fight.
Resiliance is useless in PVE for all classes.
QFE
As a DPS/CC class you want to maximize everything that makes you good at that and only scrape by with everything else.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason hunters are allowed to wear mail instead of only leather is that their pets need the armor bonus (that and there is enough competition for leather already).
The last 20 or so points in Leatherworking really really stink.
People on my server have resorted to making Riding Crops and etc. for others and paying the customer for skillups.
We are currently 55 and gringing in winterspring, and with skinning and herbalism as our professions, I have tons of the stuff…too bad you are on a different server.
-Hammerhiem & Sekhmet
The last 20 or so points in Leatherworking really really stink.
I haven’t finished leveling LW on my hunter but with other professions you MUST have reputation recipes to get the last 5-10 points.
My hunter has DS-LW at 327 right now, I should really find a guide so that I can finish it up efficiently. Any thoughts on that BRK since you’re headed that way to?
Well, shift your post sounds a little angry lmao. Two points I can make in response to your 3 paragraphs about pve though.
A) PvE is more than just raids.
B) I stated that I’d be using the pieces for PvE AND PvP.
Now about the mana regen. I never said I wasn’t a big fan of mana regen. Dropping the shoulders from opera to use arena shoulders was an extremely hard decision for me. I recognize the value of mana regen. With that in mind, in karazhan, I NEVER pot twice, and I ALMOST never pot once, even while using AotH the whole battle. I am not above potting for mana in order to take higher dps gear. The resilience is not a reason to take arena gear so much as a bonus to have. And I believe it was YOU along with Guy who boasted about tanking with deterrence? Perhaps not you, I’m not sure. But if you’re already boosted by resilience, you could indeed benefit from it. AGAIN resilience does NOT take the place of any other hunter spec points, I agree.
Further, we weren’t talking about the set bonuses, we were talking about the chest piece. So the hit rating is not important. PLUS, I have so much hit rating I have to take some off and put lower lvl items on for extra agi. So hit rating is not a factor for me. And I don’t care what anyone says, health is still important. I have slightly over 8k health without buffs also. I didn’t advocate taking stamina OVER ap, I listed the benefits of the arena piece. Don’t spend your post talking to me like I’m to retarded to see the light. I don’t appreciate the tone. Hunters are about balance IMO. Precisely the reason I am not BM. If I wanted only uber dps, I’d be BRK. And I have news for you, even if we’re talking about raids, there is NO REASON you couldn’t take a piece with higher burst and dps but no mana regen and wear it for all the trash pulls, switching out for bosses. Who gives a shit about mana regen during trash pulls? And congratulations to you if your feign death ability doesn’t ever get resisted, but mine does. So, yes, I DO still value health and armor, even if I place its worth BELOW ap/agi/crit/mana.
And you know what? Looking at people’s gear from the high end raid stuff is all well and good. But lets remember that they’re not choosing from the same stuff we are. PERHAPS the gear selections they have from those places are good enough but lacking in hit rating that they have to make sacrifices in hit rating, causing the ebs to be MORE valuable becuase of said hit rating. For kara geared people, I have TOO MUCH fking hit rating gear. So I’m looking for pieces WITHOUT it, to bolster the other stats.
*Edit* My comment about tanking does not mean tanking all the time, it means in “oh shit” situations, so dont’ go on tangents shooting that one down, ok?
*Edit* again.
Thank you BRK for posting something again that we can argue about. This is what we need.
I’d rather use Ranger-General’s Chestguard from Hydross, never seen it drop yet though =\ Way more AP than ENS and more crit with AGI accounted for, I guess the reason hunters in further progressed guilds don’t use it is simply the fact they probably don’t even do SSC/TK once everyone is attuned? You’d get an extra 960 mana from a 10min fight using ENS and RGC gives 100 more mana anyway, so ~850 mana I can manage fine without :p
As for the AotV change, I can’t see it making much difference tbh, if people are using pots at the right times you shouldn’t be running out of mana to use viper in the first place. Use pots once you’ve dropped below the pots max amount to give you full, earlier if you are using fel mana… if you use them when you’re already oom thats to late!
The change just means its even better for farming as more specials = more mana return = faster mob deaths, keep your mana ticking at low amounts for maximum return between mobs = less downtime.
As for ‘tanking’ with deterence, it’s not an intentional thing… resilliance won’t really help you anyway. Bosses you may pull aggro on are usually aggro sensitive encounters - Leotheras, Doomwalker? these type of bosses are gonna kill you if they hit you, let alone crit.. deterence gives you the opportunity to reposition them as the tank picks them up, you just hope and pray you don’t get hit
It’s either that, or FD and let the next clothie get killed, then the next…
I currently have 80 resilliance in PvE gear, but thats only due to the Arena2 shoulders and gloves being better than T4 for survival (more AGI/Crit [and not seeing the gruul gloves drop like ever..]) I lose a chunk of mana using them which is a bitch though..
Yeah, I’m not SV, but if I were, I think I’d be wearing more arena gear than kara gear. Kara gear sucks for agi, but the arena gear has it in decent amounts. It’s hard to give up mana, but it seems that it’s a choice that has to be made sometimes. And considering that SV has the talent that gets you mana back, it almost seems like a logical decision to sac mp5 for agi. Hmm… Maybe I will indeed try the 0/20/41 build soon. In about a month I’ll be able to have my third arena piece, and If I take the legs, it’s another huge agi boost. Perhaps I can get my agi where it needs to be to really try out this spec. Shifttusk… were you saying before that your dps was topping 1300? Was that as SV? or MM or BM?
@Hell…
How does SV do for you in arenas? Do you find that other people’s resilience makes you crit less, and overall have not so good dps because your build is so crit dependant? Or has this not been an issue? OMG BRK GIVE US AN ARENA BLOG TO DISCUSS. I need tips >_<
I remember one of BRK’s posts a while back when he said he wasn’t interested in this set.
Heh, heh, heh.
Glad to see he’s come around. And if you’re going to craft the chest, you might as well craft all three pieces and get the nifty set bonus.
As for the AotV change, I can’t see it making much difference tbh, if people are using pots at the right times you shouldn’t be running out of mana to use viper in the first place. Use pots once you’ve dropped below the pots max amount to give you full, earlier if you are using fel mana… if you use them when you’re already oom thats to late!
I play a priest as well in end-game so I’m familiar with ‘potting’ at 75% and then again whenever the CD is up.
But I’m hoping that the changes to AotV mean that rather than downing more pots near the end of a fight I can switch aspects (at around 30% mana) and maintain good DPS; my mana dropping to zero when the boss falls to the ground.
Boss down, gold saved, phat lewtz.
Arenas in general just suck regardless of spec as a hunter.
I do 10 games a week for points, thats all.
I don’t notice crits as half the time I’m either getting ganked or people are just abusing LoS.
I’ve just specced back to survival after trying BM again for a while so I changed it a little, opting for imp hawk instead of MT to see if it makes a difference, also dropped monster slaying for 3/3 imp wc to try and help in arenas a little (immobilise-ranged) I 3v3 with a resto shaman and rogue so heroism + rapid is nice burst for us but we usually end up 6-4 or 5-5 each week depending on who we’re against.
Traps are useless in arenas now, everyone has the trinket to waste your 30s cooldown (unless you have points in talents to reduce it) and rogues can just CloS and immune them anyway.
@Zem,
I agree BRK did give us a good one today! YUS!
Soo… of course I’m angry its friday and I’m not outa work yet!
So as far as your using for PvP as well thats a no brainer, mana efficiency isn’t big in pvp at all, the only thing important since the BC is stam/resilliance.
So round two of hunter banter!
“PvE is more than just raids.” Right, but we’re not debating the best gear to go farm rep with we’re debating purple gear for dps. ENS isn’t needed to farm the firefly pet, its geared towards 5man/heroic/t4 raiding.
“I recognize the value of mana regen. With that in mind, in karazhan, I NEVER pot twice, and I ALMOST never pot once, even while using AotH the whole battle. “
The shoulders I understand because the dps stats on them stink fierce. As far as potting in kara… well no I don’t slap on one or two kara purples and spec BM and congrats you overgear the content. But on progression fights even with my very nice Mp5 I still pot on many fights if I’m not rolling with a shadowpriest or if our paly OT isn’t there. But the advantage is this. If I had less mana regen I’d need to pot 4-5 times one the 10 minute voidreaver fight. Instead I pot once or twice and use my pot cooldown for haste potions. God another rapid fire is hotness, and in a fight where you need to kill him in 10 minutes or bust, more dps is always good.
“And I believe it was YOU along with Guy who boasted about tanking with deterrence?”
I wasn’t in that post i did comment that it was funny.
“And I don’t care what anyone says, health is still important.”
You need enough to not be 1shot by aoes, maybe even two shot but unless you’re running into a specific problem you shouldnt be worrying about HP outside of pvping.
“Hunters are about balance IMO. Precisely the reason I am not BM. If I wanted only uber dps, I’d be BRK.”
I find BM to be very well balanced, BM’s have buffs to ranged dps, pets dps and some utility (not as much as surv) with FI, Intimidation and Bestial Wrath. Survival is pretty well balanced as well however it does neglect the pet for more utility. Marksmanship does one thing, makes your gun hit harder.
“And I have news for you, even if we’re talking about raids, there is NO REASON you couldn’t take a piece with higher burst and dps but no mana regen and wear it for all the trash pulls, switching out for bosses. Who gives a shit about mana regen during trash pulls?”
The person who gives a shit most is your raid leader, the more you stop and drink after trash pulls the slower the night is. You don’t need mondo dps to down trash, hell I autoshoot with arcane only on kara trash to save mana. Being mana efficient and not trying to wtfpwn the meters on trash wearing crit gear is the way to go. Dying and drinking wastes time, kara has enough annoying trash to kill.
“And congratulations to you if your feign death ability doesn’t ever get resisted, but mine does. So, yes, I DO still value health and armor, even if I place its worth BELOW ap/agi/crit/mana.”
My FD is resisted the same rate as yours 6.2% on a raid boss I think is the number. The fact of the matter is if you’re paying attention and use FD as you should not as an OH CRAP LOLZ I HAVE AGRO a single resist isn’t a big deal, heck even with two resists I just need to stop dpsing for 15 seconds for the tank to get back up. And HP and armor is nice but lets be realistic, if you get agro even in kara, and don’t have FD up your 37% dmg reduction to my 35% means jack sqat, if either of us get hit twice we’re dead.
“And you know what? Looking at people’s gear from the high end raid stuff is all well and good. But lets remember that they’re not choosing from the same stuff we are.”
Looking at another guilds gear/strats is the best way to pick things. They are wearing the gear you need and doing the things you need to do to down the next boss. If hunters in the top guilds are speccing BM or Surv and stacking crit and ahste theres probably a good reason for it.
Like I was saying before and am still saying theres a natural gear progression for the end game pve,
5 mans -> Crafted/Kara/Heroic/Gruuls -> Tk/SSC -> Hyjall/Bt
Nowhere in there is arena gear, its not needed or built statwise for raiding. If you cant find anything better its nice but are you better wearing the gladiator 2 chest or going to get the BOE thick netherscale chest made? Same effort roughly, and I think you know my answer already.
I’m still not sure why you get so worked up when someone posts an opinion that doesnt match yours. I may be right or wrong hell im not in the top guild on my server let alone the US. Either way enjoy your weekend I’m going back to counting the seconds till I can get outa here!
Shifttusk
Literally three days after I crafted my Ebon Netherscale Breastplate, I got my t4 chest.
16 Primal Fires, 16 Primal Shadows, 30 Nether scales, and 2 Primal Nethers down the drain
Still, 375 is very useful for the patterns that drop in SSC and TK, and I hear that Blizzard will be using craftable patterns to fill holes in itemization in the future, so it’s not a total waste.
Plus, I love my (BOP 375 LW) Boots of the Crimson Hawk.
I DO get worked up.
But I’m not the only one lol. I’m snotty too sometimes, you may have noticed. But I ALWAYS appreciate the feedback, regardless of whether or not I agree with it.
As usual, your post was explained well, so I’ll make only a few comments this time.
On trash pulls, your casters are sitting down to drink, so you may as well also. (magewater is free) Elsewise you’re just bouncing around like a retard or /dance ing
The other thing is, arena gear is pretty hot. I think the only reason more people aren’t wearing arena gear on their hunters is because they have a hard time doing well in arenas. I dont’ believe it’s because the arena gear isn’t good enough.
And finally, if we’re just talking about chest pieces… we have few options as hunters. The chest from BM, the Beastlord chest, EBS chest, Arena chest, or cross your fingers and wait for weeks on nightbane chest. Nothing in heroics at all. EBS is nice, sure, but after that (I’m engineering remember) I rank them Arena2/Nightbane (I’d have to look at both stats, i’m not sure offhand which is better)>BM chestpiece>Beastlord Chest.
My self justification for choosing Arena2 chest over EBS is now complete.
@Zem <3 getting heated is good sometimes!
As far as chests I think the order is acording to that hunter agility eq points site
Beastlord -> Laughing Skull -> BOE Blue Leatherworker One -> Arena 1 -> Arena 2 -> ENS
I’m not sure on the nightbane one.
As far as drinking, I’m guessing its more of a gear thing I think i’m a bit further through content. We pretty much chain pull the room after curator when we do kara then drink then chainpull the next few rooms.
And don’t get me wrong Arena gear is not bad at all. I have a fuck 210 resiliance pvp set with 2 pieces of season 1 and I use season two shoulders for dps untill I actualy see lootreaver drop hero pauldrons.
As far as your earlier questions about dps. I’ve tried all three builds in kara only BM/Surv on voidreaver. The best dps fights to get high dmg seem to be Gruul, Netherspite and Nightbane. Netherspite makes it easy due to the agro not being an issue but as far as I’ve seen:
Nightbane:
MM (0/31/30 not real MM) - 750dps or so
Surv (0/20/41 with no wyvern) 800 dps or so but remember I don’t have enough agi to spec surv just the crit.
BM - 950+ I’ve almost tapped a full 1000dps as BM on this fight but I didn’t have the Crimson Hawk Boots or my Dragonspine at this point.
Netherspite - never did as MM
Surv - 900dps
BM - I topped 1300dps on this fight no flask just agi pot
Gruul -
Surv - 900dps
BM - 1100dps or so has been my max
I think i put up a gruuls as survivalist here a few days back showing the 900dps one. We only recently started using WWS I’ll see what I can find of the BMing. I know there won’t be any as LR+Marks.
None of these are with a scorpid. I’ve used it only a few times for fun. With the scorpid I almost broke 1700dps on prince. That hack needs a nerf its about 300dps.
Shifttusk
I leveled leatherworking from 0 to 375 and made the whole set in under 4 weeks. The hardest aprt was the alst 20 points or so - the part up to 300 you are concerned iwth is really quite easy for a 70. Things die FAR more quickly than you remember, and getting the skins was a piece of cake.
MM is about flexibility with high dps, btw. Not just making the gun go bang. And as far as LOS issues, they’re not as detrimental as some believe. If you’re with a healer, just tell your healer to remain in your LOS and heal himself. Nuke the people attacking him. When some people figure out “oh shit I’m going to die” and LOS you, just kill the ones stupid enough to think they can stand there and dps. And MM with SV talents lets you make good use of traps and high burst damage together. FREEZE traps are worthless in arenas now, not all traps. Snake traps are your best friend. You can force a rogue to COS and run away far to bandage. By the time he gets back, scatter shot him, and by then you can lay another snake trap. Snakes + Scorpid + hunter dps = dead anything. Also, silencing shot is UBER in arenas. Mages are a joke to a MM hunter. Silencing shot then cuncussive shot. SO now he can’t blink and he has to run at you… slowly. Let him come, blasting him on the way. When he gets close, scattershot, run at range, and finish him off. EZmode. BM is good for kiting and getting away. MM is good for stopping their spells and wtfpwning them in arenas. Time spent kiting is time spent dieing to other dps classes in arena. Screw kiting, stand there and go down in a blaze of glory and gunfire. Hunters can take out two dps classes easily by himself with a few heals. I run 2v2 with a holy priest. We have around 1625 rating steadily just the two of us. But the mage we let in pulls the rating down a little bit, so that we even out hovering a few points below 1600 usually. We are not the top rated arena team by any means, but we have fun and accrue a respectable amount of pts per week (or would if I weren’t getting more pts with 3v3 and 5v5) The ONLY pair up we auto lose to is pally/MSwarrior. And sometimes we dont’ even lose to that one. But MS is strong.
Scorpid is being nerfed, actually. You can try out the “fixed” version on PTR right now I believe. A question though about Nightbane. I find this fight to be the single most aggro sensitive fight in karazhan by a HUGE margin. I have been there as my hunter, but honestly I tank him more than not. So this perspective comes from tanking him. The rate at which nightbane block/dodge/parrys my attacks, and the rate at which I miss him is astounding. I easily build only about a third to two thirds of the aggro on him as everyone else I tank. Is your tank sporting +hit gems or something? I had just taken to assuming that his defense table is whacked… maybe I’ve just had 5 weeks of bad luck? Also, I’ve noticed that getting 2k threat below me while i’m tanking is enough for ranged to pull aggro from me on him. This should NOT be happening, but we have seen it happen many, many times. My guild is required to stay 3k threat below me on nightbane, and we can one shot him easily.
BTW, I have officially called off karazhan for next week and told my guild they are REQUIRED to attend Gruul’s lair on tuesday instead. We will have good attendance and preparedness or by god I’ll stop the karazhan runs. Im tired of farming karazhan. We split it into two days this week. 4.25 hrs to clear through shade on Tuesday and 2 hrs to finish netherspite, prince and nightbane on wednesday (wed took so long because retards actually wiped 3 times on netherspite >_<) the only boss we wiped on this week. We have kara on farm, there is no doubt. SO I have to be more stern to get us into gruul’s I guess.
I am currently wearing Arena2 now. I had farmed most of the mats for the EBS, but our tanks needed mats to craft resist gear for Hydross. Hydross to me means a Ranger General will drop soon. I have donated my farmed Primal Fires to the Tanking effort. Now we have made one attempt on Hydross and are learning the encounter. So, for me Arena2 was easier to achieve and socketed with Attack power gems is working out fine. I may still craft the Ebonscale set if I can get the time to run heroics for the Primal Nethers plus re-farm more primals (ugh). But then again Bioshock just came out :P.
chimp & thunder
I did a comparison with the beautiful Felstalker set and after many columns of spreadsheet reached the following conclusion.
The loss of agility between those two crafted sets is offset by the armour and crit on the ebon. Where it lacks is in AP and Intel. Basically, five +12 AP gems and one +8 Intel gem will put the Ebon ahead on everything except the dodge from the lost agility.
When I made the change I noticed a huge improvement in survivability.
And many thanks BRK for your recent plugging of the Relentless Earthstorm (+12Ag, +3%crit damage) I went straight over to AH and think its the best single upgrade I’ve ever done.
Here is a tip for farming in Winterspring, incase no one has mentioned it.
The Yeti cave due east of Everlook. On the Matriarchs and Patriarchs which are primarily in the cave. The drop rate on rugged is 80% on rugged leather. The mobs don’t wander around. They are in a cave after all.
I farmed the mats for the darkmoon faire back in the day for that neck piece. That was only 2400 piece of Rugged leather for 480 armor kits.
If you ever get to lw 375… do yourself a favour and invest in the recipe for boots of the crimson hawk. The mats needed are easy and it is a welcome replacement for the +hit overdose that seems to plague the kara drops. As far as I can tell you can use them even after you ditch your lw profession again.
Killed Vashj last night and are attempting KT tonight and I have only just replaced the laughing skull battle harness with the t4 chest from mag (which we also did last night). Its an awesome piece of gear.