Putting Mom on Speakerphone

BRK » 10 September 2007 » In Spells »

“Dear BRK and Hobbes, I’ve just gotten Aspect of the Viper and would like advice on when and how to juggle … it with Aspect of the Hawk. Am I supposed to switch it off when using bow and on if in melee? It doesn’t seem to do much so I’m probably doing something wrong. Zaw and Miss.”

If you’re in Melee - yes, we just shuddered - you should have Aspect of the Monkey active, unless you’re fighting a warrior who will ZOMGOVERPOWER!! you if you dodge him. It’s always best to just trap their clanky @sses than fight them toe-to-toe.

Anyway.

Aspect of the Hawk (AotH) increases your ranged attack power, which increases your damage.

Aspect of the Viper (AotV) increases your mana-regeneration.

We have fixed quantity of mana. Hunters use mana for shots, stings, traps, etc. We need mana to do Our Thing.

All classes who use mana regenerate it in and out of combat. We regenerate mana at different rates depending upon our combat-state. We regenerate more mana out of combat than in. The mechanics behind mana-regeneration are best left to The Mana Experts, like The Egotistical Priest. Just stay out of her way while she’s cleaning and her blog is pretty safe, but you’ve been warned.

Mana-mechanics aside, hunters do run out of mana. The longer a fight lasts, the more often we perform mana-intensive activities, the more quickly we run out of mana. Running out of mana is Bad.

How can we keep from running out of mana or at least delay its onset? Aspect of the Viper, yes, good job.

(It’s at this point where we totally forgot the question and need to scroll back up and make sure we’re still on-track. A moment, if you please…)

OK, we’re back.

You switch AotV on when you are preparing to enter a situation where your mana reserves are going to be taxed. The Ring of Blood event in Nagrand is a good example of a mana-draining activity. A Karazhan boss-fight is another. If you are certain your mana supply will be sufficient so you don’t Die due to Lack of Mana, keep AotH running for the extra damage. If you believe your mana reserve will fall short, switch on AotV.

We can make a small macro that switches between these two aspects:

/castsequence Aspect of the Viper, Aspect of the Hawk

Instead of having both spells on our action bar, this single macro will switch between the two aspects and save an action bar slot.

Is there more? Sure; there’s always More. But for Zaw we want you to get the aforementioned basic concepts down. A solid foundation of fundamental concepts is critical to achieving your potential.

Mana good, Viper good. So easy a caveman could do it.

Spells | September 10, 2007

Comments

7 Responses to “Putting Mom on Speakerphone”

  1. Anonymous on September 10th, 2007 7:05 pm

    Dude, not cool.

  2. jabari on September 10th, 2007 7:10 pm

    One thing that I’ve always wondered about AotV vs AotH…

    Hunters have another way to get mana that no other class has access to at all - Feign/Drink.

    I just can’t shake the feeling that just running AotH (Improved) and FD/Drinking will end up with better overall damage than using AotV will, but I haven’t seen anyone even try to do the calculations for the differences.

    From personal experience, I have to FD/Drink anyway in 5-man bosses when I’m going all out, even with AotV up (not specced IAotH at the moment), and it seems that an extra 2 seconds of drinking would completely cover all gains that AotV would have given me, and Improved IAotH would easily cover the difference.

    Is FD/Drink completely horrendous for any particular reason I’m missing?

  3. Guy on September 10th, 2007 7:18 pm

    When you FD to drink you aren’t doing ANY damage.

    Suck it up and just buy the proper consumables for Mana intensive fights.

    Best not to go into AotV mechanics till after the next patch anyway.

    As BRK has cursed several times, AotV keeps you from using Imp AotH. So there’s another reason.

    But where BRK won’t even put points in Imp AotH because he’s addicted to AotV juice, raiding huntarz know better.

    Consumables = Win.

    -guy

  4. Kruncs of Cho'gall on September 10th, 2007 7:31 pm

    Aspected Again - a GREAT hunter addon that gives you all of your aspects like the warriors get their stances. Also works for druids, but eh, I’m a hunter, so I could care less about that detail… ;P

  5. Jabari on September 10th, 2007 7:31 pm

    When you FD to drink you aren’t doing ANY damage.

    Yes I am! My pet is still going full-bore (once I recall it long enough to get OOC, but that doesn’t take much time). FI stays up, etc etc.

    Anyway, I’m not suggesting to drink for 30 seconds - just enough to get some semblance of mana back - 8 to 10 seconds is usually what I’m “out” for.

    Come to think of it, it’s almost like a “Hunter Evocation” - mages don’t do any damage either while using Evocation - is that a bad spell for them? (honest question)

    I’m already using mana pots and such properly (lots of practice as a priest *chuckle*) - I still go OOM above and beyond that.

  6. thingy on September 10th, 2007 8:44 pm

    Unless I have a shadow priest in my group, it’s generally AotV on trash/grinding, and AotH on bosses with mana pots to keep me going.

  7. Beinir on September 12th, 2007 9:06 am

    AotH & Imp AotH = more damage.

    Is it sustained damage though? Mana pots, Superior Mana oil, Elixir of Major Mageblood (Guardian elixir) all can help you make sure that you can keep going.

    AotV?

    I’ll use it if my mana is getting really low and pots are on CD, or if I’m feeling cheap and really don’t give a hoot about doing max damage.

Leave a Reply