Our little priestie alt, Squishette, was inspired by all the talk of our cute short-shorts and the derision they inspired.

We had to keep VFPs name, we hope he absolves us of this sin in the name of Art. Or Bad Art, whatever.

Squishette’s Ode to Pantaloons

Oh nobody knows!
Tiddly pum
How short my hose!
Tiddly pum
How short my hose!
Tiddly pum
Have grown.

And if you care!
Tiddly Pum
To have a stare!
Tiddly Pum
You’d best Beware!
Tiddly pum
Of what’s showin’.

Interviews for raiding positions in our guild is about to commence and The Boss wants to know our questions.

1. In 500 words minimum: Noobsauce or Noobcakes?

2a. Shower or Bath?

2b. Loofah or No Loofah?

3a. Does your wife/husband/GF/BF/extremely-close-pet understand your addiction to WoW and will they allow you your raiding-time uninterrupted?

3b. Will they provide you with snacks?

3c. Will you share?

4a. Can you read a WoWWebStats report? 

4b. If we tell you, “You need to do XYZ to improve your DPS, just look at the WWS report,” are you going to throw a temper-tantrum and gquit?

4c. If you see we’re clueless about your class and offer you advice that makes no sense, will you smack us over the head, explain your playstyle, offer WWS reports as a rebuttal, call us Noobilicious, and demand a small sacrifice in your glorious honor?

5a. Do you want to PvP?

5b. Do you understand that this guild is a raiding guild, not a PvP guild?

5c. Do you understand that doing PvP during raiding times isn’t the schiznit?

5d. Do you understand that the majority of this guild is not interested in PvPing full-time and that any effort on your part trying to convince them otherwise is just going to upset the apple cart?

6a. There are certain people who love to talk in vent and other who just listen. Are you a yapper or a lurker?

6b. Do you understand that listening in vent and responding in chat is one thing, but passing critical information during a raid should be spoken, not typed?

6c. Do you understand that having fun is great, but should mostly be accomplished in your private chat-channel instead of clogging vent and the raid-channel?

6d. Do you understand that cheering Fulgor when he does his self-sacrifice before every Maulgar attempt and for all other designated Fun Things, that Vent is open for all to yap?

6e. Basically, do you get the concept that Fun is Fun and Work is Work, but Raiding is both and to treat it appropriately?

7a. When Fio squees, that means epic loot dropped from a trash mob. When BRK squees, he’s probably been given a cookie. When Celli squees, that means we downed a new boss. When Cay squees, that means time hasn’t stopped and the Earth is still revolving. What does it mean when you squee?

7b. Don’t lie, of course you squee.

8a. Do you blog?

8b. Do you understand that your name may come up in one of the many guild-blogs?

8c. Especially if you say/do something especially funny/cool/noobtastic/craptacular?

9a. Can you pun?

9b. Do you understand that your ability to pun will be sorely tested by the GM?

9c. Do you understand that pun-competing with the GM in guild chat is grounds for termination with extreme prejudice by the rest of the guild?

10. Do you understand that if you are a shadow priest, you may become the personal property of BRK World Wide Amalgamated and will be henceforth married to his party, for as long as his raiding career shall live?

Bonus Question: You’re going to meet The Squeekie Priestie, The Diet Coke of Evil, Doom and TJ, Brig and Jerk and Tred and Tuan, the cavalcade of Druids: Fio, Kel, Jace, Shar, Shaz, and Dem, Carlos the Man of Love, LamaaLammaLamaa, Celli and Crux and everybody else who makes AC the insane guild we call Home.

Are you sure you want to do this?

“Dear BRK … I’ve heard a lot of circulation about “arcane” hunters. Hunters that get a lot of +spell damage gear, then go and crit arcane shot constantly for over 5k damage.

“I’ve seen the youtube videos, and was left with a bit of shock. They’re really glass cannons. Yeah, you hit me for 5k, but that’s only half my health, and I can box you in 2 regular shot hits. So, what’s the point? Matt.”

The point is: It Can Be Done.

A long time ago, pre-Burning Crusade, there was Hunter Versus World guy. He would make videos of his hunter soloing basically everything there was to solo in Azeroth. You’d watch what he could do and wonder just how much time this guy had on his hands to think of and implement his eyebrow-raising techniques and strategies.

Then there was this one PvP hunter who just could not be beaten one-on-one. His jump-shot videos were mesmerizing. None of the horrible, metal-thrashing movies and epeening crits cr@p that infests YouTube today, he simply showed how to run away from an enemy forever while still doing damage. His fights against Paladins, our personal nemesi, were legendary as he’d Viper Sting and Kite them for what seemed like ages until their mana was exhausted and then became easy pickings.

The Kite Guys. You must have seen movies of Stitches running around Goldshire, yes? How about Doom Lord Kazzak laying waste to Stormwind? One of the Scourge from the EPL to Booty Bay? An Un’goro Crater stone gollum to Astraanar? And we mustn’t forget the modern marvel of kiting Fel Reavers to the opposing faction’s headquarters in Hellfire Peninsula, Feigning Death, and then /popcorn the fun.

Oh! Then we’re not sure if this was the same guy as Hunter Versus World dude, but this one hunter crammed himself full of +Healing mail gear. His pet was indestructible and he made a video of him and his pet soloing a world-boss dragon in Azashara. It took him almost an hour, as we recall, but he did it. The video was sped-up and covered the hour in something like five minutes, but his pet tanked that dragon! Blizz nerfed +Healing for Mend Pet specifically because of this guy.

The +Spell Damage hunters have been around a while, and the 5k Arcane Shot crits aren’t unheard of. While not the traditional method of providing MQoSRDPS, it’s just another was to roll your hunter. You’ll want to put five talent points in Improved Arcane Shot to get the one second cooldown reduction on Arcane Shot, and one will drastically lower one’s RAP as one isn’t gemming and enchanting Agility/AP anymore.

But Arcane Shot can be fired on the run, unlike Auto/Steady/et. all. If you’re good at kiting and can jump-shoot, the Arcane Hunter can be very effective. The whole, “That’s only half my health” argument can easily be switched to, “Holy Crud, he just took half my health with one shot!”

Well if you read the comments, you’ll understand why we nuked the preceding two paragraphs. Apparently, in the dead of the night and in total silence - except for a possible patch notes that we’ve forgotten - Blizz nerfed +Spell Dmg for Arcance Shot. Now we knew that RAP boosted our Arcane Shot but hadn’t heard that the nifty +Spell Dmg buff was wiped out. It’s actually kind of depressing. All this cool stuff we used to be able to do getting the Ban Hammer.

So this post has turned into a “Way back when I was a pre-BC hunter” stroll down memory lane, hasn’t it. Back when PvP gear could be used for raiding and The Rookery was the schiznit and running Molten Core 27 times before you got your first piece of tier-gear was standard and Alliance owned AV and Shaman/Paladins were one-side only and one didn’t see Dranei/Blood Elf women in short, revealing winter-wear all over the dang place.

You realize that we’ll be making similar judgements about pre-WotLK, yes? 

Note: So a while back we linked to one of our favorite Cuban lunch spots. Today we’re going to give a shout-out to the independent coffee house we frequent whenever we can.

Wahoo Coffee

You know we go for the raspberry latte, natch.

Saw this line in a sig on the WoW Forums. We don’t have a post for it, but it’s really good and we’ll forget it unless we write it down. This seemed like a good spot. This may develop into a post later in the day, but for now we’ll just call it a BRK Open Thread.

And remember, Captain Obvious says, “If you aren’t going to run your brain, you shouldn’t run your mouth.” So sayeth Capt. O, so let it be done.

And don’t miss Haggis.

Edit #1: From Velenorx and Lina comes this great WWS shot of hunters doin’ it for themselves in SSC. Do not doubt the power that is Hunterdomism!

Edit #2: How I got a Ghost Wolf, on Time Well Wasted.

/rant on

We just upgraded to Wordpress 2.3.2 and almost threw a conniption.

If you ever do documentation, make sure to put the steps in the proper order.

This is totally, TOTALLY wrong:

1. Download upgrade files from Wordpress

2. Modify the wp-config.php file.

3. Upload the upgrade files to your server.

4. Oh yeah, make a backup of your files before you upload or you’ll lose everything, because this little upgrade will overwrite your precious modified files and themes and everything.

5. Now that we’re thinking about, you might want to not overwrite those all the files you’ve modified. Save them separately. We’re not going to provide a way for you to know exactly which files you’ve modified, but save them anyway.

/target WP HQ
/cast nuclear bomb

The correct way to do things:

1. Make a backup of your entire WP folder system.

2. Make another backup, you skipped step 1.

3. You rat-b@stard, make a d@mn backup!

4. Save a copy of your backup on your local machine, not just the server.

5. Jeebus, make a f-ing copy of the backup!

6. Download the WP upgrade.

7. Did you make the backups? Seriously, don’t skip the backups.

8. Make a separate copy of your original wp-config.php file, name it wp-config-original.php and save it on the server and on your local machine. Do NOT lose your config settings!

9. Copy the variables from the wp-config-original.php file into the new wp-config.php file.

10. Did you make that backup of your original WP installation? This is your last chance, hoser.

11. Upload the upgrade. If you nuke your Themes and Plugins and Content, you’ve got backups.

12. Goto http://www.yourblogname.net/wp-admin/upgrade.php and let the upgrader run.

13. Launch your blog and pray to Elune you made your backups.

Note: Do not use this list as a “BRK must know what he’s doing” guide to upgrading WordPress. We just know that backups must be done BEFORE any upgrading or modifying and it totally pisses us off when the WP upgrade instructions screw that up.

/rant off

“Dear BRK, just thought I would drop you a note to let you know that I appreciate your site.

“A little background … I leveled to 70 almost exclusively solo. Agnodice and KittyWitty didn’t see the inside of Blackrock Depths, Razorfens Down, Sunken Temple, or Stockades, until we were running guildies through. Because I joined a new guild when I started playing, there were not a lot of higher level characters to help lowbies through or teach us the ropes. I would love to say that I found BRK at level two and you helped me climb the mountain that is WoW. I would love to tell you that I had guilds recruiting me from instances beginning with Deadmines.

“But, I can’t tell you that. Unfortunately, I can tell you that when I was 69 and a guildie asked if I could help finish Shadow Lab with them I said, “Sure.” Until they told me to blue square was mine and my response was “To do what with?” Yes, I had reached level 69 without laying out one trap.

“Not only had I not laid a trap, but now the guild was building up, and lower hunters expected me to know the answer to questions like, “Should I get XYZ with more agility or UVW with more stamina?” and “What talents will I really need at level 30?”. That was when I realized I needed to do some research. I did a Google search for hunters and World of Warcraft, dug through some crap, and found the digested caracoli that is BRK.”

[Ed: Caracoli is a kind of coffee. By saying it's digested we're assuming she means this content is easy to swallow and digest, like a mother bird feeding her young. Of course, this may be a veiled slam instead, but we're going to go with the positive connotation. That's just how we roll.]

“Now I am a decently geared hunter that can confidently tell people that XYZ is better … I can also chain trap my way through almost anything, (HATE CASTERS THEY SHOULD BURN IN THE DARKEST REGIONS OF H3LL). I send all the hunters that I come in contact with to your site because it helps make us all better.

“As a webmaster of my own site I know the dedication it takes to update a site daily and provide useful information people want to come back for. I check BRK.net several times a day. When I’m trying to do something or a guildie asks a question I often think, “BRK talked about that the other day,” and run off to check the site.

“You’re doing a great job. Thanks. Agnodice and KittyWitty (FuzzyWuzzy is in the stable. He says thanks too.)”

So for what purpose did we post this nice letter? Because our massive, overinflated ego demands we scream to the world when women think we’re the schniznit?

We take the Fifth on that.

But the real reason we want everybody to read this is to let all those lost and misguide hunters out there that…

You are not Alone.

You are not the first hunter to solo to 70 and be intimidated by instances. You are not the first hunter to never use Distracting Shot, or write a macro, or use a Freezing Trap, or tame a second pet, or never train to wear mail armor, or put a Fiery enchant on your melee weapon, or anything else that makes people look at you and cringe.

The BRK community - the people who comment and who are blowing up the BRK Forums are tremendous folks - knows what you’re doing and feeling because we’ve been there too. And not only do we want to help, we love to help.

Success stories are important because they give people the courage to try improve. And that holds true in all aspects of life, not just Hunterdom.

A quick life-lesson from your Uncle BRK, foshizzle.

“Dear BRK, please, please … talk about spell hit and its correlation with Freezing Trap.

“The reason I’m asking is because I’ve noticed that my traps are being resisted a lot more and traps are breaking earlier than they’re supposed to lately. I just got into doing heroics two weeks ago and I think it has something to do the level of the mobs I’m trapping and their resistances, but I’m not quite sure. I’ve read somewhere (in your forums) that by adding spell hit, the chances of one’s traps being resisted will reduce, as well as it breaking early.

“Can you kindly shed a light with regards to this? Like, how many points should I try to invest in spell hit? I was thinking of re-gemming two of the Beast Lord Set for the trap bonus. Jim.”

Let’s start this investigate with a definition, shall we?

“Spell hit is a combat attribute that increases a caster’s chance to hit with spells.” So sayeth WoWWiki, so let it be done.

But what does that mean?

When Mr. Warrior smacks something upside the noggin with his sword, he can Hit or Miss. When he Misses, his combat text says, YA MISSED, NOOBCAKES!

When Mr. Mage conjures and launches a fireball at the same target, he too can Hit or Miss. When he Misses, his combat text says, SPELL RESISTED, NOOBSAUCE!

This is where the confusion sets in for hunters. When we miss a shot, we know we Missed. When a Mage misses a spell, he too Misses but the game calls it a Resist. There is a difference, let’s see what it is.

When Mr. Warrior smacks something upside the noggin with his sword, he can Hit or Miss. When he Hits, sometimes the full effect of the attack is diminished. This is known as Mitigation, and shows up on combat logs and in WWS reports.

Mr. Mage conjures and launches a fireball, he misses. This is called a Resist. Mr. Mage conjures and launches another fireball, he hits his target, but the mob Resists some of the damage from the spell. This is the real Resist, and it too shows up in combat logs and in WWS reports.

As you can see, there are duplicate dynamics at work:

1. Both melee and spells can Hit or Miss. For melee, a miss is a Miss. For spells, a miss is a Resist.

2. Both melee and spells can have their effects diminished. For melee, a dimished attack is a Mitigation. For spells, a diminished attack is a Resist.

How does one make one’s melee attacks hit more frequently? With Hit and Expertise ratings.

How does Hit work? We’ve covered that before; it reduces one’s chance to Miss, actually. The chance to miss is based upon the differences between the attacker’s skill rating and the defender’s Defense rating, as well as the difference between the attacker’s and defender’s level.

How does Expertise work? Expertise reduces a chance an enemy will Dodge or Parry one’s attack.

How does one avoid a melee attack? Dodge, Parry, Block, by being a higher level than the attacker, and causing a Miss by having a higher Defense rating than the attacker’s weapon skill rating.

How does one avoid a spell attack? By being a higher level than the attacker, that’s it. For equal-level opponents, the spell attacker will have a 96% chance to hit with his spell.

How does one mitigate melee attacks? Armor.

How does one mitigate spell attacks? Resistances.

So what is the spell caster’s equivalent of Hit? You got it; Spell Hit. If you read notes about Spell Hit, they’ll say that it reduces the chances a spell will be Resisted, but read that carefully. What it really means is that it reduces the chances a spell will Miss.

And what really reduces the chances that a spell will be Resisted?

Spell Penetration, foshizzle.

Spell Penetration reduces a target’s resistances to spells. If you’ve got a dwarf with the +10 Frost Resistance racial, a mage will need some Spell Penetration to counter that resistance when attacking with frost spells in order for his spell damage to not be mitigated.

Got it? When one Hits with a spell, the defender can have the damage mitigated with Resistances, but the attacker can overcome those resistances with Spell Penetration.

Let’s bring this all back to Hunters and their traps.

You drop a Freezing Trap and trap a mob. With every tick, that mob has a chance to Resist your trap-spell. If that mob has high magic resistances, like those that inhabit Karazhan, the chance that they’ll Resist your trap increases. Since the mob was trapped, you Hit it; any mechanic that affects initial trap Miss/Resist has been rendered moot.

To decrease the chance that that trapped mob will break early, i.e. to decrease the chance your trap-spell will be Resisted, you need Spell Penetration, not Spell Hit.

Freaky, eh? You bet.

“But BRK, what about the initial Resist? You know, when that mob runs over your trap and he immediately Resists? Was that a spell Miss or a spell Resist?”

Now this is where it gets murky. According to all the research we’re read, Spell Hit should decrease the chance that traps will be Missed. The question is: does Blizz consider that initial trap Hit/Miss a Miss or a Resist?

We’re of the opinion that all trap mechanics are Resists. We arrived at this conclusion based upon two things:

1. The Trap Mastery talent tooltip:

“Decreases the chance that enemies will resist trap effects by X%.”

It would make little sense for a hunter to get the uber-trap talents and have no bonuses to avoiding that initial trap-Miss. We must assume that an initial Miss is calculated in a fashion similar to a ticking-Resist.

2. We are aware of no mathematical evidence that shows that Spell Hit affects trap Misses/Resists. There has been research into Spell Hit and trap mechanics and no correlation has been seen. This bolsters our assumption that traps are only Resisted, as Spell Hit should indeed affect whether traps are initially Hit or Missed/Resisted.

Instead, we believe that Spell Penetration will work in the same manner as Trap Mastery when it comes to initial and ticking trap Resists.

As we stated, there has been research to determine if Spell Hit affects trapping, and those results indicate that there is no correlation.

But, and this is a Big But, we are unable to find any research into Spell Penetration and its effect on trapping; all our yapping here is conjecture. Now we think it’s pretty solid conjecture and it all falls into line with the rest of the spell-mechanics in the game.

But we could be 100%, totally wrong. It’s not a habit to which we’re accustomed, but the probability exists.

So far, the responses to our advertising have been extremely positive. All the applicants have followed the requested format and have provided the requisite armory links and gear lists. While the quality of the writing isn’t always what we’d like to see - paragraphs are your friends, people - at least the ability to follow basic directions has been shown to be consistent. AC prides itself on our ability to coordinate, so constructing an application as we require it is essential.

One person has already transfered, was interviewed, did two heroic instances with the officers, and was offered and accepted a position in the guild. Holy priest FTW, we’re all totally thrilled with this addition. If nothing else comes of our recruitment process, personally we consider it a success already.

All the other applications are being reviewed and interviews are being scheduled. We have people of every class/spec we requested, except no Shaman. Are you an Elemental Enhancement Shammy looking for 25-man raiding? Check out our Recruitment! page and read what’s going on with our guild. Even if you’re not a Shammy, read our ad; perhaps we can provide you with the kind of raiding experience you’re looking for.

The new year is approaching and that means raiding is totally about to resume, and it’s none too soon for us. The Squeekie Priestie has put Gruul’s, SSC, and Void Reaver on the calendar and we’d kiss her bespeckled toes if we didn’t live so far away. /cheer!

“Dear BRK, if you’re in general chat, asking for help with Chok’Sul, and I’m on a bird heading towards Ironforge, but I answer you anyway and say I’d love to help and you end up sitting in town waiting for me for twenty minutes, are you going to construct a voodoo doll and let your dog rip it to shreds, hoping I’ll feel the horrible agony in some sort of sick, twisted, evil manipulation of the cosmos?”

Yes.

“Dear BRK, if I’m a level 15 hunter and I not only don’t have a pet, but tell you you’re a noob for suggesting I get one, are you going to construct a a voodoo doll and let your dog rip it to shreds…”

Yes.

“Dear BRK, if I’m a priest and we’re questing together in Dun Algaz and you keep dying because I refuse to heal you because I don’t know that I can heal other people, are you…”

Yes, voodoo doll for you, too.

“Dear BRK, if you’re killing the troggs on the island in Loch Modan and I, on my level 17 warrior, try to solo 124 of the guys, will you heal me?”

No. We’re not much of a Paladin, but we know enough about healing-attitude to tell you that much.

“Dear BRK, can I have some gold?”

Yes. Bring us 99 Light Feathers and we’ll give you 10 gold.

“Dear BRK, I meant, will you give me some gold now?”

No. We’re too busy making more voodoo dolls.

“Dear BRK, I’m a level 70 horde attempting to infiltrate Ironforge. Are you going to attack me on your level 17 Paladin?”

D@mn skippy we are.

“Dear BRK, what happens if I burn your Paladin-@ss into mulch?”

We’re going to log on BRK and make you wish you played Hello Kitty’s Party Island Adventure Party instead of WoW. Nothing personal, but that’s the way love goes.

“Dear BRK, are you going to keep corpse-camping me now?”

If we’re in the Auction House and you rez beside us, that’s hardly corpse-camping.

“Dear BRK, if I see the message ‘Astrannar is under attack!’ pop up 37 times in my chat window, what does that mean?”

It means Astrannar is under attack.

“Dear BRK, but what do I do?”

Watch out for Snake Traps.

“Dear BRK, what’s a Snake Trap?”

See that green, spiraly thing on the ground?

“Dear BRK, yes.”

Don’t touch it.

“Dear BRK, I touched it. Why am I dying?”

Because those five level-70 horde are playing peek-a-boo and you totally lost. You can’t lose much worse than that, so you can take some pride, there.

“Dear BRK if I’m guildless and level 19, and we hook up in the Wetlands and you show me how to tank while you heal me, and I offer my thanks and tell you this is my first toon, will you laugh at me?”

No. But we will offer you a guild-invite.

“Dear BRK, I’ve followed your blog for a few months now, though I had previously retired my hunter. I can’t remember how I found your site but I remember coming back over and over. At the time I was playing my 70 warrior and getting ready to tank kara. Now I run Kara every weekend and have a brand spankin’ new level 33 hunter thanks to reading your posts. You’re humor and joy along with the excitement you seemed to breathe into the hunter class has pulled me back for another round. So mainly, I wanted to thank you for getting me back into my favorite class and bringing back some good memories.

“But I thought to myself, a simple thank you just isn’t enough. So I dusted off the tablet, and present you with a piece of art. Though I guessed at your beard (as your face is oft’ hidden in your videos.) I made sure to show Hobbes in his shiny purple glory at your side. Feel free to chop up the image and use it in any way you want. Or just slap it in a folder somewhere if thats your wish. Its a thank you gift, for giving me joy in class I thought I had long grown away from. Baust and Fritz of Thunderhorn”

It’s gorgeous; we’d never “chop it up”! Thank you so much for this!

We can’t draw at all. Do you people understand how much we wish we had the drawing capabilities our 5-year-old son possesses? We are bereft of any talent in this arena and would love to be able to do either pens or watercolors or graphics art. We have a brand-new Wacom Intuos3 9X12 Graphics Tablet at work and basically use it as a glorified lunch tray right now.

Is there a Painting and Drawing for Dummies, Noobs, and the Completely Skillless book out there? Where’s Bob Ross when you need him?

And don’t say “dead” ’cause Bob Ross would kick your @ss. Or slap it with his brush. But either way, Bob Ross would pwn you.