Friday Night Fights
Yes, we finally got to run Magister’s Terrace. Twice.
First group was: Holy Priest, Frost/Arcane Arcane/Fire Mage, Prot Pally, Subtlety Rogue SV Hunter (sorry Lamaa, we are a noob), and BM Hunter. We laid waste to the place, no crowd control used. No saps, no traps, just Pally-Pull-Everything and focus-fire. We died on the last boss because we didn’t understand to move away from the bubbles. Doop.
It’s a beautiful instance, isn’t it. Have you looked at the details on the walls and ceiling? When you finish the first boss, look at the pillows on the floor; they have different patterns. The artistry in MrT should be explored and detailed by writers more accomplished than we.
Second group: Prot Warrior, Holy Priest (different one), Frost/Arcane Arcane/Fire Mage, Subtlety Rogue SV Hunter and BM Hunter. A different experience, the mage died a lot more because he aggro’d more on the AoE pulls.
The arena-boss - the 5v5 team - was actually easier because the warrior could Fear and Hamstring. We wiped once because they leader said, “Attack the warlock!” and we attacked the mob who’s name began with “War”, who happened to be sheeped. We asked for an attack sequence based upon raid-symbols and that encounter was easily defeated.
Oh. We equipped our PvP gear for that fight and found it more appropriate. Our PvP trinket was especially handy to get out of the warrior-boss’s Hamstring.
Lots of crowd-control used in this run, Sheep, Sap, and Trap. Our trapping skills had not deteriorated, but with a new tank, we had to establish some relationship with him and explain how and when we needed him to pull. Successful crowd control is heavily dependent upon communication between the tank and the CCers. Don’t worry about spending a few minutes discussing the standard tank-order, it’s not a sign of weakness or incompetence.
Hunter Pets in MrT. We took DrMooPhD and the only time he died was when we pathed through a bubble against the final boss. He had no special training in resistances, didn’t require priest-heals, just a Mend Pet once in a while and he was fine.
No loot dropped that anybody could use, but that was to be expected; we’re mostly Tier 4/5 geared as a guild so level 115 blues aren’t going to be anything but sharded. Although, we were impressed with the quality; if we were a new 70, we would run MrT instead of Shattered Halls or Shadow Labs any day.
We give MrT a big BRK Growl of Approval.
Mana issues, we haz them. We’re not using more mana than before, we’re not buring mana faster than before, but once a trash-pull is over, we’re not recovering our mana like we used to. We are drinking after almost every pull, and that’s the effect the Spirit-based mana-regen reconfiguration has had on us. Tell you the truth, this mana-regen nerf affects our ability to grind, more than raid.
We went OOM while farming Clefthoofs, something that frustrated us greatly. Popping Aspect of the Viper solved our problem, and that’s not a big deal. Where we feel this will be the biggest problem is in arenas, where our mana is smallest and our need for it is greatest. We’ll report more after we do some PvP and have some direct experience with mana in arenas.
Don’t waste too much time kvetching about mana; focus your energies on learning to adapt and overcome the change. Those who adapt, survive. Those who don’t, roll warlocks.
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23 Responses to “Friday Night Fights”
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Funniest line I have read in a long time.. “Those who adapt, survive. Those who don’t, roll warlocks.” LMAO.
Great writeup, BRK, but you got one detail wrong: I am specced Arcane/Fire, not Frost/Arcane. The runs were fun, even though I took a few dirt naps!
BRK, what about the pet aggo issues?.. you not seeing them?..
Weze need the spirit and Mp5 now. Going fishing for the “2″ ring!
“Those who adapt, survive. Those who don’t, roll warlocks.” hahaha so very funny, so very true…
I have nothing against warlocks or anything btw. No matter how hard or futile it may seem when I face them in PvP or arena, its always a good challenge.
Glad to see that you finally gets your dose of Mr.T. I have yet to try it out since I’ve done it on PTR. When I get back to Philly, you’ll see me running around the new Isle all day/night.
Hey Kitty hun, that Sub rogue our first time through was actually our Survival hunter
Oh and that rogue’s Combat Swords XP
^.^
It’s ok, you’re old, you forget these things >.>
/ducks
~<3 Cay
Love the jab at the end ^_^
grats of the successful run of MrT
Happy to see you had a fun time! Have you found an alternative to KHT? (and if so, please tell me! I’m dying here!)
I’m one hunter who could really use a BRK PRIMER on the ABCs of clearing trash mobs in instances.
I hope to read one someday….we who soloed to 70 need to know more.
MgT (what our server calls the place, mostly) is a real pain if you’re doing any amount of pugging. It’s also a pain if you’re in Kara-level gear - I would NOT recommend this to someone in greens and quest blues. Been in there three times, first time to the second boss with no down, second time to Kael with a down but had the whole ‘am a ghost so I get screwed over’ issue, and last time… was a blast.
I love shammy healers. Like, big loves. There is no way a Shammy can keep up the entire raid group, but I was lasting longest, so he kept me healed, kept himself healed, and we swam around the top of the room clockwise to avoid the bubbles. I took potshots at Kael when I could, and just blasted away at him when he dropped us. Serpents Sting ftw there - and even though I died with like 2% to spare, our healer got a 1700 chain lightning crit for the kill.
However, I have my gem now and I am NOT going back without some major bribery! And Heroic can just bite me. =(
Heroic MgT is alright until you reach the third boss. Done it tonight and we wiped a LOT. Granted, group makeup wasn’t ideal (warrior tank, holy priest, feral druid, enhancement shaman and myself as a BM hunter and basically only CC), but DAMN! Priestess Dalrissa and her “arena team” were even harder than Kael in the end. Their aggro tables seem screwed. Will prolly be nerfed.
Oh and I finally got on a top group for ZA tonight which we consecutively cleared in 2.5 hours, muahah!
So far when time permitted groups really sucked so I only ever got to kill Nalorakk. This time was a breeze, Killed Akil’Zon and Nalorakk in under 20 min each (2 reward chests) and then it was blind flying for me as I’ve never made it to Jan’alai or only saw once stood before Halazzi. Pet died from Jan’Alai bombs at first, but then recalling it in time and find a safe spot helped. On we went to Hexlord Malacrass, got him in three tries. And after 2 hours stood before Zul’Jin for the first time. Never thought I’d see the day. 
Got him in four tries. Pet always dies in Phase 3 with all the whirlwinds and lightnings going on. Lots of running around, too.
Got several BoJs and two drops: Cloak of Fiends from one of the timed reward chests and Coif of the Jungle Stalker from Hexlord Malacrass
Oh, and I topped the damage meters by 400k (total of 5400k) despite better equipment (T5+) worn by the others.
Pretty good night.
That’s hilarious what you say about adaption and locks… my best WoW buddy and I played PVE hunters, when I went to PVP and rolled another hunter, he rerolled a lock… oooohhh….
I too am anxious to hear what you’ll have to say about the pets, and welcome any potential solutions!
I do have a question regarding how you trap, in a group. I tend to drop traps behind and away from the group, as to help the group avoid any temptations or mistakingly prematurely breaking the trap. Recently I’ve run with a druid tank (who used to be a warrior tank) who prefers them up front. I’ve expressed my concern to him about this, but he still won’t trust the trap, or my ability to not get killed.
Thoughts on the trap, or the tank (how to soothe him?) or just give up? (Yeah- doing it his way REALLY sucks and tends to fail and I get blamed. 
)
Yeah I’m loving MrT. It’s definitely a fresh breath of 5 mans.
I do have to agree with Rotseh about the 3rd boss on heroic. What a pain that fight is. Traps be damned in there when the rogue you were supposed to trap decides to turn around at the last second and the priestess runs into your trap trying to smack the healer. -_- Other than that I <3 it. Even got to roll on the hawkstrider mount one time. Mighty fine looking chicken it is. ^_^
Well… MrT is basically equivalent to a heroic on it’s regular setting. Even dropping loot like a standard heroic does. Basically making it’s heroic mode Double Heroic. I’m not the only one who’s noticed this. Unfortunately I haven’t been in there with my hunter yet, just my prot pally.
Reklats & Bucktoof
We attempted heroic MgT today. We were *not* prepared. We are in T4/T5 gear. Everything was fine until 3rd boss. Then, wipe wipe wipe wipe, repair, repeat. We gave up after like 15 wipes. Grp was 2 warriors (one dps one tank), priest, me (BM of course), rogue. The issue is their threat is screwy, they are immune to growl and taunt, and Distracting shot doesn’t work. So you’ll have a hard time trapping here. You can do an arcane shot. I bet it would be really helpful to be in PVP gear, and have 2 points in traps for the 2s CD decrease, plus the S3 set bonus. Oh, and a paly tank . That’s probably key. It’s basically a 5v5 but we suck at arena (my 2v2 team is 1300). Wish i could provide other hints or help. The lock causes alot of damage to the whole party via DOTs. The healers aren’t good either. If we had a good kill order maybe that would help.
HMrT Boss 3 is simple if you keep the following in mind:
1) Protect your healer at all costs. If they die, you fail.
2) Get control of the situation. Establish a kill order. Warrior AoE fear helps a ton here for the pull, giving time for 3.
3) CC sheep/trap/banish/fear/stun. whatever/however you can to buy some time for 4.
4) Focus fire and burn something down, at this point your healer will likely be tanking at least one mob. Be sure to get the first target down, then immediately bail out the healer.
5) Maintain CC, follow kill order, win.
as someone who plays both warlock and hunter (at lvl 70), I deeply resent that remark. i would argue those who can’t cope, should roll pallies, as they seem to never oom.
I’m still trying to figure out what I did to deserve getting called a subtlety rogue
Finally, finally, after playing my Disc priest all week, I get a chance to run an instance on Gimm. I had been “warned” by guild hunters and all the QQ in the forums about the lack of mana regen. I’m the guild leader. It’s about time I weigh in with my reasoned (read: purloined off BRK) opinion.
It’s not as bad as I expected and it’s gonna take some getting used to. Bug? Yeah, probably. Fixed? Yeah, eventually. I came out of a run around the Isle and had a long talk with my guild.
1) Make friends with an alchemist. Get the alchemist the raw materials to make you mana pots. Buy them a stack of 20 imbued vials and hand them the raw materials and some gold for their trouble. (In theory, you should be doing this anyway.) If your alchemist is an herbalist, offer to pay them for their mats. They probably make pots for themselves too and will be more disposed (at least I am) to make pots for you if you help with the materials.
2) Mana Oil and Mana injectors. I have zero experience with these but we are going to conduct experiments to see how they help with regen.
3) Shammy/shadow priest love. Lots of it. Here, let me toss a freeze trap in front of you. Oooh I’ll get that mean baddie off you. I have chocolate. I have dwarf lager. I have fish that gives you personal buffage. Please, please, please give me any and all mana buffage you can.
4) Practice, practice, practice. There is no reason any hunter should be relying solely on advice given here or anywhere else. Take your pet out and find some hard mobs, pull 2 or 3 and see what happens. I didn’t go OOM once during the instance and questing over the weekend. I died first, but that’s a separate issue. In my guild, we hunters all knew BRK’s statement to adapt. It’s sound, sound advice which we passed on to the younger hunters asking questions over the weekend.
Attempted MrT with good friends on Saturday. “Yes, Gimmi can freeze these guys and they will stay frozen IF you keep your friggin’ AoE away from me. I’m pulling the guy back here so he has to run a ways to get to me when the trap breaks but if you bring your frosty mage butt back here one more time, I will MD onto you and laugh when they pick you up and toss you over the side.” (Mage replaced by shadow priest shortly thereafter.)
Yes, those pillows on the floor are very interesting…and soft and a dwarf hunter can be nearly invisible from the doorway. (ahem….cough….cough)
Injectors… are just 20 stack mana pots, that being said i roll with 40 to 60 of them for a raid (holy pally healing t5 which is way outside my gear range =) ) so the difference in bag space is HUGE (we are talking 3 stacks in my engineering bag insted of 8 to 12)
oil i run with constantly the extra mp5 is glorious for a healer (and i suspect that you would like it too) just my pally 2c, but i am an engineer so injectors i know
Tego
My group is pretty much farming MrT(Heroic) now. There were some growing pains, especially on the Priestess Delrissa pull. There doesnt seem to be rhyme or reason to agro which makes CC a little tuff.
Anyway I got the Tunic of the Ranger Lord http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34614 off of the last boss for my hunter the other day. That will last me until we get the badge vendor to show up on Terokkar.
Kreen
I must be one of the few hunters NOT having enormous mana issues, at any time, ever.
But then I put +6 MP5 on my new Tunic of the Ranger Lord, squeal over the green +crit/+mp5 gems that drop in heroic Steamvaults, and think Infused Nightseyes are probably worth the money. I grind with a Power Infused Mushroom in one hand and (soon) a Mark of Conquest in the other, stay in Viper all the time, and misdirect Volley + Explosive Trapped groups of mobs to my pet as often as I’ve got my cooldown.
I drink maybe…I dunno. Not often.
In five-mans I usually run in Viper and STILL roll the damage meters. I ask for Wisdom over Might over Salv, if I’ve got a paladin available. The only time I need to drink then is after boss fights or (intentional or not) long chain-pulls; while everyone else is having snacktime, I’m usually goofing around with Eyes of the Beast or gazing majestically off into space. I’m ready to have a go at Vexallus before my buff from his trash has worn off, and I’m also the one urging the warrior/druid to hurry up and pull while he’s still got rage, darn it.
I dual-wield Superior Mana Oil while raiding and am debating using the buff from Blackened Sporefish over Grilled Mudfish/Ravager Dogs/Spicy Hot Talbuk once my itemization is a little better. I steal shaman mail if it has +AP and +agility on it.
I made the decision long ago–pre-2.4–that the best thing I could do in a group setting is to extend the life of my mana bar as long as I possibly can. Sometimes this does mean chaining Fel Mana Potions end to end, but most of the time that’s unnecessary, because my “while-casting” mana regen is enough, even out of Viper, to make up for the 1:1 rotation–especially if I’m popping BW every cooldown for the mana reduction.
COULD I probably get more DPS out of my current gear if I regemmed for straight up agility/hit/crit/AP, and switched to the “approved” 41/20/0 spec with Improved Aspect of the Hawk and so on? Likely. But then I’d be be among the group of people currently distraught at their mana inefficiency.
Also, on a side note, did you know that RatingsBuster will keep track of how much mana regeneration something gives you based on the intellect on it if you’re looking at the item while in AotV? I thought that was really cool, and have made a point to pop into Viper when scoping out new pieces of gear.
First, love the blog. The tips and insights are great. ^_^
I wonder if the mana issue is different for BM spec hunters versus MM spec versus subtl- er, SV spec hunters (like my character, Kohran).
Unlike many SV hunters, I only have one piece of non-mail gear, but my mana pool IS admittedly tiny. (5500ish)
As for MrT, I think it’s my new favorite instance. Fun boss fights, not too much trash, and decent rewards for those of us who aren’t doing 25-person raids. (My guild is small enough that we do Kara and ZA, but that’s it)
“Those who adapt, survive. Those who don’t, roll warlocks.”
I love it! That’s going in a title banner ;P