#104

Because my husband is awesome.


A guildie ran 1.5 Shattered Halls/Heroic Shattered Halls with me to get Thrallmar exalted, and then we went and hit up Old Hillsbrad for a hat (we couldn't find him o.O) and Keepers of Time rep.

My husband went along for OHB just to help, and when I asked him to make me some arrows, he traded this back with it.

Macros

For the longest time, I played with no macros. The first ones were things like /p /cast ones to tell people I was feigning or bandaging; it wasn't until we were hitting the later parts of Karazhan that I made something more useful - the first /castsequence I used. That macro was made because I knew I wasn't using Steady Shot enough, and it would reinforce me using it, along with (at the time) Aimed, Multi, and Arcane.

This is a consolidated list of my current hunter macros. You may notice that I'm fond of left click/right click/middle click macros for some things.

The Shot Rotation /castsequence (swap Arcane to a Steady if your Armor Pen allows)

#showtooltip
/castsequence Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/cast Kill Command
/cast Silencing Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

Chimera + Silencing + Kill Command

#showtooltip
/cast Chimera Shot
/cast Kill Command
/cast Silencing Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

Misdirect

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1, target=focus] Misdirection; [button:2] Misdirection; [button:3, target=pet] Misdirection

Stings

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Serpent Sting; [button:2] Scorpid Sting; [button:3] Viper Sting

Taunt the Deformed Fanatic for Kiting

#showtooltip Distracting Shot
/tar Deformed
/cast Distracting Shot

Cheetah Pack

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Aspect of the Cheetah; [button:2] Aspect of the Pack

Fire Traps

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Explosive Trap; [button:2] Immolation Trap

Frost Traps

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Freezing Trap; [button:2] Frost Trap; [button:3] Freezing Arrow

Feed Pet (put the food in the appropriate slot)

#showtooltip
/cast Feed Pet
/use 3 1

Mend/Revive

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Mend Pet; [button:2] Revive Pet

Melee

#showtooltip Auto Attack
/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Mongoose Bite

Eat/Drink (put food & drink in the appropriate slots)

/use 3 5
/use 3 9

Mount Macro (adapted from WoWwiki)

/run C=CallCompanion if(not IsMounted())then if(((GetZoneText()=="Dalaran")and(GetSubZoneText()~="Krasus' Landing"))or not IsFlyableArea()or IsModifierKeyDown())then C("MOUNT",13)else C("MOUNT",16)end end
/dismount

Random Pet (from WoWwiki)

/run DismissCompanion("CRITTER"); CallCompanion("CRITTER", random(GetNumCompanions("CRITTER")));

Hunter F.A.Q.

So a couple days ago my brother texts me about hunters and Armor Penetration. I'm not a theory crafter - I really haven't got the time what with everything else I do - but I do tend to remember what I read. As such, I'm going to compile the questions I get asked a lot. I'll link back to sources when I can find them.


Q: What's your rotation?
A: After Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, and Rapid Fire, Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Readiness when Rapid Fire falls off, Rapid Fire again, and resume Chimera, Aimed, Steady x4. Kill Shot as soon as it's available. When moving I may throw in Arcane.

Keeping in mind that I use a /castsequence macro with Kill Command and Silencing also tied to it, if I move, it tends to get lost in the Steadies. So if I have to move, I hit the rotation manually to resynchronize it with the macro.

Q: Does the shot rotation macro work?
A: If you're as bad at doing the rotation manually as I am, yes.

Q: What should I gem?
A: As Beast Mastery, either Attack Power (AP) or Armor Penetration (ArP), depending on your base ArP. As Survival, Agility (Agi). As Marksman, Agi or ArP depending on your base ArP.

The level of ArP at which you switch gemming to ArP is about 400 for BM, and about 800 for MM.

If you want to match socket bonuses, for blue sockets you'll want purple gems with Stamina for BM or Surv, and mp5 for MM. Yes, mp5. Stamina does nothing for a MM hunter's DPS. For yellow sockets you'll want orange gems with either hit or crit rating, depending if you need the hit rating.

Q: Do I really want to drop Arcane Shot as MM at some point?
A: Probably, yes, after you have about 450 base ArP. Drop the talents, drop it out of your stationary rotation, and pick up Improved Steady Shot if you don't already have it.

I don't know if it's worth dropping from BM's rotation at any point, since you probably don't have the points to improve it anyway.

Q: Is it worth hitting Steady Shot over Auto Shot?
A: Steady doesn't clip Auto anymore, so yes, spam it. Your talents and its scaling make it more valuable. If you're not casting something, you're losing DPS. Push a button, dammit.

Q: Haste - should I gem it?
A: No. Just, no.

Q: Where'd you get your wolf?
A: Mulgore. He didn't bark when I tamed him (March 2006).



That's all I've got for the moment - I'll add more as they crop up.

How crazy am I?

Crazy enough to be working on a second Loremaster.

I have 7 level 80s on my main server, all Horde. Add a DK serving as a name holder and bank rogue, and that leaves me one slot: Mabs, my original character, my first Marskman hunter.

She's 71, with heirloom gear from Dusk (I actually own two sets of the hunter mail heirlooms). I sent her over money for the fast flying (via my husband and the neutral auction house), although given my first project on her, it probably could have waited.

She got the Kalimdor loremaster achievement today, and is about 80 quests from the Eastern Kingdoms one. (Go go dwarf newbie zone!) After that it's Netherstorm, Shadowmoon, and Blade's Edge (plus cleanup in the other zones), and back to Northrend.

I've been doing the exploration quests on her at the same time; I think I just need to finish Durotar and Mulgore, and then mix and match single locations in four or five zones in the Eastern Kingdoms. I figure this way I'll see as much as I can of all the stuff that's going to be gone in a couple months with Cataclysm (or the 4.o patch, rather) finally hits.

*grumble*

*grumble* *grumble*

Stupid talent point changes.

*grumble* *grumble*

Stupid real names on forums thing.

*grumble* *grumble*

(Reduction of talent bloat? Awesome. Making you put 31 points into a tree before getting access to the others? Grr. I want my Hawkeye, Scatter Shot, and fast pet Revive before I want my 31-point Marksman talent, Blizz.)

Cataclysm stuffs! Woo!

So, with that non-disclosure agreement lifted, MMO-Champion has lots of tasty info posted. Unfortunately Engineering is not yet implemented, but the hunter stuff seems to be mostly there.

Highlights: (Stop reading now if beta mechanics aren't what you're into)

• Aimed Shot is being reverted to its Vanilla flavor. Normally I don't care for Vanilla, but Aimed Shot out of Camouflage? I loved Aimed Shot out of Shadowmeld. This will be awesome, especially when combined with Readiness and, if needed, Feign to get out of combat. (That old Subtlety Rogue/Marksman Hunter multiclass I used to dream about? It's happened.)
• CRAZY LIKE A FOX. Autoshots on the move if needed.

The new Widow Venom + Chimera Shot will have a modest self-heal. This is a nice bonus, especially if persistent damage is as common in Cataclysm as it seems to be in Icecrown.

With the redone talents, and 5 extra points, I think I'm going to be able to pick up everything I want in the Marksman tree, plus Improved Revive Pet, Hawkeye, and Scatter Shot. /swoon

While we're at it...

Blood Queen 25 - she took a while.


Oh, look, Valithria stood up! (Oh, hey, still kiting zombies...)


So we're 10/12 on ICC25 now.