Doctor in the house?

So I bit the bullet and got the iMac into the shop this morning.

Not before dinging 50 on the druid though, hehe. Can you smell the Outlands.... Oh yeah baby.

Well, since I can't play, here is a little news from around the blog-o-sphere.

BRK has posted an analysis of all the possible ways a group can wipe. Very funny stuff.
Part one is here
Part two is here

I watched a little of the live stream of the new Instance Podcast being recorded (at work no less). Hopefully that will be edited and ready for us in a day or so.

The folks over at Looking For Group comic are now taking orders for a second run of a limited edition Richard Statue. LFG cronacles the adventures of Richard, an Undead Warlock and his friends. Here is a little movie they made, its a take off on the Little Mermaid.



Soon I will have a evil little Dick on my desk. How can you top that?

Daily thoughts

Guild Paricipation night tonight for Firefly. I think it may be just a little quiet this week. Several folks have kids finishing up with school for the year, others have hooked into a New Ally guild setting up for 25 man raids.

Maybe I'll get Finegas through the Hinterlands tonight. He just dinged 49 and has a full tank of rested points to work with. I also need to do some herbalising to keep up with the requirements for a possible future alchamey grind.

And, the big news is that in the morning I will be taking the iMac in to be looked at. If you have been reading this blog you may have seen the movie I took of my graphics issues.

I posted those problems on the Mac Support Forum and wouldn't you know it I got a blue response. Pretty cool, he gave me a small list of things to look for, and I promised to give them my results.

We'll see what happens.

I haven't been able to raid for a couple of months now, and I really miss it. I just cant see having to stop every half hour to let the computer cool off for 10 min.

I double checked my Apple Care program and the computer is under full warrenty until 2010, and the Mac Clinic is about 5 min away from the house.

Hopefully I'll be back up and running in a day or so.

In the mean time I found a new podcast: Twisting Nether. It is put on by Breana of Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick and Fimlys of Asleep at the WoW

Swinger's Delight

Found this over on My Extra Life.

Word Up!

So do you remember when we were all kids growing up in Azeroth?

Do you remember those feelings?

We were in our early 30's or so and had discovered how cool it was to group up and take down the big mobs. Remember rushing home from work or school to see who was online, and if there was a group questing?

Remember STV going on seemingly forever?

Do you remember laughing hysterically about some silly thing in the game, or making your friends cast Moonfire over and over because the spell graphics were so cool?

Good times!

I found this video about that time in my WoW experience and sometimes when I am a little bored with the game, or even if work just kind of sucks I like to give it a gander.

It brings back those fun feelings, and makes me feel good.

Word Up y'all!

Next stop: Netherdrake!

After 2 weeks of Sunwell Dailies and AH scans for disenchantables we has it!!!!!

My first Epic Flying Mount!!!!

/holytoledo

If you are still under level 70 listen up. I mean YOU, yeah YOU!!!!
*taps on computer screen*

This is a game changer, just like your first mount, and just like your first flying mount. Do not hesitate, get on that grind and get your mount. Let all that other stuff go for a few days; just get that mount.

And to comemorate the event I have screenshots!

Here is me with $

Here I am destitute.

And here is the new mount. Quite fetching don't you think?

ROTFLMOL

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Blechh!

click on the image to enlarge.

I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie this past Friday night with the gang from Phantom of the Opera.

This cartoon posted by Scott Johnson at My Extra Life pretty much summs up how I feel.
If they made the third Indy movie to make up for the second I will be looking forward to Indy 5 and Indy 6.

At least whats-his-nuts Laboof didn't get the hat at the end.

I am so...so jonesing for the new Starcraft II.

Here is the old trailer for Ghost Recon. The console game that got recalled.....

The Aids Lifecycle Ride is Warming Up.

Warning: Real Life Stuff Ahead

I will be posting this on all my various blogs and groups. If you are a part of any groups of your own, feel free to pass the word on to any you think might help.

Here's how it is.

Most of the people that know me also know that I count as a good friends and teachers Midori and Kelly B. Many also know that each year these two take part in an event called Aids Lifecycle.

Well, it is that time again.

From May 31- June 7, 2008, Kelly and Midori will be participating as volunteer Roadies in the Sweep Team in AIDS/LifeCycle. It's a 7-day, 545-mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to make a world of difference in the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS.

The sweep team is in charge of making sure no cyclists are left behind.

Midori likes to ask all of her fans and friends; "If you were to meet me and I wanted a beverage, would you buy me a drink? A cup of fancy coffee or a freu freu umbrella drink?"

I am passing this on to y'all, 'cause frankly, you rock!

While I don't know which of you in the past has donated, rumor has it that the Las Vegas community has been very responsive and generous toward helping Midori reach her fund raising goals.

I'm hoping my gaming friends will chip in as well.

At the time of this writing Midori's goal is $8,000. Currently she has raised 5,488.00.

If you would be interested in donating the cost of a cup of coffee please follow the link below. It will take you directly to Midori's Aids Lifecycle page where you can find out how to donate and get all the information about the event.

Midori's Lifecycle page:
http://www.aidslifecycle.org/8081

More about Midori
http://www.planetmidori.com

Thanks guys!

Midori and another Bunny in LifeCycle 2007.

The Circle Is Now Complete

Holy Crap!!!!

I got linkage from Big Red Kitty! At first I saw the link and thought, "Ah man, someone else has my blog title."

Then I clicked on the link and fell out of my chair.

Thats a cool feeling. It reminds me of the time I went to yoga class and the teacher had a new flyer posted on the door with a picture I took on it. It took me almost 5 minutes of staring at the image before I realized why it looked so familier....

/duh!

3k and Climbing

I have finally buckled down and have been working steadily on getting Vik his epic flying mount. To get there I have been doing the dailies out on the Isle of Quel'Danas each morning, which takes me about 45 min. and 2 cups of coffee.

Then in the evening if I have time I run all the other Shattered Sun dailies in addition to the old Skyguard quests. And twice a week I have been scanning the AH with my Auctioneer add-on and purchasing all the items I can for disenchanting. When all those mats sell I'll usually end up with another 200g.

My bank roll for the first time ever is climbing steadily and I hope to have my epic flyer by the end of next week.

Here is my pattern for anyone interested.

First things first, I grab my BRK Mug (sometimes its my English Tart Mug), fix my coffee (2 spoonfuls of Sugar in the Raw and some Half & Half) and fire up Ye Ole iMac.

I will start my run at the mailbox on the Isle of Quel'Danas.

From here I will cross the plaza to the Sun's Reach Sanctum and pick up:
The Battle Must Go On, The Air Strikes Must Continue &Know Your Ley Lines.

Next I head North the the Armory and pick up these three quests:
Intercept the Reinforcements, Crush the Dawnblade & Don't Stop Now....

Further North on a boat in the harbor I pick up:
Disrupt the Greengill Coast and then head east to the Greengill Coast.

I follow the coastline to the Naga Shrine and take my reading there. On the way I kill the Nagas I need to complete Don't Stop Now.... & Disrupt the Greengill Coast.

Once done there I turn both those quests in pick up Ata'mal Armaments for later.

I then head to Dawning Square and complete The Battle Must Go On and take my crystal reading at the portal.

Next I head under the bridge and fight my way into Dawnstar Village to get my final crystal reading for Know Your Ley Lines. Dawnstar Summoners are everywhere it seems so I will concentrate on killing Archers and Blood Knights.

After my readings are taken its off to the Staging Area to pick up Further Conversions & Arm the Wards!

Once I have these I like to run up the Western edge of Dawnstar Village and kill all the Dawnstar Blood Knights, Summoners, & Archers I still need. While doing that I will also be hunting Wretched Fiends, Wretched Devourers, & Arcane Sentries for the last two quests I picked up.

When all those quests are finished I'll mount up and ride to the Flight Masters at the harbor.

First I will fly out to the boats to complete Intercept the Reinforcements, & and once returning from that I finish off the run with The Air Strikes Must Continue. On a good day I will finish off all the demons on the first half of the flight, and will be in the kitchen grabbing my coffee refill while coasting through the rest of the flight.

Turn everything in, make bandages out of all the Netherweave Cloth that dropped, sell those and all the other junk to the Inn Keeper, and mail any armor drops off to Kallessin to be disenchanted.

Then click on my newly acquired [Darnarian's Scroll of Teleportation] to warp back to Shatt City and pick up the Outlands Dailies for the evening.

Next comes laundry and the Daily Show.
/cheer.

Our First Guild Night

Written for: Guild firefly
Our first official Guild Participation Night was a success!

We had 6 people turn out for our inagural Guild Participation night. On tap was Shadowfang Keep. Since the objective of the evening was to spend time playing together we shifted into raid mode and headed into the Keep.

With Daisy marking and tanking for the first time we progressed steadily through the instance. Thank goodness Soph was with us or we would have been running around in circles all night. Naioka used her pet to off tank, Fin was on heals, and completing our party with DPS was Rahfiki and Aeladia.


Everyone seemed to have a good time.
Stay tuned to find out what we will be tackling for our next Guild Participation day next Wednsday.

Captain out....

2.4.2 Arrives today.

I went to sleep last night after loads of kernel panics and 3 computer lock ups. I played this morning for an hour running the Sunwell Dailies, and later this after noon to do some dailies out in the Outlands.

I had no problems whatsoever.... (knocks on wood, throws salt over the shoulder, spits, and feeds the rubber chicken. Maybe they nailed that Mac graphics issue after all. I'll be testing it further tonight. It is 's guild night and they want to run Shadow Fang Keep.

I'll report on the results. In the mean time here are the patch notes if you haven't read them already.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.4.2

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Druids

• Talent: Primal Fury (Rank 2) will now be properly unlearned when it is untalented.

Hunters

• Aspect of the Viper: This ability now grants an additional amount of mana each 5 seconds equal to 35% of the hunter’s level.
• Boar Charge: This ability will no longer make Growl cast immediately after it generates excessive threat.
• The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power and now scales with the hunter’s Attack Power.
• Dire Ravens in Blade’s Edge Mountains are now tameable.
• Scare Beast: The range on this spell has been increased to 30 yards.
• Tamed Drywallow Snappers now will know Bite 5 (instead of Claw 5).

Mages

• Talent: Improved Blink (Arcane) now reduces chance to be hit by 13/25% and the duration of Rank 1 has been increased to 4 seconds.
• Completing the quest “Arcane Refreshment” will now properly teach the spell Conjure Water (Rank 7).
• Polymorph: Mounted creatures will no longer remain mounted while polymorphed.
• Molten Armor will now do damage while a damage absorption shield is active.
• New Teleport/Portal: Theramore and Teleport/Portal:Stonard spells are available at portal trainers in their respective locations. You must be level 35 to learn these new spells.

Paladins

• Flash of Light and Holy Light will now work properly with castsequence macros.
• Seal of the Crusader: This ability now increases the damage dealt by Crusader Strike by 40%.
• Talent: Precision (Ranks 1-3) will no longer improperly display daggers and staves as a weapon class in the tooltip.
• Paladins that already have Apprentice Riding skill can now properly learn Summon Warhorse from the trainer.

Priests

• Fear Ward will no longer be consumed while under the effects of cyclone.
• Mana Burn: This spell can no longer trigger effects that require the target to be struck with a critical hit.
• Power Word: Shield now has the correct sound associated with it and can no longer be heard from large distances.
• Talent: Power Infusion will now consume the correct amount of mana when cast on yourself.

Rogues

• Ability: Blade Flurry: This ability can no longer hit critters as its secondary targets and will now use a proper range calculation for all secondary targets.
• Talent: Mutilate (Assassination) will no longer incorrectly appear multiple times in the combat log when used.

Shaman

• Ability: Frostbrand Weapon: Rank 6 damage has been increased very slightly.

Warlocks

• Drain Soul: Channeling of this spell will now always stop when a player target dies.
• Pets: Using a sacrifice effect to kill your own pet will no longer trigger effects that should only occur when killing an enemy.

Warrior

• Sweeping Strikes: This ability can no longer hit critters as its secondary targets and will now use a proper range calculation for all secondary targets.

PvP

• Arenas
  • If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
  • If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.

Professions

• All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns.
• All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours.
• Enchanting
  • Removed the cooldown from Void Shatter.
  • Void Shatter recipe now correctly requires 375 enchanting.
• Engineering
  • The Engineering supply item Delicate Copper Wire will now properly fit into engineering bags.
• Jewelcrafting
  • Brilliant Glass no longer requires a forge.
  • Brilliant Glass now has a small chance to make an epic gem.
  • Quick Dawnstone, Reckless Noble Topaz, Forceful Talasite are now all available at the Quel’danas gem vendor.
• Leatherworking
  • Completing the quest “The Journey Has Just Begun” will now properly teach how to make an Onyxia Scale Cloak.
  • Greatly reduced the reagent cost for Glove Reinforcements. Also reduced the skill gain range slightly.

Quests

• The categories for the quests “Wanted: Sisters of Torment” and “Wanted: The Signet Ring of Prince Kael’thas” have been fixed to now properly read as Magister’s Terrace.
• The Shadowy Disguise will no longer be applied to druids while they are in Moonkin or Tree of Life form for the quests “Who Are They?”
• Jailor Eston and Jailor Marlgen for the quest “The Rescue” should now respawn more frequently.

Dungeons and Raids

• Black Temple
  • Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid group wipes during his death speech.
• Karazhan
  • Nightbane’s Charred Earth ability will now properly deal Fire damage.
• Magister’s Terrace
  • Vexallus is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
  • Kael’thas is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
  • Wretched Skulkers, Wretched Husks, and Wretched Bruisers will now reset properly.
  • Sunblade Imps will now reset properly.
  • The doors in Heroic Magister’s Terrace will no longer respawn after a soft reset if a boss has already been killed.
• Sunwell Plateau
  • Hellfire will no longer remove Dark Touched in the Eredar Twins encounter.
• Tempest Keep: The Eye
  • Void Reaver’s Arcane orbs now generate combat log entries.

Items

• Arcane Charges now deal arcane damage.
• Abilities and trinkets that trigger after killing an opponent that gives experience or honor will no longer activate after killing mobs during bombing quests.
• Battlecast’s Garb should now properly grant pushback resistance in addition to interrupt resistance.
• Borderland Fortress Grips have had their stats updated.
• Botanist’s Gloves of Growth have had their texture corrected.
• Bow of Searing Arrows and Red Whelp Gloves will no longer break crowd control effects.
• Brann Bronzebeard’s Lost Letter: This item will no lonber display a damage range in its tooltip.
• The Cloak of Swift Mending now has a level requirement (70).
• Crusader’s Scaled Battlegear: The tooltip spelling has been corrected.
• Darkmoon Card: Madness: The durations of the buffs received from this item have been extended to 60 seconds.
• Elixir of Demonslaying: This elixir now grants ranged attack power against demons as intended.
• Goblin Jumper Cables are no longer a trinket item.
• Hazza’rah’s Charm of Healing Haste rating reduced.
• Items that enchant other items no longer have tradeskill requirements (Mithril Spurs, Shield Spikes, Weapon Chains, etc.).
• The Helm of Fire has had its casting range reduced.
• The Magic Candle has had its casting range reduced.
• Many items sold by Consortium vendors are now bind on pick up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shifting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design: Thick Golden Draenite.
• Many items sold by Aldor reputation vendors are now bind on pick up: Design: Gleaming Golden Draenite, Design: Royal Shadow Draenite.
• Many items sold by the Shattered Sun quartermaster are now bind on pick up: Naaru Ration, Design: Ember Skyfire Diamond.
• The Lower City reputation item, Recipe: Flask of Chromatic Resistance, is now bind on pick up.
• Most Main-Hand weapons are now One-Hand weapons.
• Naturalist’s Preserving Cinch have had their stats updated.
• Nightfall now has a chance to fail on targets over level 60.
• Prince Kael’thas will now drop Primal Nethers in Heroic Magisters Terrace.
• Ravager: Judgements will no longer auto-refresh and break the effect from this item while its effect is active.
• Reins of the Black War Elekk spell and buff now correspond to the item name.
• Renataki’s Charm of Trickery has had its energy reduced.
• Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite now properly share the same cooldown.
• The Romantic Picnic Basket will now display the blanket properly.
• Shard of Azzinoth no longer shares any cooldown with Shaman elemental totems.
• The socket bonus modifiers of some items will now properly display the bonus healing.
• The reduced cooldown of Shaman Nature’s Swiftness provided by the 4 piece set bonus from the Seer’s Ringmail Battlegear PvP armor will now apply properly.
• Shattered Sun Pendant of Might: The triggered effect from this item will no longer break Scatter Shot or other crowd-controlling affects. The visual on the Scryer version has been updated.
• Shifting Naaru Sliver: Using this item no longer puts players into combat.
• Silithyst Dust: The bonus from turning this item in no longer works for players above level 63.
• The Skyshatter Helmet’s gem socket bonus will now properly reflect the plus damage in the tooltip.
• Shadowsong Panther will no longer prematurely despawn.
• Talasite Owl: This trinket will now properly restore full mana as described.
• Ten Storms Set: The Chain Heal bonus from this set has been reduced by 5%.
• Troll Male off-hand items are now the same size as the main hand item.
• Tauren weapons while sheathed have had their graphic readjusted to their pre-patch (2.4.0) state.
• The Winterfall Firewater buff is no longer dispellable.
• Wushoolay’s Charm of Nature Haste rating has been reduced.

User Interface

• The guild log scroll bar will now properly display.
• Black Lotus will now show up under the Herb subcategory in the auction house.
• Primal Nethers will now show up under the Materials subcategory in the auction house.
• Mailboxes can now be tracked on the minimap.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment

• Creature versions of the Polymorph spell no longer heal the affected target.
• The dragons in Blade’s Edge Mountains will no longer instantly knock you off your mount.

Mac

• Fixed a bug causing ATI kernel panics; all spell effects should now be visible.
• Weather effects are again visible on systems with ATI 2x00 graphics such as aluminum iMac.
• Fixed a bug that precluded use of the FireWire iSight microphone with voice chat.
• Symlinks can be used again for Interface and WTF folders and subfolders.
• Cinematics playback is working again.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where secondary sound effects would not work with the Use Hardware option enabled in the Sound options of the User Interface.
• Fixed an issue where attempting to use some instant cast spells with Auto-Dismount in Flight checked in the interface would fail.
• Items that have multiple charges will now properly display the amount of charges.
• Fixed an issue where chain damage spells were chaining to critters.
• Female Draenei horns will now correctly protrude through certain plate helms.
• The Vengeful Gladiator’s Rifle will now play the proper sound when used.
• The Cursed Vision of Sargeras now gives the buff, “Sense Demons” which can be canceled normally. Additionally hunters and druids are able to track two things at once while using the item.
• It is no longer possible for pets to get stuck in place after exiting the Spectral Realm in the Kalecgos encounter.
• Blood Elf Priest: Consume Magic will now require the buff to be active in order to work properly.
• Undead and Blood Elf Priest: Touch of Weakness will now properly reduce the melee damage of the attacker.
• Fixed an issue where some spells had extraneous Floating Combat Text messages when using the Auras option.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes debuff icons on a target did not scale properly to indicate the spells had been cast by you.
• Ritual of Souls (Warlock) and Ritual of Refreshment (Mage) will no longer be placed on cooldown without having completed the summon.
• Looting a boss while a player is outside of the instance will no longer cause the corpse to despawn in 2 minutes if the player still has loot on the corpse.
• Whirlwind now has the correct sound associated with it.

Funny

Found this on Big Bear Butt Blogger:
One of the two final runner ups in a Children's Week screenshot contest.
This one gets my vote.

Trapping in Paradise

I got this question from my friend T this morning. She has been working hard on her hunter alt and just dinged level 69 today. Gratz! Hehe, no sleep for you for a few days.

Hi there sweety. ^.^ (/blush)

I hope all is well. I have a question for you Supreme hunter knowledge. I have been doing alot of instance's on Topazz and my traps are almost useless. I can't seem to be able to trap a mob. If I do trap them they stay trapped only for a second or two. I have been thinking about respecing back to BM. If I do, im wondering if the trap talents in the survival tree are really worth it? Hunter's are mainly CC in instance's and raids, so I want to repsec to better aid my CC abilities. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Have fun and don't work to hard. ^.^

T did indeed respec to BM, and in my opinion it is the most fun spec for a hunter. Micro managing the pet forces you to be more involved in the instances and things rarely get dull.

The first thing I would advise would be to read this post I put up a few days ago. It concerns trapping in heroics, but all the advice is sound for trapping in normal instances to. I was curious about respec'ing to get Clever Traps, and I got a great response to a question I asked on the BRK Forums.

Next lets look at some numbers in T's Armory profile. The first thing I see is a hit rating of 47. This is pretty low and I have a hunch that it is the source of the problem.

From personal experience I have found that I do well in regular instances with a hit rating of around 100, and when in Kara and Heroics I keep it as close to 142 as I can. To make this switch I have various pieces of armor and trinkets that I switch out depending on what I am doing.

Basically put your hit rating is what prevents you from missing your target. There is little that is more dissapointing than lining up that perfect Aimed Shot only to see it zing harmlessly off to the left of your target.

Missed targets=big drop in DPS and resisted traps.

Your traps use "to hit" for their initial spring, after which the trapped mob has chance to resist which results in early trap breakage. The only way to prevent the Mobs from prematurely breaking our traps would be to stack spell penetration, and well, thats just not a hunter kinda thing to do. Better to have a second trap on standby.

Here is a really good post about Hit Rating if you are into the theory craft world.
Smacking the Hit Cap, by BRK

In a nutshell as we start putting together our level 70 armor, Hunters are looking for a hit rating approaching 100 for regular instances and 142 for raiding and heroics. That number will allow you to consitantly hit the highest level mob currently in the game, which happens to be 73 elite.

Now with that said it is important to note that by spec'ing into the Survival tree far enough to get Clever Traps the "hit cap" will drop to 98. Thats a big advantage for Survival hunters, especially when combined with 2 pieces of Beast Lord armor which will reduce your trap cool down by 4 sec.

Personally I like to keep my extra 20 points in the DPS tree since that is really what the hunters are there for; to burn down the tank's primary target as fast as possible.

Your DPS will most definately drop while chain trapping and guarding healers, but we are still there to provide MQoSRDPS (massive quantities of sustained ranged damage per second.)

Trapping advice for beginners:

1. Read this post on chain trapping by BRK.
2. Practice the h3ll out of his technique.
3. Watch this trapping video by Lassira which is the best demo I've seen yet.
4. Practice these trapping techniques while grinding. Start by setting a freeze trap and letting your cool down expire. Then learn to lead a mob around and make it stay exactly where you want it. (This actually helps take the boredom out of faction grinding. You will walk away feeling accomplished.)
5. While looking for gear to raid in check out these two places:
1. Kaliban's Loot List is a listing of all the armor that drops in the Outlands instance, and also covers the good quest rewards. In addition there are listings of all the loot in the 10 and 25 man raids. You might want to review those so you will be familiar with what is worth rolling on and what you need to pass to your Shamy, Druid, and Rogue buddies.
1. Gear Up for Karazhan by BRK. This is a look at the cool hunter loot that you can get off the Auction House (this was the post that changed my endgame instance runs).

Trapping advice for instances.

1. Do your best to put your trap ass far away from all the healers and the combat as possible
   
1. Big heals will break traps early.
1. AOE spells will break traps early.
2. Do your best to make sure the initial pull doesn't happen until your trap cool down has expired.
1. This will give you a second trap to pop down if the first is resisted.
1. If you will be chain trapping the sooner you can set that second trap the more time you will have to let your cool downs expire. Because of diminishing returns you can get about three traps down, more than enough to make it through the kill order.
1. If you have that second trap ready and someone else's CC fails you stand ready to trap anything that gets near the healer. Trust me, when people see you double trap in an instance you will be invited back!
3. Once the pull has been made the Blue Square is yours and yours alone until it comes up in the kill order.
   
1. Use your traps to control the Mob.
2. Be ready to use your pet and kiting abilities if the traps fail.
4. Take care of yourself
1. Don't expect to be healed before the tank
2. Do your best to die before the healer
   
3. Don't expect the pet to get heals, he/she is a tool in an instance and wont die permanently if you need to make the sacrifice for the group.
4. Show up on time with all the consumables you need for a fun evening of raiding. Both the in game and the munchie kinds.
   

With lots of practice, knowledge of trapping technique and good hit rating you will be a CC pro in no time.

41/20/0 Trapping in Heroics

Prior to the onset of my graphics problems I was just beginning to run heroics in hopes of getting some of that phat new badge gear.

Being new to heroics I jumped over to BRK's Hunter Forums and asked this question:

I was just wondering how to tweak my game for trapping in Heroic dungeons with the 41/20 spec.
I can chain trap most regular instances with no problems. I have spec'd both the pet and myself with keeping the pet alive during combat in mind.
I am hit capped and my crit is just under 24%.

Now that I am in Heroics is the trapping game basically the same? And is it worth dropping MM points to pick up Clever Traps (I'd rather not if at all possible).

I got several great replies, and this post from Zball is my favorite:

With proper planning and management, trapping in Heroics as BM is easy. I never had an issue and I've done it as BM, MM, and SV.

Things to look out for and keep in mind.

-Communicate. Your tanks need to know to wait until you give the go ahead on any pull where you will be tasked with trapping. Healers need to tell you if they're being attacked. You have to keep your party in the know about the status of the trapped mob. Let them know that blue square is yours and yours alone until it comes up in the kill order.

-Blue square is your responsibility. In Heroics the mobs hit a lot harder. Get used to it. Have another trap ready. Be ready to have your pet tank the square until your trap is off cooldown in case the trap breaks early. Be ready to kite. And do not Feign Death while Blue Square is alive. You have bandages and pots. Use them. Do not ask for or expect a heal when dealing with your responsibility.

-Mind your traps and pet. Be careful and be ready to blow Intimidate on a mob that has broken free. Your pet is a tool in an instance. Use it. Sacrifice if you need to. You are more important than your pet. You are less important than the healer.

-Do not outlive your healer. If you do, you're wrong. You die first. Those mobs hit you before they hit the healer. That's part of your job as a DPS class.

All in all, trap talents aren't going to make or break you. As long as you have knowledge of your class and keep on top of things, Heroics are easy- mode.

Thank you for the words of wisdom!

Ever wonder how to kill a WoW addiction?

Here is how you do it.
Ever since 2.4 released I have had terrible graphics problems.

There doesn't seem to be any relief in 2.4.2 either. I took these two videos this morning after signing onto the public test realms. This usually adds up to lots of computer lock ups and a /huff off to bed.

At a crossroad?

So here it is near the start of the summer and things are looking very different for this summer.

First I think I have come pretty close to capping out with my Ally hunter Vik. He is now running with the BlackSheep, I just purchased my [Don Santos' Famous Hunting Rifle], and have only to replace 3 more pieces of Armor with epics.

I don't envision seeing much more of the endgame content than I already have with Viktel.

And on the Horde side the old guild has started taking on crew once again.
Finegas is now the GM and just dinged 44, and at the moment is out in front by one level. I think I'd like to heal with him, but might just end up tanking as well.

My lowbie Orc hunter Lassiter is now officially and alt, and not so lowbie anymore. Way back when I started Vik I did an Alliance character first specifically because I knew I would like the Horde better. I'll post more about why later.

So what is in store for this blog? Will it become a Druid/Hunter/GM trying to get a clue blog?
Probably. Time will tell.

Holy Crap!!!

Its gonna be a great summer for movie-going.

Here is the latest trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie. Click it!

OMG! I about wet myself.

The new trailer for Batman: The Dark Knight is out.
Click here to view it.

Soooooo close, want to touch!!!

I gotta say....

Holy Crap, and WoW!!

Nice work BRK!!!