It’s all about getting the kill
Posted: April 15, 2013 Filed under: Raiding & Dungeons | Tags: hunter, Mists of Pandaria, progression, raiding, Throne of Thunder, World of Warcraft, WoW 6 Comments »With the previous weekend’s shit behind us, our guild has killed two new bosses in the past eight days. As I mentioned last week, Horridon fell on the 7th, and last night, Council of Elders bit the big one after about an hour and a half of progressively better attempts.
It was fun to be a part of, from the perspective that it was akin to experiences I’ve had playing the guitar. When I’m learning a particularly interesting song/riff, I can see it begin to come together with some patience and practice, as muscle memory builds and the passage begins to sound musical. This was what it was like in last night’s raid.
We worked hard to kill Sul before he had a chance to be empowered. We fought through Kazra’jin and his dickish reflective damage. We got a feel for what it took to keep the Loa Spirits from healing bosses. And we made it farther in, and then we finally killed them all. It was very rewarding, and the team is feeling more confident now.
A couple of boss kills will do that!
…
The experience was bittersweet for me, though. I spent the last couple of minutes lifeless on the ground on our kill attempt. I made one deadly mistake – I let myself get too close to the priest when she was empowered, and I got gibbed by a Shadowed Loa Spirit before I could even think to move. It was one of those ‘lapse of attention’ things, but since I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t thinking of reacting with a quick Disengage. And when I did finally hit the Disengage button… nothing happened, because the game was already telling me that I had died and could release if I wanted to, except that that button didn’t work yet either, blah blah…
Aside from that, things couldn’t have been better. The hunter helm dropped, so I broke my T14 two-piece and shed some excess Hit Rating (finally!). The boss(es) dropped, and we can now presumably work on Tortos. All good things, for certain.
But, I’ll be honest and say for the record that when Squido said, as someone was rezzing me, “that’s a nice hunter hat,” I didn’t want it.
I spent the last two minutes of the fight angry that I had made that mistake. Because the second worst thing* that can happen in that situation is being the one who didn’t do his job. And for the third ‘first kill’ of this tier – out of three total – I was eating dirt while the rest of the team finished the encounter.
*The worst thing would be failing to do one’s job, being the reason the final attempt for the week failed, and hearing the raid leader say, “ok, great job tonight, we’ll try this one again next week.”
So I was angry. I took the helm, of course, because there’s no better use for it than to give it to someone who can use it, but I personally felt that I didn’t deserve it.
I write a lot about gear on this blog. It’s very self-centered writing – not much help to others, no guides – but I like gear. I like acquiring gear, earning gear, crafting gear; figuring out which pieces are better upgrades, even doing math and analysis on occasion in order to come to the raid prepared in that respect, leaving no stone un-turned. Obviously, I’m into gear.
But it’s not about the gear. As much as I enjoy that aspect of the game, it’s about having fun and killing bosses. It’s about making progress, and ten people coming together like ten fingers on two hands, working in concert to make a beautiful piece of music come to life.
And being the person who’s laying dead on the ground on kills like this because I make mistakes really gnaws at me. Because it could just as easily have been the ‘worst case scenario’ that I described above, and I don’t want to be the person who makes that difference (negatively). But the facts are:
1) I was dead when we killed Jin’rokh for the first time (got stunned by the final Thundering Throw while being too near a Lightning Fissure, in my attempt to get the water buff as soon as possible. My bad,)
2) I was dead when we killed Horridon for the first time (misdirected War-god Jalak without actually using my Misdirect ability. Bam. My bad.)
3) I was dead when we killed Council for the first time (see above) (aand my bad).
Appendix: I also died on our first kills of Zor’lok and Blade Lord, for that matter, although I can’t claim fault on those. They were situations where healers were overwhelmed/dead (Blade Lord wind-gauntlet) or mind controlled/dead (Zor’lok), and I died. Those things just tend to happen, so those didn’t irritate me quite like this does.
For as many pulls as we did on each of these bosses before getting each first kill, I made the big mistake on the one where the boss died. Each time. I’m 3-for-3 in that department.
I’m not sure whether to think it’s just coincidence, or… what to think. I’m trying not to think too negatively about my own performance. Council is something of a complex fight until Sul dies, so there’s that… and I felt that I played well on however many attempts we did previous to our successful one, for the most part. I guess I can’t reasonably carry any stigma of ”well, Mushan, you sucked on every attempt/sucked in general.”
I’m just feeling deeply chagrined; feeling some self-loathing about my play. I’m still shaking my head about it today, some 18 hours after the kill. I am very proud of my friends, but for the second week in a row, I had to watch them do the heavy work. It vexes me, and I hope to find a way to stop it from happening at some point soon. I think we’re going to kill more bosses, and I want to be alive so that I can jump up and down in celebration when we get the kills. The scenario I described from last night was just weird.
Self-deprecatingly, I thought of myself: “You died, but you’re a lucky motherf—-r, so here’s a nice hat you can wear while you’re dead on the next fight.” Know what I mean?
I’ve got to let this go. I think this is leading me to another post – a more hunter-ish post; a less want-to-hit-myself-in-the-eye-with-a-hammer-ish post.
After all, dying on a successful guild first is a heck of a lot better than being the last one alive on a wipe. It’s all about the team, and it’s all about killing internet dragons trolls. :)
…
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A good night in Raid Finder
Posted: April 13, 2013 Filed under: Gear, Raiding & Dungeons | Tags: gear, hunter, Mists of Pandaria, raiding, World of Warcraft, WoW Leave a comment »LFR can be a complete jerk sometimes.
We’ve all been there – where the one piece you need just will not drop. For some, it’s the weapon – an important piece of gear for pretty much everyone. For others, it’s the boots, or the trinket. For me, in 5.0/5.1, it was ultimately the shoulder token. Lei Shi was very generous with her trinkets (I won four or five of those), but not so much with the shoulder token.
Well, you have your good days and your bad. Some people are “lucky” and others have terrible luck for long stretches. Such is the nature of chance as it’s built into the current version of the game. I did let myself get frustrated as all get-out about the shoulder token, but as March approached, I let it go. It just wasn’t worth it, and there were greener fields to graze on the horizon.
In Throne of Thunder, I haven’t really felt the need to complain too much about my luck. ToT has been fairly kind to me, all things considered. I’ve certainly snickered about it from time to time, though – I’ve won three necklaces since I bought the Valor necklace on March 5th, after all! :) That’s how it goes, I suppose.
Last night was one of those nights where things went in my favor.
I was finally able to snag a weapon upgrade, trading in old Taoren (491) for a shiny new (and ugly as sin) Durumu’s Baleful Gaze on a bonus roll.
Mushan, with Durumu’s Baleful Gaze
Despite the disgusting model(?) (seriously, the ranged weapon models in MoP are just some of the worst, in my humble opinion) of this “crossbow,” it was a not-insignificant upgrade for me. Later in the same raid, Dark Animus was gracious enough to leave behind a Gore-Soaked Gear with my name on it, replacing the Sign of the Bloodied God that I’d picked up ten days ago. This was also a direct upgrade, if only a small one, because of the socket and the Crit/Haste stat budget.
Overall, I’ve been pretty happy with the way my hunter’s gear has progressed this tier. Going into tonight’s raid, the remainders from T14 are few: tier helm and gloves (504), crafted chest (500), and the belt from Gara’jal (489). ToT RF gear: weapon, ring 2 (502). Valor: neck, cloak, bracers, ring 1, trinket 1 (522); crafted boots (522); and, from ToT itself, Thunderforged legs (528 – Jin’rokh), as well as shoulders, and trinket 2 (522 – Jin’rokh).
The gearing process is likely to slow down until we have more bosses on farm. As I mentioned before, the Valor gear that remains unpurchased (at honored with SPA) is less than inspiring, but I should be able to pick up the belt in less than two weeks, which will be a seriously good upgrade.
Tonight, we’re optimistic that we’ll be able to down both Jin’rokh and Horridon without too much trouble, so that we can spend some real time on Council. Since I won’t have my head elsewhere tonight, I’m looking to be a key contributor this time!
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Soloed: Halion (10H)
Posted: April 9, 2013 Filed under: Extreme Soloing | Tags: hunter, hunter extreme soloing, survival, SV, talents, World of Warcraft, WoW 5 Comments »
Heroic Halion (10) down!
This past Sunday afternoon, looking to do something challenging yet fun, I decided to give Heroic Halion a shot.
I had never defeated Halion before. I only ever attempted him once toward the end of Wrath with a raid group, and it was one of those things where we’d get to Phase 3 and then start dropping like flies. And I never tried soloing him during Cataclysm, because I assumed that the whole twilight realm portal thing would reset the boss. Maybe I was right, maybe not… but at any rate, it is soloable now, as was brought to my attention by this video from Cinnamohn (props to Cinnamohn for the idea and the strategy!). Check it out for the details!
I soloed him as SV in my questing spec setup (Spirit Bond, Blink Strike, Glyphs of Mending and Misdirection). It took me five attempts to get my head in gear and not stand in the crossfire forever (facepalm!), not get hit by the Twilight Cutter, not out-threat my pet, and so on, and to get him down. Because he heals himself for a sizable chunk every five seconds in Phase 3 (from 50% health till death), the majority of the fight is spent in that phase, doing more damage to him than he can heal through. Like many soloing fights, the trick is basically to execute the mechanics of the encounter while still doing enough damage and keeping the pet alive – while also keeping threat on your pet so that you don’t have to Feign Death, which will reset the boss – and Halion certainly tests that combination of skills and awareness on Heroic mode for modest soloists like myself.
It was pretty cool to attempt and defeat a boss that I’ve never seen before on Heroic, and had never defeated before. Sometime, I’d like to attempt the 25-player version, but I don’t know if I could handle that. Perhaps on normal mode…
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Didn’t expect this to happen…
Posted: April 8, 2013 Filed under: Raiding & Dungeons | Tags: guild drama, Mists of Pandaria, progression, raiding, World of Warcraft, WoW 5 Comments »At the end of a week in which I had the opportunity to work a bit more than I had originally expected, I was pretty tired, but also looking forward to finally putting the screws to Horridon on Sat./Sun. Little did I know how the weekend would actually unfold.
This is a story about raid team drama resolving itself in a bad way. Not the worst possible way, mind you. The worst possible way (team-wise) would be if the team completely imploded, its members scattered. That hasn’t happened, and doesn’t look to be doing so, which is good.
Anyway…
At 9:30 Saturday, our scheduled raid time, we had 10 people, out of 11 who were invited, online and ready to roll. We made a quick detour to Krasarang to kill Warlord Bloodhilt for the three of us who needed to complete A Change of Command (woot, got my extra socket!) and then hit up Throne of Thunder.
Other than killing Jin’rokh the past two weekends, we hadn’t attempted Horridon since March 17th due to people going away for Easter week and so on. So we killed Jin’rokh and worked on Horridon until sometime after midnight, making some progress, and vowing to get it done the next night.
Since I was looking forward to having Sunday off, I took the liberty to stay up late, kill some rares, and complete a few quests in order to cap Valor, since that would make anything I did on the warrior the next day worth 50% more in terms of Valor gained.
I should have just gone to bed.
At around 1:30am, I was on my way to answer a “Mumta up” call-out when this happened:
Now, for a little background on the situation: the person whose name is blacked out is a friend who has run with us on occasion for a long time to help us fill out raids. His main is the tank on a team that, coming into this weekend, had out-progressed our team in T15 by ten bosses. He’s a great player, brings very valuable perspectives on the boss fights – since he’s done them several times already – and is a positive presence on the team in pretty much any way you can imagine.
The person whose name is blocked out in red is a guild-mate, and she and I have been good friends for a while now. She was the eleventh invitee, who wasn’t online when we had ten people and had started the night’s activities.
Over the past few weeks, one of them has usually had to sit out for the other on our Jin’rokh kills. This is where the drama kicks in. Of course.
Friend-of-Guild is completely fine with sitting out, understanding that he’s playing an alt. Guild-mate is apparently not fine with it. Which is odd, because Guild-mate is someone who, when we were transitioning from Cata to MoP, was telling me that she wasn’t sure she even wanted to raid, or even play the game. Who always hates the changes to the class she plays. Who whispers me “I suck” in between boss attempts, along with “I should just quit” and the like. Who types things like “we’ll never kill this boss” in raid chat when we’re working on progression. Who regularly sits at the bottom of the damage meter due to things like turning to run away from bad rather than strafing, and having low uptime.
In spite of this, she has remained a member of the team, which is all well and good. We’re friends, after all. Which is why, for a while when she would say those things, I would respond with “nah, you’ll be fine” or offer some advice… which eventually gave way to me just not responding at all, because saying “I suck” and other such comments, without seeking high and low for possible adjustments and improvements to make, is completely unproductive, as well as being highly annoying and deflating for the person(s) having to read them
…
The above screenshot started a short conversation that did not go well. She was apparently unhappy with sitting out for Jin’rokh. When she was invited in for our attempts on Horridon, she declined, from what we were told. So that was the end of the story… until she whispered me in the manner you can see above.
This shocked me. I personally did not ask her to sit out on Jin’rokh. In fact, I don’t know that anyone did, but the reality is that we had 10 and had started our raiding activities when she logged in, so it wasn’t an issue. But I’m a teammate and friend – not even the guild master or raid leader. And yet, she waited until the guild master and raid leader had both logged for the night before lashing out at me.
I was shocked and appalled.
And then I got very angry. I was tired, and that didn’t help. And so I responded with a short litany of my objections to her attitude, letting out my frustrations with her that have been building up, unsaid, since our time in Dragon Soul, at the very least.
And in the course of the conversation, I also strongly objected to the disrespectful way that she addressed me. It was, given our friendship, something that I never, ever expected to happen.
But that didn’t matter. It was like something had snapped, and she decided to take it out on me. And I didn’t respond in a way that was “whoa, hey, calm down,” so my reaction didn’t necessarily help things. But I had had enough, and I didn’t like being treated that way. (Pardon me, but) I’m not just some asshole who likes to fuck people over. I’m an adult, and so is she. So to be treated that way by her was extremely unpleasant.
It began to feel like I was talking to a baby. Talking to a completely different person than the one I had known. She told me things like:
And at that point, I had had enough. It was getting a little too 9th grade for me. Things were pretty clear: for some reason, I was at fault, and had stopped being her friend because I had played with Friend-of-Guild – just like I do every single week – so I shot off that last line and left it at that.
…
Now, my original plan was to kill a couple of rares, etc. and then hit the hay at a moderately reasonable hour. But at this point, I was wide awake, pissed off, and my heart was pounding. So I didn’t get to sleep until a few hours later, didn’t sleep much, and wasn’t feeling that great when we downed Horridon for the first time on Sunday night. In fact, I was distracted all day by what had happened, and I couldn’t shake it, and as such I played like crap, including dying for a really dumb reason on our kill – I shot War-god Jalak without Misdirecting him. But I was super proud of the team – it was a lot of fun to see that huge dino finally hit the ground.
…
She left the guild on Sunday night as we began to pull the trash before Horridon. By that point, everyone on the team had heard what had happened, and nobody was really happy about it.
As it stands, it appears that I have lost a friend. I would’ve liked to have had a reasonable conversation with her, but I kind of killed that by not being the better person and refraining from throwing my own frustrations back at her. Sunday evening before she left, she was being super fun-time chatty in /gchat about things that she normally didn’t seem to give a crap about, lighting up everyone’s screen with a green wall of text about rares and skeletons on the ground and the virmen on her farm and PvP… even said something to the effect that she loved being positive. It was hard to watch it unfold, in addition to feeling like she was mocking me.
Why I was the target of all of this, I’m not sure. But now, I have to get over it and move on.
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One big blue candle and a messy “cake-face”
Posted: April 2, 2013 Filed under: Off Topic | Tags: blog, hunter, World of Warcraft, WoW Leave a comment »(with no screenshot, which is par for the course with me – so unprepared!!)
Today – April 2 – Mushan, Etc. is one year old. **Yaaay!!**
This blog, for all of its shortcomings, has been a massive success for me, and I’m so glad that a) I started it, and b) I’ve been so blessed by it. In spite of several droughts, I managed to write 105 posts and draw over 22,200* page views, which is nothing to sneeze at, I suppose!
*And it smokes my previous two blogs’ yearly bests for page views by more than 55%, which is awesome!
It’s been wonderful to be in touch with people in the WoW community, meeting new people here and on Twitter, seeing bloggers in-game, and getting to share some of my humble huntering adventures, opinions, etc. with all of you.
Thanks to everyone who has read my posts, commented on them, encouraged me, and befriended me this year. It’s been very rewarding. Here’s to more fun in Year 2!!
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Pet taunts on the Isle of Thunder
Posted: April 1, 2013 Filed under: Reputation | Tags: hunter, Mists of Pandaria, questing, talents, tanking, warrior, World of Warcraft, WoW 8 Comments »With Patch 5.2, I got rid of my rarely-used PvP off-spec and set up a questing/soloing SV spec, glyphed and talented for pet healing and a little bit more utility. With the Isle of Thunder containing clusters of mobs with higher health levels, quest “bosses,” rares, solo scenarios, and so on, I felt that it would make my life a little bit easier, and it definitely has.
Pet Growl is great in MoP – very effective in situations like this. Because I’m a lazy hunter, I usually just leave Growl on. Lots of other hunters do the same thing, which makes it kind of humorous when you’re fighting a rare with two hunters on it and the pets keep taunting off one another.
However, I’ve been learning (again) that, when hunters do this in certain situations, it’s not as funny on the other side of the ball.
While the knowledge has always been there, this was really brought home to me over the past week with my warrior tank. Stage 4 opened last week, bringing more “boss” quests per day, and more rares to kill. A couple of these bosses, including Itoka, Master of the Forge, and Metal Lord Mono-han, put a lot of bad on the ground in the form of energized metal, roaming electric sparks, electrified water, and so on. These things are obviously good to get out of, and likewise, kiting the boss out of or away from them is imperative.
As a prot warrior – and hence, on the other side of the ball with regard to the relationship with tanking pets in these situations – I’ve repeatedly been frustrated when hunters keep Growl on when it’s pretty obvious that I’m tanking the boss. It’s pretty annoying when, as a tank, you can’t kite the boss out of persistent bad because the pet is taunting him immediately after you do, every time.
With Itoka, the roaming sparks are a constant nuisance, and Metal Lord’s “Toss Energized Metal” is similar, although in his case the danger circles are static. In either case, constant re-positioning is fairly mandatory, and, as someone who enjoys tanking, I like moving the boss around to give everyone the best chance to do damage and to take a minimum of damage themselves. This is virtually impossible when the hunter either ignores this concept or is completely unaware that it’s a problem.
I do take solace from the fact that, on several occasions, hunter pets have died during these fights, and I’ve been able to resume controlling the boss’s position. But here’s the bottom line about hunter pets constantly taunting off the tank and standing stationary in bad stuff, regardless of whether hunters care about their pets dying:
IT TAKES LONGER TO KILL THE BOSS THAT WAY.
Potentially a lot longer.
When the pet has either of these bosses, and the hunter isn’t spending any time re-positioning it like a normal tank should, the original tank and any other melee DPS cannot do their normal damage to the mob. They could, theoretically – but that would involve taking boatloads of damage due to spending way too much time being hit by electrical charges of one form or another, and likely dying if they didn’t get out in time. The AoE damage on these fights is no joke; even as a decently geared tank, it’s virtually impossible to stand in one of these circles for the entire fight and survive. And even if there is no AoE around for the moment, a tank taking no damage is building up zero vengeance, so his/her damage for that time period is going to be pretty anemic.
And pets don’t have a vengeance mechanic, so there’s absolutely no “win” in pet tanking when there’s someone else there that wants to tank the boss for you.
There have been several occasions over the past week where a hunter pet has taken control of the boss, and I’ve been forced to stand outside the circle, telling the hunter to “please turn off Growl” (if the hunter is Alliance) and tossing Heroic Throw because I can’t otherwise reach the boss. I try to make it obvious, without resorting to being unpleasant, that I. can’t. do. anything. And neither can that ret pally or DK or rogue standing next to me. And the boss loses health at a much slower rate, and it’s just a huge pain in the ass, because nobody can do what they would normally be doing in that situation, other than the hunter.
So, a word to wise hunters: please keep the Growl button on your pet bar. Know when to turn it off – and if you don’t know when to turn it off, it’s any time you don’t need to be the tank on a rare or a quest “boss.” And use Glyph of Stampede, so that it turns off Growl on all of your stampeding pets as well. Because if you don’t, you’re needlessly making your own dailies – not to mention others’ – take a bit longer to complete. Which sucks, because dailies take enough time as it is. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.
Bad pun intended.
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An in-game excuse to slack off
Posted: March 28, 2013 Filed under: Gear, Professions, Raiding & Dungeons, Reputation | Tags: Blacksmithing, gear, hunter, Leatherworking, Mists of Pandaria, progression, questing, raiding, reputation, stats, Tailoring, warrior, World of Warcraft, WoW Leave a comment »(Writing this on Wednesday evening.)
This past week-plus has been spent not doing quite as much as I normally do over the course of a day or week in WoW, following my previously detailed realization that I am suffering burnout due to over-exposure to the Valor grind(s).
While I continue to cap my hunter, I’ve been purposely slacking on every other toon. I spent a good deal less time doing just about everything that I normally do last week, except for raiding, than I have in a long time, and that was good.
Raiding
We skipped last week’s Friday night alt raid due to some absences, which was totally fine by me. The main group finally stepped back into Terrace and cleared that for the first time, which was nice. We downed Garalon. We’re planning on finishing up HoF this Friday if we can get enough people (Easter this weekend means, for good reason, that our weekend raid is cancelled). We can clear Jin’rokh every week, basically, so that’s good, because many of us need the gear he drops. But Horridon will wait until April, which is fine.
Isle of Thunder and The Thunder Forge
This raid lockout – while still “young” – has been kind of fun, since Stage 4 of the assault on the Isle of the Thunder Throne is now open. While doing my dailies on my hunter on Tues., I finally got to see The Thunder Forge, get my quest to learn how to make Lightning Steel Ingots, and start working on building up a store of such ingots to put toward creating some cool “reborn” weapons.
For some reason, I got all excited about this – perhaps it’s because I’ve been learning recipes for gear from making Magnificence of Leather and Imperial Silk since 5.2 Day One, so it’s nice that my two Blacksmiths (hunter and warrior) can finally start doing the same. Not sure why Blizzard made Blacksmithing this way, since the weapons that can be made after 29 days look like they will cap out at 489, which is hardly current raid levels. I imagine that this might be their reasoning – which I think is flawed, since there’s really no grounds for the penalty – but even if it’s not, I don’t have the interest or energy to hunt for an official answer. At any rate, I’m happy to be able to do those “transmutes” now, since I have a couple of toons that can use weapons of that level – appreciating that, at this point, my interest in gearing up alts via Raid Finder is at something of an absolute all-time low.
Shado-pan Assault rep and 5.2 Valor gear
Last week’s announcement that Patch 5.3 will see the Item Upgrade NPCs returning from their respective vacations was one that, at the time, merely sparked my interest. The reduced costs (500 VP for an 8-ilvl increase per item) mean that upgrades will be more flexible and user-friendly – more like putting a gem in a piece of gear (although not exactly like it) and less like buying an entire new item. Easier to commit to.
That kind of thing, I find interesting, whether it’s the old model or the new one.
However, things were thrown into a different light this evening as I neared the “Honored” threshold (of my ongoing quest to gain rep with the Shado-pan Assault) on Mushan.
When the Valor gear was initially revealed, I glanced at it. Wow, nice trinket. Lot of Hit, but nice proc. Other pieces… most of them upgrades. Nice. No helm or boots… but those can be crafted at a later date. That’s good. Etc.
I bought the neck immediately, and shortly thereafter I purchased the trinket, then the ring and the bracers. Everything was good there – my Hit Rating was a little high for a short while, but it’s under control at the moment.
In the meantime, however, I’ve had some decent luck with a couple of other slots. I got the Thunderforged legs (528) on our very first Jin’rokh kill. Our third kill resulted in the shoulders (522) on a bonus roll. I’ve gotten several pieces in Raid Finder, but the only piece I’m able to use right now is the cloak (502) from Ji-Kun. Nevertheless, I’ve got some decent gear going for me right now, which is helping me stay competitive and contributing to our team.
However, the combination of gear that I’ve acquired from Valor and drops means that I’ve suddenly run into a weird wall. Because of the fact that I still have the T14 2p bonus going on (helm and gloves), and the legs I got are so good, and there’s so much hit (or blue sockets) on the gear that is available to me, I’ve reached a point where my need for Valor Points is rapidly diminishing. Having just reached SPA-honored, I’m seeing a small upgrade with the cloak, which I’ll buy on Thursday. However, the legs are a direct downgrade from my 528s, while the gloves would break my set bonus. So for the next month or so, I really do not need much in the way of VP.
This looks to continue to be the case once I hit revered. At that point, the belt is totally sweet – and will be a must-buy – but the chest is loaded with Hit, Expertise, and two blue sockets with a +120 Agility socket bonus. For real, Blizzard? Beg pardon, but… are you shitting me?? So that’s a big kick in the sack – although it’s still a minor upgrade as things stand with my gear right now, believe it or not, because of the Agility bump. I’ll have to reevaluate when I get there, but I can see myself going “no thanks” when the time comes. And at exalted, the shoulders (with a 700g cost?) are a slight downgrade from Jin’rokh’s, so I’ll probably pass on those too.
All of that to say that my need for VP is likely to diminish rapidly, and is likely to stay that way until 5.3 arrives and upgrades return. I’ll be hitting those babies hard when the opportunity to use them finally arrives.
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A side-note about all of this – and, incidentally, the title-theme of this post – is that this could possibly go a long way toward momentarily easing my demand for VP on my hunter. With no demand for Valor – and I’m talking almost no demand for several weeks – I could possibly just forego questing on that toon for a while. This would open up more time to play other toons for fun, or to simply not play them much at all. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing at this point. I’ve got a strong desire to dig into that copy of Kingdoms of Amalur that’s been staring at me for a while from the shelf.
All I have to do is make sure that I have enough VP to buy the cloak, buy the belt, and be capped for upgrading purposes when 5.3 arrives, and I will be all set. Depending on when that happens, I could conceivably have that taken care of just from raiding, which would be nice. That’s my favorite end-game thing to do on my hunter anyway.
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Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Comments are welcome!
