Fighting Malgyos as a hunter

In a nice start to the new year the Badgers have downed Malygos in normal mode for the first time. Since it was a spur of the moment raid with the guildies online at the time rather than an 'A team' planned attempt the victory is even sweeter.

I mentioned in my last post that I believe (like others) that Malygos is the most epic fight to date in WoW and I definitely stand by that. The mechanics of the fight certainly require everyone to be executing their role with a high degree of skill. Whatt I'm going to talk about here is the fight from a hunter perspective, there are many good guides out there to the overall fight strategy so I see little point in repeating them.

I found the fight quite difficult as a hunter during phase one, however perhaps this came down to the particular way we executed the fight and the composition of our raid group. I'm definitely interested in hearing tips, tricks and suggestions!

Power spark buff and positioning
The thing about phase one of course is that you want to make sure that you arrange for as many people in the raid as possible to benefit from stacked power spark buffs. The way we handled this was to have the main tank reposition Malygos as much as possible each time a spark spawned so that it was coming from his rear. The ranged and melee DPS would then down the spark when it was in range but before Malygos was able to soak it up.

As the only hunter in the group I found it very difficult to be on the spark buff area and still at range of Malygos. The spark buff area is quite large - about 10 yards, but so is Malygos' hit box. I would start the fight at the top of the damage meters and then quickly fall down the list during phase one. Now as we all know hunters are very good at MQoSDPS and Malygos is a DPS race so it's important for all DPSers to gain benefit from the buff. I mentioned the issue I was having and our MT bless him was able to position Malygos such that the melee and I were all able to enjoy the buff. I'm pretty sure that this adjustment helped us win. Not because I'm all that awesome - but because of the nature of the fight.

As a hunter you're in a great position to help position the sparks - and as tempting as it may be to do this to your benefit it's better of course for the maximum benefit to be achieved for the raid. I use a target macro - /tar pow and concussive shot to slow the spark once it's on the platform since they move quite quickly at this stage. This gives the melee time to pick it up and down it in their position - we also had a death knight using Grip to pull them in and using Concussive gave him some precious extra seconds.

Pet behaviour
One thing I also noticed during phase one is that pet behaviour is a little buggy. Several times I noticed after coming down out of the blender that George my devilsaur was over near the boss but not actually attacking. As a BM hunter this is not good. I had to call him back to me and then send him back in again to attack. Quite annoying as this required precious seconds away from pew-pewing.

Phases two and three
There's nothing much specific to hunters for these phases - in phase 2 stay on the ground, the melee are the ones that need the disks and in phase 3 everyone is in the same boat - stack stack boom!

Altogether a fun and challenging fight. I'm really looking forward to doing it on heroic!

In your face Archimonde!!

The DB raid has been pretty lucky in terms of our progression, we moved through T5 and into T6 at a pretty rapid pace. At the end of January this year we were sitting at 70th server on wowjustu and by mid July had moved up to 25th. At the time of writing we are currently sitting in 22nd. I think this is mostly as a result of a core group of skilled and dedicated raiders who have consistently raided together since we started back in Karazhan way back when. Over time this group has also grown as we have picked up recruits to the raid.

However Archimonde has been a bit of a stumbling block for us. It's a complicated fight that more than ever requires every person in the raid to be experienced with the fight and be totally on the ball. One mistake by one person can cause a snowball effect that results in fail.

The DB raid started in Mount Hyjal in June and quite quickly got the first 4 bosses on farm, however due to various factors including some instability of our roster it is only now, 2 months later and after numerous attempts that we have successfully downed Archimonde for the first time. In true DB style however it was a one shot! We had a good feeling about this particular group and were confident that we'd get him after a few attempts but I think we were all suprised and elated to succeed on the first attempt. Unfortunately this particular huntard was out of the fight early after dying to Doom Fire for the first time ever. How embarrasing. I was lucky enough to get a battle rez later in the fight (which is unusual since we don't ever BR due to the risk of the person getting quickly killed due to low health and causing another Soul Charge) to contribute some pewpew and help down him. The delighted screaming and yelling over vent and various chat channels was awesome. It's these kind of moments that totally make the game for me.

A huntery look at Mt. Hyjal: Anetheron

Welcome to the second in a series of posts on Mt Hyjal from a hunters perspective. When we first started Mount Hyjal I looked around for a hunter guide to the instance and didn't come across anything so hopefully other hunters will be able to get something out of these posts, or even better from my selfish perspective - teach me some new stuff to help improve my performance *grin*. I've previously written about the Rage Winterchill fight.

As per my previous post WoW Wiki provides info on the instance overall and the specifics of the Anetheron fight.

As usual I will be talking from the perspective of how we in DB handle the fight, I hear tell we do things somewhat differently from many other T6 raids. The important thing to remember is: your mileage may vary, there is no 'teh one and only' strategy. Also, rather than covering general tactics I will look at tips and strategies specific to hunters.

Anetheron is the second boss of the instance and the last boss which you will fight in the Alliance camp. The trash waves preceding the arrival of Anetheron introduce a new mob type which is of great interest to us as hunters: Banshees!

Trash waves
As per the first bosses' trash wave hunters should be dropping frost traps in sequence to slow the incoming mobs. All of the other tips etc I mentioned for Rage Winterchills trash waves apply again. However, of specific interest to hunters for this fight are waves 4,5,7 and 8 which feature Banshees. Waves 4 and 5 have 4 Banshees and waves 7 and 8 have 2 Banshees. Hunters can provide an important service to the raid by kiting the Banshees back to the NPCs to take care of them leaving the rest of the raid free to handle the other mobs.

Preparation
Make sure you have swapped your PVP trinket back out for your normal trinket whilst the raid is preparing for the Anetheron waves.

I have a general macro named 'target' which I update for various fights and prior to the commencement of the Anetheron waves I like to set it up for the Banshees so that I can quickly start the process of grabbing aggro and kiting them. My macro is very simple: '/target ban' and bound to a key. I use a combination of Arcane and Distracting shot to grab aggro. You could MD yourself I suppose but I prefer to use my MD on my tank target to introduce a nasty Abom to them for instance at the beginning of the wave.

In my post on Rage Winterchill commenters suggested it was a good idea to bring NPCs into the fight early. This is fine and good and if you need to introduce the NPCs from the very first wave of the instance you should do it. We find in our raid that we handle the waves quickly enough without the NPCs involved leaving us time to drink and rez (if need be) between waves and will save the NPCs for the Anetheron fight.

Anetheron
Of note for hunters in the Anetheron fight is the fact that Towering Infernals will spawn on top of players at timed periods. Whilst the player targeted should run toward the OT who will tank the infernals it is the job of the hunters to MD each infernal onto the OT.

Therefore it's important to set up an MD rotation as overwriting another hunters MD can cause big problems. I set up an alphabetical MD rotation with our hunters as the easiest to remember and not dependent on group make ups being changed. We don't use an MD on the boss as he arrives as the MT is usually able to pick him up straight away. Still it's a good idea to keep on your toes in case one is needed.

In the DB raid we have a couple of rogues who will use Distract on the bosses as they arrive to give the raid more time to prepare for the fight (drink, rez, buff, etc). As soon as possible after the last trash wave I change my target macro to '/target tow' so that I can very quickly pick up my infernal. These guys can smoosh squishier members of the raid very quickly and you want to get into range of the infernal asap. It's important to communicate about the MDs. I generally announce who has the next MD over vent for each infernal, also important is to quickly coordinate who will have the next MD if the next hunter in the rotation has gone down. This is one fight where having several hunters is a good thing. It's definitely doable with only two if neither one dies, and I know of raids that have no hunters at all! Of course I think you need at least two hunters but I'm a little biased ;)

Once the OT has picked up the infernal ranged DPS should burn it down before the next one arrives whilst melee DPS concentrate on the boss. In our raid we position Anetheron on the right hand side (if you are facing the entrance the mobs come through) with the OT standing near Jaina. This allows the healers on the OT to benefit from Jaina's awesome spirit buff, keeps the infernals far enough away from Anetheron and gets the other NPCs involved in the fight.

It's important to keep the raid spread out as much as possible so that the number of people affected by Carrion swarm is kept to a minimum - this is most important for the healers of course.

During the fight we also have one hunter (me usually) keep up Scorpid Sting on Anetheron which helps out the healers who are needing to split their time between healing the MT, OT and also the raid as well as dealing with downtime from Sleep and Carrion Swarm. To do this I need to position myself where I can swing between pewpewing the infernal and throwing up another sting on Anetheron without having to move much.

Sending your pet onto the infernals does no good due to their fire damage so I generally send Snaggle to gnaw on Anetheron's knee caps and try and keep a mend pet on him. The most important thing in this fight for hunters is getting the infernals to the OT stat and keeping up MQoSDPS. As soon as Anetheron is down to around 15% or so we switch all DPS over to him and burn him down whilst the OT handles the remaining infernal and then finish the infernal off afterwards.

Once Anetheron is down it's time to hand out the sweet loots, grab your badges and mount up and ride to the Horde camp. Make sure everyone is out of the base before talking to Jaina and activating the destruction of the base. If you happen to be a miner you can mine nodes containing epic and rare gems along the way. We hand any gems mined over to our loot master who hands them out via raid rolls at the end of the raid.

So now you're two bosses in and ready to take on helping Thrall and friends save the Horde base, guides to the two bosses you'll face here coming soon!


Image courtesy The Warlocks Den

A huntery look at My Hyjal: Rage Winterchill

Welcome to the first in a series of posts on Mt Hyjal from a hunters perspective. When we first started Mount Hyjal I looked around for a hunter guide to the instance and didn't come across anything so hopefully other hunters will be able to get something out of these posts, or even better from my selfish perspective - teach me some new stuff to help improve my performance *grin*.

So, on with the show. I'm not going to give you the details of the instance here, just tips and strategies for hunters. There are plenty of resources out there to give you information about the instance overall and the specifics of the Rage Winterchill fight. Go read them now if you like, I'll wait.

Back? Ok good.

Now I'll be talking from the point of view of how we in DB handle the fights, this will of course change from raid to raid, and what works for one raid may not work for another.

Preparation
You'll want to come to Mt Hyjal fully prepared with all your consumables etc. For the first two fights the only special gear you will need is your PVP trinket. Preferably the 2 min cool down one. The trinket only costs 8k honour so it's not hard to get hold of with a little effort.

Trash waves
There are eight trash waves before each boss (except for Archimonde) and if you wipe on any of those waves you have to begin the encounter for that boss again right from the very first wave.

The instance starts at the Alliance encampment where you will fight the first two bosses, Rage Winterchill and Anetheron. We fight the trash waves just at the gates where they enter. If we need to engage NPCs we kite the mobs back to them.

• Drop a frost trap just ahead of the entrance before the path heads downhill and get any other hunters in the raid to drop their own frost traps in sequence behind the first one back towards the raid so that they get triggered in a chain. This will slow the mobs nicely and if you have a pally tank like us will give them a lovely chance to consecrate and get most of the mobs to stick to them like glue.


• As a hunter threat is always an issue - switch between the mobs your tanks are targeting to get the most out of your DPS. It's very helpful here if you have a mod that can show tanks and their targets such as CTRaid, OrA or Xperl Unit Frames (if someone with the either of the first two mods has assigned the tanks this gets picked up by Xperl). There are no doubt other mods that do this job too.


• Multishot is awesome for the trash mobs. Remember to feign preemptively if you can and switch targets often though


• When your tanks have built up some nice threat dropping an explosive trap in the melee adds some extra fiery death to the mix.


• Each hunter in the raid should be assigned an MD tank. Use your MD on every pull. Especially good with Abominations which are nasty, particularly to squishies.

Rage Winterchill
Mr Lich is the most straight out fight in the instance. Stay out of Death and Decay - and remember to keep your poor pet out of it too! If you get Icebolted use your PVP trinket immediately to escape it.

Work out with the hunters in the raid who has Imp Hunters Mark - they should be responsible for keeping it up on the boss. There's no real need to use any stings on this guy.

Apart from these things it's simply a matter of unleashing the DPS, burning the guy down and collecting the phat loots.

So there you have it, the first boss in Mount Hyjal is toast. From here on in it gets more interesting and therefore more fun!

Bite me Archi!

Today I think I experienced the most exciting, adrenalising and ultimately frustrating moment in my WoW playing career to date. The DB raid is currently running Mt Hyjal each week, the plan being to get Archimonde sorted before we go back to Black Temple. This week we had a great run one shotting each of the first four bosses and leaving ourselves plenty of time for attempts on Archi. Things didn't go so well at first with people dying to stupid things like mistiming of their tears or clicking their PVP trinket instead of their tears or dying in the fire or running it through the melee. All very easily avoidable stuff. However on our 16th attempt everything seemed to be falling into place. As we saw his health points dropping the sense of possibility was palpable. Our previous best was 49% and now we had him down to 30.. to 20... to 10! OMG... keep going guys! Surely the cut scene action will start any second! More people die, more soul bursts.. but, but, he's at 10%!!

Yep. 10% and then everyone died. We were SO close. Next week Archi, NEXT WEEK!

Bear Mount!

The weekend is raid time for the Drunken Badgers. Our T6 raid is on Saturday morning (I'm going by Aussie time here) and goes for 5 hours and then on Sunday we make a visit to ZA to do a 'mount run'. We like to call it 'Extreeeeeeeeem ZA' in the sign ups and it generally goes anywhere between 1.5 to 2 hours.

We've been doing the mount run for probably about 6 weeks now and each week there have been a couple of silly avoidable mistakes that have seen us miss out on the 4th timer by mere minutes, sometimes even seconds. This week we were all super focused and as we zoomed through the first bosses I think we could all feel that this could be the week. Well it was! It all came together, everyone brought their A game and wooohoooo hello bear mount. The lucky recipient was our pally tank Cliffton. Fittingly as he was the person who started the mount run in the first place. Grats Cliff! Now we just need to replicate that feat enough times that everyone else on the run can get the mount.

In other news the Badgers went to Black Temple for the second time this weekend. One shotted Naj, had a little trouble with Supremus but got him on the third attempt, one shotted Akama and then it was time to go say hi to Mr Gorefiend for the first time. I'd done my reading and I'd tried the flash game where you practice killing constructs but was unsuccessful. The flash game set up is totally different from my normal playstyle - you have to click to target and move with your mousekeys whereas in game I tab target and move with the mouse. So I was feeling very nervous. Guess who was the first to have to take on constructs on our first attempt? Yup. Failed miserably. Em took them on on a subsequent attempt and succeeded handily so I talked to him about what he did and will be changing things up a little the next time I have to perform that duty. Part of me hopes that will not be for a long time but on the other hand I need to learn how to beat them so that I'm not a liability to the raid. At least I wasn't the only person who failed heh. That said we had several attempts on Teron with our best being 3% so beating him is totally within our grasp if we can can do so well on the first time going up against him. As it is the plan is to go back to MtH until we down Archi. Hopefully this will be next week! Heh. So all in all a good weekend of raiding for the Badgers and I picked up the Ring of Deceitful Intent courtesy of Akama.

I'm so proud of our crew, according to WoWjutsu we're 21st for progression on Feathermoon and 3631 US. Pretty awesome for a group that only raids once a week in my opinion!

The pictures tell the story

Woooooohooooooo! This weekend the DB raid successfully downed Vashj for the first time. Not only that but downed her with all 25 people still standing, although two Battle Rezs were used during the fight. We had made our way straight to Vashj after downing Hydross and Lurker as has been our pattern over the last couple of SSC raids. We usually spend 1.5-2 hours on attempts and then move on to clear the rest of the bosses. On this particular occasion though we could all feel it, we knew we were close and everyone agreed to keep trying. We got her on the tenth official try (accidental moonkin suicides don't count). To me, downing a boss for the first time after the weeks of strategising and many attempts is the absolute pinnacle of the game. The screams and cheers of excitement over vent when she went down were awesome.

And in true Badger style after handing out loots and patting ourselves on the back we decided we had time to take on Leo, and proceeded to wipe on the first trash pull. Go Badgers!

And here is a screen shot taken before the Hydross pull at the same raid. Mmm-hmm I love me some raid buffs! Look at all that lovely DPS and RAP and crit chance. Yummy!

Pictures not resized so you can click on them and see the large version.

So no loots for Jez this run but who cares we downed Vashj!!

The DB raid keeps on trucking

The Drunken Badgers raid has been on a heady trip in the last month. We're progressing rapidly through both Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep with our raid today seeing us down Alar and achieve 3/4 in TK. We also had time for several attempts on Kael and got in some good practice learning the fight. I don't think any of use are kidding ourselves that we will down Kael without a lot of messy splatty death.

It really is such an interesting fight with so many components. I commented to Emelin during the raid that it feels like the kind of fight that is very much about knowing when not to do something as well as when to do something. As much as I enjoy a 'balls to the wall' DPS kind of fight where you just stand there and unleash I really really enjoy the kind of fights which require.... well I guess the word is finesse. Today we were successful in completing the first phase and downing the four advisors and then moving on to the weapons. We were able to get as far as having only two weapons still up when the advisors respawned but everytime we got this far we then proceeded to get smoooshed all over the place. Obviously we need to work on the transition at this point.

The main jobs for me in this fight so far are to misdirect the high lady caster biatch onto Emelin our FR tanking lock and tank the Netherstrand Longbow facing it away from the raid. It was so frantic today that I didn't really get to stop and enjoy the fact that I got to first kill, and then loot and use, an awesome legendary weapon. As a matter of fact the hunters also pick up the dagger and sword too. Three legendary weapons at once? OP!

It was kind of a weird feeling see 'big boy' Kael after handing him his butt in heroic Magisters Terrace, especially since some of the mechanics of the fight are similar, the honors definitely went to him today though.

I also got a new shiny purple today which is always nice in the form of the Star-Strider Boots. Now to decide how to gem them, the enchant will be +12 agility naturally.

I got to thinking during the raid today that it's so awesome to be progressing steadily each week. So far since our foray into T5 content we have downed at least one new boss each week if not two. And this has generally been the case for all the raiding I've done with the Drunken Badgers starting with Karazhan. We've had our hiccups and stalls for sure, but they never lasted long. I really feel lucky to not be part of a raid spending weeks and weeks bashing their heads against the same boss. That's not to say that this isn't in our future though! And even if it is, I'm a believer that it's all part of the raiding game.

Still it is nicer to progress.

./grin

Tidewalker is Disgusting!

The Drunken Badger's raid made our second ever foray into Serpentshrine Cavern this weekend with pleasing results. We swiftly gave Hydross and Lurker what for in glorious one-shots and made our way over to Leo to give him a pummelling.

Emelin has worked hard in the last 2 weeks to gear himself with enough fire resist to take on Leo in demon form and thanks to the help of the guild he got there. Leo is a tricky fight in terms of both threat management and people being quick enough to kill their inner demons. I'm happy to report that after a few failures we downed him on the 5th shot.

So it was time for Tidewalker. Any giant that shoots bubbles out of his butt AND smells them obviously needs to be taught a lesson. And teach him a lesson we did on our third attempt.

No hunter loot for yours truly but a great deal of satisfaction to see the raid progressing so nicely, woohoo 4/6 in SSC baybeeeee!!

Next week it's back to Tempest Keep and I look forward to us downing Alar after getting her as far as phase 2 on our last attempt.

Which boss fight makes you feel the most useful?

I got thinking the other day about which boss fight makes me feel the most useful as a hunter. Useful in the sense that my performance during the fight has a really direct impact on the outcome. Perhaps this is because as a ranged DPS class it's generally my job to deliver MQoSDDPS and avoid any effects (cave in, shatter, spout etc) and that doesn't necessarily make me feel particularly crucial. Every boss fight is a team effort though that's for sure and as you progress the requirements for every single member of the raid to be on top of their game certainly increase.

So the boss that makes me feel the most useful? I'd definitely have to say Nightbane. Perhaps there are different strategies out there but the one my raid(s) has always used is where the hunter misdirects to the tank at the start of the fight and then again at the beginning of each phase. This means that I need to make sure I'm in position and ready to MD on time and have avoided getting killed by the mid phase skeleton guys while still contributing to taking them down. Nightbane is also a fight where I find that I have to really carefully watch my threat as it builds very quickly and generally if at any point the tank loses aggro on the big nasty dragon what inevitably follows is a wipe. Once we've successfully downed Nightbane I always have a real feeling of satisfaction from a job done well - more so than any other boss fight I can think of. Some of them like Netherspite or Gruul for instance I just feel happy to have stayed alive and been able to do lots of damage dealing.

The awesome screenshot above was taken by Emelin and shows our main tank Mogri bravely facing off against Nightbane with a few unfortunate corpses scattered about. I'm pleased to say I wasn't one of them! We think the golden beams shooting at Mogri are most likely Prayer of Mending doing its thing. Yay healers! /cheer.

So which boss fight makes you feel the most useful?

Our first foray into SSC and how the guild got there

Over the past month or so the Drunken Badgers have been preparing to start raiding T5 content. This has meant a few changes in our generally casual style of play. I've written before about the fairly lassez faire approach to raiding we've had in the past. Attempting and failing on Magtheridon was ultimately the writing on the wall for us. It was not so much a gear check as it was a teamwork/experience check and as a result we instituted some changes that I guess make us more your 'serious raiders'. The changes included:

Instituting a loot system
After much discussion in the forums we chose to go with Suicide Kings as from our research it appeared to meet our needs the best, be simple enough to use and be mod supported. Our raid is composed of both guild members, out of guild regulars and the odd subs. We needed a system that would reward regulars without disadvantaging subs too much but which also wouldn't result in the chasm between the two which is a problem of the DKP style systems. We trialled Suicide Kings in the last few Gruul runs and have found it works well.

Firmer leadership structure and tougher raiding requirements
Getting more serious means more work. It also means being tougher on performance and the gear required to join the raid. Therefore a raid performance monitor role was assigned to observe the work of the raid and identify weak points. Any issues identified are then referred back to a more senior member of the raid who is the same class as the person who needs some guidance. The requirements for raiding were also tightened up - gear, enchants and consumables all became more important considerations.

Stepping up recruitment
We also decided to get more serious about recruiting regulars and therefore a recruitment officer was assigned and posts were made in appropriate places about joining the raid.

Formalising raid sign ups
To date we had been using the forums and in game chat to line up people to come to the raid. Subs generally had to be online 15 minutes before go time in case a spot became available. This was tough on the subs and also often delayed raid start times if we had trouble finding the final few people required if we were down on numbers. We have now started using the mod Guild Event Manager and require players to subscribe to a particular raid event no later than the Tuesday prior. This makes it much easier to organise subs if needed.

It's funny really, I think some people thought that introducing all these changes would put people off of raiding with us. I would argue the opposite. It's been my experience both in other games and in real life teamwork/management situations that putting some structure and rules in place means that people feel more comfortable - they know you are serious about what you are doing and they feel more comfortable knowing the structures in place. Humans are funny like that. Since we've made the changes we have a firmer group of regulars with more people applying to join the raid all the time.

And this weekend we stepped into Serpentshrine Cavern as a raid for the first time. We were all prepared with flasks and elixirs and pots and food and bandages and ready for massive amounts of repeated painful death.
First cab off rank was Hydross. Most people entering SSC for the first time apparently skip Hydross and go straight for Lurker. That's not the badger way. He was there so let's give him a shot. So we did. And downed him on the second try. Yup. The. Second. Try. We were justifiably proud of ourselves. First time visit and we nailed the sonofagoat. This is in no small part to the work the tanks and off tanks did in getting their frost and nature resist gear together.

Full of high spirits we boogied on over to Lurker. Finally yes finally my 372 fishing skill came in handy hehe. It turned out that Lurker was the more difficult of the fights for us as everyone got used to jumping in and out of the water for spout. We got him in the end but it was on the 7th attempt. Still and all 2/6 SSC on our first visit? Stoked!

And to add to the awesomeness of that experience yours truly picked up a nice new chest piece. WOOT!!!

Next week we are hitting up Tempest Keep as we plan to alternate between SSC and TK week to week. Will be interesting to see if we fare as well in TK as we did in SSC and whether we can keep up the roll in SSC. Leo we're coming for you!