Apples to apples, dust to dust..

I think everyone should have their favorite spot in World of Warcraft. Whether it is a location with gorgeous scenery, a place of historical importance or just a charming inn – there just has to be a place that you call your own. For me, it is the floating island in Nagrand, just above the Elemental Plateau (coordinates 58, 26).
It’s got everything you need – tons of apples under a tree, a skeleton with an axe embedded in its skull… Could it be Outlands’ Isaac Newton who died from a fatal would (falling axes, anyone?) just before an apple enlightened him about the beauty of gravity. Or, perhaps he could never solve the mystery behind the floating islands and waterfalls, ending his own life.. Well, to each his own.

I remember flying to this very same island at the end of The Burning Crusade before logging off for the day. Every day. Just because. I thought that Nagrand was one of the areas that Blizzard just got right and it somehow captured the serenity withing the madness that BC was. No giant mushrooms, no Soviet squid-goats from space, no demon lords of the Burning Legion or gnomes, no nothing – just me and a skeleton that needed some company.
And apples!
So grab your Noggenfogger Elixir (you better not be Hated by the Goblins) a Dalaran Apple Bowl and say ‘Hi!’ to Mr. Newton for me, will ya?

What about you? Where is your favorite place in WoW?

A lone Orc? Against the might of the Alliance?

Ah, Deathbringer Saurfang. He was the first problematic encounter we really had in ICC 10 – a boss that forced us to switch raid members, test out various raid compositions, strategies and maneuvers until we all started hating the fight. This also happens to be the boss that forced me to try and raid as Survival for the improved Frost Traps and the immediate burst of triggered Lock and Load Explosive Shots. I hated it.
So, if you hate kiting and want to DPS instead of running around then continue reading and you’ll see how my guild manages to kill Saurfang before he can even cast his Mark of the Fallen Champion!

How to pour led in ‘em: Blunder’s Macros

Recently I’ve been mentoring a couple of fellow Marksmans who love to lock then load it without being puny contestants in a reality show (Survivalist). Here, I’m going to post my bindings and macros so that Hunters can easily copy them, give them a shot and see if they hit the spot.
As you’ll see, a lot of my macros are directly bound to my mouse. I use a simple wireless five-button mouse: left click, right click, middle scroll wheel button and then two buttons on the left side. You can find those anywhere. I find the usage of the middle scroll wheel to be very useful as it allows for immediate reaction since it is, literally, at the tip of your fingers. The more you use it, the faster you’ll feel the “flow” of your rotation priority list.
To easily bind my commands I use Bartender 4.

(Side Mouse button #1): Hunter’s Mark, Send pet, Kill Command
This is my opening macro and it’s THE macro that every hunter of every spec should have. It does three things for you –> Puts Hunter’s Mark on the target, sends your pet (which means that your pet will start biting your target pretty much as soon as you open fire) and it conveniently does Kill Command for you. Honestly, that’s 3 things with one button. You need this. The “/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()” is out there to remove any annoying error messages.
/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack
/cast Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

(Side Mouse button #2): The “Pop Everything” button
I use this right after I open up and I already have my Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot on cooldown. What it does is activate Call of the Whild (if you have a Ferocity Pet active), pops your Rapid Fire and then it activates Readiness, resetting all your cooldowns. That means that you can then shoot Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot again and after a while pop Rapid Fire again! Oh, that also resets your Silencing Shot. <3 The “/openfire” line is there for pure flavor. My dwarf yelling “OPEN FIRE!!!!” is a DPS boost by itself. You can also add “/use 13” and “/use 14” if you have any trinkets with use effects AND add “/use Potion of Speed” for those extra buffed auto shots.
/openfire
/cast Call of the Wild
/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Readiness


(Scroll Wheel Mouse Button): Applying Serpent Sting
This is a simple macro which in most fights you’ll be only using once, since Chimera Shot refreshes your Serpent Sting.
Actually…. now that I think about it, there’s really no macro! But the binding is important.

(Scroll Wheel Down): Chimera Shot
This is my favorite macro! It does Chimera Shot by moving the Scroll Wheel down so you can do it right after applying Serpent Sting. Since Silencing Shot triggers no Global Cooldown it is also a good idea to add it to all of your shot macros so that you can fire it as soon as possible, whenever possible. I don’t even have Silencing Shot on my castbar! The “/use 10″ line is only for Engineers with Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket tinkered on their gloves. If you are not an Engineer, omit this line. If you are an Engineer you get to experience the joy of having your Chimera Shot, Silencing Shot, Pyro Rocket and then auto shot hit your target at the same time. Can you say… burstylicious?
#showtooltip
/cast Chimera Shot
/cast Silencing Shot
/use 10
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

(Scroll Wheel Up): Kill Shot
Same deal as Chimera Shot, but this time tied to your Up scroll. That’s right, scrolling up and down fast enough will shoot kill shot and chimera shot as fast as humanly possible, guaranteeing you those extra kill shots (especially due to Glyph of Steady Shot)
#showtooltip
/cast Kill Shot
/cast Silencing Shot
/use 10
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

(Wherever you want them to be): Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot
The macros for them are the same as Chimera Shot, except you change the name of the shot to Aim or Arcane. I have Arcane and Aimed Shot bound to my 2 and 4 keys.

(3): Steady Shot
My Steady Shot macro is similar to my other shots, except I have added the Kill Command line to it. As a MM or SV hunter you don’t really need to time your Kill Commands so adding them to a shot that you use often is a DPS increase. You don’t care when you activate Kill Comman, you care how often you do it. ; )
#showtooltip
/cast Steady Shot
/cast Silencing Shot
/cast Kill Command
/use 10
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Plagueworks Trash!

Trash.
From the grey items that clutter your bagspace and the annoying trolls in Trade to the waves of monsters that are there just to fill the empty space….  The unavoidable part of WoW.
Alas, Blizzard is full of surprises!

Wrath of the Lich King trash has been evolving slowly throughout the patches.
Ulduar introduced few trash mobs in between bosses that were either numerous and easy (but annoying. Hodir and Freya trash, anyone?) to deal with or had an interesting mechanic that was always more of a “breath of fresh air” than an actual challenge. Most of it was just filed under the “Super-happy-AoE-fun-time” section and then forgotten until it respawned next week.
Trial of the Crusader had no trash at all! It was just boss after boss after boss after boss.. and some people were content, while some complained that it didn’t feel like an actual raid. For me, it was a nice, quick way to earn Triumph emblems without wasting bullets on waves of generic trash.
And then the gates of Icecrown Citadel opened! Right off the bat we were fighting hordes of skeletal monstrosities, necromancers, huge spiders and what not. There were traps that spawned huge skeletal abominations and rogues were happy, because they finally brought some utility to the raid. It was interesting the first couple of times but it always ended up being a hige AoE grindfest. <_<

Plagueworks is like Naxxramas Plague Quarter on crack. The wings itself opens with Frogger 3.0 = this time in the form of a series of steam/freezing vents that you have to avoid if you value your life. The good news, everyone, is that once you pass them you unlock the convenient teleporting device and you won’t have to worry about this challenge ever again (I lied. You’ll have to do it every week). The first thing that you see after crossing the steam is the Spire on which the Frozen Throne is located. The scene was breathtaking. There are Val’kyrs flying all over the place giving the place a very haunting, yet serene feel to it……
UNTIL ONE OF THEM DECIDES TO ATTACK YOU!!!
Seriously, it’s all of a sudden. The spirit flying lady is doing her business and then all of a sudden she is smiting people and creating spirit clones of your raid members that will attack you without any remorse. You kill her and then to the left there are two abominations. At first they seem like just an ordinary pair of abominations, but watch out because that’s no ordinary pair of abominations! They seem far enough to be tanked and spanked separately but then shit hits the fan and your raid gets swarmed by thousands of your favorite leper geists. There are tons of them and they appear out of nowhere. Oh, and also there’s a couple of Plague Scientists that wear awesome looking gasmasks and polymorph people into little oozes. It’s adorable to watch raid members jump around in that form. ;3
After you clear that madness there are some more Plague Scientists that just seem to die in seconds without doing anything interesting.
Then you face Precious and Stinky. Remember our favorite patchwerk puppy – Gluth? Well we get to meet his friends.
Precious is first. Say hello to your tanking getting stacks of mortal wounds faster than they can say “Ouch!!!”, a devastating Decimate that gets you down to.. well.. almost not HP. Oh, and there are zombies. For some reason we got like a hundred of them and they wouldn’t stop spawning so we had to put down the dog as soon as possible. She’s got like 3 million health. Good news, everyone, she doesn’t eat the zombies and does not regain health.
Stinky we killed second because he smells funny. No zombies here but Mortal Wounds are an issue, combined with the constant pulsing AoE that Stinky does. It hits for 2k, which is not a lot, but combine it with Decimate and you’ll see your raiders go down faster than one of my guildies’ girlfriend. ;D
The path to Rotface is covered it traps. Rogues get to play Minesweeper again and can disarm a series of traps that spawn geists (conveniently jumping above you).

Now, my description of the Plagueswork trash may seem very.. chaotic.. and hectic. And it is! The entire floor is tons of fun, with waves of zombies and geists hiding behind every corner. The trash is so well done that it just brings a big smile to my face. The last time I was that excited and laughed manically on vent was when I did Arena for the first time after bashing it for so long. It still requires a lot of coordination and even though AoE is still used to kill trash, it is actually far more rewarding after the dreaded (not by me) AoE nerf. I’d say, even if you are a casual – try to pug ICC 10 just to reach the Plagueworks. After all the seriousness of the first floor, the chilling music, clatter of bones, the creepy speech given by Lady Deathwhisper and Deathbringer Saurfang’s sad demise, the Plagueworks is there to lift your spirits as you trample over the forces of the Scourge!

Keep your feet on the ground!

Let’s start with a…. BANG!

Welcome to Marked for Death!

You are probably wondering where you are and why you are not wasting your precious time farming epics and leveling your forgotten alts, aren’t you? Well, let me be honest with ya – I am wondering the same thing. So… I’ll keep it short (and why you’ll find out in a minute) and start with the facts!

You can call me Blunderbooze and I am a dwarf hunter currently playing on the US-Shandris server… aaaaand ever since I can remember I’ve      been a Marksman – a living, breathing turret of doom that pours lead in everything that moves.. until it stops moving. Defias Looters, murlocs, gnolls, leper gnomes, bunnies, dragons, Eredar Lords of the Burning Legion, even things without any actual corporeal form – you name it and I’ve shot it. What? Don’t look at me like that! I’m a hunter, it’s what we do.

We run around with our pets and we don’t waste our time sneaking around or mumbling incantations – we shoot to kill and would even kill to shoot.

Even though being a hunter is the best thing ever and it is, without any doubt, the best class in World of Warcraft, I am not here to convince you to reroll or to nag at you for not lovin’ to shoot stuff in the face. The reason I’m writing this blog is because I would like people to see what I think about World of Warcraft as a whole,  to share my experiences and ideas… and just put my mind on “paper”. As of this post there is obviously nothing else worth reading, but I promise you that I’d be more than willing to sacrifice some time to write. There really isn’t anyone left to tell my story after the smoke clears out, you know? ;D Gotta do it myself..

Now, before you get all excited and subscribe to my blog (ya, right), let me tell you what Marked for Death is not going to be about. Although I enjoy theorycrafting and reading about people crunching numbers and coming up with ways to outdps the backstabbers, the cross-dressers and the decaying (even the DEAD are trying to outdps us!!! >.<) this blog is not going to be about theorycrafting. I suck at math, that’s why. I am not a top-notch raider that does 25 Heroic ToC for breakfast, so don’t expect to be reading about POV of a “1337″ hunter, but neither am I a carebear that wields a staff with spell power for those hard-hitting Arcane Shots. I’m neither casual nor hardcore and so far have a spot in a 10-man raiding guild that seems to be progressing really, really well. That’s about it.

With Cataclysm knocking on our doors and shaking our monitors, I can’t stop but wonder what the future of my favorite class is going to be. They are promising us a game with more options and choices that will bring back the fun of playing around with your talent specs. My expectations and hopes for the next expension are one of the things that I’m going to cover. There are so many more things that us Hunters can do, so many things that can be done with the trapping system, our pets and the way we work as a DPS class. I have a feeling that with all of our talents and “mana” changing, Blizzard will try to rewrite our class as a whole. Is that going to be good or bad? Who knows?

If you care enough to follow my blog, then hopefully you’ll like what I have to say. Until then, keep you feet on the ground!