Rune Edge... Melee or Hunter Weapon?

This is not my usual post, but I wanted to bring it up to both of my readers! Last night, we had a very nice two-hand sword drop in Ulduar... Rune Edge.


This was the first time it had dropped for us, and our melee classes were drooling over it. Given its stats, the hunters were drooling as well! I discussed our loot system in my last post, and when rolls were called one of our hunters won it. This caused immediate outrage among our melee, particularly the one who would have won if the roll had been restricted to melee only. I can quantify dps upgrades using the Hunter DPS spreadsheet from Elitist Jerks. Applying this to the hunter that won, it represented about +135 dps increase over his currently equipped Cryptfiend's Bite (worth about 300 dps given his current spec and our typical raid buffs) for an expected dps value of 435. We have a good solid hunter core group, and I keep a spreadsheet with gear upgrades for each of them, so I knew that this drop was one of the best in slots for a hunter.

Now, the reason I bring this up is that I would like some defensible input as to why hunters should have been prevented from winning this item over a melee class. I am not looking to prove myself right, rather I would like some well thought out responses regarding this issue. So please, tell me what you think!

Mimiron Disassembled by Red Devils!

At last the Red Devils have successfully downed a new boss in Ulduar in our first progression run of the week. Our new schedule of Tuesday to Thursday has worked well for us, but Sunday continues to be a struggle to get enough players online. Or… maybe it was just a Father’s Day issue.


Anyway, having cleared up Thorim, Hodir and Freya on Wednesday, we were ready to dedicate the night to our newest challenge… Mimiron! I had been fortunate enough to have been part of a successful 10-man raid that cleared Mimiron and General Vezax, and even made a few futile attempts on Yogg-Saron on Monday. I knew what was awaiting us and was fairly certain we would spend the night wiping out on Mimiron. I was almost right, too. The Red Devils are quickly earning a reputation for being unable to down a new boss until threatened with a “This is our LAST attempt” warning from the Raid Leader. Last night was no exception and we successfully downed the V0-L7R-0N Combat System (the last phase of the Mimiron battle - and who makes up these names, anyway?) on our ninth and last attempt of the night!


Mimiron is an interesting fight and just getting to his room presented a challenge for those of us that are… how shall I say this? Less situationally aware? Reminiscent of the “frogger” slimes after Patchwerk in Naxx, patrols of bomb-bots skitter the perimeter around Mimiron’s chamber. They aren’t hard to avoid, really, but these things explode on contact and one-shot most players. Fortunately by the fourth or fifth attempt, nearly all of us learned to maneuver through the gauntlet successfully.

I was actually impressed with how quickly the raid was able to learn the various phases of the fight and we quickly made progress to the fourth and final phase. Once we made it to that point, it took only a few more attempts before we were successful. In fact, we very nearly won the eighth attempt, but had lost too many of our dps to finish him off. On our last attempt we still lost quite a few players to laser barrage and proximity mines, and our main feral tank (Lesi) twice to shock blasts. We recovered nicely and in just over twelve minutes we cranked out more than 35 million damage to defeat Mimiron!

DO NOT PUSH THE BIG RED BUTTON!

Wow Web Stats doesn’t parse the Mimiron fight properly, but World of Logs does. Actually, WWS has fallen behind in updating their parser for Ulduar and I have begun to rely on WOL more. I am more familiar with WWS and prefer the numeric breakdowns it provides for detailed analysis of individual performance. With a little more experience, I am sure I will learn to use WOL just as well.

This post would not be complete without a discussion of the Red Devils loot system and some of our members’ recent complaints in that regard. With the release of Wrath, the Red Devils developed and implemented a new and unique loot system using in-game rolls, combined with a modifier based on your rank in the guild.

Ranks in the guild are based on attendance in raids, with four possible ranks: Friend (<25%), Member (25 to <50%), Raider (50 to <85%) and Elite Raider (85%+). Promotions and demotions are issued every two weeks based on attendance over the past 60 days and players must maintain their attendance levels to keep their rank. This encourages our members to raid and provides them with higher rank (prestige) in the guild for continued participation.

Attendance is recorded based on time, with records kept every 30 minutes during a normal raid and 15 minutes during a “progression” raid. Players that show up on-time and ready get attendance credit, even if the raid is subsequently called off due to insufficient numbers. This system provides credit to the raid even on “wipe nights” when no bosses are downed, encouraging members to participate even on those difficult progression nights.

Ultimately, the only tangible reward for raiding comes in the form of LOOT. As I mentioned earlier, we use the in-game roll system (1-100) combined with a “roll modifier” based on rank. The Friend rank has a modifier of 0, Members have +20 added to their roll, Raiders +30 and Elite Raiders +40. This provides a strong bias for the higher rank members to win their rolls, while still providing a chance for everyone to win loot. The idea was to make the guild more attractive in our recruitment efforts, yet continue to reward our more active raiders with more loot. Recruiting and retaining talented players is crucial to a raiding guild’s success. We need to get them in the door and keep them in order to maintain our active membership at a sufficient level to form a 25-man raid.

But, guess what happens when a higher rank member loses their roll, in spite of the modifier? Whispers galore to one of the officers from the losing party, usually pertaining to how much more they deserved the loot than the winner. Sometimes even veiled threats of a /gquit are made, and occasionally they don’t even bother to be that subtle. Lately, this has been occurring often enough to raise the concern among the officers as to how appropriate our loot system is and if it is serving the guild in the capacity in which it was envisioned.

Personally, I think that it is. I will readily admit that I was not a big fan of the system when first presented to the guild. I had concerns similar to what others are voicing now – that it would allow too much loot to go to players of less benefit to the guild. Now, to me, a member’s benefit to the guild is measured not only by their skill, but also by their attendance in raids. We need people on-line and ready to raid on a consistent basis. We just don’t have the sheer numbers (yet) to always put together a full group for each scheduled raid night. A highly skilled member that shows up once a week is not as valuable (to me) as a lesser skilled one that is there every raid night.

Our loot system rewards attendance and an Elite Raider is nearly five times more likely to win over a Friend. But, that doesn’t mean the Friend can’t win. They can… and do. And there’s the rub for the guild at the moment. Should Friends be allowed to roll on loot? I think they should, but maybe we need to modify our system a bit. Perhaps limitations on what can be rolled on should be implemented. Time will tell, and many of our officers are beginning to voice their concerns over “deserving” vs. “random”.

Thorim Finished by Red Devils!

With our recent attendance problems, the Red Devils have attempted to realign our raid nights to better fit the needs of the guild. This week, we tried dropping our Monday raid and replaced it with Wednesday giving us a revised schedule of Sunday, then Tuesday through Thursday. This week, at least, that seems to work and we conducted successful raids each night! As a result, we were able to attempt a little progression, having downed Ignis for our first kill last week. So last night, we found ourselves facing Thorim once again for the first time in three weeks.


Our only previous encounter with Thorim had occurred at the end of a fairly long raid night and was more of a “let’s see what this guy does” attempt rather than a serious effort. We made several attempts, but the arena group kept wiping before the sneak attack from the hall could be completed. Tonight was a fresh start with a better group composition. This time we kept the arena group better manned and assigned a smaller elite strike force to work their way through the hall and attack Thorim from behind. While this worked better for the arena group who had no problems standing up to the relentless onslaught of mobs emerging from the stadium seats, the strike force kept wiping before they could make their way to Thorim. It is essential for the strike force to complete their journey through the hall and force Thorim into the arena as quickly as possible. Otherwise, Thorim will enrage and wipe the entire raid.

Having been part of the strike force on our previous encounters, I knew we had the skills to complete the mission. This time however, I was placed in the arena – a totally different kind of encounter. Here the team is forced into the center of the arena in a fairly tight group to avoid electrocution from the perimeter sentry orbs. It’s a survival fight while awaiting the arrival of the strike force to rejoin us and start the battle with Thorim. For hunters, it’s an uncomfortable assignment and with nearly all targets too close for ranged combat, we are left with little more than traps and volley. Occasionally a Dark Rune Champion is tanked at sufficient distance to engage at ranged, but most of the fight is volley, volley, volley. If a hunter attempts to move away to get more range, he risks electrocution – not only for himself, but to the rest of the party as the charge jumps to multiple players!


After several attempts with the strike force constantly being overwhelmed, it became clear we were imbalanced. The raid leader, still cautious from our previous night with constant arena wipes, first tried swapping out some of the strike force players. Unfortunately, that group was just too small to be successful. Eventually, extra players were taken from the arena group and placed into the strike force to balance out the two groups. On our ninth attempt our strike force finally succeeded in pushing Thorim into the Arena and we had our first glimpse of combat with him. We quickly arranged ourselves into small groups surrounding Thorim to minimize the damage from his chain lightning hits. Still, we found ourselves too slow at moving away from the sentry orb that was charging and several of our small groups were wiped out by the ensuing lightning charge.

It took a few more tries before we were able to engage Thorim again, but our twelfth attempt was successful and the Red Devils handed out 28 million damage in just over eight and a half minutes to defeat Thorim and claim our rewards (phat loot)!


At this point, it was after 10:00 pm, and several of our raiders were about to turn into pumpkins. Rather than make a few half-assed attempts at Mimiron, we decided to call it for the night and head back to Dalaran. Sunday should give us our first shot at this new boss and given last night’s success, I imagine the Red Devils will be raring to go!


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Ignis Smoked by Red Devils!

Well, to say the least, the Red Devils have been having attendance problems lately. Our normal raid schedule is Sunday through Tuesday, then Thursday. For the last few weeks, it seems that we have had to cancel more raids than we have been able to conduct. This has become a serious source of frustration to some of our more dedicated raiding members and an abundance of "conspiracy" theories have emerged. Personally, I think the lack of attendance has been due to the end of the school year, changes in members schedules and conflicts with their other (less important) committments rather than anything more sinister. I mean, come on people... where are your priorities?? Anyway, we've gone through these phases before and survived. But diehard raiders want to raid and become cranky when they don't get their regular "fix". Believe me, I understand and as the Raid Officer I hate to call off any of our regularly scheduled raids! But when only 15 or 20 people show up, I really don't have a choice. Well, I guess we could try to pug... no, I really don't have a choice.

In my time with the Red Devils, the guild has never had a large group of raiding members. Recruitment has always been very selective, and the general issue seems to be not having active raiding members sit out during a raid. The concern is that someone not getting a raid slot would then leave the guild. It's a valid concern, but one that is certain to cause cancellations when a couple of the "regulars" aren't able to attend. For example, last night our guild leader and her "betrothed-to-be", both part of our core raid group, were unable to attend due to a schedule conflict... something silly like her graduation. Entirely trivial and unimportant, but she's the boss, so what are you gonna' do?

But, I digress. The point is, we knew ahead of time that both of them would not be in-game and morale was low with lots of grumblings in guild chat about having to cancel yet another raid. 7:00 pm rolled around and I issued the usual guild chat message to "PST for a raid invite". We quickly gathered up 15 members, then waited as a few more trickled in. By 7:15, we had a total of 23 and Skittltz agreed to lead us into battle. We decided it was time to take on Ignis the Furnace Master, who we had been avoiding since our first skirmish with him weeks ago.

I truly hate the Ignis trash mobs, especially those damn tornados that they spawn! I seem to have difficulty discerning exactly where their "impact" area is. Not only that, but it seems like whenever one does catch me, it then follows me and keeps tossing me up in the air repeatedly. Last night I got tossed three times before I landed, but at least I only took fall damage once! Finally we were gathered in front of Ignis and Skittltz went through the fight explanation (and quite well, I might add). We had our warrior, Cincara, conduct the first pull and things went pretty well, considering many of us hadn't seen this fight before. Wipe city in just under three minutes.

Our next attempt, we had Fountainhead use misdirection to pull. He cast MD and ran forward to pull. WTF... why do I have the MD buff?? Fortunately for me, Fountain realized his error and didn't shoot. Hunters, please... there are several addons that will inform the raid of who is misdirecting and their target. Pick one and USE it! Or, at the very least add some yells to your MD macro so the raid knows who cast MD and to whom they applied it. We usually run with four hunters and coordinating MDs is a lot easier that way!

Oh well, since Fountain's MD was on cooldown, I did the honors and made Ignis mad at Cincara. This battle lasted about the same and we wiped again. Our third try, however, we managed to add resto-shaman extraordinaire, Lackadaisic! Woot... now we had 24 people in our raid! This time, Fountain pulled off his MD flawlessly, Ignis charged towards Cincara and the fight was on! We were heating up Constructs, pulling them into the water and smashing them down. Ignis scurried about breathing flames and making all kinds of boastful threats. He was grabbing people and stuffing them in his nasty old crotch pot, then scorching the ground around the rest of us. Six minutes and thirty-nine seconds later, poor old Ignis was no longer the Furnace Master, but an expired heap on the floor. The Red Devils had successfully defeated him for our first kill ever!


We continued our journey to pay both Auriaya and Hodir our respects, and though we didn't one-shot either of them, we were able to defeat them both before 9:30! We even managed to fill up our raid with a 25th member, Richard the Warlock, to help us bring the pain and win those fights. Then we had a decision to make... continue to Freya/Thorim, or stop for the night? A number of us voiced concerns that we didn't have the time to actually finish either of those two before 10:00 and downing the three mini-bosses before Freya might harm our chances at getting a full raid together on Sunday. Skittltz put it to a vote with a ready check and we elected to stop for the night. I remain hopeful that we will be back on Sunday.

An Eye Catching Lure... Seriously!

This is not a WoW post, but... since this is my blog I can post whatever I want! Besides, this story will help you get to know me better and perhaps gain some insight as to why I am so twisted! So, sit back, grab a beer and let me tell you about a little thing that happened to me some 20 years ago...

I really love fishing. I always have. As a child, my father would take me out in his little tin boat and we would spend the day on the water. Really good times.

So, as I grew older, I continued fishing and even bought a nice little bass boat after graduating from college. It was the late 1980's and I would pick up my girlfriend after work on Fridays and head to the lake for the weekend. Like most young people, I lived for the weekend!

Living in the midwest, bass fishing was pretty much the only game in town and I pursued it with a passion. While it's not really a "contact" sport, it can sometimes result in injury. You know... the occasional hook puncture or fish spine injury. I've even witnessed people getting knocked out by flying insects while scooting across the lake at 60 mph, but that is another story. This one is gruesome enough!

My significant other (at the time) and I had gone to Stockton Lake in southwest Missouri for a weekend of camping and fishing. Nothing unusual about that, as we often chose Stockton for weekend trips. We spent Saturday fishing for both walleye and bass, but as the evening approached we focused on working topwater lures through flooded cedar trees in one of the creeks that fed the lake. I was throwing a black and white herring bone pattern Zara Spook, one of my favorite topwater plugs.


As the sun began to set, I removed my sunglasses since they were too dark to see through in the waning light. Fishing had been slow and we hadn't caught much the whole day. Working the plug past a cedar trunk, I was rewarded with a monstrous strike! This was a nice bass, about six pounds or so. I pulled the fish to the boat, putting as much pressure on the line as I felt I could. I didn't want this bass to make it down into all those branches beneath the surface! I nearly had the fish to the boat and had cleared the cedar tree when the plug suddenly came unfastened from the fish's mouth. The severe bend in the graphite rod, combined with the stretch in the monofilament line created a basic slingshot that hurled the lure directly into my face at approximately the speed of sound!

I had no time to react and felt the impact of the plug across my right eye. My vision blurred, then everything turned red. I was a little stunned, but shook my head hoping to clear the cobwebs. They didn't clear and I soon realized I had a Zara Spook attached to my face! I shook my head again while looking down, hoping it would fall free. It did not. I then tried gently pulling on the body of the plug, but my upper eyelid went with it. I glanced at my girlfriend and, based on her stunned and ashen look, realized I might have a problem. She looked as if she were about to pass out... and I was the one with the new "jewelry/piercing"! I was strangely calm and explained to her that she needed to keep it together as I was counting on her now. With a panic stricken look, she asked "What do I do?"

There was another boat fishing the same creek. I asked her to yell at them for help. She did, and it took a few moments for them to respond... "yeah, what do you need"?

"He has a hook in his eye!"

"Oh god... we'll be right there."

We were rescued by another kind couple. They approached our boat and I asked if they had any hook cutters. I really wanted to get this plug off my face. Sadly, though they said they often do have cutters, they did not have them with them now. They spent a moment examining the mess and quickly suggested that they pilot my boat back to the dock while I lay on the floor trying not to move.

Now, I have been on some very unpleasant boat rides... 32 hour trips home from offshore through 6 to 10 foot seas. In comparison, they weren't so bad as this one. Even though the water was relatively calm, and the distance short, riding in a small boat with a 6-inch plug with dual treble hooks embedded in your eye is not something I suggest anyone try. You can't really see anything and to say it felt like I had "something in my eye" would be an understatement.

A small crowd gathered at the dock after we arrived. Our rescuers helped guide me into the back of their SUV. One man in the crowd stepped forward saying "I'm a dentist. I can help". Really? Forgive me doc, but this problem is about two inches, two very important inches, north of your specialty. I laid back as he examined me, and have to say that the look on his face was not a confidence builder. "I can't do anything with this" he said, and he slunk back into the crowd.

We were headed to the emergency room, a place I have since become more intimately familiar with than anyone really should be. The closest was a small town called "Butler" (I believe). By the time I walked into the ER, I had been holding that damn plug against my face for about 2 hours. The admitting nurse took one look at me, turned pale and said "You will be next!"


I gave her my insurance card and she turned me over to a strapping young fellow who looked very competent, though a little young to be a doctor. He guided me onto the exam table and told me that the doctor would be right in. I was feeling a little better, now that I had made it to the ER. I would soon be fixed up good as new, right? As I lay there on the table, I saw the doctor as he entered the room.


There is a character actor that played in a lot of westerns in the 1960s and 70s. I don't know his name, but he essentially played the same role in all of them. Very scruffy and bearded with one eye always squinted, the other one just... wild. Usually played a drunk. Well, that's who had just walked in the door wearing scrubs and a stethoscope. "Hmmmmm", he grunted, "ain't seen nothing like this before". My confidence was plummeting to all time lows. "Looks like we are gonna' have to push that hook all the way through". Not words you want to hear when said hook is in your eye! Actually, you never want to hear those words, but through your eye? I mean, seriously... through my eye!??

I must have looked a little panicked and I have to admit, I probably wasn't wearing my best poker face. The doctor explained that the hook was not actually in my eye, but in my eyelid and embedded under the orbital brow. I can't claim to know what an "orbital brow" is, but I had a real good idea of where he meant. He went on to explain that they would numb the area, pull the hook out from under the bone and push it through the fleshy area above my eyelid so they could cut off the barb and remove the hook. I wasn't real enthused about this plan, but couldn't come up with any alternatives.


The doctor produced a hypodermic that was a foot long and a half-inch in diameter, or at least looked that way with my currently impaired vision. "This may sting a bit", he offered as he began stabbing me with this barbaric implement of torture just below my eyebrow and (thankfully) above my eye. I was ready to confess to the assassination of Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald AND Lincoln. Jack Bauer had nothing on this dude. Eventually, he got bored (or satisfied) with his efforts and promised to return in a few minutes after the anesthetic had time to take effect. I remain unconvinced that he was using anesthetic. Formaldehyde, perhaps, but not anesthetic. I thought my right eye was about to burst into flames and the left one was rolling around in sympathy. Now blinded, escape was simply impossible.

All too soon, Doctor Mengele returned with, I swear to God, the smallest pair of wire cutters I have ever seen in my life. I mean, they virtually disappeared into that paw he used for a hand. He grabbed hold of the base of the embedded treble hook and began twisting it savagely... at least from my point of view. The sharp hook point grated across the back side of the bone above my eye. I could feel (and hear) it. He eventually succeeded in freeing the point and began enthusiastically tugging it through my upper eyelid. "There it is" he exclaimed, as the point and barb popped through, at which point he produced those tiny wire cutters and attempted to cut the hook point off.

"Doc, those things are never going to cut through that hook" I said, gasping for breath.

"They're all we got" he replied.

He struggled with his left hand, his right, then both. Sweat dripped from his brow and, I have to admit, he gave it a real try. "Call Brian in here" he told the attending nurse as he panted for breath. Brian was the strapping young lad that had guided me onto the torture, err... exam table. While not completely excited at having an orderly performing this procedure, I was pretty sure that it couldn't be any worse. It took Brian both hands and no small amount of effort, but the sharp "ping" of the cutters severing the hook was of great relief to me.

The doctor handily extracted the remains of the hook and then examined my eye. He placed a patch over it and instructed me to see an opthamologist as soon as possible. Me... I couldn't wait to leave that place. Our rescuers drove us back to the dock and wished us well. I slowly piloted my boat back to our campground (in the dark... with one eye) and hit the sack.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early. My girlfriend and I discussed our options. She wanted to head home, but I really wanted to get some more on-the-water time in. She relented and I headed down to the boat. As I sat there in the bright sun, waiting for her to arrive, my eye began to throb and the wisdom of her words sounded vastly better than mine. I agreed to head home. We loaded the boat on the trailer and broke camp. She was driving, and as we motored up the interstate I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my eye. I pulled down the visor and opened the vanity mirror. It was my contact lens! God knows where it had been hiding, but I was able to remove it from my eye, and on examination found a small hole in the very center of the lens. The hook point had hit the lens, glanced off and traveled upwards under the eyelid. Had I not been wearing contacts, I am certain I would have lost my right eye!

Monday morning, I made an emergency appointment with an opthamologist. He examined me and told me "It's too late now, but you should have been placed in a dark room with both eyes patched. Your iris was torn loose from the bottom of your eye." He gave me some very dark glasses and told me to avoid bright sunlight. "You were very lucky" he said. I had to wear the dark glasses, even indoors, for a week.

In retrospect, I was very lucky. I still have good (correctable) vision and have suffered no ill effects. I always carry hook cutters now and they are capable of cutting any hook that I have... even the stoutest saltwater hooks.

Hodir Held Hostage - I Don't Think So!

The Red Devils continued their plundering of Ulduar in grand style this week! Our most recent accomplishment was the defeat of Hodir, which was fairly easy compared to our previous battles with Freya. Speaking of which, on our last kill, her lethal Snaplasher managed to put me down for a dirt nap at the beginning of the fight. One dead 'brat, but the Red Devils managed to finish the job without me. That's the last time I try to help pound that thing down!

We wandered in to visit Hodir, but our first attempt was Fail City when most of the raid got frozen in the first deep freeze, including yours truly! Despite continuous haranguing from our resident "punk-adin", most of us did learn how to handle those freezes correctly. Our third try resulted in success and the Red Devils even earned an achievement!


After loot was distributed, we ran out to the main chamber for a group photo with the now much-more-friendly Hodir. You would think after all the daily quests we ran for his group in Northrend he would have been happier to see us!


Then... on to take out Thorim. Our strategy was to split into two groups, one (the melee) would stay in the arena and hold down the fort as the second (ranged) snuck up the back alley behind Thorim. While the sneak attack group was successful in battling their way through the tunnel, the arena group suffered catastrophic losses. This resulted in a massive ball of light flying through the tunnel and one-shotting those of us sneaking through. We kept trying to balance out the two groups, switching players around, but after seven tries, we gave up for the night.


It seems my last blog post with my loot-whining about hunter drops in Ulduar and Vault managed to appease the loot gods! They saw fit to bless me with Conqueror's Scourgestalker Handguards and Giant's Bane from Ulduar. This was followed by Furious Gladiator's Chain Gauntlets from Vault! I also went on an honor-point/badge spending spree and now have a very nice set of PvP gear. Now it takes those pesky ret-adins 5 seconds to kill me instead of 3... woot!

Freya Freed by Red Devils!

So, the Red Devils have finally managed to defeat Freya and release her from her bonds. This statuesque babe is the first boss in Ulduar to really cause us to put more effort into our fights. Handling the waves of adds is the real problem here. There are three different types, and each requires a different strategy: Ancient Conservator, Three Elementals and Detonating Lashers. Oh, and all the while, Freya summons "Lifebinders Gift" which is a tree that needs to be nuked down immediately before it heals Freya. We weren't real quick on downing each wave before the next one was summoned and often found ourselves battling more than one wave at a time! With that many different types of mobs on the field, each with a different strategy, you can imagine how hectic things got!

Needless to say, there was a lot of yelling on Vent by various players as they became frustrated and a lot of contradicting instructions were shouted out. Eventually, we worked out the kinks and finally defeated all six waves of adds. At that point, Freya begins dropping land mines instead of calling more adds. Fortunately, these are relatively easy to avoid and we were able to bring her health down low enough to "release her" and win the battle. The adds are the real trick here, and it takes a lot of coordination to down them successfully. We really have to be on our toes for her, and I expect it will be some time before we can consider her to be on "farm" status.


We even managed to venture in and pay Hodir a visit. Unfortunately, our raid leader suffered a major melt-down during the pre-fight instructions and several raiders just gave up and left the group. Things went downhill rapidly, but we made a couple of attempts just to get the flavor of the battle. Hodir doesn't look to be nearly the challenge that Freya provides.


Unlike Naxxramas, hunter loot has been very scarce for the Red Devils in Ulduar. I have managed to pick up a set of shoulders (Iron-studded Mantle) and Saronite Mesh Legguards, but by-and-large we haven't had many hunter drops. Vault has been absolutely miserable to me, and I have yet to pick up ANY loot from my many forays into that instance!

Our resident hunter supreme, Fountainhead, continues to spank me like a bad pony in raids, and I still have not figured out how he does it! Consistently, this man out performs me by 300 to 1,000 dps on just about every fight. Gearwise, we are very similarly outfitted and on paper (The Hunter DPS Spreadsheet), I should be about 300 dps ahead of him. Whatever his secret is, I am glad to have him in our guild even if he does push me into the #2 hunter spot! It's good to have competition, and he certainly provides it for me!

Oh, by the way, I have found a new addon that seems to be very helpful in choosing which shots to use. Blizzard has successfully changed the hunter class to eliminate any actual shot rotation. We now have to deal with shot priority to maximize our dps. And, with each shot on a different cool down combined with the random Lock and Load proc, this is quite a challenge! Watcher provides a moving bar that shows your prioritized shots as they come off of cooldown. It can be a little distracting, and I am still learning to use it. The trick is to be able to see the shot icon while still maintaining situational awareness. It is one more thing to observe in an already cluttered battlefield, but I think the reward is worth the effort.

On a sadder note, the Red Devils recently lost one of our best raid performers. Since this is the second time this person has left the guild in search of greener pastures, it is unlikely he will ever be accepted back. Which is sad, really. While he was something of a challenge from a guild management perspective, he was truly one of our best in raids. Spartoss, I wish you well and hope you can find a guild that fits your expectations!