Due to some super-D-Duper upgrades, I’m doing a respectible bit of DPS now…

25 man. Single target, no AOE.

Hey. I know I haven’t posted in a while. Work + RL concerns have eaten a great deal of my time lately. As you can see from my character app on WordPress, I’ve progressed a bit in ICC on both toons, although I’m nowhere near the progression of some guilds. What I wanna talk about, since there’s a bunch of new gear since Icecrown came out, is how to get ready for ICC with a minimum of waiting on drops in raids. I’ll talk about heroic 5 man drops, craftables, BoE’s, and emblem gear. Note: I will not be covering frost gear here, because if you are gathering a lot of these for the extremely high-priced gear, you must be in ICC already.

Helm

There’s several good choices here.

[Helm of the Brooding Dragon] – 75 Emblems of Triumph

[Eyes of Bewilderment] – Bronjahm, Heroic Forge of Souls

[Windrunner's Headpiece of Conquest] – 50 Emblems of Triumph

Neck

[Barbed Ymirheim Choker] – Forgemaster Garfrost, Heroic Pit of Saron

[Broach of the Wailing Night] – 19 Emblems of Conquest

Shoulders

[Epaulets of the Devourer] – 45 Emblems of Triumph

[Windrunner's Spaulders of Conquest] – 30 Emblems of Triumph

Cloak

Not too many good options here, all this stuff is ilvl 219

[Accursed Crawling Cape] – Devourer of Souls, Normal Forge of Souls

[Shawl of the Shattered Giant] – BoE

Chest

[Crusader's Dragonscale Breastplate] – Crafted. Awesome. Tons of gem slots.

[Windrunner's Tunic of Conquest] – 50 Emblems of Triumph

Wrist

[Crusader's Dragonscale Bracers] – Crafted

[Essence of Suffering] – Devourer of Souls, Heroic Forge of Souls

Gloves

[Windrunner's Handguards of Conquest] – 30 Emblems of Triumph

[Hoarfrost Gauntlets] – Lich King event, Heroic Halls of Reflection

Belt

[Belt of Dragons] – Crafted

[Belt of the Ardent Marksman] – 28 Emblems of Conquest

Legs

[Windrunner's Legguards of Conquest] – 50 Emblems of Triumph

[Darkcore Leggings] – BoE

Boots

[Boots of Living Scale] – Crafted

[Muddied Boots of Brill] – Falric, Normal Halls of Reflection

Rings

[Dexterous Brightstone Ring] – 35 Emblems of Triumph

[Band of Stained Souls] – Scourgelord Tyrannus, heroic Pit of Saron

Trinkets

Slimmer pickings here… Greatness is still awesome, but here’s some other options:

[Mark of Supremacy] – I don’t like this one, but it’s here for

[Needle-Encrusted Scorpion] – Devourer of Souls, Heroic Forge of Souls

[Banner of Victory] – Normal 5 man TOC

Polearms

[Marrowstrike] – Heroic TOC

[Orca-Hunter's Harpoon] – Heroic Halls of Reflection

Ranged Weapons

[Crypt Fiend Slayer] – Lich King event, Normal Halls of Reflection

[Felglacier Bolter] – Ick, Heroic Pit of Saron

[Drake-Mounted Crossbow] – Heroic Utgarde Keep

[Rimebane Rifle] – Tyrannus, Normal Pit of Saron

[True-aim Long Rifle] – Heroic TOC

Well, folks. I made it into Reverence with the hunter. Sad to leave AUO, but there’s no way I’m getting into ICC with the hunter with AUO. And I promised myself when the expansion came out that I would kill Arthas.

AAAAANYWAYS, I had a blast in ICC 25 with Reverence today. The second fight, although we didn’t beat it, is particularly where you can show that you are more than a mere huntard.

Let’s talk about Marrowgar first… The goal of this fight is to kill the guy, stay outta the fire, and basically is a “retard” check. A simple fight if people are paying attention to what they are doing.

Add a /target Bone Spike macro to your bars/shot macro somewhere. Break people off their spikes, stay outta the fire, and avoid the whirlwind. Although, you do NOT want to run into the fire to avoid the whirlwind, since the damage from the whirlwind is somewhat insignificant. Also, after the whirlwind there’s an aggro reset, so let the tanks get aggro back.

Lady deathwhisper is the new KT… waves of adds, while the boss is stationary (although this time it’s not time based, you need to DPS her to get her mana shield down)

After that, DPS the boss, interrupt frostbolts, and CC players that get MCed.

Here’s where you can show off. Some of the adds get mutated and must be kited. If they hit the tank kiting them, it’s bad juju. Do what I did, drop a frost trap, shoot a Distracting shot, and kite that bitch till it’s dead.

Then the raid leader will be happy with you, and you’ll get a guild invite

I wanted video but i forgot. I’ll try to get some next time.

With the guild Reverence. Invites go out in a few minutes. Stand by for a writeup of the raid.

Seahunter of Elune, of the guild Night Slayers of Elune.

I would have let it slide, if not for the guy (and his healer buddy) asserting that I was a dick for pointing out that A.) Strength and expertise were no good for hunters, and B.) He should DPS the target I’m targetting.

But hey, what do i know. Glyph of Possessed Strength is pure win, amirite? In addition, TWO… TWO Glyphs of Explosive shot, on a Marksmanship spec.

And a bear with threat-producing abilities turned on.

And, his odd stats, spec and glyph were clearly successful… Fucking assbag…

Here’s some things you should do if you are in a group for these instances. Coming soon, a gear writeup of the drops that can help a new hunter get geared up…

1.) Stop damned DPS on the last boss of Forge of Souls when it does that mirrored soul thing. If you’re pumping out 4k, you’ll kill one of your party-mates real quick.

2.) Get behind the damned boulders on garfrost and get your own damn debuff off. Don’t rely on healers to keep you up.

3.) Stay away from the friggin bombs on Ick. Stay out of the slime.

4.) CC one of the mobs on the way up the hill before the last boss. Helps the tanks immensely (I found this out while playing my paladin.  A hunter trapped one of the guys in each group and it really made it easier)

5.) For the love of god, use aimed shot on the healers during the add waves in Halls of Reflection. And MD loose adds to the tank, please.

More on the gear to come… don’t wanna post too much because I may need material for a new project…

Watch for posts on my icecrown 10 man impressions tonight. I have been invited to come along with a very prominent pug leader on our server.

BTW, if you haven’t played with the wowhead profiler yet, it’s nifty. Here’s my hunter as of last night, after a profitable 25 man ToC… got two upgrades, [Talonstrike] and [Sabatons of Ruthless Judgment]

http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=18865198

So, I will be heading into the icecrown raid and possibly 5 mans tonight. I will be posting my impressions tonight or early tomorrow morning. Stay tuned! I’ll even include some video.

Fitz

Edited to add: I see the 5 mans drop some shoulders. Let’s pray I can get rid of these ugly mothafuckas.

Patch 3.3 is coming, and with another soft gear reset, it will be easier than ever to get ready for icecrown. I, for one, am thankful because it means I won’t have to go through every raid on the way to the last one with my Paladin.

AAAAAAAnywho… for those of you who are in the “WTFdoIdonow” mode, I have compiled some of the gear you can get from your friendly neighborhood Emblem Of Triumph vendor, since that is what will be dropping in heroics and lower level raids with 3.3. Afterwards, I’ll detail some of the gear from Emblems of Frost, since you can get those from daily heroics and weekly raids.

[Helm of the Brooding Dragon] and [Epaulets of the Devourer] are both kickass pieces of gear. It’s important to note that the shoulder piece is currently BiS… however, take my warning… PLEASE take your set bonuses into account when choosing gear. A minor upgrade is not worth breaking a kickass set bonus over… and the two piece T8 and two piece T9 bonuses work REALLY well together… I mean, like Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith working well together…

In addition, you can get the entire 10 man version of Tier 9 from the emblems, from prices of 30 to 50 a piece.

As for trinkets, there’s really not much I like here. There’s [Mark of Supremacy] and [Shard of the Crystal Heart] … and let’s be honest. If you’re in ToC level gear, you are over hit cap. Those two items are friggin stupid.

[Dexterous Brightstone Ring] is friggin sweet…. nuff said.

Now, as for the frost emblem stuff, I’ll refer you to the page where you can see the gear, then list some of the better pieces I see.

MMO-Champion Post : Emblem of Frost rewards…

Clicky the linky… anyways, here’s some highlights. All the hunter (and enhance shammy, I guess) mail is real good. The Trinket is an upgraded FotFF, it seems… stacking AP buff. Nice stuff. 340 AP if you keep it up.

I’m particularly excited about the emblem changes, because my paladin is now 80, defense capped, and ready to raid. I also want to send him the exalted version of the Sons of Hodir chant without having to grind out the rep. W00t for that.

What are your thoughts on the gear reset? Catering to casuals too much, or making it easier to gear alts? I am leaning towards the latter.

In other news, I tanked regular ToC a shitload today and yesterday, and I am still waiting on [The Black Heart] to drop… Check out my gear though, on the sidebar down at the bottom. Not bad for 2 days at 80.

Cheers!

Some days you’re the big

Today, Aculeus Upon Ordeum was the windshield, and…

Zaphod of guild “WeeR” was the bug. After an inital couple of fair kills, he started corpse camping me. Nate, on his rogue, came by and started doing the same… then the most amazing thing happened…

NATE KILLED HIM IN A TREE. GO GO REZ SICKNESS.
Here’s his response…