Roxanne Flowers

Beast o' Melee Hunter (13/0/38) The myth. The legend. The (horribly misunderstood?) ... Beast o' Melee Hunter. Come at me bro' ... /beckon Disclaimers: I played World of Warcraft in the 2005-2007 time frame before moving on to other games, so I do have experience with playing all 8 Alliance classes to Level 50 or so a decade ago. I played on a PvE server then and I'm playing on Darrowshire now, since PvP does not interest me. This is not intended to be a bleeding edge DPS optimized raiding Hunter spec that will put everything else to shame. If anything, it is intended to be a viable melee Hunter spec to be played for FUN as a soloist and in 5 man groups in PvE content. I have been lurking these forums for weeks already, and am well aware of the "BM for leveling!" exhortations that have been made repeatedly for leveling builds, particularly for those who are interested in speeding through to 60. I am not interested in speed running to 60 and will be taking my time to enjoy the game, therefore I have no problem with "being slower" than alternative build strategies in terms of XP per hour. I'm here to have fun! The primary purpose of this build is to explore the possibility of a potential off-meta spec which I have not seen anyone show (enough) interest in (yet) to post an actual build for. This post is basically an answer to a question of mine ... which is that if you're going to play a melee Hunter, how should you go about supporting such a build choice? In what direction do the advantages and strategies lie? What counter-intuitive things do you need to know/unlearn in order to play "efficiently" with a deep Survival spec, as opposed to a deep Beast Master or deep Marksman spec? And what Pet should you be using (and why)? Warning: WALL OF TEXT CRITS YOU!!! Probably the first misconception that Players have about being a melee oriented Hunter is the most common ... that you're "doing it wrong" by not using your Pet to tank for you. That's mainly because the Conventional Wisdom™ has hardened around the notion that as a (solo) Hunter you're supposed to be using your Pet as an aggro magnet so that you can plink stuff from a distance using your ranged weapon ... and this is essentially true for both Beast Masters and Marksmen. The thing is, this isn't the ONLY way the combination of Hunter and Pet ought to be performing. The basic strategies for how to "use" your Pet essentially boil down to the following three options depending on which talent tree you invest heavily in: Beast Master: Pet tanks (at range), buff the Pet. Marksman: Pet tanks (at range), buff the Hunter. Survival: Hunter tanks (in melee!), Pet offers close support(!). As you can obviously see, even just that brief description of basic strategies shows how seriously the fundamentals of playing as a melee Hunter inverts the Conventional Wisdom™ of how you're "supposed" to play the class. For a lot of people, the entire notion of playing as a melee Hunter is so bass-ackwards as to result in an assumption of You're Doing It Wrong. So if we can get past the "Do not back up, severe tire damage." warning sign that has been posted in front of the entire IDEA of playing as a melee Hunter, what are the necessary building blocks that we need to be optimally aware of in order to make a melee Hunter "work" as well as such a build can? Well I'm glad you asked! There's a few factors that inter(re)act and synergize with each other that as a melee Hunter you're going to want to optimize for (in no especially particular order). Raptor Strike (6 second cooldown) Mongoose Bite (requires you to Dodge) (5 second cooldown) Counterattack (requires you to Parry) (5 second cooldown) Dodge Parry Critical Hit Chance Agility Pet Choice (you want Screech ... more on this after talents) The first is that in order to get the most out of your Survival talents for melee, you actually need to be IN melee, rather than the Easy Option of staying at range all the time. The main reason for this is the Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite spells that you can use, both of which require melee weapons, but there's also Counterattack, which lies at tier 5 in the Survival tree. Raptor Strike has a cooldown on it, so you can't exactly spam it consecutively in combat. Mongoose Bite requires that you Dodge an incoming attack, which for all intents and purposes means you need to be holding aggro at melee range in order to make this option available to you. Counterattack requires that you Parry an incoming attack, which for all intents and purposes ALSO means you need to be holding aggro at melee range in order to make this option available to you. So the key point here is that if your Pet has aggro, you aren't going to be Dodging and Parrying incoming attacks and you'll be limited to using only Raptor Strike and Wing Clip (and Wing Clip does such pathetically minimal damage it's not even worth talking about if you've got Counterattack) and Auto Attack. If you're doing melee damage in support of your Pet, you've probably dropped at least half of your damage output potential, if not more, as a melee Hunter. Given that most people assume the Pet is supposed to be tanking for you, rather than you tanking for your Pet, it's not at all unsurprising that this dynamic would be somewhat poorly understood (let alone accepted). So to be a "good" Survival (melee) Hunter you need to be tanking in melee, rather than letting your Pet tank for you, and you want to maximize your Dodge and Parry chances in order to make Mongoose Bite and Counterattack available to you as often as possible ... and the reason for that can be found in tier 2 of Survival in the Savage Strikes talent. That's because Savage Strikes gives you +10% critical hit chance per talent point (max 2). This means that for a mere 2 talent points you can make your Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite spells virtual crit monster melee attacks ... and that's before even adding in Killer Instinct in tier 5 (more critical hit chance) and Lightning Reflexes in tier 6 (+3% Agility per talent point) of the Survival tree which combine to make your melee critical hits absolutely DEVASTATING and FREQUENT. But the key is that you have to have (and hold) aggro on yourself in order to make this work. If you don't have aggro, you lose Mongoose Bite which is your heavy hitter. Think of it as being comparable to using Aimed Shot in melee range if it helps, with a major critical hit chance bonus, and a fast cooldown, and it's an Instant cast. Yeah ... kinda like that, only more satisfying. So taking those factors into consideration, here's how I would invest my talent points when angling for a melee Hunter build. Level 60 Beast o' Melee Hunter (13/0/38) http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#cVVhZZIxbiRGut Beast Mastery (13 points) Endurance Training - Rank 5/5 Increases the Health of your pets by 15%. Improved Aspect of the Monkey - Rank 5/5 Increases the Dodge bonus of your Aspect of the Monkey by 5%. Thick Hide - Rank 3/3 Increases the Armor rating of your pets by 30%. Marksmanship (0 points) None Survival (38 points) Monster Slaying - Rank 3/3 Increases all damage caused against Beasts, Giants and Dragonkin targets by 3% and increases critical damage caused against Beasts, Giants and Dragonkin targets by an additional 3%. Humanoid Slaying - Rank 3/3 Increases all damage caused against Humanoid targets by 3% and increases critical damage caused against Humanoid targets by an additional 3%. Deflection - Rank 5/5 Increases your Parry chance by 5%. Savage Strikes - Rank 2/2 Increases the critical strike chance of Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite by 20%. Clever Traps - Rank 2/2 Increases the duration of Freezing and Frost trap effects by 30% and the damage of Immolation and Explosive trap effects by 30%. Survivalist - Rank 5/5 Increases total health by 10%. Deterrence - Rank 1/1 When activated, increases your Dodge and Parry chance by 25% for 10 sec. 5 minute cooldown. Trap Mastery - Rank 2/2 Decreases the chance enemies will resist trap effects by 10%. Surefooted - Rank 3/3 Increases hit chance by 3% and increases the chance movement impairing effects will be resisted by an additional 15%. Improved Feign Death - Rank 2/2 Reduces the chance your Feign Death ability will be resisted by 4%. Killer Instinct - Rank 3/3 Increases your critical strike chance with all attacks by 3%. Counterattack - Rank 1/1 A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent's attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried. Lightning Reflexes - Rank 5/5 Increases your Agility by 15%. Wyvern Sting - Rank 1/1 A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 12 sec. Any damage will cancel the effect. When the target wakes up, the Sting causes 0 Nature damage over 12 sec. Only usable out of combat. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on the target at a time. Here's how this all comes together. Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite and Counterattack, plus (melee) Auto Attack of course, combine to serve as your bread 'n' butter for inflicting maximum melee damage. Savage Strikes and Killer Instinct combine to enhance your critical hit chance by +23%(!) before including Agility, which is enhanced +15% by Lightning Reflexes, and that's even before including any mods on your gear, to your Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite. Needles to say, this makes you want to use Raptor Strike (6 second cooldown) and Mongoose Bite (5 second cooldown) as often as you possibly can! Surefooted offers 3% hit chance and 15% resistance to movement impairing effects. Monster Slaying and Humanoid Slaying combine to give you +3% damage to Beasts, Dragonkin, Giants and Humanoids as well as an additional +3% critical hit damage. Deflection adds +5% Parry, which allows you to use Counterattack more often. Counterattack (5 second cooldown) is what you use instead of Wing Clip because you want to prevent runners rather than open up range to resume kiting. Counterattack also hits just as hard as Mongoose Bite, although it doesn't benefit from the increased critical hit chance that Savage Strikes offers Mongoose Bite. Improved Aspect of the Monkey adds another +5% Dodge, on top of the base +8% Dodge, yielding a +13% chance to Dodge (and Night Elves get another +1% Dodge as a racial bonus) which then creates the necessary opportunities to use Mongoose Bite. Long story short, you're going to be using Aspect of the Monkey (with or without talent boosting) while you're in melee to help you Dodge tank so as to respond with Mongoose Bite which then has a very high chance of scoring a critical hit. Deterrence at tier 3 in Survival is required for Counterattack, but it makes for a decent "Uh oh..." response (5 minute cooldown though) to pulling too much aggro, since it adds 25% chance to Dodge AND Parry for 10 seconds, which can let you tank for a short time against too many adds while also maximizing your burst damage potential from use of Mongoose Bite and Counterattack. Even before adding in your gear and attribute modifiers, if you've got Deflection and Improved Aspect of the Monkey running, that's 25+8+5=38% chance to Dodge bonus (39% if Night Elf!) and 25+5=30% chance to Parry bonus for a combined total of 68-69% chance to NOT TAKE DAMAGE from melee for 10 seconds ... before you add in modifiers from gear and Defense and your attributes. That's 10 seconds of "U Can't Touch This" against anything making to hit checks for melee attacks. So for those 10 seconds you are a Dodge/Parry tank. Use this as soon as you get 3 mobs beating on you so you can kill the first one (with Mongoose Bite and Counterattack and Raptor Strike) before the Deterrence buff expires (or shortly thereafter), at which point you only have 2 mobs trying to hurt you instead of 3 and can manage. Clever Traps increases the duration of your cold based Traps (to 13/19.5/26 seconds for Freezing and 39 seconds for Frost) and increases the damage of your fire based Traps (Immolation and Explosive) by 30% each. Trap Mastery reduces the chance that your Traps will be Resisted by 10%, making them relatively "reliable" when used. Improved Feign Death needs no additional explanation beyond making Feign Death less often Resisted and thus more reliable (because when you use it, you WANT it to work!). Wyvern Sting gives you an opportunity to "stagger" incoming aggro by temporarily neutralizing a member of a mob group so as to let you melee tank more in a serial fashion, rather than in parallel, which is a lot less risky since you'll have (more) time to react and make decisions when taking on individuals staggered over time rather than all at once. Finally, since the whole point of this build is for your Hunter to be tanking rather than your Pet, Survivalist at tier 3 in Survival seems to be a prudent choice since it increases your total health by an extra +10%. However, if you want to "pirate" any talent points for other priorities, I would rank Survivalist as the prime choice to "harvest" from to pay for something else, such as Unleashed Fury in the Beast Mastery tree if that's your preference. For this reason, I'd actually advocate leaving investment in Survivalist "for last" at Levels 56-60 if everything else in this build is working for you just fine. Over in Beast Mastery, I've selected Endurance Training to get past tier 1 and Thick Hide as well as Improved Aspect of the Monkey as already alluded to in tier 2. The reason why I stop here rather than going deeper into the Beast Mastery tree is because most of the talents involved in going deeper into the tree increase Pet damage output, which can present a Threat balance challenge for a melee Hunter with no access to a Taunt of any kind. Furthermore, increasing your Pet's Stamina and Armor through Pet Training can become expensive in a hurry, crowding out other opportunities for investment, such as attack skills (more on that in a moment) as well as Resistances, which can't be obtained through Beast Mastery tree talents. So Endurance Training and Thick Hide represent the most "efficient" places to bolster your Pet's defensive protection(s) and enhancing their survival in a way that won't interfere with your desire to hold aggro yourself. And that's the reasoning and rationale behind the selection of Hunter talents ... which then brings us to the OTHER HALF of the melee Hunter build ... your choice of Pet! When I played as a "CQB Hunter" a decade ago in a Survival build similar to this one, I billed myself as a Close Quarters Battle specialist, meaning I had no problem bringing the full power of my potential to bear in tight interior twisty passage spaces because I fought in melee. I remember a number of pickup groups being surprised at meeting a Hunter who wasn't Marksman specced and therefore largely useless when fighting indoors in tight spaces, such as the ruins of Stromgarde Keep with its short twisting passages and tight staircases with lousy lines of sight that limited range. At that time, I was using a Ghost Saber as my Pet (for Prowl) and it was pretty decent, if not exactly optimal for a melee Hunter. Naturally, I didn't know what I was doing back then, but I was able to make it work. This time around, I decided to "do my homework" and not just reach for the Ghost Saber again on the off chance there might be something better. So the first stop was the ancient archive of Petopia ... Looking through the Big List of Pet Skills, what I was really after (besides damage, obviously) was either a buff or a debuff that can affect/benefit my Hunter, as opposed to something that just benefits my Pet. As far as I can tell, there's only 1 buff and only 1 debuff Pet Skill ... Furious Howl is the buff (that almost everyone knows about) and Screech is the debuff (which apparently hardly anyone has ever heard of ... ba-dump ching). So as I'm sure plenty of people already know, Furious Howl will add extra damage to the next physical attack of every party member within 15 yards every 10 seconds. At rank 1, this is essentially a +1 DPS boost when averaged out, and at rank 4 it's a +5 DPS boost when averaged out, per recipient of the buff. That might be good if you're buffing 40 people (or better yet, 40 Hunters/Warlocks and their Pets!), but when you're soloing with your Pet that isn't exactly anything to write a guide about. Picking a Pet for +2 to +10 DPS from a Pet Skill (because you and your Pet should be benefiting, so +2 to +10 DPS instead of +1 to +5 DPS) is a little ... meh ... and it isn't exactly going to help you a great deal with tanking mobs yourself all that much. For this reason, Furious Howl qualifies as better than nothing for a (soloing) melee Hunter build, but not by a great deal. By way of contrast, Bite does about +1 DPS when averaged out too at rank 1, but adds +9 DPS on average at rank 8 and is therefore roughly comparable to Furious Howl in terms of DPS for a lot less Focus cost (35 vs 60 Focus) and similar cooldowns (10 seconds each). The other option is, as I've already mentioned, Screech ... and this one is ... interesting. Screech does +2 DPS at rank 1 and +9 DPS at rank 4 when averaging things out, so it's broadly comparable to Furious Howl and Bite in terms of damage production, but it also applies a debuff. Although the damage done is to a single target, the debuff effect applies to every enemy within melee range (of the Pet) ... and this is the key point. Screech will debuff the melee attack power of all enemies in melee range by -25 melee attack power per rank (so by -25 at rank 1 and -100 at rank 4). Think of it as being akin to a Druid's Demoralizing Roar or a Warrior's Demoralizing Shout, with an area of effect of melee range (so small radius), but which can be chain cast every 4 seconds(!) for "perma" uptime and which doesn't need Rage to cast. Yeah ... like THAT. THIS is your tank support debuff. Screech makes it possible for you to take a lot less damage while tanking yourself in melee range, with your Pet supporting you. Broadly speaking, this is almost like having your Pet cast a Curse of Weakness on anything you're fighting, so long as your Pet fights right beside you ... and the less damage you take, the longer you can tank. Needless to say, this is where a combination of Screech and the Survivalist talent in tier 3 Survival synergize together to put you more in control of the melee situations you actually want to put yourself into. No other Pet Skill offers the ... synergy ... that Screech does for a melee Hunter. Every other skill your Pet can get and have is either oriented around defeating a target faster by doing (more) damage to it, or is oriented around protecting the Pet more, or is an "alpha strike" one use sort of surprise attack with a movement component (Charge, Dash, Dive, Prowl) to be used as an opener. Screech however costs very little Focus (20), has a 4 second duration on the debuff, and when assigned to auto attack your Pet will only use Screech again when the debuff expires, not before. In practice, this means that your Pet will automatically use Screech every 4 seconds (or so) and not "stack" the debuff foolishly. The skill doesn't have a cooldown, but if the debuff is already on your Pet's target, it won't Screech again until the debuff expires, meaning that your Pet isn't "wasting" Focus on Screech and that the skill is NOT a Focus dump akin to Claw. This has some rather interesting implications. For one, it means that if Screech is the only active skill you give your Pet, it'll Screech and drop from 100 Focus to 80 Focus ... and then 2 seconds later be back up to a full 100 Focus. My experience thus far is that Pets on Darrowshire seem to be regaining Focus at a rate that is faster than Rogues, which is to say at 24 per tick every 1 second (tested using a Wind Serpent's Lightning Breath). This means that you can give your Pet other Focus using skills and not worry about Screech draining Focus down to nothing all by itself. So ... if Screech is so "good" at supporting a melee Hunter build style, which Pets can Screech? Bat (Offensive) HP: Medium (+0%) • Armor: Low (+0%) • DPS: High (+7%) Learns: Bite, Cower, Dive, Growl, Screech Diet: Fruit, Fungus Carrion Bird (General) HP: Medium (+0%) • Armor: Medium (+5%) • DPS: Medium (+0%) Learns: Bite, Claw, Cower, Dive, Growl, Screech Diet: Fish, Meat Owl (Offensive) HP: Medium (+0%) • Armor: Low (+0%) • DPS: High (+7%) Learns: Claw, Cower, Dive, Growl, Screech Diet: Meat Bats are easy to acquire for the Horde in Tirisfal Glades, but their Diet may be annoying to supply over the long haul since they will only eat Fruit and Fungus. I would recommend that anyone in the Alliance not even bother considering taking a Bat as a Pet before planning to go to either Shadowfang Keep or Razorfen Kraul since every Bat before then is to be found in Tirisfal Glades with extremely low Levels. Carrion Birds are easy to acquire for the Horde in Mulgore and for the Alliance to acquire in Westfall, and their Diet will be the easiest to supply since you only need to go Fishing or feed them Meat, either of which are readily available. Owls are easy for Night Elves to acquire, difficult for Dwarves to acquire (the Wetlands run to Menethil Harbor), and are definitely "hard mode" Achievement: UNLOCKED! for Horde to acquire prior to Level 48 when anyone can get one in Felwood since before then ALL of the Owls are on top of Teldrassil (and the Horde are NOT WELCOMED there) and getting through Darnassus can be a chore for them (enjoy the corpse runs). Owls have the most restricted Diet of all the Screech Pets since they will only eat Meat. Bats and Owls do additional damage with their melee auto attacks, while Carrion Birds have better native armor. All three have access to Cower, Dive, Growl and Screech (of course), but Bats and Carrion Birds can use Bite while by contrast Carrion Birds and Owls can use Claw. However, given that as a melee Hunter you'll be wanting to keep aggro on yourself rather than letting your Pet "steal" aggro from you, I'd recommend AGAINST investing in Growl for your Pet in a melee Hunter build strategy. Once you've selected your Screech Pet that you're going to want to use comes the bad news. Screech rank 1 only appears on Greater Fleshrippers (16-17) in Westfall, which might be hard for some Horde Hunters to get to without a corpse run (or few/several) ... and Screech rank 2 doesn't show up until you meet the Salt Flat Vultures (32-34) at the southern end of Thousand Needles. After that comes the decision of what (if any) other Pet Skills do you want to train into your Pet that use Focus aside from Screech? Well ... I'm going to suggest the ultimate heresy here. You should also train your Pet to Cower. Wait ... WHAT?!? Cower??! NOBODY uses Cower! EVER! Well ... yes ... but hear me out. The reason why "nobody" uses Cower is because it doesn't do anything useful for Hunters who want to play at range, shooting, while their Pet tanks for them at a distance. Remember what I said earlier about the basic strategies for the three talent trees? Beast Master: Pet tanks (at range), buff the Pet. Marksman: Pet tanks (at range), buff the Hunter. Survival: Hunter tanks (in melee!), Pet offers close support(!). As a melee Hunter, you want your Pet to SHED aggro ONTO YOU so that you can maximize your Dodge/Parry procs to use Mongoose Bite for magnificent critical hits and Counterattack to prevent escapes (oh and use of Raptor Strike when it's not on cooldown). Now if you're wanting your Pet to HOLD aggro, you obviously want it to have Growl, but if you're wanting your Pet to PASS aggro to you, you're going to want it to have Cower so as to ensure that you, as the Hunter, have aggro (and keep it) and not your Pet. The net effect of this is that when mobs transfer aggro from your Pet to you they'll often (not always, but often) come running in your direction to melee you ... with your Pet following them the whole way. This then creates a circumstance in which your Pet will have a decided preference of fighting BESIDE you, rather than off in the distance, which then means that your Pet will be debuffing the melee attack power of most (if not all) of the mobs you'll be in melee with, and they'll use Screech every time the debuff expires (so every 4 seconds). This then promotes a behavioral dynamic in which mobs will tend to fight you in melee and your Pet will "want" to stay at your side where their Screech debuff is doing the most to promote your personal survival while you melee. Which sounds about as bass-ackwards as you can imagine ... except that it works ... brilliantly. Speaking from personal experience on Darrowshire, this works even better than I had hoped when using an Owl and with my Hunter only being Level 17. The damage reduction/avoidance produced by Screech, particularly when pulling "too much aggro" is one of those things where you have to be on the receiving end of it in order to believe it. It really is comparable to a Demoralizing Roar/Shout level of debuffing, and the margin of error/action that it affords is decidedly non-negligible. It transforms my Hunter from a "mediocre" damage magnet wearing Leather Armor into a "decent" damage soaker (albeit one without a Taunt or threat multiplier), while at the same time supercharging my offensive potential. It does require completely inverting the Conventional Wisdom to achieve, but it works (in PvE). Now, one thing that I have been able to confirm is that the combination of Screech and Cower is not sufficient to drain Focus from your Pet faster than they can recover it. Putting both Screech and Cower on auto attack, my Owl keeps getting back up to 100 Focus without any trouble, to the point where I'm seriously considering whether or not to add Claw into the mix, even though Claw is a Focus dump skill that your Pet will spam as often as possible when it is set on auto attack since Claw has no cooldown. I would anticipate that a combination of Bite (35 Focus, 10 second cooldown), Cower (15 Focus, 5 second cooldown), Dive (20 Focus, 15 second duration) and Screech (20 Focus, 4 second duration) should have no problem getting back up to 100 Focus, even in sustained combat. Conversely, I would expect a combination of Claw (25 Focus, no cooldown), Cower (15 Focus, 5 second cooldown), Dive (20 Focus, 15 second duration) and Screech (20 Focus, 4 second duration) to "crater" Focus down to zero and have Cower and Screech become beholden to the rate of Focus recovery (24 per tick every 1 second, base) which could result in possible "intermittent" perma-chaincasting of the Screech debuff due to Focus starvation thanks to Claw. This would also cause your Pet to inflict some additional melee damage "fast enough" to potentially make holding aggro yourself dependent upon your Pet using Cower to shed aggro in your direction. At this time, I have not explored the dynamics of where throwing Claw into the mix will alter the balance, behaviorally speaking, so I can't yet confirm that this would be a particularly wise choice. Caveat emptor. So once you've selected your (Screech) Pet and decided on your Hunter talents, it's time to decide where you're going to to spend your Pet's talent points on Skills. Now as a solo Hunter leveling towards 60, I'm thinking that picking up Resistances (all of them) so as to have a good "all rounder" Pet who can support me in melee regardless of what I'm fighting would be the wisest course of action while soloing my way to 60. Your mileage may vary, of course. In that respect, Resistances cost 15 talent points for rank 2 with 60 Resistance, or 45 talent points for rank 3 with 90 Resistance. With only 300 talent points to spend at Level 60, paying 45 points for 5 resistances winds up being pretty steep (225 out of 300 points). That leaves just 75 points for everything else. Naturally all of this changes when dealing with raiding at Level 60, where you really only need to protect against a single Resistance type that you can predict with ease. So if going with 3 out of 4 available Focus Skills while keeping Screech and Cower and wanting to maximize (all) Resistances, you could do something like this: Pet Level: 60 Pet Loyalty: 6 Points Available: 300 Cower - rank 6 (18pts) Dive - rank 3 (25pts) Screech - rank 4 (25pts) Great Stamina - rank 1 (5pts) Natural Armor - rank 1 (1pts) Arcane Resist - rank 3 (45pts) Fire Resist - rank 3 (45pts) Frost Resist - rank 3 (45pts) Nature Resist - rank 3 (45pts) Shadow Resist - rank 3 (45pts) Total spent: 299 Points Left: 1 If Dive 3 isn't something you want, you can easily substitute either Bite 8 or Claw 8 for the same 25 talent points. Note that this configuration leaves one Focus skill slot open just in case you want to get Growl (which costs zero talent points to train). If you want to go with 4 out of the 4 available Focus Skills and not include Growl, you might want to do something like this instead: Pet Level: 60 Pet Loyalty: 6 Points Available: 300 Bite - rank 8 (25pts) Cower - rank 6 (18pts) Dive - rank 3 (25pts) Screech - rank 4 (25pts) Great Stamina - rank 6 (75pts) Natural Armor - rank 6 (50pts) Arcane Resist - rank 2 (15pts) Fire Resist - rank 2 (15pts) Frost Resist - rank 2 (15pts) Nature Resist - rank 2 (15pts) Shadow Resist - rank 2 (15pts) Total spent: 293 Points Left: 7 Again, Bite 8, Claw 8 and Dive 3 are all effectively swappable for each other since they each cost 25 points. Of the two, my personal preference is for Cower/Dive/Screech for Focus Skills with all five Resists at rank 3 for 90 Resist (since Resists can't be increased by Hunter talents) and dispensing with the Bite and/or Claw option. A side effect of this personal preference is that it makes the difference between choices of Bat, Carrion Bird and Owl essentially one of aesthetics (how "pretty" the Pet avatar is) and choice of Diet. As far as attack speeds go ... the Level 60 Bloodseeker Bat in Zul'Gurub DOES have a 1.00 attack speed, just like Broken Tooth, in case anyone wants to inflict lots of interrupt/pushback on spellcasters with their Pet while playing as a melee Hunter (wait, what?). There's also a Level 52 (rare!) Spiteflayer Carrion Bird in the Blasted Lands with a 1.20 attack speed for those who would prefer this class of Pet. All of the other Bats, Carrion Birds and Owls all have a 2.00 attack speed. So that's the overall "story" of how I'm answering the question of ... if you want to play a melee Hunter, how would you build for it? As you can see, there's a lot of moving parts and pieces to it, but it all functionally comes down to the following synergies: Survival: Hunter tanks (in melee!), Pet offers close support(!). Raptor Strike (6 second cooldown) Mongoose Bite (requires you to Dodge) (5 second cooldown) Counterattack (requires you to Parry) (5 second cooldown) Dodge Parry Critical Hit Chance Agility Pet Choice (you want Screech and Cower to assist your melee tanking) The only remaining choice you'll need to make is ... melee weapon(s). Some people suggest using the biggest and slowest 2h melee weapons so as to maximize critical hit damage from Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite. But the truth is that Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite and Counterattack all merely ADD damage rather than multiply it. This means that the damage increase (before critical) will be exactly the same for a fast Dagger as a slow 2h weapon with any of these attacks. In that respect, a melee Hunter build is somewhat "weapon type/speed" agnostic in terms of what you "should" be using, but as always, if all you're really interested in is seeing BIG NUMBERS, go ahead and equip a big slow 2h weapon if that's your preference, since the crits you get with it will be AMAZING. There are times when playing as a melee Hunter will feel like this and when it happens it's totally worth it ... but you have to BELIEVE that you'll succeed with it before you can be satisfied with the build and engagement strategy. And that's it. The myth. The legend. The (horribly misunderstood?) ... Beast o' Melee Hunter. Come at me bro' ... /beckon

So over in the Wowwiki on their Useful Macros page, there are instructions for writing buff macros that will automatically cast the appropriate Rank of a buff spell depending on the target's Level. Now, what I take from this macro is that it will "automagically" cast the highest rank of buff spell on the target that the target can accept, provided that they're a friendly Player (of course). In this case for Power Word: Fortitude shown here, those ranks to levels correspondences are: Level 1 = Rank 1 Levels 2-13 = Rank 2 Levels 14-25 = Rank 3 Levels 26-37 = Rank 4 Levels 38-49 = Rank 5 Levels 50-60 = Rank 6 I would like to be able to create (or find, if someone can point me to it) a repository of macros for each of the buff spells that each vanilla class can cast, either on themselves or onto others, that have minimum level restrictions built into them. For this, I will need to know the minimum level breakpoints for each buff spell's ranks in order to be able modify the above shown macro correctly for that specific spell in the list below. Those buffs which do not have minimum level requirements on targets will be removed so as to keep the list of macros in this post updated with useful information. If I've missed any, let me know so I can add those skills to the master list to have macros written for them once the minimum levels for each rank are made available. The intent of this posting is to have a copy/paste reference for the community of macros for being able to cast a max rank buff spell onto friendly targets dependent upon the level of your target when casting. Druid Thorns (8 ranks) Mark of the Wild (7 ranks) Rejuvination (11 ranks) Regrowth (9 ranks) Mage Arcane Intellect (5 ranks) Amplify Magic (4 ranks) Dampen Magic (5 ranks) Paladin Blessing of Wisdom (6 ranks) Blessing of Protection (3 ranks) Blessing of Sanctuary (4 ranks) Blessing of Sacrifice (2 ranks) Blessing of Might (7 ranks) Priest Power Word: Fortitude (6 ranks) Power Word: Shield (10 ranks) Divine Spirit (4 ranks) Renew (9 ranks)

This is something that's been bugging me for a while now. I remember playing on Blizzard servers a decade ago and seeing Mining Nodes "randomizing" the type of Node that would spawn. Tin would sometimes spawn as Silver. Iron would sometimes spawn as Gold. Mithril would sometimes spawn as Truesilver. Small Thorium would sometimes spawn as Large Thorium. ... and so on and so forth. The point being that the "type" of Mining Node that would spawn in a specific location wasn't "locked in" to spawning as only a single type on Blizzard's servers. That way, you'd have to "search" for the rarer Silver/Gold/Truesilver Nodes, rather than just "knowing" that a specific Node would ALWAYS spawn as being only a single specific type. Here on the Elysium Project servers, that is not the case. I've been playing on Darrowshire for most of this year, and I have never once seen ANY variation in the "type" of Mining Nodes that will spawn in specific locations. Tin Nodes will ALWAYS spawn as Tin. Silver Nodes will ALWAYS spawn as Silver. Iron Nodes will ALWAYS spawn as Iron. Gold Nodes will ALWAYS spawn as Gold. Mithril Nodes will ALWAYS spawn as Mithril. I haven't ever found or seen a Truesilver Node yet, but I'm pretty sure that once I do, those Nodes will only ever spawn in as Truesilver Nodes. ... and so on and so forth. This has some rather bizarre implications and results. As an Alliance Player, because all of the Mining Node "types" are essentially "locked" to only spawn as a single type, I now "know" where to go in order to find Silver (Ashenvale is disproportionately littered with Silver Nodes here, there and everywhere, to the point where there are more Silver Nodes than Tin Nodes in the zone) ... while if I need Gold I know where multiple Gold Nodes will spawn in Duskwood and in The Charred Vale in Stonetalon that are just always in the same places. Basically, there's no Scavenger Hunt mentality (or effect) for the rarer Mining Nodes simply because their appearance isn't randomized on Darrowshire (and I presume the rest of the Project's servers). Having Mining Nodes spawn as exactly the same thing 100% of the time removes a significant amount of surprise/pleasure in finding that a particular Mining Node spawned as an "upgraded" rarer version THIS time that you've come across it. So ... question. Is this performance as I've described a Deliberate Thing™ on Elysium Project servers? If it isn't a Working As Intended situation, any chances someone could be sent (with a flashlight) into the bowels of the game code to figure out what isn't connecting properly to make Mining Nodes randomly spawn as different (upgraded) "types" on a less than 100% chance basis?

And hilarity ensues. So out of a 2k population of concurrent logins ... how many should "not count" as people actively playing? 10%? 20%? 50%? 80%? 100%? I've said it before, but it looks like the admonishment needs to be reiterated. Use your NUMBERS ... not your Weasel Words. So you saw THREE whole multiboxers cross your path today? And that's your justification for {fill in the blank here}? And in the interest of returning to the spirit of hilarity ...

Three Backstab attacks in a row will cost 180 Energy (60 each). That's a LOT of Energy to spend around 2 global cooldowns (Backstab, GCD, Backstab, GCD, Backstab) and doesn't even include the Energy cost of stunning a target in the first place, or even drinking Thistle Tea for up to 100 Energy during the cycle. So please ... enlighten us as to what this stunlock rotation is that allows a Rogue to Backstab for 3 crits while a target is stunned?

Really what it comes down is a question of ... Divide or Jettison ... which is the bigger risk? Some people will say that Dividing the community of Players is the bigger risk. Others will say that Jettisoning an entire established community would be the bigger risk. As far as I'm concerned, the risks are not symmetrical. Dividing the community is something that would only happen (if at all) AFTER the release of any TBC servers ... but Jettisoning that entire community could begin RIGHT NOW, by sending that community the message that they're not only Not Wanted, but also that They Just Don't Matter. It the difference between saying the Bridge Might Fall after we've crossed it ... or saying we'll burn it before we even get to it. These are asymmetrical risks. The results of being wrong in either case are nowhere near equally problematic. Remember, we're trying to BUILD communities of Players here ... not find reasons excuses to pre-emptively abandon them with a message that amounts to We Don't Serve Your Kind Here. And why don't we want to do that? Because that's what Blizzard did to us ... when they refused to accept that there might be a viable number of players to support vanilla WoW servers. Who here is in a huge rush to repeat Blizzard's mistake(s) in this regard? Anyone?

Grabbed a Screenshot less than 20 minutes ago in Ironforge on Darrowshire (about 2130p server time on Sunday). Yeah, you're right. There's NOBODY playing on the server right now. It's deader than dead. Completely dead. Zero logins AT ALL. And that's not even including all the people Playing on the Horde Side. Except ... oh wait ... there are zero people playing on Horde Side on Darrowshire too, right? Anyone with a Horde character feel like logging in and doing a /who with no filtering by zone/level like I'm doing here to show what kind of population Darrowshire has on the Horde side? Hmmm ... according to Vanilla Radar, the ratio of Alliance to Horde right now is a about 70:30 ... so 1720*3=516 (or so) Horde characters logged in right now ... and the concurrent logins haven't even peaked yet for today. But as everyone knows 516 is functionally synonymous with ZERO, right? Am I right? So ... there's about 1200 Alliance Players and 500 Horde Players logged in to Darrowshire right now, concurrently, but ... of course ... THEY DON'T COUNT. Am I right? Elysium Project can just switch the Darrowshire server off and no one would miss it, would they? Huh? Huh? Am I right or am I right? /sarcasm

With "permission" ... sure.

12 PPM would average to once per 5 seconds.

Of course. When people repeatedly insist on being VAGUE and hiding behind their deliberate lack of specificity in order to shield themselves from being revealed as not having a good faith argument to make ... yeah, I get stubborn about that kind of thing. Them: The population needs to be higher. Me: How much higher? Them: Higher. Me: Care to put NUMBERS to your demand of a higher population? Them: Higher. Me: So, no matter what the numbers ACTUALLY ARE ... it's never enough? Them: I never said that. Me: Actually, you've yet to say anything USEFUL ... even after being invited to do so. Them: Well, I think Darrowshire's population is too low to be viable, so there! Me: Then what kind of population numbers do you think WOULD be viable? Them: It's not my place to say. That's a decision that only Elysium Project staff should make. Me: So you're entitled to say what WON'T work, but have no intention of laying a marker down as to what WOULD work, in your opinion? Them: That's right. Me: So you're making an assertion, without evidence of its factual value, with the explicit understanding that your assertion cannot tested for a True/False condition. Them: Yup. Me: And then when your assertion is challenged, you fall back on the circular logic of your assertion being True despite offering no evidence of Truth to support the assertion, while continuing to avoid responsibility for your assertion in the event that your assertion is actually False. Them: You're really stubborn. Me: I merely asked you to provide NUMBERS to benchmark the validity of your OPINION ... but even that standard of proof seems to be ... Anathema to you. Them: Well, Darrowshire's population is too low, the server is dying, and I'm right because I said so. Me: Just because you keep saying that, doesn't mean it's true. Them: Yes it does. Me: You're arguing in Bad Faith™. Them: No I'm not! Me: Let me guess ... you want me to believe that too. Them: DUH!

Very CONVENIENT assumption you've got going there.

Care to put (other people's) money where your mouth is? Stop waving your hands in the air while being as vague as possible by omitting ANYTHING remotely resembling, you know ... NUMBERS. You're basically making what amounts to a financial claim based on ... poetry and prose ... rather than numbers used in the maths of finances. C'mon people, this isn't that hard. Use your NUMBERS, not your WORDS. As for the straw man argument of "dividing" the community ... consider that the alternative is to tell the community to GO AWAY because We Don't Serve Your Kind Here™. I find it ironic that some people think that banishment and exile is preferable to having a choice of servers to play on.

The 1950s called. They want their bigotry back.

No, you're an All Blacks fan. These two things aren't necessarily (or even have to be) related.

Funny you should say that, since your stance on this issue has consistently been in favor of outright ELIMINATING the PvE servers in their entirely in every thread touching on this topic on these forums, so your bias is becoming more than abundantly obvious. Just because you're happier with no loaf at all, doesn't mean that everyone agrees with your option that half a loaf can never be enough. Stop using Weasel Words™ that could mean anything you want to serve your personal vendetta agenda. What is "too low" ... specifically? Use numbers. Really, it's not that hard. How many concurrent logins are "too low of a demand" as you put it. There's no need to exact. Nice round numbers will do. Multiples of 100 will work just fine. 1000 concurrent logins? 1400 concurrent logins? 2000 concurrent logins? 5000 concurrent logins? 6500 concurrent logins? Your use of "too low" demands a benchmark to measure "too low" AGAINST in order to make an INFORMED value judgement about the merit of your assertion. Congratulations on not providing an answer that can be MEASURED in any objective fashion. Note that "No matter what you say I'm right, so there!" is not arguing in good faith.

There is no "requirement" to learn all of the ranks of Pet Skills. So yea, you can "skip" learning specific ranks for particular Skills if you want. If your Pet is already Level 60, you can just get the highest rank of the Skills you want to put on your Pet and not bother with any of the lower ranks for that Skill. Reasons why you might want to go with the collector mentality of "gotta get 'em all, gotta get 'em all" is for (yes) Completeness ... but also in case you ever decide to pick up a different Pet (especially a lower level one) and want to grind them up towards Level 60 too. If you've "got" all the skill ranks available to you, then you can just bump up the ranks on your Pet's Skills as you grind levels for them. Anytime you advance in ranks between Skills, you're only paying the difference in the cost between the two ranks. So if rank 2 costs 4 TP and rank 4 costs 10 TP, and you skip from rank 2 to rank 4 on your Pet, it'll only cost you an extra 6 TP to go from rank 2 to rank 4 (because 10-4=6). There's no "need" to have rank 3 in between. It's "nice to have" rank 3 in between, especially if you're a completionist collector, but it's not necessary.

Okay, for those of us who are (obviously) not familiar with this add-on, what does it do and how does it work (under the hood)?

SOLD! I'll take it.

Learning Pet Skills from (newly) Tamed Pets does not require any particular Loyalty or Happiness level on the Pet's part. Learning the Pet's Skill(s) is purely a RNG check done every time they use a Pet Skill that your Hunter doesn't know already. That's it. To learn a Pet Skill, you just have them use the Skill ... and keep using it ... until you learn it. Skills that don't require a Target (Dash, Dive, Shell Shield, for example) you can learn by parking in an Inn or City and just clicking the skill every time it comes off cooldown. For attack skills like Claw and Bite and so on, you can go to any starter zone (or City) and have your Pet start attacking the critters there (Rats, Sheep, Roaches, Deer, Squirrels, Rabbits, need I go on?) until you learn the Pet Skill. It's a good idea to go ahead and Feed your newly Tamed Pet to raise their Happiness just so they don't run off and abandon you before you learn their Pet Skill(s) (at which point, you abandon them to get back to your "main" combat Pet that you'd parked in the Stables).

Trolls on the internet? Really? When did the internet join the Horde? I'm kidding of course, but not by much ...

Then you're going to have a problem with finding evidence that the tooltip shown right now does not match the tooltip shown in legacy 1.12.1 Vanilla WoW due to the fact that what we've got right now EXACTLY MATCHES what was shown in legacy 1.12.1 on live servers during vanilla WoW. In other words, what we're looking at right now IS BLIZZ-LIKE for the vanilla experience. So if there's a "mistake" here, it's one that BLIZZARD made in the first place, not one that the Elysium Project is making because they're "stupid" or anything. So your github report would only be relevant in the context of TBC servers ... not for vanilla servers. Good luck with that.

It's basically a question of ... are you a prisoner to the Sunk Costs Fallacy ... or not?

Long story short(er) ... take the 100 HP in preference to the 125 Armor, since it will more efficiently balance your itemization in a way that maximizes your survivability.

10k Players / 6+ billion humans = ~1 Player in 600k humans on the planet If using an even gaussian distribution of Players all over the world (a fallacious assumption, but still fun to play with) ... in a population of ~5 million like Scotland there should be all of 50/6 = ~8 Players in all of Scotland. You found 1 of the others. Now go find the remaining 6 ... Dragonball style.

Define HIGH ENOUGH. Don't use WORDS, which are imprecise (and "weasily" for our purposes here) ... use NUMBERS. What is the threshold for viability? 1000+ Players? Darrowshire beats than number of concurrent logins daily right now for multiple hours at a stretch without breaking a sweat. Even better yet, what were the expectations of concurrent logins for a server by Blizzard back in the day for whether a server's population was "healthy" or not? Sure, granted, NOW we have server hardware and software configurations that can blow way past those limits (as Elysium does daily), but the population density on Elysium is anything BUT "Blizz-like" for those people who want to adhere to that tradition (rather than wield it like a cudgel only against things they don't like). If memory serves (granted, faulty and imprecise source of reference), Blizzard would start a login queue at around 2k concurrent logins on a server, back in the day, to prevent population overloads like what we now see (daily) on Elysium. Darrowshire isn't DEAD. It's more sparsely populated than Elysium, but it hasn't been abandoned by its Players. Indeed, the (so called) "Death" of Darrowshire has been hyped beyond all objective reason at this point by people who want to cannibalize it into being yet another PvP server.