The Glade 4.0

Same. I couldn't live without my flying mount.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Note that the basic flying mounts were changed about 2 months back to fly at 150% speed. This is pretty noticeably faster than the 100% that fast land-only mounts go. For only ~225g or so, and the ability to get to the occasional place you need flying to get to, it's something you should get immediately when accessible. :p

You 100% need one in the last two and part of a third WotLK zone. They're largely inaccessible otherwise. Though now that I think about it, it might be sorta amusing to try and quest in Icecrown without one. You couldn't do a lot of the zone but still could do... three? quest hubs. Riding along the top of the various gates and such to reach your destination would be a lot more perilous than your very safe flying all around. :p

Even at +60%, the flier was a godsend.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

When WotLK came out, one of my friends who was stuck at level 60 because he still didn't have TBC finally bought box expansions. We managed to get him onto Ogrim's Hammer at level 60 with no flying mount for an achievement.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Even a slow flying mount is great for being able to avoid mobs to get to objectives for questing- as well as avoiding minor terrain barriers that you would otherwise have to go around (clefts in nagrand, etc).

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Outlands is kinda progressively designed to be more and more troublesome if you don't have a flying mount, I do believe. Hellfire, Zangarmarsh, Terokkar are all pretty easy to get around without flying. Nagrand is somewhat troublesome as noted. Blade's Edge is pretty bad. Netherstorm also quite bad! Shadowmoon... actually isn't too bad without one I guess. Sure does help still, however.

And yeah Raf, heh. We managed to get someone up on Orgrim's Hammer by finding a spot close enough to the ship where they could die (via Hysteria for no durability loss) and rez on board. Was literally a last day rush through all the achievements for her. Took so many tries, but it was all good times. :p

Hunter talents? Anyone?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

We finally used that method, when the Hammer paths near the mountain. Before that we used way too elaborate schemes involving me Death Gripping him up the mountain to places inacessible by foot and trying to use levitate to get the right trajectory to land on the ship.

Yea ... that didn't happen.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Even if they didn't make their intended landing on the ship, that could still end in fun!

...and repair bills!

Others could answer better than me but I seem to keep coming across recommendations for BM spec for Hunters in my reading. No idea what context that is though, if it's leveling, raiding, pvp or what ... or even that these people know what they're talking about. I just have seen 2 or 3 people suggest that hunters go BM spec and let their pets destroy things.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

BM is not for raiding at the moment. Marks and Survival both work, but BM does not.

I like it for leveling, though. Admittedly I haven't been any other spec since before WotLK, so it may be the case that I don't know what I'm missing, but I'm a pretty solo player on my Hunter and the option to have a pet that could actually tank elite quest mobs has proven useful time and time again.

That would be a great use for dual spec, however... :p If you don't PVP I'd do BM spec with glyph of mend pet for one spec and, at 80, Survival most likely as my group/raid spec. Marks works, but it's pretty gear dependent from what I gather.

Strictly speaking leveling, though, I'm pretty sure that as Marks or Survival you will pull threat off your pet unless you slow up damage. BM, especially through the use of BM-specific cooldowns, can go all-out on most enemies you come across while leveling. Maybe this doesn't translate into a literal sort of "better", but it's a peace of mind idea to me... so long as those various cooldowns get hotkeyed, anyway. :p Intimidation, Bestial Wrath, macro to misdirect your pet... something along those lines.

I managed to get my Turkinator on Sunday thanks to the help of a hunter. Pretty easy. Now I just have to take the time to run Sethekk and run to all the other player's cities. More of a timesink than anything.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I'm marks right now and have nowhere near the money for dual spec, but I may switch over to that on my hunter since he's just having a hell of a time trying to level compared to the DK.

I'm thinking of like 54/14/3 or so to get those crit and damage boosts and aimed shot and that intellect to attack power, and the range extension, the rest in BM to beef the pet up.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In general this is true. There are occasional, specific fights where a BM hunter more than makes up for their loss in DPS with their great durability and utility, however. (The Faction Champion fight in TOC is occasionally worth switching to BM for, if you have it as an alternate spec.) But BM does still reign supreme for levelling ... among hunter specs anyway.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I purchased 2 talent specs as soon as I got 1000 gold saved up; saving now for Northrend flying as soon as I can get it (which I'm more impressed with now that I've tried it in Outland).

Went with Frost for tanking/PvP, stuck with Rafael's blood spec for leveling/DPS for now. I may swith to that Unholy DPS spec at 80 that someone posted; halfway through 74 at the moment.

Even with the Frost tank spec, though DPS seems to be pretty high in Blood presence, and I seem to have more AoE options with howling blast, which also has better re-use than the Dancing Rune Weapon. The AoE and that ability that AoE freezes people seems to be generally more useful for PvP as well. I'm almost wondering of a DPS spec was really necessary, but I do like the ability to adjust.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I have very very very little experience leveling as a DK. I've played through the starting area 3 times and took one to level 60 or something beyond that. So my opinion probably doesn't count for much.

But I find leveling as Frost to be pretty fun. :p I made a wacky talent build each time to make good use out of Howling Blast, with talents to help kiting. That guaranteed crit talent makes HB pretty sweet. It was downright abusive in Hellfire Peninsula where DKs admittedly are far overgeared.

I don't think it would win any races to 80 or anything, so I don't know that I'd attribute the term 'good' to it, but I preferred it despite all that.

Hellfire and Zangermarsh both were absurdly easy as a DK. I was just mowing quests down; even 2 and 3 person group quests. I was Frost then ans switched to Blood on Rafael's recommendation. The only real difference seemed to be that I had to eat more in Frost spec.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Hmm, shouldn't have to eat too much, they improved Improved Blood Presence since I was blood to be pretty good.

Anyway, yes, I'm of the opinion Howling Blast is one of the best 51 point talents in the game.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

2H Blood DPS with Tank Gear is the best soloing in the game. I can kill pretty much anything and end the fight full health. I can even solo a Naxx boss or two with it on my DK (Heigan for example).

Dual Wield Frost Tanking is pretty interesting. Because of the changes to Rune Strike, it's pretty much way over powered at the moment. It trades a little health for avoidance in the long run over two handers.

As far as Hunter Specs go, Sean and I both carry a Marks and a Survival spec for raiding. It really depends on the fight as to which is better. On long fights where you can remain stationary most of the time, Marks is godly. IF there's a lot of mobility and you need burst in short segments, Survival wins. Both are competitive.

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So my hunter is 78 now, should be 80 by next weekend, and I'm trying to decide what to spec through heroics.

As things go, I'm pulling an easy 2k in 80 normal dungeons specced BM with a wolf.

I hear various things from 'BM can never be played with any competitive DPS' to 'It's about 1k less DPS at the top end' (9k vs 10k max).

Is BM going to be decent DPS playing through heroics, or should I go ahead and dual spec BM with either Marks or Surv for dungeons? And if so, which would you suggest?

I know it's not considered competitive for raiding, but I don't raid a whole lot, and Heroics tend to be quite different than raids, for the most part.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I don't now. When I was initially levelling Frost specced using Frost presence I had to eat a lot. I switched to your blood spec in frost presence and my health bar basically didn't move unless I was fighting at least 2 mobs or an elite.

Now that I have dual I'm still using blood in frost presence to level, but I've experiemented with using my frost spec in blood presence and gotten basically the same results. I just don't care as much for soloing with the tank spec because I find it harder to get a steady ability rotation down.



Both my specs are 2h because A) I just think its more fun B) it seems far more popular among DKs and C)I find it easier to compare stats. I don't really have a tank gear vs DPS gear set yet (only piece I switch are shoulders and weapon and that's only to switch runes), I can see being able to do that though, I hit some of the 2-man quests in Dragonsblight last night on Bloodspec/Frost presence and tore through them with barely a health meter twitch.



I'm sticking with marks for my hunter right now because it's what I know best from the past. I think I'll be doing something like this down the road though; if he can ever afford it. He tends to burn a lot of money on ammo and repairs since he's still in a lot of MC raid gear from back in the day.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I could probably stand to have a survival spec for that purpose. However, I HATE survival. It feels...frantic. You never relax into a routine, it requires 100% concentration--the last time I tried it, I actually outperformed my marks dps, but I hated every second of it and ended up with a mild headache and wanting to take a break and log off after a few fights ...games should not be stressful!

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Survival is just knowing when to hit the right buttons at the right time. It's not that frantic.

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Just like any of the priority rotations.

You're just lucky you're not a Feral Druid:

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Holy shitsnacks!

Second flow chart is seriously win.

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