Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Helpful Tips for Applying to a Guild

Thinking about moving up and applying to a progression orientated guild for some challenging content? Intimidated by the process? Here's some tips to help ease you and your anxiety.

1.Know your class!
Be aware of what is required of your chosen class (most of you are probably hunters if you're reading this) be ready to be asked questions about why you've gemmed and reforged a certain way, or can you change specs and perform as well in it. Nothing will kill an app quicker than having spirit gems on your hunter's gear. Make sure your Professions offer your class the best possible bonus.

2. Know Yourself!
Point out any strengths you have, such as being quick with Misdirects, and also your weakness and what you do to overcome them or work around them.

3. Have previous experience ready and available.
Make sure you are honest about why you've left old guilds, but be diplomatic about it at the same time. Saying you left your old guild because the raid leader was a dick, not good. Saying you left because you and the raid leader diverged on your end game goals and decided to part ways shows a mature attitude and that you are less prone to drama. Also make available any logs you can link to, this helps them know what to expect.

4. Read the Application and Rules carefully.
Some guild applications will have a seemingly simple question in the app some where, this can actually be a test to see if you have read the rules regarding applications. One favorite is to mention something in the info, like "turquoise is your favorite color", then the app will have this:
"Have you read the rules?" followed by "What is your favorite color?". Too many times I've seen yes to reading the rules, followed by "red" when the answer was clearly (in this case) Turquoise.

5. Learn the schedule and how to sign up for raids.
There are different ways that guilds put together a raid. Most common is using the guild calender, but some guilds have sign ups in their forums and some just say "Monday, first pull is 7:30" and the core is there ready to go, and if substitution is needed, they are there ready to go. Make sure your sched matches theirs, and if not, look elsewhere.

6. Be Prepared on Raid night!
Show up in gear, repaired, and provisioned properly. Most guilds will provide feasts and flasks to core, but trials might be left to fend for their own. Don't be the guy who has to ask for a repair bot second pull in, or try to save some gold by not flasking. This shows a lack of commitment, and is a sure way to be passed over when filling a raid next time.

7. Most Important Tip!
Make sure that the guild/s you are applying to fits your goal, style of play and most importantly your personality! Do you enjoy a laid back atmosphere or strict protocol in raid? Do you have a delicate sensibility or do you cuss like a sailor? The most important part of this though, is are they the right skill match? Getting into a guild that fails to mechanics you find simple can be very frustrating to you, and joining a guild that demands you be prepared to jump right into the deep end when you haven't even seen the vids for a fight can be frustrating for them. Try to find a guild that pushes your boundaries and can grow with you.

For you Hunters:
Know your pets and which one is best for raid buffs.
Be aware of your Aspects! (pulling while in Aspect of Pack = fail)
Growl OFF!

With these tips and some common sense, Apping to guilds and trials will be less stressful for you and hopefully help you find your ideal guild quicker.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Beginner Guide to Hunters - Chapter 4: Professions

At one point or another, during the leveling process, a player will come across profession trainers. Professions allow the hunter to specialise in certain tasks, be it crafting armor or weapons, or gathering a certain type of material. Professions are divided into 2 categories: Primary and secondary. Primary professions include the 3 gathering professions (Mining, Skinning and Herbalism), as well as the 8 major crafting professions (Leatherworking, Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Engineering and Inscription). A character may only train in 2 primary professions at any given time. The remaining professions (Fishing, Cooking, First Aid and Archaeology) are termed secondary professions and a character may train in all of them if they so choose.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The 3 D's (and a Hidden Bonus)

To paraphrase The Great Frostheim, regardless of how crappy your tank is, a good hunter should NEVER pull aggro. We should be a blessing to the mediocre and appreciated by the great. I'd like to take that thinking and now apply it to healers. We have the tools to make any healer thankful there is a hunter in the group , but they're hardly ever used. Let us discuss them now and how they can be applied to make our healers life a little easier. I like to call them the 3 D's.

First is a little used shot called Distraction Shot. It used to be great to team this up with misdirection, but Blizzard put a stop to that quite a while back, and a lot of us have left it in our spell book, collecting dust, only to be pulled out on those rare occurrences when we are called on to kite. Dust it off, and put it on your action bar again, especially if you dungeon a lot or have a failmage in your raid! Eventually someone is going to pull aggro from a mob, and once said mob has killed the offender (mages, looking at you) they usually go for the healer. Freezing it works, but there are so many chances for that to go wrong (damn mages, you make a hunters life difficult) it's almost a waste of a GCD to launch. I go for the distracting shot. First, it'll save your healer quick, because a hurt hunter is a lot better than a dead healer. Secondly, it gives you more options to deal with the "rogue mob", such as now placing a trap, or running to the tank, Feign Death, and letting them pick aggro back up. Anyway you look at it, the healer should be ok and still breathing, thankful of having a hunter who is on the ball.

Our second D is Deterrence. I personally love this one due to my less than stellar abilities to move away from things that hurt. A good example is during the V&T fight in BOT. After Blackout has been cast, she uses her Devouring Flame, a nasty ability that will toast you a nice shade of black. If you find yourself in a compromising position ie right in front of her with your back to a wall (guilty!), run at her and hit Deterrence for 5 seconds of snugly protection! Your healer will love the fact that you sacrifice a few points of DPS to save them valuable mana they can use on the failmage who was standing next to you.

Finally we have Disengage, another favorite of mine. I lack the ability to turn and run quickly (actually, that has been solved, but that is a later post) so Disengage is my go to. Something about to eat your face and FD is still on cooldown? Disengage! Fire under your feet? Disengage! Tank lost aggro and there's a mage beside you? Definitely Disengage! The best way to reduce damage taken is to avoid it all together, and Disengage does that nicely. Word of warning though. Make sure you have something to land on behind you, or the taunting will not end for months (I know this all too well. My guild note for a year was "Likes to jump off cliffs!")
These are my 3 D's, and healers will come to love them if they get hunters who use them. Please use them because we all know that healers need that extra mana to help those damn mages!

Oh yea, the Bonus! Make your healers extra happy on the Neferian fight by swapping out a major glyph with Glyph of Raptor Strike, which reduces damage done by 20% for 5 seconds after using Raptor Strike, perfect for phase 2 on the pillars and the final burn on Nef himself. In both cases, you can use your melee abilities at the same time as you use your ranged abilities, so when the warning comes for his crackle, Raptor Strike! The effect is noticeable and helpful.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The past and the future - expanding The Hunter's Arsenal

Greetings to you all from the Firelands. I have been extremely busy with my new job, raiding Firelands with my new guild (I got the crossbow of Ryolith, woot!!) and having my mother visit one week and my best friend visiting right now for two weeks, so my spare time for blogging has been at an absolute minimum. I have been seeking to address this by recruiting another writer and it appears I have found my partner in crime - my fellow guildie, and hunter of infamy, Quadilious.

If you haven't heard of Quad before don't despair and check out his blog "The Strange Tale of Quadilious", especially The Setup page for some amazing videos. I am extremely excited to have Quad join me here at The Hunter's Arsenal and hope that this spells a productive and fruitful future for this blog.

With this new addition we are currently discussing changes that we will be making. First and foremost the Beginner Guide to Hunters series will continue, so don't worry. Secondly with Quad's expert knowledge of in-game videos, we will be releasing some Firelands boss kill videos very soon - All from the perspective of a hunter. We are also looking at completely redesigning this page, but that is very low on the priority list right now.

So exciting times are ahead. Once again a huge welcome to Quadilious and I can't wait to read his first post for The Hunter's Arsenal.

Keep on hunting,

Serebihm