Mana Regen Guide for ICC

Recently on the Hunting Party Podcast the question was asked what the best way was to regen mana on the Lady Deathwhisper fight, Viper Sting or a few cooldowns onto Aspect of the Viper, And I thought to myself this isn't the only fight mana can become an issue (Note unless you have a really unfavourable 25 man group make up, the only times one would run into mana issues would be on 10 man).
 So I'm going to go through all bosses and write up a few strategies.

First of the important thing is to look at the fight and use it to your advantage. Make use of what Blizzard gives you in each fight.

Marrowgar
Marrowgar is very straight forward. If you should run into any mana troubles, plan ahead and before you run out use a bonestorm phase to switch to Aspect of the Viper and refill. If an MM hunter make sure you don't lose your Serpent Sting though.

Lady Deathwhisper
In going with use what Blizzard gives you, well here Blizzard gives you big fat mana battery in Deathwhisper herself. In this fight its not about how much dps you can do anyway, and depending on what your role is it may not even matter at all. So just relax and if you see yourself dropping low in the first phase just switch to her in between the adds and pop of a singular Viper sting Chimaera Shot combo, and then continue on the adds. Make sure you have enough mana before going into Phase 2 though because this is the burn phase where you do want be able to DPS as much as possible.

Gunship
Gunship is the easiest encounter in here and for the hunter one of the easiest to top the dps meter as long as you aren't jumping or in a cannon. Just Volley to your hearts content and refill in Aspect of the Viper on the Axethrowers.

Saurfang
Saurfang is a fight where, if you're running out of mana you just gonna have to bite the bullet and switch aspects. As a hunter chances are you'll be asked to look after the beasts (as all ranged should) and you want to dps them down as quick as possible. I suggest once the beast you were focusing on is down, switch in to Aspect of the Viper and see if you can get a few shots off, on someone elses target that may still be up. Just make sure you have enough mana before he goes into his soft-enrage at 30%, because that's when he needs to be burnt quickly.

Festergut & Rotface
Festergut is effectively a pimped up Patchwerk in my opinion, and Rotface a tweaked Grobbulus. There aren't really any phases which would be more useful for mana regen then others, so just switch when required.

Professor Putricide
professor Putricide is also a boss that doesn't really have any phases that are more suited to switching Aspects than others, but you do want to be mana up before he hits the 3rd phase at 35%.

Blood Princes
For your average raid guild and maybe even your not so average raid guild this is going to be utter and pure chaos. You will be spending a lot of time running, you will spend a lot of time switching targets and sometimes you may be spending a lot of time dpsing Kinetic Orbs. Don't worry about what your DPS is and just refill your mana when you need it.

Blood Queen
If this is done properly this fight will be over before you could possibly run out of mana, and if it isn't done correctly you will most likely wipe.

Valithria Dreamwalker
This goes back to what I said at the start, use what Blizzard gives you, and in this case Blizzard gives you regular Mana Power-ups in the form of Risen Archmages. So if you see yourself running low switch to an Archmage and fire off the old trusted Vipersting Chimaera Shot combo, then continue as you were.

Sindragosa
Sindragosa is a fight where you never really want to give up dps on her, so the best time to regen is during her air phase. Switch to Aspect of the Viper, dps the ice-Cubes then switch back when she lands and be on your merry way.

The Lich King
The same applies here it does to Sindragosa, you again don't really want to drop any dps during the main phases, so use the intermission phases at the edge to switch into Aspect of the Viper and refuel. Then when you are manaed up or the phase is over and you have to run back in switch back and DPS to your hearts content.

So there you have it. These are the strategies that I use when it comes to regenerating mana. feel free to comment on them and let me know if you think there are some better strategies, I will be more than happy to update this guide to include your tips.

So keep on hunting, and next time you see the Lich King steal his polearm for me :)

Serebihm

A blogging lesson learnt

So a lesson in blogging has been learnt already. I have been advised that the macro below is pretty much obsolete as damage bonus is applied to the hunter as long as you are tracking one of the types and the mobs your'e killing is one of the trackable types. Thank you Frostheim for pointing this out me.

This change has happened a long time ago to, so the fact that I didn't know about it can only mean that this change must have happened at a time I wasn't around. Not to worry...

So the lesson is keep the blogs on current topics and one may succeed. Oh and don't take breaks from WoW, things might change and  you could miss them. Anyway I'm off to Ruby Sanctum 25 and ICC hard modes. I will let you know how we went after.


keep on hunting

Serebihm

The Coolest Hunter macro you may not have yet!

The macro that was on here is actually obsolete, so I'm going to have to find a new macro to put here! When I do I'll let you know :)

Explaining my UI

Here you can see a screenshot of my User Interface. Theres only a few Addons that are currently visible and I'll explain each one, as well as those "invisible" addons that improve life as a hunter.

TitanPanel
The Bar at the Top is TitanPanel. I like TitanPanel because it shows me all sorts of useful information such as game performance, memory usage, Total Gold, Location, Gear damage etc. The Loot section is actually a /roll button. It also has a function which allows access buttons to be placed on this bar for your addons, which means the button around your minimap can be removed.

nUI+
My main UI addon is nUI+. I like the layout of it and the fact it is almost an all in one package. As you can see, it provides you with a HuD around your character (which can be turned of) for both yoou, your pet and your target. Any cooldowns will be shown with a timer just below your character, meaning your eyes will never have to wander far from your character. Another great feature of the HuD is that next to your targets or your own health bar it will place icons of any Debuffs with a timer and number of stacks you or the target might have. This makes keeping track of stacking debuffs, such as Sindragosa's Chilled to the Bone, a breeze. And once again your eyes will not need to wander far from the action to see what's going on.

On the left and right of the screen are the Buff and DeBuff windows. Buffs and Debuffs are displayed icon name and timer, with the timer changing to red when it is about to run out.

On the bottom left you see the nUI+ chat box, on the bottom right you see the OMEN/Recount integration window, with the button that allows you to switch between Omen, recount, combat log and a map.

The bottom centre is your party frame. when playing solo it displays your health frames for you, your pet, your target and your target's target. The centre image displays your focus target, or if no focus target is set it displays you minimap. As your party grows these individual frames become smaller, as your party frames are added.

nUI+ allows for 7 action bars to be displayed, including being able to switch between shot bars (arrows next to main bar). This is a great feature which allows you to switch between 2 shot bars (i.e one with macros and one without).


ViperNotify
I believe every hunter should run ViperNotify as there is nothing worse then switching to Viper aspect and in the heat of battle forgetting to switch back. ViperNotify will play a sound when your mana pool is full and Aspect of the Viper is still active.

oRA2
oRA2 is a raid assist addon which allows for the display of main tanks as well as the tanks target making targeting of the tank a breeze. No more excuses for dpsing the wrong target.

Deadly Boss Mods
DBM is a must-have for every raider and usually a required raiding guild addon. It provides announces, raid warning and whispers for important events during encounters allowing you to react in a timely manner. A similar addon with the same purpose is BigWigs and i do know people who do run both, however I have noticed difference in the timers and have found DBM to be the more accurate.

RatingBuster
RatingBuster provides gear stat breakdown, analysis and comparison on the fly, allowing you to see if an item is an upgrade. When mousing over the loot it will display the gain/loss of each stat on the item in comparison to the currently equipped item, underneath the item's stats.

TBag
TBAg is a nifty little Bag mod that makes bag management a breeze. It also allows you to view any alts bags even when on a different character as well as any bank contents on any alt you might have.

GupPet
GupPet is a fun little addon which when clicked mounts you on a random mount, or brings out a random pet (with a random pet automatically brought out when entering the game from any loadscreen). It also keeps track of mount and pet collection and provides a list and details of any mounts or pets you may not have yet and where to find them.

So there it is, a list of all the addons i run for raids or that are visible on my UI. There are a few addons I run I haven't listed but that is because they do not have any effect on raiding whatsoever.

Online Resources

When rolling a hunter new players have the fortune of being blessed with the biggest, friendliest and most helpful WoW community online. The Web is littered with hundreds of Blogs and podcasts dedicated to hunters. So below I have listed the best resources there are:



OutDPS.com, TheBrewHall.com, WarcraftHuntersUnion.com

OutDPS.com is maintained by Euripides. TheBrewHall.com is maintained by Darkbrew. WarcraftHuntersUnion.com is maintained by Frostheim. Together they are the 3 parts that make up The Hunting Party Podcast, the number 1 Hunter Podcast online. They release weekly shows where they discuss all the latest hunter news, have live Listener Q&A sessions and answer Listener emails. On top of that The podcast features guests such as regular favorite BigRedKitty. Very informative and great entertainment value at the same time.

The 3 sites themselves are extremely useful and informative with Warcraft Hunters Union in particular featuring a fantastic Guide section. These 3 plus the Podcast are a must for all Hunters!



www.femaledwarf.com

here you'll find the home of Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer, a web adaptation of Shandara's Hunter DPS Spreadsheet, and in my opinion the single most important tool within the online Hunter community, a treasure that must forever be protected. it allows any hunter to load his character from the Armory into the Analyser, which will then calculate the raw DPS based on the characters stats and gear. it is an invaluable tool that can tell you how much DPS your new item will provide, or how your new spec will affect your DPS.




Petopia

Petopia is site dedicated to a Hunter's best friend...his pet. Here you will find everything that you need to know about your companion, where to find it, what abilities it has, even what it looks like and what food it prefers.




Minor resources:
For me the above mentioned resources are all a hunter will ever need, but there are more blogs and sites that can be of interest.

BigRedKitty.net
This is your number one source for Hunter related Beta content, full of videos and images. A great insight into what's in store for the best class in WoW.

ManiasArcania.com
Another blog dedicated to our pets. Very informative, and a special insight intopets within the beta.

WoW.com and MMO-Champion.com
One cannot list Hunter resources without mentioning these two sites. Both Sites are dedicated to bringing you the latest WoW news and developments (which includes hunters), and WoW.com in particular features regular guest posts by previously mentioned bloggers such as Frostheim and Euripides.

ElitistJerks.com
I have put Elitist Jerks last because it can be a bit of a double-edged sword. If one has the patience to scour its Hunter forums in detail, one can find some fantastic insights and some amazing theorycrafting within its posts. The downside is it can be sometimes difficult to distinguish between useful and useless information as there are literally thousands of posts.

So there you have it! A list of some of the best Hunter resources available on the Web. I am sure there are many more, some of which I may just have forgotten, but these mentioned above will ensure, that your time on your hunter will be extremely productive.

Who knows some time down the line other sites may be able to add this blog to that list.

One can only hope.

keep on Hunting,

Serebihm

A little more about Serebihm

So, a little more about Serebihm of Khaz'goroth (US). I started playing WoW back in 2007 halfway through Burning Crusade and Serebihm was my first character I rolled. Previous to WoW i had played Guild Wars for a year and a half and had really enjoyed the Ranger class.
Through my times levelling I met a group of 4 other players and we kind of bonded and levelled to 70 together, and once there joined our first raiding guild Enigma Thirteen. It was a casual raid guild with some great players, but also a lot of average and not so good players. And hence our progression stayed in Karazhan, Zul Aman and Gruuls Lair, with Lootreaver in TK and 2 bosses in SSC.

When Wrath was released the group of us knew we wanted more progression this expansion and worked hard to change the guild attitude to match our goals. However, this just caused division within the guild and just after the release of Ulduar the guild broke apart, having cleared Naxx, and Sarth on 25man, and all 10 man content. A group of 10 went on to create a new guild called Rapture, however it soon dawned to us that some of our problems were dragged with us to Rapture and so this guild also broke apart after having made great progress including downing Mimiron prior to his big nerf. The next guild I joined is the same I'm still with now, at that point 3rd ranked on Alliance GOAT. And I had finally found the home I was looking for. The guild had some great players and excellent organisation. it shows today as it is the longest existing Alliance raiding guild on Khaz'goroth.

In my time with GOAT i have achieved everything I set out to do at the beginning of the expansion. I have seen every single boss fight in this expansion, have gotten my Rusted Proto Drake from Ulduar 10 hardmodes and were one of the first alliance guilds to clear ToC 10 on hard modes (unfortunately we were not so lucky on 25man in both instances). Now I also technically have downed LK on 25 man and downed Halion and are making great progress through ICC 10 HM (9/12 but we expect Sindragosa and Putricide to drop next attempt).

I love the Hunter class and I've gone to extraordinary lengths to be as good as i can be. My guildmates are often amazed at the amount of macros I run, and around my server I have gained the reputation as a go-to hunter when wanting to know things hunter related. I do tireless research have subscribed to multiple hunter podcasts and blogs and have spent copious amounts of Gold on respecs and re-gems simply to test new setups (2235g spent on talent respecs since WoW has been keeping track). I currently run a bog standard MM raid spec with 1228 Armor Penetration unbuffed, and have a BM solo farming offspec. my 5 pets I run with are Smoochy the Rhino, which is my solo BM tank pet, Silvermane the Gorilla, my newly tamed MM tank pet, Lupus the Vargul Blighthound, my main raid pet, Razor the Winterspring Frostsaber, the first raid pet I ever tamed and can't bring myself to abandon, and last but not least Blacksting the Wasp, my secondary raid pet when we have no feral druids or CoW warlocks.

So check out my hunter on the Armory right here!

Other than my hunter I have 4 other 80 toons:

Groinstabber, Gnome Rogue, also my AH PvPer
Aristocrates, Dwarf Priest, Disc/holy healer
Kurabihm, Night Elf, Druid, healer/tank
Hellsworn, Draenei Death knight, Tank/ DPS

Outside of WoW I'm 30 years old, married without children (so far) living in New Zealand and work in the casino industry.

More posts with actual helpful information are on their way over the next few days.

So keep on hunting,

Serebihm

Time for Blizzard to fix Release Spirit?

So, I finally have enough info collected to dive into my blog, and I'm going to start on a negative post.
This week my Guild on Khaz'goroth (US) GOAT finally got its 25man LK kill. I was part of this group. During the fight we, had just pushed LK into Phase 2 and we tried a new strat for the Val'kyrs. I was picked up and the strat did not work as we intended resulting in me dropping to my death. In this phase 2 more people died as well, and the raid leader commented that we would not try this strat again. I released naturally thinking 3 people down is a big loss, especially 2 were healers. What I didn't realise is that, the other 2 deaths weren't dropped, they were killed by the remaining Raging Spirit and a defile. So they were Battle-rezzed and the fight continued. To my shock and horror and elation at the same time the group continued the fight and downed LK with me sitting outside released. Then it happened! I did not get the achievement, however, the words "You are now saved to this instance" were sprawled across my chat box. Are you serious Blizzard? After doing some research I realized that this is a hugely common occurence especially with the LK fight. So i was sitting there thinking if WoW can register that I was there at the beginning of the fight, and then also registers when the boss dies, even though I am sitting outside, it should be able to put 2and 2 together and figure that this player was part of the kill and should receive the achievement (On top of that the Hunter Polearm dropped which I would have won due to my high EPGP score but alas I could not receive loot either). So this ended up a triple whammy: No Achievement or Title, No loot, but saved to the instance. After opening a ticket and waiting for 3 days I get a reply that"My problem is beyond the scope of powers of GMs".

So I think its time that Blizzard fix this. This happens regularly and everybody has done it or knows someone who released early accidentally. I propose that Blizzard put in a new button that while you are a ghost you can return your body dead into the instance again. This would fix all issues. You released to early? No problem hit the "Return Body to instance" and everything is fine. An early release like this on LK, after months of working on him hurts. The only consolation I have that another player also released except his was after the LK killed everyone.

Anyway I'd love to hear what you all think on this topic. I need a break while I calm down again. :)

Serebihm