A must read! Very interesting.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/03/27/2-4-leaves-hunters-low-on-mana/

I noticed that but I though it was just me hahaha

I will be useless for 50% of the Gruul's fight.

woot!

LOL I was having mana issues BEFORE 2.4

time to start tweaking

That is troubling for sure. On Lunn, pre 2.4 I burned through mana like no tomorrow, and used 2+ fel mana pots for many boss fights.

go beast mastery & stop wearing pvp gear for pve encounters

go beast mastery & stop wearing pvp gear for pve encounters

If pve gear would actually drop that is better then the pvp gear I currently wear I would put it on for "pve encounters" but thanks for the idea. Why must I be limited to only use beast mastery spec just because wow f'd up? WoW just needs to fix the mistake they have made.

For example I currently wear Vindicator's Chain Girdle. Girdle of the Prowler dropped in kara but when I put it on it sucks compared to the pvp item. Yes it has a little mp5 but it isn't worth the stats drops.

I see you went back to Beast Mastery spec. What did you hate about Marksmanship?

i use the vind. belt too. it has superior stats all around to the prowler girdle, incl. intellect, so that wasn't really a fair comparison at all--you compared a good item earned thru pvp with a less superior item earned thru pve. whereas a number of hunters (i am speaking in generalities) seem to feel that gladiator gear of any season will cut it in raids. it won't. you need mana. not hp.

i don't hate anything about marks. beast mastery is more mana efficient and it is a superior raid spec. you can do whatever you want, but that doesn't alter the facts. /shrug i only went back to marks because my hit wasn't able to support BM dps after receiving the Bow (since my previous bow had the 30 hit scope on it, and i wanted a crit scrope on new Bow). i had to wait until i collected an item with significant hit on it to switch back.

relax, i wasn't targeting anyone.

Honest question: how did WoW make a mistake? I have an extra 150mp5 in the fsr. The mages I run with no longer have to juggle a million different gems and potions just to stay viable through a fight longer than three minutes. Warlocks aren't forced to lifetap to nothing after every pull. I'm seeing the regen changes as a *good* thing, and I'm afraid you think it's a mistake just because it's inconveniencing you. Research your gems and swap some enchants around, and you should be fine.

Stop wearing pvp gear for pve encounters

Yea no doubt, I'm with you on that one

Personally I've been trying to gear up, as I'm sure others have, but I've have not been too successful getting drops. I reckon upgrades from PVP vendors are better than none at all for the time being. ;) With some creative enchanting and gem socketing even the PVP stuff could be more viable for PVE... At least until some decent PVE gear drops for ya

Also an effective shot rotation can make a huge difference in your sustained DPS during long fights. A nice steady/auto shot rotation is your buddy IMO

PS

I thought the article was very alarmist … like hunters are no longer worth anything and doomed… that’s silly talk and regardless of the change that’s nonsense… there might be a need to adapt and think out side the box in regard to play style and gear.

This might be a change that starts making the line between true killers and huntards more visible and that's a good thing

Staying power is better than wtfpwn power, especially in a long fight.

Sure it is awesome to see your damage super high, but in the end it's a wash because you blew your load before the loot dropped.

You can throw tomatoes at me for saying this, but I've always felt that, no matter what your spec, just Rock What You Love.

I hate that people say such-and-such is the best spec for whatever-class and you should play that or you'll never be a badass. I think you can pick something that's fun for you (I went with frost for Agnes when I created her because I thought that snowballs were pretty...not a very technical reason) and just do the best you can with it. Figure out what enchants/gems would suit you best, seek out the gear with the stats that will suit you best, and just Rock It. Otherwise, the game will turn into Why Am I Not Badass Enough and drive you crazy and won't be fun anymore.

I think if you just stick with a spec long enough and really get to know it, you can be a great player, no matter what.

ETA: This is just for fun pve stuff and not like...how do I become the Best Raider Evah?

thanks for the sunshine and roses agnes XD
the thread is about mana efficiency. if you want to be FULLY mana efficient and do admirable damage, beast mastery IS the spec to choose. i'm not answering the question 'what's the most fun and exciting,' that's anyone's guess.

but, from a purely numbers-based standpoint, BM is simply the most effective spec as far as mana and damage goes, because, like c-rob said, it puts out more dmg per second with the steady/auto/kill cmd rotation than marks. this is not an opinion. this is not me harshing on anyone's fun time. this is me offering you a solution if you are that unhappy with your mana situation. plain and simple. the other half of the advice is the same: if you want lots of stam and crit at the expense of int and hit, that's your game. but you can't go into a raid in all s1/s2/etc glad gear and expect to run like a battery for the duration of the encounter. you won't. you simply won't.

Lrn2ManaEmerald.

I just have to say I agree with your post Agnes...about playing what you want and doing it your own way.

One of my favourite things about this guild when I first signed up was that VS is not a guild based on "Uberism". That being said it has saddened me of late that it seems to have changed a bit. You may have noticed that Gyb and I do not sign up for many runs anymore (or possibly you never noticed) We still love the game, and still love VS in general but have found that there seems to be alot more focus on who is topping out the DPS meters. I get frustrated with this, so instead of being frustrated and feeling inadequate I don't sign up. Watching DPS and striving to be better is great and fine...but do we need to chat about it on every run?

Maybe it is just me, who knows...maybe I am just overly sensitive. But I do know this, the purely entertainment and fun atmosphere of the runs has changed, or at least to me they have.

My Two Cents

On a side note: this was not a focused on anything anyone said in this post about how to play. I know nothing about being a hunter or your mana...this just seemed like a good place to post my thoughts that have been bothering me for quite some time.

as far as that goes, i've never understood why there has to be a disconnect between fun and efficiency. if you want to go the route of everyone should just do what's most fun for them, you necessarily have to include the people (like myself) who think that fun = doing as well as is reasonably possible. finding that such and such is the most optimum choice (for whatever situation) is what's 'fun' for me. i don't see why my version of 'fun' is any less worthy than anyone else's.

as far as this thread goes, a problem was raised, and i offered a way to deal with it. i'm not arguing that there's been an adjustment to the mana regen--i'm arguing that there are methods available to ameliorate the situation, once you've finished nailing your grievances to blizzard's door.

BIG WORD ALERT!!

I am going to use that in my whirled.

At no point was my comment directed at you Euls, it was directed in general. I have no problem with your idea of fun. If that is what makes the game for you, then play your way. In no way does that make you less important than anyone else.

My comment was strictly in regards to something that has been bothering me personally in regards to comments being made during runs about DPS meters ect. I just don't see the need for it to be brought up on every run. "I" have had a problem with this, it has been bothering "me" so "I" have choosen not to sign up for runs.

I think perhaps you took my comment and the one previous to mine a bit too personally. I don't think either of us intended it to be an attack on you.

Afka, I know during the night Kara runs we joke around a lot about who's leading the dps meters. But we're never hardcore serious about it...just flicking shit at each other. It's mostly self-deprecating in nature, too. I mean, at the end of the day, nobody cares about the time Raps out-dpsed me, or even the thousand times I out-dpsed Frenial. <---------------------------(see what I did there) ;)

We all know that Eules can get worked up about being all you can be.... truth be told so can I. :)

Personally I don't think there has been any significant shift in the guild's attitude in the last little while. There was one when we started running Kara but we all know that was the case. I made huge posts about how to better contribute.

This was because we were banging our collective heads against a wall and people weren't having fun. Every once in a while we have trouble on runs and we have to stop and figure out why, but I very much disagree that we're harping on dps numbers more than we ever were.

I tell people not to list damage meters in raid chat.

In my raids, when someone starts talking about something that I know isn't what everyone wants to talk about I send them a tell and let them know. I don't tell them in raid chat and make a big deal of it though. These issues can be anything from dps, to drops, to just bringing down the moral.

I stealth post the link to raid reports in the raid events so that the people that want to look at them can and those that don't want to don't have to.

When people ask how they can perform better we try to help but don't force it on people that don't want it.


As far as new content goes... ZA and Gruul's for example... there is a little more concentration on how well we're doing because the majority of the people that sign up would like to progress and that is fun for them. Can't make all the people happy all the time but we can certainly try to cater to most of the people most of the time.

probably not a good idea to ascribe emotions to someone you can't see. i'm expressing my opinions. admittedly they lack a sugar-coated topping, but they are what they are.

fwiw, i hate posting damage meters publically (and usually privately also). i feel they are for personal use and should be restricted to that. doesn't change the fact that my definition of fun includes trying to be as good as i can personally be.

Well it sounds like obviously I am the only one who feels this way, so maybe its just me. All I know is when I started in VS I could go on an instance run and not feel like I do now.

It could very possibly be its time for me to re-evaluate how I feel in the guild and move on.

Add on - I apologize Eul's never once did I mean to upset you. I am sorry it came across that way.

uhhh
i'm just having a discussion. honey. i am NOT upset.

It does seem that there's a disconnect between the people in the guild who are striving to maximize their output at all times, and the people who are happiest when being social and doing runs with a bunch of friends and having fun. We are fortunate in that this guild allows for both playing styles; we give opportunities for both raiding and social runs, we don't demand that everyone strive for the top of the damage meter charts (and if we did, you'd all be screwed, because I'd pwn you).

We do, however, seem to be running into some stumbling blocks. Not only are the people interested in challenges and progressing having a lot of trouble progressing lately, but the people interested in social fun -- like Afkasec has mentioned -- seem to be feeling left out, too.

Some months ago, we took volunteers to form a group of 'Progrssive Raiders.' Whatever the intention of this group was at the time, it seems to me that we could easily solve both our problems if we resurrected the 'Progressive Raiders' concept. We could have runs set up for Progressive Raiders, and on those runs, the focus would be on progression, exploration of challenging new areas, and expanding our skills with our characters. WWS links would be posted at the end of each run, and we could look over where we could improve for the next time.

Additionally, we could have Regular runs, which would be more laid back, with less urgency toward clearing Kara or what have you. These could be designed for gearing up alts or giving some raid experience to the people who don't get to go as often, and focused more on just having a good time with a minimum of stress. No damage meters or web stats would be posted; it'd all be about having fun.

Right now, we're stagnating, exactly the way we did back before BC came out when all we did was run ZG a million times, and people got frustrated. Surely we don't have to, and we can find a happy medium without sacrificing the wonderful mix of both fun/social people and progressive raiding types that make up this guild. VS's strength has always been in being a little bit of everything to all people...we can, and should, capitalize on that, and progress without leaving the fun people behind.

Well said, Stranger.

And yes... I do phear the killer damage Val puts up. I can't can't compete with those Star Shards. NERF HOLY PRIEST DPS!!!