Master Tactician, FurryHunter's 2.0

While my name is still Furrymammoth, I have moved from furryhunter.blogspot.com to mastertactician.blogspot.com. I think that name is more catchy :)

What profession is best for you?

Every character has two professions, and has many options to choose from for these two options. Almost every profession provides the character with something that the character can use that others without the profession cannot, giving a little bit of an advantage to the user. Of course, there's other advantages than what I have listed here, such as farming, selling crafted goods on AH, and fun, to think about. But here's what knowing each profession can do for you:

Alchemy

Alchemy's big buff is that all flasks last twice as long then normal, as long as the alchemist know how to make those flasks.

That being said, sometimes while the advantage is nice, it always a matter of getting mats for every hour-long flask. Alchemists also have the Alchemist's stones, although I don't think they're all that helpful in a raid.

Blacksmiths

Blacksmiths have the utility to be able to open up most locks with various keys they can make, the top one being the Titanium Skeleton Key. But that's just a side item.

Blacksmiths can also socket their bracers and their gloves. The socket they make for belts can be used by anyone, but these two extra gem slots can fit any non-meta gem in them. That could mean another +48 Stamina, +38 Spell Power, +32 Agility, or the buffs from two of whatever gems you want to add.

Enchanting

The big buff that enchanters get all for themselves is the ability to enchant rings, and two rings means two extra enchants. Here is what they can do:

• Enchant Ring - Stamina
• Enchant Ring - Assault
• Enchant Ring - Greater SpellPower

So that's +48 stamina, +64 AP, or +38 Spellpower. About the same as blacksmithing, but more limited.

Engineering

I'm an engineer, and i have a blast with it. It has a few fun things that I enjoy using from time to time, but in most boss fights it isn't that helpful. Since our GM has the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth and we're in Ulduar, my repairbotting is on break, but it still comes in handy every once in a while. We also have a mailbox, and a few things we can enchant ("tinker") our gear with. While most mainstream enchants seem to trump these, I do have a Personal Electromagnetic Pulse Generator (which does stack with my extra belt gem). I dont use it that much, but it helps with the Deconstructor.
I can enchant my cloak with slowfall and +15 agility, but that's 6 less than I can get from enchanter, for example.

Herbalism

Herbalists make some money and get Lifeblood. Nice free bonus heal.

Tailoring

Tailors have some cloak enchants that have a chance on hit/attack/cast to give either +300 AP for 15 seconds, +250 SP for 15 seconds, or grants 300 mana. Tailors also have spells to embroider spellthread onto pants using only a Eternium Thread, but these are the same enchants that usually take more mats that anyone can use.

Skinning

Master of Anatomy: +32 crit rating

Mining

Toughness: +50 stamina.

Leatherworking

For leatherworkers, its all about the cuffs. They have a couple special Leg reinforcements for their own gear, but it is only the same buff as those they can make for everyone in the game, just with less materials. They can give the following buffs on their wrists:

• +60 Resistance to one of the 5 schools.
  
• +114 Attack Power (64 more than the highest enchant available to everyone, +50 AP).
  
• +67 Spell Power (37 more than the highest enchant available to everyone, +30 SP).
  
• +90 Stamina (50 more than the highest enchant available to everyone, +40 Stamina).

Jewelcrafting

Jewelcrafting provides some blue-quality socketed trinkets, each with two sockets. More importantly, though they get to craft Dragon's Eyes, and they can use up to three of those Dragon's Eye gems. These provide buffed versions of all the other gems available for any slot. The total bonus makes Jewelcrafting about equal to everything else, except with more flexability in how you want to buff yourself:
Each Dragon's Eye can give you:

• +27 strength, agility, parry rating, armor penetration, resilience, expertise, haste, hit rating, crit rating, spirit, dodge rating, or defense rating.
• +54 Attack Power
• +11 Mp5
• +32 Spell Power
• +41 Stamina
• +35 Spell Penetration

Here's link to the list of Dragon's Eyes, as I don't want to link all of those individually.
All of those that give +27 are the special versions of a regular gem that could give anyone +16 to that same stat. This results in an extra +33 for these stats. For example, I could use 3 Delicate Scarlet Rubies for a total of +48 Agility, or I can use 3 Delicate Dragon's Eyes for a total of +81 Agility, or 33 more than normal.
For stamina, I could get +41 for each Eye instead of +27 for each Sky Sapphire, giving me +17 extra per Eye, or +51 extra stamina.

Edit: (thanks for the tip, Saruto) Dragon's Eyes are also prismatic, which means that they count toward any color you need for your requirements of a meta gem- this can be very helpful, for example, for mages who need to fill 2 blue slots but don't want to give up pure spellpower.

Inscription

The bonus for Scribes comes mostly from buffed up Shoulder Enchants. They also have a utility of having an extra hearth every 20 minutes, which could be helpful at times. They produce some epic off-hand frills, but my uneducated guess is that they can be quickly replaced by gear from raids, just like the Engineer's goggles.
The shoulder enchants are where it is at though. They are similar to those you can get from the Sons of Hodir:

• Master's Inscription of the Axe gives +104 Attack power and +15 Crit, which is 64 more AP than Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Master's Inscription of the Crag gives +61 Spell power and 6 Mp5, +37 SP than Greater Inscription of the Crag
• Master's Inscription of the Pinnacleis +51 Dodge rating and +15 Defense rating, 31 more than Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle
• Master's Inscription of the Storm gives +61 Spell Power and +15 Crit, +37 more SP than Greater Inscription of the Storm

There we go, that's all the professions. Here's a summary of the buffs you can get from the various professions, comparing a stat for tanks, for physical damage, and for spell damage/healing:

Profession	Tanks	Physical	Magical
Alchemy	?	?	?
Blacksmithing	2 extra defensive gems	2 extra Attack Power, Strength, or Agility Gems	2 extra Intellect or Spell Power gems
Enchanting	+48 Stamina	64 Attack Power	38 Spell Power
Engineering	Blue quality trinkets with +84 Stamina	Lower Epic Bow, Epic Helms (lower quality than most Raid Epics)	Epic Helms, fun bombs.
Herbalism	2000 self-heal over 5 sec, 3 minute cooldown	2000 self-heal over 5 sec, 3 minute cooldown	2000 self-heal over 5 sec, 3 minute cooldown
Tailoring	chance on use for 300 AP for 15 sec (nothing to buff stamina or defenses)	chance on use for 300 AP for 15 sec	chance on use for 250 SP for 15sec, or to return 300 Mana
Skinning	+32 crit rating	+32 crit rating	+32 crit rating
Mining	+50 Stamina	+50 Stamina	+50 Stamina
Leatherworking	50 more stamina than usual bracer enchant	64 more attack power than usual bracer enchant	37 more spell powerthan usual bracer enchant
Jewelcrafting	+51 Stamina, or +33 of most other defensive stats	+33 agility, +33 strength, or +66 Attack Power	+39 Spell Power, +11 Mp5, +33 Intellect, or +33 Spirit
Inscription	31 more dodge rating than usual shoulder enchant	64 more attack power than usual shoulder enchant	37 more spell power than usual shoulder enchant

So most of these are fairly even (You can get 48-54 +Stamina from Blacksmithing, Mining, Leatherworking, Enchanting, or Jewelcraftin).

So now that that's done, I should remind you all that your professions are also for fun. Choose what suits you best, or what you have most fun with. After all, this is JUST a game, right? ;-)

My 3.1 tanking pet: the crocolisk

Gorilladins, you have seen your day. But all the other tenacity pets got jealous as they quietly followed you and your hunter after they were abandoned, and learned the ways of the thunderstomp. Now, all tenacity pets can use this, but you aren't left in the cold! You still have pummel.

My own gorilla, Sasquatch, will not be seeing much of me anymore. I just tamed my friend Cranky, the Crocolisk. It will take some time for us to get used to each other, but we will see that his bad attitude will be focused on the enemy and not at me.

Why did I go with a Crocolisk? While it may be a fun thing to do sometimes, hunters don't tank instances or raids regularly, and when I'm using my tenacity pet its usually when I'm soloing something. This is the only special pet ability in the tenacity group that can damage more than one at a time, which means group aggro will get better. It is also great on fast-hitting bosses :)

What's the best for a single-target boss though, in most cases? I'd have to say either the Turtle, Warp Stalker (yeah, seriously), or the Worm. The turtle can reduce damage done by 50% every minute for 12 seconds, which is 20% of the time (like the Warrior's Shield Wall). The Warp Stalker has an extra 50% chance to dodge three attacks every 15 seconds (for the slow, hard hitting bosses this is awesome, and a great compliment to the Crocolisk). Then there's the Worm who can do damage and reduce 10% of armor, stacking up to two times. (Kinda like a warrior's Devastate. The devastate stacks at a total of 20%, just like the worm's.)

Of course, health is very important for a tank, but I like to focus more on the ability to hold threat. If specced correctly, as BM, your tanking pet should get a 50% bonus of all heals done to her, which is a ridiculous bonus. (Cheer up your healer friends by letting them see how high they can crit on yer tenacity pet!) None of it matters if you/anyone pulls though. That's why I chose the crocolisk.

When Macros Help and When They Hurt

Here's all the macros I have, which I use on a regular basis:

One-button aspects, with full control

This one is a fantastic Aspect macro which puts all your aspects onto one button (make the icon the question mark, the first choice, and it will show whichever you'll use). Post this one with no return/new lines, just paste as one line:

/use [mod:alt,mod:ctrl] Aspect of the Wild; [mod:ctrl,mod:shift] Aspect of the Cheetah; [mod:ctrl] Aspect of the Viper; [mod:shift] Aspect of the Pack; [mod:alt] Aspect of the Beast; [mod:alt,mod:ctrl] Aspect of the Wild; Aspect of the DragonHawk

translation:
hold nothing, click to get dragonhawk
ctrl- viper
shift- pack
alt- beast
alt+ctrl- wild
shift+ctrl- cheetah

Misdirection

This one is awesome for MDs- i'm going to explain focus first.

A focus target is one you choose to mess with macros. You choose a target (in this case, your main tank), and type /focus . You can also right click on their portrait and choose "set focus".

/cast [nomodifier, target=focus, exists] misdirection
/cast [nomodifier, target=pet, exists] misdirection
/cast [modifier:shift, target=pet] misdirection
/cast [modifier:ctrl, target=othertank] misdirection

translation-
if you have a focus target, Misdirects to your focus.
if you don't have a focus target, MDs to your pet.
Hold shift when you have a focus, and it MDs to your pet.
Hold ctrl when you have a focus (or not), and it MDs to whoever's name you put in here

Master's Call

This one is for Master's Call-

/cast [nomodifier, target=healer1] Master's Call
/cast [modifier:ctrl, target=healer2] Master's Call
/cast [modifier:shift, target=player] Master's Call
/cast [modifier:alt, target=healer3] Master's Call

Translation- cast the Call on whoever you have put in the various spots, based on what you are pressing in this case, pressing nothing causes Master's Call to go to healer1, ctrl sends to healer2, alt sends to healer3, and shift sends to the hunter casting ("player"). of course, replace the healer1, healer2, and healer3 with people's names in your group. (Great for arenas!)

Assist Macro

When I have a focus, it targets the target of my focus. If not, it targets the my pets target. During raids/instances, I always have focus set on the Main Tank.

/assist [target=pet]
/assist [target=focus, exists]

(I have this set to my 1 hotkey, by the way. Easy way to get on the right mob when there's a bad pull, or whenever there's more than 1 target).

simple pet helpers

/cast carrion feeder

This is simple, but as I'm sure you noticed, you can't put your pet's skills on your cast bars, and the pet is only limited to 4 on her's. However, you can write a macro with the name of the pet's ability to use it, and put that macro on your cast bar. It works with anything. Dash, Taunt, whatever.

~~~~~~

During raids, I usually replace all my hotkey'd melee attacks with additional assist macros that each have the name of a tank (in order same as tank list), so that I can easily go from skull, to x, to whatever without having to move my mouse or anything. I also have some extra misdirect macros which i use when there's more necessary.

When NOT to use macros:

I do not use any macros to cast spells/shots. I have all my shots and stings and whatnot somewhere in my cast bars, in a place that I know, so that I can have full control. In WotLK there is almost never a time to be just sitting there DPSing. Sometimes you need to run around to a certain area, sometimes you need to get adds, sometimes you need to kite (I hate you, Gluth!). But you should always at least be casting that Misdirection.

For some of you, macro'd shot rotations may work, but I found that the less you rely on that and the more you rely on yourself, the better you get. Its also more fun that way- its a bigger challenge.

~~~~~

Are there any macros I missed that every hunter should have? Let me know!

Why we waste our time with Misdirects

Why waste 1.5 sec (A global cooldown) on your MD? It definitely isn't helping your DPS at all.

But its helping the overall DPS of the raid.

Lets say the tank is holding aggro in a way where no DPS are anywhere near him. Either your tank is great or your DPS is garbage. In these cases, go all out and DPS.

But one reason a raid would want a Hunter over any other DPS class is the Misdirection. This isn't for just pulling. Your next three shots' threat go to the target of your misdirection. That means that everyone gets about three more shots of their own before they pass threat of the tank. Yeah, hunters are lucky because we can play the Aspect of the 'Possum every 25-30 seconds, but not everyone is so lucky.

Your DPS in a raid is important because it adds to the overall DPS of the raid. But things like Misdirection add so much more because that gives DPS to the whole raid, not just you.

Rogues, same story with your Tricks of the Trade. Now, I'm no rogue, but from what it seems, this has a similar effect.

A simple macro. This will require you to set your focus target on the person you're casting the MD on first. If you don't want to, you can change the macro every time based on who it needs to go to:

/cast [target=focus] Misdirection
or....
/cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade

I can only have one focus at once, so i usually set tok to focus, and have a second MD macro for someone else:

/cast [target=OtherTank] Misdirection

fun stuff. If you want a more spiffed up version of this, or want to see my other macros, check out my post on those.