Stabilized Effort Scope

Migration complete~!

So if you’re seeing this, you’re 99% likely to be on the brand new, spiffy VPS hosting Stabilized Effort Scope! My migration from Enotch is almost complete (just need to make sure I’ve copied everything I want before I let the VPS go), and now I’m happily at home with Simply WebHosting. Already I’m impressed with their turn-around time on constructing my VPS (a pure CentOS install on a XEN VPS – two 3.0GHz virtual CPUs, 2GB of guaranteed RAM, and a 20Mbps pipe), and it is blisteringly fast, with plenty of storage space for me to expand!

DNS has already migrated for most folks, and if you’re seeing this post (because it’s NOT gonna be on the old SES over at Enotch), you’re already migrated! :P

*stretches* It’s good to be a dab hand in a CLI. :)

Fuck you, Blizzard, and fuck you, Jewelcrafters.

[Rilgon] has earned the achievement [Get To The Choppa!]!

And a super-special thanks to Maevet of Don’t Dot The Square to help me earn what rightfully should’ve been the sole domain of Engineers to begin with.

/target nearest Jewelcrafter
/rude

The more I read on it…

…the more I want the god damned Argent Coliseum raid instance already.

ENCOUNTER 4: THE VAL’KYR TWINS
Before I start the actually summary of this fight, I’ll pose this question: Have you ever played the game Ikaruga? Yes? Okay. Because this fight is Ikaruga. (Source – MAJOR 3.2 spoilers)

Ikaruga? I fucking LOVE Ikaruga.

(btw they should drop a schematic for an Engineering flying mount that looks just like Ikaruga)

To dabble with the future…

PTRs are up, and they have our new T9 bonuses implemented. If you haven’t seen them…

T9 2-piece: The damage done by your Serpent Sting ability can now be critical strikes.
T9 4-piece: Each time you hit with a ranged attack, you have a chance to grant your pet 600 attack power for 15 sec.

Hey, remember who asked for Serpent critting as the 2-piece T9 bonus? :] Well, obviously, anything this MM-oriented needed testing. I did some. The numbers are… odd. Not bad, just odd.

Of my analysis, I can come to two fairly conclusive things:

A) Serpent crits are 150%, don’t enjoy bonuses from Mortal or Relentless Earthsiege, and do seem to obey our ranged crit chance.
B) This bonus doesn’t seem to impact Chimera-Serpent.

All my testing was done on the level 83 training dummy on the PTR, which meant I got my fair share of resistances, but the numbers looked solid enough to actually make me able to say those two points rather conclusively. I’ll do more testing later, obviously, to lock these statements down to EJ-level confidence. :P

But seeing Serpent crit for almost 1100 is pretty damn sweet. <3

A blueberry scorned is a blueberry enraged!

So… yeah. My current VPS provider, Enotch Technologies, is… well, really getting to me. Bad. After a physical migration of the master server that hosts my VPS, SES has been running like hell. It’s taking all my knowledge of server administration to get it working properly again, and this isn’t the first thing they’ve done to make me irate – you all have probably noticed the random downtimes that last anywhere from a few minutes to nearly an hour, with no rhyme or reason…

So yeah, I’m making full archival backups of SES as it is right now, and shopping around. I think I’ve found a new deal, and I’m about ready to pull the trigger on it. More expensive, but it’ll make SES a lot stronger in the end.

*sigh* Internet is hard.

THIS is why I’m so pissed off about Engineering.

Base DPS w/ Standard Enchants : 6504.67

Engineering (Cloak + Hyperspeed): 6513.76: 9.09 DPS gained
Engineering (Cloak + Rockets) : 6532.45: 27.78 DPS gained
Tailoring (Swordguard) : 6546.60: 41.93 DPS gained
Inscription (120AP, 15crit) : 6549.82: 45.15 DPS gained
Enchanting (2x +40AP) : 6549.82: 45.15 DPS gained
Leatherworking (+120AP) : 6549.82: 45.15 DPS gained
Blacksmithing (2x +20 AGI Gems) : 6556.31: 51.64 DPS gained
Jewelcrafting (3x Delicate) : 6558.40: 53.73 DPS gained

Anywhere from a 25 to 45 DPS loss over another profession, depending on which glove “tinker” I use. For no good reason whatsoever.

And people wonder why I’m so pissed off and why I say Engineering is worthless.

We aren’t all the same!

So MMO-C has released our T9 bonuses. Compared to our T8 bonuses, which were pretty righteous, our T9 bonuses are… well, fucking terrible.

* Hunter T9 2P Bonus (Class: Hunter) — Reduces the focus cost of your pet’s abilities by 50%.
* Hunter T9 4P Bonus (Steady Shot) (Class: Hunter) — Increases the critical strike chance of your Steady Shot ability by 5%.

Um… wow. Does anyone at all have focus issues with their pets? Because I know I don’t. And… wow, 5% more crit on Steady Shot? I’d rather not cast Steady Shot at ALL.

This leads me to something that’s nagged at me for a while, but I think needs to be fully touched upon – Hunters need separate tier sets for each spec. Our specs are unique and different enough that different set bonuses (and hell, even different stats) are beneficial. Like, take a look at what Ret Paladins got for their 2-piece:

* Paladin T9 Retribution 2P Bonus (Righteous Vengeance) (Class: Paladin) — Your Righteous Vengeance talent now has a chance for its damage to be critical strikes.

You know what Righteous Vengeance is? It’s a Ret Paladin’s version of Piercing Shots. Do you know how many kittens I’d punt off a bridge for the ability for Serpent Sting or Piercing Shots to be able to crit? And I’m sure BM Hunters would love a 2-piece or 4-piece that read “Increases the contribution your pet gets from your Stamina by an additional 10% and attack power by 5%.” Survivalists, how does “Increases the duration of Black Arrow by 3 seconds.” sound for a 4-piece bonus?

My point is this – MM, BM, and SV Hunters are so different in their DPS methodology and foci that splitting our tier sets is, at this point, no longer a nicety that we kinda think about, but a necessity that we should be demanding at this point. These set bonuses are an example of that. Ugh.

Edit: In fact, I think I’ll go out on a limb here and write up some theoretical split-tree bonuses. Let’s see…

BM 2-piece: Your pet takes 5% less damage from all sources, and your Mend Pet will instantly heal your pet for 15% of the total periodic effect.
BM 4-piece: Increases the contribution your pet gets from your Stamina by an additional 10% and attack power by 5%.

MM 2-piece: Your Piercing Shots talent now has a chance for its damage to be critical strikes.
MM 4-piece: Reduces the mana cost of your shots and stings by 10%.

SV 2-piece: Increases the chance of your Lock and Load talent to activate by 5%.
SV 4-piece: Increases the duration of your Black Arrow ability by 3 seconds.

Now THOSE are set bonuses.

Boredom-inspired Screenshot Post

Yeah, I can’t really think of anything to write about – I’m not terribly excited about 3.2, the Wintergrasp changes are fucktarded (and I’ve mentioned this on Twitter), and I really don’t have anything to talk about – I did my piece about how2MM, and KoV isn’t doing anything terribly exciting in Ulduar. *shrug* So for this reason, you get some picks from my screenshot folder.

Even when fishing, Male Draenei are more badass than whatever race/gender you play.

I want a [ELM General Purpose Bunny (scale x0.01) Large]…

See? Complaining works sometimes. (Now if it would work on guildmates’ ability to play and Marcia Chase’s ability to give me a Fishing Pole of the Clow…)

THE DRAGON IS WALKING ON AIR. HOW DOES THIS EVEN WORK

A wild TALBUK appears!

Fight     Item
PKMN   Run

Eh, I was bored.

Great success~!

You cannot deny the awesomeness of a male Draenei. It is NOT. POSSIBLE.