Namour

I raided with Shoults in Monolith and then in Fully Torqued, the 10 man group that continued for a period of time after Monolith collapsed. He is an outstanding player, always a key figure in the 25 man group whether healing on his pally as he did for much of the time in Mono, or later dps'ing on his hunter. He has a large stable of alts of all classes, and so possesses that deep understanding of the synergy of different classes and how to use his current toon to its best advantage. He has superb raid awareness, maintains his focus very well during the hectic moments, and is an asset to any raid team. He and Stridur would make a bad ass hunting team.

Welcome to South of Heaven!

Hello Ajik, thanks for your application! For reforging, I like to use the ingame addon Reforge Lite. It allows you to set your own stat weights, and correctly reflects all upgraded gear, etc. It also has default settings for each spec and class. Once you load the addon from Curse, you simply go to the reforger. When you open a dialogue with the NPC, the interface for the addon pops up. You can see a summary of the suggested reforge in your stat box. You can then play around with stat weights and see how it changes the outcomes. When you are ready to do the reforge, you press one button and every piece of gear is reforged according the solution. Very easy to play around. As for Mr Robot's advice, it is notoriously bad for hunters. His take on hit cap simply is not supported by the math. If it were a net gain to be slightly below the cap, every hunter who does the math (which is most of the raiders in end game hardcore progression guilds) would all be following this approach. None do...

Welcome Shek!

Welcome to the guild, Fix!

ooh, that is good to know! I have had a few amazing Patron-inspired evenings...the buckets of silver margaritas on the eve of my 40th come to mind (the day before a meal at the French Laudry...that was a rough morning)

Is this a bad thing? Or, would you like some help on your problem sets

Thanks, Elysee - that is very gracious of you! I certainly wish you the same.

Hi Ashin- Thank you for the opportunity to make this work. Signed the charter, have downloaded the points addon and have been reviewing the strats this weekend (and will continue to do so). This week's availbility (will repost in "weeks outlook" as well) Tues: available w/o interuption Wed: available w/o interuption Thursday: 8:30 server pick up daughter (meaning unavailable 8:15-8:45 server)

I read, understood, and happily sign my agreement with the code of conduct.

That makes sense. Thank you for clarifying.

We haz controversy!?! Please eludicate if you might...

I am not sure if hunters have such a buff...

Great idea!

Moving this discussion over to my recruitment thread so I don't confuse things on Elycee's... Just looked over the logs I posted for a 10 man H Vizier kill and looked more carefully for what you were describing (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-f0ntje2vw00e1cmn/xe/?s=8260&e=8732&x=spell+%3D+%22Kill+Command%22%0D%0AOR+spell+%3D+%22Bestial+Wrath%22). I noticed at least 2x where what you are describing occurred. Also see a number of times it worked fine. I think it is debatable whether the simplicity of one key press for 2 actions compensates for the minor damage loss (on non crits, looks like the different is about 20-30k damage). From a true max min standpoint, better to separate. From the realities of my reactions times as a human, I am not so sure I would actually do better. I do appreciate knowing about the trade-off, though. Thank you for pointing that out!

Good idea, I will. Thanks.

Ashin- Ok, 2 part response; first, how do I feel about what you propose from my standpoint as a player: I would be fine with the role you describe. It is not my ideal, but there are three things that are very high priorities for me in finding a guild that outweigh any concerns I might have about this sort of raid schedule (I am flexible person and understand the nature of tradeoffs in life). 1) A group dynamic that values a wide range of people and is courteous and bawdy at the same time 2) A thoughtful and coherent guild leadership philosophy 3) Capable progression with reasonable amounts of raid time It VERY hard to find all 3. My sense of SOH thus far is that all three are present here. I have been very impressed by the nature of all the communications I have had and have seen been had with others on these forums and in game as far as they speak to points 1 and 2, and WoW progress speaks to the 3rd. Now for part 2: I have been thinking about the raid schedule dilemma you are wrestling with too, and the key concern I would have if I were you would be the part of wanting to sustain team continuity on progression fights from night to night. I think this is essential from a progression standpoint, and finding a way to make that work would be paramount to me as a raid leader. While I do understand the vital importance of minimizing disruptions during the short 3 hour raid nights, I think you perhaps overestimate the impact of a few swaps over the course of the night for the roster size you are contemplating. Certainly, if you are running a heavy roster of 31-33 (which I have been part of at times in my career), with 3-4 swaps per fight, things can get really bogged down between fights (extending well beyond trash time). However, the logistics of working a disciplined raid team of 27-28 means 2-3 additional people in here and there (not swapping every fight, but maybe 1 swap every other fight) and is a very different deal in my experience and opinion in terms of its impact on maintaining pace and momentum as a raid group through the instance. Training the raid team to anticipate swaps (by having them pre-planned) with clear expectations that people are "present" and listening on mumble throughout the night when they are not in so they are logged onto main at entrance before boss dies ensures maintaining the type of efficiency you need to succeed with a 9 hour raid week. My presumption if you are running 25 lean is that you have a disciplined and engaged raid team, which is why I think working in some (not a lot) of raid swapping during a raid night might actually work well. Also, taking this mindset addresses the principle concern of keeping progression groups consistent from night to night. Thats all I have for now. Thanks for the promotion to guest status so I can look around! Namour

Sorry for jumping in here if this is out of place, but it is an interesting hunter discussion and I thought this might be helpful... For 2nd Amoc with T14 4 piece I have found what works well to avoid clipping and still get benefit of cheap focus is the following opening (hunters mark/md/pre-pot) SS, BW/KC (macroed), AMOC, GT, DB, Stampede/RF (macroed), AS, KC, readiness, KC, GT, DB, AS, AS, KC, SS, AS, AS (BW done but still plenty of focus), AS, AS, BW/KC, AS, AS, AS, AS, GT, KC, Amoc (which dropped off about 2 sec ago), CS, etc... By delaying that 2nd BW a few seconds after the first drops off you reduce how tight the collision is btw end of 2nd BW and 1st AMOC ending; you are still flooded in focus and so can cast a few AS's without needing to cast CS and the delay in the BW won't shift total number you get except in a few unlucky situations and even then would only cost you a few sec of uptime. I think there are probably a number of slight variations on this that work equally well, but this is what I have been able to do with some consistency. Am chagrined I will have to give up the 16 sec BW once I replace T14...really like what it does for opening sequence.

Ok, np; thanks for the update. I am happy to wait as you decide, as this group is my clear top choice over the other invite I have been given. I hope you choose to bring me on! Namour

Hello Merriwhizzle! (great name, btw)

Stridur- Here are the screenshots: SV raid SS: http://i46.tinypic.com/on0d0.jpg BM raid SS: http://i45.tinypic.com/dzjuco.jpg Redid the FD gemming comparison as SV and it showed a 250+ dps increase, agreeing with your analysis. Still feels like a toss up (less than .5% either way), but given the preference of SV in this tier, seems a good idea to default to agi over crit in these 2 gearing cases. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Thanks for the spec tips on the later fights. I enjoy BM and feel much more fluid at this point than MM (would take me a couple weeks to get back to mastery) so that will likely be my single target spec, although I will start playing around with MM again so I can quickly make that switch if/when gear scaling makes it stronger than the other 2 (versus on par). The way my wife's schedule works (it gets set for 4 weeks at a time about a month in advance), I can't assure a consistent day when this occurs (althoug I can provide significant lead time in posting the days), but having worked with this situation for last year+, I am confidant in saying the typical frequency is once a week, just different days from week to week, with occassionally 2x in certain weeks and 0 times in other weeks. I would love to not have this issue, but it is not something I can avoid, unfortunately. I do understand why it is an issue for a team that runs a lean roster. Sorry I can't do any better on addressing this concern.

Ashin, I send a friend request. I will look forward to chatting this weekend. Stidur, thank you for your questions and for taking the time to look over my logs. By the way, I can't claim being a vanilla player. I started Dec 2007 during T5... To answer your questions: 1) Will upload the requested screen shots later today or tomorrow AM when I have a chance to get a LFR in to do the captures 2) AMD Phenom II 465 (black) x4 3.4 gHZ CPU, GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 4 GB ram (forgot brand). Purchased parts and assembled this box about 20 months ago. I get 20-60 fps in 25 man settings 3) I do not always gem for socket bonuses. My gem choices for the chest (320 crit + 120 mast > 160 agi) and boots (220 crit > 80 agi) are toss ups. I made them when I had a lower crit rating and haven't gone back to reconsider. The FD test I just did showed a 400 dps loss by going full agi, which basically confirms my sense it is a toss up. I generally value agi a bit under 3/1 over crit. I use 180 crit 140 mast 100 haste as my settings in reforgelite. 4) I am not a believer in MM yet. Have seen a few poor performances from MM and no strong ones on recent guild parses by other hunters. In general, I prefer looking at damage trends by spec on Wol ranking parses in terms of choosing my spec for a particular fight as oppposed to sim rankings. I don't just look at the top few parses, but look to see which spec maintains higher numbers deeper in the rankings. I have only run the first 3 bosses (with kills on 2). Pet is broken on Jin Rok; I did 20k better as SV versus my pulls as BM. Horridon clearly SV. I could see either for Council, depending on my job. If I was pure burn on a boss, then BM, otherwise SV to reduce penalty on pet target switch and better aoe on sandstorm. I have been reading suggestions on MMO champion for the other fights, but haven't really sat down and mapped out the rest of the bosses by going through WoL fight by fight yet. From what I am reading, SV sounds to be strongest for about 8-9 fights, with BM for about 3-4, at least in normals. The bottom line, though, is that I will play whatever spec provides the best chance to kill the boss. I have played all three specs (although not much MM since beginning of DS).

I have not been a force in pvp, to say the least. I have always lived on carebear servers, and have only dabbled in arena. Had a few periods of doing battlegrounds. An area of the game I am open to exploring more....

Times are approx to within a few minutes each night listed below; I leave 15 before the time, return 15 after the time. As I mentioned, this is 1x per week typically, sometimes zero sometimes 2, never 3. Tues 6:30 pm pst (8:30 server) Wed 7:30 pm pst (9:30 server) Thurs 6:30 pm pst (8:30 server) I always know the times well in advance and will always post in advance. In past guilds, rosters of 28-30 had no problem working with this. If you guys run 25 lean, it would be a problem, absolutely.

Greetings SOH- I am writing to introduce myself and ask that your consider adding me to your ranks so that we might work together in killing internet dragon and forming a swarthy band of heroes. First my WoW story, then some discussion about myself as a hunter. (note: learned of SOH from an ingame mail KEP sent me earlier today; my response time is an indication of my real interest) WoW Story I am a 46 year old educator, currently teaching physical science at a progressive all-girls middle school in California. I am a husband and father of a 14 year old (who recently graduated from said school). I began playing a hunter in December 2007; long a fan of ranger/hunter classes in other fantasy games, the choice of playing hunter was an easy one for me. I leveled slowly as I immersed myself in this incredible world that Blizz has created for us to play in. A long time game enthusiast, this was my first foray into an MMO, and I fell head over heels immediately. As the Burning Crusade happened around me, my WoW awareness gradually increased. An historic night for me early on was an invitation to go to Karazan and play with a small guild group that was the best group I had ever played with at the time. The night climaxed with a kill of the prince, and they gave me the incredible bow that he dropped. And that is how I found raiding... Once Woltk was released, after dabbling with some friends, I decided to join a "real raiding guild". I was taken in by a guild on Muradin called Ultio Mea Est who was working on Ulduar at the time. I was encouraged and supported, and kept getting better and more sure of my toolset as a hunter. When the guild fractured shortly after I joined, I went with the raid leader who formed a dynamic 10 man group called Phase Four. We had an absolutely great time playing together, and were very successful in our little Muradin pond (server 2nd algalon kill on our first night on the fight - 58th minute was our first real highlight). We got server first 10 man tribute and decided to go 25 man for ICC. The rigors of real life and raid leading wore out the GM/RL who had to step away and the group fell apart. Hungry for raiding, I joined another 25 man on the server that got to 11/12 heroic. The dynamic of that group, however, was pretty rough and despite the reasonable level of progression, I didn't feel the kinship and sense of teamwork I had previously experienced with P4. So, when Cata was released and the RL of P4 came back to the game, I quickly decided to join them for casual raiding in T11. We did ok on our 2 night or so schedule, had fun playing together, getting 3/16 heroic or something like that on 10 man. Once Firelands came out, things got sluggish and I decided I was ready as a player to take the next step. I started looking and found a 25 man guild on Llane called Monolith that had a long and very stable history. (Their guild philosopy and approach appears to share several common themes with SOH). They had a need for a hunter, and brought me in when they were 150 pulls into Heroic Rags, working on P2 transition. I got a trial by fire (literally; had a couple real early challenges with world in flames), was able to get myself up to speed on the fight and earn my spot on the progression team that achieved a server first kill (US 93 25 man on Nov 7). We worked our way as a group through DS, again earning a server first kill on Heroic DW and winding up US 119th 25-man. The leadership seriously considered closing shop at that point, with an accumulation of turnover and hard work recruiting and integrating new folks taking its toll. They decided to keep going through MoP, but the writing was on the fall. After reaching 3/16 heroic with a good deal of angst and less rapid progression, the struggle between the harder core progressionists and the guild leadership wanting to preserve loyalty and previous devotion as counting for something finally broke the spirit of the RL and GL, who decided to close down the Monolith raiding team. It was a sad night indeed given the long history of success and friendships that had been forged, but ulimately the effort of sustaining 25 man raiding on a dead server side was too much. A group of 11-12 of us who wanted to keep playing together decided to make a stab at 10 man raiding on Llane. We formed Fully Torqued and had a fun if brief run together, reaching 12/16 H before the loss of a couple of people and inablity to recruit on Llane horde side led to the decision to give up. Another sad night...really fun group. That night, I came across a post on MMO about a 10 man guild on Area 52 that needed a hunter and that was identically progressed. Seemed very fortituous at the time. They chatted me up on vent, looked at a couple of logs, and invited me that night. I transferred over and on our 2nd night together helped them kill H Grand Sheeker (http://www.worldoflo.../?s=5810&e=6675). I raided with the group for about 3 lockouts, and we reached 15/16 H. The chemistry was mixed, though. I felt like it was just early getting used to new people, but they decided to remake 3 spots on the raid team for 5.2 and brought in another hunter to replace me. I was told I was a solid player with areas to improve on (certainly true for all of us), a really nice guy, but just not a good fit of the group. I have been offered a place on one of the other 10 man groups in the guild, but after a couple of nights playing with them, I don't think their level of progression will compensate for the fact I feel zero connection to anyone in the group. So, I am looking (again) for that most elusive of things: a stable and mature place to play, to build in game friendships again, and challenge myself as a player. Playing a Hunter Namour (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/area-52/Namour/advanced) was my original toon and has been my only main. It is telling that my next 2 highest level toons are a hunter (86) and shaman (58). I love playing a hunter. For solo play and leveling, I can't imagine not having a pet to work with along with the incredible bag of tricks that hunters have for controlling and killing large numbers of mobs quickly and efficiently. As a raider, I use a full range of resources in game and out to make sure I can keep getting better as a player and adapting as the class charactistics evolve. Primary addons I rely on are shadowed unit frames (only unit frame addon I have found that has moveable boss frames), dbm and weak auras to amplify raid awareness, buff/debuff/range/ tracking tools configured for hunter specific info (My ui: http://i49.tinypic.com/14y7gy.jpg), reforgelite to optimize new equipment, auctioneer to help with making gold so support my toon. Out of game, I am daily reader of MMO forums (there has been a very interested discussion by Clojure regarding a mathematical analysis of the RPPM details in understanding the relative values of the new trinkets). I use icy veins written descriptiona and a range of videos (fatboss often) to familiarize myself and start planning spec/talent/glyph/macros for upcoming fights. I use WoL and comparebots to analyze performance and seek ways to improve myself as a player. As a player, I would describe myself as a good and focused player who is reasonably consistent night to night. I learn from my mistakes and get better with practice. There are mechanics that from time to time take me longer to master than I like (engulfing flames, see above), but I have always been able to get things down and usually stay alive on kills. I am solid on both single target movement (here is heroic vizor: http://www.worldoflo.../?s=8260&e=8732) and aoe fights (here is parse on Horridon from last night: http://www.worldoflo.../?s=1920&e=2505). I am not a world class player, and would never put myself out as one. I will rank from time to time, generally in the 90%, do have occassion dumbshit moments, and am always open to suggestions that will make me a better player. Other Important Details As part of my role as a dad and husband, I do have a need to pick up my daughter from dance class. She has class Tues-Thurs; my wife works a random selection of 3 out of every 7 days (nurse), so on those nights that my daughter is at class and my wife works, I have to pick her up. Class is 15 min away, so results in a 30 min afk. Typically happens about once per week, sometimes zero, occasionally 2, never 3. Also, I received a tremendous honor and have been invited to give a talk to the physics majors at the college from which I graduated, so I will be offline the week of april 8th and would miss that entire raid week. At this point, I have proabably told you enough to get the question process started. Thank you for your considering of my interest in joining South of Heaven. With enthusiasm, Namour