My UI:

Ready for the next dungeon

Let's go back and look at the Ulduar gear I was shooting for when I still had all Naxxramas gear, and see what I've managed to pick up:

X head - t8.5 helm
X hands - t8.5 gloves or Gloves of the fiery behemoth (unknown)
x neck - broach of the wailing night (badges)
X waist - belt of the ardent marksman (badges)
X shoulders - mantle of fiery vengence (u10) or t8.5 spaulders
X legs - Saronite Mesh Legguards (u25)
x back - drape of icy intent (u25) or winters frigid embrace (u10)
X feet - ??? shandra's spreadsheet shows no upgrades. flamestalker boots (u25)?
X chest - t8.5 chestguard
ring - loop of the agile (u10), loop of the sufferer(u25), band of draconic guile(u10)
wrist - frostbound chain bracers (u25)
no new trinkets yet?
X 2h weapon - lotrafen spear of the damned or rune edge (both u25)
X ranged - Siren's cry or Giants bane(both u25)

The shoulders I'm in now are better that the ones listed or the t8.0, so I'm fine there. The neck I could buy, but my neck is just a wee bit better. Same with my back. I have the saronite legs, but I'm wearing the t8.0 legs until I can grab the t8.5 shoulders. I've picked up the wrathstone trinket, which was an upgrade, but I'm sticking with my darkmoon card until I can pick up the Mjolnir Runestone from one of the hard mode fights. Neither of the two rings I wanted have dropped for me yet but I have upgraded one of my old ones at least.

So, at this moment, suffice it to say that Hua is very happy with his gear.

Huataurga of the Nightfall

On Sunday Bone Brigade managed to take down Sartharion with all 3 drakes on 10-man. It took us over 5 hours and hundreds of gold in repair bills.

The 10 man version of the fight is much harder than the 25 man in that the same number of things are going on, but you have less people to manage them with. We tried 2 strategies:

1.) The standard 25 man strategy - dps Sarth to open, then dps the first drake when he comes down, AOE adds, dps the second drake, into the portal that spawns, kill the 3rd drake, then kill sarth, all while avoiding flame walls and staying out of the blue shit. We tried this for a couple of hours, but kept having problems with either DPS dying or healers having to move at an ill timed moment killing the tank or whatever. It takes just one mistake for the whole thing to go down the tubes.

2.) Target the boss and kill him before the 3rd drake touches down. The first time we tried this we got the boss down to 8% before we wiped, that was the point we decided this was doable. We tried a this for a couple more hours, swapping between who was tanking and healing so we could get the most bang out of the damage and still keep the tank alive, but we finally found the right combination and manage to take him down.

So now I have both titles, 'twilight vanquisher' from the 25 man version of the fight, and now 'of the night fall' from the 10 man.

I'm a horible horrible person.

So the new content patch dropped last week, and part of my to-do list was to set my pet gorilla Avalanche free and go tame a new bear. I knew which one I wanted, so off I went to Venomspite in search of one of the beautiful white polar bears that populate the area.

I found one right away at the base of the mountain protecting the northern side of the town. I dismounted, fired off an ice trap and began taming. A moment later I realized I was being attacked, by this bear's cub.

Now I was having second thoughts. Did I really want to take this momma away from her baby? Was I heartless enough to leave this poor bear cub an orphan? Before I could stop myself, the taming process completed and the momma bear was mine.

The polar bear cub was still here and still gnawing at my hooves. To make me feel worse, his momma, now compelled to defend her master, began attacking her cub! It was bad enough that I was leaving a bear cub an orphan, I was not going to let him die at his mother's paws. I sent the bear to attack a wolf in the distance and played dead. The cub soon lost interest in me and wandered off.

I'm going to have to do a lot of good to make up for this awful kharma.

The Patch Drops Today.

I just read the live patch notes. With the nerf to explosive shot, the change in TNT, and the change in Lock and load, I'm expecting a drop in DPS. I just don't know how much.

*Lock and Load redesigned: You now have a 33/66/100% chance when you trap a target with Freezing Trap, Freezing Arrow or Frost Trap and a 2/4/6% chance when you deal periodic damage with your Immolation Trap or Black Arrow to cause your next 2 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo. This now has a new spell effect and sound.

This used to proc from traps and serpent sting. Now since I have to keep up black arrow, I'm wondering if SrS is even worth keeping in my rotation or glyphing for?

*Explosive Shot: Base damage lowered by 10%. Attack power scaling reduced by 12.5%. The periodic damage from this ability no longer triggers Judgement of Wisdom and Judgement of Light.

Straight up nerf, unless LnL starts proccing a WHOLE lot more.

*T.N.T.: Increases damage done by Explosive Shot, Immolation Trap, and Explosive Trap by 2/4/6%.

A version of this talent in a previous build had it also refreshing your Immolation trap effect. Between this and Black Arrow, there may have been a increased chance for LnL procs, but this is no longer the case. There's no point in trap dancing at all now (not that I was in the first place).

We're now forced to take all 3 points in hunting party since it increases agility now on top of its mana generating effect.

Black Arrow, our new sort of ranged trap, increases all damage by 6% and also deals an amount of shadow damage. As I mentioned earlier this is the only way to get LnL to proc now.

Sniper training has been changed, now instead of having to be 35 yards out from your target to get the bonus damage, you just have to be stationary for 6 seconds, although the talent text says this lasts for only 15 seconds. We'll see how this works in practice, but in Naxx there are just as many fights one can't stay still for as there are fights where one must be up close and personal with the target. We'll see how this works out in Ulduar.

So tonite I need to:

Pay 1k gold for the dual spec feature.
Lay out my SV and BM specs
Buy a new bag
Buy a shitload of bullets
Work out new rotations for my builds
Raid.

Wish me luck.