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.

rilly big shoo

Well, the Big Show is saturday. Buy your tix now if you want a discount, either from the website or email me at msquare at gmail dot com. I'm really gonna make a proper ass of myself this time around. There will be a silent auction at the show as well. We'll have a small sampling of items up for bid that we've received as donations, intended as a preview of our Big Auction in August.


I'm not nervous at this point but I will be the day of the show, right up to the point where the curtains first open. Unlike christmas, if I blow my solo at the early show, I get one more shot at the evening show. Thankfully it's not a singing solo this time around.


Caro's on a bum ankle, so she and another girl will more than likely be sitting on stools most of the show. She's understandably frustrated about that.

On the WoW front, bot caro and I are lvl 70's and are keyed for Karazhan, one of the game's end dungeons. This is a really long dungeon, so long that it gives your group a week to complete it before it resets and you have to start over. Our guild has 2 groups (10 ppl each) who run it on different days, and you have to sign up for it at the beginning of the week if you want a crack at it. So far the only boss we've seen is the boss in the opera house, who we've yet to defeat. This week we may get to start back at the beginning, if we can find a place in a group. (Caro's a healer, she'll always have a place somewhere)

We've both got our epic weapons now. Caro just spent a ton of gold on The Ancient Scepter of Sue-Min, and I've got Don Santos' Famous Hunting Rifle so we're both ready for battle. We just need to get keyed for a host of other dungeons so we can start building faction rep.