Catching up

Wow!  It’s been awhile.  Hope everyone has been doing well while I’ve been away.  A lot of things have changed since the last time I posted.  As I mentioned before in this post, I have joined an outstanding group of individuals called Citadel.  I have also recently been promoted to Officer and have even been given the responsibility of being the Hunter Class Leader.  I’ll try not to screw it up, I promise!

We have been doing a few Kara runs, to get people geared up.  And recently, with the help of some new friends in Eve of Destruction, we have even ventured into Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Lair.  And I’m happy to say that we succeeded in both!  And last nite, we ventured in Zul’Aman for the first time, and successfully took down 3 of the 4 Avatar bosses.  The only one we didn’t get was Jan’Alai (The Dragonhawk).  All in all, I think Citadel is doing rather well at making a name for ourselves on The Scryers!

And I even briefly switched Talent specs.  I switched to BM.  I’m so ashamed!  Actually, at the time, we had very little physical DPS, and the Ferocious Inspiration buff was more beneficial for the mages and locks in our 10-man raids than Expose Weakness would have been.  And while I have to admit that the damage output was very nice, I really did miss being Survival.  So I switched back to Survival when we started doing some 25-man content.  And I’ve started doing some more PvP recently, so I enjoy SV a lot more there, too.  But I did change the spec up a little.  This time, I went with a 0/24/37 build.  This lets me get all the goodies from SV (EW, LR, and TotH) while still picking up Scatter Shot and Barrage.  So far, I’m really liking this spec.  The damage potential is not as good as BM, but it’s not bad, either.  And the burst damage is a lot of fun in PvP.  I need to mess around with Cheeky’s Spreadsheet some, and try and figure out what upgrades I need to concentrate on.  But for now, I’m having a lot of fun with this spec.

Kara Revisited

Citadel did their first Karazhan run this weekend, and they graciously let me tag along.  And I’m still amazed at what we were able to accomplish.  5 of the people in the raid had never set foot in Kara before.  Others, like me, had seen some of the earlier bosses, but none of the end bosses.  I believe only 3 of us had seen them all.

Well, to the amazement of all, we had a full Kara clear!  It took us a few nights, but it was well worth the effort.  We proceeded to one shot all of the bosses up to Shade, on our first night.  Shade took us 2 or 3 tries, but he went down, too.  Then on the 2nd night, we did the Chess event, and after a few failed attempts on Prince (damn Infernals, and their random placement), we went and took down Illhoof and Netherspite.  Sunday night, we took down the Prince, and we got Nightbane down to 1% before wiping on our first attempt.  We returned last night to finish Nightbane off.

And I was extremely fortunate to be rewarded with some great drops.  From Curator, I got Garona’s Signet Ring.  From Shade, I received the Drape of the Dark Reavers.  And for downing Prince Malchezaar, I was rewarded with the Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix!  Wow, not a bad weekend at all! 

I am extremely proud of Citadel and what we were able to accomplish through good communication and team work.  I don’t think any of us expected to do a full Kara clear on our first run.  Truly awesome job, guys!

I will not be returning to Kara this week, as there are two other hunters in the guild that we are trying to get geared up.  But I am eagerly anticipating a return trip to Kara soon.  There is little else I need from there, gear-wise.  But I could really use the Badges, and I’d like to see everyone else get geared up, as well.

As for my performance in Kara, I’d have to say that it was ok.  There were a few hiccups, that I chalk up to me being rusty, such as Misdirecting the MT instead of the Off Tank on Curator (thank god for Readiness!).  Or my being a little too slow in getting that Distracting shot off on Nightbane, and having him charge the group instead of the Misdirected MT.  Ouch, that one hurt.  But I’m confident that these small mishaps will be gone once I get back into practice.  And I’m pretty happy with my DPS performance, as well.  Most of the time, I was competing for the 3rd damage slot with a very well geared feral (kitty) druid, with her edging me out overall, putting me at number 4.  And on the Nightbane kill last night, I got the number 2 spot, behind a Mage.  I chalk that one up to Readiness, and very liberal use of Rapid Fire.  Not bad for a Survival hunter in a 10-man.

 

I’m going back to Kara

So I put in an app, and got invited to Citadel.  I’ve been itching to try and get back into Kara, and possibly some other raids, but I really didn’t want to have to depend on PUG’s to do it.  So I checked out Citadel’s website, and I really liked what I saw.  They wanted to start going to Kara, but they were not gonna be “Hard Core” rading.  And they really seemed to be all about having fun, and not pressuring everyone to get to the next level.  So I decided I’d give them a try.  And so far, its great!  They really are a great group of people.

And the good news is, they are going to Kara tonite, and I’ve been invited to go!  I’m really excited about this.  But I’m also a little nervous.  I haven’t been in Kara since last August, back before the bosses started dropping Badges of Justice, and before they removed the attunement/key requirement.  As a matter of fact, its been quite a while since I’ve done ANY instance.  I had a pretty long hiatus because of work and Real Life stuff.  So this may be a learning experience for me.  It may take me a while to get adjusted.  I sure hope I can get back into the swing of things fairly easily.

I’m fairly interested to see how I do as Survival in there.  I know it’s not optimal for 10-mans, but I’d still like to see how I perform in a raid setting at my current gear level.  Plus the trap talents should help out a bit on Moroes.  We’ll see how it goes, anyway.  Wish me luck!