Thursday, November 22, 2007

Good Instance Runs: Chicken Soup for the WoW-playing Soul

I have to admit I don't do a lot of instances. It's not because I don't want to do them, so much as because I often don't have the time for them. I tend to be the busiest or the most likely to frequently AFK during the prime instance-running hours: the evening. So oftentimes I opt out of doing instances because I don't want to bother the others with any potential frequent BRBs.

Today, however, was Thanksgiving, so I had a lot of wonderful uninterrupted spare time. (And don't worry, I spent a lot of time with my family as well! =P My mom is a great cook.)

So, I ran Hellfire Ramparts. Twice. The group consisted of guildies and friends, mostly at level 60 (though I was at level 64), and included a warrior tank, a tree druid healer, a feral druid, and two BM hunters.

And I had an absolutely fantastic time, both times. The warrior had never done much tanking before and was very nervous about the whole thing, but he wound up doing a very impressive job. The healer was a great healer. The feral druid was one dangerous kitty. The other hunter was one of the best hunters I have worked with so far, and I'd like to think that I'm not too shabby either.

My job was DPS + CC, and it was one of the first times that I was really asked to provide consistent CC throughout the duration of a dungeon rather than just a few times. The other hunter and I actually played off of each other really well here; sometimes my trap would be resisted and she would be right there with a backup trap, or vice-versa. But what I really felt proud about were the times I had to chain trap. Sure, I'd practiced with the raptors in Arathi a la BRK, but here I was being asked to do it in a much more crucial setting. I guess I shouldn't have worried because I seemed to do pretty good job, and that culminated in my sudden development of a severe case of "I'm-turning-into-a-real-hunter-itis", a horrible disease that causes one to gesture frantically at the screen and tell one's significant other "I'm chain trapping! I'M CHAIN TRAPPING! Are you watching??"

Heehee.

I also got to pull, at the warrior's request. Oh, and the healer healed my pet whenever he was offtanking (or saving the healer). Both these people actually have level 70 hunters already so that may have helped.

Overall it was a fantastic experience. I feel like I learned a lot, and it felt really good to exit the instance knowing we'd done so well and handled the problems we'd came across. I got myself some new gear, and then because I was feeling particularly giddy I threw down a bunch of gold on an agility enchant for my polearm. At level 64, my agility is now over 400 and my crit chance is now over 15%, and I am one happy little hunterling.

I'm going to start trying to do more instances.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Grats!

You're packing Agility like you're going Survival! :)

At 62, my agil is 282 and crit is 11.52% without buffs...

Pike said...

@ Someone -

I would absolutely love to try Survival at some point. So I figure I'd might as well start early. Hehe =D I love the crit chance too.

Glass Cannon Productions said...

Hahaha... that's awesome!!

"I'm chain trapping!" <<< LOL

Anonymous said...

I can remember the first times I properly chain trapped in an instance too, and my partner (he plays a prot warrior) to pretty much the same exclamations of joy :)

Anonymous said...

Great job! :)

You mentioned the healer taking care of your pet...when I'm running Osprey, I try to keep up with the pets if I can, but it gets more difficult in level 70 instances.

Here's the macro I (try to) use to keep Talon healing almost continually (credit BRK, I think):

#showtooltip Scorpid Sting
/castsequence reset=15 Scorpid Sting, Mend Pet


One thing to keep in mind is that Elementals are immune to Scorpid Sting; I generally don't let that bother me. I am sure I could weave in some sort of cool macro code to bind a shift key or some such...but I also have Mend Pet bound to Ctrl-Shift-F (part of a separate Feed/Mend Macro).

Bah...I'll just go write a short article. :)

(Oh btw your sig pics at the bottom of the first page are showing up with all kinds of errors; may just be my settings.)

BRK said...

/looks in
/sees everything OK, nothing amiss
/nods
/exits

Pike said...

...I have earned BRK's approval...

/puff up with pride
/salute
/feels the symptoms of the I'm-turning-into-a-real-hunter-itis disease even worse now

Psycho & Chaos said...

Gratz on the successful runs. I did alot this weekend also. Just not in the instance areas.

Unknown said...

Nice Pike! This is a great story! Nothing quite like feeling you've learned the lessons and are now really putting the new skills to work!