Right along side the start of Season 5, Winter Veil has begun as well. And along with all the joy and seasonal cheer being spread around is the opportunity to do something good. That is, if you call getting some seasonal achievements “good.” :)
Not only is a title available for completing all of the Winter Veil achievements, being known as the fearsome “Merrymaker”, but it is also a portion of the much larger “What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.” And the reward for that is a secksy Violet Prot-Drake. It’s worth mentioning that it is also a 310% speed increase. So get to it. You have some Merry-making to . . . ermm . . make.
The one achievement that *could* be the most troublesome is the With a Little Help from My Friends achievement. Getting the kills is easy enough, but every time you die you are going to have to head back over to the machine thingy to get turned back into a gnome, which can be troublesome. Luckily for me, I paired up with one of our Prot Warriors and a Shaman and we went to town in Alterac Valley. It was so brutal in fact that I also completed my Wrecking Ball achievement.
I also managed to get myself to the honor cap is preparation for today. Combine that with Stone Keeper Shards to turn in for Wintergrasp Commendation to keep churning out the honor to buy the gear I need. I must admit, previously I didn’t notice this, but those are also Bind on Account. Want to gear up your alt in shiny PvP gear so you don’t get crushed? Send ‘em tons of those Commendations and let the gear come flowing in. It might be a tempting option for those who have lost hope for competitive Hunters in Arena.
So enough about achievements. There are a few mods that I find extremely useful, one might say crucial, to PvP combat. Some of them have PvE-related uses but Season 5 is on a lot of people’s minds right now so it’s worth talking about. I try to run as few mods as possible, but lately I’ve been letting myself get carried away. Things like Auctioneer, ClosetGnome, Recount, etc. They sneak up on you as they get installed. Next thing you know you have lots of mods again.
Proximo – Are you doing Arena without Proximo or some other enemy unit frames mod? If so, you should probably stop until you go and get this one. When Arena starts, you mouse over your opponents and *wham*. Unit frames for the opposing team. A lot of Arena folks wouldn’t be caught dead without this one.
AG_Unitframes – This one can be replaced with any unit frames mod that allows you to display the casting bar of your opponents and your focus target. Simple and to the point. But casting awareness is very important.
There are a few other mods I have installed for PvP but they are mostly fluff. Tracking required honor and tokens, an announcer for PvP-related buffs and spells, yadda yadda. I would also recommend putting together some macros for Arena as well. For example I have a Silencing Shot macro that looks like this:
#showtooltip Silencing Shot
/cast [target=mouseover,harm][target=focus,harm][harm]Silencing Shot;
This might have to change it a bit. I haven’t tested this exact iteration of this macro in combat yet but one problem I foresee is that it will try to cast Silencing Shot on my target even if they don’t have mana. I might remove the [target=mouseover,harm] and [harm] portion so it only tries to Silence my focus target. Or maybe just the [harm] part so the mouseover still works. Not quite sure. I have to test out what will be most effective for me. But as Season 5 starts, my sights tonight are still set on our 25-man raid. I lost a roll on a Fury of the Five Flights last night in a PuG 25-man Obsidian Sanctum which was sad but there is still a chance to grab it in our guild raid.
Thoughts, comments, opinions, etc etc. Post ‘em here.
Grab it and jump into a defensive AV, team up with 20 other people and put a choke hold on Frostwolf village (Name? It’s been awhile since I’ve run AV : /), you should get the achievement in no time, especially if you get some mages, another hunter or two and some warlocks in there for SoC spam.
And keep that hole to the right blocked off! Rogues / Druids tend to “isolate” your healers from there.
Easy win.
@Shmii Winning isn’t the problem. It’s actually getting the Alliance to put up a fight now a days. Last night was the first time in 2 weeks we had more than 10 Alliance in AV. Heh.
Wow, I feel for you then. Your battlegroup sucks. : /
We had a phase similar where the horde never even queued for AV, they dominated AB, and EotS, but complained about imbalances when it came to AV.
I’ve heard good things about Proximo.
I’m probably going to get it and Pearl X unit frames, but I don’t think I’ll need much else…
OH BARTENDER!
And OneBag…
Oh dear.
Klinderas’s last blog post..I’m Talented!
@Klinderas They do add up quickly don’t they? :)
@Klin and Dro and thers one for everything :)
what battlegroup realm you in, would love to face you
I am in Rampage.
Drotara’s last blog post..Winter Veil – A Time for Achie… giving.
Hey Drotara-
I was trying to find the video you said you were going to make of the 10 man Gluth kiting you did. I just can’t seem to find it using Google to search the archives. Any possible way you can point me in the right direction? I have a fight coming up tomorrow (my first Naxx run) I was also wondering if you just generally have a post that talks about the whole 10 man Naxx raid from a hunter’s POV boss by boss or something general even?
Thanks for any help you can give!
Of course. :)
http://www.viddler.com/explore/Drotara/videos/37/
Sorry the search didn’t work. Dang thing is still freaking out since the move.
That one is from beta. I guess it would be a good idea to record a new one with better quality. It’s now on my list to do.
Thanks!! :) keep up the good work
Sorry one more tiny question about the Gluth fight- I saw in your video how you had a druid healing/rooting to help you.It seems I am going to be all on my own for kiting on this fight. Any suggestions? Is it even possible?
As you you can see my spec I do not currently have any talents in survival at the moment (but prob will son enough)….do you think I need to respec? Seeing as you’ve done this fight a few times by now any advice would be great.
I just want to make sure I do a good job on this fight considering the last hunter in our guild who tried failed miserably….
You can kite them all without help but at some point you are going to need to be healed. Inevitably some of the zombies are going to hit you. You can kite them as any spec. Being BM works great since you can get Kindred Spirits. Readiness can be useful for double Frost Traps.