Changing things up

It has been a busy weekend. Actually we have been fairly busy in-game since we server transferred. The new guild is working out nicely.
Attitude + competence = win.
We got in several raids and did a bit of heroic grinding (for heirlooms) with guildies and are starting to get to know them. Some runs were so-so and some, where there were a lot of pugged in people were downright fail. But the attitude of the Crits folks was good. Also things were well run with calm and clear direction. And that makes almost anything great.
Changing things up.
So right off the bat we were in a alt ICC run and it was clear they had an abundance of tanks. I have considered my bear Reversion as my main for a long time but I quickly adapted to bringing my hunter as my ‘main’. This meant Approximate needed some work. I had some empty sockets and my rotation was sloppy. Her DPS output was respectable but had room improvement. So right away I started swapping gems and tweaking things where I could. Then came this weekend. A 25 man gearing up run netted me Distant Lands and a ring and a rifle. Then a 10 man progression run netted me a new head and boots and an upgrade to my rep ring. I went from around 5.4k gs when we moved to over 5.9. This blew her right past both of my bears and makes Approx my most geared character.
Interfacing in new ways
So Saturday morning Analogue bumped her mouse off the desk. It died. The Logitech LX8 Mice were doing a good job for us but that was the second time one croaked when it took a fairly mild shock. We had space mice but none had the buttons she needed for her healing setup so off to Best Buy we went.
When we got there some new keyboards and two new mice found their way into our basket. I will do a post on just that stuff. The new keyboards are great and deserve a post to really talk about them. But in the process of setting up the new buttons they offer I moved a lot of Approximates utility abilities around. Now I have easier access to stuff. I used Deterrence for the first time in ICC last night thanks to the new setup. It is so critical for you to be able to get to what you need when you need it.
Macros seal the deal.
To take Approximates DPS to the next level I needed more. I needed to tighten up my rotation and use my cooldowns better. I was looking at how to use my engineering rocket launchers (glove enchant) and I hacked up a nice little macro to put them on my Explosive Shot and to suppress the error when they are not on cooldown. This got me thinking and I also macroed a trinket and Kill Command to my steady shot. Those both had fairly shoot cooldowns but I was not using them enough. Getting the most out of your dps requires you to get those things off more often. Optimally I would be timing them with various procs but I am not there yet.
Anyway, the sum total of all that was that last night in a progression group of well geared people I was able to hold the #3 over all damage spot the whole time. Well except those couple trash fights went I forgot to get out of ‘Viper’… But overall it was good. And because the new keyboard gave me better access to my rocket boots (Nitro Boosts) and other goodies I was able to (mostly) stay out of the fire. All in all I was very happy with my performance. It feels like I took my hunter and just shook the dust off and tightened the bolts down. Just in time to relearn how to play her, I know
But at least tonight, when we get a shot at Arthas, I feel like my dps is in the best form it has ever been in.
There is still more to do. I have more tweaking with my hots keys to do. I also need to finally dig up something like power auras. Keeping my dots up more consistently would be a good DPS increase. It might even be time to respec to MM. I will look into that after the patch drops. Oh and there is another glyph I need to swap from my old ‘heroics running’ load out. One thing at a time and ever upward. The self improvement never stops. In game anyway.

About these ads