Sorry for the lack of updates. I was socked with a heavy duty cold that is kicking my butt. I’ve been to the doctor so I have medication to help combat whatever is brewing in my sinuses. Hopefully I’ll shake this soon. In the mean time I hope you all are enjoying the recent patch.

Kinetic Orbs, that’s right. Those stupid yellow orbs that slowly fall to the ground. I know if I hit the orbs slowly they will rise back up, but I wish it was that simple. For some decision unknown to me my guild places Hunters on orb duty. I loath it!

The first time we faced the Vampire Council there was only two hunters in our 25 man raid. Me and my co-Hunter ran around the room like mad trying to prevent these orbs from coming into contact with the floor. With all the pushbacks, spinning my view around and dashing across the room made this task more of a pain in the @$$!! The other Hunter and I were throwing out profanities in our hunter chat that would make a sailor blush. Of course if something happened and a ball hit the ground who carried all the blame? We did.

The orbs also spawn at mid height, rather than at their maximum height distance. I often found myself trying to volley one as I as I could when another would spawn half-way across the room. And heaven forbid if another ranged DPS noticed this and threw a couple pop-shots on it until we got there.

Finally toward the end of the night they decided to place one more ranged DPS on Kinetic Orbs with us. This made life a little more manageable. I was still barely allowed to dps on the boss but thankfully that didn’t seem to hinder the raid any. We have faced the Vampire Council two times since their release and successfuly brought them down on both 10 and 25 man.

Now to work on Blood-Queen Lana’thel and finally put Professor Putricide in his place.

I postponed this post for a while since I didn’t want to give any spoilers to those who wanted to be surprised. Plus I knew a lot of bloggers would be posting strats and hints. Then the holidays hit and delayed everything until now. My guild has been doing great in Icecrown as we slowly make our way up the spire toward the Lich King. We have cleared the first wing on both 10 and 25 man raids, and have cleared through the Plagueworks on 10 man.  Tonight we will tackle the newest wing, the Crimson Halls.

The first wing, I found a lot of fun despite the trash clearing up to the first boss, Lord Marrogar. My favorite fight of this area has to be Lady Deathwhisper. Along with the silly comments my guild makes about her opening rant, I love the fact that there’s very little movement and if mana is needed in a pinch a viper sting on her works great. Plus she dropped my bow the first night we faced her. Hopefully she will drop her trinket in our 10 mans and I’m lucky enough to win it.

At Blizzcon ‘09 the developers told us about the Gunship Battle. The mechanics of that fight make it incredibly fun and I have not found one person who hates that encounter. Large cannons blazing, dodging goblin rockets, flying across to the enemy’s ship while defending our own – great job on that one Blizz.

The last boss in the  Frostwing Halls is Deathbringer Saurfang. What’s neat about this boss is we first encountered him in the Wrathgate cinematic. He met an untimely death when he charged after the Lich King and obviously his story didn’t end there. He has been resurrected as a Death Knight and now serves under the Scourge’s Army. I tend to like this encounter on 10 man over 25 since there’s more room to run when his blood beasts are summoned.

When the Plaugeworks opened  3 more bosses were introduced, Rotface, Festergut and Professor Putricide. Out of the two creations I find Rotface to be the most fun. Both of the bosses aren’t too challenging but Festergut seems to pick me a lot for his Vile Gas debuff. The other part I like about these encounters  is  you can spot Professor Putricide watching you from his laboratory as you battle his monstrous creations.  The final battle against Putridcide is pretty simple once you understand the basics of his encounter: dps the slimes, kite the orange slime, dodge the balls of goo and watch out for the beakers on the floor.

Gear wise, I have been fairly lucky in the upgrade department so far. I really enjoy my Deathbringer’s Will since the transformations are random. My only complaint (a petty one at that) about the trinket is if you play a female toon and you have the Matron title from Children’s Week, you will constantly get spam: “You have lost the title Matron. You have gained the title Patron.” It would be cool to see female transformations for the female toons, but I know that’s far from a priority.

There you have it. My personal raid progression through Icecrown Citadel. If you are storming the citadel too, I hope that you are having as much fun as I am. It’s a beautiful and challenging Instance and I can’t wait battle against the Lich King.

Here we are, probably a day away from the third wing of Icecrown Citadel opening. Since the release of patch 3.3, you have collected Emblems of Frost from the Random Heroic Daily or been lucky enough to run through the new Instance with your guild or even a few good pugs. As you collect these badges, how do you decide which piece to get first? Do you go with the T10 armor? Maybe a new belt is what you need. Myself I plugged everything into the hunter spreadsheet for my answer.

A lot of people will buy the cheapest item first, which happens to be a hot, little cloak. It sells for 50 badges and it can be a hefty upgrade for anyone who doesn’t have a heroic cloak from ToGC. I took a page out of BRK’s book and I held on to my badges for the most expensive piece. However my savvy saving allowed me to delay that purchase until I had collected 155 frost badges. Now I had some options. I ran all the gear upgrades through a spreadsheet and found I would gain more dps from 2 pieces of T10 than 1 piece of T10 and the badge belt, cloak, or gloves.

So before that first purchase, you may want to check with a spreadsheet to see which is the best for you. I prefer Shandara’s DPS Spreadsheet. It’s specifically geared toward hunters and she constantly updates it to keep up with new talent changes, gear or any errors people may find. The only downside is the spreadsheet doesn’t work too well with Macs. But never fear, Zeherea’s Hunter DPS Analyzer is very similar and available online. Happy shopping!

Hi everyone, Foxx here. I’m your friendly, neighborhood, bear tank from the Rampage battle group. Today I have a very important message. Hunters, I love you guys – really I do – but if bring down the dps hammer before I get some threat, guess what? That mob I’m attempting to hold by the throat can be all yours. Learn how to manage your threat or be prepared to kite that mob all around the instance.

Thank you! /bear hug