Overwhelmed yet?

Listening to other people raid while you're still leveling is, shall we say, motivating. Dinged 2 levels listening to Vent while the rest of the guild smashed through 25-person Obsidian Sanctum and two wings of Naxx-25. Only one Hunter in the raid with them, and he was a PuG, I gotta get my @ss in gear so the guild will have a level capped Hunter.

(EDIT: ding! 80 on tuesday night)

While getting ready for raiding at level 70, I had lots of luxury time to plan out my toon's needs, and figure out what the hell I'm doing. Plus, I was a year late to Burning Crusade raiding, so by the time I got there, lots and lots of very condensed "how to get ready for kara" guides were out there.

The way things look, I'll need to be raid-ready by monday, which means there's lots of details to square away, and little time to do it. When faced with an overwhelming situation like this, I try to list things out, and try to make some sort of plan of attack. What follows is a totally unprioritized brain dump of things that need to be sorted out, and will hopefully form the foundation of an action plan that I'll use to try to steadily progress towards making Amiva the best she can be.

NOTE: lots of helpful folks have written up descriptions of small pockets of info in this list. I'm trying to link where I can (A) remember the post, and (B) find a link to it.

Here goes, in no particular order, the things I need to research for level 80 raiding:

General Readiness

Many of these won't be ready for monday, but I need to set a goal of at least knowing where I'm headed. In the places where I already have the info, I've tried to add it in. Not sure if this'll be a work in progress, or just a one-time braindump.

• Faction for Shoulder Inscription (WoW Wiki had an Enhancements by Slot (EbS)page that was awesome, and hopefully updated for WotLK)


• What's the deal with belt buckles? (review WoW Head for BS belt upgrades, or maybe WoW Wiki EbSt)


• Favored gem of each color, including meta (there used to be a real good gem site, but d@mn if I can remember it)


• Major & Minor Glyphs available at 80 (review WoW Head for Inscription recipes)


• What new scopes are there (review WoW Head for Engineering schematics)


• Favored Enchant for each slot, including some to fill temporary gaps like hit rating until level 80 gear makes up for that (WoW Wiki EbS)


• Faction for Helm Thingie (used to be called Glyph) (WoW Wiki Enchants by Slot)


• New Leg Armor packs (entry-level one and also the fancy nethercobra equivalent) (review WoW Head for LW patterns, or WoW Wiki EbS)


• New Flasks for wipe-heavy nights (hopefully there'll be a nice abbreviation like Relentless Ass) (review WoW Head for Alchemy recipes)


• New Guardian and Battle Elixirs for farm content (check WoW Head for Alchemy recipes)


• New Health and Mana potions (review WoW Head for Alchemy recipes)


• New quivers / ammo pouches


• Scrolls, baby, scrolls. I used to avoid these due to their rarity, but with Inscription, probably have to appy for my Scroll Reader's membership


• Level 80 hit rating requirements, including impact of MM talent. Might benefit from discussion with Raid Leader to see if I'll have any Draenei lovin in my party on a normal basis.


• Level 80 Raiding Hunter spec (check WoW Insider for BRK post)


• Tenacity Pet spec (again, check WoW Insider for BRK post)


• Changes to Shot Rotation (my poor, poor 1:1 macro might have to take a rest) (Elitist Jerks, here I come)

Gear Planning

Wow, I need to take a rest now. But I can't, because the new Guild distributes loot via Loot Council. If you want loot, you've got to show you did your homework and have a plan. Currently, they're only looking for top loot desired out of OS & Naxx 25, but of course, I can't stop there, and need to look across all possible gear avenues, because I like beat these things to death.

For each Gear Slot, review the following:

• Bosses in OS & Naxx (see if Kaliban's Loot List is still around


• Heroic loot (Kaliban's)


• Faction loot (Incompetent Warrior put together some Hunter rep items


• BoE Craftable loot (LW or ENG) (WoW Head again?)


• BG (not sure if level 80 raid-quality BG gear is out yet, or does that just come as Arena seasons expire and become BG loot)


• Arena (/shudder)

Excellent places to start are Lassirra's list at the Hunter's Mark, and both of Drotara's lists (loot, more loot)


Raid Checklist

And finally, before accepting the invite, make sure you've got your bags full, cuz (A) its a good idea, and (B) the Officers are checking you out, Big Brother style.

Had a checklist when I started raiding at 70 a year ago. It quickly became committed to memory. All the items have gone and changed on me, so time to start over:

• 2 stacks of buff food


• 2 stacks of pet buff food


• 1 stack of pet happy food


• Full quiver of ammunition


• 2 stacks of out of combat mana / health restoration (in case i forget to grab a couple stacks of magey biscuits)


• 3 flasks (2 is required to cover 3 hours, but a third is handy incase I accidentally right click the buff and instantly blow a 50g flask, not that that's ever happened)


• 20 battle elixirs


• 20 guardian elixirs


• 10 health potions


• 20 mana potions


• 2 stacks bandages (thankfully the Heavy Frostweave Bandage recipe dropped for me off a random mob in Zul'drak)


• Agility Scrolls, probably similar in quantity to elixirs or buff foods, depending on their duration

No more mana oil, and a substantially reduced quantity of potions needed, but still a pretty sizeable checklist.

Yuck! Lots to do, and lots of turkey to eat between now and then!