Raid Consumables: You are not prepared! Added: Oct. 1, 2009 by Fritti Tailchaser & Reaver of Blade's Edge

Raiding is 20% perspiration and 80% preparation. Okay, so Thomas Edison is being slightly misquoted here, but the gist of the statement remains true. Not to say raiding doesn’t take any effort, but going to a fight unprepared is like going into battle with half your gear broken – it simply won’t do!

If you look at the top raiders, or even the people who top your own guild’s damage chart, 99% of the time, you’ll find that these people come to a fight prepared. They bring what they need with them to raids to perform at top efficiency – and that means consumables. When someone talks to me about their damage in raids, the first question I ask is “Are you using (food/flask/elixirs)?” If the answer turns out to be no, well, that’s part of the problem right there. Hunters are a DPS class and if there are things that you can do to improve your damage, why wouldn’t you do it?

Now yes, I realize that farming materials can be time consuming or, if you don’t have a gathering tradeskill, it can be expensive. But if you have time to complete say, ten daily quests a day, you have the resources to be prepared for raids.

The guideline I’d use for most raids would be 1 Flask OR 1 Battle Elixir/1 Guardian Elixir, as well as a relevant buff food. Whether you choose to use a flask or elixirs is generally up to the player themselves and what is best will vary by talent specialization.

Basics

Besides flasks/elixirs and food, there is a basic raid check-list that everyone should get in the habit of following. For the experienced raider, this might seem like obvious preparation. But even the most experienced raiders can be forgetful, so it’s a good habit to get into early.

  1. Bandages: You probably already carry at least a few bandages around with you anyway. If you’re not, start bringing an entire stack with you (or two). Depending on the fight, it’s probably smarter to save your potion cooldown for a potion, so having a bandage handy when you know your healers may be occupied elsewhere never goes amiss. Remember – dead hunters can’t do any DPS.
  2. Health/Mana Pots: Although in desperate situations you can switch to Aspect of the Viper to help with mana, you’re doing more DPS if you keep Aspect of the Hawk on at all times. Obviously, if you’ve got a couple of replenishment classes in your raid group or the boss in question has mana with which to use Viper Sting against, mana will be less of an issue, and depending on the fight you may wish to use a health pot instead. Rejuvenation potions restore both health AND mana, but these can be the spendy side, especially since most times you’ll either need health or mana but usually not both at the same time. However, they’re not bad to have if you have the resources.
  3. Ammunition: As every hunter knows, for intensive raiding situations, plenty of ammunition should be brought to every raid. Always check before you turn up for a full night of raiding.
  4. Gear: Don’t forget to stop by and repair to 100% before you start your raid. Coming to raids with gear already damaged may force your raid to utilize a repair bot early and no one likes using repair bots (expensive to make and expensive to use). Not all raids will have a handy repair NPC beside the graveyard at each wipe, nor does every player have the resources for a Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth. And, if there are any pieces of gear you switch out depending on the fight, make sure those are in your bags as well.
  5. Pet Food: I don’t care what your talent tree is, you should be using your pet. During a night of raiding, your pet will lose happiness, especially if it dies! Lower happiness means less damage and that’s no good. A stack of food is usually enough, but that means food that will provide your pet with 35 happiness a tick. If you tend to use food that gives less happiness, bring more of it. With the Mend Pet glyph and certain pet talents restoring pet happiness this may seem trivial now but it makes for faster wipe recovery to use food rather than your mana to recover your pets health and is another good habit to learn early.

Intermediate Level

So, now we’ve covered the basics. Time to take the next step, to intermediate level – flasks, battle/guardian elixirs and food.

Flasks: Flasks count as both a battle elixir and a guardian elixir, remains through death and last for one hour. Flasks stack to twenty. For hunters, there are two choices for most situations as to what to use:

  1. Flask of Endless Rage: (7 Lichbloom, 3 Goldclover, 1 Frost Lotus and 1 Enchanted Vial). Increases attack power by 180.
  2. Flask of Relentless Assault: (1 Fel Lotus, 3 Mana Thistle, 7 Terocone and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases attack power by 120.

Elixirs: There are two categories of elixirs – battle elixirs and guardian elixirs. You can only use one of each. Elixirs last for an hour, do not remain if you die and stack to twenty.

Battle Elixirs: Now, obviously some of these battle elixirs are not the best ones that you can use. The point of listing what’s available for hunters is to encourage you to at least use SOMETHING. If the choice is using something cheaper as compared to using nothing at all… well, you already know where I stand on that. The flipside is, don’t turn around and use something like an Elixir of Minor Agility, because I guarantee that your raid leader won’t take kindly to someone who’s THAT cheap!

  1. Wrath Elixir: (1 Gold Clover, 2 Deadnettle and 1 Imbued Vial): Increases attack power by 90.
  2. Elixir of Deadly Strikes: (1 Gold Clover, 2 Adder’s Tongue and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases critical strike rating by 45.
  3. Elixir of Mighty Agility: (2 Gold Clover, 2 Adder’s Tongue and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases agility by 45.
  4. Elixir of Armor Piercing: (2 Tiger Lily and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases Armor Penetration Rating by 45.
  5. Elixir of Major Agility: (1 Terocone, 2 Felweed and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases agility by 35 and critical strike rating by 12.

Guardian Elixirs: Again, I am not trying to dictate to you which elixirs to use, but more to make you aware of what’s available. Look over the list. Some will be more appropriate to some situations than others. If, for example, you have a couple of replenishment classes in your group or raid, mana may not be as much a concern, so instead you might choose intellect or health, depending on the fight.

  1. Elixir of Mighty Thoughts: (2 Deadnettle, 1 Talandra’s Rose and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases intellect by 45.
  2. Elixir of Draenic Wisdom: (1 Terocone, 1 Felweed and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases intellect and spirit by 30.
  3. Elixir of Mighty Mageblood: (2 Lichbloom, 1 Goldclover and 1 Imbued Vial). Regenerates 24 mana per 5 seconds.
  4. Elixir of Major Mageblood: (1 Ancient Lichen, 1 Netherbloom and 1 Imbued Vial). Regenerate 16 mana per 5 sec.
  5. Elixir of Mighty Fortitude: (4 Goldclover and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases maximum health by 350 and restores 20 health every 5 seconds.
  6. Elixir of Major Fortitude: (2 Ragveil, 1 Felweed and 1 Imbued Vial). Increases maximum health by 250 and restores 10 health every 5 seconds.

Food: I really hoped you picked up cooking. Not only can it be used to feed your pets, you can give yourself some pretty decent buffs in the process. Fishing too, as you’ll see from the list, can net similar buffs but requires a bit more patience to raise. Unless you’re buying the food from the Auction House, all foodstuffs listed require a cooking fire to bake to perfection. The list will be split in to those foods that require Northern Spices to prepare (available via the Daleran cooking daily in random amounts or using Daleran Cooking Awards to purchase 10) and those that don’t. All food buffs last one hour, do not remain if you die and stack to twenty. Foods called Feasts (Great Feast, Fish Feast) not only provide a buff for you but everyone in your party/raid, assuming they eat it.

Standard

  1. Worm Delight: (1 Worm Meat). Increases critical strike rating by 30 and stamina by 30.
  2. Poached Nettlefish: (1 Nettlefish). Increases critical strike rating by 30 and stamina by 30.
  3. Mammoth Meal: (1 Chunk o’ Mammoth). Increases attack power by 60 and stamina by 30.
  4. Grilled Sculpin: (1 Musselback Sculpin). Increases attack power by 60 and stamina by 30.
  5. Dalaran Clam Chowder: (2 Succulent Clam Meat). Increases attack power by 60, spell power by 35 and stamina by 30.
  6. Great Feast: (2 Chilled Meat, 1 Chunk o’ Mammoth, 1 Shoveltusk Flank and 1 Worm Meat). Increases attack power by 60, spell power by 35 and stamina by 30.

Northern Spices

  1. Mega Mammoth Meal: (2 Chunk o’ Mammoth and 1 Northern Spices). Increases attack power by 80 and stamina by 40.
  2. Spiced Wyrm Burger: (2 Worm Meat and 1 Northern Spices). Increases critical strike rating by 40 and stamina by 40.
  3. Worg Tartare: (2 Worg Haunch and 1 Northern Spices). Increases hit rating by 40 and stamina by 40.
  4. Poached Northern Sculpin: (1 Musselback Sculpin and 1 Northern Spices). Increases attack power by 80 and stamina by 40.
  5. Spicy Blue Nettlefish: (1 Nettlefish and 1 Northern Spices). Increases critical strike rating by 40 and Stamina by 40.
  6. Snapper Extreme: (3 Bonescale Snapper and 1 Northern Spices). Increases hit rating by 40 and Stamina by 40.
  7. Blackened Dragonfin: (1 Dragon Angelfish and 1 Northern Spices). Increases agility by 40 and stamina by 40.
  8. Hearty Rhino: (1 Rhino Meat and 1 Northern Spices). Increases armor penetration by 40 and stamina by 40.
  9. Fish Feast: (2 Musselback Sculpin, 2 Glacial Salmon, 2 Nettlefish and 1 Northern Spices). Increases attack power by 80, spell power by 46 and stamina by 40.

Advanced

We’ve covered the basics and the intermediate levels of raid consumables. Now we move onto the final, advanced level. What does this consist of? Read on.

Scrolls: Scrolls no longer stack sadly (meaning you can’t use, say, both agility and stamina at the same time, only one or the other) and will be overwritten by Horn of Winter or Strength of Earth totem. They can still be of use in 10 man raids where you have no shaman or death knight present but their viability has been greatly diminished since the Burning Crusade expansion. Handy to carry a stack of 20 just in case. Scrolls can be created by scribes/inscriptionists or found at the Auction House. You’ll get lucky occasionally with an NPC drop and there’s usually a scroll inside most dungeon chests. You can sometimes pick scrolls up off of NPC vendors (Dealer Hazzin in Netherstorm, for example, will occasionally have various scrolls for sale or the Darkmoon Faire vendors). Every little bit helps, so browsing the auction house or said scroll vendors can give an extra boost. Scrolls that raiding hunters will predominantly be interested in are agility and strength scrolls, the agility can be placed on both yourself and pet and the strength scrolls can be used solely for pets (or other raid members if your feeling generous).

Pet Buff Foods

  1. Kibler’s Bits: (1 Buzzard Meat). Increases the strength and stamina of your pet by 20.
  2. Spiced Mammoth Treats: (1 Chunk o’ Mammoth and 1 Northern Spices). Increases the strength and stamina of your pet by 30.

Pet buff food must be “used” on the pet rather than fed to it. Kibler’s Bits is a recipe that is randomly awarded by The Rokk in Shattrath as part of the daily cooking quest so can be difficult to obtain, the trade off to this is that the materials for the recipe can be easily and quickly gathered in high volume at level 80. The Spiced Mammoth Treats recipe is sold by the cooking supplies vendors Misensi in the Filthy Animal in Dalaran for Horde and Derek Odds for Alliance at a cost of 3 Dalaran cooking awards.

Other items: Charged Crystal Focus, stacks to 20 and currently seem to negate the “one fight, one potion” rule in that you can use as many as you wish per encounter within the bounds of the cooldown (restores 2000 health, and does not share the health potion timer, but does share the Warlock Healthstone timer).

Other ways to make your fellow raiders love you

Ask your guild mage for food/water before the raid starts. If you need any buffs (or your pet does), don’t wait until the last minute to ask for them. If you’re new to an encounter and there are players with more experience, ask them for a run-down of the fight so you go into it at least somewhat prepared. Ask your fellow hunters what your specific role is during any given fight (establish Misdirect targets, know your positioning, etc). I can’t stress being prepared enough, be it bringing consumables, learning what you can about the event beforehand, what have you. You will see an improvement in your raid performance, guaranteed. And, you will gain the respect of your guild leader/raid leader because I promise you, people who are 100% prepared are the people who are proving how much they want to be in the guild and be a contributing member.