gear counts?

despite the previous post, I’m sticking with my current survival spec. Primarily because a blue post on the official wow forums has admitted that beastmaster spec was over-nerfed. also because I’m actually doing quite well DPS-wise in dungeons and raids.

So what’s actually been happening in my WoW playing?

Today i’ve run two heroics, and a 25-man naxxramas run, along with a healthy dose of exploration, and solo questing. Here are my observations.

1. i found what was for me a new, and cool zone in the game, Naz’anak: The Forgotten Depths, which seemed far cooler than it actually is at first.
2. i ran heroic Utgarde Keep with another hunter on DPS, who also had survival build, but with almost entirely level 80 epics, i have 2. I ran with blingkong – my gorilla pet, the other hunter ran with a cat. As you may notice, and tenacious pet vs a ferocious. The DPS charts should have been against me, but in actual fact i was doing 7-9% more DPS than the other guy. Two conclusions, either blingkong kicks substantially more ass than a cat with trash mobs, or gear doesn’t count so much in 5 man.
3. i ran heroic gundrak with a two hunter, two DK, one pally group. The other hunter is a long-time WoW friend that has found a great raiding guild since our guild died. He’s geared to the hilt in epics, but also new to a survival build. We both ran with cats. This time the damage meters were much more even, with him dropping behind me on DPS for the first half, and then pulling ahead for a 2-3% lead overall.
   Conclusions, it’s looking like blingkong is rocking my world even with survival build. But this is looking like he counts for more in a trash-heavy environment.
4. i ran 25-man naxxramas with a pug. Most people there had been there a number of times, and also nicely geared. I ran with my cat and was coming much lower in the DPS charts, as you’d expect. flickering around 6-8th position, with 6.8% of total DPS. I was a little disappointed by this, but this was my first raid run on with shao so i wasn’t expecting much.  My DPS was nearly twice that of a normal 5-man group, so obviously conclusions here are that raid buffs, and gear count a lot for raiding, especially in big groups.
   I also managed to pick up Torn Web Wrapping from maexanna, although i still need to apply a Eternal Belt Buckle to it.

i completed the eldars of northrend, and a few other nice achiements that i wasn’t trying for today. Overall, a good day for me, and i really enjoyed running new content. Both gundrak and naxx are new to me, so it’s all good.