Interesting thoughts on accents

I was doing my down-time blog hopping at work and stumbled upon the blog Another Day, Another Alt. "Altitis" is somewhat interesting to me — I like making characters and have a ton but rarely play more than three of them at a time. Even in previous roleplaying ventures where I've had many multiple characters, I've focused on only three or four at a time, story-wise.

Whoops, tangent.

Anyway, I was browsing through Tal's archives and found this entry about accents, which raises some excellent questions.

... in my old guild we used it quite a bit - it was an all-Dwarf guild, and the members were encouraged to use Dwarven whenever possible, and here's what annoys me (finally...) - Why would a Dwarf have a noticeable accent while speaking his/her native language? It's all nice and well when you speak Common, but Dwarven?

Now, the general consensus seems to be that Common and Dwarven should sound differently, and that when dwarves talk, it'll sound like Scottish - so the accent should stay. I don't quite agree with that. I mean, Common (or Orcish, if you're horde) is not English - we use English because, well, we have to agree on some language in order to communicate (and, being WoW an MMO, communication is quite important), what turns it into Common is the [Common] tag at the beginning of the line. Accents are a good way of stressing the fact that Common is not (usually) a dwarf's native language, and therefore when they speak it it sounds "different", but there's no such problem in Dwarven.

I'm of the inclination that this is right. When I speak in (very basic) Spanish or (extremely rudimentary, horribly accented and grammatically incorrect, I'm sure) Tagalog, I know I have an accent. But when I'm speaking my native language, I have "no" accent.*

Or, in other words, Scottish people think we Americans have the funny accents.

So even if you speak Orcish with a troll accent or Common with a dwarf accent, I would think you would be "accentless" when speaking your native tongue (as chosen by the language option). And you might comment on other people's funny accents if they comment on yours.

*Linguistically, everyone has an accent, but if yours is the one you hear most often (i.e., if you speak the dominant language and still live where you grew up or not far enough away for the regional accent/dialect to change dramatically), you're going to think of other people as having accents and yourself as having none.

Pet control on a PVP server

As much as I am a fan of keeping my cats on Defensive, one place I do keep them on Passive is the Isle of Quel'Danas. This may not be an issue on a PVE server, but on my PVP server, the preferred mode of entertainment for Alliance is to port in a level one alt and attack warlocks and hunters, so that their pets on defensive attack back, and then hunter and pet (or 'lock and demon) get killed by the guards.

However, if you have your pet on Passive, you can point and laugh at their corpse when they try this.

OMGYAY

http://www.bigredkitty.net/2008/07/30/a-picture-says-one-word/


EDIT: Ghostwalker has confirmed that we will be getting two additional stable slots, and hunter pets might be integrated into the new companion/mount system they are working on for Wrath.

MORE KITTIES FOR ME!

Holding out for a fjord crow?

Kresha may not be taming a dire raven after all.

The difference a few levels makes

I've started doing a few of the SSO dailies each day, since I have had insomnia and there isn't much else to do at 3 a.m. So I go in, do as many as I can before they roll over at 4, gather up the ones I like and do maybe one or two more, then do my auctioning before bed. This actually works out, since most of the gankers have gone to bed by then, and I get either honest PVP or inter-faction cooperation instead of camped for an hour.

I've also been doing a bunch of the quests in Netherstorm — I dinged Honored with the Consortium and figured actually doing all the quests to get to Revered would be a nice change from killing ogres for their precious warbeads.

So, with Cinnamon at 70 and Gutripper just barely short of 69 and at "Submissive" loyalty, I figured I should pull Saffron back out and finish catching her up. I leveled her from 62 to mostly through 66 before taming Gutripper, on the ogres and AV, so I figured that things should go faster on the 69-72 mobs I've been working on in Netherstorm and on the Isle, right? Well, yes and no.

I pulled her out for a couple of dailies last night, and while she's gaining XP faster, she does not handle the damage anywhere near as well as Cinn or Gutripper (I need a nickname for her — Gutsy's just dumb), so I have lots of downtime when my mana runs low after hitting "Mend Pet" what seems like 62 times. Plus, while she deals damage pretty well, the difference in level makes up for it and I'm constantly pulling aggro, which means everything takes a little longer.

Still, the XP gains for her and the money and rep for me are worth it, and I can practice getting out of range, something I desperately need work on — warriors and rogues are still, for the most part, my downfalls.

In other news, I'm at the point on Ahami (and nearly there with Ideale) where I really need to suck it up and do some dungeons. Ahami needs to get her feet wet healing, and since I actually do very much like the Scarley Monastery instances (solo, anyway) and they are easy to get a group for, I might as well start now. Ideale's quest log is quite cluttered with quests that involve instances (11!), and which mostly grant rep I need and can't get elsewhere. (Thank you, Blizz, for making it necessary to be Exalted with the Cenarion Expedition and then so difficult to get there without grinding Coilfang instances. No, really.) I also really want her to be a Hero of the Mag'har — I want a title, dammit, and I'm obviously not going to be getting "Champion of the Naaru" or whatever.

So Ahami first, because I don't want to stay in the 30s for months, and Ideale after, and hopefully it will not suck too badly.

I really wish you could remove factions from your reputation tab if you were at 0/3000 neutral with them. I tend to talk to any NPC that has a talky bubble, which means I'm at 0/3000 with stuff like the Violet Eye and the Zandalar Tribe, and with my anti-instance feelings, this will probably never change — only I'm mildly obsessive and it bugs me that they're there, even if they're in the inactive list.

Re: Shamans

Chain lightning is the shit. But it eats WAY too much mana.

That is all.

Two bits

I must confess that the thing I am very most excited about with Wrath of the Lich King is ... the ability to change hairstyles. I thought Ahami's hair was cute when I rolled her, but I was already annoyed with it by level 20.

Gutripper: Solo tamed!

Gutripper hits HARD, and after trying to solo-kill her at 66 for the Nesingwary quest and failing, I knew that she resists traps, but I figured at 70 with PVP gear on, I'd be able to manage.

Wrong!

I ran into her at level 67 (she was 66 last time we tangled) and she hit that much harder. After dying twice, I went on my bank alt and got a Scroll of Stamina, one of the minor fortitude potions, and some Rumsey Rum. With that and some buff food, I got Ideale's health to about 11,000, and with Scorpid Sting on Gutripper I managed to outlast the taming cast timer by just barely one second — the TAMED! light flashed, and then her gut rip attack bled me out and I died.

And then I checked Thottbot and found that most people have a taming partner, either a paladin or priest to bubble, or a priest or druid to HoT. A few mentioned having both. That would have been a good idea, I guess. They also listed various potions and buffs that were helpful. So if you plan to tame Gutripper, do some research first instead of being dumb like me! Be prepared and bring friends, too, and avoid your largest repair bill ever (although part of that was from a quest where I fell to my death several times before getting annoyed and buying a flying mount out of sheer frustration — and it was much smaller than the average tanking bill a guildie faces).

But I tamed her, and after an hour or two of thought, named her Gutripper — it doesn't fit the theme, but it just seemed wrong to name her anything else. She's still at "Rebellious" though, after a few hours and much fighting. Wish she'd bump up so I could train her stamina a bit. Constantly casting Mend Pet eats at my mana.

EDIT: The next time I logged on, she jumped up to loyalty level 2 before I even left the inn, and then about half an hour later she bumped up to to level 3. I'm thinking she may have been glitched right after I tamed her, since I also had a problem where she would randomly go from defensive to aggressive, as in I was standing there reading my quest log and I saw the button switch without touching a thing. This happened about four times (thought I was doing it by accident until the last one!) and has not happened once since I logged off that first time. Weird.

True Cat Stories II: Box Drama (not WoW)

So my cat, Sparrow, is obsessed with boxes (my other cat, Klio, is obsessed with purses, but since my mom gave her an old one, we haven't had any drama caused by this). Sparrow especially loves open boxes, which she promptly climbs inside of. She then launches herself at the legs of passersby, stealth-pounces the other cats, or generally makes an adorable nuisance of herself.


(Please ignore the awful photo — I had just gotten a new camera and didn't know what the hell I was doing yet.)

We have a small office/storage area in our apartment — it was originally intended to be an office, but my roommates, who are teachers, have stored boxes of school supplies bought out of pocket (yay state budget) there. Because it is a storagey area now, it holds a few empty boxes (for carting school supplies back and forth, I think), which were, until this morning, stacked neatly in a pile.

I'm sitting watching Paranormal State recordings when I hear Sparrow in the office, mewing. Every so often, she will give a little mew and as long as you answer, she's happy, so I just said, "I'm in here, Spar," and went on with my viewing.

Unfortunately, this little questioning mew is the same one she also uses to ask permission to do something (such as steal my stuffed animals — and yes, it's actually asking permission, because if you say "Go ahead," she does whatever she was planning on, but if you say, "No," she runs and sulks under the coffee table). And she interpreted my response as permission, because she's a cat and cats don't speak much English. Or else she just figured I wasn't in there to stop her.

So as she tried to jump into the top box, the entire stack came crashing down, her with it, onto a plastic crate. I go running in there and find her huddled on the crate, eyes wide, shaking. So I comfort her for a minute, then restack the boxes.

By that time, she had recovered, and looked up at me with another one of those little mews. And then, after I pet her, she reached out with a paw, hooked it onto the edge of the bottom box, and pulled the whole stack down again, quite deliberately, and ran like hell for my bedroom. When I finally got the boxes stacked again and went to yell at her, she rubbed all around my ankles and then did what my roomies and I call the Wiggle Worm, where she rolls around on the floor like a kitten — basically, she was cuter than it ought to be possible for a cat to be and I couldn't even be annoyed.

I think my cat is an evil genius.

Pet planning

Feel free to skip this entry, as it's full of rambling that is only interesting to myself, horrible run-on sentences, and massive abuse of parentheses and semi-colons.

So I'm pretty sure that Ideale's third stable slot will be filled by Gutripper. I really love the look of her, and I'd love to have another type of pet to play with come the pet talent trees in the expansion. Additionally, since I pretty much just PVP, having a flappy view-blocker will be pretty good, and Snatch, the WotLK family talent for birds of prey, seems like an awesome skill for PVP. Damage plus a 6-second disarm? Awesome. Then I can use Saffron for Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, where prowl is dead useful, and Gutripper for Alterac Valley and world PVP (switching them up whenever I feel like I've ignored one too long, of course). Cinnamon will continue to be my regular, hangs-out-with-me-all-the-time pet. I am going to give it another few days to be sure, while I fill in pet talents and wait for more news on new pets in WotLK.

But to mitigate my "aww, no kitties" sadness (I almost decided to go with the panther and was even researching Zul'Gurub, but really, especially with how things will change in Wrath, having three cats on one hunter would be pushing my cat obsession to the point of ridiculousness), I sat down and planned out my other hunters who actually see play time. I have been casually kicking out a level or two here and there on them, and once Ahami hits 70, I'd like to level them a little more seriously — Ide and Ahami will continue to be my mains, but I figure I can give my alts a day or two a week at that point.

So, pet acquisition, which might change as more of the new pets become known:

Ideale (beast mastery hunter; currently has Cinnamon, an Elder Springpaw, and Saffron, a Ridge Stalker)
- Get all of the pet skills available, so I can say I did this on at least one hunter (I'm close — just need to fill in a few ranks and grab Warp and Poison Spit at this point).
- Tame Gutripper. Not sure if I will keep her name or rename her yet. It seems wrong to rename her, but Gutripper doesn't fit the theme OMG.

Kresha (survival hunter, will go to end-game; currently has Tack, a Durotar Tiger)
- Tame an Elder Shadowmaw Panther at level 43, to be named Jinx (yay no theme on Kresha!). This is the latest point at which I can get one before Zul'Gurub, meaning I would only have to double-level pets for 27 (or 37, depending on how fast she goes) levels.
- Tame a Dire Raven after hitting level cap. No name chosen yet.

Daj (marksmanship hunter, will go to at least level 59 for PVP brackets, might go to end game; currently has Serai, a Snow Leopard)
- Tame Arash'ethis at 49 (I tamed him on Ideale earlier this week for to get lightning breath ranks and ended up playing with him up to loyalty 3. I liked him a lot, but not for Ideale, especially 20 levels behind, and Kresha's more of a raven kind of girl, so Daj wins!)
- Tame either a Frostsaber or Rak'shiri at 58 (while I think I like the Frostsabers a teeny bit more, since Daj has blue skin, a blue tiger would be neat looking with her, and I haven't seen ANYONE Horde-side on VeCo with one; this would also give her two snowcats)
- Both of Daj's pets will keep their original names.

Tshaya (beast mastery hunter, Alliance side; no real plans for leveling her at this time, but I do play her on occasion; currently has Onryo, a Ghost Saber, and Artemis, a Strigid Hunter)
Tshaya was harder. I don't play her anywhere near as often as my Horde hunters. Sometimes I will play her nearly exclusively for a week straight; right now, the only time I've logged in as Tshaya for almost a month was patch day, to buy an elekk. So I'm keeping the third slot open indefinitely, but if I do get her to the 40s, I'd like to tame a Glassweb Spider from the Burning Steppes, to be named Arachne.

I have no plans to level my other hunters at this time, although I might drag my tauren on Moon Guard to level 10 after the expansion comes out so I can tame a moth. You know what I want to be tamable? Deer! I want a Moongraze Stag so badly I'd give up a cat for one. :-O

Ahami, my resto shaman, has her white kitten, Fog (I really wish you could officially name mini-pets). Once I start leveling Onashne, my future elem shaman, a little and am sure I'm going to keep her, I would like to get her the black tabby (she's been sitting at level 3 while my roomie decides if she wants to play WoW or not, so we can level characters together if she does, but if not, she'll be joining Daj and Kresha in the casual alt rotation).

And hopefully, this will be it for the boring, talking-to-myself entries for a while. :-D

Roleplaying dilemma

I've been roleplaying for a long time, even if I've only recently entered the World of Warcraft. While I entered a few very short-lived SF- or fantasy-based RP groups in high school and college, my longest-lived RP experience was in a "Newsies" writing group, the Newsgirls Union, where we created and roleplayed characters based on the movie and actual New York history, writing fanfiction using our own original characters. I played from 1901 to 1904 (the group progressed in "real-time" starting from the movie's time of 1899 — why yes, I am a huge geek, why do you ask?).

I've found that, for me, Warcraft has been very challenging in that I create my characters in a new way. When I was roleplaying with the Union, I started with a story idea. This usually meant having a backstory ahead of time, but occasionally meant just a character concept. (For Jen, my main character ... and *cough* ginormous Mary Sue ... I knew every detail of her life and history; for 13, perhaps my favorite character, a friend and I decided we wanted "eccentric" characters so I decided she would be obsessed with numbers and she grew from there. God, I really miss playing her. And I really need to e-mail my friends.) Either way, though, I knew who the character was first and created the rest from there.

For Warcraft, I'm finding myself much more hesitant to roleplay specifically because the character creation process is different. For one, as a history geek (and later history major) and huge fan of the movie, I knew the "lore" of "Newsies" and turn of the century New York like the back of my hand. I had no problems navigating the RP waters. I do not know the lore of WoW as well at all, despite poring over WoWWiki in my downtime at work

Also, for my characters in WoW, I started with a class and appearance first. For the most part, Ideale was entirely an accident. In fact, even her name was one I pulled at random from a list of names because it sounded vaguely "elfish" — if I'd expected to keep her, I would have named her something more appropriate (or made her an herbalist/alchemist or a healer class, at least). I wanted to explore the blood elf starting area, I'd never played a hunter before, and I got all the way to level 10 before I hated it. I only went back to her after reading hunter blogs and deciding to give it another shot. I had not developed her backstory — or any of my first characters', actually — at all. Kresha is the same — I made her for Project Infiltration and ended up liking her more than Daj. Ahami was a bit more planned, but still more "on the fly" than any of my Union characters ever were.

The second challenge I'm facing is that there is so much to do in WoW other than RP. With my previous roleplaying experiences (MUDs excluded), the roleplaying was EVERYTHING. If you did not roleplay, then there was literally absolutely nothing to do. With WoW, you can happily go through the entire game without roleplaying for a second. All you have to do is roll on a normal server and ignore all of the quest text.

I don't want that. I started playing WoW because I love roleplaying — the rest is very fun, too, but the roleplaying part was the attraction. But I'm finding, at 70, that I'm nervous to begin because I don't know the world as well, and because it's so easy to fall back on questing, PVPing, and so on.

I'm wondering, had I created my characters in my usual fashion, if I would be having an easier time. As it is, I think I am a "borderline" roleplayer right now. In interaction with other players a good percentage of the time, I am not necessarily roleplaying, but am walking the border where if they begin, I could jump in — but I'm too nervous of messing up to initiate it myself! But I want to push myself over into actual roleplayer territory. I'm just not quite sure how to do that.

Although, on the plus side, this challenge has gotten me writing again, something that I haven't done with any seriousness for several years. While working on writing out character histories and monologues to get a better sense of who they are, I started working on some of my own stuff that has been on hold for too long.

Soloing Scholomance and Stratholme

In the course of questing for the Argent Dawn, Ideale has come across a key to Scholomance. I addition, a huge chunk of the quests at Light's Hope Chapel are for Stratholme.

I'm now reading leveling guides to see if I want to try soloing these instances. I think it would be a nice challenge.

Also debating joining a group from the server who want to try Naxxramas. (I know, I know, but I think a group of 40 — and they're almost there — would be much less insufferable than a group of five.)

If bear trap were like snake trap

I would so respec all of my hunters survival the second the expansion hit.

We made our stand on the Field of Strife

Or, how the Horde broke a losing streak in Alterac Valley entirely by accident

Saturday morning, I decided to see how close I could get to Exalted with Frostwolf before I got bored. (The answer? From around 3000 to 16448 into Revered.) This was flummoxed after I got into 9 losing rounds in a row. Not even good losses — we were losing in about five minutes, without even a shot at Vann.

So by round 10, the group has kind of gotten to know each other — we've obviously been queueing at the same time every time. Someone says, "I'm sick of losing all the time."

N: We should just meet them on the Field of Strife and kick some ass. At least that'd be fun.
B: Are you serious?
N: I don't know, do you guys want to?
F: That would be fucking epic.
Me: OMG YES.

Other people have similar reactions. We decide that we will stop and dismount at the Field and when the Alliance rode through, we'd all just slow them down and see how many we could kill. Hunters dropped frost traps. Shamans dropped Earthbind totems. The Alliance rode over the hill, and slammed into our lines. Most tried to keep going — tried and failed. The baaing of those sheeped by our mages and the romantic sounds of succbi were nearly as loud as the clang of sword and shield.

A few broke through, and some of us split away and rode them down, destroying them at Tower Point.

A silence fell over the field.

N: Oh my god, we actually killed them all.
F: Okay, healers and stealthers go defense, everyone else take Bal and then hold them off at the choke point.

The Alliance, disoriented by the stunning curb-stomp they had just received, obviously had no backup plan. Rather than waiting until all had rezzed and mounting another massive attack, they straggled to the choke point, four or five at a time, and were quickly returned to the spirit healer by our DPS. Meanwhile, the forward troops quickly took Stonehearth and Icewing Bunkers.

N: Move forward to Dun Balder!

The Alliance was slightly more organized at the graveyard, but not by much. A handful, perhaps 15, slipped through our front lines and were picked off by those who stayed behind to defend. We moved forward, inch by bloody inch, to take Dun Balder. As the Stormpike Graveyard fell, a handful of Horde returned to the choke point, to slow our enemies and give our defensive lines some breathing room.

Our generals checked the intelligence. Not a single Horde tower had fallen. Not a single one had even been attacked. We controlled the road, the graveyards, and the battle.

F: We need a tank. Then let's get Vann.

Two brave souls volunteered. We entered the stone keep and marked Vann. The Stormpike General stood by helplessly as his bodyguards fell, and then ... we attacked.

It was a short battle, and at the end, the Alliance was utterly broken. They held not a single point on the map, they had no reinforcements, and their general was fallen. The Horde exulted. It was a hard-won victory, and it was ours.

30 seconds later, after re-entering the queue, we were back in the Valley, ready to fight again. One or two of our number had fallen, replaced by fresh recruits.

N: Alright, so what we're going to do is head to the Field of Strife ...

To tame, or not to tame

I've been playing Ahami a LOT more than Ideale this week, and on my way into work, I thought about why. It's not the play style — I've been having a blast on Kresha, too, and Ahami can be REALLY frustrating at times (although now that I have the air totem, and thus the Grounding Totem, I'm finding that most of these frustrations are about gone). And, really, I love range. I love the challenge of getting back into range in PVP or out in the world, I love sending my pet in to tank three mobs and burning them down, I love snake trap (I know, it doesn't go with the theme, but I love it!).

So if I'm not bored of hunters (so, so not), then what's the issue?

Well, part of it is the stupid gun. It's now in the bank and I'm back to my bow. I'll pull it out for PVP, but the PVP bow is next on the agenda, ugly-ass boots be damned. (And screw the SSO bow also. I hate dailies, they're so BORING. I'll do them when I need the jewelcrafting recipes.)

Part of it is Alterac Valley. I love AV, and it has spoiled me for other battlegrounds. Arathi Basin is my favorite as far as strategy/action goes. But there's just something entirely lame about being in a group of 10 or 15 after epic, 40-man battles on the Field of Strife (story about this later) and two-raid defenses of Orgrimmar versus even more Alliance. WTB more large-scale battles, plz. So I spend half my time in AV and the other half funding AV and avoiding Nagrad.

The big part of it is Nagrand. It's gorgeous, but it's also boring. I've been killing ogres for weeks and I'm tired of it. I want to move on to Shadowmoon Valley or whatever, but have been holding off for Consortium/Sha'tar rep. I still want to be honored with both before moving on, but dammit, I need a break from Nagrand (and I hate Netherstorm, so that's not gonna do it).

So, I'm going to skip to the end of my to-do list, especially since my mining is almost the right level for it now. Ideale will be fighting the Scourge in the Plaguelands from now until I get bored. Why? Well, I really like the Plaguelands (I know, I'm so weird!), it fits her backstory and personality, and I really, really want the Argent Dawn tabard.

And the final part of it is, Ide tamed Saffron in the Badlands at level 40. Which means that she has had the same two kitties for AGES (I'm not complaining — I <3 my kitties and would never give them up! — but there are so many others I want). With the pet talents and mechanics getting released by Blizzard, it looks like that third stable slot might actually become useful for something other than learning new abilities. However, I'm not positive on this (I haven't read enough to figure it out).

Which brings me to my main debate. With Saff a bar from 67 (almost entirely in AV), I think it would be safe to tame a third pet after all. But do I really want to tame a pet and drag it up to 70 only to have to abandon it and weep and weep if something changes before the expansion hits the shelves? Do I really want to tame a pet before the expansion (because what if there are new skins)? And if I do decide to tame a third pet, do I want a Zulian Stalker (in which case I will need to actually enter an instance with, like, an actual group), a Frostsaber, or to try for Gutripper (OMG NOT A CAT)?

I do really like the Frostsabers and I really, really want a panther, but I feel like I'm not a very good hunter if I only ever tame cats. If it comes down to it, I can grab a panther on Kresha soon — I'd want to avoid a Frostsaber since she already has a tiger. And I would like to play around with one of the other pet trees come December (although the main reason I've kept a few of my lowbie hunters is specifically to experiment with).

EDIT: Another reason to wait for WotLK to tame a third pet: "If a hunter tames a pet that is more than five levels beneath their own level, the pet will then have their level increased to five levels beneath the hunter’s own level" (from Petopia). Might open up some other cat-related options, too (although this is kind of cheating).

Gloating

Seems like Mania has been checking out the WotLK beta and has some of the scoop on pet talents. But one of the interesting things is in the comments: Apparently, it's looking like cats are getting nerfed.

On the one hand, bummer. I love my cats and was happy that they were such DPS machines instead of basically useless, like spiders.

On the other hands ... BWAHAHAHAHA I WILL HAVE UNIQUE PETS

Hunter vs. Shaman: Take II

Now that I have Ahami almost to 30 (one bar short of 29), I figured it was time for another hunter vs. shaman redux. I'll probably repeat this in two levels, because at 30, hunters get a few cool abilities (feign death, intimidation) and shaman get the air totem quest. But for now, let me compare up to 28.

I'm finding that I can do one-on-one stuff about the same. For example, the Ashenvale quest where you fight the demons on Felfire Hill: I went through that at the same level and about the same pace on Ahami as I did on Ideale (and I repeated the Alliance version with Tshaya to compare).

However, I'm finding that when I get hit with multiple mobs, even if they are lower level than I am, I'm having a lot less survivability. This is probably partially due to my spec (still resto), and I have the feeling that the air totem at 30 and chain lightning at 32 will pretty much compensate for this. The main problem, I'm finding, is that shaman heals take a while to cast and are pretty easily interrupted. With Ide, I could slap Mend Pet on Cinnamon pretty easily — it's an instant HoT, as opposed to a 1.5 or 2.5 second instant heal. So Cinnamon could tank and survive more easily (although I've noticed at 70 when he or Saff get targeted by an enemy player or NPC in AV, I really, really wish I had an instant heal sometimes). Still, being able to heal has pulled my butt out of a few places that Ide had trouble with, like vs. casters (ditto on Earth Shock, although the amount of resists I get with this on certain mobs is REALLY annoying).

I'm also finding that, as a shaman, I am having much more downtime. I blow through mana like it's going out of style, so even if, healthwise, I'm good to go, I still need to stop and drink. And buying stuff to drink has totally made up for the fact that I don't need ammo (as have my repair bills, which are higher than Ideale's often are at 70). On a hunter, even if you're low on mana, you can keep going as needed and still make it through. As a shaman, if I go out of mana mid-fight, I'm basically screwed. (I'm probably doing it wrong, but still.)

One thing, though, as a shaman: Unlike hunters, shamans have no problem finding groups. The two times I've looked, I've had a group within seconds. And tonight, I had to practically beat someone off — he begged me for several minutes to go to Scarlet Monastery and wouldn't back down even when I said I was going to bed. I finally had to log off. :-/ Total stranger. (And, after the two groups I got into cracked up almost immediately, one rather badly, I will no longer be grouping with strangers anyway. Guildmates or people on the friends' list only. If I decide to do instances at all.)

So, verdict at the moment? Well, shamans are kind of frustrating sometimes, and I think hunters are more fun overall, but I'm still really loving playing Ahami. Since "everyone" says shamans get fun in the mid-30s and I haven't even entered a battleground yet (I hate the twink brackets and figured I'd just skip on by them on Ahami — I've got Ide for my battleground fix), I don't think I'll have any problems taking Ahami to 70 or continuing to play her once I get there. I don't think she'll be challenging Ideale for my main character, though! Even if she does have a kitty now.

EDIT: Oh, and as for cool abilities? Much as I love Feign Death — probably a little too much, actually, since I like to cast it when I'm bored — being able to dance on water totally kicks its ass for coolness, as does dancing with four other shamans and two druids in Thunder Bluff while in Ghost Wolf form.

Horde Hunter Quests: The Barrens vs. Ghostlands

But wait! Can't level 10 Hordies head over to Silverpine Forest, too? Well, yes, but very few of the quest rewards you receive will be upgrades. For a hunter, the Barrens or the Ghostlands are the places to go (although if you're an burgeoning alchemist, note that there is one quest in Silverpine with an alchemy recipe as a reward).

Both have their benefits, too. The Ghostlands offers a questline that ends with a very nice blue bow, for example, as well as Tranquillien rep that lets you cheaply purchase some very nice low-level greens. The Barrens, on the other hand, offers similar gear (with the exception of the bow and the Tranquillien Champion's Cloak) as rewards for several quests, offers many more quests, and spans from levels 10-25 ... so if you're on a PVP server, that's an extra five levels you can leave your PVP flag off, if that's your thing. If you're on a PVE server, of course, you don't have to worry about that. Both zones have easy access to hunter and pet trainers (a one-leg flight to the capital city).

So which to choose? Really, pick whichever one you like better, fits with your character's backstory better, or gives the rep you want. If you want a kodo for your troll hunter, the Barrens is the place to go. If you like the idea of fighting the Scourge, hit the Ghostlands. Honestly, you'll outgrow the gear pretty quickly unless you plan to spend a lot of time in Warsong Gulch at 19 — and if you're making a twink, there's better gear elsewhere. Level wherever you want and have fun.

Here are a few quests to look out for, though, in both zones. (Please note that I have not listed all of the rewards for each quest, but only the gear. Most of these quests also reward money and/or XP.)

ZONE: GHOSTLANDS
In addition to these, if you're going to be questing in Ghostlands you should really be doing all of the Tranquillien quests. By doing all of them, you can easily get to Exalted with Tranquillien before hitting 20 (I did, anyway), which means you can get the snazzy Tranquillien Champion's Cloak and some very nice-for-its-level green gear on the cheap at the Tranquillien Quartermaster. If you're looking for cheap stuff to level enchanting, though, don't bother. You can't disenchant any of it.

Quest: The Farstrider Enclave
This is the first quest in the chain that ends with The Traitor's Destruction
Starts: Ranger Vynna at the Farstrider Enclave
Rewards: Quite a bit of XP, a Black Leather Jerkin on the fourth step, and upon completion of the chain, a Farstrider's Longbow.

Quest: The Forsaken
This is the first quest in the chain that ends with Windrunner Village.
Starts: Arcanist Vandrel in Tranquillien
Rewards: Quite a bit of XP and several thousand Tranquillien rep. Additionally, completing Goldenmist Village gives you the Quel'Thalas Recurve and completing Windrunner Village gives you Padded Running Shoes.

Quest: Curbing the Plague
Starts: Farstrider Sedina at the Farstrider Enclave
Rewards: Farstrider's Belt and Survival Knife

Quest: Troll Juju
Starts: Deathstalker Maltendis in Tranquillien
Rewards: Undertaker's Gloves

Quest: Attack on Zeb'Tela/Assault on Zeb'Nowa
Starts: Farstrider Solanna at the Farstrider's Enclave
Rewards: Farstrider's Bracers

Quest: The Sanctum of the Sun
This is the first quest in the chain that ends with Dar'Khan's Lieutenants.
Starts: Magister Darenis in Tranquillien
Rewards: Ghostclaw Leggings upon completion of the chain

ZONE: THE BARRENS
While the Barrens doesn't have quite so much shiny stuff as Ghostlands, it does have quite a few more quests with that "huntery" feel. Be sure to do the chain starting with Sergra Darkthorn in the Crossroads. It asks you to hunt several beasts, and by the end, you'll have picked up Gloves of the Moon and the Beastmaster's Girdle.

Quest: Centaur Bracers
Starts: Rethgar Deathgate, west of the Crossroads
Rewards: Orcish Battle Bow or Pointed Axe

Quest: Raptor Thieves/Stolen Silver
Starts: Gazrog, in the Crossroads
Rewards: Rambling Boots upon completion of both quests

Quest: Verog the Dervish/Hezrul Bloodmark
Starts: Rethgar Deathgate
Rewards: Bounty Hunter's Ring

Quest: Consumed by Hatred
Starts: Mankrik, in the Crossroads
Rewards: Boar Hunter's Cape

Quest: Harpy Raiders
This is the first quest in the chain that ends with Serena Bloodfeather.
Starts: Darsok Swiftdagger, in the Crossroads
Rewards: At the end of the chain you can choose between three weapons, all of which are usable by hunters and have either +agi or +stam.

Quest: The Guns of Northwatch
Starts: Captain Thalo'thas Brightsun, Ratchet
Rewards: Privateer Musket and rep for Ratchet and all of the Horde capitals.

Quest: Betrayal from Within (two-step quest)
Starts: Mangletooth at Camp Taurajo
Rewards: Dry Moss Tunic

Quest: The Runed Scroll/Horde Presence
Starts: This involves (if I remember correctly) killing the group of night elves that rides around the south Barrens. You will likely need a group to do this at the correct level, as they are elites. The scroll drops from one.
Rewards: Trailblazer Boots

Again, this is not every quest of interest to hunters, just a brief overview of the kinds of gear upgrades you can get in both zones — kind of a "Be sure to catch this quest" list.

Gathering professions

Unlike Ideale, who has had a hell of a time keeping her mining leveled — I basically gave up when the mobs in Thousand Needles were green but I still could not mine iron, continued to 70, and am now cruising old Azeroth to level mining — Ahami took skinning and herbalism. Because double-gathering is smart, at least until you hit Outland.

Let me tell you, skinning and herbalism are WAY easier to level than mining. At first, I thought it was just the tracking issue. With Ide, I had to sacrifice tracking enemies in order to track mining, so I just mined what I could see. But then I remembered my paladin back on Laughing Skull, who is a miner/blacksmith. Her blacksmithing has outstripped her mining, and she, too, cannot mine iron at level 32. And with her, I was DILIGENT. Every yellow dot on the map was mine, even if I had to go way out of my way and kill 3987496597 mobs to get to it.

Ahami, in contrast, has her skinning just a few points shy of 200 and her herbalism is not far behind. In fact, she will need to gain several levels in order to improve them at this point. She is killing orange mobs, but they are grey when it comes time to skin. And the only herb she is currently gaining points from is Liferoot (unless there are herbs hiding around Ashenvale that I haven't found yet). At 27, she needs at least three, or more comfortably five, levels to move on to a zone where she will start gaining profession skills again.

So if you are planning on double-gathering (and you are, because you're smarter than I am, right?), I would say definitely go with skinning and mining.

What? Mining?

Well, yes, but keep up with it. It may take a lot longer to level, but holy crap, the amount of money you can make off of mining once you hit mithril (at least on VeCo) is insane. Because so many professions rely on mining products (blacksmithing, engineering, jewelcrafting, etc.) and people don't have the time or inclination to go farm the materials themselves, ore, bars and jewels can go for some crazy amounts, even at the lowest levels.

You might go with skinning and mining until you hit Outland, then drop skinning (it seems to make the least amount of money, perhaps because it doesn't require tracking, so most double-gatherers have it) and pick up herbalism and cruise through the lower zones leveling both, if you've let your mining slip, or leveling herbalism while picking up ore to sell. (Although herbalism can also be a good money maker, particularly for certain herbs. For example, on my server, briarthorn is going for quite a bit more than many herbs found at the same level. If you plan to eventually pick up alchemy, you'll probably want to stick with herbalism anyway.)

If you don't mind constantly switching your tracking, herbalism/mining would probably be the best combination.

This is my noob opinion. *gives it the noob stamp of approval and ignores the fact that basically every other WoW blog in existence has covered this topic*

Patch day!

And, much as I complained about level 40 mounts needing to stay at level 40, I will be getting them for the characters who are high enough for them. Because I have two draenei at level 30, and hello! Elekks are so awesome!

And it would be totally unfair to my poor Hordies not to get them mounts just because they don't ride elekks. *nod*

Mania has patch info up over at her blog, so I won't bother to rehash.

EDIT: The clock on the minimap, however, needs to go. Now. (Seriously, coords would have been much more useful.)

Two questions about ghost wolf form

1. If you're dead and log out, you appear as a ghost in the log-in screen. If you log out without a pet, it shows you standing alone. So why, when you log out in ghost wolf form, do you appear as a troll (or whatever) in the log-in screen? Shouldn't you appear as a ghost wolf? Do druids always show up as taurens or night elves even if they log out as a cat or a tree?

2. It's ghost wolf. GHOST wolf. So why can't you use it while dead? WTF? I actually found myself getting jealous of the wisp racial today after getting ganked, like, 22 times in Hillsbrad.

(P.S. Shouldn't blood elves also become wisp spirits upon death?)

EDIT: And speaking of shamans (like my transition, there?), Farsight? That's such a total rip-off of Eagle Eye. (Seriously, that makes way more sense for hunters with their bows and scopes and such — speaking of which, I need to get a scope for Ide's gun — than for shamans. Why do shamans even have this? Not that I'm complaining. It just seems like it would be more fitting for a mage or a maybe even a priest.)

I've got a gun

And after spending an hour and a half in my home away from home, the Laughing Skull Ruins in Nagrand, farming warbeads for Consortium rep, I know how to use it! (Well, mostly — my gun skill's not to 350 yet, but it's in the 330s and was at 2 when I started, so I'm not too disappointed.)

Why? Well, I really needed a faster weapon for PVP — I don't use Steady Shot at all until I am being completely ignored or on Vann, and want to keep doing damage between Arcane Shot and Multishot cooldowns — and since I haven't quested in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley yet and still had the Tusker quest sitting in my quest log, Nesingwary's Elekk Gun was a big upgrade from my current crossbow, which was obtained back on Hellfire Peninsula. So when a paladin on General asked if anyone needed the quest, I said, "Me, me!" and we went and took Tusker out in about 6.5 seconds. Shiny new gun!

I headed to Thunder Bluff to learn the gun skill, and, knowing that the first 150 or so shots would probably not hit against a level 66 ogre, some of the starter ammo. If I'm going to waste bullets, I'd rather do it at a few coppers a stack. Then I headed back to Nagrand, picked up Saffron (who is almost to level 66 herself now), and went to work.

I still hate the gun noise a lot, but since this seems (after a quick scan of Thottbot, not any sort of real research) to be one of the better ranged weapons I can get without either going into a dungeon, getting Revered with the Shattered Sun Offensive, or buying the PVP crossbow (my eventual goal, but I want to replace some more armor first, since you can't shoot if you're dead), I will likely have it for a while. And if it gets super-annoying, I can always buy a bow off of the Auction House. And I must admit, it's way cooler looking, and it helps in my quest to remove all of the greens from my character sheet.

Next goal: Get mining to 300, use proceeds to get a flying mount — if I can make enough money in the process of doing this and farming for rep, which seems rather likely, I might just hold out for a while longer, start an epic flyer fund and skip the regular flyer entirely. I need to get exalted with the Cenarion Expedition anyway, and I love cruising around on my talbuk too much to quit yet.

Alt goals: Ahami has finished the Barrens, for my purposes. There are unfinished quests, but most of the mobs and basically all of the herbs and skinning are grey to her now. After a short trip to the Ghostlands to do a pair of quests there with rewards I particularly want, she'll be going to either Ashenvale or the Stonetalon Mountains. Every character I've gotten past 20, except Tshaya, has quested in Ashenvale, but I'm not bored of it yet. The only character to ever hit Stonetalon was my original shaman. I don't remember liking it much, though. Much as I like Hillsbrad, I think I will be much less frustrated if I go therecloser to 30 — the Alliance is generally around 30-35 by the time they hit Southshore and regularly attack Tarren Mill or gank/camp fresh Horde around the zone. I remember being incredibly frustrated when I was there with Ideale because I had to group up to get anything done.

In the meantime, I want to get Kresha retrained in skinning until I decide what to do with her profession-wise. It might be nice to have another skinner anyway, since I intend to switch Ahami's skinning to alchemy when she hits 70. And since she seems to be the next hunter I want to level, I want to better plan the zones I hit with her than I did with Ideale, so I can get gear upgrades that keep up with my level instead of chilling in level 36 pants in Zangarmarsh. I also need to start considering a second kitty for her ... although I did hear a rumor that Blizz might be adding stable slots in WotLK, it wasn't from a trustworthy source, and even if it were, there are some low-level cats that would just be torture to level on Ideale, especially to 80 (like Humar).

Blog goal: Finish the entry comparing 10-20 zones that's been mouldering for over a month.

I should write up a list of goals before WotLK at some point. I enjoy the game much more when I'm working toward things.

Isle of Quel'Danis

I really hate this place and will never, ever, ever return after I get my rep. I don't care if dailies are good money. I just want my stupid bow to hold me over until I can get the PVP one, and my stupid jewelcrafting recipes I can't even use yet because I just picked it up, and I will make my money from something else.

You'd think I'd love it. But there's PVP, and then there's utterly pointless, random gankings while the rest of your side/their side goes about their business without even caring. It's like Stranglethorn Vale: if you don't travel in a pack, you might as well not go because in the time it took you to finish four quests, you could have been collecting more gold by killing mobs who drop money and cloth and Aldor/Scryer turn-ins.

So once I've got my rep, I'll spend the time I would be spending on the Isle leveling my mining or killing the ogres in the Laughing Skull ruins in Nagrand. (I got in the habit and now it's kind of fun. I've been sloooooowly catching Saffy up with them; yes, I'm pulling aggro like whoa, but I have gotten remarkably better at remembering to practice my PVP skills when that happens. Besides, I can use the warbeads for Consortium rep, too, which means more jewelcrafting recipes and also free gems each month, apparently?)

Play styles and the opinions of others

I'm avoiding posting something else because I'm a big chicken, but I wanted something of substance to put up at some point today.

Fortunately, I went to catch up on some blog-reading and spotted this awesome post by n.e. miller of the elementalist.

I've talked to people in game who are shocked or disbelieving that I don't want to raid. The last instance I did (and might ever do) on Ideale was Blood Furnace; I tried to run Wailing Caverns on Ahami this morning and we got as far as Lady Anacondra before we lost our tank (yay PuGs). I was bored already, so I wasn't exactly crushed when the group broke up. Is there any instance more boring than Wailing Caverns? Probably Zul'Farrak, but since I've never finished either in a group and most instances are boring alone, I can't really say.

Would I like to see raid content? Sure, someday, but I personally don't see the point of running the same instance or raid over and over and over to get the gear needed to move on to the next raid, and then run that one over and over and over. I realize that this changes in end game raids, but scripted encounters are not my thing. I don't mind doing them once or twice, but I much prefer PVP because it is different every time. You're with a different group, against a different group, and even when the groups and strategies are essentially the same, the outcome can be totally different. Bored with defense? Play offense. Bored with Arathi Basin? Go attack Astranaar. And instead of badges, I'm collecting honor and bg marks for gear. (So if my helm is a welfare epic, so's your badge bow, in my opinion).

Not to mention that my work schedule is not conducive to raiding; I get off work when most of the folks in my time zone are going to bed (or have been asleep for hours), and I'm on the U.S. West Coast.

But you know what? If other people like instances and raiding, then that's awesome. I'm genuinely happy to hear about my friends' successes or read about bloggers finally nailing that boss they've been working on. I'm glad they're enjoying the game and I'm glad for the chance to see the content secondhand. I wouldn't dream of telling anyone they were playing WoW wrong or were carebears because they chose to progress through PVE content rather than PVP.

(I should take a moment here to mention that, while I like to tease Alliance players on my blog, I know and have played with some absolutely fantastic Alliance folks, I've gone up against some of the best the realm has to offer in Orgrimmar and Southshore and gotten my ass handed to me, my two real life best buds who got me into the game in the first place are Alliance players and so are most of the bloggers I read religiously. But for all of my joking, I would never think someone is somehow lesser for choosing to play mainly or exclusively Alliance characters. Even though the Horde is quite obviously cooler. :-P)

This morning, when in the Barrens on Ahami, someone mentioned leveling as a Demonology-specced warlock and another player chewed him up for it and for rolling a 'lock in general. Right then, two other players (and I must admit, myself as well) jumped on him with the whole "If that's what he likes playing, let him play it! Some people play to have fun. Don't be a WoW bully. If you're having fun, 'lock, keep playing what you're playing. Just be good at your class and spec and ignore jerks like [healtard]" and so on. It was a beautiful thing to see, and I hope that warlock hadn't left the zone by then. It was even more beautiful when this guy claimed that, as a level 24 holy priest, he could out-DPS a shadow priest (as in any shadow priest, not a specific, horrible one). And he's criticizing other players?

It's time for "WoW bullies" to take a step back and remember that this is a GAME, first off, and that the characters they are mocking are played by REAL PEOPLE, secondly. If you want to be treated with respect, you have to be respectful of others. But if you're an asshole in game — and Internet anonymity can turn some people into real assholes — and spend your time mocking other people for their gear, class, or spec, then don't expect to have many friends. And bookmark the paid character transfer info on the World of Warcraft website, because you're going to need it (at least, if you roll on Venture Co., since bounties on jackasses are common here).

That said, if you are enjoying your spec, class, and current goals and are playing them at least reasonably well, don't let anyone make you feel bad for it. Because you're probably having more fun than they are, if they can only get their kicks by being "leeter than thou."

What if ...

... The new pet talent trees will include all of the skills you currently have to tame a temp pet to learn? If you simply learned claw from a talent tree or the pet trainer and it scaled with level like class talents do, you could actually use your third stable slot.

Doubt that's how it'll work, but that would be awesome and Ideale could have another kitty and I wouldn't have to make and level, like, three more hunters (in addition to the four I actually play) to have all of the cats in WoW.

...

What?

@Taurens

Dear Taurens,

I think you're awesome, I really do. If I didn't have such a thing about screen space, I'd probably play my own taurens more. So please do not take this the wrong way.

Y'all look absolutely ridiculous riding hawkstriders.

- MW

P.S. Tauren men, you also look pretty silly on pretty much anything but a kodo. You're too big and they're too small. Makes me want to call the ASPCA. Just sayin'.

PVP checklist

I see lots of raiding checklists out there and figured I'd put up a quick PVP checklist for hunters. Again, I'm still pretty much a noob, but this is generally what I bring along when I'm doing some serious PVP (as opposed to catching a round or two before bed or something). I know most people don't spend several hours in the battlegrounds on their days off,* but for those of us who do:

PVP checklist for hunters
1. Ammo. Generally, on my Mondays off when I have no other plans, I go into the battlegrounds until something comes up to do in the Real World, I get bored, or I get down to two or three stacks of ammo. So I always make sure my quiver is completely full of ammo, especially since you can't buy the higher-level ammo in Azeroth. If, like me, Shatt drops you to 0 fps for several minutes while your computer freaks out every time you leave a battleground, this saves you from having to hearth, restock, and get back to your preferred city. Also, it's probably super-embarrassing to run out of ammo in the middle of defending the blacksmith or just before you hit Vann (or Drek).

2. Food and drink. I usually have at least one stack of water and two or three of food with a stamina buff. Honestly, I usually don't have much time to eat or drink unless I'm playing Arathi Basin defense or Alterac Valley offense (eat and drink before your group engages Vann or Drek!), but that is where I spend most of my time. Also, you'll want to eat before each battle begins, because more stamina means you'll live a little longer and thus add more to the team. When you're dead, you're not helping to win.

3. Pet food. Sporeling Snacks are awesome. More stamina and spirit means you have to hit Mend Pet less, which means you have more mana for the appropriate stings and shots. This can also be handy when you go up against a DoT-happy warlock who includes your pet, or when the mage your pet is chewing on starts spamming Arcane Explosion.

4. Bandages. Again, you want to have at least two stacks of the highest-level bandage you can use (this could be the bandages for the battleground), because even if you're sticking close to a healer, they won't want to waste mana outside of a fight when you could be in a fight in the next few seconds and need heals then. You might also need to patch up your pet, and you won't want to spend mana on that unless you absolutely have to.

5. Health and mana potions. Sometimes, you and your opponent are neck and neck with dropping each other's health. If you have a health potion and he doesn't, then you win. Same with opponents who suck your mana (or if you're just in a long fight). And health potions are also super-handy if you get DoT-ed and don't have a healer around to patch you up right away. A health potion can keep you alive long enough for the DoT to wear off — then you can bandage. Bring along decent ones that are close to your level, just as with the bandages.

6. Patience. As one of my guildmates put it, unless you're in a premade, every battleground has "That guy. You know, THAT guy." The one who yells at people, calls them names, and screams orders in BG chat with no grasp of what's actually happening in the battleground. I personally do not use my ignore button in the battlegrounds unless it is an extreme situation (in fact, I've only done it twice, and that was so that I could actually communicate with the others in the battleground because the spam was coming so fast I couldn't read what anyone else wrote). You're always going to have THAT guy screaming for the five (five!) surviving offense people to take out Vann NOW!!! because OMG MOAR HONOR when you're just trying to take their reinforcements before they get past the 35 defenders and down Drek. Or THAT guy who can't understand why all you stupid noobs are defending the farm instead of capping the stables and why don't you 9-year-olds go back to Nintendo (uh, because they're attacking the farm and have defense at the stables? duh?). So take a deep breath and try to work around them with the rest of your team. If you're arguing in BG chat, you're not fighting.

That's really about it. If you like to switch out trinkets, bring those along. You can bring elixirs and such, but unless you're in Alterac Valley or they last over death, it's generally a waste of gold.

* Don't worry, I spend a good portion of this time doing chores, playing with my cats, watching TV, and other non-WoW stuff while in queues and I take plenty of breaks. I might be logged on for more than six hours, but maybe only a quarter or half of that time am I actually playing, since I usually wander off and get distracted between battles.

Shaman troubles

I've been playing a bit more with Ahami — I sort of forgot my plan to test the Warsong Gulch waters with her last night when I realized I was four bars from ghost wolf with rested XP and a leftover buff from the fire festival (with Ideale's push to 70 and OMGPVPGEAR, I haven't logged onto anyone else except my bank alt in nearly a week) and raced through it.

I personally am not very disappointed. Warsong Gulch is not my favorite battleground — seriously, flag capturing? I realize that what I'm about to say is completely ridiculous, but it's so unrealistic. ("MW, what exactly is realistic about being a blood elf or a troll?" "... My point stands!") And the battles are either ridiculously short or ridiculously long, unless you are a twink in the 19 or 29 brackets you spend most of the time dead, etc. Although I hung out in there a lot before I started leveling Ideale, once I'd been to a real battleground I was like, "Oh, WSG sucks hardcore."

Anyway, I had a point.

I really, really want to play a resto shaman. I know it really doesn't matter in the lower levels, but I just like the concept in general. The problem is, without people to heal, leveling resto is kind of pointless and probably more trouble than it's worth. Which leaves me with three choices:

1. Do at least part of my leveling in instances. I usually hate instances, but I now have a really fun guild and a decently-stocked friends list, and I might be able to scrape together enough similarly-leveled alts between these sources to not hate this too horribly much. ... I really hate some of the instances, though. Especially since I've been running through them for moneys on Ideale. I think Blackfathom Deeps and Zul'farrak are probably just BARELY better than a trip to the dentist, although novocain can be pretty damn cool. There are a handful I like, though (Shadowfang Keep, Uldaman, Blood Furnace), and if I'm not stuck in a PUG, it might be kind of fun, I guess.

2. Respec elemental. (Seriously, I really dislike the concept of the enhancement tree. If I wanted to spend all my time in melee, I'd roll a rogue or something.) This could acceptable, because one of the specs I'd been looking at for 70 was a 30/0/31 hybrid that is supposedly somewhat useful in PVP, though I will most likely just be going with a pure resto tree. However, I chose to level resto for a reason — I tend to develop habits for my characters.

I have Daj, my troll hunter, specced as MM right now, for example, and for some reason thought it was a great idea to put distracting shot on the action bar where I have bestial wrath for Ideale. So I keep hitting "5" expecting a big red kitty and instead getting a pissed mob running for me, and then when I hit feign death, nothing. And I die. (I could rearrange the action bar, I guess, but I'm lazy, and I never group with her, so...) When I do play my paladin or my rogue, I know exactly which hotkey to punch for Hammer of Justice or Sinister Strike. If I'm going to get shaman habits as ingrained, I want them to be ones I'll still be using at 70.

3. Suck it up. (This will probably be the winner, because I rarely play Ahami long enough to get bored or frustrated.)

Hunters are OP, but not EZ Mode

If you play a hunter, you know that most non-hunters think your class is easy. It's not, though. It's overpowered for soloing and leveling, sure (which balances the fact that if a warrior or rogue can get you in melee range in PVP, you might as well just not bother fighting because you're gonna die). Like warlocks, having your own personal tank makes leveling and soloing pretty damn easy.

But if it were really easy mode, would there be so many huntards out there? I say that if someone says the class is easy, they either don't play a hunter or don't play one well.

1. Stings. You have to know when to use them and know which one to use. For example, if you are in the habit of opening with serpent sting and are going to be running instances, break yourself of that habit ASAP so that you don't embarrass yourself by pulling a mob into your trap with it. (Thank God I did this with people who know I'm usually not an idiot.) Against casters, you might want to use viper sting (and silencing shot, if you have it). In PVP, you are going to want to use stings liberally on everyone but paladins — with them, it's a total waste of mana, since they'll just bubble and purify, the bastards.

2. Trapping. You need to know your traps. They are incredibly useful in PVP. Frost trap will slow down an Alliance group taking your flag in Warsong Gulch, while freezing trap will stop a single player. If you have two hunters in Arathi Basin, you can quite easily defend a flag if one drops frost trap and one drops either explosive or snake trap — this keeps the enemy from running out of the damage dealing trap so easily and lets you sit back and pick them off one by one. In PVE, a good hunter can take on several mobs at once or chain trap a single mob indefinitely even if they are not specced and geared for it.

3. Special shots. Did you know that arcane shot has a "purge" effect and using it will remove one magical buff on an enemy? Do you know how to time wingclip and concussive shot in PVP so that the warrior you're trying to shake uses his trinket right before concussive shot hits? Or to use it on the flag carrier in WSG and not some random dude? Did you know that if you're trying to trap a mob and the tank grabs aggro too soon, you can use distracting shot to herd out your marked mob?

4. Pet control. When do you use your pet and when do you hold him back at your side? When do you turn on growl, or put him on aggressive, defensive, or passive? If you can't answer those questions, then you need to do some reading. If you're BM-specced, you'd better be able to keep your pet alive because you lose a third of your DPS and can't use bestial wrath (and thus, the beast within) without him. And pet control goes beyond just situational stuff. You need to know how to spec your pet, what to train him in, and so on; that's part of pet control as well.

5. Other stuff. If you do get stuck in melee, do you know to spam raptor strike? For PVE, a lot of hunters go with two-hand weapons, but in PVP, I've found it's easier to spam raptor strike and wingclip if you do get stuck in melee (I HATE warriors and their hamstring) when you're dual-wielding. Slow weapons are not so good for PVP hunters. Do you know how and when to feign death? Do you know that a good portion of the talents in the hunter trees are largely useless (i.e. animal handler)? If you're BM, do you know to use bestial wrath/the beast within on Vann in Alterac Valley or when you get stunlocked by a rogue and your trinket is on cooldown? When do you use which type of tracking? Eyes of the beast? Eagle eye? Flares?

So yes, hunters are pretty "easy" to solo with in that you can spam steady shot and the occasional feign death and that's about it. But if you're doing PVP or high-level instances and you're still doing nothing but spamming steady shot, then you need to hit up Aspect of the Hare or BigRedKitty and do some hunter kindergarten instead of agreeing with whiners in Trade about how hunters are EZ Mode.

Less emo

My new gear is shiny. Poorly gemmed, because I blew most of my moneys on an Earthstorm Diamond and looked for a jewelcrafter, then finally a Relentless Earthstorm Diamond went up on the AH so I bought that instead, but shiny.

Only now I have to get the ice cream cone spaulders because I will probably have the honor for those before I bother returning to Outland for Sha'tar rep, and my current ones are brown and thus look horrible with my pretty black gear.

My guild thinks I want to go to Karazhan. *giggles* No worries, hunters, I won't be competing for gear.

Current goals:
- More PVP gear, with PROPER gems and enchants.
- Professions to 375.
- Work on rep with Cenarian Expedition, Consortium, SSO, etc. for JC recipes/ammo.
- Flying mount (preferably a Hippogryph).

And, in the background:
- Ahami to 70.
- Daj and Kresha to 39 so I can play with MM and SV specs.

*wails*

I MISSED THE SCREENCAP

Some Arathi Basin tips

Now, I usually do my PVP when the Alliance raids Orgrimmar or Thunder Bluff (I love defending Thunder Bluff. Usually it's only a few of the hardcore PVPers who tend to care, but because only a few Alliance can fit on the lifts at a time, we can take them out in waves ... and then when you ride down the lifts later, it looks like it's raining gnomes. It's beautiful) or when I manage to catch the occasional Stormwind or Ironforge raid.

But I have spent a lot of time in all of the battlegrounds except Eye of the Storm (I love this bg, but the queue is always so LONG) nonetheless, especially as I get closer to 70 and the battles get more interesting. Not as much time as some people — I know players who are exalted with all three battleground factions. Whoa. And I haven't played the game all that long, either, so there are casual PVPers who probably have more experience than I do. But I have found a few tricks that have helped me improve my game.

General Hunter Tips
- Have Wing Clip and Concussive Shot keybound (or have an action bar where they are keybound so you can switch easily when PVPing). Get yourself in the practice of using them — while I was grinding levels and most recently Mag'har rep, I would not bother trying to keep aggro on my pet. If I got aggro, I practiced using Wing Clip and Concussive Shot and staying out of range. My PVP has improved immensely because of this.
- Freezing Trap and Feign Death can keep other hunters' pets off of you. Have them keybound or easily accessible as well.
- Hunters make awesome defense. Lay traps at the bottom of the flags in Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin and you are likely to catch a rogue or feral druid trying to sneak-cap. Know which traps to use, too. Sometimes a Frost Trap is more appropriate than a Snake Trap. I use Snake Trap a lot in Warsong Gulch because it keeps stealthers from restealthing.
- Know your strength: range. If you have a cat with prowl, turn on aggressive, prowl them, park them at the base of a flag, and hide yourself (the roof is a great place to hide in WSG, with Aspect of the Beast so you don't get tracked up there). They will aggro on any enemy players who come in, including stealthed, and then you can shoot them from above. In Alterac Valley, find a couple of plate-wearers and act as their wing-man. They can handle melee and damage a lot better than you, and you can pewpew from afar.

For more general hunter tips, check out this entry at Aspect of the Hare. In my own experience, I seem to get targeted a lot by other hunters (probably for the same reason I tend to target other hunters: seeing who can do damage the fastest is fun). And some of these tricks work on other folks, too. For example, in the 30-39 bracket, most of the experienced PVPers are either in premades or play through very quickly (at least in my battlegroup). While I was in this bracket on Ide, I used Feign Death a LOT. When you're targeting someone who feigns, their health bar reads "Dead" and you lose your focus, and a lot of players in this bracket either don't know or forget that hunters can "fake it." So I would spend entire battles feigning, popping back up, burning down the opposing team until they spotted me again, feigning, and repeat.

The only other classes I've PVPed with are shamans, paladins and rogues, and only in Warsong Gulch, so I don't really feel qualified to give PVP advice for them (Although shamans? Earthbind Totem: Know it, love it, and use it to your advantage on WSG offense or defense. I did a lot of WSG on my first shaman and this was by far the most useful trick up my sleeve, since the battleground is all about speed and you don't have hunters with frost trap yet, so it's up to the mages and shamans to slow everyone down.)

I haven't played any of the other battlegrounds enough to have strategies, but Arathi Basin was my second home from levels 27-49, and I still spend more time there than AV, despite the new, shorter queues.

So, Arathi Basin tips:

First off, take the blacksmith. For the Horde says lumber mill, and I could see that would probably work as well, but the blacksmith always seems to be the key in my battlegroup. When we have it, we win. If we lose it, Alliance does. We could have all four of the other nodes to start, be communicating great, calling out incoming, etc., but if we don't get blacksmith we will still lose. I don't know why, that's just what happens.

It's handy to have anyway, because it's central on the map. You can lose any other node, regroup at the blacksmith, and recap or hit somewhere else with a minimum of fighting on the road.

Two: Work as a team. Before you start, lay out a plan, even if it's just "Take three nodes, one healer and at least two others on defense at each, the rest float to wherever you're needed. If you have to abandon, head to blacksmith, then regroup and recap." If you have the time and inclination to assign groups and get everyone situated, that works too, but at least sketch something out. Make sure everyone (or at least, almost everyone) is clear on the strategy.

Three: Be positive. If everyone in the battleground is complaining about the enemy always winning, noobs, and so on, you're going to lose. It does not encourage people, it just makes them want out faster, and people do not want to try if they are getting harangued. However, if you can suggest strategies, compliment good defense, and throw in a "Nice job!" when there's a successful capture or someone takes out a particularly nasty person from the other team, well, you're just going to work better as a team. I'm serious. Very rarely has my team lost when we were being positive. When we have, it's usually been close and we were satisfied anyway, even if we didn't win. We have lost EVERY SINGLE TIME if the battle was full of whiners, though, and everyone left frustrated and angry.

Four: On that note, COMMUNICATE. This should actually be number one, because it's the most important, but I don't feel like rearranging. If there are six opposing team players attacking the mine and two defending, TELL THE GROUP. The floaters cannot rush to help if they don't know the enemy is there. Hunters, if you stay at the blacksmith and move around with tracking up, you can see most of the enemy's movements on the minimap. Tell people when they are about to get hit. A hunter at the blacksmith (sometimes me, sometimes not) has saved our asses many times in AB with "Big incoming mine" or "They left the lumber mill."

Five: If the other team is zerging, leave a couple of defenders to slow them down and rush somewhere else to cap as fast as possible. As long as you hold three nodes more often than the other team, you'll win — and I've been on teams that were holding four at a time while a couple of good defenders (usually with AOE or 'locks) has slowed the Alliance down considerably at each node. The only thing we bother to hold is the blacksmith, because while the Alliance is all on the farm, folks can rush to the stables through the middle of the map that way.

Six: After you have taken three nodes and defended them, if and only if the other team seems to be struggling, try for a five-cap. If you do manage, you can win the battleground VERY quickly. We managed one the other day where we hit the other team 2000-0, because they did not defend and were not working together enough to take a single node from us. It was all solo suicide runs at the blacksmith and mine. (So remember to communicate so you never know that humiliation.)

I'm sure more experienced players have quite a few other tips, but so far, these have worked for me. Even when we lose, if we're doing the above, we lose with honor and the game is close.

Unfortunately, I very rarely play offense — I like defense and I'm better at it — so most of these tips are geared toward defenders. But hey, the best offense is a good defense, outside of AV, anyway. (Really, what's up with AV and no defense?)

Feel free to take all of this with a grain of salt, though, because I'm still pretty much a noob.

Situational pet control

When on defense Arathi Basin or Warsong Gulch (and it seems to work to some extent in Eye of the Storm as well), it is not a bad idea to have your pet on aggressive and let him or her do their own thing. This way, they can take on any stealthed opposition or, say, a druid in bear form or shaman in ghost wolf, when you have track humanoids on. It's actually somewhat heady to give your pet his head and trust him, calling him back only when necessary. I don't always do this, but often, if I'm not alone on defense, I do, trying only to keep line of sight most of the time.

This is a very bad habit to take into instances (or Alterac Valley, even) though. I remembered to put him on defensive, but while running a friend through Ragefire Chasm, sent Cinnamon onto what I thought was the trogg right ahead of me, only to have him nearly suffer death by lava with, like, five troggs on him. And I was sitting there, not calling him back, thinking, "Huh, where'd Cinnamon go?" (Thank you, Cryptography!) That's right, I almost killed my pet in the easiest instance in the entire game. Whoops. Bad hunter, no cookie. /shame

So be sure that you're in the right mindset when you're controlling your pet. Instances and PVP that involves aggressive NPCs (such as a raid on an opposing faction city) requires much tighter control than free-for-all PVP. In fact, I'd say know your defensive and passive keybindings and use them any time you're swamped by multiple enemy players, even — you want your pet in the thick of it, not chasing some draenei shaman all the way to another node. Know your situation and make sure you're properly controlling your pet. (Don't be like me!)

Expanding on my attitude toward PVP

To clarify my last entry, the reason that I get so, SO mad at people who AFK out or play to lose (or just refuse to communicate and work as a team, even), is because I take PVP seriously. It's why I play the game.

I wanted so badly to be able to report a player in Arathi Basin the other day because she refused to stay on defense, and she and two others kept leaving the blacksmith undefended to take the mine or vice versa. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, else in the battleground was yelling for them to just freaking pick a node and DEFEND. We were against an Alliance team who had their acts together, and were barely holding three nodes to their two. Because of the actions of these three people, we lost 1830 to 2000.

I single this player out specifically because she (or he ... female toon, but who knows?) not only refused to listen, telling us all "It's just a game, SHUT UP," but incited two others to do the same. Had it not been for her, we would have had 14 defenders, at least.

If this had been a Karazhan raid and two or three players refused to listen to the tank/raid leader and went off to fight Curator on their own, you know what? They'd: a.) be freaking morons, and b.) get their asses booted from the raid and probably from their guild, if they weren't in a PUG. I would never go into an instance and just do my own thing with no regard for the rest of the group.

A lot of players take PVE very seriously, and are hardcore about it. And you know what? When I go into an instance with a group, I try my damnedest to be a benefit and not a detriment. That means I listen to my teammates, I don't go randomly AFK, I don't sit and kill snakes or rabbits while the team takes on the boss. It's about respect and allowing other people to enjoy the game. And you know what? I don't care much for instances ... SO I DON'T USUALLY DO THEM. I don't need the loot — I'm not going to be doing much PVE anyway — and I don't want to take up a spot from someone who actually does like instances and would give them their best shot. I run instances when I need to finish a quest or when one of my buddies needs DPS for one of their groups, and that's it, and when I do do them, I give it my all and try to be part of the team.

That's what PVP should be like. For a lot of people, PVP is our raiding. We're not interested in downing Gruul or whoever. We're interested in going into battlegrounds, playing seriously, putting together a strategy, and trying to win. The winning isn't the important part — although it is awesome — just as one-shotting a boss isn't as important to raiders as is working as a team, doing your best, and seeing what works and what doesn't. Some of us are on at weird times or have trouble getting into pre-mades (which is hopefully going to change for me soon), so we have to PUG, but that doesn't mean we aren't hardcore.

Yes, it's just a game and games are about having fun. For some of us, PVP is fun. And it becomes not fun when one asshole who doesn't know what teamwork is refuses to be a contributing member of the team. Bad players I can handle. I'm not the best PVPer myself — I love it, and I'm working on improving, but I'm not leet. But bad attitude players? Yeah, they need to GTFO.

When I see people in game who are like, "I hate PVP. Just lose so we can go" I want to reach through the screen and shake them. If you don't like PVP, GTFO.

If you don't like PVP or give it the effort you would with PVE progression, seriously, stop PVPing. If you are one of those people who come in and just take up space, or do your own thing, or sit and kill rats instead of actually defending, then why the hell are you there? For honor rewards? Why do you need honor rewards? They're obviously going to be wasted. All you are doing is ruining the fun of the game from someone else.

Revenge is best served snowy

So we were losing Alterac Valley BAD, and this tauren warrior was complaining and whining and calling everyone noobs and stuff, and it was really annoying, frankly. Finally, we just get to Vann and the Alliance had already downed all of the towers and engaged Drek, and this dude says, "&(*#@ you all" and goes AFK.

So a hunter misdirects onto him and shoots Vann, aggroing everyone in the room (since we hadn't nailed anyone yet). And we all watched while he died and laughed and laughed, and then kited them around until the battle ended.

Sure, we still lost, and it didn't help us any, but it was funny as hell.

Planning in general

Ideale hit 69 last night, and since I finished the grind for Mag'har rep, I was loathe to go back to grinding for Lower City rep, especially since the repeatable quest to collect arakkoa feathers takes so damn long, and many of the other quests involve my favorite thing ever, instances. (When I do hit 70 and get not-totally-lame gear, I will probably hit 70 instances and some heroics, because the awesome group I instanced with from mid-40s on have all hit 70 and would probably be very willing to do heroics, but since I want to have a few things ready to wear when I hit 70, this doesn't help.)

Now, my wishlist in general is a full set of S2 (except maybe the shoulders, because they are fugly ... nearly all of the epic shoulders are fugly, though, and at least the S2 ones are blue), and I have my eye on a few different weapons. I do not have the honor points for the crossbow yet (world PVP should give more honor than battlegrounds, in my opinion, but it doesn't, and a good third of my HKs are from world PVP). I can currently swing two S2 pieces, which would give me the first set bonus.

So I looked at Lassirra's L70 Hunter PVP Startup Kit to fill in the rest. I can manage the gauntlets and leggings straight off, since I'm honored with both factions. I am nearly friendly with the Sha'tar and that was without doing a single quest (I first stepped foot in the zone today), so I figure if I turn in a boatload of Firewing Signets, that should carry over and get me to honored pretty quickly with the Sha'tar. If they drop like the Marks of Kil'jaeden do, that won't take long.

This leaves armor and head, which are the two most expensive S2 pieces, of course. Even so, I only need a handful of honor points to be able to afford them both.

So, my level 69 schedule looks a bit like this:
1. Hit 29,000+ honor.
2. Hit honored with the Sha'tar.
3. Get mining to 275.
4. ???
5. Profit.

I might go ahead and farm arakkoa feathers whenever I get tired of farming Firewing Signets. Not to turn in, though, but to sell. A stack of 30 goes for crazy amounts of gold on the Auction House, and I'll need to be able to gem and enchant some of this gear. I haven't even started to research that, yet, though I'm assuming I'll want a fairly even balance of stamina and agility/AP/hit.

For now, I'll rely on the Auction House for weapons. I've seen the Valanos Longbow on for fairly cheap a lot. It's not a great PVP weapon, but it'll do until I can get the S2 bow or Wrath of the Lich King comes out, whichever happens first. I just want to have at least a partial set of nice PVP gear ASAP after hitting 70, welfare epics or not, because I've had nothing but crap gear for the entire time until now and it would be nice to have something decent for at least a couple of months before the gear reset.

Profession planning

When I decided to level Ideale, I tossed skinning and picked up engineering because I heard it was a good profession for a hunter. Something about goblin jumper cables and feign death working very well together, and being able to make scopes and ammo.

I think it would be an excellent profession, if I had kept it up and if I used guns (although I may have to train guns on Ideale finally, because Hemet's Elekk Gun is pretty nice... I love my bows, though, so I might splurge for a nice one on the Auction House). The problem is, though, aside from the goggles, which are very nice, I probably won't be able to make anything horribly useful with engineering based on my interests. Most of the engineering schematics are very useful for PVE and for raiding especially, and that's also where most of the useful gun and scope schematics drop. I refuse to farm Karazhan for a BOP scope recipe, sorry.

If I had laid out my goals and done a little research on vendor-available recipes ahead of time, I would have trained Ideale in jewelcrafting. In fact, since my engineering is only to 126, I really should retrain her. Especially since the only schematic I bothered with was the Mechanical Squirrel, and I've mostly abandoned moving mini-pets on the neutral Auction House for now. There are many very nice jewelcrafting recipes available from the Outland factions (I have yet to see a schematic) and it is a profession in high demand on the realm.

Which leads me to dilemma numero dos: I trained Kresha in jewelcrafting on a whim and leveled it to 75 using extra copper and lowbie jewels I had banked, meaning that I will have wasted that time and money as well as the materials. Ouch. But with Kresha as my casual alt until I get Ideale to 70 and Ahami, my current main alt, to Outland, she's not going to be in any position to get the high-end jewelcrafting recipes any time in the near future, which are BOP. And again, I haven't invested anything but materials and time into the profession — I won't be losing any recipes I had to farm or buy.

So, advice to anyone just starting out: If you are rolling several characters on a realm and do not want to take double gathering (and really, this is what I should have done at least to level 40), plan your professions carefully. Decide what you will mostly be spending your time on: PVE, PVP, rep grinding, economics, or something else. Decide which of your characters you will be leveling first and do some research on the recipes available at high levels and where you can get them, which crafts make more money, etc.

Fortunately, because I am lazy with my professions, it will be pretty easy and not prohibitively expensive to switch Ideale to jewelcrafting, especially if I pick up skinning on Kresha and do some double-gathering until she's in her 40s. That could pay for the retraining and also for buying some low-end mats on the auction house if I'm feeling too lazy to farm them myself. But considering I still need to do a couple of rounds in Thousand Needles to up my mining (I could do iron in the Badlands, but it makes me sad to pass all of the mithril veins and not be able to mine them ... I said I was lazy with professions), I can pick up a decent chunk of copper there, and I still have a lot of bronze banked.

Really, I need to learn to plan better.

A story

I have two cats, Sparrow and Klio. Sparrow has an eyepatch, which got her the name; I've had her since she was 8 weeks old. Ironically, the name Sparrow suits her quit well. She has a tendency to swagger about.

I got Klio six months later so that Sparrow would have a companion. She'd finally gotten too big and played too rough for my roommate's much older cat, and I thought a cat her age would make a good friend.

Since Klio didn't answer to the name she'd had at the shelter and we all hated it, we decided to rename her. I wanted to name her River, because I am just that big of a geek, but my roommate vetoed it. "You will not name that poor cat River. You're going to make her crazy." Eventually I settled on Klio and got the roommate's approval.

Fast forward to a week ago. Klio woke from a dead sleep, did three laps around the apartment, flung herself on a cat tree, stared at us both with huge eyes, then started cleaning her paw as if none of that had happened.

Me: "Told you we should have named her River."
Roomie: "... yeah. I guess you were right."

This entry brought to you so I don't have to rant about people who declare a battleground lost 30 seconds in and refuse to fight, preferring to complain about what noobs everyone else who is still trying is. (I swear to God, I went into Arathi Basin this morning and the Alliance had capped one node when some loser was like, "GG noobs we just lost. Horde sucks." Then reroll Alliance and stop crying in battleground chat when you could be fighting, whiner.) I am blaming the fact that S2 is available for honor now, and hoping that these whiners will get their points and gtfo soon.

Guess I just defeated the purpose.