Wish I was there

Since I talked about how much I hate Azshara, I figured I should mention that I loooove Winterspring. I'm not even supposed to be there yet — Ideale is about five levels too low — but I got lost trying to go through the Timbermaw Hold tunnels to Moonglade and ended up in Winterspring.

One word: Snow. I love extreme climates — so far, my favorite zones in WoW have been Thousand Needles and the Badlands. I adore deserts. But the one thing I love more than the desert is snowy areas, and Winterspring is gorgeous. So now, much as I am enjoying Felwood, I want to shoot through to level 53-54 as fast as possible so I can hit up Winterspring. And then I will take my time and enjoy the zone.

(I might be the only one who can't wait for WotLK not because it means more leveling/new profession/Death Knights/whatever — I'm still a ways off from caring about any of that — but because it means snowy zones. More snow, please, Blizzard.)

Two things I've learned

1. I hate Azshara. A lot.

I'm not really sure why. It has naga, and I love taking out naga. Maybe it's that the entire time I was there, I ran into one other player, also Horde. I don't really mind being in a zone without a lot of PVP — Hillsbrad was actually pretty scary, with all the Alliance 10+ levels above me — but I at least want to see people, even if they're on my side, you know?

Or maybe it's just that the zone is mad boring. Ideale dinged 50 on Saturday night and Cinnamon wasn't even there yet, but we were handling 3-4 mobs ranging in level from 53 to 55 at a time without breaking a sweat. The mobs in the Hinterlands are tougher to take down, and they're all late-40s.

I didn't even bother to get the flight path. I have the Sunken Temple hunter quest, but I don't know if I want to bother with the reward since neither trinket seems especially wonderful and I found out, while browsing Thottbot, that there's a better spear in one level that I can get by PVPing instead of ending up in some awful pug full of ninjas who wipe us 7984759567 times, roll need on everything, and then leave before we're halfway done.

I had planned to get this spear and the crossbow from the Alterac Valley quest, but thottbot people also claim that there are better bows once you hit Outland, and mine isn't too much worse, so I may just skip the "Hunter's Charm" quest and never return to Azshara again.

Because really, the only zone I hated this much before was Stranglethorn Vale, and at least there was PVP there, and stealthed mobs to make things interesting.

I left Azshara and went to Orgrimmar after turning in the wavethrasher scales, and actually had more fun grinding my cooking and fishing skills a bit for the rest of the morning. And I hate fishing. But apparently, not as much as Azshara.

2. It is possible for instances to be fun.

I had gotten in with a decent group once before for some of the group quests in the Ghostlands, and hooked up with the priest from that group for Scarlet Monestary Library, and both of those groups were pretty fun. SM was especially fun — two hunters and a priest and we 3-manned the whole library.

Aside from that, the only good group I've been in, both Alliance-side and Horde-side, was an Uldaman group, and they merely didn't suck — everyone was polite and we didn't die, but that was about it. I've skipped nearly every other instance while leveling unless I needed something, and then I usually got run through by someone super nice. (They offered, I didn't ask, but still. It's like the gaming gods knew how tortuous instances are and blessed me.)

But then, on Friday, I ran into a nice orc shaman doing the Jintha'alor quests in the Hinterlands, and we joined up and kicked some ass, and it was really fun.

And then all that was in my quest log were quests for the Temple of Atal'Hakkar and Zul'Farrak, so I gritted my teeth, entered LFG, and ended up in a very good ST group. When one guy dropped out less than halfway through, I suggested that the nice orc shaman join us, and that group? Was so awesome. SO AWESOME. I had more fun in that instance than any other. So we all friended each other and vowed to do more instances together. I hope it actually pans out.

Now I can see why people like raiding and running heroics at 70. If you're in with a decent group, it's way more fun than the dentist.

I still prefer PVP, though. Which is bringing me a somewhat difficult time, guild-wise. :-/

I'm going to focus on my itty hunters for a day or two while I decide whether going into ST again (and Azshara again) is worth it, or if I should move on. (Although if the ST group wants to go back, I will so be in, and then I'll suck it up and get a Devilsaur Eye.)

Rolling on other factions

When I first started playing WOW, my friends played Alliance on Laughing Skull, so I rolled a draenei paladin and leveled her to 30, got bored, rolled a night elf rogue and leveled her to 27 and, again, got bored. (Have a mentioned I hate the night elf starting area?) Part of this is probably because I work a night job on the West Coast while my friends work day jobs on the East Coast, so we saw each other for, like, 15 minutes on weekends.

Bored with the Alliance quests in Kalimdor and uninterested in playing a human, gnome or dwarf, I rolled a troll shaman on Whisperwind. Switching from a PVP to a PVE server was weird enough, but rolling on the other faction? I found myself jumping every time I saw a tauren or an orc while wandering around Orgrimmar until about level 15.

But eventually I decided I love the Horde, switched back to a PVP server (and RP for good measure!) and didn't really look back.

I bring this up because I decided to try a draenei hunter (I loved the draenei — it just turns out that bashing people in the face with a giant hammer doesn't make up for how slooooow paaaaaaladinnnnnns killlllll thiiiiiings. And stealth? Also too slow. I am a very impatient person) and I am loving it. I think it helps that I have since learned that I can skip zones I hate and go elsewhere (thank you, WOWWiki), so I'm rocking in Wetlands rather than Ashenvale, where the quests suck until the late 20s.

Despite my draenei love, I play Horde side WAY more than Alliance, so every time I'm on Tshaya, I end up freaking out when I can't attack that level 28 dwarf until I remember that he's on my side.

Anyone else have this problem if you play cross-faction?

Alliance Hunter Quests: Levels 1-10

Again, I don't know why I'm bothering with this, since there's really no "hunter loot" this low, but since I did the Horde, I felt bad leaving Alliance out. Especially since there's no Alliance version of Tranquillien, which is next. Poor Alliance.

These really aren't "hunter quests" per se, either, but quests that have "loot of interest." But I don't know what else to call them.

I babble.

Starting Area: Azuremyst Isle*
Quest: Beast Training
This is a draenei-only quest.
Starts: Huntress Kella Nightbow, at Valaar's Berth
Rewards: Training Lesson, Silver Crossbow

Quest: Inoculation
Starts: Vindicator Aldar, near the crash site in Ammen Vale
Rewards: Minor Healing Potion x3, choice of Elixir of Minor Defense x3 or Elixir of Lion's Strength x3, 1s50c, Exodar +250

Quest: Blood Elf Spy
Starts: Tolaan, southwestern Ammen Vale
Rewards: Exodar Crossbow, 3s, Exodar +500

Quest: The Prophecy of Velen
Begins the quest chain ending with "Deliver Them From Evil..."
Starts: Admiral Odesyus at Odesyus' Landing, south of Azure Watch
Rewards: Crossbow of the Albatross (at completion of step five, "Show Gnomercy"), various monetary and rep rewards

Quest: Learning the Language
Begins the quest chain ending with "The Prophecy of Akida."
Starts: Cryptographer Aurren, Azure Watch
Rewards: Arugoo's Crossbow of Destruction, Exodar +500 (upon completion)

Quest: Beasts of the Apocalypse
Starts: Moordo, outside of Stillpine Hold, north of Azure Watch
Rewards: Ravager Hide Leggings

Quest: The Kurken's Hide
Starts: Kurz the Revelator, outside of Stillpine Hold, north of Azure Watch
Rewards: Kurken Hide Jerkin

*The quest chain starting with "The Great Moongraze Hunt" doesn't offer any hunter-specific rewards (though the rewards are useful to hunters), but it does get you in that huntery mood.


Starting Area: Dun Morogh
Quest: Training the Beast
This is a dwarf-only quest.
Starts: Grif Wildheart, Kharanos
Rewards: Training Lesson

Quest: The Lost Pilot
This quest is the prerequisite to "A Pilot's Revenge."
Starts: Pilot Hammerfoot, North Gate Outpost in northeastern Dun Morogh (on the way to Loch Modan)
Rewards: Craftsman's Dagger, Ironforge/Gnomeregan Exiles +150 (upon completion of "A Pilot's Revenge")


Starting Area: Teldrassil
Quest: Training the Beast
This is a night elf-only quest.
Starts: Dazalar, Dolanaar
Rewards: Training Lesson

This is really the only worthwhile 1-10 quest in Teldrassil for hunters, which is kind of a surprise.

Aside from a couple of quests that give healing potions, there are really no quests of particular interest in Elwynn Forest, which is unsurprising as humans cannot be hunters.

The best selection of quests for hunters leveling from 1-10 is Azuremyst Isle; dwarves and night elves can't use crossbows yet, but since there are no bow or gun rewards at that level in their starting zones, it's still the best place to get upgrades in that level range. However, since the training quest must be completed in your own starting zone, it's probably not worth it to go elsewhere at that level, though the trip is an easy one for night elves.

Project Infiltration: Teldrassil

I didn't know if it would be possible to sneak into Teldrassil at such a low level - but it was. Dinged 11 on the way there, though. I might re-run it when Kresha hits 10 — this was Daj's last run, since the goal was to infiltrate at 10. But it was very tedious and I don't particularly need a pet from Teldrassil, so maybe not.

Hunter: Daj
Level: 11
Destination: Teldrassil
Route taken: Started in Crossroads; went north to Ashenvale, then northwest into Darkshore; corpse-hopped down the Long Wash and onto the boat; corpse-hopped into Darnassus, rezzed at the Darnassus graveyard.
Dangers: Getting to Auberdine is fairly easy. I got killed once on the way, and that was because I headed over to the Zoram Strand for the flight path. Once you hit Auberdine, though, it's corpse-hop city.
Alternative routes: None.
Difficulty level: High. I spent nearly an hour corpse running, and if you time it wrong, you will have problems both with getting on the boat and getting into the teleporter at Rut'theran Village.

Getting on the boat
This is easiest if you come at the inn from the south. DO NOT RESURRECT AT THE GRAVEYARD. If you do, you will just end up dying in the same place every time. Instead, find your body, run as far toward the Long Wash as you can before rezzing, and then run as far as you can before they kill you again.

The boat to Rut'theran Village is on the righthand dock (the one at the end goes to Azuremyst, and the one on the left goes to Menethil Harbor). There are two guards right at the end of the dock, so die as close to the end as you can — rez and die again if you have to — then wait as a ghost for the boat. When the boat comes, get as far from the guards as you can and rez. They shouldn't aggro if you're up against the opposite rail.

There are no mobs on the dock at Rut'theran, so you can get off the boat safely before dying again.

Getting to the teleporter
This is the tedious part. The teleporter is guarded by five or six Level ?? guards, who surround it. I had planned to run in from the back, but that was nixed because the back was guarded. And when you die in Rut'theran, you get sent back to the Auberdine graveyard. DO NOT TRY TO RUN ACROSS THE WATER. You can still fatigue and "die" as a ghost, and then, instead of your corpse being close to the teleporter, your corpse is in the middle of the ocean. Starting over is not fun, trust me.

Instead, run back to the Long Wash, hop on the boat, and head back to Rut'theran. Inch closer to the teleporter, rez, die, and repeat until you can get your ghost right on the edge of the red light. Rez again, and start running as you materialize, and you're in Darnassus. You'll probably die immediately here, too, but this time, you'll end up at the graveyard right outside Dolanaar, which is pretty deserted. Rez at the spirit healer and run like hell to avoid the Dolanaar NPCs.

Tada! You're in (or should that be on?) Teldrassil.



All the general tips from last time still apply, only this time, leave Track Beasts on until after you reach Maestra's Post in Ashenvale (yes, even by Astranaar — the Alliance NPCs don't come out of the village, so you should be safe as long as you don't go in). The beasts that wander around Ashenvale seem to have pretty high aggro radiuses (radii?) so it's best to give them a wide berth.

Oh, and I left Daj's shirt and pants on because I didn't want her to have to run around looking like a bank alt, but the rest of her clothing and her weapons were safely stored away this time.

In two runs, I've run into multiple player characters but no one ganked me. I don't know if this is because Alliance players are abnormally nice to level 10s, since they never had any trouble ganking Ideale once she hit Hillsbrad, or if your PVP flag doesn't turn on in enemy territory at that low a level. Anyone know?

EDIT: I was told after running this that you can ghost-run to the cemetery nearest your destination, log out, log back in, and rez there, no matter where you died. I will try this on the next run, which will be either Azuremyst Isle or Eversong Woods, depending on whether Kresha or Dayea dings 10 first (which might take a week or two — I play them for about 15 minutes at a time). Dayea's a couple levels closer, but I really, really hate the night elf starting zone. Like, a lot.

Hunter did a bad, bad thing

I feel kind of bad for Ideale. I've been working on three alts, a tauren druid, a troll shaman and a Forsaken mage, and I've been leveling them up to ten a little at a time. I also worked on re-leveling the Forsaken priest I had rotting (haha) on Whisperwind at 19, in hopes of returning her to that level for WSG purposes. And maybe someday getting her to 29, even, so she can have mind-control powers. (Do they even work against other players? I don't know, and I'm not going to bother to find out until I'm at the BG.) I loves the undead.

By working on, I mean that all four are sitting calmly at levels 3-5. *shame* Which alts are getting a real work-out? Daj, who's now at 12 and one bar from 13, and Dayea and Kresha, a night elf hunter and an orc hunter respectively, whom I made for Project Infiltration because I wanted to level Daj.

And then I did a bad thing. I had Tshaya at 22 and was in Darkshore, and had the quest where you collect the naga artifacts at Mathystra, and I thought to myself, "Hmm. I'll be in the area anyway, and half those naga are casters. I should see how long it takes to get a ghost saber." Because if it took forever, I wouldn't even bother getting Daj over there petless.

The kitty spawned on the second figurine, and Tshaya tamed him pretty easily ... and that's the problem. I know that WoW pets are just pixels, and thus are whatever you want them to be, and that under the skins, all of the kitties are the same. And skin-wise, the ghost saber is just the snow leopard but transparent. But Cat, to me, is definitely a male cat, where Serai is definitely female. And upon transparency, he also lost the pretty teal shadowing that Daj's Serai has, which I very much like. And snow leopards are, at least on my realms, much less common especially among Horde hunters than the ghost sabers are. For Daj to tame him, she'd either have two snow leopard-skin, low-level kitties to work on, or she'd have to give up Serai.

But Tshaya's owl, Artemis, is cute and makes these funny, adorable noises when she attacks ... but I'm already attached to the as-yet unnamed Cat ... who's at "Best Friend" loyalty already. And honestly, while Artemis is adorable, her durability leaves much to be desired, PVE-wise. I considered feeding her good, giving her a hug, letting her go near the border with Felwood, and then "finding" her again later, but couldn't bring myself to do it. What will probably actually happen is she'll rest up in the stable until I hit 28, come out for a quick leveling session, then go with me into Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch, because I hear that flappy creatures are hell to fight off in PVP and I know that people mostly ignore the pets in hopes of finding the hunters, and I'll see what happens then.

Do I honestly need 6-10 kitties? No. I can have one non-kitty pet — in fact, I should probably try a couple of non-cats for more than five minutes at a time, just to be a better hunter. So far, Artemis and a wolf have been the only not-cat pets I kept for more than one or two fights. So Artemis stays for now, and when Kresha's done infiltrating Azuremyst and Elwynn, I'm going to try either a bat or a worg and see if I like them. Or maybe give a boar another shot, because they're awfully cute and maybe I can learn to ignore the squealing.

Meanwhile, Ideale's been hanging out in Dustwallow Marsh, bored to death. I think that the mobs there are too easy (at 45) — I miss the thrill of frantically shooting a mob in hopes that it'll die before Mend Pet wears off, and my XP bar isn't filling fast enough. And I'm kind of sick of marshes — with the exception of the Badlands, I've been spending my time exclusively in Swamp of Sorrows, Stranglethorn Vale, and Dustwallow Marsh since hitting 33. So I'm going to finish a couple of interesting quests and then dump the rest, heading off for yellower or even, dare I say, orange pastures.

Horde Hunter Quests: Levels 1-10

This entry is actually somewhat ridiculous, since you don't get any real "hunter loot" other than bows until the mid-teens; nothing has stat boosts until then. So this is basically a list of quests that give bows.

I really don't know why I'm doing this.

Note the quests that grant Tranquillien rep in the Eversong Woods starting zone, though. This quest grants 250 rep with Tranquillien, and reaching exalted with this faction (fairly simple to do, if you do all of the Tranquillien quests) lets you buy some leather gear with agility boosts and a very nice cloak, all of which would be pretty expensive to match on the Auction House. I'll write up an entry on notable 10-20 quests in the Ghostlands later; along with Tranquillien rep, there are some "regular" quests with decent rewards for hunters, including a very nice bow.

Starting Area: Durotar
Quest: Training the Beast
This is a troll- and orc-only quest.
Starts: Thotar, Razor Hill
Rewards: Training Lesson

Quest: Securing the Lines
Starts: Rezlak, on the road between Razor Hill and Orgrimmar
Rewards: Hickory Shortbow and Darkspear Trolls/Orgrimmar/Ratchet +250

Quest: Skull Rock
Starts: Margoz, south of Skull Rock/southeast of Orgrimmar
Rewards: Steady Bastard Sword and Darkspear Trolls/Orgrimmar +250


Starting Area: Eversong Woods
Quest: Beast Training
This is (probably) a blood elf-only quest.
Starts: Lieutenant Dawnrunner, Farstrider Retreat south of Silvermoon City
Rewards: Training Lesson, Farstrider's Bow

Quest: The Ring of Mmmrrrggglll
Starts: Hathvelion Sungaze, located slightly west of the West Sanctum
Rewards: Worn Ranger's Bow, 6s and Silvermoon City +350

Quest: The Fallen Courier
Starts: Apothecary Thedra, located at the southeast corner of the Dead Scar
Rewards: Tranquillien +1000

Quest: Delivery to Tranquillien
Starts: Courier Dawnstrider, located at the southeast corner of the Dead Scar
Rewards: Tranquillien Scout's Bracers, Courier's Bag, 1s75c and Tranquillien +250

Quest: Goods from Silvermoon City
Begins the quest chain ending with "Return to Quartermaster Lymel."
Starts: Quartermaster Lymel, Tranquillien (this starts in the Ghostlands zone, but it's a level 10 quest and you have to go there anyway to do Delivery to Tranquillien)
Rewards: 3s50c and Tranquillien +250 (at end of quest chain)


Starting Area: Mulgore*
Quest: Taming the Beast
This is a tauren-only quest.
Starts: Yaw Sharpmane, Bloodhoof Village
Rewards: Training Lesson

Quest: Sharing the Land
Starts: Baine Bloodhoof, Bloodhoof Village
Rewards: Flash Pellet x25, 1s25c and Thunder Bluff +250

Quest: The Demon Scarred Cloak
Starts: Demon Scarred Cloak, dropped by Ghost Howl, a rare mob that wanders around outside of Thunder Bluff
Rewards: Skorn's Rifle and Thunder Bluff +250

Quest: Rite of Vision
Begins the quest chain ending with "Rites of the Earthmother."
Starts: Zarlman Two-Moons, Bloodhoof Village
Rewards: Kodo Hunter's Leggings and Thunder Bluff +350 (at end of quest chain)

*The quest chain "The Hunt Begins" in Red Cloud Mesa doesn't provide anything but the most basic of level 1-5 gear, but it's fun and gets you in that hunter mood.

Starting Area: Tirisfal Glades
Unsurprisingly, there aren't any level 1-10 hunter-friendly quests in this zone, since the Forsaken cannot be hunters. Later levels offer a bit more.

'Honor' vs. honor

When Ideale first got to the Badlands a couple weeks ago, she was killing Dark Iron dwarves outside of Uldaman when a night elf rogue stealthed, came up behind her, stunlocked her while KILLING CINNAMON, and then dropped her. Considering that he was nine levels above her, I doubt it was very difficult for him.

He then proceeded to corpse camp until a group of Hordies wandered into the area headed for Uldaman, saw the situation, and took him out (thank you!).

Another time, while I was on my draenei paladin, I saw a blood elf pally and attacked. I realized my mistake when he simply stood there and shook his head while I bashed at him, and his health bar didn't move a millimeter. I stopped and thanked him, he gave me a hug, helped me kill some felguards, and wandered off.

It's bad enough that people will corpse camp for honor — seriously, you should not get any honor points for killing someone if you've killed them within the past five minutes, unless you're in a battleground — but people who feel the need to gank someone at the lowest possible level to still get honor are cowards.

I don't know how it is on other realms, but on both of mine, this seems to be a mainly-Alliance activity. (If I didn't know for a fact that there are Alliance out there who are both honorable and skilled, I'd snark that this is the only way they can actually win. But this isn't true — I ran into a VERY good dwarf warrior my level a few weeks back who won even after I got the drop on him, waited for me to rez, waved and thanked me, then headed off on his own way. And I have been ganked two or three times by high-level Horde on Laughing Skull, though I've never been camped there.)

(On second thought, the only people who've ever stolen a chest or mining node from me when I was fighting right on top of it were Alliance, too. Same with battleground whining. I think I've just gotten very unlucky in my interactions with other Alliance players, with the exception of instance pugs, where Horde has been generally awful with lots of ninja-ing and obnoxious e-peen behavior, and Alliance is generally pretty good.)

Now, I love PVP, and there's something very tempting about killing lower-level characters. VERY tempting. But aside from the single time I gave in (killed a really annoying gnome who'd followed me around trying to steal my kills for about half an hour, then did it again when I ran into him later while he was AFK ... I know, I was ashamed of myself after), I've never done it. Why? There's absolutely no honor in killing someone who can't kill you back, even if you technically get honor points from it. And RP-wise, Ideale (and pretty much all of my alts) has no reason to gank lowbies.

So today, when a gnome mage six levels below me tried to gank me while I was fighting dragonkin in the Swamp of Sorrows, I shook my head, pointed at the next captain, let him take the first hit, and helped him kill it. We took turns for about twenty minutes, waved at each other, and went our separate ways. And I felt good.

Sneaking into Alliance territory for fun, profit and kitties

My first character was a troll shaman, Daj, whom I loved playing, not so much for the shaman class — though shooting lightning is fun — but for the character. But I abandoned her at level 22 to switch to a PVP realm because PVE is, frankly, boring. And once I got hooked on hunters, I never touched her again. I missed Daj, though, with her bouncy run, hot pink hair and childhood in Tauren lands, so it only made sense to re-roll her on my current realm as a hunter for infiltration purposes.

Hunter: Daj
Level: 10
Destination: Dun Morogh
Route taken: Started in Undercity; went to Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad and picked up flight path; west into Arathi Highlands; south into the Wetlands; through Dun Algaz into Loch Modan; through Valley of Kings into Dun Morogh.
Dangers: If you get hit by mobs in Hillsbrad or Wetlands, you can keep running and usually get away before you die. Avoid the mobs in Arathi - they can take you down with one or two hits. You will die at least three times in Dun Algaz (there are two dwarf mountaineers who wander the tunnels and there is also a station between two tunnels) and in the tunnel between Loch Modan and Dun Morogh.
Alternative routes: I guess you could head north from Stranglethorn Vale, either going through Stormwind on the Deeprun Tram (it'd be a time-consuming corpse hop through Stormwind on one end and Ironforge on the other, though). You could also head north from Stranglethorn through Duskwood, Redridge, Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge, but that would involve more high-level zones in exchange for fewer guards.
Difficulty level: Medium to low. You will be corpse-running parts of this route, but you don't have to go through any real high-level zones or any Alliance cities, and Dun Morogh is fairly empty (at least on my realm) of opposing faction players when you get there. It's pretty easy to avoid death upon arrival.

Some general tips
1. Set your hearthstone. Corpse running in will be enough of a pain; you're not going to want to repeat the process heading back.
2. Strip nekkid. (Your character, not you ... although if you like playing WoW in the nude, that's your business, I guess). I'm serious on this one. I didn't, and every single piece of my equipment was red by the time I got to Dun Morogh, and that was with repairs in Tarren Mill and Hammerfall. Ideale had to float Daj some cash for repairs, as they far outstripped the 5s or so she'd gathered, and I couldn't wreak havoc on Coldridge Valley NPCs like I'd planned because I had no bow, no axe, and no armor.
3. Expect to die. A lot. I made it all the way from Undercity to Arathi with only one death-by-bear, but as soon as I got to Arathi, I pulled raptors and spiders every time I resurrected. I also got nailed by every guard in Dun Algaz between the Wetlands and Loch Modan. I think I died a total of 11-12 times before I made it to snow leopard country.
4. Don't engage mobs. Just run like hell, get as far as you can before you die, and go as far as you can before resurrecting. If you end up in a graveyard farther along than your corpse (for example, in the Thelsamar graveyard when you died in Dun Algaz), use the spirit healer.
5. Keep Track Humanoids on so you can avoid towns at your destination. It may take a bit of searching to find the pet you want, even with Track Beasts on, if you're unfamiliar with the zone and not using Thottbot. But running into humanoid mobs or opposing faction players while hunting can land you yet another corpse run ... and by now you've probably had enough.

In the end, though, it's worth it, because while other hunters are running around Mulgore with swoops, prairie wolves and flatland cougars, I'm there taking down Venture Co. bosses with my pretty white snow leopard (although I'm thinking Serai might "evolve" into a Ghost Saber when Daj turns 20).



Next up: Serai will spend a couple hours in the stable while Daj makes a petless run into Teldrassil. I think that out of all 8 starting zones, this would be the hardest one for a level 10 hunter to get into. I'll be testing that theory tonight.

(Don't worry, Alliance hunters; I spent this morning leveling a night elf hunter for future infiltration shenanigans. As soon as she hits 10, I'll start testing the Horde territory waters.)

The Kitty Collector introduces herself

Hi. I'm MW, and I'm a catoholic.

It's not that I haven't tried taming other pets. but the crab and the scorpid both drove me nuts with their clicky little walks, and the crocolisk's hissing was nearly as bad. I thought the boar would work out, until I sent it into battle and it let out that awful squeal. The wolf and bear were both fine, sound-wise, but I couldn't take their snarling little faces. The wind serpent flopped about annoyingly, and the dragonhawk just couldn't take damage.

Besides, how can you help but love your cats when they stretch and yawn so cutely before running in and tearing a naga to shreds for you? And who else would eat all of the fish you catch?

Ideale was my first hunter, created when I first started playing World of Warcraft solely to explore the blood elf starting area and quickly abandoned. I loved having a pet, but I died really, really fast (turns out, if you set the pet on your target first and THEN shoot it, it won't run up and kill you), and with my paladin, I could bash stuff in the face with a giant hammer.

But then, after a random Google search for info about my main realm, I discovered a hunter blog with links to a whole bunch more, and after reading for a few weeks I wanted to try some of the things they wrote about. Playing a hunter quickly grew on me, especially when I found that I could solo Dar'Khan at level 19 ... and Ideale became the first in my collection of cat-taming hunters.

Ideale currently runs around The Venture Co. - U.S. with Cinnamon, her Elder Springpaw Lynx, and Saffron, her Ridge Stalker. She was joined by the troll Daj and her Snow Leopard, Serai. On Laughing Skull - U.S. I have Tshaya, a draenei hunter who has a Strigid Hunter named Artemis, a.k.a. the only non-cat pet that MW doesn't find incredibly irritating ... because I felt like I should have at least one non-cat pet and Sian'Rotam would have been a little impossible for a level 10 hunter to tame (but when Tshaya turns 60 ... just wait).

Why write another World of Warcraft blog?
I like the game a lot, and I like to write a lot. Since all of my characters are low-level — Ideale is the highest at 43 — I think it would be neat to have a blog focused on low-level questing, tips for newbies, and so on. Also, most of the blogs I read are focused on raiding and end-game content, which is great, but what about us PVPers? Instances are fun and all, but I'll take a world PVP event or Arathi Basin over a grind quest any day. If I could level in the battlegrounds, I'd spend most of my time in Warsong Gulch, coming out just to explore new zones and join raids on Stormwind or Ironforge (and get dropped over and over again because everyone else in the raid is 30 levels above me).

Why another hunter blog?
Mostly because I love the class, and I never would have given it a shot, pets or no pets, if I hadn't read The Hunter's Mark, Aspect of the Hare, or Big Red Kitty. If I can pass that on to someone else, yay! And if no one reads this, then at least I have a place to keep my notes.

Mostly, though, I replied to an entry at Aspect of the Hare's asking Pike for newbie hunter tips, then started to wonder if maybe, instead of "begging," I should write up some of my own tips for levels 1-40. So in the next few weeks, I'll be putting up entries on useful 1-40 quests/instances (i.e., those that give "hunter loot"), tips on sneaking into enemy territory for opposite-faction pets at level 10 (I am addicted to this), and whatever else I find useful. And we'll see where it goes from there.

Do you think you know something about lowbie levels that other hunters don't?
Not really.

Do you really expect anyone to read this?
Nope! But if anyone does and finds it helpful, I'll be super-happy.

Why cats?
Because my roommates won't let me adopt any more in real life, and I have to get my crazy cat lady fix somehow.