I remember when I was about to hit 70 on Tawyn. I remember frantically running around Netherstorm, doing quests and killing random things, slooooowly watching my experience bar inch towards the end of the row, knowing it wouldn’t be long before that experience bar disappeared and my game experience would all change.

I had a similar feeling today with Lunapike. Except that it wasn’t for level 70. No… it was for level 62.

I had been waiting for this moment for a while and I’d actually prepared for it in advance; knowing halfway through level 61 that my [Ironstar Repeater] would be far too fast of a weapon to have so I found another quest that I did specifically for a bow that was sort of a side-grade but had a beautiful 2.80 speed.

The second I dinged I flew to Shattrath, hopped into the portal to Thunder Bluff (Because Thunder Bluff is clearly superior to Orgrimmar) paid a visit to my old friend the Hunter Trainer, hearthstoned back to Outlands, found the first random mob that I could, and unleashed a barrage of bona-fide Shot Rotation.

It was marvelous. Marvelous. Granted, it all feels sort of vanilla right now without Kill Commands to spice things up. But Steady Shot, oh Steady Shot, how I’ve missed ya. Welcome back, buddy.

And now for something completely different…

The other day I asked several fellow WoW-bloggers via Twitter if they told a lot of people about their blog. I got a few different responses, some people didn’t tell anyone whereas some people told friends and guildies. I myself didn’t come “out of the closet” to my friends and guildies until recently for various reasons, but the reaction has been rather positive so I’m pretty happy with that.

I wonder sometimes, though, if there’s a way to “plug” your blog on WoW without it sounding showy. Perhaps I’ve just yet to hit on it. But there’s a reason why when people ask me for hunter advice, I typically do not link them to my blog. Because I sort of fear that it will come off as sounding like I’m showing off or something.

Yesterday when I was playing Lunapike, I was approached by an Orc Shamaness who was extremely well-spoken (which always garners my immediate positive attention) and told me that I should look into investing in a Ravager for maximum DPS over my other two pets on that character– a cat and a windserpent. She said she had a level 70 hunter, to which I responded that I had one too (followed by the inevitable “Yes, I know this is my second hunter.”) We had a brief discussion about pets and it didn’t take long to realize that this shaman was very knowledgeable about hunters and especially pets. I was impressed and sort of wanted to bring up my blog because she seemed like a really neat person but I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it. Then she brought up Mania and Petopia and asked if I knew about them, to which I responded that yes I did, and in fact, if you look at Mania’s blogroll you’ll find my own hunter blog!

And that’s about when the conversation fizzled out and the shaman had to go and used Astral Recall to get to Shatt.

It’s sort of unfortunate that the conversation ended when it did, because I didn’t mean to come off as bragging about being on somebody’s blogroll, rather I was hoping it would enable me to sort of bring up my own blog, it just didn’t happen. Anyways, Orc Shaman on The Venture Co. who knows a lot about hunters, if you happen to be out there reading, I appreciate the fact that you offered to give me advice, even if it happened to be advice that I already “knew”. =P We need more people like you who are willing to give good advice to newer hunters in a friendly and very intelligent fashion.

Next time on Pike-TV: The Official Intro-to-Steady-Shot Post, Stats for Hunters Part 2, The Initiation of a new Character Spotlight Feature, and Oh-My-Gosh-Does-Pike-Actually-Have-A-Level-29-Resto-Druid.

Same Pike-time, same Pike-channel.