All posts by Pike

stories, thoughts

Give a hunter a fish…

6 Comments

…and he can feed his cat once. Teach him to fish, and he can feed his cat for a lifetime!

…okay, so that’s not really how the saying goes, but I’m sure you’ve all heard it and know what it means.

I am here to talk about why I blog about hunters, and why I make “hunter kindergarten” posts, and things like that.

I try my best to write readable and easily-understandable Hunter How-To Posts because I think that there is a very big category of hunters out there that fall between the category of “good hunter” and “huntard.” These are the people that are spec’d something cookie-cutter like 41/20/0, have gear that is at least mostly correct (no spell hit gems or shammy gear *shudder* … but maybe going too overboard with one stat or something), and yet do not know why they are doing these things.

I have been in heroics with hunters who show up with a solid spec and a solid set of gear and then they start tossing random Aimed Shots into their non-existent rotation and Serpent Sting stuff they should be trapping. I’ve seen hunters that use the Auto/Steady macro and have no idea WHY it does so much DPS, they just know that it DOES, so they spam it, maybe with a bow that is several speeds too slow.

Now do I have anything against these hunters? Of course not, I was there once too, and I’m sure I’m still there in some aspects. That is why I write what I write, and that is why I advocate hunters learning to weave their shots manually before switching to the macro (if they choose to do so)… because it’s all about the foundation.

I’ll never forget how surprised I was one day when this story happened: I popped into game and four of my guildies were in a Heroic. I asked who the fifth member was, and they said a PuG’d hunter. I asked how the hunter was doing (I tend to ask that… I’m curious), but instead of the typical answers, which are always either “He sucks” or more often “He’s okay, but…[something]”, they told me “She’s actually really good.”

I got into Ventrilo and popped into their channel just to listen in, and chat a little. I had just got my Choco-Bow and mentioned how fluid it made my shot rotations, and the PuG’d hunter said “Hey, what shot rotation do you use, if you don’t mind me asking?”

… /blinkblink

Another hunter was actually asking me about shot rotations. And we actually had an intelligent hunter conversation about them.

MADNESS, I tell you!

That’s never happened to me before outside of blogs. I’ve had a lot of people come up to me in game and ask me for shot rotation advice, which I have always very happily given those who ask… but actually having a little discussion about it was new.

Since then, that incident has stuck in my mind, and it reminds me about why I write. Because incidents like that should not be as rare as they are. I shouldn’t have to be surprised when my guildies say they PuG’d not just an okay hunter, but a very good one. I shouldn’t have to be taken aback when somebody wants to discuss shot rotations with me.

I’m part of the “WoW Noobs” community over at Livejournal, where I can give advice to newer players (Heck, if you look back far enough, you can find a level 20 me asking what the meeting stone outside Deadmines is for), and I’ve noticed that new players are attracted to the hunter class like a magnet. This means that we, as hunters, have a big responsibility. Learn why you are spec’d what you are spec’d. Why you’ve picked one talent over another. Learn why your shot rotation is your shot rotation. Then, pass it on.

“But Pike, if everyone is a good hunter, won’t that put you out of a job?” Maybe, but teaching-for-make-benefit-glorious-class-of-hunters is more important. Besides, I seem to have lucked out and I currently hold a monopoly on the hunter class in my guild. It’s true, almost all of the other 70 hunters in my guild either /gquit, permanently started playing non-hunter alts, or disappeared entirely. It’s really kind of odd and I’m not sure whether that’s says good or bad things about me, but… hey. >.>

talents, wrath of the lich king

The Future

6 Comments

Edit: Good news for my non-BM hunter friends, it appears WoWHead was wrong and it has now been fixed… all hunters can get the “final tier” talents now.

WoWHead has the WotLK pet talents up.

See all those lovely talents along the bottom there?

Can’t get ’em unless you’ve got 51 points in Beast Mastery.

I think spec’ing anything OTHER than BM in the expansion would drive my OCD-ness up the wall. “You mean I can’t get those bottom talents for Tux? *claws at desk*”

But on the other hand, I keep looking at the WotLK hunter talent tree and thinking about all the new hybrid possibilities now. I’m talkin’ about the potential to have Serpent’s Swiftness and the Super Trap talents from Survival. Or heck, Serpent’s Swiftness and Trueshot Aura in an unholy union. Or Expose Weakness, Trueshot Aura, Ranged Weapon Specialization, Improved Barrage, and some points in Master Marksman.

Of course, the big question is whether these potential hybrid builds will ever outclass the new talents. But I find it so very, very interesting to think about…

Anyways! I’m sure many of you are sick of hearing about WotLK, and I do find all the news kind of overwhelming myself. So! I will go back to concentrating on playing my current characters and writing about them (as best as I can anyway; I’ve been thinking about the ramifications of having a bunch of out-dated guides on my blog… the good news, though, is that there will always be new hunters who always need Hunter Kindergarten posts. At least, I hope so, between all the Death Knights.)

druid, movies

Foshizzywhatsy?

13 Comments

I have three things of interest to say in this post.

Firstly, this is my 200th blog post. I would wax nostalgic here and give a nice long speech about it, but I’m saving that for my one-year-blogoversary next month! Thank you, though, to all you crazy people that visit here every day.

Secondly, somebody got to my blog via the search term: “warcraft hunters why do you think you’re special?” Well, Googler, the long answer is here. The short answer is “Because we are. Durr.”

Thirdly, something is afoot among the druid community. I did my very best to defend my huntery honor in the Great Foshizzle Debate of 2008, and I maintain that Massive Quantities of Sustained Ranged Foshizzle is how it is best dished. But my level 40 druidling was very impressed by the unification of her fuzzy, feathery, and leafy comrades, so much so that she decided to show her own personal Foshizzleness against the baddest of the baddies: Edwin VanCleef himself. With only a level 11 priest (the alt of another druid, of course) by her side, Tamaryn ventured into that big scary boat and defended her honor.

Bear, Bell, Awlbiste, and all you other druid bloggers out there, this is for you… from the huntard with love.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmlM90fPezE&hl=en&fs=1]

(Disclaimer: if you didn’t understand the last paragraph, it’s okay. /pat)

guides, hunter kindergarten, movies, so you want to play a hunter, Uncategorized

So You Want to Play a Hunter? Part 3

11 Comments

So you’ve hit level 6 and you’ve got Arcane Shot. Great! This will make it easier for you to kill stuff before it gets to you. Now there seems to be some confusion, I think, involving when to use Arcane Shot. In all honesty, I don’t think there is a set “best rotation” for Arcane Shot in the low-levels. But the basics that you want to know is that you don’t want to use it too much, because it will eat up your mana and pull aggro away from your pet pretty easily. It does, however, round out most of the skills you will be using pre-level-62.

Hunter’s Mark is the other thing you learn at level 6. There is some debate over whether Hunter’s Mark is worth the mana. In my mind, it is: it provides a sizable DPS boost (particularly over time), and if you are spec’d for Improved Hunter’s Mark, it boosts your pet’s attack power by a significant amount, too. Think of it this way: if you are a Beast Master or Survival hunter, Improved Hunter’s Mark is basically like your own mini-Trueshot-Aura. And if you are Marksman, it’s more of the goodness! Rank 4 Hunter’s Mark is going to give you an extra 110 AP and the more you shoot it, the higher that bonus rises (for ranged only). Pike’s verdict: learn to use and love Hunter’s Mark.

Typical Lowbie Hunter Rotation:
-Hunter’s Mark
-Serpent Sting Opener
-Auto Shot until the mob is dead, throw in an Arcane Shot every so often to speed things up.

That’s really all there is to it. Before you have a pet, you are most advised to use your Arcane Shot whenever you can, though.

If you are looking into doing more PvP than PvE, Arcane Shot is going to become basically the cornerstone of your life and everything you hold dear, but us more-PvE types typically love our Steady Shot more.

And now you’ve hit level 8. And you’ve got Concussive Shot. Your mission, if you choose to accept it: put your kiting skills to the test and learn how to jump-shot-kite.

Jump Shot Kiting is accomplished by jumping, turning, shooting, and then turning back and landing, while moving. Sound complicated? It is, and it’s difficult at first, but if you practice a little, you will soon have the hang of it. It’s a little hard to describe through writing, so I’ve made a movie:

I don’t know if it is the clearest or most helpful movie, so let me know if you need clarification! Also, I have decided that Hellfire Peninsula is perhaps not the best place to hold many of these videos in the future, because over the overwhelming… red…ness… yeah. Note to self: Nagrand next time.

Well, congratulations, you have (hopefully) mastered the art of playing sans-pet. /diploma

And that’ll do it for this week’s installment of SYWtPaH. (pronounced Suit-paw…? Perhaps!) Be sure to join us next week when we go on a crazy pet-taming adventure!

pets, screenshots

Finally

7 Comments

No really, I was literally having dreams about taming this guy, I was camping for him so much.

Althalor has The Rake, he has Humar, what’s next? Sian-Rotam, of course. I’d love to go for the much lower-level Echeyakee but keeping three pets leveled up with me is simply not gonna happen… two is hard enough as it is, and typically requires forgetting about rested XP for the duration of my hunter career. I… am just that devoted.

I love pets.

I have been watching the new WotLK stuff popping up on Mania’s Arcania with a lot of interest. It looks like I’m going to have two “cunning” pets (Tux and Eltanin) and one “ferocity” pet (Locke). Of course, that fails to account for Exotic Pets which are still a mystery.

Stable slots… it’s all I’m asking for. C’mon Blizz! /beg /cry

alts, wrath of the lich king

Lunch Break

13 Comments

There is nothing more amusing than being in the breakroom at work, eating lunch and minding your own business, and suddenly hearing the girl next to you screech over the phone “I WAS IN THE MOST EPIC ALTERAC VALLEY EVER!”

Ahem.

So the new WotLK hunter talents are supposedly up on WoWHead, if you haven’t heard already. Yeah, I looked at ’em and messed with ’em a little, but you know what? Not only am I still taking the talents with a grain of salt for various reasons, but I have way too much stuff I want to do before the expansion hits to spend too much time worrying about new talents.

I want Tawyn to at least see some Tier 5 content, other than that failed attempt at Hydross, before the expansion hits. Heck, I want Tawyn to see something other than Karazhan. I always feel kind of like a newbie when I’m trying to write about raiding and I’ve never even been to Gruuls/Mags (in all fairness, I’ve tried about a million times, but I seriously jinx Gruuls/Mags and they always fill up or are canceled.)

I want Lunapike to get to level 70 and start tearing up the battlegrounds.

I want Tamaryn to get to level 70 and start Tree’ing it up (I hit 40, by the way, and respec’d Boomkin. WTB Mana Battery, PST.)

Now we get to the secondary projects, which are that I’d like Althalor to tame Humar–been camping out for days now, with no luck thusfar– and start working his way further up the leveling tree, I’d like Songlark to either start leveling seriously or at least hit 19 and become a semi-twink (my definition of a semi-twink: buy decent enough greens at the AH and put cheap enchants on them), and I’d like my dwarfyhuntergirl to start leveling as well.

But as my House-loving boyfriend likes to say, “You can’t always get what you want”, and with my time limited, it’s time to prioritize. Sooo tough to pick from my characters though… I love them all. I do think that Tawyn, Tamaryn, and Lunapike are going to become my primary projects, though.

What do you guys want to accomplish before Wrath of the Lich King?

guides, hunter kindergarten, pets

Pet-Specs

10 Comments

Dear Pike,

I am a level 65 hunter named Syaoken on the server of Shandris. Questing and leveling has been going quite well for me, but, I’ve ran into a small problem… my pet. I tamed a Frostsaber Pridewatcher from Winterspring, her name is Sakura. But, the problem I am having is I don’t know the best way to train her with skills. I don’t know to give her the best stam or best armor. Of course I gave her the highest growl I could and also claw (rank 9). I don’t know if the highest stam, highest armor, or even the resistances, are the most important. I just tried cobra reflexes for the first time and she kills so much faster. But, could you give me your two cents on the matter?

Thank you,

– Syaoken

Heya Syaoken,

The great thing about spec’ing your pet is that a respec is only 10 silver and it resets really quickly. For this reason, many hunters find themselves spec’ing their pet from situation to situation.

This is what I would do in your given situation:

First of all, the active skills. For a cat, I’d say max level Growl, max level Claw, and max level Dash. That is really all you need in terms of the active skills. Growl holds aggro for solo-play, Claw is going to be your focus-dump move, and Dash means you and your pet can kill stuff quicker!

After that, you want the passive skills. Max level Avoidance and Cobra Reflexes are both a must. Avoidance is going to be huge in determining your pet’s survivability and Cobra Reflexes does provide higher DPS overall.

Next is stamina. Max that out because in the long run, Stamina is going to do a lot more in boosting your cat’s survivability than armor will, because armor only protects against physical attacks whereas stamina protects against magical as well.

Now we have a choice, you can dump your remaining points in armor or spread it out over some resistances. Resistances are very good if you know you’re going to be doing a lot of stuff in places with certain types of damage. You can also put some points in resistances and some in armor and it will work out nicely.

This is how I have spec’d my cat Locke for Karazhan/many Outlands heroics:

Growl Rank 8
Dash Rank 3
Claw Rank 9
Avoidance Rank 2
Cobra Reflexes
Great Stamina Rank 11
Natural Armor Rank 3
Arcane Resistance Rank 2
Fire Resistance Rank 2

This uses 349 of his 350 total training points and has worked just fine for me in early raids/heroics.

This is how I often spec Tux, my PvP/solo pet:

Growl Rank 8
Dive Rank 3
Claw Rank 9
Screech Rank 5
Avoidance Rank 2
Cobra Reflexes
Great Stamina Rank 10
Natural Armor Rank 3
Fire Resistance Rank 2
Shadow Resistance Rank 2

Now you will notice that he is a little more complicated because he is an owl, and I’ve taken advantage of that by training him both Claw and Screech. This is because Screech is very handy in soloing and in PvP but on occasion I will take him into an instance and turn on Claw. (While soloing: Growl/Screech/Dive, while PvPing: Screech/Claw/Dive). The Shadow and Fire Resistance is because you run into a lot of warlocks in PvP who like to DoT everything. =P

You will notice I had to sacrifice a point in Great Stamina to make up for Screech; to me, that is okay because owls by default have slightly more health than cats. Plus, I am usually wearing my PvP gear in a PvP situation, so Tux benefits from my additional stamina. But, it’s all a matter of personal preference. Keep in mind that the higher ranked skills cost many more points than the lower ranked ones, so sacrificing the highest rank of something will often get you enough points for something else that you want.

For your Sakura specifically… I would say, first get her Avoidance and Cobra Reflexes, then max out Growl, Dash, and Claw, then max out Great Stamina as much as you can, and then see what you have left and decide whether you want to try and spread the remaining points out through resistances or dump it into Armor.

Again, the great thing about pet-spec’ing is that it’s very flexible and cheap to mess around with it, so experiment and see what works best for you.

Good luck!

-Pike

Reproducing this here because I thought it would make a great guide! I have admittedly edited my reply up a little because I realized that I regrettably sent it on its way with some errors. Good luck to you, Syaoken, and I would check out Petopia and WoWHead’s Pet Training Calculator for more on this topic.

Uncategorized

In Which Pike Goes Hollywood

3 Comments

A couple months back I got an e-mail from somebody telling me he was making a WoW website and would I write up a hunter guide for him, according to his template? I agreed, wrote one up and sent it to him.

I got an e-mail today saying that the site is up.

Lookie lookie: http://projectlore.com/wow-game-guides/classes-and-talent/hunter-guide/

Now I have to admit, I don’t know a whole lot about this site or its project, but it does look like a big deal; a bigger one than I initially thought! I do have a few worries; one is that my guide isn’t as great as it could have been. Reading over it now, there are some things I should have clarified or re-worded. Although, it was admittedly somewhat difficult to write because I was following a strict template. Also, reading over it, I can tell that it was rather condensed from my original guide. Anyways, I hope that I did an okay job (at least enough of an okay job that I don’t sound like a complete huntard), and that people who want some more information on hunters click the little link to me and find their way here, where I can go much more in-depth.

Speaking of which, if you have managed to find your way here from that site… I’m Pike, and I like hunters. And Linux. Nice to meetcha!

I have a Beast Master specific guide that I’m working on for the site, and then I think I’m done with that project. Which I’m actually kind of relieved about, because as fun as it is to see my name attached to a big ol’ shiny website like that, it simply does not compare to writing freely in the more intimate environment that is my blog. Where you guys can read it. /nod <3cha all by the way!

alts

State of the WoW Address

9 Comments

It occurred to me that I haven’t recently talked about what I am actually up to in-game these days. So in case anybody is curious…

Overall: I’m spending less time on WoW than I used to. This is due to a couple factors: firstly, my work schedule, and secondly, other real-life things. Also, as much as it sort of pains me to say it, I have realized that for the time being I essentially have to “retire” from active raiding and even Heroics-running, at least for a little while. See, I work in retail, where the schedules are random and I don’t have any guaranteed days off (except Sunday, because I talked them into that), and the time of day that I work is very much subject to change. When I first started working here, I was working almost exclusively mornings and days, which left me the late afternoon/evening to do WoW stuff. These days, I am working almost exclusively afternoons/evenings. This means my time off is in the morning, and nobody raids in the morning.

I am sort of hoping this issue will rectify itself after a few months, which is when I’m planning to implement some fairly large life changes including a new job, but we’ll have to see. I do enjoy raiding and instancing and I’d love to be able to write about more raiding misadventures but at the moment, it’s simply not feasible.

So I am not on WoW quite as much as I used to be. When I am on WoW, my time is split between my Alliance characters on Silver Hand and my Horde characters on The Venture Co. See, when you can basically only play WoW when nobody else is on, you play less of your more “social” characters (which my Alliance ones largely are), and more of your alt/solo characters (my Hordies), so I’ve really been alt’ing it up.

Tawyn, 70 night elf hunter, longtime “main”, has really not been getting a whole lot of playtime although I hop onto her sometimes to zip around and do the Outlands dailies (I really haven’t felt inspired to go to the actual island since getting the epic flyer). I still <3 her dearly even if she’s on semi-vacation.

Tamaryn, 39 night elf druid, is my other Silver-Handie that I’ve been playing. Yes, she’s 39. Halfway through 39 in fact. That would make her my highest-leveled non-hunter, and my third highest level character overall. I’ve really become quite welcoming of the druid playstyle as something I can switch over to when I’m feeling “different”. Tamaryn has leveled pure Resto and I have a hard time imagining her as something else; I like the thought of feeling invincible and feeling very defense-oriented as opposed to offense-oriented. I also really like healing in battlegrounds and in instances. I like the whole HoTs playstyle. (And have I mentioned recently that I’m madly in love with Nature’s Swiftness + Healing Touch?) That said, I am considering respec’ing to Boomkin in another level… but… I dunno yet. I really like Resto.

And now the Hordies…

Lunapike, level 63 Tauren Hunter, is over halfway to 64. In all honesty I could be leveling her a lot faster than I am, but I’ve had a bit of a hard time making the Outlands transition this time around– leveling feels soooo sloooow and it’s so hard to bring myself to do it this time. I am working on it, though, slowly but surely chipping away at that XP bar.

I have two different “futures” planned for her and which one comes to pass will depend on a few different factors I think. Option one is to make her a very PvP based toon, an idea which I find appealing– it would let me experiment with various PvP specs and gear without spending tons of gold with Tawyn. Option two is to get her into a raiding guild (a server transfer wouldn’t be out of the question for this). It will all depend, I think, on what happens when I can hammer out a more stabilized schedule and I can figure out exactly what is going on with Tawyn’s future. Aaaaaaanyways…

Althalor, level 24 blood elf hunter… my highest-leveled male character. I lovelovelove his backstory and personality and I love playing a male blood elf because, well, to put it bluntly… helloooooo nurse.

His only current pet is The Rake but I’m camping out for Humar and once I’m 70 with him I’m gonna get Sian’Rotam and he’ll have the three lions as his pets. …did I just say “once I’m 70 with him”? Three level seventy hunters? Am I crazy yet? And should I be saying “80” instead? …probably.

More people need to roleplay with poor Althalor though. I think his belf-ness scares the good RPers away. Guys! I promise I don’t spend my days walking slowly and dramatically around Silvermoon talking about vampires! I haven’t even been to Eastern Kingdoms since level 2! And look, I don’t have a chibi-baka-kawaii-anime name* either! I am credible! /flails around

* The number of people I’ve seen, mostly belfadins, who fall into this category is staggering.

Songlark, level 18 tauren druid: this is actually the first “real” druid I made, but she was quickly surpassed by my alliance one because I wanted to play with my guildies. Now though, I kind of like the thought of having a secondary druid for when I’m feeling druidy but also hordey, so I’ve been slowly working on her. She had stints as Balance and as Feral but I have this strange terrible disease where I have to play Resto if there is a Resto tree available, so… yeah. /casts HoTs on you

Rounding out the active characters is Crazyhorns, a level 9 male tauren shaman. His creation was inspired by a buffalo plushie I have who was given to me specifically because “he looks like a tauren”, my very favorite race in WoW. So I, of course, had to create his virtual doppelgänger. I keep planning to make him enhancement because that’s what you’re supposed to do with leveling shammies, but I dunno, I have this horrible history of spec’ing Resto if given the option. I do enjoy being able to cast, heal, and whack something’s face in, all within seconds of each other. Hybrid classes are kinda fun.

Oh, I also have a female dwarf hunter I am sort of working on, but the details on her are classified, at least for the time being!

Well, that’ll do it… now ya know what I’m up to these days. Cookie if you actually read through that post! I’m off to work now, but WoW seems to be downloading a new patch, so go get your mounts, young level 30s!

P.S. “Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.” WOOHOO! I can’t count the number of times my Kill Command has locked up my Auto Shot. And I even hand-weave my shots manually! So glad it’s fixed now.

guides, hunter kindergarten, so you want to play a hunter

So You Want to Play a Hunter? Part 2

8 Comments

Note: I’ve disabled all add-ons on this character, just for consistency!

So you have picked your race, made your new toon, and spawned as a level one hunter. (Maybe on a certain server to /wave at some fellow bloggers, but that’s beside the point!)

First thing’s first, move things around the way you like them. Me: I move Auto Shot to “2” and Raptor Strike to “3”, and racial abilities (such as Gift of the Naaru) move to the side. You can unlock and lock the action bars under Options -> Interface, which is also where you can add more action bars.

I also move my quiver over the the left-most bag slot.

There we go!

Now you accept your first quests and start shooting things. Now, there are ways to kite right from level one that will ensure you rarely get hit. Myself, I’m going to say that if you have never played a hunter before and are just starting out, you don’t have to worry about being perfect at this point. So if your character pops in an “accidental melee” or two, don’t beat yourself up over it… anyways, it’s good to have that skill when you learn Wing Clip later.

However, you should never have to use Raptor Strike. It’s true!

Get as far away as you can from what you want to shoot and still be able to use your Auto-Shot. Typically the Auto-Shot icon will be red or otherwise grayed out if you can’t use it. Once you are at maximum range, fire away!

Now, you have a couple different options here to keep your mob decently at range at this point. The easiest method is to simply back up. Now remember that you cannot fire your Auto-Shot while moving, but you will notice that as the mob gets close to you, it will typically pause for a bit to attack, and that’s when you can back up to regain some range and pop in an extra shot– often enough to finish it off, at these early levels.

If you are feeling a little more adventurous, you can try your hand at strafe-kiting. To strafe, press the Q and E buttons. By strafing and then occasionally stopping to shoot, you can typically keep the enemy at range.

Feel free to practice these two methods and remember, don’t worry if you get hit, it’s not a particularly huge deal at level one, after all!

Go turn in your quest once you’re finished up. When picking your first quest reward, remember that hunters cannot wear mail armor until level 40, so you will want to stick with leather.

By now you should have ding’ed level two, so do your little quest that takes you to the hunter trainer, and see what they’ve got for you to learn!

At level 2 you learn one spell: Track Beasts. Pop it on as soon as you learn it by way of the “tracking” button by the minimap, you can right click on it to select what you are tracking.

Your general strategy will remain the same until level 4, when you learn Aspect of the Monkey and Serpent Sting. Pop on Aspect of the Monkey and keep it on– you will want an Aspect on at basically all times from here on out. Serpent Sting is going to be your opener in most solo situations for the majority of your hunter career (once you hit the 60s you will probably be using it less and less; possibly not at all.) Remember not to use it if you are going to be trapping, though– because DoTs will break your trap. But you don’t have to worry about that for a while yet.

So at level four, your strategy will be to get at max range, open with a Serpent Sting, and practice keeping the mob away from you.

See? No Raptor Strike!

Oh, and don’t forget to keep tabs on your ammo, and buy some if needed! You can buy some at a General Supplies vendor. Many first-time hunters forget about Ammo and wind up Ammo-less mid-quest. Don’t let it happen to you! *taps chalkboard with stick for emphasis*

Once you get to level five, you get to choose your professions. The typical money-makers are skinning/herbalism and skinning/mining. (You can also opt for herbalism/mining but you can’t track both things at once– then again, as a hunter, you will usually be tracking non-profession things anyway.)

If you opt to go for a crafting profession, your three best bets as a hunter are probably leatherworking, which grants you the ability to make your own gear (including mail later on), engineering, which lets you make your own ammo, guns, and Goblin Jumper Cables (as well as a variety of other toys), and alchemy, which allows you to make your own elixirs and potions. All of the other professions (with the exception of tailoring, unless you are a bag-junkie or something) can also provide some sort of benefit to a hunter but the three mentioned are your best bets.

While you’re at it, it would be a good idea to pick up First Aid, which will be very handy for healing yourself as you quest, and even for backup healing your pet. Cooking and fishing both have benefits (and their products can be used as pet food!) but I don’t see them as being particularly critical right off the bat, especially because food is so easy to attain most of the time.

Well, that does it for this installment of “So You Want to be a Hunter”. Leave me your tired, your poor, your comments and questions if you’ve got any!

Oh, and lastly, to the person who got to my blog via the search term “how can i play Ocarina of time with a steady shot on the keyboard”

…