All posts by Pike

linux, screenshots

World of Warcraft on Kubuntu Linux

15 Comments

I was looking at my site referrals and I’ve noticed that my biggest referrers (aside from Google) seem to be screenshots that I took of myself playing on Linux. Well… those screenshots are quite outdated and there were only two of them. So I figured I’d take some more, hopefully demonstrating a little bit more than just “Look I can boot it up”!

I’d like to note that I normally play in the fullscreened version of Windowed Mode, but I decided to take my screenshots using a much smaller window size so you can see a little more of the Linux environment.

The screenshots have also been resized to 1024×768 (my normal size is 1280×1024) so I apologize if some of the text is hard to see!


It’s true– I never logged into Tawyn on Windows until after she hit 70.


Latency and framerate in Stormwind on a fairly busy day. 27fps is more than playable. Also I would like to note that I don’t quite understand why, but I experience more latency natively on Windows than via Wine in Linux.

The program in the background there is Amarok, which is definitely my favorite music-playing software (and is currently only available for Linux/Unix, although I hear a Windows version is in the works). I wanted to demonstrate that I can listen to music and play WoW (with sound effects intact) at the same time. Note: If you are using Linux and wish to do this too, you have to go into winecfg and make sure you are using ALSA and not OSS. Some people have issues with ALSA though, so be warned!


Framerate while flying in Netherstorm; it’s gone up to 51fps. It was actually up to about 60 but the screenshot program slowed it down just a bit.



Linux, meet massive quantities of sustained ranged DPS! While listening to Scatman, of course. (It actually randomly happened to start playing here because my playlist is always on randomize. Good timing, I thought.)

So there you have it– not only can you play World of Warcraft on Linux, but you can listen to music while you’re doing it, and, judging by what I’ve got minimized, you can also chat on IRC, Instant Messenger, and browse the web, so is great how Classic WoW turned out. Gold4Vanilla offers classic wow gold for all players across the world as well. All at the same time. Really the only thing I’ve yet to do on Linux is chat on Ventrilo. =( Someday, though. Someday!

For more information you can check out my previous posts on WoW/Linux:

The Linux & WoW Q&A
Answering Questions (Mostly of the Linux Persuasion)

As well as The Official Ubuntu WoW Guide (Very helpful!)

And remember, no matter what Blizzard says, there is indeed a Cow Level:

non-wow

I am alive!

3 Comments

I apologize for my lack of updates these past few days. I’ve been a bit busy and had some stuff going on. A couple days ago I went and had allergy testing done because I’ve been having some allergy issues and I figured it was about time I did something about it. The good news is– the hunter is not allergic to animals! The hunter is, however, allergic to the wild outdoors, as apparently I am severely allergic to all grasses, weeds, and molds.

This condition necessitates the need for me to take extra precautions while considering contacting Aqua Lock for any mold removal. I also recently discovered a hidden mold problem in my home, and I’m relieved to have hired a professional Mold Cleanup Toms River service to thoroughly address and resolve the issue.

I’m having further testing done to determine whether I’m allergic to anything else aside from the basics. Lemme tell you though, I’m actually finding myself wishing Aspect of the Wild could be used in real life. I could use some nature resistance against those level 72 elite bales of Timothy Hay that like to crit me when I’m feeding my guinea pigs.

I’m also a little behind in my blog-reading, so if I respond to one of your posts a few days late, well, that’s just me tryin’ to catch up!

Anyways, I have a few different post ideas planned for the near future and oh, I suppose I do have one little tiny thing of importance happening this Saturday, March 8.

I’ll give ya a hint. It starts with a K.

/grin

specs, stories, talents

Talent Show

15 Comments

My experience with other classes is certainly not extensive enough to be able to say this with complete surety, but it seems to me that hunters, more so than other classes, are very spec-specific. Think of your average Joe R. Hunter (where R stands for “raiding”) and think of his probable talent spec. 41/20/0, 0/41/20, 0/20/41, 0/31/30. Maybe a coupla 40/21/0 and 0/21/40 thrown in for Scatter Shot and good measure.

Now, this definitely isn’t to say that there aren’t other good specs out there (in fact, I’ll address that at the end of my post) but this seems to be what you will see, most of the time. It just seems like that typical end-game hunter strategy is to grab those 20 key points in the Marks tree and then spread from there. I think, however, that what you do with your other 41 points (or even those “key 20 Marks points”) can really vary depending on personal preference and what you want.

Here, I’ll use my own current spec as an example:


Let me talk about what I’ve picked and why I’ve picked them, and why my overall talent spec is largely personal preference… and probably different from your personal preference.

Overall:

Pretty standard cookie-cutter 41/20/0 build at first glance. Typically considered by most to currently be the highest DPS hunter spec in the game, although there are a lot of disputes about whether or not this is actually true, especially when really, really nicely-geared Marks or Survival hunters are involved.

I personally chose Beast Mastery because I find it appealing from an emotional and aesthetic standpoint (geeky, no?); the DPS bonus is some very tasty icing on the cake though.

Beast Mastery:

5/5 Improved Aspect of the Hawk: Has a chance to increase your ranged attack speed by 15% for 12 seconds. This is awesome. It’s like squeezing bonus ranks out of Serpent’s Swiftness. Obviously this is proc-dependent so it’s not always reliable, and if you prefer to run around with, say, Aspect of the Viper up, then this might not be such a good choice for you. But overall I see this as a must-have for me. (Little secret: I am madly in love with the little WHOOSH noise that it makes when it procs and the little picture that pops above your head. That’s another big reason I always take this talent.) Warning: there is the possibility that it will mess up your shot rotation, but I’ve never had an issue with this.

2/5 Endurance Training: Yeah it’s maybe a little silly to have these two points here, but I still do a lot of grinding and stuff– with DPS pets, no less– so they can use all the staying power that they can get. Note: In my little opinion, 5/5 in this talent is pretty much mandatory for leveling. All my leveling hunters get 5/5 Endurance Training; they can respec later.

2/2 Focused Fire: 20% Kill Command crit is amazing. That’s really all I have to say about that.

2/3 Thick Hide: See my comments for Endurance Training. Again, I would recommend a full 3/3 for leveling BM hunters.

5/5 Unleashed Fury: Increases your pet’s damage output, pretty straightforward.

2/2 Improved Mend Pet: A lot of people I know do not put points in this and I have to admit it sort of baffles me. I don’t think I could live without this talent. This is one of the things that got me to respec from Marks in the first place. Picture this: You’re attacking something and your pet gets Faerie Fire or some other debuff that completely demolishes their armor/stamina/attack power/whatever. Whatcha gonna do about it? …Improved Mend Pet, that’s what! Oh, and the mana cost reduction is fantastic too.

5/5 Ferocity: Increases your pet’s crit. More pet crits = More Ferocious Inspiration for you (er, for me, anyway). This one’s a given.

Intimidation: This is the “Who comes to the rescue when the tank falls down” talent, to quote a line from Hootie the Strigid Screecher. Is your pet a replacement for the main tank? Oh, heck no. But if the boss a five-man is getting to end of his rope, something happens to the tank, and it’s your pet or the healer– this is when your pet comes to the rescue. Usually the healer realizes that your pet is the new tank and will plant enough heals on him to, if things go well, finish off the fight. Locke has successfully tanked both the last boss in Hellfire Ramparts and the last boss in Escape from Durnholde Keep in this fashion. Oh, and this talent is of course the gateway for some awesome talents down the road.

1/2 Bestial Discipline: One of my big personal goals is to have Ferocious Inspiration up 100% of the time. One of the ways I achieve this is to dump a bunch of focus onto my pet, so he has more chances to use Claw, which will hopefully crit. At this point in time, my crit is high enough that when I’m completely buffed and ready-to-roll, I can usually keep Locke or Tux full of focus with Go for the Throat, but there are always those long “droughts” where you won’t crit for a while and 1/2 Bestial Discipline helps act as a safety buffer. Note: I would seriously consider going 2/2 here if I were using a Windserpent or something, because of Lightning Breath (costing more focus than Claw).

2/2 Animal Handler: This isn’t quite so important pre-level-70, but basically this is your only way to increase your pet’s chance to hit, which is going to be very needed in harder instances and raids. More hits = more chances to crit = more guaranteed Ferocious Inspiration.

4/5 Frenzy: Makes your pet attack faster. Again, more hits = more chances to crit = more guaranteed Ferocious Inspiration. You may have noticed I only have four points in this talent. A lot of hunters do that. I’m not one who’s much for math or theorycrafting myself, but I do recall reading somewhere that 4/5 Frenzy is just as good as 5/5 Frenzy and in my experience that seems to hold out to be true. I love having an extra point to play with, so 4/5 it is.

3/3 Ferocious Inspiration: This is one of my very favorite talents and I put a lot of hard work into spec’ing myself and my pet so that this is up near-continuously. This increases the attack power of everyone in your party by 3%, and this works on melee, ranged, and magical attacks. 3% may not seem like a lot, but it adds up. And I just love the idea of it.

Bestial Wrath: This is a given; who doesn’t want to watch that big red pet doing almost as much DPS as you while being immune to most everything?

5/5 Serpent’s Swiftness: I think this is possibly the talent that makes BM the powerhouse spec that it is. This is what defines the BM shot rotation (Steady S

hot/Auto Shot/Kill Command) and allows us to out-DPS a lot of Marksman hunters who are hitting harder, but slower. So… yeah. This is a given.

The Beast Within: Some people prefer Scatter Shot; myself, I like having what is almost the equivalent to a “second PvP trinket”. This is the Warlock-buster. Oh, and the Warrior’s hamstring/Rogue’s poison/etc.-buster. =P

Marksmanship:

For the most part, you will see these 20 points on pretty much every end-game hunter. There is one debate though, that I will get to in a second:

5/5 Lethal Shots: Crit is good.

5/5 Improved Hunter’s Mark: This is where there’s a divide. A lot of hunters– most, I think– would rather have 5/5 Efficiency. Myself– I’m an Improved Hunter’s Mark fan. What it does is buff the melee attack power of everyone who is attacking whatever you’ve marked, whether they’re in your party or not. This buffs your pet and it buffs anybody who uses melee attacks. I have always been one who enjoys helping out the party as much as I can, and being able to provide a 110-attack-power-bonus to people is almost like having my own little Trueshot Aura. Also, I have never been in a situation thus far where I’ve wished I’d taken Efficiency instead. I know, I know, a lot of you are probably saying “Just wait until you start raiding!” And I understand that, and if the need arises to take Efficiency instead, then I will. But at this point I haven’t needed it. I would rather be buffing the attack power of my pet and the tank and the rogues and other hunter’s pets and the feral druids, than giving myself a few extra Steady Shots before I have to pot. But that’s just me. =P

2/2 Go for the Throat: This generates a lot of focus for your pet and in my mind is a must-have talent.

Aimed Shot: I really only use this against healers in PvP (paladins mostly), but it’s the prerequisite for another awesome talent.

Rapid Killing: The best place to toss those two extra points you need in this talent tier; it gives you a little boost if you are killing things quickly and shaves some time off of the gigantic Rapid Fire cooldown.

5/5 Mortal Shots: Increases the damage that your crits do. <3 big crits.

Well, there you go. That is why Pike specs the way she does. It’s not a perfect spec. But it meeds my own personal needs, and that is what talent specs are supposed to do– fit an individual’s needs. This is why I don’t think there is “one spec to rule them all”, and this is why I make an effort not to judge somebody based on their Armory profile.

Lemme tell you a story quick, and then I’ll let you go, since this post is long enough already!

One of my friends has a level 70 hunter alt. Because this hunter is an alt, he’s not all that geared. He has a level 64 green helmet of the Bandit; he has Valanos’ Longbow without the scope and overall he’s just in quest gear. He has a solid but not exactly cookie-cutter BM spec.

Guess what happens when he, I, and another hunter in Season 1 PvP gear all go into battlegrounds? Guess who, without fail, tops the damage done and the killing blows and the honorable kills at the end?

I’ll give you a hint. It’s not me. And it’s not Season-1-gear-hunter either.

It’s Mr. Green Helmet.

He is the only hunter I have played against so far who can beat me in a 1-on-1 hunter duel up to about five levels higher than me (that is to say, other hunters who attack me on my RP-PvP server hordie, cannot beat me unless they have over five levels on me.)

The last time we dueled it was in the Stranglethorn Arena to make things dramatic, and we had a little guildie audience too. There I was, completely decked out in blues and purples and with everything enchanted to the brim. Savagery on my Sonic Spear and +10 damage on my Gladiator’s Heavy Crossbow. And there he was in quest blues and greens.

He won.

He had about 100 hit points left when I fell. He told me afterwards that if I’d used Serpent Sting, I would’ve won. And he’s right. But the fact is that I failed to use Serpent Sting and thus he won fair and square.

I haven’t a clue how he does it. Somehow he manages to work magic in PvP. He’s told me he feels much the same way about me in PvE, he says he doesn’t think he could ever pull off what I do in instances. This is very flattering, but it still completely blows my mind that he’s working his magic in quest greens.

The hunter I have the most respect for isn’t some T6 hunter with Illidan on farm. The hunter I have the most respect for isn’t in complete season 3 arena armor with some incredible rating. No, the hunter I have the most respect for is wearing a green helmet of the Bandit and only has one point in Frenzy.

Armory profiles aren’t everything. Gear isn’t always everything. Spec isn’t always everything. You spec the way that is best for you, because you know your playstyle the best. The results may surprise you.

fun

My Boyfriend Made a Funny

2 Comments

“So when a moonkin kills you, is that death by natural causes?”

…and because I don’t have anything else to add to that, really, here is a picture of poor Level-41-Tawyn quite befuddled at some of the strange things that happen in Goldshire sometimes.


You silly druids!

alts, screenshots, the old switcheroo

The Ol' Switcheroo

8 Comments

So you all know that I have a level 70 hunter. Ja?

Well, my boyfriend has a level 70 warlock. So now you know that, too, if you hadn’t already!

Anyways. Today we were talking and at the time he was doing schoolwork and I was on my blood-elf-guy who I adore playing, and I was talking about how I, at level 13, had succeeded at taking on and killing three level 14 mobs at the same time by DPS’ing one down quick and then having my pet tank one (and with a Serpent Sting planted on him) while I kited the third. And we began talking about how really my success there had largely been dependent on the fact that I already know how to play a hunter. And then we began talking about what it would be like if maybe he rolled a lowbie warlock and if it would be the same experience for him, or if it was more of a hunter thing.

And then… I don’t even remember which one of us came up with the idea… but one of us said “You know… we should level each other’s class”. I.e., I would level a warlock and he would level a hunter. And the other one of us very quickly agreed that this was a fantastic idea, and we both went immediately over to yet another new RP server (Sisters of Elune) and pretty soon we had our level one characters ready. We ran them to Durotar where there are both warlock and hunter trainers, and we’ve agreed that we will only play these characters with each other.

They got to level four tonight.


That’s my boyfriend, the tauren hunter, and yours truly, the undead warlock.

Now we’ve both tried to level each other’s class before. He has a level four-ish night elf hunter and I’ve got a level four-ish gnome warlock, but we both made the characters strictly for RP purposes and then sort of tried to level them on our own, and basically we decided that we didn’t like the other’s class. But this time it’s different. This time we’re doing it together and we’ve got the other right there for advice and help. I trust his warlockeryness, and he trusts my hunteryness, and right off the bat we’re giving each other all sorts of handy advice. I have no idea how far we’re going to get these characters but I’m very excited for this little project already.

He’s doing pretty good, even if I often catch him popping into melee mode when the mob runs up, because he’s not the best kiter yet. But I’m a forgiving teacher/girlfriend! =P

P.S.

See the guy on the left? Tux and I got him down to 85%-ish percent. That’s not bad, right? Well on our way to being able to solo Molten Core, right? ;P

art, blogs

Special Announcement!

13 Comments

This is post number 100 in Aspect of the Hare.

This blog began in August of last year, when I had only been playing for a few months and was just level 48 or 50 or so. I realized that I was spamming my Livejournal with WoW rambles and decided I needed a new place to put them. So I started this blog and began posting my WoW rambles here, convinced that nobody would ever read them or even want to read them. In fact, now that I think about it, it probably would have turned into another one of my unfinished projects: I’d write for a while and then quit, and nobody would notice.

And yet here I am; six months later and level 70, and I’ve made 100 posts and Feedburner tells me I have no less than 149 subscribers. I have no idea if that’s accurate or not but regardless, I’m here to thank you all. Thank you to everyone who has ever linked to me or read my posts or commented on my posts or came here from Google searching for hunter advice or WoW-On-Linux advice. I have read every single one of your comments. I don’t always respond to them, but I read them all thoroughly and I cherish every compliment and take to heart every bit of advice.

I have no idea why you guys find my ramblings so interesting or entertaining, but thank you.

Here I would also like to throw out a special shout-out to Kestrel for being the first person to ever comment here. Kestrel, I’m not sure how you found me– I’m gonna guess through my Blogger profile link in a comment at BRK, or something– but really, look what you did! All of a sudden I seem to be popular! =P Thank you for showing me that I was in fact a not-too-terrible blogger and inspiring me to branch out and really start to participate in the WoW-blog-community.

The other day my boyfriend and I were talking a little bit about some of the awkwardness that comes with the transition between a “casual-hanging out” guild and a “casual-raiding” guild; my main’s guild is going through that transition right now and I won’t deny it’s been a little awkward to have to go from being “the guild’s main hunter” to “one of several good hunters in the guild”. I’ve been spoiled, I think, and I have to keep reminding myself that I am no longer one of the few people around that can do my job, and that it’s not a bad thing.

But lemme paraphrase what I told him last night. I said: “In the end, I don’t have to be the best hunter on the server, or even the best hunter in the guild. I just want to be the girl who loved her class the most and made the most of it. If I can do that, then I will have succeeded.”

And I mean every word of that. And my blog is like that too. This isn’t here to be the most informative blog or the funniest blog or the most popular blog. This is here so passers-by can stop by for a bit, take a deep breath, and re-experience a little of that joy and magic that I feel so often in this game. There are a lot of little things in this game that make me happy. And I want to share that happiness with you. Because too often we get caught up in drama or problems or making the game less fun than it’s supposed to be. And if one of my posts has reminded somebody for just a split second, “Hey, this game can actually be pretty fun!” …well, then I’ve done my job.

I sat down with a pencil and paper for the first time in a while today:

It’s sketchy and unfinished, but I kinda like it that way. Tawyn, Tux, and Locke all say “Thank you”.

Now, on to the next 100 posts!

*tosses confetti*

i love hunters, screenshots

Hunter The Thirteenth

8 Comments

So after waxing poetic about all my hunters in my previous post, what did I do? I went and made another one, obviously.

Althalor the Level 7 Blood Elf Hunter.

Male Blood Elf Hunter.

Now some 95% of my characters are female, because I am female too, and I feel most comfortable “getting into” my characters when we are the same gender. After a while I started branching out and playing male gnomes, and now I’ve got me a male belf.

And I am enjoying playing him faaaaaaar more than I thought I would, especially since I’ve never been a huge blood elf fan.

But. I love his animations. I love his voice. I love the way he looks in the [Festive Teal Pant Suit]. And I absolutely adore the way his ears go all boingy-boingy when he runs. Actually I have a confession to make here. Not too long ago it occurred to me that I seem to have some sort of long ear fetish. Growing up (and still today) I have always been drawn to animals with long ears– rabbits, bilbies, and of course hares, my “mascot” animal. I grew up watching Star Trek and I loved Spock and the Vulcans. I collect Pikachu toys. In D&D I usually wanted to play elves or half-elves and now that I look back on it I think that it’s not because they’re graceful and athletic and all that– but because they had those freakish ears. My main character in WoW is Tawyn, a Night Elf, and I am so jealous of her ears. I wish I had long ears like that. It would be so awesome. I want to be her for Halloween just so I have an excuse to put on some fake elf ears.

/cough

So yeah, sorry about that tangent. Now that I’ve scared away half of my readership I’ll continue where I left off:

Above all though, I love my new character’s personality and backstory. You will notice from the picture that he is in Mulgore. He has a very good reason for that. I cannot wait to develop this further.

I love inventing new characters. I think it might be my favorite part of the game.

…but then again, these days anytime I make a blog post, I say something like “[Some completely random aspect of WoW] is my favorite part of the game!” So maybe I should make a song:

Running heroics and downing the last boss
Roleplaying and using up all my toon slots
Big Steady Shot crits and winning AV
These are a few of my favorite things

When the raid wipes
When my traps break
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feeeeel so bad!

The downside to having so many character ideas, of course, is that I give myself far too many characters to play, so many of them wind up getting neglected, even if I didn’t intend them to at all. I almost need to make some sort of playing schedule for myself. Hmm, that’s not a bad plan, really…

In closing, I leave you all with my new favorite YouTube movie. No, it most certainly did not put tears in my eyes. /scoffs at the notion

…

/sniff

i love hunters

My hunters. Let me show you them.

10 Comments


So it’s no secret that I love hunters.

But… just how much do I love those hunters?

Hmm. Let’s take a peeksie at my toons. I count a grand total of 28 characters, across 12 servers. Now let’s meet my hunters. In no particular order…

Tawyn
Level 70 Night Elf Hunter
Server: Silver Hand (RP)
Pets: Tux the Owl, Locke the Cat
Notes: Ah Tawyn. She was my first character and as such she will always be my favorite. Not much to say about her simply because this blog focuses far more on her adventures than anyone else’s… so you can go read up on her anytime!
Current Status: Main

Shantizar the First
Level 12 Troll Hunter
Server: Silver Hand (RP)
Pets: Scraps the Cat (this is a personal in-joke. “Scraps the Cat” is the name of a cartoon character I invented some 14 years ago.)
Notes: I wanted to play Horde. I wanted to make a hunter. I love trolls. Shantizar was born.
Current Status: On hold until I have more time

Katlaina
Level 16 Dwarf Hunter
Server: Silver Hand (RP)
Pets: Clifford the (soon to be) Big Red Dog
Notes: I wanted to make a dwarf hunter and I wanted a wolf named Clifford. I also wanted a character on the same server as my main that I could play if I… didn’t feel like dealing with my main. This character is super fun and is not played enough.
Current Status: Casual alt

Torysa
Level 9 Orc Hunter
Server: Dark Iron (PvP)
Pets: None yet
Notes: My brother and a bunch of my friends all play Horde on Dark Iron. Pretty much as soon as I got the game, they ambushed me and got me to make a character there. I made a Blood Elf Paladin who I got to level 16 before giving up. I didn’t play on that server for a while but eventually they once again convinced me to try playing there again. I figured I would have the best shot at not giving up if I rolled a hunter, so… I did.
Current Status: Retired until further notice

Tawyne
Level 14 Tauren Hunter
Server: Dark Iron (PvP)
Pets: Charisma the Cat
Notes: See above but I decided I liked taurens more than orcs because I’m silly like that. Also I thought that putting an “e” at the end of my main’s name would inspire me to keep playing the character. Turns out I simply have a hard time playing on non-RP servers. Hey, you can’t say I didn’t try, at least!
Current Status: Retired until further notice

Dandyne
Level 13 Tauren Hunter
Server: Moon Guard (RP)
Pets: Unnamed Owl
Notes: This character actually started out on Silver Hand and then all my character slots on Silver Hand filled up and I wanted to make a new character there… so I transferred this hunter to Moon Guard because I heard the RP there is awesome and I wanted to check it out. (Yes, I paid $25 to transfer a level 13 character. Don’t laugh. I get attached, okay? >.>) I actually have hardly played this character since the transfer but I really want to at some point.
Current Status: On hold until I have more time

Kairyn
Level 2 Dwarf Hunter
Server: Drenden (PvE)
Pets: None Yet
Notes: The mandatory female dwarf hunter that I made to say hi to BRK. But then I chickened out and decided he probably didn’t want to be bothered so I failed to ever even whisper him. I simply stalk his blog now. /cough
Current Status: Retired until further notice

Lumendrys
Level 2 Blood Elf Hunter
Server: Drenden (PvE)
Pets: None Yet
Notes: So after chickening out, I figured so long as I was on the server I’d might as well make a new type of hunter that I’d never tried before. So I made a female blood elf hunter. I quit at level 2 for the most shallow reason in history. Ready for it? … the bow-firing animation drove me insane. I don’t know why. I can’t even remember what it looked like. All I remember is that I hated it. I am horrible, no? Anyways, I’m sort of feeling the urge to try making a male blood elf hunter next time. Because the guy blood elves are… kinda cute. (Pike, did you just pull the female version of “I play a girl night elf so I can look at a cute butt?” … yes. Yes I did. I am not afraid to admit it. =D)
Current Status: Retired until further notice

Lunapike
Level 47 Tauren Hunter
Server: The Venture Co. (RP-PvP)
Pets: Alyosha the Cat, Ivan the Windserpent, Dmitri the (insert current experimental pet here)
Notes: This character started out on Wildhammer, a PvP server where some of my friends and their awesome guild were. I got up to level 27 or 28 or so but as much as I was enjoying the Horde side of the storyline, I simply was not enjoying not being on an RP server. So the character was shelved for a little bit. Eventually the guild sort of imploded and most of its members went their separate ways and I took the opportunity to transfer to an RP-PvP server and I haven’t looked back. I love playing this character and she will be my second level 70.
Current Status: Horde Main/Main Alt

Pikewind
Level 4 Tauren Hunter
Server: Anvilmar (PvE)
Pets: None Yet
Notes: This character was made specifically to partake in a certain project brainstormed up by Ess. A bunch of us bloggers get together to hang out and level together. Unfortunately I am really really slacking here but… I’ll try to log on more!
Current Status: Heir to the throne of “I need to play this character more”

Shantizar the Second
Level 14 Troll Hunter
Server: Shadow Council (RP)
Pets: Niels (the) Boar
Notes: This is my Survival hunter. I’d like to think she’s the character I focus on most after Tawyn and Lunapike but really only time will tell because I just started her.
Current Status: Full-fledged Alt

Celaniya
Level 6 Draenei Hunter
Server: Maelstrom (RP-PvP)
Pets: None yet
Notes: This character was made for two reasons: firstly, I wanted to have at least one hunter of every race and I didn’t have a draenei yet, and secondly, now that I’ve played Horde on an RP-PvP server I decided it was time to give my birth faction (hehe) a shot on an RP-PvP server. Actually she had been hanging out at level 4 until very very recently, when I resurrected her because I know how to kite and jumpshot now (THANK YOU BRK!!! EVERYBODY GO WATCH HIS MOVIES GOGOGO) so pre-pet hunters are now surprisingly superfun.
Current Status: Unknown; hoping to develop her into a Casual Alt

Statistics:
12 of my 28 toons are hunters.
That means approximately 42.8% of characters that I make are hunters.
If you added up the levels of all my hunters and made them one entity, you would get one big level 209 hunter.
The average level of my hunters is: 17
The average level of my non-hunters is: 8

My five highest leveled characters are:
Tawyn (Level 70 hunter)
Lunapike (Level 47 hunter)
Ralaenia (Level 21 mage)
Katlaina (Level 16 hunter)/Aellindria (Level 16 paladin) (tied)

Paladin and mage are the only two non-hunter classes I have ever gotten to level 11 or higher.

…so, what do you guys think? Am I a little crazy? Obsessed? Not obsessed enough? …I like that last option.

Why don’t you come back in a few months and we’ll see how many more hunters I’ve created/leveled.

karazhan, screenshots, stories

And so it begins…

11 Comments

Finally got around to doing Black Morass and nabbing the vaunted key to Karazhan. We sort of waited around until we had a good-sized group of us in the guild who needed it, and today was one of the rare days lately where schedules didn’t clash and we had four of us who needed the key, so we grabbed a fifth person and off we went to what was overall a very smooth run of BM, free of any deaths or major problems. I was on “adds duty” and I got a lot of praise for my job as such, so I must’ve done better than I thought I would, which is always a plus!

Afterwards we all rushed off to Shattrath and then all the way back to Azeroth and Deadwind Pass to finally nab ourselves [The Master’s Key].

Now, you gotta understand something here. Of the five of us, three of us, myself included, had never once set foot inside Karazhan. The fourth had only been inside once and only for one boss, and the fifth had been inside multiple times but never before on this character or even character type (his two other characters are a warlock and a mage; this character is a holy pally.)

So what did we do?

We converted the group to a raid and went inside, of course.

(Insert screenshot here that I should have taken but completely forgot to! =P)

There were some level 71 elite horses that we decided to have some fun with because we were feeling a bit giddy. So that’s exactly what we did. Pulled some horses and disposed of them. I even chain-trapped one, which normally isn’t a big deal because I do that all the time but this is Kara, after all.

After a couple pulls we were sort of discussing it and came to the conclusion that the mobs so far seemed to be of a comparable difficulty level to the mobs in a Heroic. And as a guild, we’ve got a few Heroics under our collective belt.

So that’s when somebody said “Hey, let’s see if we can grab five other people and take the first boss.”

So there we were, with that carrot dangling in our faces, and it was as four of the five of us were drooling over the carrot when my boyfriend, who also happens to be the guild leader, spoke up. He said that he had made this guild and leveled up with this guild and become good friends with the people in this guild and he wanted his first Karazhan run to be a guild/good-friends-of-the-guild run. And at the time we certainly did not have enough people in the guild who would be ready to jump into Kara with us.

And we all sort of agreed and reluctantly pushed that tasty carrot aside and left Karazhan. For now.

See, lemme talk about my guild for a bit. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before in the past, but I’m gonna say it again. We have a pretty large guild, 120-something characters and 70+ accounts, and we are largely comprised of people who are newer to the game or who are at least new to getting a character to 70. These are people I leveled with. People who learned the game with me. People who have never done this end-game stuff before… just like me. We’re all in this together.

I know of a lot of people who are in some big huge guild and they get ushered through Karazhan by the big boys the day after they hit 70 and come out of the other end all shiny and geared. I’m not trying to say that’s a bad way to do it, but that’s not how I would want to do it. I like the fact that my guild and I are doing it the old fashioned way. A year behind, yes. But that’s not the point. We worked our way through the 50s and 60s doing instances together. We learned how to work together as a very unified team. We started doing some heroics and we have done very well on them, if I might say so myself, largely because we have that unity and experience with each other.

Most of us have never been in Karazhan before (except for today’s little tour of the entryway). We haven’t done end-game before. We don’t know what we’re doing. This is a big first for us. And it’s going to be hard and we’re going to get dirty and there is a lot of work ahead of us. And we are going to learn so much. And I can’t wait.

We have a lot of people in the guild who are in their 50s or 60s or who are 70 and still need to get geared/keyed. And we agreed that we are going to start concentrating on helping those people get ready. It might take a few weeks. It might take more than that. But we will do it, and then we will have more than enough people for a ten-man raid and we’ll trust each other and be able to work as a team because that’s how we’ve been doing it all along.

It sometimes amazes me how much of a role WoW has had in teaching me how to be a team player. We’re allowed to say this in job interviews, right? You know, when they ask you the inevitable “Tell me a story of when you had to work as a group” question. I can talk about WoW, right? I might get some funny looks, but hey…

guides

Puttin' Your Shoulder to the Wheel

7 Comments

So I’m sure most of us have been there: ahead of you, for as far as the eye can see, are approximately a million and a half elementals, ogres, or blood elves, and you’re there to destroy every last one of them (unless someone else gets to them first) as a way to grind rep, motes, cloth, or what-have-you.

Now I imagine different hunters have different approaches to this. There are a lot of people, I’m sure, who will send their pet in to a mob, pop Mend Pet and Autoshot, and then alt+tab to play Desktop Tower Defense or go make lunch or something. This is one of the beauties of being a hunter, and also one of the aspects of it that I have this tendency to avoid– not because it’s wrong, but because it’s just not exciting enough. So then you have hunters like yours truly who run up to every mob as though it were some raid boss that I’m trying to solo and go all out. Intimidate, Bestial Wrath, full-on Steady Shots and Kill Commands, trinkets, and… OHCRAPIGOTSAGGROAGAIN and OHCRAPI’MOUTOFMANAAGAIN.

This, friends, seems to happen to me more frequently than I’d like when I’m trying to grind. I’m not a very good learner apparently.

My co-host Illidan has a few words to say on this as well. Illy?

Yes, I know. /cry

Fortunately there is a way to strike a balance between auto-shot grinding and hardcore-hunter-mode grinding. Here’s how I do it:

Basically I focus on two things here: keeping aggro on the pet, and keeping your mana up. This ensures that you will hardly have any downtime and you will be able to get a lot done in a short amount of time.

– Aspect of the Viper. I’ll be honest; this one hurts and stings. Because I loooove me my Aspect of the Hawk. I love it much. But let’s face it: Viper is handy. It helps us regen mana, and it helps us so we don’t overpower the pet and grab aggro from him. It is my Aspect of Choice when grinding.

– [Power Infused Mushroom]. This is obtainable from an Underbog quest and it’s a very lovely grinding trinket. Basically it means that whenever you kill something that would yield experience or honor, you get 200 mana. 200 mana may not sound like much, but it adds up. I’ll usually swap out [Abacus of Violent Odds] for this thing, this further nerfs my attack power just a little bit which also helps to keep aggro on my pet, as Viper does.

– [Blackflight Arrows] are a lot cheaper than some of the better ammo which I usually like to carry around with me. They don’t do quite as much damage but again, that’s fine: your DPS does not matter when you are merely grinding for cash or rep. And again, aggro on the pet is good.

– [Sporeling Snacks]: Whether or not you want to use these is probably sort of dependent on how easy they are for you to make or obtain. For me, they pop up in the guild bank pretty frequently thanks to some of our crazy cooking fanatics so I usually have a nice supply. (And I do toss 10g or so into the bank anytime I take some– a tip, if you will.) More stamina and spirit on the pet means less downtime between mobs. You may opt for [Kibler’s Bits] instead if you have a pet that has a lot of armor/stam but needs a damage and threat boost.

– Using Intimidation and Bestial Wrath when they are available. I usually only use one at a time, per mob.

Well, that’s how I do it. That’s how I typically manage to maintain minimal downtime between mobs or aggro issues, while still being able to at least do some huntery stuff: Steady Shot + Kill Command is a very close friend of mine and I could never bring myself to shrug it off for Autoshot spam, even if it’s just grinding.

There are some things I’ll do to make the grind more fun or interesting; these include taking on more than one mob at once so I can practice chain trapping one while still focusing on the other, working on leveling a pet, using [Noggenfogger Elixirs] or [Dartol’s Rod of Transformation] (if you manually weave your shots as I do, it’s a heck of a fun challenge to try and do it without animations, as you will in furbolg form), and putting on music. I have no musical taste so I usually end up grinding to cheesy 90s electropop, and I love it. But do what works best for you.

…Hmm. I am feeling the urge to go play Desktop Tower Defense now. I used to be really good at that game, but then they changed it and added a bunch of new stuff and I turned into a jaded oldschooler who refuses to get with the program. Young whippersnappers!

…*goes to play it*