“Go, and sin no more.”
Category Archives: screenshots
Nerf me harder, Blizz. I dare ya.
And yeah, I was edged out by an elemental shaman. But seeing as he was in almost all epics, and I’m in mostly blues and a Shade of Aran cloak, I’m not too upset about my performance. =P
Oh and lemme post the first pull, ’cause it makes me giggle:
Now, the point of this post is not to claim astronomical DPS like the screenshots I’ve seen of epic’d out min/maxers doing 6000+ on Patchwerk. I’ve never gotten near that, and I don’t think I ever will. So, I can’t vouch for DPS changes in the Elitist Jerks croud, who are probably going to be more affected by scaling. But, I’d like to think I can vouch for the I-PuG-Raids-When-My-Schedule-Allows Crowd, and I don’t think we have anything to worry about, at least not for the time being. More testing may need to be done, true, but I feel pretty reassured for now.
Beast Mastery is not dead, my friends. Carry on!
The Pikey Bunch
When I posted a picture of my servers on my last post, I got a lot of comments about how I have a lot of toons. This is something that really hadn’t occurred to me because it doesn’t feel like I have that many characters, because I don’t actively play many of them. Observe:
Silver Hand (10) – I have ten characters on this server, and only five that I ever log into. One is Tawyn, one is Tamaryn, one is my bank alt, one is my mote bank alt, and one is my Death Knight. Characters posted in order of frequency that I log into them (my poor DK is neglected these days). Those other five characters… I have a hard time remembering who they are, much less logging into them >.>
The Venture Co. (8) – I have eight characters on this server. Now actually, this server sort of ends up being my “experimental alts” server so I think overall I’m more active with alts on this one than on Silver Hand. Not all eight of them, though, there are a couple characters here who I rarely touch, and Lunapike and Althalor (both hunters) and Songlark (my other resto druid… what? >.>) are the only ones above level 20.
Dark Iron (3) – This is the server that a lot of my family and IRL friends play on. So I’ve had characters on there almost from the beginning. Here’s the thing: it’s not an RP server. As such, I have a heck of a hard time playing there. It’s not even that I “miss” the RP, because I don’t do a lot of RP myself. It’s that the whole atmosphere just feels different in a way I can’t get used to =(
Regardless, I have a level 16 blood elf paladin on this server who I haven’t touched in over a year. I also have two hunters who are levels… I dunno, 9 and 12 respectively, I think. Who also haven’t been touched in over a year. They’re still sitting there out of… well I’m not sure why they’re still there. I have already informed aforementioned friends and family that if I ever decide to go play with them it will probably be through transferring Lunapike over, so maybe it’s finally time to release these characters into the nether.
Thunderlord (2) – I have a couple of sub-10 characters here. They haven’t been touched in months. More family members play on this server, but sadly it suffers from NonRPitis like Dark Iron does and I can’t get into it. Next!
Cenarion Circle (2) – This one is actually interesting, the two characters here are level 1. One is from some random BRK event a long time ago and one is a replica of Tawyn when I wanted to try my hand at machinima. Decided I failed at machinima and haven’t touched the character since. Not sure why these characters are still around actually >.>
Twisting Nether (2) – Ah yes, this server. My boyfriend and I have been casually leveling two gnome mages together. We got busy and haven’t logged in for a few months. We should probably do that again. >.> The second character on the server is a level 2 hunter who I never play.
Drenden (2) – I have a level 2 blood elf hunter here who now that I think about it should probably be deleted, and a level 12-ish dwarf hunter who… I need to log into more. Forgive me, Ratshag and BRK! /grovels
Wildhammer (2) – This server has a bit of a story behind it– the same friend that got me and my boyfriend playing WoW on the first place (and stuck us both on Silver Hand, actually), also had Horde characters on this server, and a really fun guild. So, one of the first characters I made in all of WoW was a troll warrior named Lunakuti, partially because it sounded trollie, and partially because my character had tusks like Luna from Dominic Deegan. Then I realized that I missed behing a hunter. A lot. A lot a lot. So I rolled a new character, named Lunapike, as an homage to my first failed attempt on this server. I liked Lunapike a lot and played her until level 22 or 23 or so, at which point the guild sort of imploded and I diagnosed the server with having an acute case of the dreaded NoRP Flu, so I transferred to The Venture Co. The rest is history =P
That aforementioned troll warrior and a random troll priest are still on that server, having not been touched in over a year. I find it hard to delete the warrior, if only because she wound up being the roundabout inspiration for Lunapike. I’m kind of a sap.
Moon Guard (2) – This is supposedly the world’s biggest RP mecca and I wanted to check it out, so I have an Alliance and Horde character here. Now maybe it’s because the characters are low level or maybe because I was checking out the wrong spots (Thunder Bluff is understandable but Stormwind? And I had to walk through freaking Goldshire to get there?), but I didn’t see any of this mythical RP going on. Sometimes I think I should go back and take a second look but the server is always locked these days, so…
Sisters of Elune (1) – This is the server where my boyfriend and I were doing our Grand Switcheroo project– he rolled a hunter and I rolled a warlock. They’re both sitting at level 10, and have been for quite some time. I feel really bad, but… I have such a hard time getting into warlocks. I try so hard, too. For my latest attempt, I decided to make a “hot blood elf guy ‘lock” (my term /cough) and it sort of is helping a little. Why yes, I am kind of a sad person. =P
Shadow Council (1) – I have a level 18ish troll Survival hunter on this realm who I play once every month or so because Shadow Council has this weird tendency to be the only server up when all my other ones are down. If that keeps up this character might actually be a decent level someday. o.O
Maelstrom (1) – I sat down and said “I AM GOING TO LEVEL A DRAENEI PAST LEVEL 10 FOR ONCE” and the result is a lonely level 6 draenei hunter on this random server. As you can see that little project isn’t progressing very well, but maybe someday?
And that’s that. I’ve deleted several through the ages too, but now that I look at it, I may have to go through and make yet another clean sweep. I mean, it’s a new year, Spring Cleaning and all, right? Though I always feel a little bad about deleting characters. Am I the only one who’s a character packrat? =P
In other news, I feel obligated to inform you all that my WoW subscription expired yesterday and I am not going to resubscribe right away. Not out of lack of interest in the game at all, no, but because I have a lot of stuff going on in the Real World right now that requires my attention (and money) and I want to make sure I have that all cleared up before jumping into the Warcraft World again. I don’t anticipate the game downtime being that long and I’m pretty sure I’ll still be blogging, so don’t panic! I just wanted to update you all on the situation. *nods*
*knocks on wood*
As longtime readers know, my two main servers are Silver Hand (my Alliance server), and The Venture Co. (my Horde server). Basically 98% of my total playtime is on one of those two servers and I’m pretty content with them.
…and these past few days, I’ve been reaaaally content with them. >.>
*hopes she doesn’t jinx her luck*
The Classics Never Die…
I had a few post ideas for today. I thought of writing about bad PuGs, I thought of writing about my thoughts on certain talent specs, and I really really wanted an excuse to post a screenshot I snagged of my new current DPS high score (yay Patchwerk!). But in the end I decided that today I am going to write about…
Yes. Deadmines.
You see, in my mind, there is very little else out there that will test a young hunter’s mettle like solo’ing Deadmines in your mid-30s. You may think I am joking, until you try it. It will force you to learn about things like aggro management (keeping multiple mobs on your pet, with limited means), rudimentary freeze trapping, and pulling off crazy techniques you won’t do in most “civilized” instances anymore, like tossing around Immolation Traps to get more damage going, or Mongoose Biting that pesky parrot nipping at your ankles. It even teaches you about mana management, for really, what hunter has mp5 or more than a shallow puddle of Intellect at level 36?
Ever been into the Goblin Foundry? If one of those goblins runs off you’re pretty much screwed by all the millions of mobs sitting at the bottom. You have to pull your mobs carefully and you have to be sure they don’t run away.
Ever taken on Mr. Smite and his nasty stun (“You landlubbers are tougher than I thought!”) and his rogue buddies that come out of nowhere? Lemme rephrase that; ever done it with only 1500 HP?
And how about Edwin VanCleef himself and his rogue buddies?
Way back in the day when I was leveling my first character, Tawyn, I was quite fanatical about solo’ing Deadmines. It started out when I was level 26 or 27 or so and I was tired of being in bad groups for the place, so Tux and I decided we’d solo it. I don’t think we could quite beat the first boss. But we kept going back every couple of levels. It became a regular routine. Every time, we would get a little closer. Finally it happened at level 41: Deadmines, solo’d. (I skipped trying at level 40, I was having too much fun running around Stranglethorn on my mount. This was back before that northern flight point and the mount was a godsend, lemme tell ya.)
Since then, it has become a little challenge for me to try to lower that “high score”. Lunapike solo’d the place at 38. Tamaryn, in temporary boomkin guise, did it at 40. And today…
Althalor did it at 36, with his level 35 moth Chakapas.
Now to be fair, it felt a little easier this time than it has for me in the past. I think it’s probably mostly due to having Aspect of the Viper, since there are really no other major spec or ability differences that I can think of at that level. Still– a new personal record. One to be challenged by whoever my next up’n’coming hunter is.
I often think that in this world of raiding and heroics where we’ve got someone else to tank for us and someone else to heal for us, and often someone else to do the crowd control for us, we get locked into one mode of playing. That’s why I believe it’s important sometimes to go back to the basics and get a little unconventional and experimental and hone your lesser used skills and really dig deep into your class in a way that a lot of others do not. Many people may say the lessons you learn from such a thing don’t help you much in an end-game situation, me, I think they do. You can never know too much about your chosen class. But the only way to decide for yourself is to try it… I think you just may be surprised.
Aces High!: A Quick Guide
Okay so this isn’t exactly hunter related, but I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how much they hate this daily quest and since it’s one of my favorite dailies ever, I figured I’d let you guys in on my secret.
For starters, Aces High! is a quest and subsequent daily quest that becomes available to you at level 80. It’s in Coldarra and you need a flying mount to get up to where the quest giver is. This quest is basically about flying around on a dragon and shooting fireballs at other dragons.
“Oh that’s easy”, you may be thinking by now. “I’ve done that Defending Wyrmrest Temple a million times. This’ll be cake.”
Yeah, if you’re anything like me, you’re in for a very unpleasant surprise followed by vowing to never do this quest again.
See, the mechanics of this one are very different. Fortunately once you get the hang of it, as I finally did, it’s not that bad and actually becomes pretty fun.
This quest is very much based on HoTs, DoTs, and stacking them to open up and power up other moves. But you can pretty easily work yourself into a little rhythm to ensure you have little to no issues. Here’s how:
Your action bar will look something like this:
The first button is going to be your bread’n’butter Fireball move (called Flame Spike) that you have to stack to unleash…
The second button which you will use at the end of your Fireball stacking.
The third button is your HoT which you will want to stack on yourself throughout the duration of the fight.
The fourth button is a big heal which requires combo points done by your Fireball. I only use it in an emergency (and I usually don’t have to use it at all.)
The fifth button is a protective shield which you will be using sometimes when the dragon you are fighting does a certain move. You need combo points from your Fireball to use it. More on that later.
And the sixth button increases your speed and I only use it if I’m outnumbered and need to escape.
Before we begin, you will want to go into the interface menu and enable “Auto Self Cast”. This will make your life five million times easier. Yes yes, I know, I have an addon that lets me right click to self cast too. But it probably won’t work with this one. In fact, a lot of addons interfere with this quest, so be on the lookout.
And now we’re ready to begin!
The first thing I do is stack about five HoTs on myself. Just hit ‘3’ on your keyboard five times. While you’re doing this you can be flying around to find a dragon to fight, try to find one sort of on the edge so you don’t have to go into a big group of them.
Found a dragon? Tag him by pressing ‘1’. Now press it three or four more times (to stack it up), and then hit ‘2’ to trigger your big DoT. Then hit ‘3’ five times again to stack up your HoT again, and… that is how you do it. 3-3-3-3-3-1-1-1-1-2-repeat!
There is one other thing you have to look out for which I alluded to before. Sometimes the dragon is going to start doing a move called “Arcane Surge”. This move does a LOT of damage. Keep a careful eye on his portrait and when you see him start to cast it, toss up a few Fireballs (if you haven’t already) to get a combo chain started and then hit ‘5’ or press the appropriate button on the action bar. It will “bubble” you for a few seconds depending on how many Fireballs you had up. Typically I’m doing my spell rotation with my keyboard while I have my hand on the mouse hovering over that Flame Shield button so I can hit it quickly.
Beyond that, just use your big heal in the event of an emergency or your dash if you get outnumbered, and you should be good to go! This quest will give you 250 rep with Wyrmrest Accord every day and also give you lots of practice for the Malygos fight which will include a phase where you are riding a dragon and the controls are identical to the controls in this daily. So as you can see, if you are a raider, then practicing this quest a couple times is pretty much a “must”. Really it’s pretty easy once you figure it out and honestly I think it’s a ton of fun and I look forward to it every day because I’m a dork.
Okay, that’s all for now. I ding’d 25 today in real life, sadly this means I have no new skills to train but maybe I’ll get to open up a treasure box or two. Epics ahoy!
Dailies Pay
Aside from things like gold, and rep, there are all sorts of fun shinies to be had. Such as…
Pengu, the cutest minipet ever, who has happily decided to satiate my inner Linux geek. All hail the penguin! He comes from being exalted with the Kalu’ak.
Oh and…
[Reins of the White Polar Bear], which I got after completing a daily quest for the Brunnhildar in Storm Peaks today. It is apparently a random rare drop from the bags of Hyldnir Spoils which you get for doing their quests. The funny thing is, while I’d heard about the Polar Bear at some point, I’d mostly forgotten about it; I was doing the quests cause I liked them better than most of the Sons of Hodir ones to the east. So I was very pleasantly surprised indeed to open up my bag and find a bear inside! He is smaller than all other bear mounts (whether intentionally or unintentionally) but I kind of like him that way. It’s cute. And goes with my minipet.
Now I just have to finish getting Exalted with Wyrmrest for my Red Drake. I’m already about 35% through Revered and Heroics give you rep at a ridiculous clip if you’ve got the Tabard, so hopefully it won’t be too much longer. Then, my little cycle of shinies will be complete (for now) and I can start working on, you know, rep for gear and other less important stuff. >.>
*clears throat*
Forget Level 80.
This one‘s better:
Heck yeah.
D’awww!
And for the not-so-minipet-inclined, have a screenshot that was taken in live game with no graphical glitches or anything. It’s an actual place and camera angle you can get– fairly easily, too, if you have an “I wonder if you can go in there” type of mind. Any crazy guesses or need me to drop hints? =P
(Oh, and in case anyone’s curious… I’ll be dinging 79 tomorrow. Go go Aspect of the Tortoise!)
Took a Ride Into the Danger Zone
So I healed an Underbog on my druid today, since I’ve been trying to do one instance or so a week with her, just for kicks. There was a level 64ish hunter in the group.
…I bet you all think you know where this is going, right? Some sort of disaster story about this hunter?
Well you would be quite wrong! For this hunter had a very solid spec and shot rotation. Pet on passive with growl off. Eager to trap if necessary (though it wasn’t). I told him it was really nice to see a PuG’d hunter who knew what he was doing. He informed me that he also had a level 70 horde hunter and that he loved the class.
A. Kindred. Spirit!
So we basically spent the entire instance talking about hunters. It didn’t help that two of the other people in the group also had level 70 hunter characters and seemed to have a decent grasp of them as well. I never woulda expected a hunter theorycrafting discussion in Normal Underbog, but there you go. It was really refreshing and honestly I think that the odds that it are gonna happen again are pretty low, so it was fun while it lasted.
We wound up running Slave Pens after Underbog and I got a level on the tree, but honestly the discussion reeeally had me itching to play my hunter. So that’s what I spent the rest of the day doing. Ended up with this fabulous prize:
Yes, that’s right, Tawyn is 77 and the flyer is back! I have to admit though, unlike 99% of the WoW population, I wasn’t really dying to get flying back. There was something really charming and fun to me about hoofing it old-school-style. But in the end the flyer was an obvious upgrade choice. Firstly, the last zones are much more geared towards you having it. Secondly, having your own flying mount saves you a bunch of money that would otherwise go to flight paths. And thirdly, when everybody else has a flyer and you don’t… things are tough. It really sucks to be heading towards that Wolvar Pup and have somebody drop out of the sky and grab it and fly off again*. So in the end I am glad have my wings back.
* The day I hit exalted with the Kalu’ak and can get my pengiun pet is the day I do that quest for the last time and never do it again. Ever. And yes, I need the penguin pet. Linux geek, remember?