Category Archives: stories

raiding, stories, Uncategorized

The Fable of Karma and The Naxx PuG

35 Comments

pauldronsofhavoc They say every piece of loot has a story behind it, whether it be an exciting tale or a more mundane one. Let me tell you my latest story then…

I am sure most of you know by now that due to scheduling difficulties, I PuG a good portion of my raids. And PuGs are like that proverbial box of chocolates– you never quite know what you are going to get.

So I was sitting around in LFG last night, watching with a rather unamused expression as nobody seemed to be running Naxx. Finally, after several long minutes of running in circles around Stormwind, a glimmer of hope: “LF1DPS for a partially-cleared Naxx.”

Now one of the side effects of my PuGging tendencies is that I have seen most of the starter bosses of Naxx a dozen times, it’s just the last few that I have yet to see. (In my experience, the main thing that prevents most PuGs from getting to those last bosses isn’t so much issues with the group performance, so much as people having to leave and constantly having to stop and find more people, which drags raids on for far too long and makes them end early.) Anyways, I was 100% okay with not downing all the bosses as long as there was a small chance I would maybe get to see the bosses I’ve yet to see, so I tossed the person a quick whisper, and after being informed “Yay, you win!” I was invited to the raid.

They summoned me in. Right in front of Four Horsemen. Not a problem, Four Horsemen is one of those fights I have pretty much nailed by now in terms of strategy and I actually rather enjoy the fight. I looked around at the people I was raiding with, almost all of them were in the same guild. They had a camaraderie to them and seemed to just be having a good old time. Good, gooood, I thought. Shouldn’t be too painful.

The raid leader began explaining the fight via a strategy that sounded unusual to me, but I was up for it. We got into position, and pulled.

…I’m really not sure how to describe how bad the subsequent wipes were. They were racecars careening off of tracks and exploding in a mess of fire and metal on a wall somewhere. They were people slipping at the top of the stairs while holding a bowl of soup and tumbling all the way down, making a huge mess. They were wipes on a fantastic scale. Every time we started again, we would try a different strategy, eventually settling on “burn down Thane”.

…have you ever seen the debuff on one of the Four Horsemen go up to six? Yeah, I didn’t know it could get that high either.

I pulled up Recount for the first time after the third or fourth wipe. I was the only member of the raid doing above 2k DPS. My pet alone was outDPSing someone. And that was when I looked around at these people I was raiding with. They were in blues and maybe a heroic epic or two. This was their first night in Naxxramas. And yet there was something about them, something that I couldn’t pin down…

We tried again, and again. As always, everything ended up in some sort of spectacular wipefest. We had to have a repair break and after yet another wipe the resto druid, who was not in the guild and had been pulled in as a PuG not long after me, began to despair over Ventrilo. “I get online and hope to get into a Naxx group tonight and we’re not even going to down Four Horsemen!” It wasn’t even a complaint or an insult or anything, just a pure sheer cry of sadness and frustration. Inwardly I found myself agreeing with him. And yet…

I thought I saw something out of the corner of my mind’s eye. My subconscious looked up and saw him there; the Deity of WoW Karma, a creature just as powerful and pervasive in this World of Warcraft as Elune, if not moreso. He was giggling at me, and there in my mind he painted a picture…

…a picture of a young group of friends all in one guild, sitting in Deadwind Pass trying to fill up our first ever Karazhan group. All of us excited and so full of hope. We pulled in a few unsuspecting PuGs, and told them right before we went in that we’d never done this before. We downed Attumen, we downed Moroes, and then we hit this wall with Maiden. Couldn’t down her. Pulled the plug on the raid having only downed two bosses. One of the PuGs was really frustrated with us. “You’re all terrible, you’ll never down Maiden!”

And yet we did, the next time we went. And every time we went we got a little farther and every time we went we had one or two PuGs with us.

There were the two people who did Curator with us. We had no idea what we were doing. Sparks were everywhere and we wiped and wiped and wiped. Patiently those two people told us what to do, over and over, until finally we downed that thing.

There was the priest who fell in with our little group and raided with us solidly for about a month, coaching us through Shade of Aran and Illhoof before one day saying goodbye to us and going off to make his own raiding group.

WoW Karma showed me all of this; the memories vivid in my mind. Suddenly a voice from Ventrilo shook me out of my reverie. One of the people in this guild.

“Don’t say that. We will down Four Horsemen. We will,” she said, her voice firm.

There was no room in that voice for uncertainty. I believed her.

We marched back in there for the… seventh, eighth?… time, and we did it. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because that’s how many people in the group hadn’t done it yet and we had to do it that many times for everyone to finally get it (for those of you who don’t know, Naxx bosses are largely “gimmick-based”… most of them have some trick to them that you have to “get”.) It was long and it was strenuous and there were six debuffs on us at one or two points but somehow the tanks tanked through it and the healers healed through it and the DPS was DPS’ing their quest-blue-clad hearts out and I felt like Wash and I had never before DPS’d harder in our life trying to pick up the slack, and we downed Four Horsemen.

We opened the chest; out tumbled some shoulders for me. I won the roll for them with some exorbitantly high number that I didn’t need to roll because I was the only one who wanted them anyway, which meant that I had officially wasted my one good roll for the week. I made a comment on this and was met with good-natured giggles from Vent.

This was followed by wiping on gargoyles and the longest Noth the Plaguebringer battle of all time, and then everyone conveniently deciding to be tired and ready to call it when we were at Heigan’s doorstep (a tad disappointing, I had FRAPS ready and everything so I could try to make a “Teach Your Pet To Dance” movie.)

And so I sat there with sort of a confused look on my face, clutching my new shoulders and my lone two badges, still a little bewildered at what had just transpired.

“I’ve added you to my friends’ list,” said one of the guild members. One who had giggled at my terribly dorky jokes I tend to make in raids. I glanced up at WoW Karma. He nodded at me. I nodded back.

“Thank you,” I said, “And thanks for the group!” and then I took my two badges and my clear conscience, and hearthstoned away.

pets, screenshots, stories, Uncategorized

There Was One She Still Missed, Part Two

42 Comments

(Continued from Part One)

The Outland.

There were few that remained here now that most of the action was going on in Northrend. Oh, there were some armies still stationed here, and the younger adventurers cutting their teeth in this gods-forsaken land. But for the most part, there was nothing to be seen…

…except perhaps a bright pink raptor wreaking havoc on the moths in Terokkar Forest. And his subsequent containment by the Cenarion Expedition, who proceeded to bring the now caged creature to their main base of operations in Zangarmarsh.

“What do you make of this… creature?” Warden Hamoot asked Kameel, the Stable Master, as he gestured to the raptor furiously thrashing about behind bars. “He does not appear to be like anything else I have seen in this area…”

Kameel nodded. “He is native to the Wetlands in Azeroth,” he said in his deep voice. “How he got up here, I don’t know, but he does not belong here, and so long as he stays I do not think he will be happy.”

“Happy?” the Warden chuckled and lightly scratched his back with his mace. “When we found him he was terrorizing the creatures of Terokkar, they are the ones who only wish to be happy. But you are right, my friend, we must do what is best for this animal. There is a fear in his eyes, and I believe it may be driving him mad, if it hasn’t already. He should go back to the Wetlands.”

“The quickest way would be to take him to Shattrath and through the portal to the dwarves’ city, Ironforge,” replied Kameel. “From there, it would be a relatively short trip by cart to his native land.”

Warden Hamoot shuffled his hooves. He didn’t like using the portals, they relied too much on arcane magic in his eyes, and he was glad that this time he would have a good excuse to not have to use one. “Obviously you and I shall not be able to make the trip to the dwarves’ city, not with the Alliance and Horde still at odds as they are prone to be. You and I would clearly… raise a few eyebrows, so to speak, if we went. But one of our Night Elf colleagues, perhaps…?”

Kameel voiced his agreement and the two tauren went about deciding who the best representative would be as the raptor once again attacked the bars of his cage, letting out a shriek that sent the nearby sea birds soaring away.

—

“Tell that blasted thing to shut up!” the dwarf banged his gun against the bars of the cage, which only provoked the raptor further as the Night Elf druid escorting it tried to calm both of them down. “Why’d ya bring this thing ‘ere into Menethil Harbor anyway, boy? Couldn’t ya have just left it outside tha town?” the dwarf continued to thunder.

“I– I worry about being alone when I release it, just in case–”

“Bah, we could use less o’ those beasties around ‘ere anyway. I say we end the thing.”

A woman’s voice yelled something out in Dwarvish, and the dwarf yelled back “Dearie, ye can’t take away mah gun. It’s a dwarf’s solemn right to have a gun in one hand and an ale in the other–”

Simultaneously the woman snapped something back; the Cenarion escort said “Please, I’ll handle it,” and the raptor screeched out to the heavens as the curious Night Elf hunter approached. The boat from Northrend had landed and was soon to depart, but no commotion was going to take place without Tawyn’s investigation, whether or not she might miss the boat. A druid and a dwarf were rather feverishly discussing something, she observed, and in a cage was a brilliant magenta raptor…

He glanced at Tawyn. Tawyn blinked.

“…Wash?”

In an instant the raptor’s screeches took on a more pleading tone and Tawyn was at the cage. “Let him out. Let him out!” she roared, and it was somehow a bestial enough threat that the dwarf backed away and the druid fumbled at the lock without question.

The padlock fell away and the small crowd that had gathered tensed. The raptor, now quiet, slowly padded out of the cage, off the wooden cart, and up to Tawyn. The hunter reached down and gently stroked his head without a second thought. “What’s wrong, boy…?”

Still, he was silent. Tawyn stared searchingly into this eyes; there was pain therein. Not physical pain though– he had seen something. Something bad…

She thought about how she’d released him in the Outland. Perhaps, on second thought, not a good idea. So much chaos up there–

“You,” she looked at the druid. “What were you doing with him?”

“We– the Cenarion Expedition– found him far from his home, and he was not happy. We were simply bringing him home, to release him here. That is all. I hope I did not interfere with anything…”

“No,” Tawyn smiled thinly. “Thank you for thinking of what was best for him.” She looked down at the raptor. “You’re home now, and safe. Go on now.”

Wash stood his ground; clearly he wasn’t intending to go anywhere. There was still pain in his eyes, but something else too…

He wanted to help.

Tawyn realized what this meant, and nodded. Then she turned and headed towards the ship to Howling Fjord. Wash followed.

“Where are you going?” asked the druid.

“Northrend,” replied Tawyn.

“And why are you taking… him?”

“Because… we are partners.”

wow_tawynwashwetlands

And with that the hunter and her pet got onto the boat, and sailed away into the mists.

(The End!)

stories, Uncategorized

There Was One She Still Missed, Part One

18 Comments

There was one she still missed.

Tawyn had long felt a connection to the beasts of the world. In her childhood she would climb up the trees, barefoot, to sing with the birds; an attempt at flight had bruised her kneecaps but not her admiration. She crawled into bushes and out of them again, burrs stuck to her tousled hair, in pursuit of all manner of tiny crawling things, and there were some nights that she would howl at the moon like a wolf. Her parents had shaken their heads at it all and pondered aloud if she would maybe make a good druid, but the druids said she lacked the patience for the art, and thus she followed the path of her family and joined the school of the hunt.

Her training had gone well; while she lacked the eye of some of the more gifted sharpshooters she made up for it with her passion and her love for the whole idea of the bow and arrow. Still, to her, the most important part was the communion with the animals, and the seemingly magical gift that enabled a hunter to tame a wild companion of his or her choosing. This was how Tawyn had encountered Tux the owl, and later, Locke the tiger and Eltanin the windserpent as well. There were no words in either Darnassian or Common to describe what these beasts were in relation to Tawyn, suffice to say that like her gun, and her wits, they were an extension of herself.

And yet there was one other– forgotten? No…

For the months had stretched into years and through this time Tawyn had had “trial runs” of sorts with various creatures, who she would release back into the wild upon realizing that they simply were not right for each other. But there was one–

A fierce raptor from the Wetlands. Tawyn was captivated with them the first time she saw one, stepping gracefully through the reeds to ravage a crocolisk. To tame one would be to capture a summer thunderstorm in a bottle.

So she did.

She named him Wash after a great hero from stories she’d heard of faraway lands, and she knew right away that he was different.

Wash was headstrong and stubborn, and didn’t break easily. Tawyn would give him a command, and he would do the opposite. She wouldn’t give any commands and he’d run off and attack something. And yet there was something that made Tawyn unable to release the raptor, and something that made the raptor unable to run away in the night. A growing, begrudging kinship. For they each saw themselves in the other’s eyes.

A month passed and it became clear that as the battles became more fierce and Tawyn ventured to more dangerous lands, it would be imperative that she had the trustworthy and steadfast Tux by her side. And so it was that she took Wash to a nearby stable master that she knew, and entrusted him in her care. Wash fought and resisted but Tawyn promised she would be back.

And she was– many, many months later, when her fighting prowess had been much improved and she remembered the fiery little raptor from the Wetlands. It wasn’t fair of her to keep him captive like that when she had other pets at this point. She had been putting it off, selfishly perhaps, but she knew the right thing had to be done.

Thus Tawyn took Wash far away, to a beautiful clear river in Nagrand. He was happy to be out and about, and cavorted around with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. But when they reached the river Tawyn gave him a pat and said “You’ll be happy here… there’s lots of room for you to roam around”…

…and then she released him.

Wash blinked and gave the night elf a quick indecipherable look, and then he was gone, off among the grasses and trees somewhere.

Tawyn watched him go.

—

The hunter glanced around the fire. Tux was perched on a log, Locke and Eltanin were curled up on the ground by her feet. They appeared to be asleep, though each was actually opening an eye every so often and scanning the surroundings. Tawyn reached down and gently scratched Locke behind an ear, and his subsequent growl of contentment made her smile.

But there was one she still missed.

(To Be Continued!)

classic wow, screenshots, stories

The Classics Never Die…

22 Comments

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…

wow_althalordeadmines2

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?

wow_althalordeadmines3

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?

wow_althalordeadmines4

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…

wow_althalordeadmines5

wow_althalordeadmines6

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.

wow_althalordeadmines7

screenshots, stories

Took a Ride Into the Danger Zone

16 Comments

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?

pets, screenshots, stories, Uncategorized

The Legend of Chakapas

4 Comments

Once upon a time there was a great hunter named Chakapas who, after having shown his hunting prowess by trapping every living creature on the earth, chose to go after the greatest prey he could think of: the moon. Chakapas ensnared the moon with a rope so tight that it had an unwelcome and unforseen side effect: the moon could not rise at night anymore, so nights remained dark– too dark for people to travel or do much of anything by night.

The people came to Chakapas and told him of their dilemma, and he immediately agreed to let the moon go, but the mighty hunter soon found that he could not undo his own trap, and the moon remained firmly stuck.

He asked the animals of the forest for help and they agreed to do what they could, one by one heading to the moon and one by one failing and coming back because the moon’s light was too brilliant and too hot. Finally, the smallest animal– the Least Mouse– asked for a try. Bravely he wandered up to the ensnared moon and chewed through the rope. It took a long time and he had to withstand great amounts of light and heat– so hot that it singed his belly, leaving it a lighter color than the rest of his fur. But he succeeded where the other animals could not, and the moon once again rose to take its place in the night sky.

As for Chakapas, no one is quite sure where he went in search of his next great hunt. But it is said that you can still see his shadow cast against the moon…

–Cree Legend, as retold by Pike

I’m pretty sure the Least Mouse is supposed to be the hero of the story but leave it to me to empathize with the hapless but determined hunter.

Gotta say though, you guys are GOOD at coming up with pet names. Some of your suggestions were unbelievably tempting and I spent a good few hours musing them over. In the end, though, my decision was made when I stumbled across this story.

<3'cha all and have a great weekend!

pets, screenshots, specs, stories

Okay, Pike's Gonna Sit You Down

11 Comments

And tell you a little story to make a point.

With all my spec testing lately and my latest entry on how my “relationship” to my pet, playstyle-wise, varied according to spec, I fear I may have accidentally given off some false impressions. So, I’m gonna clarify.

There are hunters of all specs who love their pets.

There are also hunters of all specs who really don’t care very much either way. This includes some BM hunters who are BM only for the numbers, for example.

The point that I was trying to make in my last post, is that I missed the feeling of splitting my damage with my pet. I missed knowing he was doing 35% of my DPS. It felt awkward knowing that the damage responsibility was basically squarely on my shoulders. It felt lonely to me.

When I say that, I am not at all trying to discredit the relationship you lovely MM and SV hunters have with your pets, or say that they aren’t important.

Tawyn was my first ever character and she was Marksmanship until level 55-ish.

The reason is because I had no idea what I was doing or what a spec was. So I asked my friends what to do with these newfangled talent points. At this point I’d actually started putting points into BM already but two different people completely mocked the idea of me spec’ing BM and told me Marksman was the way to go, so I promptly changed course and followed their advice.


Up I went through that talent tree and my owl Tux was there the entire way. He was my feathery little pocket tank. He was my leveling buddy. He didn’t dish out a lot of damage but he held aggro like a champ. I loved him dearly. I loved him just as much then, as a Marksman hunter, as I do now as a Beast Master hunter.

Really though, I was hungrily eyeing the Beast Mastery tree the entire time I was leveling. Heck, I went off and made Lunapike so I could have a BM hunter that my friends didn’t have to know about. There is a reason why I gave her a red kitty pet, aside from the fact that I think they’re cute. It was a conscious, symbolic choice because Lunapike was going to be my BM hunter.


That Little Red Kitty is level 70 now, by the way.

Anyways, back to Tawyn. I finally said “Ya know what, screw everybody else. I don’t care if they’re going to call me a noob now. I’m respec’ing.” So I did, and I’d like to say that I didn’t look back.

…except I did look back, once. Because it sort of scared me at first. Tux went from being my pocket tank to being this Big Red Owl of Doom. He was doing as much DPS as I was at the time, if not more. “I’ve created a monster!” I thought. I spent about a level as BM and then spec’d back to my Marksman safety zone. Tux went back to being my mild-mannered companion. All was well.

Then I started to miss the whole “fast and furious” playstyle of BM and the idea that Tux could be more than just my tanky friend. We could fight alongside each other, each doing equal damage. We could be unstoppable, together.

Together we went through the Dark Portal and stepped into Outlands and that is when I spec’d to Beast Mastery for good and since then I haven’t looked back. I wouldn’t have it any other way at this point. We fight together. He isn’t just there to keep the mobs away from me. He is there to buff me with his Ferocious Inspiration so I can in turn buff him with Kill Commands and tons of Focus, and we both act as an elegant killing machine, as One.

I have a special relationship with my pets as a Beast Master hunter. But that doesn’t mean I love them any more than I did when I was Marksman. That doesn’t mean I don’t value them any more than I did when I was Marksman (although in a gameplay sense, obviously you do have to value them somewhat more =P)

When I was experimenting with non-BM specs in Beta, I felt a certain detachment to my pets in terms of there not being nearly so much hunter/pet synthesis (one procs something for the other) and the reason I was forgetting Mend Pet is probably largely because I was busy trying to work out new rotations. Anyways, that is what I missed about being BM. I missed the hunter/pet synthesis. I didn’t love the pets any less just because I shuffled talent points around. That would be silly.

So! That is your Pike-story for the day. Hunters everywhere love their pets, and that is the way it should be. Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, as always, for your comments and support and I will see you all next time.

pvp, screenshots, stories

The Fable of the Gnome Rogue

16 Comments

The Tauren Hunter was merrily bounding into the Silverwing base in Warsong Gulch; she had been enjoying these player-verses-player excursions lately and was rather fond of her 25,000 honor that she had stockpiled for when she would hit 70 in a couple more levels and would need a nice set of war gear to go with her set of standard adventuring gear. She made it to the roof of the enemy building when suddenly she was jumped upon! By a very persistent gnome rogue.

Now, the tauren knew that many of her fellow hunters dislike the rogue because they are very good at taking away that which hunters prize most: space. However, she has an odd knack for managing to catch rogues before they catch her, and even when they do catch her first she has a knack for wriggling her way out of their grasp, so at first she wasn’t afraid. She directed her trusty red lynx to Intimidate the rogue, during which time she laid down an Immolation Trap and got a little bit of range and then hit him with a Serpent Sting.

He was soon on top of her again though, and sadly his first initial strikes had taken a critical toll so she was down on her luck right from the start. Still, they tussled for a bit, before the hunter’s health ran low and she collapsed to the ground.

She did not release her spirit though, for the rogue was himself weak, and he was still burning from the Immolation Trap and still feeling the ache of the Serpent Sting…

He saw her watching him, so he targeted her and /laughed.

Then, smugly, he started to bandage himself.

Serpent Sting removed the bandage effect.

The gnome’s eyes widened. They say in this world of pixels and polygons, facial expressions cannot change. I swear to the Earthmother, though, that his eyes widened as he came to a sudden realization.

The last tick of the Serpent Sting went off and he fell to the floor.

They lay there for a few seconds, simply targeting each other. Then, when the tauren hunter was sure her message had clearly been sent across, she calmly released to the graveyard.

The moral of the story, oh best beloved…

…is do not /laugh at a hunter, for they have a disturbing tendency to have the last /laugh. Or the last /giggle, anyways.

server types, stories

Pay It Forward

11 Comments

I’ve lately been playing my hordie hunter Lunapike quite a bit. She resides on an RP-PvP server, as opposed to Tawyn who is on a regular RP server, so seeing the game from the PvP-server side of things has been a bit of an adventure. I’ve been ganked by the obligatory level ??s who have nothing better to do, and I’ve reciprocated by raiding Southshore. I’ve learned to be wary upon seeing corpses of mobs laying around– might be the other faction, after all– and I’ve learned to rely oh so heavily on Track Humanoids. (Hunters have it easy here, I think.)

I have had to put up with not being able to go to Halaa to buy my arrows because the other faction has it, and I’ve rejoiced when we’ve put together a raid to take it back. (By contrast, on Silver Hand, Alliance controls Halaa about 99% of the time… so I never had to worry about it. Though in all honesty, VeCo Horde has it a bit better than VeCo Alliance in World PvP I think. Us hordies probably have it about 75% of the time when I’ve been there.)

I read once on the WoW website that, lore and RP-wise, Blizzard considers PvE and PvP servers to sort of be differing dimensions of the same point in history: PvE servers are where Horde and Alliance have established an uneasy truce, and PvP servers are where they are still actively at war. This, I have found, brings some depth to roleplay (nothing like getting demolished by a night elf druid after you have just killed a beast that is important to night elf druid lore) and offers a fun twist on a world that you have perhaps already explored PvE-wise… and makes for some interesting stories.

This particular story takes place in Blade’s Edge Mountains. I was doing a semi-long questline that involved putting on a gas mask, talking to a projection, killing some demons, gathering keys, and powering up some big obelisks. As I headed off to do the first step, an Alliance Shadow Priest, only one level lower than me, showed up at pretty much the same time.

She saw me and hesitated for a bit, trying to size up whether or not I would attack her, I imagine. I tend not to attack people first, though, unless they are being annoying in some way, so I went right past her and started attacking the mobs I needed. She did too. We stayed far clear of each other, each of us keeping a wary eye on the other as we turned in our first step in the quest chain.

Off we went to do the second step. About partway through, I noticed that one of my mobs had some DoTs on it… DoTs that weren’t mine. Shadow Priest had opted to make the first move and establish herself as “friendly”. So I reciprocated a few minutes later when she seemed to bite off more than she could chew and I helped whack the extra mobs off of her.

Still, we remained silent to each other. I have seen it happen in the past; people who do something to assert themselves as “friendly” and then conveniently change their mind shortly later. Despite that, I was getting good vibes from her, so we continued questing.

Then came the final part of the chain, where you used keys to activate five obelisks. Only one person can do this at a time and Shadow Priest got there first. One by one she activated them and I stood by and watched, waiting for my turn.

And what did activating those obelisks do? Summon a level 68 elite.

Shadow Priest was level 66. And alone. Well, alone except for…

She turned and saw that I was standing there watching. I like to think that we somehow communicated something there. Some sort of nonverbal and nonemote “nod”. She charged in.

After she got in the first hit I sent in my pet and away the two of us went at the thing. It was a long and hard fight and by the end of it, Shadow Priest was literally down to 3% health, but we did it.

She turned to me and /bowed, our first real communication, and I /bowed back. Then she sat to eat and drink while I went off to activate the obelisks myself. And on cue, the level 68 elite showed up.

I sent in my pet and started my attack. Shadow Priest was right there, tossing DoTs on it after I’d tagged it. This particular elite hits hard and my Mend Pet really wasn’t cutting it, but with aggro constantly bouncing back and forth between my pet and Shadow Priest, we somehow managed to do it. Like last time, it had been a close one, and my pet did die in the final few seconds. But, we’d done it.

Afterwards we /cheered at each other. Then she Mind Controlled me and gave me Power Word: Fortitude.

We went on our separate ways, having completed the quest.

Flash forward about an hour later and I was doing a different quest in a different part of the zone. Somehow I’d wound up with more mobs than I could take on top of me. I ran into a tunnel hoping to shake them off, only to unwittingly run into more. I was bracing myself for the final blows when suddenly the mobs were all feared. Feared?

I turned around. Shadow Priest to the rescue! It took a while but we managed to take down all the mobs. I /cheered at her again and she Mind Controlled me again and gave me Fort again before we parted ways.

Later I Armory’d her and found out that she has over twice as many honor kills as I do, and I have a lot– clearly she’s no “care bear”. Clearly she likes her PvP, as do I. But while a wise man once said “It’s easy to forget what a sin is in the middle of a battlefield”, you also never know what sorts of crazy alliances with kindred spirits you’ll make.

And I salute ya for that, Syphrilia of VeCo. /salute

pvp, stories

Humble Pie

12 Comments

Today I got owned by a blood elf hunter. Twice.

Granted, she had a druid with her. But I had a T6 rogue with me. And later, a mage with me too.

The story? One of my good friends leveled a hunter to ten and asked what sort of pet she could get that wasn’t seen every day. I suggested the cute red Springpaw Stalkers in Eversong Woods; it’s certainly not every day you see a level 10 draenei hunter with one of those, afterall!

So we pulled together a group of buddies, nabbed a warlock, and us level 70s flew to Zul’Aman and headed into the heart of Blood Elf country.

T6 rogue (a heck of a good one, too) got there first, and I’m not exactly sure how it happened but somehow he got in a spar with a druid and a hunter. I dashed into the fray; determined to save him since his health was dropping quickly, and targeted the hunter.

I pulled out all my usual tricks that I do against fellow hunters; you know, the ones that ensure that I almost never lose against other hunters, as I like to say. And yet somehow they all failed miserably and I was laying rather embarrassingly on the ground before I could think.

Our magey friend showed up and quickly died as well, so the three of us– rogue, mage, and hunter, decided to rez all at the same time, dispatch of the healy druid, and then proceed to the hunter.

That failed too, we did manage to kill the druid but he rez’d within two seconds and we were all dead again. Dang.

Well by this time more horde 70s were starting to show up, and it was painfully obvious that they were all PvP geared and we were sporting our PvE duds, so we all just sat around in ghost form and waited to deflag before rezzing. We did so, our Warlock pal showed up, we located a Springpaw Stalker and summoned our lowbie hunter friend who proceeded to tame herself a new kitty.

The curious horde showed up about now, all gathered around the unusual bunch that we were, so I /pointed at lowbie hunter and /pointed at her new cat, and /nodded. Blood Elf Hunter /cheered.

Afterwards I logged into a hordie and sent her an in-game mail telling her I’d enjoyed our spar (but she should catch me in my PvP gear next time, I added cheekily) and wished her hunt’s luck.

We hunters, we’ve gotta stick together.