Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hooked

May 17, 2009 Pike 19 Comments

I don’t know if I will ever quite forget that first odd feeling, nor can I still really compare it to anything else.

Lemme explain what I’m talking about.

There I was, level ten, on the trial version of WoW. I had little clue what I was doing. I was merrily questing in Elwynn Forest since a friend dragged me there from Teldrassil at the tender level of six. I’d kept my hearthstone set to Teldrassil in case I ever needed to return there in an emergency, because I knew I’d never figure out how to get back otherwise. So there I was, questing away and picking flowers because I trained in herbalism specifically to give my boyfriend a Peacebloom. (Yes, that is the honest-to-gosh reason behind what is still one of my professions.)

So there I was going around Raptor Striking things and having a grand ol’ time when suddenly I hit level ten and was informed by the hunter trainer that I was to return to NightElfLand to get my pet.

I was scared to death that if I went back there, I’d never be able to find my way back, but I really wanted a pet, so I took a last look around at Elwynn Forest and then used my Hearthstone.

Several hours later, having spent hours doing the pet quests and scouring the archives of the first WoW site I ever visited– Petopia— before settling on taming an owl, Tux and I were ready to head back. There we went, taking the boat and schlogging through the Wetlands and finally ending up in Thelsamar where I (finally) remembered about this strange concept called “Flight Points” and proceeded to fly back to Stormwind.

That feeling of flying over the waterfall from Burning Steppes into Elwynn is what I haven’t forgotten. It was a feeling of relief, but more than that– it was homecoming. I was very struck by this odd feeling. No video game yet had given me a similar feeling, and I’d played hundreds of them. Some of them I had loved dearly and felt very immersed in. But none of them made me feel like I was coming home when I entered a zone. This one did.

That’s when I knew that I wouldn’t just be playing the free trial.

That’s also when Tawyn’s character really started to materialize and when I knew I’d be happy on my RP server, despite my initial misgivings. Tawyn who felt more at home among the humans than among her own people. Tawyn who was good friends with the inhabitants of the dwarven district, who prefers guns to bows and who has never in her life owned a saber mount because she has always ridden horses (or mechanostriders, or polar bears… but mostly horses, I promise) instead.

And as soon as my gryphon landed– that’s also when I set my hearthstone to Stormwind.

So this was a long time coming. Two years, in fact. Since long before the title even existed. My inner RP geek is satisfied.

specs, Uncategorized

IntroSPECtion

May 14, 2009 Pike 28 Comments

Recently there was a post at OutDPS! about dual specs and what different hunters do with theirs. While we obviously can’t do that “I have a heal spec and a tank spec!” (or tank/DPS, or heals/DPS) thing that I’ve seen the hybrids do, I still think that we as hunters have a lot of options.

I, personally, am spec’d my preferred Beast Master raid spec as a “main spec”… and Survival as an “off spec”. I originally went Survival as an off spec for one reason and one reason only: to make the sacrifice and be the Replenishment-bot if needed. As you may or may not have gathered, I do 10mans a lot more often than I do 25mans, and for some reason all my groups seem to lack Replenishment. While Replenishment has become rather less needed in the “old content” as my raid groups steadily improve, I still keep it around “just in case”, and because I volunteered to my guild that I would and, well, I stick to my word like that.

However, I have also come to realize that there are a few other handy reasons to have Survival as an off-spec. Firstly is utility. Although I’ve yet to encounter that glorious crowd control that I used to see all the time (ahhh… chain-trapping every pull in Heroic Mech because our beloved warrior tank could really only do one mob at a time… how I miss ye sometimes), there is at least one encounter where I still feel like I can drop everything and focus on the trapping: Gluth. Typically in my groups we have a Death Knight kite the zombies and it’s my job to back him up by making sure there is a Frost Trap on the grate at all times. With Survival’s reduction of cooldown time and longer trap duration, I really feel useful on this fight. I mean, yeah, I’m sure we’d be fine without the extra utility. But I like Survival being about traps ‘n stuff dangit! *waves cane* >.>

Secondly is the oft-tossed-around “Spec for Pet Unfriendly Fights” thing. Interestingly enough I very rarely switch to a non-BM spec for such fights. Heigan? I’m BM. Sarth? I’m BM. I find keeping my pet alive through those fights to be a fun and exciting challenge and I can usually pull it off… probably much to the chagrin of a lot of the other hunters that I group with!

There is currently one fight, though, that I tend to switch to Survival for pet-unfriendliness reasons on, and that fight is Kel’thuzad. It really depends on the group composition; if it’s a mostly ranged group then I usually won’t have an issue and I can stay BM. But if it’s a heavy melee group– as my current Naxx group tends to be– then I suck it up, respec, use Call Stabled Pet to pull out Perezvon the wolf and let him stand there and be the buffbot because he wouldn’t have a a shot at staying alive until near the end of the fight. It’s sad that he can’t join in the fun, but it’s sort of a necessary evil. Oh, and to tell the honest truth… I’m not sure on the specifics on why the survival rate of my pet on KT seems to directly correlate with whether we are a mostly ranged DPS or mostly melee DPS group. I think it has to do with either that jumping ice block thing or an increased rate of void zones that my pet is likely to eat. I should probably pay more attention to this kind of thing but hey, I’m a hunter. I just shoot stuff until it falls down.

So yeah, that’s the only fight that thus far I’ve felt compelled to swap specs for due to pet issues, though who knows how that will change if I ever get into Ulduar? I’ll keep you posted.

So there’s my reasons for dual-spec’ing what I dual-spec. Works out pretty well, I think. There are a ton of other possibilities I can think of, though…

PvE / PvP. A lot of people are doing this and it’s something I’d seriously consider if I was actually doing PvP these days… which I’m not. =/ Someday I will get back into it. And by “it” I mean battlegrounds… was never big into Arenas.

The Mana Conservative Spec / The Mana Intensive Spec. Similar to Replenishment and non-Replenishment but seriously sometimes I really wish I had my 53/11/7 spec without Invigoration… and then a 55/11/5 spec with 2/2 Invigoration that I could switch to if I was having mana issues but nobody else really was. Seriously, if you could tri-spec I’d probably do this. (Please tell me I am not the only one who is tempted by a dual-spec that is like… two talent points off from your main spec.)

The raid spec / The MY PET IS A CRAZY MAIN TANK spec. I see this a lot and it’s understandable. You raid on the weekdays and solo Onyxia (or just do a ton of quest-ish dailies) on the weekends. Sometimes I think it’d be fun but I can’t be bothered… I don’t do the solo Onyxia thing (though I’d love to try it sometime) and raid-BM works perfectly fine for dailies!

…A spec you just plain like / Another spec you just plain like. Absolutely nothing wrong with this! It’s fun to be able to swap specs just because you’re feeling like something different that day.

Spec you are testing / Another spec you are testing. Then swap between them on the training dummies. I’ve actually been tempted to do this sometimes, with specs that are a single talent point different from each other. But in the end I’m too miserly with my gold to actually do it. >.>

In the end, I really do find dual-specs to be a welcome addition to my repertoire– yes, even as a hunter.

How do you guys dual-spec?

screenshots, thoughts, Uncategorized

The Beast (Master Spec) Within

April 30, 2009 Pike 14 Comments

I don’t know about you guys, but I am a huge dork so I tend to play a little game with myself where I’ll try to come up with awesome new talents for the Beast Master tree. Most of these imaginary talents really focus on my favorite part of that spec– the synergy between pet and hunter. So most of my ideas involve the hunter and pet bouncing things off of each other, making each other more powerful. My ideas also tend to be a little, well… let’s put it this way. I really dislike those talents that are a flat “Your pet does n% more damage, period.” Not so much because they are bad talents, so much as they are a.) overdone and b.) simply not very exciting!

Observe:

In the Beast Master tree:
Unleashed Fury: Increases the damage done by your pet by 15%.
Kindred Spirits: Increases the damage done by your pet by 20%.

In your Ferocity pet’s talent tree:
Spiked Collar: Increases the damage done by your pet by 9%.
Shark Attack: Increases the damage done by your pet by 6%.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to complain or anything. I like having a pet who can make things explode with a single swipe.

But I’m that person who sits here and thinks “Ooooh they’re redoing talents this expansion/patch/etc., I wonder what types of things we’ll get! Maybe we’ll get like… a Poison Dart attack that increases the damage done by mine and my pet’s special attacks for ten seconds and maybe if my pet crits it will increase the critical strike chance of my next hit or maybe my pet’s attack power will be increased by a percentage of my stamina and my intellect will be increased by a percentage of his stamina, or maybe when his Frenzy procs I go into a Frenzy too and I get some sort of bonus, or or or or…

…

…or more increased pet damage. Kay.”

Ya know? Now those are just examples I pulled out of my hat, nothing too serious, but you get the drift. I guess my point is that a lil’ more variety would be nice.

Ah, but a hunter can dream. I’m sure most of us have spent some time thinking about a personal “idealized” version of our spec or class. …or maybe that’s just me cause I’m a supergeek. I’m okay with that, too. Still, I’d be curious to hear if any of you are like me, and if you are, what sort of ideas you fine folks have thought of.

And in other news, this sort of scenario is kind of turning into a tradition:

guides, hunter kindergarten, screenshots, Uncategorized

My Viper Sting Brings All the Mana to the Yard

April 27, 2009 Pike 16 Comments

Ah, Viper Sting. Up until this latest patch I used it for two reasons, and two reasons only: to extinguish mage-type mobs who had nasty fireball attacks that hit like a truck on my pet, and to tick off casters in Alterac Valley. Well, the first is rather situational, and the latter hasn’t gotten much use since I decided I don’t feel like doing the PvP gear grind again anytime soon so I’m on extended hiatus from battlegrounds… not to mention the drain itself has been rather distressingly nerfed. Anyways, the point is, when Serpent Sting finally became a bread’n’butter hunter ability, there was really little use for Viper anymore.

Recently, though, Viper Sting has changed entirely. Namely, that mana it drains from a mob? It now also gives mana to you.

There are two reasons why this is awesome.

First, it makes solo’ing easier. My current preferred solo/leveling talent build scoops up 2/2 Invigoration, and if you combine that with the new Viper Sting, and then finally Aspect of the Viper, your downtime is pretty much zero.

Now, you should be aware that the mana you gain back from Viper Sting from most mobs in the field, while certainly not nothing, also isn’t exactly earth-shattering. You’ll still find yourself switching to Aspect of the Viper a lot. So this brings us to our second point…

There are a lot of instance and raid mobs or even bosses who have metric tons of mana. Guess who can drain it? And guess who gets a lot of mana back for it?

That’s right, you. While I’ve actually yet to test this in a raid situation (all the raids I wanted to test this in this past week either failed to ignite or conflicted with my schedule), I’ve tested it in a few heroics and it’s quite amazing how much mana you can get. Now, Serpent is still preferred in most situations from an instance/raid standpoint. But if you need the mana, well, now you’ve got a great backup. And my Marksman friends out there get a nifty bonus when they combine it with Chimera Shot.

In short? Say hello to your new little friend, Viper Sting. It’s an ability that I think will come in handy whether you’re a lackadaisical hunter (thanks Mania for the term!) or one who likes to go swimming in the raiding pool.

Caveat lector: Not every mob or raid boss has mana. A good many don’t, in fact. In those situations, you’re back to your old tricks. =P

guild, screenshots, Uncategorized

LFM to play with minipets in Naxx, PST

April 25, 2009 Pike 2 Comments

I had a Naxx run scheduled for last night with my guild– unfortunately it failed to ignite due largely to scheduling problems and the result was a bunch of us hanging out in the instance playing around with minipets and toys for about an hour before we decided to just scrap it.

Here is where I start talking about something tragically ironic: specifically, the fact that right as work has finally decided to give me a schedule that would enable me to raid with my own guild and not random groups… my guild has ran into a bit of a wall. People are having schedule issues, people are more interested in playing alts, people are burned out… that sort of thing. I am not trying to say that any of this is bad, by the way, just that it’s terribly ironic timing for me that my guild has effectively stopped doing much raiding now that I am available.

The boyfriend has branched off (on good terms with all, so don’t get confused) and made a new guild and while I don’t want to steal his thunder by talking about it prematurely, he hopes to make it a more “serious” raiding guild as opposed to the more “casual” groups he’s been leading the past few months. Whether or not I’d be interested myself is something I’m actually still thinking about. I have never considered myself to be much of a hardcore raider. Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy raiding, but I enjoy my heroics and my alts and my silly sidehobbies like minipets every bit as much. When I do raid, it’s because I enjoy spending a relaxing night with friends or at least nice people, having fun and not worrying about things like complicated loot rules. As such, I don’t know if I could dedicate myself to “serious raiding”, especially since my job could decide to rescind my latest scheduling luck without notice whenever they want to.

So, while I’m going to continue to try to push myself into Naxx runs with PuGs or other guilds, with the goal of ultimately providing good blogwriting fodder, my own future as it comes to raiding is somewhat unclear. I’d love to raid casually with my current guild but as the philosopher Jagger once said, you can’t always get what you want.

In the meantime, while my raid future sits around in limbo as I wait to see how things go with my guild, the boyfriend’s new guild, and my own schedule, I’m having a lot of fun playing alts. My horde hunter Lunapike and my resto druid Tamaryn are both level 72– I’ve purposefully kept them neck-and-neck rather than picking one to grind to 80 and I’m having a lot of fun seeing the same zones from different perspectives.

Have a good weekend all!

Uncategorized

Needs More Interviews!

April 22, 2009 Pike 2 Comments

I have a couple of fairly hefty posts that I want to have up in the next few days (one of them I have literally been working on since Saturday or so), but they are taking longer than expected, so in the meantime you’re welcome to check out this interview with me posted over at a newer website, WoWRelief. I feel like some sorta WoW celebrity lately. Not sure whether I find that concept more funny or more mind-boggling. >.>

And because I promised Brigwyn a shoutout, be sure to check out his Child’s Play Charity Auction and participate if you’re interested!

guides, shot rotation, Uncategorized

WotLK Hunter Shot Rotation Compendium

April 21, 2009 Pike 29 Comments

With dual-specs upon us, and hunter specs in general looking a lot closer in terms of DPS differences than they have ever been before, a lot of hunters are trying out specs they don’t normally play. Along with that, there are a lot of questions floating around regarding our shot rotations– or perhaps more accurately these days, shot priorities. So, I figured I would create this post as a quick reference guide for what you are supposed to be doing when you spec a certain spec. I plan on keeping this post “active” and coming back to it as needed to reflect any future changes, though I’m getting the feeling that we’re approaching some semblance of permanence for this expansion.

Quickly, what this post is and is not:

This is NOT… going to tell you how to spec, glyph, level, or PvP.

This IS… primarily level 80, PvE-oriented and should give you a quick idea on what to do if you just spec’d for a new spec, and spec’d it relatively well, and are running straight into an instance or raid.

Keep in mind that these are not strict rotations, instead, they are priorities: What that means is you are not going to go down this list and fire every shot, and then go back to the beginning and rinse and repeat. It means that you are going to fire shots which are off cooldown and/or need refreshing in this order. Also please note that these are adaptable for various situations, and that I tended to stick the Stings/DoTs first, as a matter of style and just to organize things, although there may be some situations where you don’t want to fire them first– for example, if Kill Shot is available.

So without further ado…

The WotLK Hunter Shot Rotation Compendium:
Last Updated: April 21, 2009 – Patch 3.1

Beast Mastery:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting – Kill Shot – Arcane Shot – Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional– can be a mana hog so works best in conjunction with Replenishment) – Steady Shot
Pike’s Notes: Not just Steady spam anymore, although I see plenty of non-hunters and even hunters running around who still think this is the case. Heck, I saw BM Hunters on the receiving end of mockery regarding this just today in trade chat. They are, I am pleased to report, quite mistaken. Beast Masters may not have quite so many shots and stings to juggle as the other specs, but they still have plenty to do and when you combine this with a Bestial Wrath glyphed and talented almost down to a minute, and your Kill Command which is on a similar cooldown, you’ve got lots to play around with as well.

This rotation depends largely on Glyph of Steady Shot— Steady is still a large chunk of your damage as a Beast Master and because it is so weak you need to do everything you can to pull it up, and yes, that includes keeping Serpent Sting up.

The rotation is adaptable on the fly to account for mobs that are nearly dead (when the cooldown for refreshing a Serpent Sting would not be worth the extra Steady damage), as well as deciding to put off Serpent Sting if Arcane and Multi are off cooldown, for example.

Marksmanship:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting (one time only) – Kill Shot – Chimera Shot – Aimed Shot – Arcane Shot – Steady Shot
Pike’s Notes: One of my favorite attributes of the Marksman spec is that you don’t have to worry about refreshing Serpent Sting– Chimera Shot does it for you. It will spoil you rotten, I promise.

Note that Multishot is typically not in your rotation as a Marksman– it shares a cooldown with Aimed, and Aimed will generally pack a larger punch for you in the case of most current Marksman specs. However, if there is more than one target, and the tank has a good hold of them all, swapping in a Multi for Aimed will in fact result in a DPS increase. (This is the case with all three specs).

Use Readiness wisely, it can be used for great effect to get double Kill Shots after a trinket pop, for example

Survival:
The Shot Priority: Black Arrow – Serpent Sting – Kill Shot – Explosive Shot – Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional) – Steady Shot
Important! When Lock and Load procs: Be sure to squeeze one Steady or Aimed between your two “instant” Explosive Shots– that way you don’t overwrite your own Explosive Shot DoT. (You may also opt to “wait” between Explosives if you don’t have an instant ready– see the comments in this post for details.)
Pike’s Notes: This is me being biased, but with the introduction of Black Arrow and the current encouragement to use Multishot or Aimed, Survival has gotten a lot more fun and interesting for me in 3.1 than it was, well, pre-3.1. The overall “rotation” feels like a weird cross between Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, with a side dish of “random” tossed in, and it might take some getting used to but it’s certainly not boring.

Black Arrow is interesting as it cannot be “refreshed” like Serpent Sting: it has a pretty hefty cooldown even with talents that reduce that cooldown. Still, it’s a not-too-shabby DoT and also a big DPS booster, and also your source of Lock and Load procs, that should be kept up anytime it is available.

Explosive Shot is still your ace in the hole here. You are more encouraged to use Multi/Aimed as Survival than as a Beast Master because you are more mana efficient and can probably afford it. Play around with it and see if it works for you.

—

…and, that does it! In closing while I can now say I have played all three specs in both instance and raid situations in the past month or two, I still don’t know how much of an “expert” I can be considered especially on Marksmanship and Survival, so please, if you play one of those specs and you have more advice or corrections you would like to throw in, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do to edit your notes in.

And remember: this type of thing is often subjective. I encourage you to read the comments, read other blogs, and do your own research and testing on this subject. I just wanted to make a quick reference that should work fairly well in most situations. *nods*

pets, Uncategorized

Gotta Catch 'em All – Part Two

April 19, 2009 Pike 11 Comments

Well, I went over the stories of Tawyn’s pets, so let’s go over the pets of my first alt hunter… Lunapike:

Alyosha has a bit of a story behind him: once upon a time Tawyn was Marksman-spec’d, because she was new to the game and that’s what everyone told her to do. Pike secretly really wanted to be Beast Mastery, but she was sort of afraid to completely respec and try, at first. So she went and rolled her second hunter, Lunapike, to be a Beast Master. And at level ten she ran Lunapike to the blood elf starting zone and tamed a Little Red Kitty. It was a symbolic choice.

I absolutely adore the red lynx skin and I’m quite attached to Alyosha, who is named after one of the three brothers in The Brothers Karamazov. From a roleplaying standpoint he also has strong ties to Lunapike through their respective backstories– I was actually writing a story about this but never finished. I’ll have to do that sometime >.>

Although Lunapike is not currently max-level anymore, Alyosha is sort of the de-facto instancing pet, although he now alternates with a certain bug who we shall touch on later…

Ivan is the second in my trio of Brothers Karamazov names. I tamed him in Thousand Needles, one of my favorite zones. Oh, and when I summon him, he bamfs in with a poof and a cloud of smoke. No, really. Once I found this out, I had to tame him, so I did. Oh, he’s actually a “she” according to lore, but meh. People turn their Loque’nahaks into girls all the time, so I turned my Arikara into a boy >.> I have this weird thing where all my pets are of the male persuasion for some reason. No idea why.

Now that he is a cunning pet more than a DPS pet, he spends a lot of time in the stable until I pull him out for PvP. Sad, but true.

Dmitri rounds out the Brothers Karamazov. Remember how I said I always wanted to make Tux a rainbow owl but could never bring myself to actually do it? Dmitri is the compromise. He’s not Tux, but he is the rainbow owl. Unfortunately I fear he will fall into the same quandary as Ivan, sitting around without a niche, but we’ll see. It is a PvP server, after all. And owls really are a very good choice for a battlegrounds pet I think– what with Snatch and having those big wings that get in peoples’ faces.

He is a beautiful pet and I bring him out to play during quests sometimes. Roar of Recovery is great for solo stuff.

I fell in love with Serenity almost immediately– this is probably another one of my overall favorite pet “looks” in the game. Now Rilgon likes to point out that everybody names their wasp Serenity, and that’s probably true, but ya know what, I don’t care. And I’ve actually yet to see another Serenity in-game myself, although I know most of the blog comments I get when I talk about him are “Great name, I’m gonna use it myself!” …not on my servers yet, it would appear!

Have I mentioned I love how this pet looks? I love how this pet looks. Lunapike gets all the awesome pets, it seems.

Coulton is the newest member of Lunapike’s pet family. Now originally, I didn’t want to get a gorilla. I was never really a gorilla fan, mostly because they are so large– and I prefer my pets small and unassuming. Able to rip your face off, yes, but also small and unassuming. Gorillas were big and they encouraged AoE spam which I in my stubbornness am not a big fan of. I like to shoot my targets one by one thank-ya-very-much.

But then when I was busy working on grinding Timbermaw rep for my Diplomat title I realized it might actually come in handy. So off I went to Feralas to tame myself a gorilla. I was right– it worked beautifully. And by the time I got my title and then after that when Thunderstomp became a family-wide ability, I was too attached to the big guy to swap him out. So, that’s the story on him: he’s the token tenacity pet and he’s probably here to stay.

The name? Take a guess…

Alright. I have more, really, but I dunno, it would be crazy to keep going…

…right? /cough

alts, amusing anecdotes, screenshots, specs, Uncategorized

Don't Panic

April 14, 2009 Pike 22 Comments

I spec’d Survival. For Replenishment. Because I was in a ten-man without any and it was making things annoying.

I liked it better this time than I did in the past (the fact that I remembered to train the higher ranks of Explosive Shot possibly had something to do with it. /nonchalant cough) My DPS was rather variable. For the most part I seemed to be floating a few hundred above what I do as BM, although sometimes I was higher, and sometimes the gap was much closer. (I somehow manage to pull off fairly equal DPS with all the hunter specs right now. I call shenanigans.) My mana issues, however, were nearly non-existent, especially because a ret pally decided to show up too (so much for me thinking we needed replenishment so badly!) and when I did go OOM a few times on Sapphiron tonight, I only had to be in Viper for about six seconds to fill up again.

I had a hard time getting used to the shot rotation because it didn’t really feel like there was any rhythm to it. I tried to set up my SCT-D to flash “ZOMG LOCK AND LOAD OHNOES” or something similar at me when L&L proc’d, and I got it about half working but then I couldn’t get a sound set to it. Still, I tried, though!

I am remaining Survival-spec’d tonight because the patch is tomorrow and we’ll all get a free respec anyway so don’t have a heart attack if you go to my Armory right now. >.> Honestly playing around with all the specs is something I would like to continue to do in the future– I sort of enjoy spec’ing for what the raid needs (I recently also spent a raid night as Marksman, for Trueshot Aura), and I’m making a mother-lode off of herbs lately so I can afford it. /nods

I actually felt like I had a really productive day in WoW today. I healed a Nexus on my druid. One of the group members was a hunter who intrigued me because his spec was almost the exact same as Lunapike’s— a very Pike-approved leveling spec. I complimented him on this. His response?

Well, that explains that!

Then the boyfriend got on his Baby Holy Paladin, I got on my Baby Prot Paladin, and our friend got on his Baby Priest, and we proceeded to take Deadmines. For the record, this is what happens when we do Deadmines:

Yes, and did you know that in our little world, VanCleef possesses the following: void zones, fire that you should not stand in, fire that you should stand in, a stun, Mutating Injection, infernals that can be avoided by being tanked along a certain side of the boat, and a tail swipe?

True story.

pets, Uncategorized

Gotta Catch 'em All

April 13, 2009 Pike 19 Comments

I recently had an e-mail from somebody who wanted to hear more stories about my pets… where I got them, how they got their names, when I use them, how they fit in to my character roleplayingwise, etc. Now on the one hand, I was a little worried about fulfilling this request, because I feel like I’ve already talked about most of this at some point. But on the other hand, it was probably a while ago and I’ve gained a lot of new readers since then, and like most hunters I turn into a proud gushing grandma when asked about my pets, especially seeing as I am a self-professed Pokemon hunter who freaks out over pets.

So let’s talk. And if you’ve heard this all already, feel free to skip it. >.>

Tux was the first. The first pet ever. He was level eight and I was level ten and for some reason he didn’t leave me when I didn’t feed him for such a long time– since back then pets ran away when they were unhappy. My adventuring companion throughout most of Vanilla WoW, he has never been my first pet to hit the level cap of the day, but he has always hit it eventually.

Sometimes I get this urge to swap Tux for one of those crazy rainbow owls. Because he’s a special pet and it feels like it would somehow be a weird way of “evolving” him to a form more befitting of him. I could still name him Tux, and it would still “be” Tux. But then I look at the big gray featherhead, the same ball of pixels I’ve had since my first week of World of Warcraft ever, and I can’t do it.

To sate my longing for the rainbow owl though, I tamed one on another character. >.>

Tux spends most of his time in the stable these days, which is sort of sad, but unfortunately he is not a very PvE-viable pet and I haven’t done any serious PvP in a loooong time. He’s pretty dang good at doing dailies and stuff though. *nods* He also tends to be the pet I pick for screenshots and posing, because it’s supposed to be Tawyn & Tux, dang it!

Named for the mascot of the main operating system I game on… heck, the only operating system I played WoW on, period, for the first 69 levels of Tawyn’s existence..

Locke was the rare spawn I tamed at 4am server time. There were two reasons: one, he was teal. My favorite color. ’twas a given. Two, I was reading hunter blogs regularly by now (heck, I was writing one) and I had come to the sad realization that a lot of people disliked hunters who instanced with flying pets because they had big flappy wings that got in the way. I wanted a backup pet to be able to take into instances who wouldn’t annoy anyone, and the kitty was the winner.

Locke was the Big Bad Raiding Pet through most of Burning Crusade until towards the end when he was replaced by… the next pet I shall be talking about. It actually got to the point where most of my guildies saw me as Tawyn & Locke instead of Tawyn & Tux, which I sort of had mixed feelings about. I mean, I loved Locke, but it seemed odd. Locke also became the butt of a solid handful of inside jokes that still exist among my friends’ circle, the best being that he was going to leave me, don a monocle, top hat, and dastardly mustache, and become the new endboss of Heroic Mech. Long story.

These days he has been largely stabled in favor of Wash, although he comes out sometimes for nostalgia’s sake. The last time I brought him to a raid, though, there were five hunters there all told and every single one had a cat and one of them was the exact same skin as Locke. It bugged me enough that halfway through during a break I went and swapped him out for my raptor. >.> Sorry, Locke. It was really confusing though… all those kitties… /twitch. My Locke was the only one going Big Red though. <3 He is named either after John Locke or Locke Cole… take your pick!

Eltanin is the Windserpent who became the Burning Crusade raiding pet after Locke. Lightning Breath for the win! I love this guy– beautiful skin and I just adore windserpents. I went into ZG solo to tame him, the story of which I chronicled in this blog!

Sadly with the advent of 3.0 he no longer was a good raid/instancing pet so while he alternated with my other pets during my leveling, he has been stuck at level 79 for a while. I love to pull him out of the stable sometimes and strut around with him, just because I think he’s gorgeous. I wish I could use him more often.

He was named after the brightest star in the constellation Draco.

Wash has a long story to him. As I’m sure most of you lovely folks have gathered, he’s rather near and dear to my heart, even though I’d released him for some time and didn’t re-tame him until recently. He is my current raiding/instancing pet, partially because I am so attached to him, partially because I simply got tired of having a cat like everyone else (again– sorry Locke!), and partially because his DPS is phenominal– I maintain that he performs better than my cat does in my experience, largely I think because of Savage Rend. When it crits, it increases the damage he deals by 10% for 30 seconds. When you are a Beast Master hunter as I am, this crits a lot, and the cooldown is down to something like 46 seconds, so it’s up– a LOT of the time.

Mostly I just think Wash is adorable. I’ve always liked dinosaurs. Protoceratops are my favorite, but for the lack of them in the game, a raptor will do.

…and, come on, you mean the story behind his name isn’t obvious enough? =P

My fifth stable slot is currently in a state of flux. Usually it’s occupied by a tenacity pet to make up for my lack of one, but over the past several months a bear, a rhino, an eagle, a wolf, a turtle, and now currently a teal worm (named Nachi) have all resided there. Who will get the fifth stable slot permanently? I dunno. A part of me really wants Loque’nahak, not so much because I like the look, so much as it seems to be the ultimate badge of Beast Master hunter pride. (Although, I do like the look, but not to the point that I would get him otherwise, if it wasn’t such a symbol of my favorite spec.) Still, I’ve circled the Basin a bazillion times over the past few months while herbing– yes, following “the route” and keeping a casual eye out– and I’ve never seen hide nor hair, not to mention then I wouldn’t have any room for my token tenacity pet, so… I’m really not sure!

From a roleplaying standpoint, Tawyn considers all her pets to be very important to her, and her closest friends. She only keeps them with stable masters that she trusts (she’s good friends with the dwarven hunters in Stormwind) and the stories I write about her often involve multiple pets all out at once… hey, I can dream, right?

Next up, if enough people are interested… the stories behind the pets of my other hunters!

…don’t give me that look. We’ve already established that I’m a Crazy Pet Lady.

Aspect of the Hare