In Which Pike Discusses Things At Random

September 18, 2009 Pike 12 Comments

Recruit-a-Friend is insane. Last week my tauren druid was level 38 or something. As of yesterday, she is level 50.

Proof:

(I’m actually leveling as fast as a normal person levels now! Crazy I know!)

At this point the goal is to get her to level 60 as quick as possible for two things: a.) Outlands instances and b.) Wild Growth. Let’s discuss these. Outland instances… I don’t think words can describe how much I love these. It’s really funny cause during Burning Crusade I was like “Well the Outlands instances… they’re okaaaay…” but now that I look back on them, oh my gosh. Have I lately mentioned my undying love for Underbog?

But yeah, healing Outland instances on Tamaryn = one of the best things I’ve ever done in WoW and I can’t wait to do it again.

And Wild Growth I need. I feel like a gimpy tree without it. Nourish is handy but I can live without it. Lifebloom… as much as it saddens me to say it, I’ve used it like… three times since the latest nerf. Poor Lifebloom.

But yeah Wild Growth, give please. *grabby hands*

For the uninitiated in Alpha-Theta-Pike Fraternity, this means I now have in my possession: Two level 80 hunters, one level 80 restodruid, one level 53 hunter and one level 50 restodruid.

You are now free to leave copious amounts of comments about how I really need to branch out and experience more of the game. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you do that. /nod

Don’t worry though, I’ve started the World’s Most Adorable Gnome Warlock Ever and I’m going to pair her up with my long-forgotten paladin and they’re going to be the Team Chaotix to my Hunter/Druid Team Sonic. I’m excited for that.

In other news, I signed up for… something… tonight on Tawyn. I say “something” because it is either going to be “Finishing up 10-man Ulduar, or 10-man ToC”, according to the calendar invite. I’m kind of nervous about it being Ulduar because I’ve only done up to Thorim so far and I’m going to feel like a noob. >.>

It’s funny because I am totally not a raidy-type of person. I mean, I love it, but I can really only do it once a week or so and then I burn out for the week. So, I would actually be pretty okay if tonight’s dealy didn’t happen and then I could do alts instead~ ^^

raiding, screenshots

"Well, DPS… it's all up to you."

September 16, 2009 Pike 16 Comments

As a DPS, I normally don’t feel under the same pressure that I do on say, my healer (or as I imagine a tank would feel, though I haven’t tanked so I can’t say.) I mean sure, we’re sort of fighting against this nebulous “enrage timer” but for the most part, “DPS faster” or “DPS more” just means I’m gonna… press my buttons a little harder and hope it somehow turns into more DPS. It doesn’t really feel like I’m contributing something tangible, so much.

Enter “Iron Council Medium Mode”.

See, today I logged on, went to go do Icecrown dailies, and received a whisper from someone I hadn’t heard of it in a long time. It was my old Naxx group. The one I went to Naxx10 with every week for a good few months earlier this year. They invited me to a 10-man Ulduar. I had nothing better to do and I was excited to see some people I hadn’t played with in a while, so I accepted.

…so…

…so, in the time between us struggling our way through Naxx10 and now, they got good. And also got some friends in high places. We were smashing through achievements left and right with tanks who had close to 50,000 HP.

Anyways, Iron Council, aka Falcon Punch. Apparently the order you kill the guys in determines how difficult your encounter will be. We opted to go for a “Medium Mode”, which involves little elementals that spawn every ten seconds or so and must be AoE’d and slowed and kited and pretty much killed immediately, or Bad Things Happen.

Due to group makeup, it was pretty much up to me, a warlock, and a mage.

…and I dunno if I’ve ever felt like so much depended on me as a DPS. If we died, it wasn’t cause the tanks failed or the heals failed or because of something passive like a lack of gear. No, this time, if we died, it was all on the heads of the DPSers.

As a hunter on this, your job is a.) keep your pet on the boss, b.) Keep an eye out for the purple circles, c.) lay down Frost Traps as available, d.) Volley the heck out of the purple circle, e.) pick off any stragglers that snuck past the AoE, f.) avoid the crap on the ground, and g.) somehow manage to keep your mana up throughout all of this (curse you Volley, you mana-sucker you.)

It was not easy.

But man it felt good afterwards.

Warlock, mage, and I all got specifically thanked by name afterwards for our work.

DPS frequently feels like a thankless job, but I felt good today. Kudos to Blizz for (perhaps finally) making an encounter where it feels like all depends on you and your active efforts, my fellow PewPew-ers.

fun, screenshots, Uncategorized

An Even Larger aMOUNT

September 16, 2009 Pike 10 Comments

A sequel to yesterday’s post about Tawyn’s mounts, here are Lunapike’s:

This was her first, your standard Gray Kodo. She got it at level 40– she would be my last character to get a mount at 40 because after that the level for mounts would change (my druid was 38 or something, though.) Anyways, Lunapike is one of my few characters who I didn’t strive for a cross-racial mount from the beginning with– I really liked Tauren and I liked Lunapike being a Taureny Tauren with a Kodo.

His name is Rocky. :3

Gotta admit though, the whole bulkiness of Kodos sorta bugged me, so I made a lot of effort throughout levels 51-60 so I could snag…

My Frostwolf Howler! (Named Snowball)

It actually wasn’t so bad to save up the Alterac Valley marks for him. See, back in those days, Horde on that battlegroup won 99.99% of 51-60 bracket AVs and it was epic and hilarious and there was actually TEAMWORK and people actually DEFENDED AND RECAPTURED TOWERS. An unheard of concept, I know.

I went back there the other day and it had completely changed for the worse, I was depressed. But meh. That’s another story. >.>

So anyways, I hit level 65ish and got to Nagrand. I gotta say, this is a zone that I much prefer on Horde than on Alliance. Better questlines, better rep factions (Mag’har for the WIN), the whole thing with Thrall, you name it.

So combine my love of the Mag’har with my newfound idea that Nagrand should be Lunapike’s home away from home, and my further desire to get the “Diplomat” title for her, and the Talbuk was a given. This didn’t happen until 70 but man, grinding on those ogres was a great way to level pets. I picked the White War Talbuk because it was the best-looking to me at first glance with those bright blue horns, but later I picked up two others…

Cobalt Riding Talbuk, and

Silver War Talbuk!

I have come to see both of these mounts as probably being better looking than my first one, and I gotta say, I think Silver War Talbuk is possibly my favorite of all of them. The colors are subtle, but absolutely gorgeous. <3 Now one of the great things about being Horde is that as a rule, the racial mounts are all Made of Win. Contrast this with Alliance where Mechanostriders and Horses are pretty much the only mounts that I like. Rams are meh, Elekks are awesome if you're a gnome but are otherwise meh, and the Cats are just No. Horde is a different story though, and I've spent the last month-ish working on getting exalted with all the home cities so I could obtain lots of different mounts...

I. Love. Raptors. I’m sure most of you figured this out by now. So, the Raptor mount was a given. I allllmost got the teal-colored one but decided I liked the color scheme on this one instead. I’m glad I got him, I <3 him to death. He needs a good name, methinks. (Before you ask, I do kind of want the Ravasaur, but I’m in no rush… and half the Hordies on my server have it anyway. =P)

I used to be only a “semi-fan” of the Undead horse, as in, I thought they looked cool from a distance but I couldn’t envision myself with one. Then they started coming out with the new colors that have the stripes and everything on the skirt and I decided I needed one. Very happy with my decision thus far; he leaves a glowy trail behind him and Lunapike looks very good on him. (I have come to the decision that while the male tauren tend to look funny on smaller mounts, female tauren often look fantastic on them! <3)

Hawkstriders are hilarious and remind me of Chocobos, so I snagged one, but since then I’ve wondered if it’s the right choice. Lunapike really does look silly on it, and it does this weird thing where it bounces up and down and your character just lurches up and down and up and down and up and down… oddly enough, I never felt that way with the raptor, perhaps because I’m so focused on watching the undulating tail, but yeah, this one is different.

I’m still using it for the time being though… >.> Cause it’s a chocobo.

Flying Mount the First:

And Flying Mount the Second:

I think Wind Riders are cute; I love the way their ears bounce up and down when they run. I also like the blue and violet color scheme on the Armored one, which is why I dumped 1800g on it instead of getting a normal swift mount for much cheaper. I actually bought it before I had the swift flight skill and it sat in my bags for a really long time.

All told, 5000g for flying + 1800g for the mount + 1000g for Northrend flight = Very broke Pike. Thank the Earthmother for the Argent Tournament and crossfaction minipets.

Welp, that’ll do it. You may be asking “WHAT ABOUT YOUR DRUID, ISN’T SHE LEVEL 80 TOO?” And she is, but she doesn’t have too many interesting mounts. Between Swift Flight Form and Travel Form, she isn’t mounted very often anyway. She just uses the Swift Gray Ram at the moment, primarily because it Isn’t A Cat. She may get my Recruit-a-Friend Zebra. We’ll see.

As for my lower-level characters who are primarily working on getting cross-racial mounts… well… perhaps a post about that one in the future. *nods*

But yus, there ya have it. Okay, back in the bus, field trip’s over~!

fun, screenshots, Uncategorized

A Very Large aMOUNT

September 14, 2009 Pike 20 Comments

I like mounts. Not quite to the point of obsession as the people who must obtain every mount in the game, but I’ve collected a decent little number of ones that I really like.

Most of my mounts in the “early levels” have some sort of roleplaying reason to them. In my mind, being a relatively low-level character with a mount of a different race makes a great strong-yet-subtle statement about your character. I have done this on multiple characters and it never gets old (although, as Blizzard lowers the required mount level, it does become more difficult to do.)

Unfortunately, in the higher-levels, Blizzard really pushes you to become exalted with everybody thanks to achievements, the Argent Tournament, etc. so the uniqueness of having a cross-racial mount sorta fades away. For that reason, once one of my characters hits 70 or 80 or so, I typically start branching out and riding what I just plain feel like riding.

Come with me on a field trip and check out the stable of my two most played characters, Tawyn and Lunapike…

Tawyn:

The Chestnut Mare was my Very First Mount ever. Ever. Remember, Tawyn was my first character (and yes, still my main), so yeah. Let me take you back to a time when you didn’t get mounts until level 40 and before the Great Leveling Nerf of Patch 2.3. Let me take you back to a time when I spent what felt like eons Aspect-of-the-Cheetah-ing my way up and down Stranglethorn Vale. Getting a mount was a Big Deal. My boyfriend and I rode up and down the entire southern half of Eastern Kingdoms just cause we could.

I named my new horse Buckles.

I spent days farming Briarthorn and Swiftthistle for the 600 gold you needed for your epic at that time. This is an absolutely gorgeous mount… I still think so. His name is Chip!

Of the three available gryphons, I picked the Golden Gryphon for two reasons. The first was that I reasoned that as Tawyn lived in Stormwind, she would probably ride your plain ol’ Stormwind-looking gryphon. The second is that eeeeeeeeeeverybody had either the black or white variants and I wanted to be unique. I’m silly like that.

His name is Feathers. I’m super creative. /cough

Saving up the 5000g for this guy was one of the most painful things I ever did. It was accomplished by spending several weeks living at The Island of Quel’danas and it was horrible. The only way I was able to do it was with the encouragement of (and a couple of financial boosts from) my friends and then-guildies. It was worth it though; being able to zip around so swiftly and not have to worry about flight points was an Azerothian Dream-Come-True.

I actually don’t think I ever settled on a name for him. In a way, I think I still consider him to be Feathers, but in Armor. He’s a good-lookin’ bird.

…of course, when Wrath of the Lich King came out, I soon upgraded to a dragon. The Red Drake in specific. I wanted him pretty much immediately after doing that quest where you fly around Wyrmrest Temple and fireball stuff from dragonback, and for weeks I did Wyrmrest Accord dailies and wore the tabard. I finally hit exalted and nabbed him on my birthday. It was an awesome present for myself.

His name is Spirakistrasz but Tawyn calls him “Sparks” for short. He doesn’t mind. He is capable of turning into a blood elf form *SNEEZES LOUDLY* uh, did I say something?

I got this guy around the same time, after a few days of absentmindedly doing Brunnhildar dailies. At the time, he was bugged, and was tiny compared to all other bear mounts. It was absolutely hilarious. I proudly rode my BabyBear all over the place until they buffed him back up to normal size in the next patch. Now he doesn’t get out much, but I still like him.

I never really “named” him but I kinda want to call him Iorek Byrnison BECAUSE HE TOTALLY LOOKS LIKE HIM! Don’t you think? Or how I envision him anyway.

(While we’re on the subject, it feels thoroughly awesome to ride around on Iorek Byrnison with a hunter pet for a dæmon and a Haunted Memento for a Death.)

It took me longer to get this than it did for most people, mostly because of my own inability to find a group for the timed run. Once I did nab him, he quickly became my flying mount of choice: he’s such a lovely color. I never came up with a good name for him, though, which sort of makes me feel bad.

He has lately been semi-retired in favor of another mount which I shall speak of shortly, partially because it was starting to feel like everyone in the world was using the Bronze Drake and partially because I was just feeling like something different.

…and this is my current flyer of choice, the Cenarion War Hippogryph. I’ve wanted it for a while now… yes, this is a mount that has been around since Burning Crusade… but despite being exalted with Cenarion Expedition since forever thanks to all the heroics I ran, I never could justify dropping the 1600g on him. But money is a lot less painful to make now than it was then, so I was able to talk myself into doing it a few weeks back. These guys aren’t seen that often, since many of the people who had it originally have moved onto new mounts and many other people didn’t have their current 80 for Burning Crusade and thus don’t have the rep– so he is pretty rare– but the best part is that he’s gorgeous =D

I still need a name for him. It’s gotta be something celestial sounding, I know that.

*movie announcer voice* And now, the Mechanostrider Army:

Black Battlestrider

Swift Green Mechanostrider

And my latest pride and joy, the Gnomeregan Mechanostrider. I have this weird thing for orange-and-purple. I think it goes back to my Neopets days when I was a huge Kreludor fan during the Altador Cup. (Actually I still am. Don’t tell anyone.)

My current mount macro cycles through my three Mechanostriders at random, and uses my Hippogryph when I can fly. I <3 my mounts!

Well, I was going to delve into Lunapike’s mounts here, but now that I look at it she has just as many mounts as Tawyn does and it would make this already long article rather obscenely long, so you’ll just have to wait until the next post. So our Field Trip is on a brief hiatus.

Until then, don’t touch the Magic School Bus*. He’s a bit… unpredictable.

—

* [Magic School Bus] = Summons and dismisses a rideable Magic School Bus and a lizard companion pet. This is a very fast mount that is capable of traveling into space and inside a targeted player’s digestive system.

guides, instances

A Hunter's Guide To: Trial of the Champion (AKA "The New Instance")

September 13, 2009 Pike 17 Comments

As I’ve written about before, there are a lot of goodies for everyone in the new five-man instance, Trial of the Champion, and hunters are no exception. As such, I’ve ran it a lot on Tawyn and even more on Lunapike (at this point I’m running it for the gun. About a dozen runs and no gun so far. Our Pike is a Sad Pike. Marrowstrike, on the other hand, consistently and dutifully shows its face every other time. Too bad I got it on my first run…)

Anyways, I’ve ran it so much that I’ve got a good idea on what to do as a hunter. And since I figured there’s always new hunters out there who haven’t run it yet and will probably do so in the near future… here is a handy guide for you! ^_^ It is probably a little skewed towards Beast Masters but hunters of all stripes should find something useful here, I hope.

So here we go!

FIRST BOSS: WALL OF TEXT

It is an “intro” that introduces all the competitors and it crits you for eightmillion, every time, no matter what.

…

Okay, so it’s not really a boss. >.> Hey, you can’t blame me, I come from a background where we’d go “HEY GUYS CAN WE GET SOME TIPS, WE CAN’T GET PAST THE GONG BOSS” in Zul’Aman General Chat.

Aaaaanyways…

FIRST BOSS: THE JOUSTING THING

There are a bunch of guys who you will have to joust. I’d direct you to the Jousting movie I made earlier, but this is really quite different because there are four other people who will be doing it with you. The main deal here is to keep your shields up and charge when you can, and shield break between charges.

If you somehow lose your mount (you are unable to heal your mount during this), try to do it near the wall where you can hop onto a new mount very quickly. Otherwise, you may be trampled and stunned, oh, and for some reason it has this tendency to kill your pet. So try to avoid being dismounted for long.

After all is said and done your group is probably going to run out of the instance, because the transition to fighting them is… unpleasant. This is getting fixed in the next patch, but until then, you’re runnin’ out.

Once you run back in, you’ll have a little time to set up before fighting the three bosses. Don’t forget to unequip your lance in favor of whatever your Stat-Stick of choice is.

I open up with a misdirect on the tank + Multishot to help him grab early aggro on the three bosses. The main thing that you as a hunter need to know about this is that there is bubbly goo on the floor that a.) you should not stand in, and b.) your pet should not stand in either. The tank should be moving out of the way of the goo so your pet shouldn’t be in it for very long, so Mend Pet is probably all you will need. Just keep an eye on your pet’s health throughout the encounter, and you should be good to go.

FIRST AND A HALF BOSS: EADRIC THE PURE

You’re either going to get this guy or some other boss. Let’s talk about this guy first. He is, by far, the easier of the two.

Step-by-step instructions:
1.) Hunter’s Mark/Pet Attack
2.) Pewpew

…okay, so there are a couple things you need to be made aware of. The first is a thing where he yells out “HAMMER OF THE RIGHTEOUS!” and hurtles a hammer at you. Basically, it actually takes away all your abilities except for the hammer, and you have to chuck it back at the guy. Pretty self-explanatory. If you “kill” the guy with it you get an achievement, but don’t hold on to it for too long or about 90% of your health will go byebye.

The second thing is that he’ll do a big flash of light which will blind you for a few seconds and make you unable to attack. The easy way to get out of it is to spin around when you see the warning, watch for the light flash behind you, and spin back. If you miss it, it’s not a big deal, I just think it’s kind of fun to do.

It doesn’t effect your pet so just let him gnaw on the boss! Whee!

SECOND BOSS: PALETRESS

This fight is actually really difficult and is probably the first where I’ve developed a little huntery strategy for it. First of all, make sure you have full mana or close to it at the beginning. Viper on the mobs before it if you have to.

Okay, now, this is my strategy. Your mileage may vary.

Paletress will come out. Start doing your thing but don’t pop any cooldowns yet. Don’t Bestial Wrath. Don’t Kill Command. Don’t trinket. Don’t Rapid Fire. Because Paletress herself goes down like a rock without it anyway. Now…

…

She’ll summon something. Usually an old raid or instance boss. This isn’t as awesome as it sounds because instead of the old boss doing all their Old Boss Abilities, they just sort of sit there and smash on the tank and occasionally fear. So, it’s kind of a let-down.

But they’re really difficult to fight.

So THIS is when you pop all your cooldowns. You want that “Memory of [Whatever]” down as fast as possible. Not to mention, Bestial Wrath makes you immune to the fear (which is especially annoying because it also does damage).

Once the Memory is down it’s back to Paletress who once again goes down like a rock.

NOTE: I’m not sure how or why but my pet has this tendency to randomly take a lot of damage throughout this entire fight. I think Paletress and the Memory both have an aura or something that does damage. Anyways, keep a Mend Pet up and keep a close eye on your pet’s health.

LAST BOSS: THE BLACK KNIGHT

This guy is also pretty difficult. There are three phases to this guy, and here’s the lowdown:

1.) Pop everything you’ve got on the first phase– you might as well. Unless you’re a Marksman, Rapid Fire probably isn’t up yet from the previous fight, but don’t worry, it’ll likely be ready for the last phase.

2.) Second Phase! The Black Knight is apparently a Death Knight and summons Army of the Dead. You can AoE them but I’ve found that it’s often best to just focus fire down the Black Knight himself as fast as possible. If you do choose to AoE then keep your pet on the boss while you volley the adds.

The adds will probably be running around so Feign Death/trap to keep them out of your hair. With some luck this phase won’t last that long.

There are green circles on the ground, don’t stand in them. /mock stern face

VERY IMPORTANT: Once the Black Knight himself is down, all the adds will explode. One time I was in the middle of the adds when they did so. I died. Please do not stand near the adds!

3.) For the third phase, the Black Knight turns into a ghost and it’s back to a tank-n-spank. I’m not sure if there’s a threat wipe or not but I always misdirect the tank at the beginning of this phase, just in case. The main twist here is that there’s a bunch of random damage being dished out to all the party members so this is mostly a healer fight. Don’t be afraid to use things like healthstones, Lifeblood, Gift of the Naaru, or health potions here to help alleviate the healer’s woes a bit.

Just get him down fast– most of your cooldowns are probably back by now.

And that’s that! ^_^ Happy loot-diving~

alts, druid, screenshots, stories, Uncategorized

What Happens When You Combine Two of My Favorite Things

September 10, 2009 Pike 15 Comments

The desert stretched far and wide under the young druid’s hooves and she found herself sighing at this wasteland that she had come to. The goblins had plenty of tasks for young entrepreneurs, but few would help to test and grow her skill with the healing arts, which was her focus– no, most of the goblins asked for bandits to be chased off and roving animal bands to be culled.

She shifted effortlessly into the form of a dust-colored lion and stretched, as she did so briefly inspecting her claws– they were not as sharp as they could be. Neither were her teeth. She hadn’t studied feral combat at all, and she knew that as time went on and she dealt with more and more dangerous foes, this form would no longer cut it. She sighed again, shifted back into her tauren form, and muttered a brief prayer to the Earthmother as she strode into Gadgetzan’s inn.

That was when she saw him; a blood elf with a red lion’s mane of hair and a large, beautiful cream-hued moth fluttering next to his head. There was something about this elf that shook the druid as unusual, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

She thought for a bit, wondering if she should approach him; these blood elves were somewhat unpredictable in their actions and many of her comrades at home in Mulgore had muttered their quiet disapproval of having to work with them. Still, she figured it was worth a shot, since there was no one else around at this time except for the goblins, and so she sat down next to him on the bench.

He immediately glanced up at her with expressive bluegreen eyes as she attempted to word her request in Orcish, a language which she still did not have a strong command of. “Hello, sir… I am a healer… would you like my help?” Mentally she berated herself for not being able to word that as eloquently as her mind cwas able to, but her thoughts were soon interrupted by the blood elf chuckling and responding– in Taurahe, no less– “I certainly wouldn’t mind some company.”

The druid found herself taken aback at his use of her language. She blinked as he continued, “Did you have anything in particular that you aimed to do while here? I have spent a lot of time here myself; I’m sure the goblins are sick of me by now.” He laughed a bit again– a friendly, good-natured laugh.

The tauren studied the blood elf; here she noticed what it was about him that had flagged him as “unusual”. Namely, instead of wearing the bright, polished armor and colors preferred by most of his race, he was dressed in practical and somewhat bland mail and leather garb, and wore beads and feathers in his hair. His weapon was a gun of typical Tauren worksmanship, and to top it off, his Taurahe, albeit having a foreign (but not entirely unpleasant) lilt to it, sounded fluent.

It was as though he had come from Thunder Bluff instead of Silvermoon.

All at once the druid relaxed. It was a mystery to be sure, but there was a down-to-earth friendliness in the blood elf’s face, and it was reassuring.

“To tell the truth I just arrived not to long ago,” she replied, glad to be conversing in her native tongue. “I am training to be a healer, though, and it’s getting hard to find such work when there are so few about…”

The blood elf nodded. “That’s unfortunate, but sadly, understandable. You’re welcome to adventure with me, though… I could use the company. Not that Chakapas here isn’t good company…” he reached up and gently stroked the moth’s furry face, and it chattered back happily. The elf turned back to look at the druid. “We’ll start you with the basics; this is a rough land. I know a good place where we can practice working together.” He stood up and brushed off his trousers, then extended a gloved hand out to the tauren. “I’m Althalor,” he said. “And you…?”

“Songlark,” the druid smiled.

—

So for Recruit-a-Friend I transferred my Sapling Tree (as opposed to the Full-grown Tree I already possess) over to my new account, specifically so she and the third hunter in my repertoire could level together. The main catch is that for the lowbie to receive bonus XP, the group must not be killing anything that is “gray” to either character, and for both to receive bonus XP, they must be within a few levels of each other. And currently, Althalor has a head-start on Songlark of some ten-odd levels.

Still, I figured I could find something in the middle of their respective leveling ranges and at least get Songlark started on her way.

Enter Zul’Farrak.

The mobs are orange (or red) to Songlark and green to Althalor. Armed with Spirit Bond and a Glyph of Mending, I was able to successfully solo the vast majority of the trash in that place, with Songlark obediently following along and providing Mark of the Wild and the rare backup heal, whilst soaking up all the bonus experience.

I experimented with a couple different computer setups, including this one:

(Mega Man wallpaper is sexy and you can’t stop me from thinking so! *nods sagely*)

However, the windows were too small to do much work in, and since I was spending 95% of my time on Althalor the Hunter anyway, I eventually wound up making both windows larger and simply keeping one minimized. I didn’t full-screen either of them, to make it easier to swap between them, though.

Oh, and before you ask, it works flawlessly on Linux/Wine. /flex

By now I’ve toted Songlark through good portions of ZF, several quests in both Feralas and Tanaris, and also jumped onto Lunapike to run her through Scarlet Monastery a few times for Whitemane’s infamous hat (which failed to drop and then I got bored…) Suffice to say she was level 38 when we began this little adventure and she’s now a fraction of a bar away from level 43.

I like this Recruit-a-Friend thing. *cough* It feels super awesome to have both Hunter PewPew and Druid HoTs at my disposal– two of my favorite things!

It does feel odd, in another way, though. See, leveling is something I really enjoy doing. I even like leveling “the normal way”. So this would aaaaaallllmost feel like cheating, except that I already have a level 80 hunter (two actually) and a level 80 druid and I’ve leveled both Horde and Alliance characters to 80 at this point so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything new, ya know?

I don’t think I would actually ever use Recruit-a-Friend with someone who hadn’t played before, though… I’d level with them the old-fashioned way, I think. Personal preference, really.

By the way– I’ve gotten LOTS of comments about dual-boxing and programs to use and that sort of thing. I do appreciate all the advice, but at this point I have little interest in “serious” dual-boxing beyond sticking the druid on follow and having the hunter go demolish stuff. Not to mention, I have my doubts about how well various dual-boxing programs would work on Linux. Still, I will keep all the input in mind, just in case.

beast mastery

One Step Backward, Two Cautious Steps Forward – About The Beast Within "Nerf"

September 9, 2009 Pike 30 Comments

I originally wasn’t going to write this post; I don’t typically do speculations-types of posts and I’ve got another post which I consider much more interesting in the works at the moment. However, this could potentially be Very Big News, and because I seem to be biggest Beast Master Hunter blogger at this point (for better or for worse)– I figured I’d bring this up.

*pulls down screen and turns on overhead projector*

Could someone get the lights…?

Okay.

MMO-Champion says thusly:

* The Beast Within now lasts 10 sec (Down from 18 sec) but now also increases all damage you deal by 10% at all time.
* Bestial Wrath now lasts 10 sec. (Down from 18 sec)

Now, I can envision the reaction some of you may have had there. Lemme sum it up: you read the first seven words of the quote, your heartrate and blood pressure skyrocket, you leap out of your chair and scream something incoherent… and then you read the rest, your heartrate goes down a bit, and you slooooowly sit back down while scratching your head.

If you did that, don’t be ashamed, because I did the exact same thing.

Because of that, I want everyone to take a few deep breaths. Inhale… exhale… inhale… exhale…

Okay.

Now.

Let’s talk a bit.

Right now, in my humble experience, Beast Masters in endgame PvE are particularly good at two things: a.) fights where you’re doing a lot of running around and/or are out of commission and yet your pet can just sit there and om nom to his heart’s content, and b.) burst damage.

As an example for that first thing there, I point you towards something like the final boss in Drak’Theron Keep. Your pet does his normal thing the whole time, while you turn into a skeleton and whack things with your staff. You lose a lot of “hunter DPS” in that fight. Your pet picks up the slack. Another example would be Giant Popup Book Guy, aka Kologarn, in Ulduar. I have noticed in my few jaunts in there that that is a fight where I tend to do very well in comparison to many other classes or hunter specs. I think it’s because while I’m running around like a hamster on caffeine, trying to avoid the eye lasers, my pet is calmly munching on the boss. Once again, your pet “picks up the slack”.

Now, the burstyness. If you’re anything like me you’ve had at least one moment where you– all nice and raidbuffed in your 25man– got a devious little grin on your face, pulled out Recount, and popped EVERYTHING on some random trash mob just for kicks. Bestial Wrath, Call of the Wild, Rapid Fire, trinkets, you name it. During this, you watched Recount very closely and giggled at where you’d peak right after a string of crits. We’re talking in the range of 7000+ DPS, for me anyway… single-target! It’s ungodly. For that blissful fifteen seconds or so, we are extremely hard to catch.

The downside, of course, is that we fall below average inbetween those burst moments.

What the Bestial Wrath change says to me is that Blizzard is trying to iron out the peaks a little and while I have no hard data or testing, my inkling is that it is going to be a slight net gain overall.

At this point, depending on the fight and on buffs and other things like that, my pet’s DPS makes up somewhere around 40% of my total DPS. Sometimes it’s a little less, and sometimes it’s a little more. Let’s take a look at Bestial Wrath, replacing “you” and “your pet” with some percentages (in brackets, so it’s a little easier to follow):

OLD BESTIAL WRATH: Every 1.17 minutes, you increase [60% of your DPS] by 10% and [40% of your DPS] by 50% for 18 seconds. This cannot be used if your pet is dead or unavailable.

NEW BESTIAL WRATH: Every 1.17 minutes, you increase [60% of your DPS] by 10% and [40% of your DPS] by 50% for 10 seconds. In addition, [60% of your DPS] does 10% more damage at all times from now on, even if your pet is dead or unavailable.

…there, see, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? In fact, it kinda sounds like an overall buff, doesn’t it? Maybe not a big buff, but a buff nonetheless. And hopefully it will pave the way for better things in the future.

See, Blizzard is actually taking this in a direction where I have kind of been hoping they would go. I’ve felt recently that pet damage is creeping too far upwards and while I love having a ridiculously scary pet, I also don’t like the fact that I am screwed on pet-unfriendly fights or other weird gimmicky fights where they don’t let you use your pet, or your pet doesn’t get some major buff, or what-have-you. This is ultimately a pet nerf but a hunter buff, and while I’ll certainly miss my favorite 18-second juggernaut, I am glad to see the pendulum swing a little more in the “hunter” direction.

Besideswhich, last I checked, Blizzard is still promising full ArmorPen/Haste/Crit/etc. scaling from master to pet in the near future, and if it does happen soon that’s going to be HUGE.

Keep your chins up, Beast Masters!

…okay, recess! *flips off overhead projector*

—

Closing Note: I had to make a few assumptions here, namely, the assumption that The Beast Within will still boost your damage by 10% during its duration in addition to its overall 10% damage boost. I also didn’t dig into any potential slight DPS loss caused by not having the reduced mana cost on shots for 18 seconds anymore. But hey, this isn’t supposed to be a mathy post anyway…

Also, I acknowledge that I could very well be wrong about all of this. Here, I present to you several grains of salt! *hands out free salt shakers*

Second Closing Note: I suppose in the end what I’m really trying to say here is… ~~I HATE SAUERKRAUT~~ *cough* anyways, what I’m trying to say is that I’m staying optimistic about this. We’re hunters, we’ll survive. To quote one of my favorite books of all time… “All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand Enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.”

Uncategorized

Recruit-a- …me?

September 9, 2009 Pike 22 Comments

I’ve been feeling a little silly lately since I feel like I don’t have much to blog about. Not to say that I’m not enjoying myself in game, but really, I figure who really wants to hear about me ramble about dailies, alts, and the occasional heroic?

(Though if you do want to hear me ramble about that stuff for some reason, lemme know =P)

Fortunately I may have found something of interest to talk about: namely, yesterday I decided to splurge and I got myself a second WoW account and Recruit-a-Friend. The whole set up + upgrading to WotLK + transferring a “test alt” over there was kind of pricy, but I allow myself to splurge a little every six months or so to keep me from going completely nuts about watching 95% of my income go to bills and food, so this was my splurge this time. /nod

Also, this is the graphic Blizz displays as an Easter Egg on the “Upgrade-to-WotLK” page:

For great justice.

Anyways, I haven’t had much of a chance to play around with my new second account yet, other than discovering I can’t invite my alt back to my little personal Horde Guild (I think maybe you have to have had an account for a few days or something before it will let you join a guild?) I have also decided the way battle.net handles more than one WoW account is pretty nifty. You just log in with one overriding account and then you choose which account you want to log into before you get to the character selection screen.

But yeah, looking forward to messing around with it after work today. To tell the truth I have no major overriding plan for what I want to do with a second account. I have little interest in the zebra mount, and no real alt plans for Recruit-a-Friend (other than satiating my morbid curiosity about just how fast the 3x experience + herilooms + rested goes…) and seeing as what I’m most excited about is being able to do things like get myself into raid groups for solo’ing stuff, or being able to invite myself to alt guilds (things that I was able to utilize the boyfriend for until his account expired >.>) I’m actually not sure it will be worth the extra $15/month in the end. But we’ll see how it goes– I’m pretty sure I’m creative enough to come up with something interesting– and if it isn’t as fun as I was expecting, it’ll be easy to just cancel that subscription and go back to one!

*nod*

fun, screenshots, Uncategorized, weapons

Of Guns and Robotics – Why I Like All The Things Lots Of You Don't

September 6, 2009 Pike 20 Comments

One thing I’ve noticed lately is that I usually get confused and curious comments or Twitter messages when I mention that guns are by far my favorite type of ranged weapon, or that I am obsessed with Mechanostriders, or that I like gnomes and goblins. And because curiosity is typically a good thing, I am here to reward that curiosity with answers! *nods*

Okay, first, let’s go back to the basics. I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again because it’s relevant: I’ve always been more of a sci-fi person than a fantasy person. When I was a kid, I found aliens and spaceships and androids to be much more interesting than more abstract concepts like elves and dwarves. I shoved various fantasy films and cartoons aside in favor of Star Trek or Star Wars, which never bored me, despite the fact that I’d seen the various movies enough times that I could quote entire scenes verbatim.

As I grew older, I finally started to sort of grasp and appreciate fantasy much more than I had in the past, but that longstanding love for sci-fi has really stuck with me.

As such, I really REALLY like anything involving robots, steampunk, rube goldberg devices, mechas, crazy machines, airships, flashing lights, and any sort of otherwise otherworldly and machiney contraptions.

One of the awesome things about WoW and the Warcraft world is that Blizzard isn’t afraid to occasionally toss all those awesome things into their games. Sure, I was always the girl who preferred StarCraft to WarCraft back when they were strictly RTS games (go figure), but even the WarCraft games had glaive throwers and flying machines and all sorts of fun stuff. So I’m naturally drawn to all that stuff (and by extension, to gnomes and goblins).

Anyways, this fangirlishness of mine has manifest itself today in the form of showering my characters with all sorts of fun contraptions:

I’m not sure if it’s quite possible for me to express the awesomeness of having a mechanical mount and a mechanical minipet. I have actually started collecting Mechanostriders in various colors and while I love all minipets, the robotic ones (such as Clockwork Rocket Bot) are my favorites. The particular set you see here; the Gnomeregan Mechanostrider and the Mechanopeep, cost 140 Champion’s Seals all told. That’s a lot of dailies. And you know what? It was totally worth it.

I love the way Mechanostriders appear to have so much personality for being a machine (I am a sucker for that sort of thing), but recently I discovered that they have tail-lights, and my Fangirly Squee reached new heights:

Tail-lights. On my mount. Tell me that’s not awesome.

Now let’s move along to guns. Truthfully, there are sort of a myriad of reasons why my various hunters tend to gravitate towards guns instead of bows/crossbows, the major ones among them being a.) roleplaying (Tawyn has close ties with the Dwarven District of Stormwind, for example), and b.) Me being shallow (Male blood elf + gun = drool)

Largely, though, it all goes back to phasers and light-pistols and tricorders and things that go PEWPEWPEW very loudly and with lots of flashy lights. It reminds me of Trek and Star Wars and those warm, cozy, and oh-so-fun childhood memories of watching the good guys triumph with their little laser guns in hand. (Well, and lightsabers, but that’s what glowy stat-sticks are for.) I want my made-up hero to be like that too. So gimme guns, baby.

Now I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking, “Pike, are you seriously going to pass up a ranged weapon upgrade just because it isn’t a gun?”

The correct answer is: no, of course not. I only saw Arrowsong drop once, ever. But I rolled on it so fast your head woulda spun. I lost, but you know. Back in Burning Crusade I replaced the sexiest ranged weapon of all time, Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle, with The Choco-Bow as soon as I had the badges. I am, afterall, a hunter. I’ll take any good ranged weapon.

…but that doesn’t mean having a gun gives me a little thrill and makes me happy in a dorky way.

I used Nesingwary 4000 for a very very long time. I love that weapon. It looks absolutely gorgeous. I think it’ll stay in my bank for time and all eternity (alongside Wolfslayer). The other day, the new gun from Trial of the Champion dropped. I waffled on taking it for a bit because the stats alone weren’t super hot, but in the end, it’s enough of a white damage increase that I’m pretty sure it is an overall upgrade. It’s not quite as pretty as Nesingwary, but I like it; it’s a very handsome weapon in its own right.

…and it’s a gun. *squee*

I’m loving Ulduar so far. Guys, it’s full of robots and vehicles that chuck bombs at people. HOW IS THIS NOT AWESOME? (Hint: It is, in fact, extremely awesome.)

Okay, I’m done fangirling. Just figured I’d explain some possibly odd little obsessions of mine. Carry on now…

guides, movies

Pikestaff Productions Presents: JOUST! The Motion Picture Event

September 4, 2009 Pike 20 Comments

…not that Joust. It was a really good game though. I miss my Commodore 64.

Nah, I went ahead and made a how-to movie about jousting since a lot of commenters seem to have questions on it or problems with it!

Now I have to admit, I’ve had the idea to make a movie cooking in my brain for a little while now, but I’ve seen at least three or four other “How to Joust” posts complete with movies floating around the WoWosphere already, so I figured I didn’t want to overload it. But then I thought… what the heck. So here you go. Jousting, Pike-style, complete with commentary! (Turn YouTube annotations on if you can’t see them.)

By the way, the song is amazing.

As always, lemme know if you have questions/comments/issues/etc., and click on through to YouTube if you want to watch the High Quality version~ (it’s in WoWoscope Widescreen!)

Aspect of the Hare