Tag Archives: alts

alts, screenshots, thoughts, Uncategorized

When Mend Pet Isn't Enough…

50 Comments

treespotlightI’ve been sort of thinking a lot this morning about an interesting trend I’ve noticed; namely, the tendency of hunters to roll healer alts. I see it quite a bit on blogs; Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick has recently realized she is more of a Heals Lovin’ Draenei Chick and has decided to move fulltime to the Twisted Nether Blogcast, and just recently the Kitty Collector has become Addicted to Heals. These are just a few of the recent examples. Then I thought about how my little treedruid, made on a whim several months ago, seemingly running through the forests of Teldrassil only yesterday, is suddenly in Northrend, busily healing Utgarde Keep runs. Then, in typical Pike fashion, I started wondering why. Why are we hunters– often die-hard hunters, to greater or lesser degrees– drawn to healing?

First, I think it sort of stems from a desire to be useful. Us hunters are used to sitting in LFG for hours while people sit there spamming “need heals and tank and g2g”. To be fair, things seemed to have gotten a little better for us in WotLK, at least on my server (I’ve seen more than a few pleas for ranged DPS or even hunters in specific), but there’s still that deep-seated longing among many of us to play a class role that is in more demand.

That brings us to the next question though; why healing and not tanking?

These are my theories:

1.) It’s not melee. We’re hunters. We pride ourselves on staying as far away from the enemy as possible. My two-handed axe skill sat at 349/350 for months after I’d gotten Legacy out of Karazhan… and I was proud of it. Tanking involves going up to something and letting it hit you in the face. For many of us, especially those of us who started out in this game as a hunter, it’s uncomfortable and counter-intuitive. Healing is a lot more attractive in that regard.

2.) Buffs. I dunno about you guys but I was always really, really sad that I couldn’t really buff anyone as a hunter. Well, I could through things like Ferocious Inspiration, but I couldn’t run around Stormwind and buff people. So it’s no surprise that I’m super-buff happy on my druid. Sometimes before I log out I run around and buff as many people as I can with Mark of the Wild until my mana is nearly empty. I am always careful to buff hunter pets, and I always make sure that the pet has Thorns, and not the hunter (because come on, the pet is going to be the one getting hit!) I think all the times my pet has failed to received bufflove has really ingrained that one into me. So long as I am nearby, your pet is gettin’ buffed.

Now paladin and druid tanks can buff too, of course, but toss priests and Fortitude into the fray and heals have got an advantage here.

3.) …no, really, Mend Pet isn’t enough sometimes. Improved Mend Pet is a talent I couldn’t live without 2/2 in. In fact, remember how I leveled Marksman and switched to Beast Mastery around level 58 or so? IMP was one of the major reasons I stayed. I’m serious. I am super OCD about cleansing debuffs from my pet. Super OCD. Mend Pet was the first skill I actually started using a keybinding for, and while I now have keybinds for a good chunk of my abilities, alt+2 will always remain dear to my heart. And seriously, how many of you are as anal-retentive about Mend Pet as I am? I’m sure a good chunk of you are. How many of you draenei have a Mend Pet/Gift of the Naaru emergency macro? How many of you have been in a raid or instance, noticed that your target’s target’s health was dropping low, and instinctively spammed Mend Pet before remembering that, um, the tank is tanking, and not your pet? I know I’m guilty of that one rather frequently.

I’m sure several of us have been in those situations where we think “Ugh if only I’d had a little more heals.” I wonder if that perhaps influenced our healy-alt-tendencies at all.

4. Survival. Hunters are about survival. And not just the ones spec’d into it. All hunters, from a lore standpoint, are beast masters, marksmen, and survivalists. That’s why you have tabs for all three when you open up your spellbook. Your spec just determines which one your hunter sort of specializes in– hence the word “spec”. Hunters of all specs are about pulling all the stops to stay alive when the outlook is grim. Makes sense that some of us would want to expand a little and try our hand at being responsible for more than just our own survival.

So, those are my theories on why we see so many hunters-gone-heals– whether they’re a new main, or just a minor diversion like mine– running around.

…though I’d love to hear from the devil’s advocate hunters out there who hate healing and rolled tanks, or more DPS… or no alts at all…

alts, characters, ding, screenshots

Back On The Treadmill

18 Comments

After much hem’ing and haw’ing…

wow_lunapike71

…Lunapike starts to work her way up the leveling ladder!

Now, I’m one of those psychos that actually really enjoys leveling. I love the quests and the lore and the world and seeing it all through the eyes of a character with a different personality than last time. Why do you think I have so many alts that are hunters and druids? Because my strain of altism is unique in that I enjoy the questing more than the “learning to play a completely new class” thing. For the most part I stick to what I know I’m already comfortable with and enjoy, and do more leveling. (And tame more pets, my other favorite part of the game).

Lunapike’s spec is a little interesting, so I’ll preemptively explain before anyone asks (cause I have been asked about spec discrepancies between my characters before)… her spec is meant firstly for making her pet more of a tank for more efficient leveling, and secondly for the fact that she’s on an RP-PvP server and may have to scuffle every once and a while. Those two types of specs seem to coincide quite well if you are a Beast Master hunter, just nab all the talents like Endurance Training, Thick Hide, and Spirit Bond. I’ll probably respec her at 80 but for now, this is what she is, and it works well.

I have no idea how fast or slow Lunapike’s journey to 80 is gonna be or whether she’ll even be my second 80 (Tamaryn is closing in fast in a surprise run from the outside! And down the stretch they come! Now taking bets!) but I’m gonna enjoy it. I was always disappointed that I got her to 70 a little too late last time and never even got her into Karazhan because WotLK came out before I could finish getting her geared up for it. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen this time; my taureness is at least gonna see Naxx, and hopefully a lot more too. Because I maintain my stance that tauren females* are the best playable models in the game and deserve to be seen in all that epic armor. *nods*

—

* Female tauren hunter is probably my favorite gender/race/class combination in all of WoW. I just love it. And it makes me really happy that there are a pretty decent number of us in the blog world!

alts, fun, i love hunters, screenshots

Rumors of My Rerolling Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

25 Comments

So I have a paladin who I’ve been spending a little time on each day, and I have a resto druid who randomly wound up with her very first old-school Badge of Justice the other day (Yes, it is apparently quite possible for a level 65 tree to heal a level 80 tankadin through level 70 heroics), but you gotta understand something. Namely, you can take the girl outta the hunter but you can’t take the hunter outta the girl. Or something along those lines.

Heck, scratch the girl part, you can be a hot blood elf guy too:

wow_althalorlevel40portrait

Althalor is now level 40. For the uninitiated, that means I now have a level 80 hunter, a level 70 hunter, and a level 40 hunter. And once you toss all my dozens of sub-20 hunters into the mix, I’ve clocked well over 200 collective levels in this class. Probably closer to 250.

Yes, yes, I know. But hey, I can’t help myself. Once you go pewpew, you can’t go… uh… I’ll get back to you on that one.

So yes, I am here to ease the panic that sometimes occurs on blogs, comments, e-mails, and the WoW Twitterati (term coined by one Matticus) when I briefly dip into a non-hunter interlude. Be not afraid– Pike is a hunter, and this is a hunter blog. One lil’ treedrood and one lil’ baby protadin are no match for the Hunter Mafia. I mean, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the leveling of two little alts doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy World of Warcraft.

Eh? Ehhh? See what I did there?

/cough

Okay, I’ll stop now. >.>

(P.S. Okay, so maybe not that many people are panicking. But I can pretend, at least, to make it more dramatic.)

alts, screenshots

Stop. Hammer Time!

29 Comments

So I finally managed to get a draenei over level ten. Now you may be imagining that I have some female draenei hunter working her way through the draenei starter area, and that would be a good guess, but sadly, it is incorrect.

See, I made a male draenei. Shake them facial appendages!

And I ran him to Elwynn Forest at level two. Yes, I’ve still yet to do a single quest on Bloodmyst Isle, with any character ever.

Oh and…

tanfarrlevel18

He’s a paladin. Jinkies!

His name is Tanfarr, meaning he continues my tradition of giving my Silver Hand toons a name that begins with “Ta”, and he is about a third of the way through level 18, which means he is now my highest level paladin ever– higher than that failed attempt of a blood elf paladin who I haven’t played in like a year and a half.

Something surprising about this character: he’s really fun to play. You gotta understand, no offense to you pallies, but I could never get into your class. Ever. I tried soooo many times. It was never fun for me. So what inspired me to start up once again, I have no idea, but something clicked this time and it’s been a blast. Heck, I even semi-jokingly asked my guild’s holy prot ret whatever-the-group-needs paladin if Blizz secretly made pallies fun in a recent patch, and his response was “As a matter of fact, yes they did.”

I was also surprised to find out that I could actually get into a melee class, though to be fair, I’ve noticed that more than going up and hitting things in the face, I enjoy being the one getting hit in the face, and then laughing because I am simply soaking up all the damage. Hence the fact that all my talent points so far have been dumped into the Prot tree.

Not to mention, how many level 18s can receive /thanks for buffing a level 80? Blessing of Kings for the win.

Gosh I love alts. Raiding can wait until BM is buffed up again; I’ve got old content to love <3

alts, characters, screenshots

The Pikey Bunch

14 Comments

When I posted a picture of my servers on my last post, I got a lot of comments about how I have a lot of toons. This is something that really hadn’t occurred to me because it doesn’t feel like I have that many characters, because I don’t actively play many of them. Observe:

serverqueues1

Silver Hand (10) – I have ten characters on this server, and only five that I ever log into. One is Tawyn, one is Tamaryn, one is my bank alt, one is my mote bank alt, and one is my Death Knight. Characters posted in order of frequency that I log into them (my poor DK is neglected these days). Those other five characters… I have a hard time remembering who they are, much less logging into them >.>

The Venture Co. (8) – I have eight characters on this server. Now actually, this server sort of ends up being my “experimental alts” server so I think overall I’m more active with alts on this one than on Silver Hand. Not all eight of them, though, there are a couple characters here who I rarely touch, and Lunapike and Althalor (both hunters) and Songlark (my other resto druid… what? >.>) are the only ones above level 20.

Dark Iron (3) – This is the server that a lot of my family and IRL friends play on. So I’ve had characters on there almost from the beginning. Here’s the thing: it’s not an RP server. As such, I have a heck of a hard time playing there. It’s not even that I “miss” the RP, because I don’t do a lot of RP myself. It’s that the whole atmosphere just feels different in a way I can’t get used to =(

Regardless, I have a level 16 blood elf paladin on this server who I haven’t touched in over a year. I also have two hunters who are levels… I dunno, 9 and 12 respectively, I think. Who also haven’t been touched in over a year. They’re still sitting there out of… well I’m not sure why they’re still there. I have already informed aforementioned friends and family that if I ever decide to go play with them it will probably be through transferring Lunapike over, so maybe it’s finally time to release these characters into the nether.

Thunderlord (2) – I have a couple of sub-10 characters here. They haven’t been touched in months. More family members play on this server, but sadly it suffers from NonRPitis like Dark Iron does and I can’t get into it. Next!

Cenarion Circle (2) – This one is actually interesting, the two characters here are level 1. One is from some random BRK event a long time ago and one is a replica of Tawyn when I wanted to try my hand at machinima. Decided I failed at machinima and haven’t touched the character since. Not sure why these characters are still around actually >.>

Twisting Nether (2) – Ah yes, this server. My boyfriend and I have been casually leveling two gnome mages together. We got busy and haven’t logged in for a few months. We should probably do that again. >.> The second character on the server is a level 2 hunter who I never play.

Drenden (2) – I have a level 2 blood elf hunter here who now that I think about it should probably be deleted, and a level 12-ish dwarf hunter who… I need to log into more. Forgive me, Ratshag and BRK! /grovels

Wildhammer (2) – This server has a bit of a story behind it– the same friend that got me and my boyfriend playing WoW on the first place (and stuck us both on Silver Hand, actually), also had Horde characters on this server, and a really fun guild. So, one of the first characters I made in all of WoW was a troll warrior named Lunakuti, partially because it sounded trollie, and partially because my character had tusks like Luna from Dominic Deegan. Then I realized that I missed behing a hunter. A lot. A lot a lot. So I rolled a new character, named Lunapike, as an homage to my first failed attempt on this server. I liked Lunapike a lot and played her until level 22 or 23 or so, at which point the guild sort of imploded and I diagnosed the server with having an acute case of the dreaded NoRP Flu, so I transferred to The Venture Co. The rest is history =P

That aforementioned troll warrior and a random troll priest are still on that server, having not been touched in over a year. I find it hard to delete the warrior, if only because she wound up being the roundabout inspiration for Lunapike. I’m kind of a sap.

Moon Guard (2) – This is supposedly the world’s biggest RP mecca and I wanted to check it out, so I have an Alliance and Horde character here. Now maybe it’s because the characters are low level or maybe because I was checking out the wrong spots (Thunder Bluff is understandable but Stormwind? And I had to walk through freaking Goldshire to get there?), but I didn’t see any of this mythical RP going on. Sometimes I think I should go back and take a second look but the server is always locked these days, so…

Sisters of Elune (1) – This is the server where my boyfriend and I were doing our Grand Switcheroo project– he rolled a hunter and I rolled a warlock. They’re both sitting at level 10, and have been for quite some time. I feel really bad, but… I have such a hard time getting into warlocks. I try so hard, too. For my latest attempt, I decided to make a “hot blood elf guy ‘lock” (my term /cough) and it sort of is helping a little. Why yes, I am kind of a sad person. =P

Shadow Council (1) – I have a level 18ish troll Survival hunter on this realm who I play once every month or so because Shadow Council has this weird tendency to be the only server up when all my other ones are down. If that keeps up this character might actually be a decent level someday. o.O

Maelstrom (1) – I sat down and said “I AM GOING TO LEVEL A DRAENEI PAST LEVEL 10 FOR ONCE” and the result is a lonely level 6 draenei hunter on this random server. As you can see that little project isn’t progressing very well, but maybe someday?

And that’s that. I’ve deleted several through the ages too, but now that I look at it, I may have to go through and make yet another clean sweep. I mean, it’s a new year, Spring Cleaning and all, right? Though I always feel a little bad about deleting characters. Am I the only one who’s a character packrat? =P

In other news, I feel obligated to inform you all that my WoW subscription expired yesterday and I am not going to resubscribe right away. Not out of lack of interest in the game at all, no, but because I have a lot of stuff going on in the Real World right now that requires my attention (and money) and I want to make sure I have that all cleared up before jumping into the Warcraft World again. I don’t anticipate the game downtime being that long and I’m pretty sure I’ll still be blogging, so don’t panic! I just wanted to update you all on the situation. *nods*

alts, classes, fun

Pike Has No Class

19 Comments

(Shamelessly stolen from a couple other blogs)

Pike rolled a druid. She Wrathed and Moonfired her way up to about level 5 and then got bored and quit. Several months later she rolled another druid. This time she got to level 10 and got Bear Form! Then she got bored and quit. Another several months later she rolled a third druid, somehow managed to get to level 15ish… and was promptly invited to heal Deadmines and then SFK. “What… what is this… this healy thing is… fun?” Pike respec’d to Resto and is now level 64. Trees ftw baby.

Pike rolled a hunter. She thought it was a weird silly class until level 30 or so at which point something clicked. Then she rolled another hunter, and another hunter, and another hunter, and made a hunter blog, and rolled another hunter, and and and…

Pike rolled a mage. She liked it except that she kept dying, running out of mana, and running into hunters in Deadmines who looked like they were having ten times more fun than she was. Mage shelved at level 21. Though she did end up rolling another mage later that she has been having more fun with. (Must log into more often.)

Pike rolled a paladin. She tried doggedly to make this her “secondary main” way back when she’d first started playing. She tried hard. She got to level 17. Then she realized she was spending way too much time fumbling around with this confusing seals-thing and dying all the time (yes, as a paladin) while hunters ran blissfully past with their pets. Paladin shelved. Pike has since tried to make new paladins because she likes the lore behind them but she fails miserably every time she tries.

Pike rolled a priest. It was fun but didn’t seem to “hook” her at all. Priest shelved at level 8. She has since rolled a few more priests but none of them have gotten past level 10. Bugger.

Pike rolled a rogue. She got to level 8 and decided she didn’t like it and shelved it. Pike rolled another rogue much later, with a backstory that she really liked a lot. Pike found roguing slightly more intriguing this time but not intriguing enough. Rogue shelved at level 10; no real interest in trying again.

Pike rolled a draenei shaman. She got to level 7 and decided it was the most confusing class in the world and turned that shaman into a bank alt. Later Pike made a new Hordie shaman who was actually pretty fun and reached level 10, but then she got distracted. Shaman on indefinite hiatus.

Pike rolled a warrior. She got to level 6 and then rerolled hunter. Warrior turned into a bank alt.

Pike rolled a warlock. She kept telling her imp to tank and then wondering why he was so horrible at it, and why it took eight million years to cast Shadowbolt. She eventually fumbled her way into getting a Voidwalker but, as usual, got distracted. Warlock on hiatus; Pike feels better leaving the ‘locking to her boyfriend.

Pike rolled a Death Knight. It was actually really fun, although she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Then she was booted out of the starting zone into Hellfire Peninsula which was being heavily camped by about 500 other Death Knights. DK on hiatus.

And there you have it. Other than hunters and that random lucky resto druid, Pike really does have no class. … -es. /cough