Sooooo…Whatcha Doin’? May 3, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Moar Ranting, Sweating Bullet Points, Tank Girl.7 comments
I have absolutely nothing planned for this post at all. I’m staring at an empty screen with thoughts bubbling around in my noggin, so let’s see where this goes, shall we? (DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!) Anyway…
- Miss Tank Girl is now 84, thanks to a bunch of dungeon runs this past weekend and some questing in Hyjal. I’ve gotten to the point where I can pretty much tank Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides in my sleep…although I confess that I still get lost in ToT, which is probably bad. The tank’s supposed to know where they’re going, yes? Also, Vortex Pinnacle can go die in a fire. I don’t mind doing it as DPS, but as a tank it requires all sorts of Stupid Tank Tricks, and, well…screw that.
- Now that Miss Tank Girl is 84 with 85 in sight just around the riverbend, last night I decided to…pug Zul’Again on my priest. Yeah, I don’t know either. (Note to Twist: Yes, it’s another Bad Pugging Story. Move along now.) I zone into Zul’Gurub into a group that’s cleared all but three bosses. High Priestess Kilnara is now my new favorite WoW boss ever, because her emotes are just extra fabulous. Once we figured out the fight, down she went. Plus she gave me new shoulders, so she’s now my BFF. Then it was on to the Cauldron Boss, and I have heard a lot of people talking smack about this boss, so I was a little skeptical. This may go down in WoW history as one of my favorite boss fights ever. It’s got a gimmick to it, but as long as you pick up the frost mixture when the add comes out and pick up the green mixture just before the gas comes out, you’re golden. Then it was on to the last boss, and by this time our group had gone through more lineup changes than…a thing that goes through a lot of lineup changes…a sports team, maybe…help? We pick up a new holy priest and a DK tank, and our boomkin gives three lines of explanation on the fight. We get through phase one, then we all die spectacularly. The boomkin, who up to this point has been cordial, screams “PRIESTS. LEAVE!” Zomgwhut? I snap back at him, “Soooo you expect perfect execution on a fight we’ve never seen in an instance that’s been on live for less than a week?” The DK (GOBLIN DK OMG CUTE) proceeds to give a lengthy and cogent explanation of the fight and we press on and get into phase two, wherein our holy priest proceeds to tank the floor, incurring the wrath of the boomkin (u c what I did thar?). Tank, priest and retadin drop group, leaving me there with the boomkin…I hightail it out and decide to spend the evening licking my wounds.
- In other news, I have a Cenarion Hatchling! It’s honestly not as cute as the Baby Boomkin or the Panther Cub, but my ten bucks went to the Red Cross, so there’s that. Those of you who think it’s cynical and awful for Blizzard to sell pets on the Blizzard Store can roll your eyes at me all you want…at least until my Cenarion Hatchling pecks them out.
- And finally, I’m so absolutely over the moon excited that our recruitment efforts may actually be paying off and bringing awesome new people to the Asylum. We picked up a new guy via the Guild Finder and I talked to him a bit last night and he’s pretty cool, and I’ve got feelers out to a few other people that applied via the Guild Finder. I just need to catch them online so I can get them in. Also, late last night I logged over to our website and there was a new application, and I got to the third answer on the app before I just stopped reading and said “I want him in my guild, like, yesterday.” So there’s that. And I’m really, really excited.
So that’s what’s happening in my world. Every time I walk through Orgrimmar Orphan Matron Battlewail keeps trying to sell me an orphan, but I’m not particularly interested. I’m pondering dropping herbalism on my hunter (druid flowerpicker FTW) and replacing it with mining so I can drop mining on my priest in favor of enchanting, but then I tell myself that my two best guild friends both have enchanters and that I’d have to level two new professions, and then invariably I get distracted by shiny objects and the urge passes. Speaking of shiny objects…*dazzled*….
I wanted to Ragequit. April 27, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Leveling, Moar Ranting.8 comments
I wanted to ragequit.
It was late, 11:30PM on a Monday night. I was in Blackrock Caverns on Tank Girl tanking a normal instance for my daily Justice Points pittance. I zoned in and we buffed up; me, a holy priest, an unholy DK, a fury warrior and a hunter. I pulled the first two trash mobs…so far, so good. OK, I can do this. It’s a Cataclysm instance and I’m level 81, I’ve got some decent gear, I’ve spent 81 levels getting my feet under me. I can do this.
I wanted to ragequit when a trash mob dropped a BOE agility trinket and the warrior Needed on it. “It has agility,” we explained. “It’s hunter/rogue/feral kitty loot”, we pleaded. “Agility helps me attack faster lol.” I wanted to ragequit, but I kept my mouth shut and whispered the priest, thanking her for being the only one in the group who seemed to have a clue what she was doing.
I wanted to ragequit when I pulled the boss and the five trash mobs behind him came along for the ride. I wanted to ragequit when the DK and the warrior both died to the first shockwave, apparently totally unaware of the mechanic. I wanted to ragequit, but I kept my mouth shut and kept walking on toward the next trash pack.
I wanted to ragequit when we got to Corla and we were working out who was going to stand in the beams, and instead the hunter decided to facepull the boss because he was “tired of waiting lol.” I picked up the boss and tanked the boss right next to the right beam just as I said I would (so the DK could hit her). Neither the hunter or the DK stood in their assigned beams. Both of the adds evolved. I picked them up and tanked them, and the boss died. I wanted to ragequit. Instead I votekicked the hunter.
I wanted to ragequit when, after killing the molten slag boss with little incident, we walked through the tunnel and pulled the two big elemental adds and the DK decided to pull the big trash pack on the side. I wanted to ragequit, but I kept my mouth shut.
I wanted to ragequit when the (new) hunter (that replaced the votekicked one) and the warrior decided to Stand In Bad when we were killing Beauty, and instead almost succeeded in killing themselves. But I didn’t.
I wanted to ragequit when I carefully pulled the two bigger elemental adds in the last hallway, and the DK decided to pull the big trash pack on the side that I had carefully avoided. But I didn’t.
I wanted to ragequit when I pulled Ascendius and both the melee DPS would. not. give. me. my. threat. back. I know I’m a prot pally and I’m overpowered, but I’m still only level 81 and I’m undergeared. I was doing my best to put out as much threat as I could (and yes, I had Righteous Fury on…that’s a mistake I’ll only make once), but I could not get Ascendius back. I wanted to ragequit. But I didn’t.
I wanted to drop group, head back to Orgrimmar, take off my shield and park my paladin for good. Blizzard couldn’t ply me with promises of milk and honey, dreams of mounts and pets, extra gold, extra JPs or gems. I wanted to ragequit and never tank again. I was done.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Call to Arms will never work. Not because of the loldks who will get some tank gear and queue up as a tank. Not because of the shadow priests and feral kitties who will sign up to try healing. Not because of the jealousy that will tear guilds apart. Not because of the tanks forced to queue solo without their healers they trust. Call to Arms will fail because the leveling/instancing game as it stands now has created an environment where precious few learn how to play their characters correctly, where giving advice to other players is met with “STFU!,” where a complete lack of patience and an assurance of success lead to players wrecklessly running through instances expecting great gear to just appear before their very eyes, where the act of queueing as a tank presents not an hour of fun playing the greatest MMO ever made, but where it represents an hour wrangling the slackjawed, the ignorant, the impatient, the vulgar, the angry, and the just plain clueless.
Tanking requires gear, it requires skill, it requires the proper spec, the proper rotation, the skill to pull off a decent pull…but it also requires guts. It requires the sheer cussedness to queue up, click that Tank button and take control. It requires knowledge of every boss strategy, knowledge of other classes’ abilities and how to work with them, and the perserverance to deal with every crappy DK, warrior and hunter the Dungeon Finder has to offer. It requires passion, willingness to put up the worst of the worst in order to ply the craft of tanking, and to be in complete control while doing it.
Don’t even get me started on healing. And to Tealtra of the Cairne server, the kickass priest that kept me alive through Monday night’s fiasco…my thanks and my kudos, friend.
Wherein I am humbled April 25, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Moar Ranting, Sweating Bullet Points, Tank Girl.2 comments
So what’d you do this weekend? I tanked. A lot. I did some questing in Hyjal too, but I tanked. A lot.
- Tanking Northrend instances was just as much fun as I thought it would be. The other day we got the guild (the three of us) together and chained some Northrend randoms, and as we’re standing around in Dalaran afterward Suz remarked that it was weird and awesome being back in Dalaran, back home. He’s right. I’m a Wrath baby, so Dalaran will always feel like home to me. Orgrimmar is my ancestral home, Shattrath will always feel like another planet (heh), the Alliance cities will always feel like another universe…but Dalaran is home. I even went into the Filthy Animal just to say hi and get repairs from Kyunghee, the throwing weapons vendor, just for old times’ sake.
- Saturday evening when I got home from work I flew up to Storm Peaks and did a little questing at the Grom’arsh Crash Site, which put me at Level 80 just as it should. I’m pretty sure three of my four toons hit 80 in Storm Peaks, so it’s kind of a tradition at this point. Fun Fact: When you hit 80 you still get a congratulatory note, potions and fireworks in the mail from Rhonin.
- When I hit 80 on Saturday I went to try and deliberately queue for Trial of the Champion and the ICC 5′s (because I’m a masochist, that’s why), but those instances are dead. I was in queue for TOC and FoS for over an hour, as a tank. In any event, I enjoyed Old Home week immensely, and wish I could go back to spending time in Northrend. It’s my home.
- Having hit 80 and run out of instances to tank, I went over to Falconwing Square to see what all this Noblegarden fuss is about. I ran around the square for about a half hour gathering eggs from the six nodes the designers put there, then in an effort to avoid throwing something at my monitor I decided there were probably more productive things I could be doing. I did the achievement last year on my hunter, and well…that’s enough of that.
- I hightailed it back to Orgrimmar and went to see what new adventures were in store for me. I sat in front of the Warchief’s Command Board for a moment and pondered a trek to either Mount Hyjal or Vashj’ir, then remembered just exactly how much I absolutely hated every minute of Vashj’ir and went to go spend some time with the Guardians of Hyjal.
- When I did Hyjal the first two times I was in a mix of 251/264 gear from ICC and badges, but this time I was in a mishmash of nonheroic Northrend dungeon blues. Boy howdy the mobs in Hyjal hit like freight trains. I guess I got used to Miss Grimsey the Tank Girl being Superwoman, stopping mobs dead in their tracks merely by looking askance at them, but in Hyjal I actually had to work for my supper.
- By late Sunday afternoon my favorite pocket(sized) shaman Rushette and our resident restokin Eponine had both hit 80 and done some similar questing in Hyjal, and Rush decided to drag me, kicking and screaming, into Blackrock Caverns. This, friends, is where this whole tanking thing I’ve been doing was exposed for the elaborate flimflammery that it’s always been. Rather than standing in front of a boss, going through a rotation and watching the boss magically die before my eyes, I was expected to…y’know…know stuff. Strategies and such. I was expected to kite Forgemaster Whatsisface through the slag without killing everyone. I was expected to take responsibility for the various mobs’ aggro tables and keep mobs off people. I had to take responsibility for my own tiny health and mana bars, my own threat, and the general safety and welfare of those around me. I no longer had the relative safety of my healer’s infinite mana pool or of being relatively over geared (although to Rush and Suz’s credit they’re both damned good healers). I’m scared, people. I’m too high strung and not smart enough for this! After Rush and Suz logged off I queued up for another run, and when we got to the Forge boss the shaman in the group asked me when I thought he should Bloodlust. In my head I’m thinking “How the hell do I know? Just do it!” but I gave what I thought sounded like a reasonable answer and the boss died without much hassle. Feeling vindicated, I cleared some more trash…then promptly pulled all three of Beauty’s pups by accident, resulting in a near wipe. Aieeeeee.
- I got a new shield out of the deal, though. All my useless Northrend gear is gone, replaced by shiny new Cataclysm greens and blues. And they have mastery on them! I have to say, coming from the world of shadow priests and boomkins where mastery just isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, the protection paladin mastery is…pardon my French…the shit.
So that was my weekend. I started out at 77 on Thursday and by Sunday night I was a few bars from 82. I actually tanked Blackrock Caverns three times with few problems, got rid of all my less than awesome old world gear, finally dropped my chest and shoulder heirlooms, got the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement, and managed to preserve at least the outward appearance that I know what I’m doing. Monday it’s dailies and maybe a random or two, then on Tuesday we kill de trolls, mon!
The Ends and the Means April 14, 2011
Posted by Ben in General Whinging, Moar Ranting.1 comment so far
I wrote a post here on the Asylum Wall last week about Westfall, and how I felt after questing through the zone. Over the weekend, the Know Your Lore column on WoW Insider also featured the Defias Brotherhood. (Coincidence, no, it isn’t, and it freaks me out a little) In the comments on those two posts, there were a few people who felt that both posts painted the Alliance as the bad guy, and excused all the horrible things that Vanessa VanCleef did.
Reflecting on these other opinions, I thought in a larger context of how what we do in Azeroth is connected to a battle between good and evil. As heroes of our respective factions, we are supposed to believe that what we are doing is inherently a right and justified campaign, but does that make it good?
As a young blood elf in Quel’Thalas, is your campaign against the trolls righteous? Is your claim to the land and its resources any stronger than theirs?
What about the troggs in the caves of Dun Morogh? Are they evil, or just in the way of what you want?
In the coming patch 4.1, we’ll be taking up arms against the Zandalari Tribe in Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman. They are the same faction that we collected trinkets and bijous for years ago. Have they become evil, or are their interests simply no longer aligned with our own?
What we’re left with is the age-old question: Does the end justify the means? And are we prepared to deal with the consequences of that we’ve done?
Wherein I Pontificate April 8, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Moar Ranting, Sweating Bullet Points.4 comments
I’ve been told there are people out there who appreciate my bad attitude and my snarky tone (I’m lookin’ at you, redcow), and I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough puppies and rainbows for one week. It’s Friday afternoon, I’m desperately in need of an alcoholic beverage, and I’m in a tell-it-like-it-is kind of mood. So here’s how it is:
- Gallons of pixelated ink have been spilled on the great Tank And Healer Bribe of 2011, and I’m loathe to spill anymore. Pfft. Blizzard’s latest attempt to bribe the playerbase into doing something they don’t necessarily want to do is…shall we say, misguided. Beyond the obvious danger of encouraging the DPS warriors and unholy DK’s among us to “tank” and creating unnecessary strain on healers–whose job is already beyond insane–it does little to address the issues that are actually creating the long queue times. It gets more tanks in the queue, but it doesn’t address the ongoing disaster that is the Random Dungeon Finder in Cataclysm. It can’t stop the hunter from rolling on every drop under the sun. It can’t stop the DPS DK from throwing a D&D every time it’s off cooldown and ripping aggro away from the tank*. It can’t stop the lolkids from acting like general asshats in random groups. In other words, it makes my shadow priest’s daily queue for a heroic misery run just a wee bit shorter without actually addressing the misery. Woo-fuckin’-hoo. (*Yes, I am leveling a tank through the early BC levels and dealing with Arthasdklol in every random group. Is it that obvious?)
- Queues will get shorter. They will get shorter when we’re all rockin’ T13 epic gear from badges and facerolling randoms like we did in late Wrath. They’ll get shorter when we have a wider variety of randoms that aren’t Stonecore and Halls of Origination (which has, IIRC, something like 11 bosses.) They will get shorter when my druid’s mana pool is once again infinite and I can save stupid people from their own stupid, and I’m more inclined to queue as a healer on my druid. Until then, if you’re the tank in my random group and you get Baron Rivendare’s mount just for showing up, I’m going to nerdrage like I’ve never nerdraged before.
- In other news, I did all this work setting up a new guild website and bragging to you all about my awesome guild, and then yesterday I realized something: I really have no idea how to recruit for a guild. Beyond putting up a post at my blog and possibly sending an email to WoW Insider’s Classifieds, I don’t know how to look under rocks to find all those lost-and-adrift people with brains who belong in Sane Asylum. Feh.
- And speaking of guilds, I was going to save this for an actual post someday, but it’s become the thorn in my side this week. The guild reputation system is, in a word, borkdeded. I can understand that the idea is to build guild rep slowly so that people actually make a commitment to their guild and don’t bop from guild to guild like a crack-addled spider monkey, but my paladin is currently level 64 and has been in Sane Asylum since the day she was born, and she’s currently neutral with Sane Asylum. In other words, she’s not eligible for many of the awesome perks that would encourage her to be in a guild in the first place (better profession skill-ups, for one thing). Completing a quest nets her something like ten guild rep points. This, my friends, is broken. If I level a toon from 1-85 all in the same guild, I should be revered (if not exalted) with my guild, yes?
Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a flask of Cenarion spirits with my name on it, and I have a hot date with Viera Sunwhisper of Falcon Watch.
The Daily Grind April 6, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Moar Ranting.4 comments
(I’m baaaaack! Sorry I abandoned you all, but I left you in good hands. I didn’t expect to be gone for almost a week and turn the blog exclusively over to Rush, but I read the piece he wrote about Westfall and I couldn’t wait to share it with you all. But I’m back, and I missed you all terribly.)
I have a confession to make. I hate dailies. I loathe them. I can’t stand them. I do them begrudgingly because I have to, but they make my skin crawl. I resent being told by the Whatever High Atop the Thing that I must log into WoW every day and complete some menial task in order to curry favor with some furry little race of people, or that I must prove my mad skills in jewelcrafting four times to be able to buy a new pattern. I hate the sense of obligation, the idea that I’m somehow a terrible slacker if I miss a day, the idea that when I log into WoW for the first time every day there’s a list of homework assignments that must be completed before I go any further.
But I do them. For the most part. I do the cooking and fishing daily every day on my hunter. I do the jewelcrafting daily on my druid every day (although I have about 45 unspent tokens burning a hole in my pocket for when epic gems finally come out). Although I have the Kingslayer and Assistant Professor titles on my druid, I wear my Crusader title because dammit, I worked for it. Just yesterday my priest handed in Archmage Galus’s staff for the last time and bought her shiny new caster trinket from Hellscream’s Reach (and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend another month on that godforsaken peninsula island on any of my other toons).
Here’s the part where you’re all going to think I’m nuts:
Back in the olden days of vanilla and BC, before daily quests became a painful and necessary obligation, one proved their mettle with various factions by doing what us Warcraft players are good at: killing things. Lots of things. We might kill furbolgs in Felwood and steal their feathers or zombies in Stratholme and steal their stitchings, but we killed things. The best part about this method is that if you’re just a wee bit OCD like I am, you could block out six hours, mount up on your trusty Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth, and go kill furbolgs until your eyes bleed (I just did the Timbermaw grind on my priest about a month ago, and boy howdy do they love me in that tunnel now). You could go kill six ogres in Nagrand today, forget about it for a month, then go back and kill six thousand more. This method far outshines the daily quest method.
I understand that one of Blizzard’s goals with Cataclysm was to throttle our consumption of their content so that we didn’t all run out, level to 85 in a week, then disappear into the woodwork until a new raid tier came out, but I’m getting to the point where some parts of WoW feel decidedly like homework. And that shouldn’t be the case. I’ve always said that I’d never join a hardcore raiding guild because if someone else is going to dictate when I’m to be logging on and how much time I’m going to spend, what I’m to be bringing with me, how to spend my time and is going to do a performance evaluation that may result in me being removed from my position, WoW stops being a game and starts being a job…and I already have one of those.
What say ye? Do you prefer the grind method, the daily quest method, the champion tabard method, or something else?
(IMPORTANT TEASER NOTE: One of the reasons I’ve been sort of AWOL this week is because I’ve been working on a bit of a project that I’m really, really excited about. Watch this space Friday morning, and if all goes well I’ll be able to let you all in on what I’ve dubbed my #evilplan).
I Don’t Believe in Random March 30, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Moar Ranting, Personal, Tank Girl.8 comments
I don’t believe in random.
I’m not going to get all philosophical here and talk about religion or everything happening for a reason. Let’s just talk about WoW.
Things don’t happen at random. Even in the Random Dungeon Finder (Seriously, HoR and Gundrak every day for six months? Random, my ass.) Sometimes there’s a weird confluence of events that just makes me sit back and say, “There’s no way that was random.” A couple months ago I had a huge snit with my former guildmaster, and after having endured a previous guild split and a slew of little snits with various guildies, I was ready to be done. I was ready to park my toons in Orgrimmar, log out, and never look back. I was flying around Uldum on my priest gathering ore* and feeling angry at the world when a little Elementium Geode poked out its little, er, head and said “Hi! Be my friend!”
Someone, somewhere, was trying to tell me something, or at least make me feel better.
So last night I did a little housekeeping stuff on my various toons, then logged into my paladin for what I hoped would be a night of AVENGER’S SHIELD CONSECRATE HAMMER OF THE RIGHTEOUS DIE MOBS DIEEEEEE. I had a relatively uneventful Sucky Sunken Temple run, then spun the wheel again. Lower Blackrock Spire. Kids, I’ve never even been in Blackrock Spire, much less tanked it. But I’m a good sport, and I had good sports with me (including a shaman named Pastureized, who is my new BFF ever because he led me through the whole thing and kept me alive through all my shitty tanking).
Then there was the mage. Let’s call her Aggro Diva. And the boomkin. Let’s call him Typhooooooon.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you’re a boomkin and you’re in a random and you’re hitting typhoon every time it’s off cooldown, I hate you and would like you to die a fiery, painful death. Or at least delete your boomkin. Or maybe just delete your Typhoon keybind. Seriously, it’s annoying as shit, and causes me to have to pick mobs back up when they’re halfway across the room. Not fun. Please, for the love of Cenarius, stop it.
So here I am in a completely unfamiliar dungeon with the Dippy DPS Twins and a revolving cavalcade of players in the third DPS slot who kept disconnecting. Plus, I gotta tell you, LBRS is loooooong. By three quarters of the way through it, I was so discouraged by the dueling DPS dimwits and my crappy tanking and the looooong dungeon that I was ready to hang up my shield and never tank again.
We rounded the corner and cleared a bunch of annoying little spiders. Before us was Mother Smolderweb, the biggest, baddest spider I’ve ever laid eyes on. AVENGER’S SHIELD CONSECRATE HOLY WRATH DIEEEEE SPIDER DIEEE. I took out all my pent up aggression against every little creepy crawly spider that ever crossed my path. I hate spiders, and I hated this one even more, because she was standing between me and the exit to LBRS. I wanted her dead, and I wanted her dead now. So we killed her.
And she gave me this:
Grimsey with her Smolderweb Hatchling
The Smolderweb Egg dropped, we all rolled Greed, and somehow, I won. That wasn’t random. That was the “Random” Number Generator Gods saying: “It was worth it. We’ll make it worth it. You stuck your neck out, dealt with a couple losers and tanked a brand new dungeon. Here’s your reward.”
I don’t believe in random.
*Yes, my priest is a miner. No, none of my profession combinations make any sense. Very little I do makes any sense. That’s how I roll.
Channeling Grandpappy Frostheim March 26, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Moar Ranting, Sweating Bullet Points.2 comments
(As promised, an open letter to the hunters of Azeroth.)
Gather ’round, my hunter brethren. Drop your guns and bows in the rack over there, would you? There’s some fresh meat and fruit over there in the corner for your pets. Let’s set a spell and talk, shall we?
I spent the first year of my time in Azeroth as a hunter. For months I traversed the rolling plains of Mulgore, the lush gardens of Un’goro Crater and the desolate wasteland of Desolace with my trusty bird by my side. I was invincible, not to mention uncommonly good-looking. My bird and I could take on any foe, fill it full of hot lead, and go on our merry way with a hearty laugh and a mug o’ stout. All was well until I got on to about my fortieth season, when the trolls of Revantusk Village sent me in to conquer the mighty troll city, Jintha’Alor. I fought off trolls and wolves by the dozen, confident in my skills with my bow and my bond with my bird…until I met the baddest of the bad, the meanest, ugliest troll witch I’ve ever seen in my life. I fought her and her bodyguards for hours, and had more meetings with the spirit healer than any one man should ever have. I cried out to my compatriots, “Help me!” The mighty death knight Thanael rode in on his trusty steed to my aid, took one look at what I was doing, and chuckled. “LOL UR DOIN IT WRONG.”
Well, he didn’t exactly say “UR DOIN IT WRONG.” He’s Canadian, y’see, and Canadians don’t talk like that. But the message was clear: everything I knew about hunting was wrong. My pulling technique was totally wrong, my trusty bird wasn’t the right pet for the job, and the bow my teacher had given me was woefully underpowered and out-of-date. I shudder to think what other citizens of Azeroth would have said if they had seen me. They would have pointed and laughed, and called me a huntard.
Don’t do it, friends. Don’t be a huntard.
- Use the right pet for the right job. When you’re soloing, your pet functions as your tank. Before you start shooting at a mob, send in your pet and let him build some threat, then start shooting. For soloing, you’ll want a tenacity pet like a turtle or a crocolisk. In an instance you have a tank to do that job for you, so you’ll want to go with a ferocity pet. When I zone into an instance as a tank and see you rockin’ your turtle, I get a little sad inside.
- Speaking of pets, your pet is your best friend. She’ll be with you through thick and thin, through smacking down little critters in Mulgore to taking on the vilest of the vile, Cho’gall, Magmaw and the like. She’ll never backtalk you, she’ll never abandon you (though you can abandon her, if you like. Just don’t do it in the streets of Dalaran like I did with my tallstrider a while back.) Treat her with some respect. Give her a dignified name. Other citizens of Azeroth will pass judgment on you instantly based on the name you choose to give your pet. Make it a good one.
- One last little note on pets: when you have a pet, you’ll get a special little toolbar in your user interface just for your pet. It houses all your pet’s abilities. When you’re in an instance, you’ll want to point your little mouse-clicker over to two of those buttons in your pet bar: first and foremost, make sure you click the button marked “defensive” to put your pet in a defensive stance. If you have it set to “aggressive,” it’s going to run around and piss off all the mobs in the place, and you’ll die. No one wants that. Second, there’s a box marked “growl”. Growl is what your pet uses to piss off other mobs. Turn that off, too, please.
- Hi! I’m the one wearing the plate metal and standing in front of you, soaking up all the damage so you don’t die. Yes, I have a healer using the power of the Light to keep me alive, but she can only do so for so long (mana is not an infinite resource, y’see). In other words, I’m the tank. Let me tank, please. I decide what to pull and when, not you. If you run ahead of me and pull more mobs, there’s a good chance you’re going to die, and there’s a good chance you’re going to deserve it.
- A few months back, that blasted dragon Deathwing came to town and set everything on fire. We were all so traumatized by the events of the Cataclysm that it seems we all fell asleep for several years and awoke in a magical new world. For us hunters, the biggest fallout for us is that we got dumber. In other words, we don’t need intellect on our gear anymore. It doesn’t do us any good. So why, dear hunter friends, are you rolling
“need” on cloth gear with intellect? Give that to the pretty little mage over there, and let’s talk gear. If something drops and it’s made of chainmail (“mail,” for short!) and has a metric ton-and-a-half of agility on it, it’s yours! It’s specially tailor-made for you, my hunter friend, and you look uncommonly good in it. For Pete’s sake, stop rolling on cloth, leather, plate, and anything with intellect, strength, or spirit on it. - A sporebat is the best pet. For the DPS. Because you’re l33t. It makes rogues bleed from their anus. <–That there is an inside joke. Us hunters have some of those, because we’re a community. When you see another hunter in Azeroth, say a hearty “Hullo!” and offer your aid. Us hunters have to stick together, y’see. We’re the most-maligned and most-universally-reviled class in WoW, and it’s our duty as a community to help each other out, become better at what we do, and throw off the shackles of the term “huntard.” Being uncommonly good looking isn’t enough. We have to be good.
I think that’s enough to get you started in the ways of the hunter. Strap on your weapons, gather up your furry friends, and sally forth into the wilds of Azeroth. Wear that agility-laden mail proudly, drink a little too much once in a while, and when you look in the mirror and see that uncommonly good-looking face, tell yourself: “I’m a good hunter.”
February 12–Day 539 of my Captivity February 12, 2011
Posted by Stormy in General Whinging, Moar Ranting, Sweating Bullet Points.add a comment
Yeah…let the “regular” Cataclysm blogging begin. I promised myself I’d actually write here once in a while during Cataclysm, and I intend to make that happen…somehow.
–Farewell, little druid. Toward the tail end of Wrath my boomkin became my main. I have the Kingslayer title on Sterrin, and I started stacking a bunch of old achievements on him with the intention of making him my main forever and for always. But honestly…the state of moonkin play in Cataclysm stinks. I play my shadow priest for a few hours and I feel like a nimble little glass cannon, able to turn on a dime, levitate across The Bad and kill things with smoky purple death rays, then I log over to my druid and I suddenly feel like a big, lumbering chicken who ate too much, and things just feel sooooo slowwwwww. So I’ve been playing my priest exclusively. She’s raid-geared now, thanks to tailoring and a whole bunch of heroics, and I’m having so much fun with her.
–Hello, other shadow priest. A few weeks ago boredom got the best of me…or curiosity, I guess. On my intro/bio page I reference the fact that I started playing WoW because of an old friend of mine. He’s still playing, and he’s a senior member of a hardcore raiding guild on another (RP/PVP!) server…but they’re dirty dirty Alliance heathens. I wanted to see the worgen starting area and the worgen story line, so I rolled a baby worgen shadow priest on his server. Their guild used to have a Hardcore Raiders Only sign on the clubhouse door, but with all the new guild perks and leveling perks they’ve opened things up to alts, and he actually /ginvited me. My baby shadow priest isn’t so baby anymore. God I’m sick of Zangarmarsh. 
–Speaking of guilds. Being a lowly member of WoW Friend’s guild has been an eye-opening–and frankly scary–experience. First of all, no one knows me. Second of all, I’m not in charge. I have nothing in common with these people other than the fact that we all play WoW, and let’s face it: I’m not a typical WoW player by any stretch of the imagination. I speak in complete sentences, don’t objectify women, and make every attempt to treat other players with respect. This other guild…not so much. I was logged on during the Super Bowl this weekend and I actually have a few people on ignore because of the language and asshattery I heard. I was actually surprised at the stuff I heard on Sunday, because it’s fairly rare for the people in this guild to talk at all. I remember when my friends Rush’n'Suz (they’re a matched pair) moved over to our old guild on Garrosh, and their first comment was about how talkative the guild is. That’s the kind of environment I’m used to. This silence thing…not working for me.
–Patch 4.0.6. As for Patch 4.0.6, let’s just say it was nice while it lasted. It was fun to log in and do a quick (!) heroic and see those 13/14K numbers up there. As for the massive nerf we took to our Shadow Power, fuck you very much, Blizzard.
