endgame, thoughts

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Endgame

9 Comments

Faeldray and Nina have both written very interesting articles lately about why they love the leveling process and are in no rush at all to get to 70.

My main response is both a very emphatic “Good for you guys!” and “I agree!” I have long been a proponent of “the game is here for fun” attitude; I’ve encountered way too many people who have made it a job or some sort of contest for weird bragging rights over who has leveled the “hardest class” with the “hardest spec” on the most “hardcore server”. There are people in my guild who enjoy running old-world dungeons like Scholomance for the experience (and not as in the “point” kind) and the fun of it. We’ve been accused before of being “noobs” for not exclusively running Outlands stuff instead. We shrug it off because we’re having fun. I’ve had people tell me that having an “easy-mode hunter” on a non-PvP server invalidates my skill in a the game or my hard work in getting to 70. I shrug it off because I love hunters and because honestly, if you think the type of server I play on in a video game determines my status as a person, then I’m not the one with issues. =P But the point remains that you will always encounter people like that who poke fun at your experience.

My mantra, which has been my mantra basically since I started playing, is this: Don’t let other people ruin your enjoyment of the game. I often find I have to repeat this to myself when I’m encountering others who are like this, or people who are being stalkery or overly-dramatic, or whatever. You choose to have fun when you play WoW. Don’t let others choose it for you.

Anyways, now that I’ve got that out of the way. As somebody who also really enjoys exploring the game world (it’s been posted on my blog sidebar since day one!) and who loved, and still loves, the whole solo’ing, quest’ing, and tons-of-alts thing, I have been inspired to write about why I’m rather enjoying the level 70 endgame. Because for the longest time, I didn’t think I would. I remember thinking “Oh man. I don’t want to get to 70. There’s nothing really to do at 70 except instances and PvP.” As I got closer to 70, I started learning more and more things that you could do, but I was still a little leery about it. However, now that I’m here, I’m quite loving it. Is it a different sort of game? Yes. But that’s why I enjoy it so much.

A few things I really like about being level 70:

1.) New Goals: One of the things I like about questing and leveling is being able to feel that thrill of getting closer and closer to your level and then, ding! The bright golden flash and you’ve met your goal. I love that build-up of progression and reward. For a long time I was afraid that I would really miss that once I hit 70. But the truth is, it’s still there. It’s just in a different form. You have trade skills to work up. You have reputation to build up so you can get fun new things. If you like PvP, you have honor to work for so you can also get fun new things. If you like exploring, there are neat areas in Outlands that you can only get to via flying mount. You have awesome new quest lines that only open up once you hit 70. Heck, I’ve still got hundreds of quests left to do– good old fashioned solo’able quests– I was certain there wouldn’t be anymore of those once I hit 70 but I was quite wrong.

So many goals to set!! I love it. To be honest sometimes I’m overwhelmed with all I want to do with Tawyn but then I remember I’ve got plenty of time. I want to relax and enjoy the “Endgame ride” the same way I enjoyed the “leveling ride”.

2.) Class Variety: And an Even Better Enjoyment of Alts: Bear with me on this one because it sounds kind of weird. Basically, here’s the deal. I don’t know how it is with other classes, but with hunters, the mechanics of how the class is played in PvE change dramatically once you hit level 62 and get Steady Shot. As the levels continue to go by and you get Kill Command and Aspect of the Viper and (to a lesser degree) Misdirection and Snake Trap, the mechanics continue to change until eventually you are playing your hunter entirely different. I’m not exaggerating when I say that if you took level-60-Tawyn and lined her up besides level-70-Tawyn and asked them each to kill a mob… after the initial Hunter’s Mark/Pet Attack, these two hunters would be played entirely differently. Different shots. Different shot rotation. Different timing. And possibly a different method of holding aggro on the pet. Furthermore, if you were to inspect the gear of these two hunters, you would even see some differences in what each one is “focusing” on, in terms of stats.

“What does this have to do with anything, Pike?” I hear you asking. Well, here’s the thing. Pre-level-62 hunters and Post-level-62 hunters are so differently played that it’s almost, but not quite, like playing another class. I’m sure most of you know by now that I can really only play hunters. I would like to be able to mess around with other classes, but they just don’t feel homey and cozy enough to be a good fit and I end up coming “home” to my hunters. But with the differences between an old-world-hunter and an Outlands-hunter, I can experiment with two different types of playstyles, almost two different classes… both of which still possess that wonderful familiarity of hunterness.

My alts are even more ridiculously fun to play now than they ever were. Why? Because I love being able to jump between two playstyles of hunter like that. I love being able to hop from Tawyn to Lunapike and I love the fact that they are played differently. It’s interesting and fun. And what I’ve learned (or re-discovered) on one lends itself beautifully to the other. Once Lunapike hits 62 I’ll start focusing on another hunter (alongside my original two of course), because I always want to have one that is in those lower-levels, so I can always have that “bounce” going on.

3.) The people: I’ve never really been too much of a “people person”. Oh I love my friends, but I was always one of those shy-loner types who really hated doing, say, group projects in school. I think this is a big reason why for a long time I shied away from doing group quests and instances in WoW. (The other reason was that people in PuGs tended to yell at me when I was a newbie, and that made a really big negative impression on me.)

But I can’t say enough good things about the people I have met in this game. I have made some great new friends through my guild and through “sister guilds”. We all do instances together not just for “phat lewts”, but because we enjoy doing it as a social activity. It’s fun to all work together for some common goal, knowing that we will be immediately forgiven if we make a mistake or are still learning.

Our guild recently decided we want to give raiding a shot. Why? Because we know how well we work together in five-mans and how much fun we have. We just want to try bumping it up a bit in intensity level. If we fail, that’s okay. We’re trying in a safe environment– that is, with good friends– and in the end we all just want to have a good time… that’s the whole point of the game.

So… there you have it. The confessions of a girl who initially figured she would have absolutely nothing to do at endgame and has been proven wrong. Now, I’m not say

ing that any of you will have the same experience as me. Nor am I saying it’s bad if you end up not liking leveling, or not liking endgame (I’ve met people who have tried both and strongly favor one or the other.) The main reason I wanted to post this, was to give newer-WoW-players who are maybe somewhat like me, a look at what types of neat things they can expect at endgame when all they ever hear about are the hardcore arena-people or 25-man-raiders. Level 70 is not just for those people, and don’t let anybody tell you that is. You play the game the way you want to play it. The way it is most fun for you. If going into instances and doing the highest DPS gives you your kicks, then do it. If sitting in the warm sun at Ratchet and going fishing is your thing, that is a just as valid a way to spend your $15 a month. And don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. =D

alterac valley, guild, linux, pvp, screenshots

The Roleplaying Raiders. Or the Raiding Roleplayers, mayhaps.

14 Comments

I apologize for the lack of updates these past few days. I have a semi-valid reason, I promise:

It all started a week or two back. I think I’ve mentioned before that our guild is interesting in that it is a newer guild with quite a few people who are all in the same level range– currently mostly mid-60s (and now 70).

We have also discovered that we like instancing together, a lot. We make a very good little team.

Anyways. A week or two back somebody mentioned something about Serpentshrine Cavern. Someone else said “Yeah, it’ll be a loooong time before we get to that.” “Wait, isn’t that like… a 25-main raid?” “Yep.”

…

And then somebody said it. “You know… we should become a raiding/roleplaying combo guild.”

And everybody liked that idea.

So here we are, Entelechy, a guild full of roleplayers who have never done end-game before (or even hit 70 before), slowly keying up for Karazhan a year behind everybody else, and thinking we should do raids.

Crazy? Maybe. Awesome? Yes. We’re gonna try it.

Now to why I haven’t made any posts for a few days. Basically it was decided that if we’re going to be a raiding guild, we need a Ventrilo server. (We have also wanted one for a while just to mess around and have fun with each other.) So we got one set up a few days ago. Problem: Pike runs Linux. Ventrilo does not play well with Linux.

Cue a few-day-long geekathon where Pike desperately tries to get Ventrilo and Linux playing nicely. Hardly any WoW. Just a lot of Dr. Pepper and keyboard pounding inbetween work shifts.

The sad news is that the whole attempt was pretty futile; it turns out there is some weird problem going on in my computer where microphones are not registered. I was able to get Ventrilo up and running, simultaneously with WoW with no slowdown, even… but it was pretty pointless if nobody could hear me talk, even if I could hear them. And the problem was complicated enough that I think it’s beyond my meager abilities, at least for now. In the meantime, I still wanted a way to get on Vent so we could start practicing instancing while voice-chatting.

…so, I took a deep breath, sucked it up, and stuck a little Windows XP partition on my hard drive. I copied the WoW folder over, installed Vent, and… there ya go. I now have two different WoW installations, one on Linux and one on Windows. As much as it pains me to say it… I logged into Tawyn on Windows today. My initial impression was that it was pretty much exactly the same as on Linux with Wine. My second impression was that something was off somehow, which I couldn’t quite put my foot on… the mouse was moving differently, or something. But, I’m dealing with it.

I’m on Linux now and it will remain my main operating system. I’ll hop over to Windows when I’m instancing or get bored and want to dork around with the guildies for a little bit. But the rest of my WoW’ing and computer’ing in general will remain on Linux. And hopefully I can figure out the microphone problem at some point, and come back to “pure” Linux. A pop filter was my solution. It helps to eradicate popping noises which are created by the mechanical impact of quick moving air on the microphone throughout recorded speech and singing.

So that is why I haven’t been around much.

I have one more story to tell. There is a level 70 hunter in my guild who is… maybe just a little less geared than I am, and his spec is similar to mine (though not the same– there are a few notable and interesting differences). We both have the same ranged and melee weapons, except I’ve got Savagery on my axe and he doesn’t. He’s got a windserpent and I’ve got a cat.

We dueled today about… six times. And he won four of them. Rather resoundingly, too, a few times.

We had a good chat afterwards about the results and how we thought they may have come about. Because the duels really seemed to be going either way. To be completely honest he is a very good hunter and it caught me off guard. I’d never really seen him play his hunter before, usually he’s tanking for us on his warrior. So I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Anyways we compared specs and gear and strategies and had a chat. Here are my thoughts:

-Windserpents seriously do this thing where they pop up next to you and take you by surprise and throw you off, that’s what they seemed to do to me anyway. His strategy is to dump as much focus onto his Windserpent as he can so it can spam Lightning Breath, so I was on the receiving end of that, too. Oh, and the thing about the big wings… yeah. So hard to target the other guy when something’s flapping in your face. Definitely time to bring Tux to 70 (he’s halfway through 67, currently) and make him the Official PvP Pet.

– He’s a draenei and would use Gift of the Naaru on himself right when the duel began. He also has Spirit Bond. So he was regen’ing health the whole time.

– I kept trying to use my attack-power-boosting trinket without realizing I’d forgotten to equip it. Whoopsie… *shifty eyes*

– Also, he somehow has a different strategy than most hunters I go up against in PvP, but I’ve still got to figure out exactly what it is (clearly more research is required!)

Anywho, why am I telling you all this? Because if you play a draenei hunter and/or you have a windserpent these are awesome new PvP tips for you! I’m sort of jealous of the Gift of the Naaru thing. Granted, he told me a new tip about Shadowmelding at the beginning of the duel to annoy people while your pet eats them (haha) so it’s a fair tradeoff.

After the duels though, I was feeling the urge to hone my skills because he’d won more times than I’d won and it was inspiring me to PvP and get better. So I went to AV.


Hey look, Alliance on Bloodlust actually won a “New AV” game and it was the daily too… yes I know, don’t go into shock… but aside from that, I’ve got 239 honorable kills. And that’s with the omnipresent Valanos’s Longbow. I can’t wait for an upgrade. That’s what I’m saving up Honor for next, that ridiculous Crossbow. I can’t help myself. I’m in love.

Hmm. Sorry that this post sort of rambled on and on and covered at least three different subjects. That’s what happens when I put off making a post for too long. In summary: I like my guild, I like my Linux (honest!) and, when it’s not frustrating the heck out of me, I like PvP.

And two more quick things: Armory is working again! My unbuffed crit is so very very close to 20%.

And a HUGE SHOUTOUT to Moonglo for coming to visit me on Silver Hand. You guys are all great.

non-wow

The Cute and Cuddly Beasts Within

11 Comments

First of all, a shout-out to the authors of Troll on a Powerbook and One Among Many, for becoming the fourth and fifth people, respectively, to roll alts on my server to say hello. All of you guys flatter me, really, and I still sort of can’t understand it– I don’t find myself very interesting at all, and I’m even less interesting when I’m talking in real-time, because I can be pretty shy. But thank you anyway. I’m quite a lucky hunter. (I’m also getting to be quite the enchanted-out hunter, and thus quite the broke hunter… but that’s another story.)

In my recent “essay” on the Beast Mastery spec, Faradhim asked me if I have pets in real life. As a matter of fact… yes I do:


These are my guinea pigs Reno and Vincent. (First person to figure out where their names are from, and then deduce which is which because of it, gets a big ol’ cookie. Turns out I name my real-life pets the same way I name my pets in WoW… always a hidden meaning.)

Reno and Vincent have been living with me for the past couple of years. They are intelligent, mischievous, and also possibly the most spoiled guinea pigs on the planet. You see, I work at a pet store. (Yes, that’s right, the hunter works at a pet store!) Specifically, I work in the pet care/small animal department. This means that I not only spend most of my time working with and handling fish and small critters, but I also get to stock the shelves in my department with all the new goodies that come in. And the whole time I’m doing it I’m thinking “Oh my gosh, they would LOVE this new treat… oooh, and that one too…” and then I come home with a bunch of snacks for them and they don’t eat half of it.

At least they’ve gotten a little less picky lately.

They’ve caught onto my sleeping schedule and decided that maybe if they start making noise before my alarm goes off, they will get fed earlier. Cue lots of squeaking at 4:30am, every morning. Fortunately I am prepared, with earplugs! Bwahaha.

They have also decided that merely eating their food out of their bowl is not exciting enough, and it’s much more fun to eat food off of the floor of their cage. So they wedge their head under the bowl, and then when you least expect it… BAM. Bowl goes flying, food goes flying, and the guinea pigs are happy and Pike has to grab the vacuum again.

I can’t help but love them though. And I wouldn’t want to get on their bad side… I don’t know if I’d want to deal with the wrath of a Big Red Guinea Pig anytime soon.

instances, stories

Good Hunters go to Heaven, Except They Don't Die

15 Comments

So I had the rather, um, unique experience yesterday of surviving a wipe. Basically it goes like this:

We were in Black Morass, which none of us had ever done before. This is a very… unusual instance. It consists of you running around killing bosses and other non-boss big elites, while trying to prevent wave after wave of mob from getting to Medivh. Very intense.

Anyways, we were about halfway through and doing okay, for it being everyone’s first try. I was on add-duty, so while everybody else focused on the elites I got to run around with Track Dragonkin up, making sure nobody was trying to sneak past. Anyways to make a long story short, we were busy on one of the bosses and then it happened. Tank died. Warlock died. Rogue died. Healer died. …hunter and pet are running around attacking the growing number of adds. I was fully expecting to die any second, but… nope. You see, I hadn’t touched the boss at all because I’d been focusing on adds. So I had no threat when it came to him, so he wasn’t touching me.

Furthermore, the adds weren’t mobbing me because they were all focused on Medivh. I was able to run around and pick them off one at a time– or at least make a futile attempt to do so before Medivh’s shield fell.

Medivh’s shield was, in fact, falling faster and faster and suddenly I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be trying. Maybe I should die while his shield was still up… maybe then we wouldn’t have to start over?

I said in party chat: “Hey guys, I’m still alive”.

Party Chat: “…”

Me: “Am I supposed to die?”

Party: “Is Medivh’s shield falling?”

Me: “Yeah”

Party Chat: “Yeah… maybe dying would be a good idea…”

Okay, suicide. I can do that easily enough. I ran up to the boss they were fighting before and fired an arrow at him. Boss yells something out and charges at me and hits me for a lot of HP, but I was still hanging in there. I braced myself for the final blow…

And then he disappeared.

Medivh’s shield had fallen and so all the bad guys had disappeared.

Everyone had wiped and I’d ran up and shot an elite dragon boss in the face and yet my pet and I were still standing, battered, but alive.

Let me tell ya, I never thought I’d see the day where I could say that.

As for the instance, we tried a few more times unsuccessfully (the instance does in fact reset) and then decided we would call it a night and come back later when we needed the Kara key and when our tank was better geared. (Very good tank… needs better gear.)

I think it’s starting to turn into a joke among my guildies that I have this mysterious tendency to survive wipes. I am perfectly fine with that reputation.

Uncategorized

About the Author

2 Comments

Way back in 1997, a then 13-year-old girl stumbled onto the Internet. She called herself “Pikestaff” after a character she’d invented based on the “Redwall” series of books; a hare with a penchant for causing mayhem.

Over ten years later, Pike still lives…

“Pike” has been the longtime Internet moniker (heck, offline moniker too sometimes) of a twentysomething geekish girl who lives in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. (Specifically, she lives in the town where Vulcans and Humans will make First Contact, according to Star Trek lore.)

She’s been playing video games basically before she could talk, thanks to the cutting-edge Commodore 64 computer her family owned. A quick perusal of the “Favorite Games” section of her Baby Book would not reveal Pat-a-Cake or Peek-a-Boo, but rather Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, and Pac-Man.

Then one year they got a Super Nintendo, and other than a very passionate love affair with Starcraft, she was exclusively a console gamer for many years. Until one day her boyfriend said “Hey I’m installing WoW, do you want to play too?” She thought hunters sounded fun, created her first WoW toon, and that’s when the madness began.

Today you can see Pike creating and playing hunter after hunter after hunter because it’s not just a class, it’s a lifestyle. And an obsession, admittedly.

Pike’s other big passion is the Linux operating system. She leveled her first character to 70 exclusively on Kubuntu Linux and the only reason she pops onto a lesser OS sometimes these days is for Ventrilo (by the way, she appreciates all the “Linux/Wine/Ventrilo” how-to links people send her, but trust her when she says she has tried everything and it’s a bug that’s out of her control at the moment).

You can find Pike online most places as “Pikestaff” and chances are if you see a “Pikestaff” on some internet site, it is her (DeviantArt is a notable exception– somebody else took her beloved internet name first and that is perhaps the big reason why she can’t bring herself to create a DeviantArt account).

Other than that, her Pikachu plushie collection, and the Periodic Table of the Elements she carries in her wallet, Pike is just your normal chick who holds a bachelor’s degree in filmmaking which she does not use and who currently works in the Pet Care Department of a popular pet store chain. That means she is a master cricket counter and fish catcher and is bitten by snakes on a regular basis. She can also warn you to never, ever touch a pooping hamster.

…no, seriously.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can I link to you? Yep! =D

Will you link to me? If you are an active commenter and your name links to your blog, chances are I will pick up on it at some point and add you to my blogroll. If I do not, feel free to send me an e-mail and if your site seems to have some decent content and is regularly updated, I will link to you.

Would you like to hook up for some advertising/moneymaking? No thank you.

I saw a “Tawyn” on [insert non-Silver Hand server here], is that you? Nope. I tend to view my characters as all having distinct personalities and so as such I generally do not share character names across servers, though I have made exceptions. Tawyn is not one of those exceptions. (At one point, though, I did have a “Tawyne” on Dark Iron, but that character is now retired.)

How do you pronounce Tawyn? Say the two words “Saw Win”. Now blend them together and replace the “S” in Saw with a “T”. And emphasize the first syllable. ^^

What is the cool add-on that makes you and your party’s name plates appear in 3-D? X-Perl Unit Frames.

“For the Horde” or “Glory to the Alliance”? Both! No really, I rather enjoy playing both factions. Alliance if pressed, though these days I am more prone to be found Horde-side due to circumstance.

PvE or PvP Server? RP and RP-PvP! =P

Is your guild on Silver Hand recruiting? Entelechy is always accepting of new members of any class, level, and activity level (i.e. we won’t kick you even if you only log on twice a year). We are a fun group of people of varying backgrounds and ages (I’ll take a stab here and say our average member age is early-20s) who enjoy goofing off and hanging out in Ventrilo. You do not have to be a roleplayer but keep in mind that our guild’s roots lie in roleplaying so you should at least be respectful to those that participate in RP even if you do not yourself. If you are interested in raiding with us keep in mind that at this point we really only run Karazhan (we aim for once a week, though it doesn’t always happen) but many of our members raid higher-content with other guilds and you would be free to do so as well.

And if you want to get really nitpicky, we could use mages. Desperately. (And healers and tanks, but mostly mages.)

Anyways, if you see me on as Tawyn or Tamaryn send me a poke and I’ll toss you an invite. You can also randomly whisper someone in the guild if I am not on to see who has invite rights, usually at least one person who can invite is online.

Is your guild on The Venture Co. recruiting? No, because that guild is a small personal guild for me, my alts, and my friends and family. That may change in the future, but for the time being, no, Lunapike’s guild is not recruiting, and no, I’m not interested in leaving my mini-guild for a bigger one.

Uncategorized

Pike's Blogroll

Hunter-Related Blogs:

Other Classes/Multi-Class/General WoW/Gaming:

If you do not see your blog here and know that you have been here in the past, it means one of two things: either your blog has moved/disappeared and I don’t know where your new one (if you have a new one) is, or you haven’t updated in a couple months. I still keep tabs on you inactive guys (<3 you all!) and if you start regularly updating again, I will re-add you to the blogroll as soon as I can! Similarly, if you have simply moved your blog, pop me off an e-mail and I will get right to it.

Questions or comments? Got a new blog you think I’d like to know about? Feel free to drop me a line: pikestaff21 [at] gmail [dot] com. I can’t guarantee that I will link to everything you suggest but I will consider each link I am sent.

When it comes to the categories, please note that if you talk about hunters but you also talk about a lot of other stuff you will be added to the “General” blogroll. If you think you have a hunter slant and I haven’t noticed or something (or vise versa), please let me know and I’ll be happy to move you to the appropriate blogroll.

stories

Why I Play a BM Hunter

26 Comments

Have you ever gone somewhere without your pet? Maybe you had to go tame a new pet for skills, or maybe you were doing a quest where you took control of something else so your pet couldn’t be there (that quest chain in Blade’s Edge Mountains comes to mind)…

If you’re anything like me, going somewhere without your pet is not a pleasant experience. You feel vulnerable; incomplete, crippled even. You skitter nervously past mobs, like a mouse running through a field with hawks overhead. You are weak.

And then you see him (or her): the pet you want you want to tame. Maybe he has just the right skills you need to learn, or maybe he is just the right color and the right style. Maybe you’ve carefully done your research to decide exactly which pet you wanted to tame, or maybe this one just pops out at you and feels right.

He, like you, is vulnerable right now. His life consists of walking around in zigzags and circles and occasionally pouncing on a hapless critter. Oh he could put up a decent fight against a passing adventurer, but it would probably all be for naught– he exists so that someone can kill him and loot him for vendor trash or some random green.

You are both vulnerable. But together…

Your eyes meet and he runs at you. You’re prepared with a trap, but eventually he breaks free and bashes on you. You try to hold out just a bit longer…

And then it happens.

A flash of light and he is standing by your side. In that instant everything has changed. In that instant, neither of you are weak anymore.

There is a beautiful synergy between hunter and pet that I have been unable to find in any other class so far. Granted, I’ve never gotten another class past level 19, so perhaps I’m biased. But the fact remains that, for the time being, I’ve yet to find that synergy elsewhere in the game.

In my last post I was geeking out a little bit about crit. You know why I like crit? It’s not just so I can top the DPS meters. Oh don’t get me wrong, I love being at or near the top of the meters at the end of the instance. It means I’m doing my job and doing it well.

But this is what happens when my pet crits:
Ferocious Inspiration procs, giving a buff to everyone in my party, including myself.

And this is what happens when I crit:
My pet gets to use Kill Command
My pet gets a bunch of focus through the Go for the Throat talent.

You see that? We’re helping each other. We make each other stronger. Everytime that big blue number pops up on the screen (thanks Scrolling Combat Text) and the little alert comes up, it means I not only get to jam my Kill Command hotkey, but a bunch of pet crits are probably coming up too. Those, in turn, further strengthen me through Ferocious Inspiration. It’s a beautiful dance and it thrills me each and every time it happens.

That’s why I play hunters. That’s why, specifically, I finally settled on the Beast Mastery spec. Sure it was Uncle BRK who put the idea into my head in the first place, but it was I who had to try it out and I who had to decide if I liked it or not. It’s about more than a DPS increase. It’s about the aesthetics. It’s about the thrill of the hunt. It’s about that companionship.

Because alone, you are weak.

But together, you become stronger than either of you could have ever imagined.

gear, instances

Tawyn's a Happy Hunter

8 Comments

To start out with an update on my custom avatars; basically I’ve looked into it and I’ve run into some problems involving the legality of selling them because they’re renditions of Blizzard’s property. Yes, you could argue that I’m just a small little bug compared to their big corporation, but I dunno, I’ve been big Blizz fans since my StarCraft obsession phase almost ten years ago so I’d like to play it safe when it comes to my relationship with them. =P

I did get a lot of interest in my avatars though and I’m still sort of trying to come up with a way to offer them without making them entirely free, simply because while I’d love to give them away for free, the fact of the matter is that it takes a few hours to make each one and it’d be difficult to squeeze them into my time. One of my ideas is maybe setting up a little charitable drive, sort of like The Bronze Kettle did, only not on as big a scale. But I’ll keep brainstorming and keep you guys updated. If you were interested in an avatar I apologize for keeping you waiting on any final decisions.

Anyways, let’s discuss WoW.

Yesterday, I ran both Steamvaults and Shadow Labs.

Steamvaults dropped a very nice [Beast Lord Mantle] for me, which I promptly gem’d up and threw a Scryer inscription on.

Shadow Labs… well, I was praying to the hunter gods for Sonic Spear, especially because our motley crew had to endure several hours of pain in this particular instance (we went through three different tanks, one of which decided to leave the party without saying a word… and Grandmaster Vorpil… oh Grandmaster Vorpil… *shudders* … we wiped on this guy no less than five times)… so yeah, Sonic Spear would’ve been an awesome consolation prize but it appears that the hunter gods have more Shadow Labs runs for me in the future. I did, however, get the first fragment of the Kara key.

So! Not content with that outcome, I headed to the Auction House and bought myself both [Breastplate of Rapid Striking] and [Crystalforged War Axe]. Then I bought all the mats for Savagery and got the latter enchanted with that. My wallet is getting pretty thin and I’ve got some farming ahead of me but mmm. My un-buffed agility is now 434 and my crit is 18.85%. You should see me with Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings. Mmmmm. *eyes glaze over*

Ahem, sorry.

I think I’m doing okay for a pre-Kara hunter. I’m slowly replacing my greens with blues and getting enchants for them. Expensive? Yeah. Worth it when I open up my character sheet and see my stats? Oh yeah.

I’ve got more Steamvaults and Shadow Labs runs ahead of me, because I’d like the other piece of Beast Lord that you can get in SV (decreased trap cooldown… mmm hunter gear is yummy, no?), and because I’d still like Sonic Spear if I can nab it.

Oh, and /wave at Mirshalak and Pelides, both of whom have now made characters on Silver Hand to say hello! I owe you both a visit on your servers now. =P

Since I’m getting more visitors that way, I figured it’d be good to mention a few things. Firstly you are more than welcome to say hi to me and chat it up with me, so long as I’m not in battlegrounds or an instance. =D If I’m bored or not doing much I’ll even come find you “in person” and we can have a little visit.

If you would like to make a more dedicated alt on Silver Hand, to try out RPing or whatever, I should mention that while our guild Entelechy is usually open to anyone interested in having a good time with some fun (and just a bit weird) people, doing some instances, and casual roleplaying, our recruitment is sort of semi-closed at the moment due largely to rapid growth and wanting to concentrate on our current members, so I can’t guarantee you a spot in the guild if you’re interested in one. Besides, very, very few people in my guild know I have this blog anyway. Partially ’cause I’ve never really had a reason to bring it up, and partially because there are a lot of very good players in my guild, both hunters and non-hunters, and I wouldn’t want to steal anybody’s limelight by being “the one with the blog”. Heehee =P

Oh, and you are also more than welcome to try and catch me horde-side on The Venture Co. as well. My main character there is Lunapike, and I play her a few times a week, usually in the mornings. The Venture Co. seems to have more RP going on than Silver Hand (admittedly, Silver Hand isn’t exactly known as a mecca for RP), so you might want to try that out if you’re curious.

Today’s question that I pose to you: where do you do your farming? …and no, you don’t have to give away your super-secret location to me, if you don’t want to. =P

guides, pvp

Hunter vs. Hunter 101

6 Comments

Thanks for all the input on my last entry, regarding my custom avatars. I’ll think about it some more; I’m sort of short on time these days, but I’m also short on money… so yeah! I’ll be thinking about it. Thanks for all the feedback, I will definitely take all of your opinions and requests into consideration. I do want to stress that I’m not turning this blog into any sort of corporate showing-off-my-PayPal-button scheme. If I were to offer my avatars for sale it would probably be a limited-time-only thing. Because writing guides and telling stories is what I do best so that will always be the primary purpose of this site.

Anyways: Here is a story/guide combo (two for one!):

Earlier this morning I was in Stranglethorn Vale with my level 34 hordie. For those of you who are new or haven’t been following; I’ve got my 70 Alliance hunter on an RP-PvE server, and a 34 (well, now 35… but 34 this morning) Horde hunter on an RP-PvP server.

Because this character is on a PvP server I’ve been explicitly avoiding STV for the most part, but I do want to do the Nesingwary Expedition “Mastery” quests that culminate in good hunter stuff.

So there I was, level 34 and searching around for panthers, and I saw this level 38 Alliance hunter out of the corner of my eye. I figured I would ignore him, hoping he would leave me alone. But nope, a couple minutes later he springs on me and attacks me.

I beat him.

I threw on a bandage and ate some food, and then resumed questing. I’m too much of a carebear to do any corpse camping or /dancing or the like. Besides, it’s just not good form! Anyways, a couple minutes later, he comes back. He attacks me again, opening with Aimed Shot. Again, he lost.

…to make a long story short he attacked me no less than five times, and all five times he lost to me.

Now I won’t deny it: it felt really, really good to know that I had consistently outperformed a hunter who was four levels higher than me and whose pet was at least five levels higher than mine (my poor kitty got kind of behind because I was working on another pet for a while.) Especially because he was always the one initiating combat, he always got the first shot off, and more than once it was Aimed Shot.

But I’m not one to sit around and simply be proud of myself (although as I said, it felt durn good), so I’ve thought of some mistakes that I either know he made, or think he probably made, which prevented him from winning. And I’m posting them here because hopefully they will be of some help to a newer hunter! =D

For the record, I can’t find this guy’s spec because Armory has been weird all morning. Or I would do a spec/gear comparison. So this is all based on my observation and hunches:

For Starters:

Buffs: I had both Aspect of the Hawk up, as well as Mark of the Wild which a passing druid had given me not too long before all the combat happened. I don’t recall the other guy having Aspect of the Hawk up, though it’s possible I just wasn’t paying attention. Aspect of the Hawk will buff your ranged attack power. It’s good to have. Mark of the Wild is a fantastic buff. Druids who put it on me and especially on my pet, make me happy. (Thorns on the pet makes me happy too.)

Hunter’s Mark: I have a Hunter’s Mark/Pet Attack combo button. This means that my pet and I are never attacking something without Hunter’s Mark on it. The guy I was dueling never once put Hunter’s Mark on me. Hunter’s Mark is going to buff your ranged attack power and if you have Improved Hunter’s Mark it’s going to buff your pet’s attack power… and on this particular character, I’d thrown a point into IHM before starting down the Beast Mastery tree, so I had that going for me.

As a bonus… and actually maybe this is just me, but I’m going to say it anyway… I honestly find nothing scarier in battlegrounds than a Hunter’s Mark suddenly appearing above my head, followed by seeing a flash of a big red pet out of the corner of my eye. Because I know what’s coming. *shudders*

Rapid Fire: This is the biggie. Rapid Fire increases your firing speed by 40% for 15 seconds. I love using this against other hunters, because it seems to me that other hunters often forget to use it in a duel or in PvP. It has a pretty big cooldown (which can be decreased a little through a talent in the Marksman tree, Rapid Killing), so I was only able to use it… twice, I think, throughout the course of our five spars. But it makes a huge difference. Faster damage = good, in the case of fights like this.

Trapping: He could have trapped my pet, but he didn’t. To be fair, he did Feign Death each time to get out of it, but I quickly sic’d Alyosha right back on him. But remember that if you are facing a higher level hunter and the pet is big and red, well, there’s not a whole lot you can do CC wise to him.

Knowing When to Use Your Shots: He kept using Concussive Shot on me even though I obviously wasn’t going anywhere, and he wasn’t going anywhere, so it really didn’t make any difference if my movement speed was slowed. Now, maybe he had Improved Concussive Shot and he was hoping the stun would proc. Even so, I don’t think it’s worth it in a one on one duel of this nature. Also, using something like Aimed Shot or Steady Shot in the middle of your fight generally isn’t a good idea. It’s better to spam autos, Arcane, and Multi, and Serpent Sting really doesn’t hurt, especially if you’re a lower level and it’s really all you’ve got… Viper Sting is fun against casters, pallies, and yeah, other hunters. Especially if it’s in battlegrounds and so might be a longer fight than a one-on-one.

Have your Pet on the Other Hunter, Not on Their Pet: I see this a lot in duels actually. We sic our pets on each other. I feign death to get out of it. The other hunter’s pet is set to defensive so he starts attacking my pet. This means that his pet is not focused on me and it’s not really helping him out any. Be careful for this; in the heat of the battle (and the initial “surprise!” of me popping back to life… at least, I know it still always gives me a little jolt when another hunter does it), you might not notice that your pet is engaged on my pet and not on me. My own pet, personally, is almost always set on Passive. (Exceptions are when I am running lowbies through things… my strategy here is shoot everything once, and then have my pet wipe up the resulting mess… or when I’m grinding and I know it’s okay for my pet to jump from mob to mob if he has aggro on a lot of them.)

Other Stuff: If you have trinkets that buff your attack power, etc. then use them. If you have time before the fight starts to turn Growl off, do that; your pet won’t need it.

There were also other special circumstances that are somewhat less controllable that gave me an edge. For example, my character is a tauren. I have a passive racial increasing my health by 5%. I also have 5/5 Endurance Training on that character, that’s another 5% more health. Some of the better gear I’ve got on that character right now come from PvP rewards; more stamina. So I probably had a better chance than a lot of other people at my level just because of that.

And lastly, I can’t deny that I’ve already got a level 70 hunter that I PvP with on a regular basis, so there’s always the experience factor.

Anyways! In my experience, a lot of hunter vs. hunter fights turn into tests of gear, stamina, and, in the ca

se of higher-level BM hunters… whoever doesn’t have Beastial Wrath on cooldown. So you have to look elsewhere to get the edge. Remember your buffs, remember your trinkets, remember Rapid Fire… remember you have a few different ways to avoid the other hunter’s pet, and remember that they do, also… and with luck you’ll come out ahead! As a closing note, I’d like to stress that this is just a very basic guide. There are a lot of little rules and nuances when it comes to PvP, and to be honest my hunter-vs.-hunter strategy will change depending on their spec and my mood.

Next on PvPing With Pike: Etiquette, taboos, and silly things that probably only Pike does! Stay tuned.

Uncategorized

Wow. Part 2.

13 Comments

So this morning I woke up, feeling horribly sick with (yet another) flu-type-thing, and stumbled over to my computer and hit the “Next” button on my Firefox toolbar, which brings me to my unread blog entries.

BRK pops up with some of my pictures on it.

Now you’ve gotta understand, it was about 5 AM and I was sick and it took a while for me to register what I was seeing. “Oh look, BRK… oh look my pics… yawn… snore… WAITAMINUTE.”

So aside from the fact that BRK is like the WoW version of Slashdot and caused a mass flood of newcomers to my humble abode, he requested some of my UberCute WoW Character Portraits (TM).

Telling BRK that you’re not going to make him some pictures is like telling Linus Torvalds that you aren’t going to build him a Linux distribution. Not to mention, I’ve been itching to draw the BRK duo for a while. So of course I accepted the challenge:

Big Red Kitty: Bringing You Massive Quantities of Sustained Ranged Pewpew Since 2006

Turned out pretty good I think. Entirely mouse-drawn in the GIMP because I currently don’t have a working scanner or one of those fancy-tablet things, so it all had to be done by mouse.

Anyways, BRK suggested to me that some other people might be interested in having their WoW characters UberCute-ified as well, and that I could possibly take commissions on them… afterall, as much as I would love to do these for free, the fact of the matter is that each one takes a good few hours to do. (BRK’s admittedly took a bit longer because I made a few different versions.)

So what I’m asking here is… if I were to charge something small like $5 or $10 to make you an UberCute version of your favorite WoW toon, would you be interested? If I get enough interest, I’ll definitely set up a PayPal button or something, and we can get the proverbial ball rolling! (And if I only get a few takers, we’ll figure something out too!)

And of course, all opinions on whether this would be a good or bad idea are welcome too.

Everyday I'm Huntering