So I was feeling pretty happy about hitting 20k words (exactly!) in my NaNoWriMo today so I decided to dink around in WoW for an hour or two.

The first cool thing that happened was getting WSG for my random battleground, seeing that our ragtag group of team members was up against a pre-made, deciding to stick around anyway… aaaand then notching up a win. Against the pre-made. I giggled.

The second cool thing that happened was that I decided to clear out my quest log before Cataclysm so I was doing this random quest down in Howling Fjord and I happened to stumble upon this huge gigantic elite polar bear as part of the quest. So obviously I tamed him.

So there I was, doing pretty good for a random WoW break, so I hopped onto my Netherdrake and sort of aimlessly started to fly around in a general Northerly direction. I had the music on (which is rare) and it was nice and calm and atmospheric and I was kind of thinking about the good times I’d enjoyed with this expansion and how it was almost over.

And this is when the third cool thing happened. See, I somehow wound up in Zul’drak during this little jaunt, and a little voice popped into my brain. The little voice said, “Hey, isn’t there a spirit beast around here or something?”

And I said, “Hey, I think there is! Let’s turn on Track Beasts for the heck of it.”

So I turned on Track Beasts.

And the second I did, this little yellow dot appeared on my minimap.

I moused over it and it said “Gondria”.

>.>

…

This is, believe it or not, my very first Spirit Beast. I know Gondria is sort of seen as the Poor Man’s Loque, but I’m already in love with my Shiny Ghost Kitty who, because of his heal, has already proven himself to live through things that would have killed any of my other pets. (Read: the last boss in Gundrak who does that thing, I’m not sure what it is, that KILLS PETS DEAD.)

I had to release my newly-tamed polar bear to get Gondria. But don’t worry. I went back and got the same bear again afterwards. :3

So feeling nostalgic after my last post, I decided to give Arathi Basin a whirl on my level 46 hunter. AB is arguably my favorite battleground; WSG is a sentimental favorite but it’s in a masochistic sort of way and I’m sort of afraid to go in there now that it’s changed, AV used to have that epic feel but has turned into a zergfest, and EotS… well, we won’t go there.

Turns out the Intimidation + Bestial Wrath combo on a clothie is just as fun as it was years ago, and turns out pouncing on an unsuspecting hunter and Wing Clip + melee’ing him to death while he stands there stunned is still absolutely hilarious.

Gosh I love PvPing as a hunter. Nothing else compares, really. Healing is funnish and a nice change of pace but it’s nothing compared to huntering. I always wonder what people are on about when they say hunters need a buff in PvP– to be fair, I know they’re talking about arenas, and I’m talking about lowbie bracket battlegrounds, and there is a huge difference– but gosh I feel OP, and I luuuurve it. I basically never die, even when taking on groups of people alone. Really the only downfall is that you run out of mana far too quickly, and then regenning mana takes pretty much twice as long. >.>

So yeah, this AB. I went in and we were getting the whole “Not enough players… this BG will end in five minutes” dealy. I looked at the scorechart; Alliance had a full 15 players and us Hordies had five or six or something. I contemplated leaving, anticipating a five-cap stomp, but then said “ya know what, screw it,” and ran off to Lumber Mill.

We took Farm and took Lumber Mill, and for several minutes I was the lone person defending Lumber Mill as everyone else ran off to Blacksmith. This is where I single-handedly took on groups of two or three Alliance who kept trying to come attack me and who all failed miserably. Did I mention I love being a hunter in battlegrounds?

Anyways, we were getting more and more Hordies by the minute and finally fulled out to a full 15 vs. 15 AB. We were on a roll at this point, Alliance had no chance. Like there were a good six of them defending Mines, so we did a two-pronged attack on them, two or three of us attacking from each side, and just nabbed it out from under their nose. By the time we won we had about double the resources that they had. It was hilarious.

Almost as fun as an instance, a nice break from questing, and you get XP. Yay! I love you Arathi Basin.

At some point between the last time I seriously PvP’d (’bout a year ago) and now, Bloodlust Alliance figured out how to win Alterac Valley!

=D

…okay, so, while that is good news, it’s probably not the good news you came here to read. Fortunately, I have other good news. The latest rumblings on the PTR are the impending change to Animal Handler. This talent has changed much through the years. Initially it gave your pet some extra Hit, which was rendered obsolete with hit scaling. Then it gave your pet expertise, and that, too, is about to be made obsolete. So now what’s it gonna do? Increase your pet’s Attack Power by 5%/10%.

For the record, that is awesome. And though I have no hard numbers, if Blizz delivers that plus expands on pet scaling like they said they wanted to in time for 3.2, combined with the impending weird Kill Command reduction on Catlike Reflexes and the Wild Hunt buff… I’m guessing that Beast Mastery is pretty much “fixed”.

Gotta say I am a bit worried, though. Remember why Blizz nerfed us last time? A lot of it was because pets were doing over 50% of our damage and they said that was too much. To which I actually agree– I love having a pet doing, oh… 35, 40% of my damage, but anything over 50% makes me too uncomfortable. Anyways, Blizz nerfed the pets, while forgetting to, well, really buff the hunter to counterbalance it.

Anyways, with all these new changes I don’t see any way that a Beast Master pet won’t be back up to 50% or more of a Beast Master hunter’s total DPS, and I worry that Blizz will have their nerfbat at the ready again. But who can say, really? It’s one of those things where we’ll just have to wait and see. At least the Blues know we could use some love, and that’s always a good sign.