pets, screenshots

What's In a Pet?

9 Comments


Teal Windserpent shall be known as Eltanin (pronounced ell-TAY-nin as far as I can tell) : brightest star in the constellation Draco. It perhaps isn’t an overly witty name as so many of my other pet names are, but my new Windserpent has a majestic presence of sorts to him, and thus he needed a majestic name. And it still does have a pretty neat little meaning behind it.

He is now halfway through level 62 and he is Loyalty Level 3. He got there partially through some solo-grinding, but largely through group work: so far, thanks to the help of some guildies, Eltanin has already seen several group quests in Shadowmoon Valley, basically every single Sunwell daily there is, and even the inside of Auchenai Crypts.

I’ve grown rather attached to him in just these past two days, which is sort of alarming because he was supposed to be an experimental pet of sorts. Whatdaya do when you’ve got three pets you can’t part with? (Especially if you’re a big dork like me, and all three pets come off as having completely different personalities and quirks which makes them even more special.) I suppose all I can do now is pray that Blizzard gives us more stable slots for Wrath of the Lich King.

I’ve been thinking lately I would love to see a fairly-“realistic” picture of Tawyn and her pets; perhaps she’d just be relaxing, content, by some campfire in the middle of the woods with Tux on her shoulder or perched on a nearby branch, and Locke resting his head on her knee, and Eltanin quietly keeping guard a little ways away. Sadly the extent of my artistic talent is cutesy Disneyesque cartoons; I could never fashion something the way I’ve described it. I’d commission a good artist to draw it, though. Cause I’m obsessed.

Speaking of obsessed, I rolled another hunter. Is this 14, 15 now? I’ve lost count. Only three of them are level 20 or higher anyways… (Hey, the first step is admitting you have a problem.)

Hmm, I suppose this wasn’t a particularly interesting post. In order to bulk it up a bit, I’ll add that I have now added Twitter updates to my blog sidebar and I’m going to experiment with that (in case anybody cares about various mundane details of my life), and yes, I have Hunter Kindergarten posts in the works. I love writing them, but I like to spend time on them. /nods

pets, screenshots, stories

Pet Taming: A Story Told in Pictures

14 Comments

Well, the results were in, and the masses wanted me to give the Windserpent a try:


Now there’s high-level Windserpents all over Outland. But I, being me, needed something special. Something… dare I say… teal. Something I’d fallen in love with during a random fun-run of Zul’Gurub a few weeks back:

This Guy.

Level 61 elite Soulflayer, found in Zul’Gurub, a pre-BC level 60 raid instance. The only other Windserpent with that same skin is found in Wailing Caverns. Yes… yes. He would be mine.

So I bid my goodbyes to my wolf Amarok, got my boyfriend (on a lowbie alt) to set up a raid group for me so I could get into the instance and then I walked into Zul’Gurub solo. And by solo, I mean solo. No pet. Just Tawyn.


It wasn’t long before I found my target. Unfortunately, he was constantly flanked by two level 60 elites who acted as bodyguards. If I trapped and started to tame the one I wanted, I was quickly swarmed by two elites who hit hard and have various stuns and poison abilities. Not good.


I tried a couple of strategies here, none of which quite worked. I tried getting onto the higher platform and trying to tame him from there, so they’d have to run to get to me– but then he just went out of range and the tame failed. I tried to tame him from the water, but he wound up evading it. I soon realized I would have to get the two entourages out of the way before I could focus on the guy I wanted. So I figured I could maybe throw down a Frost Trap and kite them and slowly burn them down. This failed miserably thanks to their charge’n’stun tactics. It was all sort of discouraging and I began to wonder how I was ever going to do this without various Survival Hunter tricks. But no, I wasn’t going to give up. Cause I’m a hunter, dangit.

So eventually, after much trial and error and my feign death button worn from use, I realized that as a Beast Master hunter, my best weapon would be exactly what I was missing… a pet.

So I got one.


A level 60 serpent in ZG. He’s kinda cute, no?

Now, I felt, I was ready. I went back to the taming spot and laid down a freezing trap. I positioned it in such a way so when they patrolled back, they would walk right into it, and I’d have another trap cooldown ready.


And around the corner they came, and into the trap Teal Windserpent popped. The other two dashed at me. I laid down another trap… double-trap! And with two of the windserpents crowd-controlled I sic’d my new snake on the other and proceeded to burn him down. But it wasn’t long before Teal Windserpent broke out of the trap (early, I think) and shoved me off the ledge and into the water… which I hadn’t exactly been banking on. And so, I regret to say, thanks to some unfortunate stuff that happened, I hit the bucket.

My serpent and I (who I’d renamed Kaa because he’d sort of grown on me) went boldly back inside. We were down to just two.


Same routine as before. Laid down a trap…

Trapped Teal Windserpent. Sic’d pet on his red buddy. Intimidation, Bestial Wrath, and onslaught of MQoSRDPS. Uh-oh, Teal’s out! Chain-trapping for the win!


And now the time had come. As he was heading for my next trap, Teal Windserpent got off a fear and a bunch of poison on Kaa, sending him running. But before he could finish him off, I /thanked him and hit the abandon button. Just me and Teal Windserpent now…


Aaaaand action:


Woo-hoo!


Now he just needs a name. Oh and he needs to be brought up nine levels. It’s gonna be a pain, but hey, I’ve got nothing better to do during farming sessions. And how often do you see one of these guys runnin’ around? I mean, I adore Locke, but I think he must be the most popular cat model on the server.

Oh, and the above story– I think I could have probably pulled it off with no deaths if I hadn’t been standing too close to the edge. It woulda been tough, but I think I could’ve done it. Almost makes me want to go back and try it again… almost.

And yes, this is one of the reasons why I can’t get enough of this class. Who else gets to pull of crazy stuff like this, in the name of something that equates to some 30% of our DPS? =P

In other news, my new boots, they are lovely, no? /pose

gear

Window Shopping

8 Comments

Firstly, thanks for all of your continued kind comments! I received a lot of requests for more hunter kindergarten posts and guides for lower-level hunters. Well you’ve come to the right place: ask and ye shall receive! I’ll be working on more Hunter Kindergarten guides shortly.

Lemme tell you a little about today, though. I got home from work, logged onto WoW, and noticed I had a mail waiting for me from Blizzard Customer Service. Excitedly I ran to the mailbox, eager for my boots, and found… two badges. Just those. And a letter from Blizzard that seemed to be closing up the whole issue.

They also had an e-mail address, though, telling me I could e-mail them if I had any further requests, so I quickly fired off an e-mail to them telling them about my boots and how I saw them and couldn’t get them, and could they pretty please get them to me?

After that, though, I was in sort of a low rut of a mood, stressing about my boots and all. So I went and did some Sunwell dailies and then went to the new badge loot vendor and decided to take a close look at the badge stuff because to be truthful all I’d really paid attention to before was the Choco-Bow.

But today I saw this and immediately began drooling. And it cost 100 badges. I had more than enough.

And I wavered. I was suffering from No Boots Syndrome and I needed something to lift my spirits and ohhhh that chestpiece is about a million times better than my current auction house blue which I’ve been wearing since about ten minutes after I hit level 70.

But the bow that I’d been wanting forever…

But now I have this rifle which is still pretty darn good and which just plain looks sexy…

And I hit this horrible crossroads where I couldn’t make up my mind and I didn’t know whether I wanted to spend 100 hard-earned badges only to later decide I’d made a terrible mistake and would rather have the bow or something, and then have to earn 100 more badges.

So I decided to do something I’d never really done before and consult The Spreadsheet. Most of you probably know what I’m talking about. Basically a hunter sat down and coded up this ridiculously complex and awesome spreadsheet where you can insert all your stats and it will cook up your DPS and your shot rotation and you can sit around and fiddle with stuff to your heart’s content and decide what is optimum for you.

I’ve never really used The Spreadsheet before; I tried it once before and got confused and quit. (I get confused easily. >.>) But this time, armed with Drotara’s guide, I plugged in all my stuff by hand (the Open Office version, which is the only version I can use on Linux, does not let you import info from the Armory) and did some research.

Turns out that by either getting the Choco-Bow and keeping my current chestpiece, or getting the new chestpiece and keeping my current gun… I get almost the same exact DPS increase. I think the bow gets me a very slight edge (less than 1 DPS). Either way I do gain about 18 DPS. The super interesting part was that with the bow, I’m the one getting most of the DPS increase, whereas with the chestpiece, a lot of the DPS increase will come from the pet. So I suppose it’s really a choice of whether I’d like to have more of a pet-DPS increase or focus on the hunter-DPS increase. And also a choice of whether I’d rather spend 100 or 150 badges to obtain roughly the same increase. And a choice of whether I’d cheat on my rifle (my preciousssss) with a Choco-Bow.

Leanin’ towards the chestpiece but I don’t want to make any major decisions right now. Especially because I sort of wonder if the haste rating is going to make things harder on my hand-woven shot rotations. So for now…

I will have patience and will think about this some more.

And I will wait for my boots.

/twitch

guides, shot rotation, stats

A Teacher's Work Never Ends

9 Comments

I think that sometimes we may take what we know about a subject for granted and assume everyone knows it. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been somewhat reluctant to post “hunter kindergarten” guides in the past… because I often fear it’s stuff everybody already knows.

But just now, while playing a lowbie hordie, I heard the following two things said by two different level 70 hunters:

“BM hunters don’t need agility, they need attack power.”

And

“The best shot rotation for 41/20/0 Beast Mastery uses Aimed Shots and Arcane Shots, and Steady Shot but only against dazed targets because it does more damage against dazed targets.”

…

/blink

Sorry Barrens hunters, but it’s back to school for you guys. Let’s go over some stuff real quick here: and I know I don’t have the math to back it up, but I do have some personal experiences.

Attack Power vs. Agility:

Attack power isn’t bad per se, but here’s the thing, if you are gearing for Attack Power over agility, then you are basically giving up crit in favor of a little extra damage per shot.

Whether or not AP helps your “pure DPS” more than crit does is somewhat debatable and is largely dependent on gear, according to Cheeky, a hunter that I have a lot of respect for.

But let’s go beyond “pure DPS” and think about what happens when you crit as a typical Beast Mastery hunter. You get to use Kill Command. More DPS. Your pet has a very good chance of crit’ing with Kill Command. More DPS. This procs Ferocious Inspiration. More DPS. Also when you crit, your pet gets a bunch of focus via Go for the Throat. This lets your pet use his focus dump moves (more DPS), which also have a good shot at crit’ing (more DPS) and procing Frenzy (more DPS) and Ferocious Inspiration (more DPS). Now I haven’t done any math or anything but I’m having a hard time believing that some extra attack power is going to overcome all the benefits of crits. I myself would much rather see a big crit number on my Armory page than a big AP number.

Now the key is balance, you don’t want to stack crit chance and let your AP suffer or vice versa. That’s why agility is so good, because it contributes to both. Not to mention when a paladin gives you Blessing of Kings, it is going to scale based on your agility and not on flat AP or crit increases.

And that is why, in Pike’s opinion, Agility > Attack Power.

Shot Rotations:

My fellow hunters, do not underestimate the importance of using a good shot rotation if you want to do lots of DPS. If you are a Beast Master hunter you do not need to be using Arcane Shots (unless you have a slower weapon and can thread one in there) and you should never be using Aimed Shots. I have done heroics with hunters who have a nice solid spec, are very well-geared, and yet do very little DPS compared to me, and the reason is because they are simply spamming whatever shots they can when the cooldown is up. You need to learn how to time your shots. I know it seems kind of counterintuitive at first to simply not use certain shots when they’re sitting right there in front of you, ready to be fired. But ya gotta trust me on this one. Grab a nice weapon like Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle, start weaving in Steady Shots between your Auto Shots, and hang on and enjoy the ride. The results will amaze you.

My damage meter told me I was hitting over 1100 DPS during my last Kara run; I don’t want to quote that just yet because it seems a little high to me and my damage meter has been sorta glitchy lately anyway. But I know I am doing close to 1000 under optimal circumstances and the reason is because of my shot rotation.

As for Steady Shot: apparently it really does do more damage against dazed targets (I… feel kinda silly for not knowing this before >.> I guess you can learn stuff in Barrens Chat.) but that doesn’t mean you should be saving it and only using it against dazed targets. It is the most mana-efficient special shot that you have and you should make the most of it.

Well, that wraps up today’s little review. In closing, I just want to mention how much I dislike lag. Because it throws off my groove.

This little guide was hastily written up before running to work, so as always, lemme know if I made a mistake or left somethin’ out.

karazhan

Tawyn and the Case of the Missing Chess Loot

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On Sunday I did the Chess Event in Karazhan.

But then it decided to glitch and afterwards we all got pooped into Curator’s Room instead of back into the Chess Room.

We ran back, but much to our dismay, it meant we could only see the loot and badges inside the chest… we couldn’t actually take them because we apparently hadn’t run back fast enough.

Ya know what I saw in there?

[Fiend Slayer Boots].

Mmmyep.

After much whimpering and clawing at the glass, I sent in a ticket to the GMs, and about an hour later one popped up (mid-crazy-pull) and I informed him of the glitch. He asked a couple questions about it, then told me that everybody in the raid should send in a ticket about their lost badges but that he would have to escalate the issue of the unlootable-loot to a higher power, and that they would get back to me. I said “Sounds good!”

We downed Prince for the first time. It was an epic battle. By the end, the tank was the last one standing; the priests (post-Spirit of Redemption form) having hit the bucket mere seconds before Prince. It was also the longest 1% on a boss you’ve ever seen in your life. Yeah… it was intense. We decided to call our Karazhan a big success for the week.

But I stayed around and waited a while for the GM. He didn’t come.

I kept waiting. No GM.

Finally, after staying up much later than my bedtime, I went to sleep.

The next morning I got online; my ticket to the GM was still in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. But alas, there was still no response.

It’s Tuesday night now, and still no word from the GMs.

This is killin’ me, you guys. /twitch

Boots.

Boots.

Boots.

(Really though, I’ve no right to complain; I got a nice new cloak from Shade of Aran, not to mention my shiny new rifle. …but… you guys… My current boots are level 67 rogue blues. /whimpers again, and contemplates various ways to bribe the GMs)

P.S. Are Felsteel Stabilizers really that hard to come by? I swear, I’ve been stalkin’ the Auction House for days. How is the kind Mr. Flinthammer ever supposed to make me my scope at this rate, as he so generously offered to do?

/asplode

pets, poll, screenshots, wash

Pick a pet, any pet!

26 Comments

So I’m sure you long-time readers know about Tux and Locke, but who’s the third pet in my stable?

Well, currently, it’s a level 68 Bloodmaul Dire Wolf from Blade’s Edge, named Amarok. Amarok being the name of a giant, fearsome wolf in Inuit mythology, and also the name of an amazing piece of Open Source software. I originally got him partially because I was inspired by my desktop wallpaper and partially because I wanted a pet that still did some damage but also had a little more armor than my other two pets, for grinding and the like. But for some reason I haven’t really gotten attached to him the same way that I have to Tux and Locke. Oh, he’s a neat little pet, but… I dunno. I’m sorta feeling like something different.

So here is where I turn to you, readers, for help and advice.

Should I stick with the wolf, or try something different?

Oh, and here are the current candidates for “Try Something Different”:

Raptor:

Tux was the first pet I ever tamed, and the second was Wash, a Mottled Raptor from Wetlands. I’d had my eye on a raptor pet almost as long as I’d been playing the game, and I went out and tamed Wash the second I was a high enough level. (Oh, and for those of you who do not “get” the name… click here, please.)

For a while, Tux sat in the stable while Wash followed me everywhere. Then I started to feel bad for Tux so I pulled him out again. Then I tried alternating between Tux and Wash for a while but it soon got to the point where I simply could not keep them both up to me in level. Finally while questing in Stranglethorn Vale I realized that level-36-Wash just could not hold aggro on some of the level 40 mobs I was trying to attack, and I was forced to choose between Tux and Wash… and, well, I picked Tux and Wash went to the stable for good.

There he stayed until I was level 69 when I realized that I needed that third stable slot (the other two taken by Tux and Locke) to be able to learn the highest level skills for my kitty and birdy. It was actually something that I’d known I’d have to do for a while, but I’d been putting it off because I’d gotten rather attached to Wash in the short time that he’d quested with me. So finally one day I took a deep breath, pulled him out, took him to the prettiest spot in Nagrand, and released him.

…I cried. Real hunters cry.

(Warning: if you are anything like me, then do not look at these pictures while listening to “When Somebody Loved Me” from Toy Story 2 unless you want to risk bursting into tears.)

*pulls self together*

Anyways, the point is that I still have this little longing in my heart to have a raptor waddling after me again. The downside is that they do fill basically the same role as a cat so it might be sort of redundant to have both. But hey, who said having hunter pets had to be logical, right?

“A feeling is not much to go on.”
“Sometimes a feeling, Mister Spock, is all we humans have to go on.”

Ravager:

I’ve never had one. Supposedly they are the highest-DPS-pet in the game and that aspect sort of intrigues me. I’d like to try something else in my raids and heroics; I love Locke but he’s gotta get some time off sometimes ya know?

Unlike many people, I find ravagers to be cute in an Aliens/hydralisk sort of way. “Pike, you’re nuts for using the words “cute”, “Aliens”, and “hydralisk” in the same sentence.” Yes, yes I know. (Hey, Starcraft is cute.)

I do rather like the idea of trying out a type of pet that I have never tried before… it’d be exciting I think.

Windserpent:

My character Lunapike has a Windserpent as one of her two pets (the ever so cute bright red Springpaw Lynx is the other) and I’ve really enjoyed having him as a pet. Lightning Breath is great and scales with hunter AP, so as your attack power goes up it will make a difference in your noodly Windserpent buddy as well.

I’ll admit I’m also inspired by the fact that a hunter friend of mine who I have ridiculous amounts of respect for (and who consistently beats me in PvP although I outgear the heck out of him) runs with a Windserpent. Clearly he knows something that I don’t. (Actually I think he knows a lot of things that I don’t.) And I think the Windserpent might be a part of that secret. MUST. FIND. OUT.

Boar:

If I want to stick with my original plan of having a grinding pet, then the ever-fashionable boar might be a good choice. The downsides are that it’d be quite a level grind to bring one up to level 70, and also, the recent boar nerfs make this somewhat less of a must-have-pet than it used to be. Still, it’s a solid choice with lotsa armor.

And there you have it. What’s a hunter to do for her third stable slot? The nostalgia and overall coolness-factor of the raptor? The damage, unique-ness, and new-ness of a ravager? The fun Lightning-Breath-goodness of the windserpent? The armor of the ol’ boar standby? Or should I just stick with my wolf?

…I’m torn.

What do you think?

I’ve put a poll up on the sidebar so you can cast your vote. And please feel free to leave your comments on pet-picking!

gear, karazhan, screenshots

This Is My Rifle

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“This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life. My rifle, without me is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than any enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will….

My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit…

My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will…”

– Rifleman’s Creed

So yeah, cookie for the first person to guess what exactly about this picture is making me grin like a lunatic!

/continues grinning like a lunatic

amusing anecdotes, karazhan, screenshots

You broke my Karazhan!

7 Comments

That’s me. In a raid group with one other person so I could run into Karazhan for two minutes.

And that’s… that’s another raid group in the same instance with me.

After a lot of confusion and pondering over whether we actually could 11-man Karazhan, the one final member of the other raid group realized he couldn’t get into the instance because the “raid was full”. Ah, so that was it. Ten people with the same Raid ID can all get into the same copy of Kara, regardless of groups. That’s how it seems, anyway, because I’d earlier been called in to help on Curator with two of these people a couple days ago… so I was, in fact, sharing a Raid ID.

Still, I can tell you right now, after months of playing this game, it is downright surreal to be in an instance all by yourself and suddenly run into a bunch of other players.

gear, q and a

My Kingdom for a Choco-Bow

9 Comments

In a comment in my last post, Sonvar asked me when I’m going to be replacing my PvP bow with a good PvE bow.

Sonvar, I am the first person to admit that my bow is not the best bow for PvE. Not by a long shot. The reason I’ve been using it this whole time is because I got sick of [Valanos’ Longbow]. Every new-70 hunter and their ravager has Valanos’ Longbow. And no upgrades to it were dropping for me (none has ever dropped for me actually) so I did the honor grind and got myself a spiffy and oh-so-shiny [Gladiator’s Heavy Crossbow]. It’s slow, it’s not an optimum PvE Beast Mastery bow by any means, but it’s served me well regardless.

As for when I’m going to replace it… the answer is… the very second I loot my 150th Badge of Justice. Currently I’m sitting at 93 of ’em or something similarly abysmal. “Pike, why do you need 150 badges?”

This:

[Crossbow of Relentless Strikes].

This is delicious on so many levels. Improves your hit rating. Improves your crit rating. Improves your attack power. 2.80 speed. 93 DPS. Probably tastes divine when plucked, roasted, and lightly seasoned.

It may be a Choco-Bow (This is the new name of this weapon. So let it be written, so let it be done), but I will be doing heroics all weekend and it will be mine.

Everyday I'm Huntering