The Mystic Hunter

I want to appologize for my lack of updates lately.  They should be picking up again, but I wanted to let you guys know the reasons why.  First off there’s this:

He’s only been around for 2 weeks but prior to that he was giving his mom contractions for 3 additional weeks.  Kinda hard to plan anything.

The second thing is that I was writing a story for the Blizzard contests, rather than blogging.  However, constantly wondering if I should take my wife to the hospital proved to be a great distraction.  So great in fact that I thought the contest ended on the 15th instead of the 12th and I didn’t get to submit my entry… Maybe I’ll post it here someday.

Third, I went in for a sleep study last week.  The doc said I should be using a CPAP machine if I had apnea more than 30 times in 2 hours, and I hit 267.  So, I’ve been using it for 4 days, and it’s a nice change.  Have you ever had your ear plugged by infection or ear wax, and you can’t hear because not only is the passage blocked but being plugged is distracting?  It’s kinda like that only with thinking instead of hearing.  So, I got rid of my snoring, just in time to have my sleep disturbed several times a night by a baby.  Such is life.

In summary, I hope to be updating regularly again soon-ish.

As an actual warcraft note, I’m loving Dual Specs.  I cant seem to give up the MM playstyle now that I’ve gotten used to it, and now I can easily swap to BM for soloing elites as well.  Good time to be a hunter.

I’ve been really bad about posting, but to be honest, nothing I would have written would have been useful.

Until now.

I just got the quest “The Grand Melee” and had a heck of a time trying to complete it. For the first 30 min, I only defeated one jouster.  Then things clicked and the next 2 fell like nothing.  Here’s my priorities -

1. DO NOT TRY TO GET TO RANGED.  The NPCs can turn around much faster than you (like instantly) while your mount takes awhile to turn even if you’re not using keyboard turning.  If your opponent runs away, let him.  We’ll deal with that in a sec.
2. Hit Defend whenever its up.  Or at least try.
3. Thrust if in melee range.  I know the previous quests showed you that you lose a defend when you do it, but in practice that only depends on what your opponent does.  Thrust, Defend, Thrust, Defend should be your cast sequence in close range.
4. When your opponent turns to charge, stay where you are and start spamming Shield-Breaker.  Once that goes off, spam charge.  Some  opponents will let you get both off, some will not, but it will be consistent for that faction (I found SW let me get both while Gnomer only let me get one).  If you find they turn around too fast to get both, priority is to Charge.  If you get it off first at minimal range, they won’t be able to do it.

It sounds simple enough now that I write it, but holy cow, was that a frustrating half-hour.

I’ve been meaning to update my marksman experience much more often, but for now I can say this: I like it.

It still doesn’t feel like home, but I like it. I think the thing I’m enjoying the most is the selection of shots I can hit at any given time.  Just a few months ago, I was a single button presser, and now I’m paying attention again.  Aimed shot is off CD but so is Chimera, oh wait, Serpent Sting fell off.  Most fights I never get around to even trying a Steady shot.  I was a bit worried about mana efficiency since as a BM I found myself in AotV mode way more than I ‘d like, but MM does so much damage that I never have it on for more than 2 fights (unless I forget).

I should also mention that if you want to try MM you shouldn’t just copy my spec from the armory.  I made a few mistakes and haven’t bothered to respec yet.

I’d say that my only criticism is pet agro which is to be expected when I’m putting out 3-4x the DPS of my pet.  I can’t say how bad it really is right now though seeing as I’ve been leveling up pets rather than using a 80 (Frothy is 79 almost 80!).  The interesting thing about it is to compensate, you have to basically reverse what you’d do for max damage while also trying to minimize mana used.  For instance, Chimera with Serpent applied is my highest damaging ability, but if I open with that, I’m sure to pull agro immediately.  So instead, I hold off until agro has already been pulled to release Chimera… maybe.  The mob may already be below 20% in which case Kill shot is not only more mana efficient, but higher damage.  If the mob is at 25%, Chimera will certainly kill it, but maybe its better to just hit Arcane instead and then melee for the last 500hp.

In short, shot choice not only depends on cooldown and mana, but also on the condition of the mob itself while soloing.  It’s a really different mind set.  Next post I’m go into the different shots and when/how to use them.  Prepare for the maths.

I’ve also had 2 major changes since the last post.  First is that I finally brokedown and traded in my 93DPS bow for a N4K despite my hatred of guns.  I somehow added 55 WHITE DPS to my character sheet and the difference really shows in a fight.

The second is that I’ve joined a guild.  They were recruiting back in January before I hit 80, and sounded like a perfect fit.  As the recruiter put it:

We’re  a guild of mature players mostly running 10-mans, who have real lives outside the game.  That means when we actually get around do doing something we expect everyone to bring their A-game.  We run 10-mans and heroics as a guild, but have a guild alliance to run 25s when the stars align.

As an initiate, I’m not a regular raider, but so far its a great fit.  I’ve done 2 25-mans and 3-4 heroics both on Wnodis and Znodis.  No loot to speak of, but been really fun to just see everything.  If I get a 2nd invite to Naxx I think I’ll respec BM just to get a comparison.

I’m going to talk about being a Marksman today.  Just a warning.

Maybe I should back up a bit and delve into why I’m a hunter in the first place.  In the beginning there was EverQuest.  Well, at least my beginning.  I loved it.  I still tell stories about how I dinged level 15 5x because I kept dying, how in my first 5 min I fell out of the wood elf village,  and it took me an hour to get back up, having to actually talk to NPCs to get quests (”How do I get a [Trueshot Bow]?”), and the time I went from one starting area to the other and it took me 5 hours.  Oh, and the /train runs back to the guards; that’s the only thing I really, really miss.  It felt like a world more than a game.  What I’ve noticed is that it’s the flaws that made it like real life, but there were a few that I just couldn’t overlook.

First was soloing.  Once you hit about 20, it was pretty pointless to even fight an enemy 1 on 1.  Just getting a 2nd person was so much easier and you both benefited.  However, I was living in Hawaii at the time and there just wasn’t enough people on when I played and to be honest, I didn’t know the certain places where people gathered.

Second, was healing.  This wasn’t such a big deal in a group, but I seriously remember spending more than half of my playtime sitting to regen health.  Play went like this: find mobs, and kill for 5 min until health is at 20%, stop and find a safe place, read a book for 5 min while health gets back to 100%.

Now on to WoW.  I still liked the ranger class so in the open beta I grabbed a hunter.  I saw how quick I could kill, I could use food/drink to regen rather than just sitting (and it was FAST!), and I didn’t even need to kite because I could take a hit or 2 and raptor strike for the kill.  And when I died, I didn’t lose any exp… I think I may have actually cried.  I was in heaven.

When I hit level 11, I finally got around to doing the pet training quests.  I actually missed the follow-up, and thought that it was normal to have my pet disappear every 30min.  I didn’t care.  No more kiting – ever.  I quickly learned about pulling agro and not to do it, but I would have happily only used auto shot if I never had to worry about dying.  Best of all, he regened health like crazy. No more downtime.

Eventually someone told me about ‘Feed pet’ and talent points.  I could make my new friend more powerful!  Everyone else was singing the praises of MM, and I was BM to the core.  For 4 years I have never seriously considered anything else.

I have reconsidered.  I spent the night as a MM, and I’m loving it.  My pet still holds agro fine which is really all I want, but the playstyle is much nicer.  I like the shoot and forget of Serpent Sting/Chimera, big numbers popping up, and actually using most of the abilities.  I went and set up WWS for before and after (I won’t post my pathetic ZD quest green numbers), and found my DPS going up by 15%.

I wonder what the difference is in a real raiding hunter.

I guess the point is that I’m liking MM at least for now.

I finished my dalies yesterday and Ebon Blade was 1000 short as I expected.  Since I had nothing better to do, I snooped around Shadow Vault a bit and went to the quartermaster to oogle the swords I wanted.  As I did, I noticed a guy that really looked like he should have had a quest for me at some point so I looked him up on wowhead.  He was supposed to give daily quests, but as I read the comments I realized there was a whole bunch of Ebon Blade quests wrapped with Argent Crusade that I hadn’t done.  An hour and a respec later this was the end of my night:

Pengu – check

Mysterious Egg – check

Purdy new 2h swords being DW – Double-D delicious!

I also went over to Znodis to disenchant tons of BoEs that dropped for W on her way to 80 and I think I forgot to show you guys this:

Win!

I made it.  Once I hit 80 on the 7th, I had 3 nights of trying to get a cleared heroic Gundrak , but I did find a kind soul finally.  For Love is in the Air, things went even smoother.  I got 2 bags of candy in about 10 tries, did 4 turn-ins for 10 arrows and 10 rockets, and got 10 rose petals during those 10 tries as well.  The only real issue I had was getting a Bouquet.  It took a few days before I had time for a farming group, but when I did it was 5×80s.  I tanked the whole thing without stopping or losing agro.  I know the group probably wasn’t going all out, but I feel like I finally know how to AoE tank.  Also, I had a Perma-Pettle from last year, and I also looted a Black Dress so I completed all the achievements even the ones that didn’t count towards the title.

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So now that my grind is coming to an end, I’m finally catching up on my blog reading.  This makes me a sad panda. Specifically

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

Pike… you know how Duskwallow Marsh used to suck.  Then they revamped it and it became awesome.  That’s Draenai starting areas compared to all others.  Gear is better, questlines are better, there’s much less running hither-tither, and I’ve yet to finish those 2 zones without a character hitting at least 20 compared to 17 when i couldn’t do any more darkshore quests (my previous favorite starting area).

I know you have leveling issues, but please reconsider.

Then there’s this on mania’s blog.  Feedback on every pet family and how they compare to each other? /begins going through pet leveling withdrawls.  I have so many opinions on pets, families, roles, talents, graphics, sound.  I don’t even know where to begin.  /sigh, I don’t even have time to being…  Those posts have been in draft form for so long I think I’ll have to start over just to make sure they’re still relavent.

Oh, well.  Such is WoW.

I really put my nose to the grinding stone, and I just hit 79 tonight.  I should have 80 by the weekend and then I just need to find a few groups to mooch off of as they finish clearing the last 3 instances with elders.

Protection hasn’t been completely miserable, but I’ll be glad to swich back to fury as soon as I can.  It’s not so much that I can’t tank, it’s that I hate the treatment that comes with it.  Case in point, I attempted to run Halls of Stone today, and there were some looting disputes.

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Well, I did it.  I hit 80 last week while vacationing in FL and missing out on the crazy sub-zero temperatures back home.  Returned home to my brand new 17″ laptop of joy, and news that one of my good friends finally upgraded her comp and is ready to try out WoW.  Time to get back to blogging?  No.

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I hate shopping for computers. (Bare with me, there’s some good advice for people buying at the bottom).

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