17
Aug

on huntards

Ever since the week WoW came out, the hunter has endured the derision of everyone else. Phrases like "hunter weapon" and "huntard" have entered the lexicon of every WoW player almost as quickly as Blizzard’s coffers have grown from our subscription fees.

Every hunter in World of Warcraft has to overcome this stereotype. The fact that we’re a dime-a-dozen certainly doesn’t help our cause. Worse yet, everyone else thinks they know what’s best for a hunter and the individual specs, and we get pigeonholed into specific–very specific–roles in groups and raids.

I work very hard to combat this stereotype, and I play a spec that doesn’t allow for single-button macro spamming, which is what everyone thinks I should be doing. (Nothing against you BM hunters.) To ensure that I fully understood my spec and how to get the most of out it, I did research online. There are tons of hunter blogs out there, a few of them on my blogroll, written by people who share their knowledge and experiences to help all the hunters in WoW, of all skill levels, succeed and have fun. For the love of Elune, if you play a hunter or play with a hunter, please go read one of those blogs!

Here’s an example of a hunter who really, really needs to visit BRK.

And here’s an example of a hunter who knows his (or her) class well. He probably reads Elitist Jerks.

Sure, Hawth has way better gear than Specialkitty. But that’s not the point: at all gear levels, from quest greens to Sunwell legendaries, the same principles apply. World of Warcraft doesn’t offer the kind of flexibility that other MMOs have in terms of stats and abilities. That’s part of its simplicity and why people are hooked on it: it’s relatively easy. And while I’m not one to always follow the status quo, I do believe that, as a player of an MMORPG, you have some modicum of responsibility to the people you play with to know something about how your class works. It doesn’t take but a few minutes at the Wowhead hunter forums to learn that spell damage is not necessary, or that strength gems don’t increase your ranged attack power.

I’m not trying to call out Specialkitty and label him as a "huntard." I think he just doesn’t know any better and he’s doing the best he can. His gear choices and stats will limit him and he will likely realize why that is, and possibly improve.

And at the end of the day, that’s all we can ask of anyone.

16
Aug

hunter love

Raganwald has been 70 for two weeks now. His agility is currently at 659. I still need to pick up a new cloak (damn you AH!) and a new bow. I really want Wrathtide Longbow but it’s so hard to find groups on my server, Anvilmar. So this Tuesday, I’m transferring Raganwald to Area 52, which is one of the most-progressed servers on the Horde side. It’s the home of the "rogue bow" controversy you may have heard about recently.

I haven’t been playing Raganwald as much as I wanted, partly due to raiding on my druid and mostly because of Anvilmar woes, but I did acquire a few new pieces of gear, like the Merciless Gladiator’s Chain Helm and Felstalker Bracers. You can check out Raganwald’s armory page to see what’s up.

When I do play him, I have so much fun. Yesterday I found a Steamvaults (nonheroic, unfortunately) group and it was a pretty painless clear. I tied with the shadow priest on the damage meter, did my trapping job fairly perfectly, and made ample use of Misdirection. In other words, all the things that make playing a hunter so much fun.

I really put my survival skills to test on the last pull before the end boss. I trapped a myrmidon and laid down another freezing trap, ready for him when he broke. Unfortunately, the tank moved close the trap and a dotted mob got trapped. I had to do something to keep my myrmidon under control, so I hit him with a Viper Sting. I knew I wouldn’t be able to trap him, but the other option was to wipe.

When the Viper Sting ended, I kited the myrmidon up and down the cleared area, using Improved Wing Clip and Concussive Shot. This kept him busy just long enough for the tank and DPS to finish the mobs they were working on and pick up the myrmidon. After the myrmidon died, the tank said, "That was some awesome kiteing, Raganwald."

It’s that kind of thing that makes me love playing a hunter, and the reason I’m specced survival.

10
Aug

raganwald the survival hunter - day 3

I haven’t been playing Raganwald in as much of the blitz style as I had when he first hit 70, partly because the weekend arrived, and mainly because I’ve been leveling a warlock on the side as part of the "Refer-A-Friend" program. And as part of that, behold Raganwald’s new mount:

WoWScrnShot_080908_214853

Upon closer inspection, that’s not a particularly good screenshot. Mox nix, moving on.

The biggest news to report is that Raganwald has replaced all of his greens except a trinket, which is pretty hard to replace anyway. Said trinket (Ancient Draenei War Talisman) will undoubtedly be replaced by Figurine - Shadowsong Panther that I will craft when my skill is high enough. Yes, I know it has the "effective stealth level" thing on there, but who cares. The other equip bonus and the use bonus are fantastic.

Friday afternoon saw my brother and me pounding through quests in Shadowmoon Valley to get two new blue rings to replace the dusty old greens I’d been using since, oh, Terrokar Forest. They are Slayer’s Mark of the Redemption and Band of Anguish. The Slayer’s Mark required some significant skill on our part; fortunately, my brother is an amazingly skilled shadow priest and I am no slouch at the hunter. ;)

What’s next? Farming the last bit of honor for the Merciless Gladiator’s Chain Helm and getting some enchants for my boots, bracers, and weapon. I really, really need a good Survival bow. Suggestions?

08
Aug

raganwald the survival hunter - day 2

My what a difference a day makes. First let’s look at Raganwald’s latest character sheet.

WoWScrnShot_080708_000539

That’s a net 21 agility gain over the previous day and 12 hit, as well as about 1.5% more crit. The 60 attack power is pretty nice too.

Beyond the numbers, let’s look at some of the other things that Raganwald has accomplished. First, the results of a productive AV run.

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And then the damage meters from a Sethekk run.

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I actually hit 753 dps in Magister’s Terrace today, but neglected to get a screenshot.

I think my progress will be curtailed simply due to the gear-up curve taking a sharp climb. I do plan on getting some enchants soon that will put me at around 640 agility. Stay tuned!

05
Aug

raganwald the survival hunter - day 1

Raganwald dinged 70 late yesterday afternoon. As soon as I hit 70, I took a screenshot of the character sheet to serve as the baseline for all future discussion of the little guy. Here’s my stats the second I hit 70.

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Over the past 24 hours, I farmed tons of honor, 20 AB marks, and two instance runs, as well as one trip to the Auction House. I now look like this.

WoWScrnShot_080408_234026

The numbers are looking good, wouldn’t you say? The hit is pretty low, but since I don’t raid, it’s not that big of a deal, at least not right now. I’m 139 agility from my goal of 700 unbuffed. Considering the number of greens I’m in and the fact that my shoulders are unsocketed (damn you server economy), that’s pretty decent! My enchants are just 26 AP to my gloves and 24 AP to my bracers. I don’t want to put 15 agility on the gloves I’m currently wearing. I do plan to put 35 agility on my Terokk’s Quill.

I’m looking forward to Day 2!

02
Aug

Raganwald the survival hunter - day .5

My marathon-like rush to level 70 for this experiment is in full swing. Raganwald is 68.7 after two runs in Old Hillsbrad, one of which netted him Cloak of Impulsiveness, which was somewhat of a sidegrade over Delicate Green Poncho. We had a pally tank for both runs, and that made my job quite fun.

Today I will hit 69, farm Alterac Valley for some much-needed honor, and work toward finally getting the big seven-oh. The second I hit 70, I’ll take a snapshot of my current gear and use that as a starting point for the rest of the posts in this series.

I do want to give a special thanks to a few bloggers that helped spark my interest in this project (and WoW hunters in general): Pike, Lassirra, and BRK. Pike runs the sweetest hunter-centric blog in the world, Lassirra plays a Survival hunter and has been a hugely valuable resource in this project, and BRK is a very vocal proponent of the hunter class.

And now, for our moment of Zen.

01
Aug

my survival hunter - day 0

My raid guild has been having trouble lately fielding the numbers for raids. It’s a common problem with all guilds, from the most casual to the most hardcore. With absolutely zero interest in any of my Alliance characters, I turned my attention to my Blood Elf hunter, formerly named Nimrod and now named Raganwald (after a transfer off Thunderlord-PVP to Anvilmar-PVE).

Raganwald is pretty fun. I’ve always been a fan of bow-using classes in various MMOs. In fact, my hunter in Lord of the Rings Online is named Raganwald.

Of course, being me, I’m not interested in playing my hunter the way everyone else does. So at level 65, I specced him Survival and will not spec him any other way for any reason. Why? Because BM hunters are a dime a dozen, very boring to play, and I don’t want to adhere to the status quo. I don’t have anything against BM hunters; after all, my fiancee plays one. I just find the Survival hunter to be the most interesting to play. I also have zero interest in Marksman hunters, even though they’re better-equipped for PVP, mainly because of the stand-and-shoot playstyle they use.

How is Survival different? I can’t count on my pet to hold aggro for me. I hit hard and slow, I use stings and shots other than just Steady Shot, and I make copious use of traps and Wyvern Sting. I love kiting things around, I love the challenge of PVP as Survival (especially being hard to kill), and I love dealing with multiple mobs at once (pet on one, two in traps, one slept, one being kited; this has happened many times). Survival is a lot like MM, much moreso than BM.

So what’s my goal with Raganwald? What’s the point of all this?

I intend on completely gearing out Raganwald without stepping foot into a single raid. Not even Karazhan. I plan to find him the absolute best gear he can get through questing, PVP, and crafting. The Season 2 stuff is pretty good, so logically I’ll pick up a full set of that until I find something better. My goal is to have 700 unbuffed agility once Raganwald’s gear plan is complete. And I’ll document every day of this difficult quest here on this blog, starting with the first day he hits 70, which should be in the next couple of days.

See you soon!

14
Jul

recruiting woes

My primary role as an officer is recruiting. I’m tasked with finding good people with medium to good gear and getting them to join our guild so they can raid with us. I had tremendous luck finding DPS. Mages and hunters are aplenty, and I found us some good ones. I also nabbed us a really good holy pally and a holy priest.

I’ve been searching for some good druids and it has been fruitless. We need a resto druid and another feral druid like crazy, and my searches turn up nothing. These two specs are in such high demand that a resto druid in Kara epics can get into a Sunwell guild. Why would they want to join our mid-T6 guild when they can go straight to the very end endgame content?

I don’t know why good ferals are so hard to find. Maybe it’s because loot doesn’t play such a big factor in raiding for ferals until Sunwell (Hyjal and BT don’t have a lot to offer us beyond T6, unfortunately). We gear up via badges and arenas. The only feral I’ve found was still in the Heavy Clefthoof stuff, and that just won’t cut it.

We’ve decided to go back and do T5 content to gear up some people. This lets us take in some lesser-geared folks and get them ready for T6. My only worry is that they’ll use us for loot and then take off for a more advanced guild.

Sometimes I wish the attunements were still in place.

10
Jul

rebirth of a guild

A lot has happened in the past week.

After the initial exodus, a few more people left. It was the lowest point for the guild, and I considered leaving as well, and just the quit the game for good. But then I realized that I had the opportunity to help the guild rebuild; I could be a part of something more than just a bunch of people with the same tag under their names. I took it upon myself to start recruiting. I picked up seven new people, and I’m looking for a few more.

The highlight of the week for me was Monday night, when I was made an officer. It is a tremendous honor for me. We went to Sunwell and farmed trash for a little while, and we got an epic drop. Meji (my fiancee) picked up Ring of Harmonic Beauty.

Last night we went to Tempest Keep and killed three bosses (saving Kael for later) and lots of people got some nice gear upgrades.

In my last post, I said:

On the one hand, we lost a lot of people and can’t raid. But on the other hand, the people who were the problem–the reason we couldn’t progress–are gone. Perhaps the exodus was what the guild really needed.

I was right. People left, we rebuilt. We’re very, very close to being back on track, and we have some incredible players in the guild. I haven’t been this excited about World of Warcraft in a very long time.

04
Jul

guild grief

Over the past several days, my guild has lost 12-15 people. Most of them quit to go to other raid guilds, and others just quit because of burnout. I know where they’re coming from.

People change guilds all the time. I mean, we lost a lot of new people over the past few months, mainly because they felt like they fit better in their old guilds. But the longstanding folks leaving was kind of surprising, since we had all built friendships that I, perhaps naively, thought were more longstanding than the desire to kill another boss.

But I can’t indict their loyalty. It’s a game, and if you’re not having fun, you have to effect a change or quit playing. I’ll admit that I’d rather be raiding than standing around Shattrath trying to find something to do. I’d like to replace some of my aging gear, like my tier 4 gloves. I’d like to see some new content, perhaps a boss past Shade of Akama. For that we need raiders, people who want to raid and make raiding their priority.

To that end, I’ve been recruiting people and we’ve added four new players that seem very promising. I’m hoping we can get back into raiding in the next week. I hope that the new people stick with us and help us get back on our feet.

We’re going to raid some tier 5 content again. I don’t want to go back to SSC and TK, but if it helps the guild then it’s worth it. At least those bosses will be new to some of the new guildies, and we can get some gear for people that still need it. (I could use some DPS upgrades.)

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand, we lost a lot of people and can’t raid. But on the other hand, the people who were the problem–the reason we couldn’t progress–are gone. Perhaps the exodus was what the guild really needed.

Only time will tell.