Musings of an Angry Raider

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.

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:

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?

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.