Merry Christmas!

Hooray!!! 73!

And all thanks to a night of insomnia and a little perseverance. I know that I had stated earlier that I wasn't going to get much play time between last weekend and Christmas, but yesterday I was delivered a night of sleeplessness that allowed me to clear almost a full level of XP in quests off of my quest log. So this morning all I had to do was complete a couple more quests and farm a little more leather and here I am at 73. I've also established my of my FP's for Dragonblight and I'm sure I'll be doing the same for Grizzly Hills very soon.

A quick question for all my readers. Have you noticed that in the most heavily farmed areas where everyone seems to spend an entire day farming for mats (like in the Charred Vale? in Borean Tundra) that the players are acting like farming bots? Everytime I have entered one of these area's lately I've had players ninja my kills and totally ignore my comments regarding this. I cannot tell you how many times I'll mark a mob only to watch another hunter or ranged toon hit it before I hit the mob. Sadly this seems to be more of a problem on my server with horde toons than alliance toons. And in all actuallity the Alliance toons tend to try and be fair about things. Sadly my efforts to even try and get the other horde toons to be fair like this have resulted in a great big disappointment. I remember stories about this happening soon after the release of BC as well so maybe this is just an unfortunate reality of the game. It's just to bad as this makes it harder on so many people when a handful of individuals feel they need to keep others from completing quests or gathering their own mats. (I almost reported them for being bot farmers though.)

Merry Christmas all, and happy hunting!
Zulu

New Hunter Forum

Just in case anyone has missed this, which I doubt, Lasirra has a new hunters forum which she just opened. Go see and register at The Hunters Mark Forums and see if we can support her in her efforts to provide another great place to discuss the particulars of our class. I've already registered but I am going to seriously have to craft a new avatar. The one that I currently am using leaves much to be said. So I guess Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop will be my new friend until I can come up with something that I am very happy with. :D

Zulu.

The Christmas Season Has Begun

Things have been good and it does seem to be the season. The first thing that happened was that Brajana honored me greatly by listing me on her blog roll. Have you ever seen a Troll gush? lol. :D

The next good thing to happen is that I've now replenished all the gold that I spent when I regeared to come to Northrend and to bring my leatherworking up to par. (Now I have to finish fishing, cooking, and first aid. :P) And.... I finally hit level 72. I knew that leveling in Northrend was going to be somewhat slow, but this has been a lot slower going than I anticipated.

And to carry a current theme through that has been flying around the blogs, my first commenter was Pike. But I also need to make nods to Loronar as well as he has become my most frequent commenter. For everyone who visits me; Thank You and Merry Christmas.

I have an admission that I must make as well. Prior to the beginning of this blog and my mad rush to 70, Zulu was not my main toon for WoW. That distinction fell to Dhargaul, a Draenei Shaman also on Gilneas that is a Sr. Officer with the alliance guild there called LOST SLEEP. (This guild is one of the largest casual guilds on the server.) The "Main" situation is beginning to change though. I find that I am spending more and more time on Zulu, in part do to the response to this blog and the support I am receiving from the Hunter community online. This brings me to a slight dilemma in that I may be faced with a choice. The guild I belong to is called Lords of Chaos, which is a family guild mostly made up of toons that are alts for a small group of players in Lost Sleep. The guild isn't active very much, which isn't a problem, but I do find that it can be lonely at times. A server transfer is something I've considered but I am still weighing my thoughts on the matter. Suggestions and insights would be welcome here.

I hope this Christmas brings everyone good tidings and happiness!

Zulu

Christmas Time and RL

I'm sorry to say RL is raising it's head again so my play time has been reduced significantly. I am hoping to get in some play over the weekend but then it will be Christmas time. I make no promises for new posts or reports on my experiences until at least the weekend following Christmas.

I'd love to say I've been leveling like mad and have made another level. This just isn't true. I've been on a couple of my alts lately as I've onlyi been online in 30 to 45 minute spurts and it's nice to ding a level in that time to feel like you've accomplished something. In Northrend your just getting your feet wet questing in that small amount of time. Or at least that is how I feel. I have spent a couple of hours in the wee morning hours before work making circles around Warsong Hold (I finally finished that stupid Peon quest, bleh!) massacring everything in sight. This has netter me a grand total of 4 stack of Borean Leather, which has been further crafted into Heavy Borean Leather (16 pieces in total)... Sadly no more Artic Furs dropped.

I'm just over 410 in LW and I am already crafting items above my level for once which is nice. The gear is pretty decent compared to what I'm seeing from quest rewards so I'm spending most of my trying to level it even higher. I definitely want to be at 450 before I hit 80. The nice thing about this is that I'm really making nice money from this. Jormungar Leg Armor has been selling for 45g per item in the AH for me. I still gain levels from this so I've been making a decent amount of the stuff when I have the mats. Just since last weekend I've made close to 500g off selling this item alone. :D

So for everyone out there, where have all the Bows gone? I am having to use guns ATM to keep up with my level weapon wise and I have been searching far and wide for Bows. I have only seen one bow in my AH on Gilneas and it was a +Spirit bow. This can't be true is it? Are the drop rates on bows really that deplorable? My hands have been aching for a month now for a finely crafted wood and sinew bow. If anyone has any leads please let me know.

Zulu.

Further Testing - Steady Shot, Serpent Sting, Aspect of the Beast, Aspect of the Viper while questing.

A comment from Brajana about spamming the tar our of Steady Shot got me to thinking and testing. One thing that I don't have, compared to a lot of hunters is a significant mana pool. A lot of hunters out there have either Tier gear or Arena gear from BC and that gear provides significant INT and MP5 bonuses that you don't get from "green" Northrend gear. This isn't a real problem but it does affect how you utilize your shots some while questing. Loronar and Brajana both have also mention the use of MP5 foods. Here I have to say, "Yes" you definitely want to invest in this as this provides a boost to keeping your best damage numbers up. You can make the investment by buying the food on the AH when it is available or by leveling up your cooking, which in the long run in the cheaper route to go. (And this is what I am attempting to finish doing currently).

If you are relatively new to the high end content of BC and LK like I am and do not have the benefit of exceptional BC epics. You don't have to worry, but plan accordingly. Spamming Steady Shot is still doable. Just not all the time when Aspect of the Beast is up. So where we go for Zuluki's questing guide for the Non-Geared. LOL

We'll start with the Pet: *-* Gorilla *-*

Why?

Easy, the Gorilla maintians aggro so much better than Ferocity pets and he is a lot more capable of handling multiple mobs than the other Tenacity pets. This means you can mow down more mobs faster than if you were using a different pet. This is critical I've found for several reasons. First of all there are a lot of quests in the Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord where the mobs are pretty tightly packed and you will likely be pulling 2 or more mobs in each engagement. My Ferocity pet, a cat, has had difficutly in keeping all the mobs focused on him when there is more than one. Against 2 mobs this isn't such a bad deal since you can trap the break away mob and finish the one your pet is focused on. More than 2 mobs and things get real dicey real fast, especially if you tend to use volley. (Important disclaimer: I've found if you are dealing with mobs at least 2 levels below the level of your pet, this changes quite a bit. Ferocity pets can multimob tank so to say if the mobs are a lot lower in level.) Secondly, pet survivability. I want my pet to stay alive, period. Tenacity pets are better suited of this. And lastly, Thunderclap. This ability is simply amazing in conjunction with Growl. If growl doesn't pick the mob up or keep him focused on my pet, then thunderclap will. This is also good for those times when you have a straggler mob that chances upon when your are already involved against another mob or two. Just send you pet after the new guy and clip him so you can maneauver out of his range until you pet has him.

Aspect of the Beast.

More pet damage = more pet threat = pet keeps more mobs away from you. This means you have more time to Volley to your hearts desire until eveyone is dead. Since the release of LK and the changes to this aspect, I feel this is perhaps your best aspect while leveling. This aspect has made the difference in whether my pet tanks 4 or more mobs. Without this aspect, for some reason my pets can only keep 3 mobs focused on them.

Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Aspect of the Viper

Even though this costs a fair bit of mana. If you have the Glyph, which you want to have along with Glyph of Steady Shot while leveling, then this is your opener on your focused mob. Following this, you either Auto Shoot to conserve mana or spam Steady Shot. Of note, Steady Shot is definitely faster and can finish mobs in one or two casts of this shot (even in green gear). Spamming this shot I've noticed with my small mana pool that I can down 3, maybe 4 mobs in a row before I begin to run into mana issues. Or I can spam Steady shot and Volley on multiple mobs engagements and make it through one group. Then I either stop and replenish my mana or pop Aspect of the Viper and continue on. In one on one situations I usually sting the mob and then Auto shoot. The norm for me though is different in that I usually enter engagements with 2 mobs at a time. The more I watch what I am doing in the game, the more I find this happening. I deal with multiple mob situations far more often than I deal with individual mob situations.

This means that Aspect of the Viper is up more than I would really like. But here is the deciding factor, when Aspect of the Viper is up, you should Always be spamming Steady Shot no matter what. You will regen mana faster than you can spend it by spamming Steady Shot. When I find myself in a situation where I am moving from one small group to the next I never come out of Apect of the Viper. Some of you may balk a little at this, but when your questing/leveling in an area where mobs are aplenty, this will save you from time to time. Ex.: There have been numerous times now when I have been fighting 2 or 3 mobs and had a pair of mobs aggro onto me from the side or behind. Without mana, I cannot trap, kite or volley and I will need all 3 to survive the engagement. Doing "uber" damage during these kinds of instances is unneccessary. Killing the mobs faster does not gaurantee that you'll survive. Ensuring that your pet has aggro on most if not all so you can Volley them to death is way more important at times like this. Doing less damage is not as important as having mana. Mana will win fights for you.

In places like Skorn or around Warsong Hold, Aspect of the Viper really becomes important. In less densely populated areas, Aspect of the Beast is your friend, unless you really need to be moving fast.. then Aspect of the Cheetah.

MP5.....

I am really beginning to find this stat being of more and more value while leveling. While a lot of gear has INT, if it has MP5 then it's even better. The sooner you get your mana back the quicker you can move inbetween mobs and this can be vital in some quests or in your survival in the wilds of Northrend. And the more of this stat you have the less time you'll have to spend under Aspect of the Viper.

In essence, what eveyone should know is, while your leveling and if you don't have access to higher end gear, do not under utilize Aspect of the Viper. Yes you do less damage, but you are doing more damage than Auto Shot, and you are regen'ing mana faster than your standard rate unless you have a high INT and good MP5. If you are in better gear and have these stats in abundance then you can afford to run less on Aspect of the Viper. Steady Shot should be your main shot while leveling as it provides the most bang for you buck. Just remember though that it will drain your mana pool fairly quickly if you are in "green" gear. Completing quests and staying alive is far more important than whether or not your are outputting the most DPS you can while you level to 80. This will go much faster if keep your mana pool full or as close to full as possible at all times.

Gorilla pet, Steady Shot, Aspect of the Beast/Aspect of the Viper as needed, Serpent Sting, and MP5 for your leveling happiness.

Good Luck, and Happy Hunting
Zulu.

Looking Forward - Gear and Stats

I spent some time last night looking over the LW items that I can make as well as what was available in the AH for sale. To my surprise and pleasure I noticed that there is a lot of BLUE armor items that are seeing a decent amount of turnover in the AH. Prices are reasonable and the stats available for a lot of that equipment are really nice. This has really gotten me to thinking what I need to be shooting for stat wise at 80. I'm already reading on BRK's site that level 80 hunters should have AP in the 3000 to 3500 range. I feel like my stats are comfortable for my level and the level of my gear currently. And since I only hit 70 just after the release of LK I'm happy with this. Plus LW does offer a lot of good gear. Here again, I am blessed in that my LW skill is high enough that I can actually craft gear that is above my level. From this standpoint I really don't need to be looking to buy anything in the AH, but at the same time, having access to both is groovy. I'm imagining given some of the changes regarding how things scale now that Crit Chance will need to be somewhere above 22 or 23%. What is still hard to figure is what will be a nominal number for AGI and INT, as well as if there is going to be a need for a nominal MP5 number.

While I know I won't be starting at 80 with great gear, it is nice to see that I will have plenty of access to good gear without having to run any of the instances right off the bat. I can't wait. I will definitely be hitting 72 over the weekend and I am hoping that I can make some good ground towards 73 as well.

Zulu

Reminiscing.....

Gilneas is not known for having a significant Horde population any more which is unfortunate. I was trolling through the realm forum for Gilneas and something I noticed was the massive number of Horde players that have transfered to other servers. When I first started playing WoW I rolled a Horde toon along with an Ally toon. My Ally toon would become my main toon as that is the side many of my friends from work played on. But my Horde toon, an undead mage, is where I really cut my teeth on many aspects of the game that seemed esoteric in the beginning. In those days, prior to the release of Burning Crusades, my mage (who never advanced above level 19) was a PVP madman. On a weekly basis I would spend 2 or 3 hours in WSG thwarting Alliance PVP'ers and Twinks alike. Give me a good rogue at level 19 and my mage that was specced frost and no one could touch the flag if we were gaurding it. I remember also back then that the Horde had a significantly larger presence on the server.

While I can't remember the specific allocation of population accurately I believe in the fall of 2006 the Horde was at 30% or higher population wise. Now only 13% of the population of the server is Horde. This means that for the most part, questing as Horde means you will almost always be alone. I've done a fair amount of investigation regarding what has happened on the server to the Horde, including asking this question in trade chat, and the answer is pretty consistent. It seems of the veteran Horde players, some rerolled Alliance and now hardly ever play their Horde toons anymore, or they transfered off the server. From when I used to play my PVP mage and the original hunter I rolled on the Horde side, I see very few names of players that I recognize any more. Some of the names of the Horde players that regularly post in the Gilneas forum are unknown known to me as well, but there are a few that I remember seeing from back before BC.

A part of me misses the days when I would be in the barrens and see that the Crossroads was under attack, and the next thing you would know there would be 3 or 4 level 60 Horde guys there in full T3 to clean the Alliance players clocks. I miss dueling in Crossroads with players that were 5 to 10 levels lower than my level only to be beaten by people who really understood PVP combat and Dueling. I will miss the days of seeing RAID INC in Orgrimmar after a night of raiding. The part of these times that I won't miss are the City Raids, as these lag fests messed with many a weekend night when I was in the AH. Oh, well......

Looking at the Armory and WarCraftRealms one thing that kinda makes me happy is that my race is in the minority on the server. Why more people don't play trolls is beyond me, the racials have benefits that are good for both PVP and PVE. As I get closer to 80 I am beginning to think of what I would like to level next for the Horde. My bank toon is a Priest so all I'd have to do is just start questing with her, but I am also really thinking about rolling a rogue as well.

Zulu.

More about Learning & My Soapbox

So, everyone saw the news yesterday and like a lot of people, I am wearing a frown. While I can definitely say I will miss the destructive power of Volley, and I'm not sold that the changes to Steady Shot will really be all that much in the long run. The deciding factor here will be in how the new numbers scale with our AP and such. As far as the rest of the changes, I really am not all that worried about them. After looking over things in game and the overall numbers, losing 10% on Steady Shot can by returned through the Steady Shot Glyph, as long as you keep a sting on your opponent. This isn't such a bad deal as many of the stings, while situational, can be used. I know that some people will say this is a good use of mana, but the alternative is a loss of DPS in Steady Shot.

Personally, after having watched what Blizz has been doing in patches from the fall prior to the release of BC to now, I feel like Blizz, while being to kind to those who scream everyone else is OP, has the right intent at heart with most of their changes. I know they don't always get it right but hey, no one is perfect and when you have a group of people that are not perfect it can be interesting to say the least. Still though, while this changes things some for hunters I really don't see the numbers stacking up to be a major nerf. Losing a handful of points in damage is not really something to sweat. Now if they had said a 50% reduction on Steady Shot, I would have a problem as this would mean that this shot is no longer very efficient.

From reading peoples responses to this as well as take a further look into what the potential impact will be for me live in game, I can say that I concur with the sentiment of Loronar at 35 Years Out in that Blizz should not have released WotLK if they were not fully ready and had tested as well as possible all the aspects that were questionable. This unfortunately seems to be what a standard with Blizz. Rush things so the players don't get too bored and take the attitdue we'll fix it later. This is infuriating as a player in that we will see something and think this is what the new changes should be only to learn that is not what Blizz had intended from the bery beginning. To me this runs a bigger risk of alienating players than not having enough new content to keep people from becoming bored. But lets be realistic here as well and look at this in the scope of a broader picture.

When I began playing in the summer of 2006, the original Naxx had apparently just recently been released. I remember vividly back then that on my server, there were very few people or guilds that were in Naxx. The rest of the level 60 players, which to me seemed like a whole lot, mainly did the regular instance runs and Onyxia and worked diligently at their rep grinds in Winterspring, Silithus and the Plagelands. That fall there was a major change in the pre-BC patch that had a huge impact on a lot of players and talent builds. In many ways it totally elimated some talent tree builds from the game totally, especially for Rogues (whom we all know have been getting the short end of the stick for a long time now.) Burning Crusades released in the winter of 2007 and things really began to change from there. There was a diferrence though, in that many of the changes were attempts to fix issues that came up that Blizz had never intended to be in the game in the first place.

The confusion and anger this caused has been felt by all I feel, and this was made even greater with Blizz shifted focus towards PVP combat. All in all, the impression that I have gotten is that Blizz is sitting on a fence of sorts with the game and it direction, and BC only revealed to the players how deeply that indecision is at Blizz HQ. Over the course of the last two years, Blizz has seemed to balance some things and left other areas broken. Very little has happened in a positive way as far as class and talent changes go. There have been bright spots for most every class, these just haven't been very many or very often.

Lich King and it's pre-releaes patch have given the game a lot of positives. More than we've seen in a long time. But I have to agree wit Loronar in that Blizz should have taken the extra time to ensure that most of the issues were closer to where they wanted them to be in the first place before everything went live. Again, the impact here is greater than the WoW players getting bored. I know that a lot of people on our server were diligently working towards getting to Sunwell. BT had never been farmed so much on our server as it was that summer and early fall. But when Blizz announced that WotLK was going to Release on the November date that ended almost all raiding on our server. Why?

The principle reason why is that the players focus changed. Unlike the fall before the release of BC, people were not bored. The Outlands still provided everyone with a lot to do. Between dailies, rep grinding for great gear and flying mounts, to developing casual guilds into guilds capable of making it into Sunwell and the Arenas. There is more than enough for everyone to be involved in the game. Realistically I think Blizz could have easily waited until Feb of 09 or even maybe as late as May of 09 and not lost very many players to other games. Now though, Blizz may be in the crucible again of losing players over major changes because they didn't have all their ducks in a row when the game went live. If trade and general chat channels are a good way to measure the pulse of the players in the game, then Blizz should have noticed that most players had no intetions of ever leaving this game just because other games were coming out.

People have tried Conan and Warhammer, but most of the regular WoW players came back before the release date of LK anyways. Both games are good in their own right, but neither offers the total experience that WoW does. And this should be something that Blizz is aware of, as it gives Blizz a lot of room to be patient and to get things right from the get go. I really dislike reactionary actions and the release of LK so early I feel was reactionary to the release of so many other MMO type games this last summer and fall. Now Blizz is going to pay for this to some degree.

Sorry for the rant, but one of the major strenghts of this game is it's availability for solo PVE play, and I would like to see more from Blizz in this area. PVP, Instances and raids are great and making them more accesible to the regular player base is also a good thing. But there also needs to be greater focus on the stories in the game as well as a recognition that each class is different and this should be more apparent. Making the game more homogenized isn't the answer. Ensuring that each class is unique and interesting should be the answer as well as ensuring that people "need" the other classes and other players to complete the harder content.

Ideally I would like to see this game approach a medium where each class is significant in their own right. Rogues should be the masters of stealth and sneak attacks. Mages should be the masters of explosive power and warriors shouldn't have to worry about their longevity battling the masses and so on. Every class should have a strengh that they are the absolute best at and a weakness that can only be minimized by grouping with other people and classes. Some class v class match ups should be bad match ups. For example, warriors should be able to easily and quickly dispatch a mage or priest, but by the same token these classes should have a quick and dirty answer if those warriors don't play smart. A warrior that allows a mage to keep them at range should be burned down with a couple of spells, and a mage that allows a warrior to get to close should be cut down with a hit or two in duels. This only makes sense in a way regarding PVP.

Finishing up, I'd like to say, the upcoming changes are unfortunate but they are not seriously game breaking or class breaking changes. And in this respect we should be a little grateful to Blizz.

@Brajana:
Steady Shot is faster, no doubt. But having a mana pool of barely 5800 doesn't really make spamming Steady Shot feel better. I find that if I am in an area where I am moving through mobs rapidly, like around Camp Winterhoof and Skorn, I am keeping Viper up the whole time instead of keeping AotB up. Not that this caused any real problems, it just meant that I was still moving fairly slow. I'm still playing with it, so I'll keep you up to date.

Zulu

Howling Fjord and Quests

So I found my self going through more quests in Howling Fjord this morning and I was up in the North near where you enter Grizzly Hills questing. I came out of the quests with a tone of mats from killing so many elementals and I also walked away with a very good impression of the area and the quests there. While I like Borean Tundra, I feel too often that the quests there were just thrown out there onto the board and that no one really paid all that much attention to where they landed. I spend as much time moving from one place to the next as I do actually trying to complete the quests. And to add to that, there is not a lot of continuity to the stories being told in the quests. Where as in the Howling Fjord, someone took the time to set up the quests in a much more rational manner and the story lines are a whole lot better. I am at a point though where I need to research into getting all my FP's in Northrend connected to each other somehow. I keep getting new FP's but I still have to go back to Undercity and Orgrimmar to move between Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. This will save me so much time!

Another thing I am beginnig to notice, at least on my server. Where did all the Horde go in Northrend? Unless I am in one of the major cities, I never see any other Horde players questing on my server. I do see the occasional comment in general or trade chat, but beyond that it seems as if no one is on. Not that this matters to me all that much, but there have been times it would have been nice to group with someone to go through some of the areas that have large populations of mobs packed fairly closely together and on a fast reset timer. I'm finding in a couple of places like this, that I cannot kill the mobs fast enough to get my quest objectives done.

And Thanks to Brajana at Mend Pet for answering a question about 'Kill Shot' that had been lingering around in my brain. Which brings up another question that begs consideration. While questing I usually only use Serpent Sting and Autoshot on my of my kills unless I pick up more than one mob. Then I will use Multishot and then Volley once or twice. On harder kills such as Named mobs or Elite mobs I'll start with Serpent Sting then spam Steady Shot until dead. I find that when I use shots other than Serpent Sting I will have to turn on Aspect of the Viper if I want to keep moving from mob to mob. This isn't such a big deal really, but it does slow me down just a little bit as I am doing less damage. So my question is, what shots or rotations seem to be ideal for different situations?

Zulu

The Lag in Play

I know it has been quite a while since I last posted, but RL has raised it's ugly head and pretty much limited my play time recently. I have been able to play a little bit but I have chosen to play a lower level alt for a while as it is easier to fit that into the rare time that I have had to play recently.

Either way, I hit level 71 this morning while knocking out some quests around the Nexus and I also finally brought my gorilla up to peak level as well. This will help tremendously while I continue to level as it is a whole lot easier for him to maintain aggro than my cat. I know that as some point I will have to finish bring my cat up to level, I will definitely save that for another day.

My leather working is now almost 400 and I do like the gear that you can make. It seems to be as good as what I am seeing as quest rewards and this allows me to feel more comfortable about choosing to wear it. I am now wearing 4 of the 8 pieces and can now craft the 'Blue' chest and legs for the set as well. I can't wait to see what I unlock when I hit 450 in LW. My skinning is now also maxed at 450 so skinning what I need should not be a problem. Given the rareness of Arctic Fur, I am thinking about spending some amount of time over the next level or two farming as much of the stuff as I can get, if for no other reason than to sell the stuff. Also, does Kill Shot really measure up? I like the numbers this ability has, but is it worth using?

Happy Hunting,
Zulu

Happy Thanksgiving

I won't be around much for the next day or so but that's okay. I got Fury of the Raging Dragon the other morning. I haven't tried it out, but this gun look sooo cool!!! :D

See everyone soon!

Level 70 And Beyond

Finally, I dinged 70 this morning with little granduer. I am so happy I finally arrived at this level and can now begin the slow drive to 80 (I know, I'm already doing that). I also recently raised my leatherworking above 375 and I have almost crafted all of my Frostscale armor set. I have to say, this armor set is really nice as an introduction to what can be made at these levels. I'm actually kinda giddy to see how the whole set measures out when I reach a high enough level to wear the full set. Surprisingly leveling LW looks to be fairly easy so far and I am looking forward to what else I will be able to craft.

I am at a point now that I think I will have to put my cat away. My gorilla needs some serious leveling attention and the more that I run around leveling, the more I realize that a tanking pet is going to be better overall for the purposes of getting my quests done. I am finding that my cat is losing aggro too often and that I am having to spend a lot of time kiting and traping when I shouldn't be. This is doubly important in that I and a terrible kiter. I am getting the hang of chain trapping and understand what goes behind it to make it successful. Kiting on the other hand seems to elude me. In time I'll master this I'm sure, it just makes things difficult right now as I could really use that skill at times when my kitty doesn't hold onto the mobs.

Now that I am in full Northrend mode one thing that I have been starting to consider are the target numbers in AGI, AP and Crit that I will want to acheive when I hit level 80. From glancing at the gear available at that level acheiving high levels of AP should be relatively easy, as should hitting my hit rating cap. I would still like to know what would be considered low for AP and what the medium range would need to be for Crit. I know that having a decent mana pool is also going to be of benefit as that will mean less time under Aspect of the Viper. I know that like in BC having a Crit percentage near or better than 30% will be ideal. I just haven't figured out where the AGI and AP should be yet. If anyone has some numbers they would like to throw around I'd love to hear it.

Till Next Time,
Zulu

Tanks, Flying Carpets, And Whatelse?

Okay, so I am playing both sides right now in LK. Ally side with a Shammy and Horde with yours truly. The Alliance are missing it all! I haven't even dinged a level and I've destroyed 100+ lvl 72 elites with a tank, flown the wonderful flying carpet you see above several times now and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of play. The closest anything has come to this with LK is the Death Knight starting area.

I've decided that instead of racing to 80 like most people, I am going to find a comfortable rhythm and enjoy the content of Northrend and the story of the Horde there. Other blogs like 'For the Horde' are already talking about the interesting stories and such. WoWInsider had a good article a day or two ago about the stories in the quest chains there. In the coming months I will relate my adventures as I begin to seriously look at the new theorycraft for BM hunters to see where I want to go with Zulu at 80.

I'm sooo having fun!!!!
Zulu

Northrend & Warsong Hold

A couple of weeks ago I was determined to quest and grind for rep in Nagrand so that I could hopefully get one of the new mounts there. If life had been kind, this would have happened and I would have reached level 69 and possibly 70 and finished my grind to exatled for the mount. Murphy had his way again though and I found myself barely playing during the weeks leading up to and through the release of the new expansion. In fact, I wasn't able to get my copy of the expansion until the Friday following the expansion. My first time to log on and to see the full granduer of LK was Saturday morning and that meant Zulu had to wait. I first logged into my Ally main, a level 70 Shammy, to take him to Northrend first and explore around, snatch up my next mastery levels for my professions and orient myself with things there. It was a lot of fun and the Alliance village on the coast is really set up nicely and in an interesting manner.

Following this I rolled my Death Knight. Don't berate me too much, but I rolled Alliance (as this is where my primary guild and friends are) with a Dwarf. Kragnar by name and I have to say, I love this little fella. Don't be surprised to see me begin a blog just for him. Then I logged onto Zulu...

She dinged 68 super fast (I was only 3 bubbles away since the last time I played her) regeared with some stuff I had waiting in my bank and then took off for Orgrimmar and the Zepplin to Northrend. My arrive at Warsong Hold has been one of the most awe inspiring moments since I've started playing this game. Warsong Hold is massive, gothic, and completely awe inspiring. So far it the best city I've seen in the game. I literally spent almost an hour there just taking the place in. Then it began, I was off to the races and I have started to level. I haven't dinged just yet but I am already replacing gear at a rapid rate and my stats have literally jumped by a hundred or so points. And I have taken my first magic carpet ride and I have decided that if possible, my flying mount will be one of these awesome things. See above for what I mean by that.

I will defiintely have more to come, so stay tuned!

Zuluki

Oh So Close!

So I hit 66 and I am now faced with a small dilemma. I have a quest log full of quests that require help from other people or the quests are multifaceted in that they require either a lot of travel or steps to complete. Generally speaking these kinds of quests slow me down tremendously. So, here are my options. Spend an evening or two cleaning up on these quests, which may or may not advance a lot of XP, or head off to Nagrand where I know I can clear another level just on Nesingwary and another level of the rest of the quests. Also there is the rep grind that can be done pretty quickly should I so chose to do that for the Mag'har rep. There are two ogre camps that can be ground for hours that will land me at exalted pretty fast. Doing this should also pretty much gaurantee that I will be 68 or 69, if not 70 when Lich King releases. I also can run into Blades Edge and Netherstorm if needed as well, not to mention Shadowmoon Valley. The point being made here, is that I am at the point where finishing the run to 70 will be relatively easy.

Another interesting sideline, I had almost forgotten about Jumanji, my gorilla. I checked on him in the stables yesterday and nearly fell over. He's still level 60! Well, my kitty is 65, so I put my cat into the stables and pulled out the Gorilla. He's now up to 63, but I am definitely going to have to remember to keep him leveled up since he is my main and only Tank pet right now. I had really thought about taming a wasp, but after observing them in Zanger I decided against it. I really want something interesting for my 3rd pet so I will go off in search of other possibilities here. I guess I'm off to go and do more research at petopia to see if I can find something more fitting for me.

Zuluki

Hellfire, Zangermarsh, Terrorkar....

I cannot believe that I have raced through these areas so quickly. I think I am at least 1/3 of the way through Terrorkar right now and except for all the group quests in Zanger, I've completed everything there. I cleared 2 levels over the weekend making me a lot more confident about hitting at least 68 by the middle of next week. In my favor though is another weekend and a day next week where I can play all day long. If this doesn't get me as ready as possible for Lich King, then nothing will.

Some interesting things I've observed. One is that my stats are a lot higher than I would have anticipated at this level of the game. I've very close to havnig 1000 AP, and my crit chance is over 16%. While I try to keep fairly itemized gear wise, I am no where near what would be optimal. Since the changes in 3.0.2, learning to add in INT to my gear mix up has been interesting. While I tend to collect gear with 'of the Bandit' from the AH, I am finding that the quest rewards and such are actually a lot better as far as itemization goes. I see more gear from quest rewards that cover AGI, INT, AP and Hit than I do anywhere else, and there is apart of me that wishes I could do instances to gather the blue gear from there. Either way, I get the best gear I can before running off to Northrend.

I have decided that maxing my LW is in my best interest at this point as well. I am only 35 points away from 375 and if I can get this maxed before I go to Northrend I feel I will be in really good shape there. That way I can gear up on crafted gear and put myself in position to level LW as quickly as possible. I think that once I reach level 80 and max my Leatherworking at 450 I am going gear up as much as possible and then drop LW and level another crafting profession. I'm leaning towards either Engineering or Enchanting. Not sure on which but one of these will come next.

I feel comfortable that I will reach level 66 before Friday, then I'll make one or two more levels over the weekend and I am hoping that I can reach level 69 or 70 before the release and craft my epic crafted gear by then. Here's to hoping and I've got my fingers crossed.

Happy Hunting all...
Zuluki

Moving on in Outlands

So I've moved on into Zangermarsh, even though I still have some quests left in Hellfire. I was at the point in Hellfire where a lot of the quests were either group quests, PVP quests or quests where other difficulties were present that were frustrating me at the time I was first trying the quests. I spent 2 days spinning my wheels on these quests without realizing it wasn't really necessary to finish them to level up. It's been over a year since I have done any kind of questing in the Outlands so I realized that I was questing here like I did in the beginning, and that was to quest in the effort to maximize my rep as well as my xp. :/

Sooo.... why do I need rep for factions that won't offer much in 2 weeks? I don't!

Then I remembered, another player made mention of only doing the quests that were fast and easy and when he attained the appropriate level he headed off to Zangermarsh and so on levelling his alts. (Unfortunately I cannot remember specifically who said this as it was several days ago or I would plug them.) After my 'DUH' moment I promptly ran off the Zanger and opened up a bunch of quests there and ding 63 and geared up on all the great gear from the quest rewards there. So far I have raced through Zanger, not worrying overly with Rep, except Cenarium Rep (kinda) and have cleared half way to 64 in XP. I would really like to be level 64 before I head into Terrorkar and from the quests that I have still not done this should not be a problem. And I still have all the Sporaggar quests to unlock. Fortunately I have some time here to work on all of this over the next week and a half, and I will have a full day just before the release to work on leveling. I just hope that I can also ramp up my LW to max during this time as well. :D

Happy Hunting all
Zuluki

Professions - The Love/Hate Relationship

Since I've gotten my epic riding mount I'm no longer as worried about hording money like I was for a while. This morning as I was drinking my coffee before getting ready for work, I decided to bring my Leatherworking up to at least 300. Looking in the AH for the rugged leather I was nicely surprised to see that it was selling for a good price. Over the last week or so Auctioneer was showing that rugged leather was selling in stacks of 20 for 145%+ or higher in price compared to my database prices. This morning there was a lot of it for sale at 70% of medium. I bought up enough to craft enough Wicked Leather Headbands to reach 300. Then I trained, when to Thrallmar and trained some more and crafted some more with all fel leather stuff I'd been collecting. I now stand at 316 which is a relief in some ways. Now I just have to farm enough leather to finish levelling as high as I can before LK comes and hopefully be in a position where I can craft some decent gear before entering Northrend. This may be a pipe dream though.

While I dearly love all my professions on all of my characters, I have yet to bring a professoin to 375. This kinda disturbes me given that I have a level 70 that I have had for over a year now and his enchanting is only at 366. Hmmm..... (His other profession is mining)

I guess my struggle with the professions is the cost/gain issue. It costs far more to level up a profession than what you'll make is selling your wares. Well. At least until you can make and sell the epic quality items. But here again it comes down to mats and whether you farm them or buy them. So far I have been farming most of the mats for my LW, and using what I skin while questing to level the profession, but I know that as I go through the outlands that will probably not get me to 375 by the time I'm 68th level or so. So my main expenditures until LK comes out will probably be on mats for finishing out my LW. Some people would deem this as silly, but given the state of the game since the release of BC, keeping your profession up is to your benefit. While i know that the gear in Northrend would replace anything I could craft fairly quickly, having crafted epics on when I go there will help during those early levels.

Happy hunting all,
Zuluki

The Theory Behind the Craft

So, like a lot of people I've been visiting Elitist Jerks forums lately to get a better picture of what is happening with hunters, their shots and possible rotations now that patch 3.0.2 has been out for a short bit. My biggest impression of this site right now is; OMFG!

I've been a huge fan of their site for quite some time. I came across their site as I was leveling my Alliance Shaman right after the release of BC and I've been an avid fan since. Thanks to their work my Shaman, at level 70 and way undergeared compared to a lot of other Shaman on my server and I can still do very impressive DPS. I followed several ideas and suggestions that I found from EJ regarding what stats to focus on and how to build upon those numbers. Prior to the release of the Beta, much of the hunter information was also very nicely laid out and the theorycarfting was laid out in technical and laymans terms for everyone to benefit from. This was the reason why I return to EJ all the time when I am researching new information or trying to learn a new class.

Well at least this was true until just recently. Since the release of Beta LK, the EJ site has been filled with so many people trying to figure out the math that they are not even attempting to realize there are other people who are regular users of the site. And when one of these more casual, per se, users makes a post asking a question the response is disheartening. For a group of people to not only epitomize the EJ moniker, they have taken it to a new level that leaves me wondering if the people here have totally lost touch with reality. I have seen several posts where people have asked for a summarization, much like what has been done in the past where the information is compiled into a logical and understandable manner, and these very same people have been put down, chastized and even in some cases banned.

Now what kind of sense does this make? Why would a small number of people distance themselves from the regular gaming community by handling perfectly sensible and logical questions in this manner? I totally get wanting people to become involved in the theory and math behind the game, but taking the mental masturbation to this level is beyond extreme. Given what I have read lately (and no I am not going to wade through 120+ pages of this stuff to find supposively answered questions) I have become quite disgusted with this particular community. Why? Because any group of people that isolate themselves in a way that does not allow outside contact or influence is a group of individuals cannot understand the truth.

The truth? This is first and foremost a game. Which means this at most it is a hobby and more likely, it is just passing recreation for most players. I like many other can do the math and learn all the dirty little secrets if I choose to spend my time that way, but RL really doesn't allow me that luxury any more, thankfully. So in turn I like to visit sites where people can constructively discuss the mechanics and math behind the game to get more insight and knowledge so that I can play more smartly. What EJ fails to realize is that not everyone spends all of their time reading the forums at EJ. In fact this is likely an impossibility for most people. So, having a consice summarization at the beginning of each category or thread would be very beneficial to everyone else. Why the regulars on EJ refuse to understand this is beyond me unless they are just being lazy.

A friend of mine recently made a post asking a simple question in attempt to get clarification on the usage of a certain spell for another class. While he did eventually get an answer, it took all day of being put down, berated and threatened before someone finally offered an answer. This is sad, really sad. I have come to have a lot of respect for the posters on EJ for the time they took to test many different things. During the course of BC, they did show an 'Elitist' attitude, you could still generally ask questions and receive answers or at least receive a link to the answer. This is far different from being flamed and harassed for having questions and posting those questions. I don't know what has changed, but something definitely has, and when the posters at EJ flame people for not wanting to read over 100 pages of their mental masturbation I cannot help but believe that the change is for the worse.

Putting the rant aside I wish someone would write some sort of summary so that the rest of the gaming community can look at what is being proposed as the best possible build talent wise and such so that we can begin to test for ourselves what works and doesn't. I have my thougts on what would work, but I would like to see some good discussion happening on this subject in a constructive manner. On another note as well, I really am reluctant to begin to post actual numbers and such until after the release of the expansion for several reasons. Foremost of which is that change will be a constant in the game for a while and at this point, where most everything is speculation anyways, why not discuss the merits of the different builds based upon observance and use until we get the expansion and can get to level 80. Then we can begin to discuss the hard numbers and the affect of gear, enchants and other enhancements on those numbers.

This to me would be a better use of my time and effort with regards to theorycrafting and I feel it would be more productive than what I have been seeing on EJ. Since I'm not level 70 as of yet, the spec that I am building towards when I hit level 80 is: 56/15/0 and I cannot decide upon going for 51/10/0 or 56/5/0 at level 70. Neither of these builds is using the talents for group buffs yet since I am more focused on leveling. Once I hit 80, I'll probably respec to include the group buff talents. And this is one area I would like to see discussed more fully, do we receive more DPS benefit from these talents or talents like Serpents Swiftness?

My 2 cents,
Happy hunting all
Zuluki

Thougts on Skills and Abilities

Now that I am in the Outlands and have most of the skills that hunters use on a regular basis I have found that there is a handful of skills that I use almost to the exclusion of all else. So I am going to discuss these skills and what I am learning about their use and affect in the game.

Opening up in combat is, to establish focus and send my pet in. On my cat I keep Growl and Claw active. I do not use other skills on my pet right now like Cower (which I still do know how or when to use this ability), or Rake (which has a 10 second cooldown.) Prowl I use only situationally and given that I am just leveling primarily, that is not often.

Then I shoot with Serpent Sting. Now I've read here and there throughout the net that this skill should not be apart of anyones rotations or that after a certain level this shot no longer is effective. I still like this shot, as doing damage is doing damage. Most hunters I talk to seem to feel the same way. After this my next shots rely on several factors. The level of the mob I am dealing with and what Aspect I have up. I am finding that I prefer having Aspect of the Beast up most of the time as this gives my kitty even more umph!. I dearly love seeing my kitty rip mobs to shreds and except for the initial sting, not having to shoot at that mob anymore if I do not want to. This has paid in spades several time when I have been dealing with multiple mobs and I am trapping one in the process. My cat can tear them down even faster and I only have to concentrate on keeping stings up on the mobs. With lower level mobs I almost always use Serpent Sting and then only Auto Shot. With Aspect of the Beast they die really fast and I usually do not run into mana issue's unless I end up fight a whole lot of mobs.

Against mobs that are higher level than me or elite mobs, I am finding that putting up Aspect of the Viper and then running a steady stream of Steady Shot and Serpent Sting when necessay is a strong combination along with Auto Shot, and Viper makes sure that I never run low on mana during the fight. Viper is my second best friend among the Aspects. I actually find that I rarely use Aspect of the Hawk unless I am taking on only one mob for an extended period of time. With Viper, situations that would have left me high and dry in the past now are easily managable as long as I stay in combat. I have now on 2 seperate occasions successfully dealt with 6 and 7 mobs in a single fight. Between my shots, traps, melee special abilities and maneuvering I can glide through these fights because I never seem to go below 50% mana on my bar. My new favorite aspect is Aspect of the Beast as this give my kitty so much additional dps and it allows my gorilla to maintian high levels of threat so that it is less likely that I will pull a mob off of him.

I'm open to other suggestions of shots and their uses, especailly when to use them. Outside of Concussive Shot I really haven't found a whole lot of use for other shots. Arcane is my least used regular shot now that I have Steady Shot. Also of note here, and this may be just a big mistake on my part. I find that I use Hunters Mark a lot less on lower level mobs or mobs of my level. Against higher level mobs and definitely elites, I use it all the time. With the glyph I can see the difference in damage that comes with it up so I find that I use it all the time in what I perceive to be the harder fights. Or against elite mobs where I know I will definitely need the extra dps.

I haven't narrowed things down to a single rotation, but I can honestly say that while Steady Shot may be on a longer timer, I think that we are doing more damage than ever as BM, especially where the pets are concerned.

The Plague

So, I've been barely keeping up with the beginnings of the battle between the Argent Dawn and the coming Scourge of the Lich King. I guess now that you kinda have to keep up. I ran into Orgrimmar this weekend, before the arrival of the Necropolis's and became infected, and I could not find someone to cleanse me before I turned into a Zombie. So I kept running towards the Flight Master and headed off to Silithus. I didn't make it. Somewhere near the edge of the Thousand Needles I died and rezed at the bottom of the great lifts. Arrggghh.... !!

So I've decided that I will now avoid the cities, and where possible Shatt as well. I really think the idea of what Blizz is doing here is great. It's a captivating introduction to the new expansion but it very annoying. My bank toon has been hijacked by this crap several times now as I've been trying to post up my excess drops in the AH and manage my trade items there. And it's seems too, at least on our server, that the 'Scourge' has effectively shut down the AH. I've only sold 1/10th of what I usually sell in a weekend because everyone is either off killing zombies or avoiding the cities all toghether. Were I 70, this may be a littel different, espescially since the reward gear is actually really nice, even if it designed for the slaughter of the undead.

I am nearing level 62 and I think I have only about 20 or so quests left to do in Hellfire. I have already picked up the travel quest for Zangermarsh and I am fixing to head off to there and set up my FP for there. I also made the run to Shatt to get the FP there as well as to decide upon what sub-faction I will work with. I went Scryer. I have chosen this faction since I already have 2 toons on the Alliance side thart are Aldor. Plus Scryer seems to match up a little better for my spec and what I want to do with Zulu. Depending upon what level I am when Lich King arrives, will have an impact on how far I will take this relationship. Honestly, I feel I will be in Northrend long before my Outlands factions offers me much in the way of gear and such.

I am now searching for a good cunning pet and an exotic pet. I haven't decided up either. I know that I want to eventually have a wasp as a pet but other than that I haven't decided upon what to get. Most of the horde hunters I've seen so far have their hounds from Shadowmoon Valley or they have their Devilsaur's. I'm not particularly fond of either. Although I have thought about invading Azuremyst Isle and getting the Kurken. I am still researching all of this as I want to make sure that I get the exotic pet that I want or close to it from the beginning.

Anyways, happy hunting all
Zuluki

Level 60 - Hooray

I completed 4 quests last night in Hellfire and turned them in and 'Ding!', I hit 60!

I was a little surprised. I only played for about 40 minutes and had no intentions of making another level. But, hey, it is another level closer to where I want to be on November 13th. So this morning I hearthed back to Orgrimmar and trained and everything else that I needed to do and found that I am about 100g short of my epic mount. No biggy there, I just sent my bank alt a bunch more stuff and cranked up my AH items for the weekend. Then I ran off to Wintergrasp to finish a few old quests there and to grind for 'Rugged Leather,' so that I can bring my leather working up to the 300 mark. I am only 15 pts away from that so I'll be heading back to do some more grinding there until I have enough leather to hit 300 or better. I don't mind the short break to grind over here for while because it is allowing me to level my gorilla up again and to improve my AoE farming skills. I love being able to round up 2 to 4 mobs and dropping volley twice and seeing all of the dead. :D

I find I am missing out a little in the AoE experience given that I do not have Misdirect yet. With the addition of this shot I feel I'll definitely be able to handle even more mobs. This makes me a little more anxious about hitting 70. One thing though, thanks to the article below from the "Aspect of the Hare" blog, using Aspect of the Beast while dealing with multiple mobs has pretty much insured that I do not have any mobs running after me very often. I'm a little surprised that the boost in damage this Aspect gives generates enough threat to ensure that most mobs will stay on my gorilla for the duration of the fight. I am eager now to finish levelling my Gorilla and get back to Outlands to keep going now and to see how he does there.

Slogging Away & Questions on Threat and Aggro.

As I have been racing about Hellfire Peninsula one thing I have noticed here more than I noticed in Azeroth is aggro issues. I am currently using my Ferocity pet (a cat) Jujukitty, for the purpose of killing the mobs faster. Given that I am often times fighting mobs my level or a level or two higher, I find that I am pulling aggro off my pet much more often that I have in the past. Part of this I know has to do with the level of the mobs I dealing with. The other part, I believe, has to do with the Outlands in general. I feel that the mobs in the Outlands respond differently than mobs in Azeroth, and have a much more sensitive setting for aggro. I am also looking more closely at the pet talents and the differences in how the Tenacity and Ferocity talents work.

Threat is a definite tangible aspect now when I'm dealing with mobs, and more so when I am dealing with multiple mobs. I'm seriously considering swiitching to my gorilla for a while to see if this makes a difference. If the gorilla can hold aggro better it will be worth slowing down a little because that will mean that I can apply more damage personally on the targets instead of having to kite, maneauver and trap so much. Interestingly enough, as I've been working this over in my head and trying different things with my cat in game, I found this on another blog this morning;

Aspect of the Beast, An Unlikely Love Story

I have noticed the tooltip change recently but I also didn't pay close attention to it. More pet damage!!! This may make using my gorilla even more useful and quicker when I have Aspect of the Beast up. I'll do some testing tonight to see how this works and play around some with my pets as well. Hopefully by the end of the night tonight I'll hit level 60 and can then finish getting my epic mount.

Unless I can get an escort, I'm going to wait till I have my epic mount to make a run for Shattrath city. Somehow I can't stomach paying a mage to port me there so I'll just have to make a run there soon. With the epic mount it shouldn't be that hard to keep enough speed to stay away from any higher level mobs I might aggro.

Till then,
Happy Hunting
Zuluki

To Hellfire and Beyond

So I hit level 58 and have crossed the Dark Portal into the Outlands. I have visited Thrallmar and gotten myself aquainted to the surroundings of this place. So my adventuring will be limited to the Peninsula and Silithus from here on out until I finish Silithus and then move on through the Outlands. To say I'm excited is an understatement, I'm estatic and only wish that I could have found a better bow to enter the Outlands with. One of my first quests in the Outlands has a crossbow as a reward, so maybe I'll have to snag that and spend some time at the target dummies leveling my crossbow skill up to use the darn thing.

So where does all of this leave me? Well, for one I have skipped a lot of higher level content in Azeroth. I will completely skip the Plaguelands (both east and west), the Burning Steppes, and I will probably not finish the rest of the quests for Winterspring. I do want to keep going to Silithus because of the Cenarion rep as I have mentioned already, but otherwise my adventuring days in Azeroth are done for now. I will probably return at a later day, but not at this moment.

More to come, my pretties, more to come!
Zuluki

Pumpkin Heads, all of them!!!

Okay, so after the patch release and the fact that I missed close to 3 days of playing, I was pretty bummed because I would have been in Outlands by now. This may have turned out to be a good thing though. I have never played a toon that went to Silithus and Zuluki made the excursion. While I have bugs, all I can say is, 'WOW.' This place is great for leveling when your fairly high into the 50's. At the rate I am going, I will probably skip the Plaguelands all together along with Burning Steps. I will finish out my quests in Winterspring and hopefully Silithus and then head off to Outlands. I am really wanting to get my Cenarian Rep up as high as I can before I hit Zangermarsh so I can hopefully either hit Revered or Exalted while I am in that swamp. That will mean staying in Azeroth a little longer than originally planned but I'm okay with that as long as the reward is worth it. I have just under 20 days to cover a minimum of 10 levels, and I have no doubts that I will be ready for Northrend when it releases.

To my amusement and frustration, Hallow's End has arrived. I'm frustrated because a person can be 'pumpkin headed' only so many times before they become annoyed. Or at least that is the way it is with me. I cannot tell you how many times this happened to me this weekend, but everytime I even got near one of the major cities it happened. The fun part of this was I spent some time Sunday running from city to city collecting candy for the xp. I was amazed that after covering all the cities that I could reach I actually made a level from the XP. So what could have been a complete waste of time ended up giving me a level for free.... or almost for free (it took almost 2 hours to go to every city or town I had access to). Ah well, the buffs from the candy were pretty interesting but that was about it, at least from what I've participated in so far.

With the new changes with pets and the talents, I am really liking how my pet and I are working out. I am really excited about reaching level 60 and getting my Exotic Pet talent! those 4 extra pts are going to go a long way in making my pets super killing machines (not that they already aren't)! Either way, I am happy with the changes that have been made so far and I am really excited about the new expansion now.

Happy Hunting,
Zuluki

After the Patch...

Patch 3.0.2 has arrived and I really thought I was going to be supremely sad. From all the things it looked like Blizz was taking away or nerfing, I was imagining that my hunter was going to get moth-balled before she could even get close to 70. Fortunately this is not the case. If anything, things are even better now than they were before. My AP has been upped some with the new talents and my pets are just totally awesome now. The first thing I did after the patch arrived was run off to Un'Goro and tame a gorilla. Now, you want to talk about a tank! Wow! And with thunderstomp it makes it a lot easier to nab and hold multiple mobs. Now I just have to figure out a good name for him.

The only drawback to all of this is, I haven't been able to play very much and I feel like I've lost a level or two. I know I will catch up but I was hoping to be a lot closer to 60 this weekend that I am at the moment. I have a ton of quests to do in Un'Goro still and I haven't even stepped into the Burning Steppes, Winterspring or the Plaguelands yet so I have a lot of stuff that I can do to level fast.

I have new pictures of my new haircut and color job so they will be coming soon. And I've finally been able to upgrade my 2H sword, so I will make sure to get screenshots of that as well. This weekend looks to be one where I may be able to get some good playing time in. My hope now is to get my LW up to 300 soon as well, currenlty I'm at 245 or so just from using the leather from my kills. My plans so far for Zuluki all seem to be falling into place except for my level, but that can't be helped. I just hope that I am really close when LK releases. This shouldn't be that much of a problem given that they have also lowered the XP requirements from level 60 to 70. :D

Happy hunting all.
Zuluki

Blink... Blink...

When I hit 50, I was looking at my quest log and the coming zones and thinking that there is no way I will make it into them all. I still had quite a few quests to do in Feralas, Tanaris and the Hinterlands and I was already picking up the travel quests for many of the level 50 zones. So I sat down at my computer Friiday night and started to finish up my level 40 zone quests thinking it would be a while before I entered any of the level 50 zones.

So not true.....

It went like this, run around for 10 minutes. Feralas is done. Go to Tanaris and run around for an hour or so (mainly collecting scorpid scales for my Dragonscale LW quests), finished Tanaris. Went to Hinterlands and ran to the top of the troll city/temple and budda bing, Hinterlands finished. And now I am level 51 and all that is in my quest log are travel quests. So I am like, okay lets go...

Go to Azshara and get FP and start hunter quest chain. Go to Un'Goro and get FP and pick up quests there. Then I go to Burning Steppes and get FP there then fly back to Searing Gorge realizing that I have done nothing here. Well, I figure what the heck, lets see what we can do. I pick up all the quests and run off towards the gorge and start killing. Thirty minutes later I am level 52 and heading back to turn in my quests and that puts me almost halfway to 52. So I finally break down and go back to Un'Goro and start questing there. I completed almost half of the quests, dinged 53 and then turned them all in. Headed off to vend my stuff, level LW more with all the leather from my bags and then head off to Felwood.

I picked up the FP in Felwood and then went and completed the first quest for Timbermaw rep. Then I headed off to Winterspring and Everlook to turn in the travel quest for there. This has brought me to halfway through 53, which means I will probably hit 54 tonight. This all has happened in about 5 hours of play from Friday night to the one hour this morning I played before the servers shut down for maintenance and I had to go to work. Can it go any faster?

My goal of reaching the upper 60's if not 70 by Nov. 13th seems to be really within reach. Sadly though after the recent announcement of what is happening on the BETA regarding hunters talents and abilities this may be as far as I will take Zulu. A lot will depend upon what we see live, but right now it is looking like Blizz has decided that hunters are worse than rogues and they have hit us with a whole slew of nerfs. So many I feel it may just make hunters obsolete. Shot rotations will be gone, "Oh, Sh*^" buttons will be gone, trapping will change and from the looks of it right now our DPS will take a huge hit overall. Add to that everything seems to look like it will cost a lot more mana.

Ah well. I will just keep plugging away until LK goes live and then we'll have to see what happens from there.

Ding! 50th Level

Wow,

Who would have ever thought that Feralas and Hinterlands would be such a friendly place for a lonely troll to go hunting. In just two short days or approximately 5 hours of actually playing I have blown through 2 levels. Never in my life would I have ever believed that the trolls in Hinterlands would have even netted me 60K+ in xp. So now I have my full 41pts in BM tree and I will now start dropping points in the MM tree for even more damage. :D

I am so surprised that I have come this far and I am only halfway through the quests in Feralas and Hinterlands and I still have not even entered Searing Gorge (although I'm not entirely sure if there is much there for the Horde given that I've never seen the Horde there before on my ally toons.) I am really starting to believe that I will be skipping some areas before I hit 58 and race off to outlands. Given the amount of time and xp I am already racing through, I cannot imagine I'll need to hit all the level 50+ zones to hit 58 quickly. At this rate I should be well into my 60's by the 13th of November, barring RL coming into play.

I will soon be entering Un'Goro and there, I will nab my gorilla in preparation for the future. :D

Happy hunting all!

Catching Back Up

Well, I polished off 3 levels and then some since my last post. While this keeps me up with my schedule I probably have lost some time. Several things have also taken place during this time. I keep having quests for STV pop up so I'm not totally done there, and I finally headed off to the Hinterlands. I'm sooo... happy I did. There are a ton of quests there and they are mostly all high 40's to low 50's. This is perfect for me. I am heading to Feralas soon, probably today, as well. I also haven't touched Searing Gorge which should be ready for me now as well. I'm just cruising along nicely here and Hoping that I am going to be in my mid to high 50's by this time next week.

Given the horrible climate of the economy on Gilneas, I finally had to buy a gun. It was the only ranged weapon that had good stats for my level and I had already completely outstripped my bow and hadn't seen a good one in a long time. Unless, of course, you are talking about bows for levels 58 and above. The same is happening with my gear. I buy what I can, use quest rewards where possible also, but people pricing greens for more the 30 gold is ridiculous. I am to the point now where I am thinking of buying everything I need off of the Alliance AH and moving it to my Zulu though the neutral AH's. It is seriously that bad and no one on the horde side really seems to care. Ah well.

My pet is coming along grandly, and with the addition of claw to her abilities I have even been more happier. I find that while I still only attempt to take on 1 to 2 mobs at a time, I am fully able to deal with 4 to 5 with ease. Traps, Concussive Shot, Wing Clip, and Disengage have become staple abilities I use when dealing with multiple mobs. This has been especially true in dealing with all the trolls in my quests lately. Seems Blizz likes to pack these guys pretty tightly and sometimes I've ended up having a big fight on my hand either due to rovers or runners in the fights. The only times I have died lately has been where my fights have ended up involving more than 6 or more mobs throughout the fight. I'm really loving how I have so many ways now to work through fights and with the addition of mail armor I can afford to let someone hit on me for a short bit if necessary to measure out my trap time usage and sequence I move through in eliminating my mobs. Through this all, Jujukitty is pounding away and taking down his share of mobs as well, just a little guidance and occasional mend and he's right nasty in these fights. :)

Happy Hunting all.

A Slight Slow Down

So......

The badlands were not so "Badlands" after all. I was there only for a short stint to knock out a small handful of quests and...... I'm done? I thought this was wrong but I was right. There are some quests that or not showing yellow yet, but other than that. there are no other quests. So I headed off to Tanaris. I've already blew through 5 or 6 quests from Gadgetzan and almost all of the quest in Steamweedle Port. And for all this hard work, I have only gained 1 level. :P
My leveling has been slowed down this week as well by RL matters. No biggy though as I feel confident that I can catch up and still be well into my 60's by the time LK comes out.

One a more positive note though, my cat now has the claw ability and oooooo..... his DPS has jumped significantly. One of the last Damage Meter results I looked at, he was doing 55% of the overall damage, and mine was around 45%. I hadn't expected this but is extremely nice. Now and can tag a mob and let my kitty kill it and the mob will die in the same amount of time that I could kill it. And that leaves me more time to trap and deal with other mobs if my cat doesn't happen to pick them up for me. This helped me a lot in mowing down the Bloodsail pirates this morning.

Now off for some more hunting.

Who would have thought!

I began the evening just under 4 bubbles of XP into level 43. I only played for 45 minutes last night and completed 7 quests in southern STV near Booty Bay and that was enough for me to hit level 44. To say I was a little stunned might be an understatement, but I was also thrilled. I really had not planned on making a level last night. I'm off to the Badlands where I will begin to finish off the quests here before heading over to Tanaris. I am realizing that I definitely need to go and tame a beast that has the claw ability for my cat. This would go a long way in helping my cat do way more damage, not that she doesn't do enough already. I'm debating about adding Bite to that as well and I will research that more fully. I know that I will need to go back and respec her soon but I may also hold off as I will be entering Searing Gorge soon and having fire resistance is a definite bonus.

Right now, outside of quests and such, my goal is to be entering the Outlands by the middle of the month of October. I am really feeling confident that this is possible. Hopefully I can get to high enough level that Zulu can move straight into Northrend when LK releases. :D

I really had no idea that traps and pets would be the center of my learning and research for this character at this time in her developement. For some reason, I had this idea in my head that it would be more about where to go and what quests to finish out that would be pre-occupying my time. Having a seriously good pet and knowing the best way to trap and when to trap is really becoming a fundamental part of my survivability. I am regularly taking on 2 to 4 mobs at a time now and usually I never have issues any more. When I do, I Freeze trap whomever runs after me, finish off the rest and then kill my trapped mob. Once in a blue moon though this doesn't happen and I get into real trouble or get killed. In these cases though, I just chalk it up to a learning experience and go on from there.

Regarding pets, I know my cat needs more abilities. Claw definitely and probably Bite too. I also need to go and tame a gorilla when I enter Un'Goro. I really want to have these two pets and possibly a third pet for when I enter Outlands and beyond. What I have no idea about is what pet would make a good utility pet. I really cannot think of any situations that I have been in or will be in where I would need that kind of flexibility right now. I'll definitely look into this matter more fully, but I am going to have to retire my boar permanently so free up a slot for my pets as I tame some for their abilities, and I want to have the space for my gorilla as well.

Ah, sweet hunting bliss.

Stranglethorn Vale and Beyond

What is it about Stranglethorn Vale that keeps players coming back for more and more? I realize that this is one of the most intensive qeusting areas in the game and that for both sides there is a ton of quests. From what I can gather, if a player spent a good amount of time grinding as well as questing, I believe it's entirely possible to go from level 30 to 45 without ever leaving this zone. Now I wouldn't advise this, but I'm sure it's been done. While I have yet to get tired of being in this place right now, I can't say how much longer this will last. On my alliance toons I quickly became real tired of having to come back to STV over and over again. This hasn't happened with Zulu though. Part of this is because this is my first Horde character going through STV and that fact that it has only taken me 14 days to get to level 43 and the last handful of quests in STV. Compare that to the other times I've been here and spent a couple of months in STV each time.

There is one thing of note that is entirely different than my other times here. I have found so many new places in STV that I have never seen before. I don't know of this was intentional, but Zulu has seen more of STV than any character that I've ever brought into this place and she has blown through quests left and right. So did Blizz purposefully make this zone to be so different for each side? Or have they just made it this way so that classes like hunters can really fly through it. I have never played a hunter of either side in STV until now so my reference point is different. I like how new and fresh this zone is to me now, and I am really excited to see how things finish out here. I only have 2 quests from Grom'Gol to finish and I am currently about halfway through all the quests from Booty Bay. From the looks of it I will make another level there before I finish up with the quests.

I have not decided which direction to go from here. I can either head into Feralas or to Tanaris or I can also head into the Hinterlads. I am leaning more toward Tanaris, then Feralas and then on into the Hinterlands. From there I can also move into the Blasted Lands and Searing Gorge as well. Either way I go I can pretty much gaurantee that I will make 2 or more levels per zone. The best route to go from here is up in the air as I'm not sure which way is really best. Tanaris seems to be the most logical next point to go to, but I could also be way wrong on this. What I do know is that I will be well poised to really move quickly from here. At this rate I should definitely be in my 60's very soon and I can't wait. I've already gotten my money for my epic mount so from there it should all be a cake walk. I guess though my concern now is how long is it going to take me to get through my 60's. I have another couple of weeks to figure this out, but I am wondering if it's even possible to go through the outlands and hit 70 in just a week or two?

For right now it looks like I'll be in my mid 60's when Lich King comes out. And unless I get some more time to play I cannot forsee me making 70 before then. Ahh well, I'm still going to try.

On the subject of Pets.

Now that Jujukitty is fully trained I have noticed something quite interesting. My cat has better survivability than my boar. Now I am wondering 'why is that?' Not that I mind all that much, it's just perplexing. Boars are suppose to be really good as leveling pets and decent tanking pets. Now that my cat is up to speed I'm finding that Jujukitty excels and is an overall better pet than my boar Tusken. I'm guessing this is confirming what I've been reading and hearing with regards to pets for while now. As Blizz has nerfed most pets and/or pet abilities they have inadvertently forced players to go back to cats. As for the specifics of why, I have no clue, but I am hoping with the changes regarding pets coming in LK that they allow for more diversity and don't force hunters to only use one or two pets. Now I'm am debating on whether I will keep my old baby 'Tusken' seeing that Jujukitty is performing so awesomely. I'll give it some more time before I decide.

On another pet related note, I am now understanding more why it is often necessary to respec you pets over and over again. I was knocking out a lot of my quests in Dustwallow Marsh and I was over by Onyxia's lair doing the quests killing the dragonkin and whelps. I began to realize my pet did really well in the one to one fights, but when there were more than one dragonkin, Jujukitty would start to take a ton of fire damage. So I used his remaining training pts and buffed him up on 'fire resist'. This helped tremendously and allowed me to deal with the dragonkin in 2's and 3's. While I've seen it mentioned from time to time about speccing resistance on your pets, I've never really paid all that much attention to it till now. Now I need to learn more about maintaining pets and when and where to respec pet talents to help you move along more smoothly. If anyone has any good sources regarding this kind of pet maintenance I'd love to hear from you?

I dinged 41 this morning and I am off to Mudsprocket to start hammering out those quests. Desolace is now all completed (at least as far as the quests that I want to do) as is The Thousand Needles. I have enough quests to get through another couple of levels in Dustwallow Marsh and STV, so I am going to hold off on jumping into Feralas and Tanaris. If I can hold off till I'm closer to my mid 40's before entering these two areas it should really help me to fly through the remainder of my 40's. Level 50 here I come!

So Close!! And Horde Economics!

Well, I finished handing in a handful of quests in STV this morning and missed my Level 40 mark by 3 bubbles. :(

Ah well, I'll get it tonight and then I can upgrade to Mail Armor. :D

Speaking of......

The Economy of Gilneas, Horde side. Sucks!!

I know I've already made this comment already but the AH prices for green gear on Gilneas's Horde AH are really bad. To fully upgrade my leather gear to mail would cost me over 200g if I regear with items marked "of the Monkey, of the Falcon, or of Agility." This is beyond ridicoulous. Outland "of the Bandit" gear is cheaper than that. So what does this tell me? Well, two things really; One is that Horde players are assuming everyone playing lower levels is an alt to a level 70 Horde toon, and/or the Gold Farmers have driven the prices of things so high that they have the AH economy fully under control. Either way this spells bad times for anyone who does not have a level 70 horde toon on Gilneas in trying to acquire decent gear out of the AH. And unfortunately it shows that the players on the Horde side have little care for their bretheren there. This used to not be the case. These developements on Gilneas are rather recent. I've had horde toons on Gilneas almost since I started playing the game, but since I play the game with my friends and most of them play Alliance, I am usually on that side of things when I play, so I haven't devoted the time to fully level a horde toon until now. So seeing what's happened to the AH is a disappointment to say the least. Too bad we can't report people for "Price Gouging."

A clear example of this is show here, I recently acquired the River Pride Choker on a random drop. Now I happen to know that this is an item often sought after by twinks so I figured I would test the waters in the AH and see how much people would pay for this. Usually I see this selling for 50 or so gold on the Alliance AH. I posted it for 140g originally. It took me 4 postings in the AH for it to sell and it sold for 113g this morning. When I looked at other 'Blue' necklaces in the Ah over the last few days, none of them had prices that high on them, even the level 70 necklaces. Unfortunately people on Gilneas will pay these prices in the Horde AH because there simply are not enough items being posted up in the AH to drive the prices down. The players that are setting these insanely high prices know that they will have little or any competition for the item they post.

What I do know that happens a fair amount on Gilneas is that players often times will purchase stuff on the Alliance AH and then move the items through the 'neutral AH' to their horde alts and save a ton of money doing that. Sadly this further hurts the economy of the horde AH as it eliminates even more competition from the field. I've been seriously tempted to buy up a lot of green items cheap on the Alliance side and resell them on the Horde side for 2 to 3 times the price that I could pay for them. The logistics of doing such transactoins currently keep me from doing just that even though I could make a killing doing it. At this moment I'm really not going to worry about it that much, since I am leveling as fast as I can staying exceptionally well geared is not high on my priority list. Keeping my bow and arrows current is, but beyond that I'll stick with the cheap items I can find in the AH when I do find them and what I get from quest rewards and drops. But as long as people are willing to spend extreme amounts of gold on items on Gilneas I will take advantage of it with my bank toon who in just over a week has already earned me close to 300g just on level 30 to 40 items and the skins that I get from doing the quests.

I'm hoping that upon the release of Lich King that more people will go back to playing horde on Gilneas and that this will bring the prices down to a reasonable level again. I'm kind of curious to to hear about other people experiences on this matter as well.

Have fun, and Happy Hunting.

Thoughts on the Future and MM Hunters

As I've been reading around on the blogs that I've come across, I am really surprised at the number of blogs pertaining to MM Hunters. Now, I have to admit, this is and isn't surprising. I happen to know someone very well that plays MM and they are currenlty in SSC/TK content and she gushes about what she can do. (This is where I really wish I was older than my current level.) Huge 6K+ Crits and solid DPS numbers.

**shrugs**

Hmm.... Now I have seen this over and over, and lets not talk about how often I've read it, but huge hits like that generate a lot of aggro. On my level 70 shammy, I was in Kara and watched our groups Ret Pally hit like that on Atumen's Horse. Know what happened to him? That's right, he died on the bosses very next hit. In fact I see this pally dead a lot in raids. Now, talking to other players that have played MM Hunters, there is a general trend of talk, they do pull aggro more than they would like. So if you don't have a uber awesome tank, your gonna see that boss run over and lay down some awesome "smackdown" and that will be the end of your DPS run for that boss.

My perspective on this subject is skewed from a hunters perspective because I haven't been behind the controls in situations like this yet. I have seen BM hunters in raids absolutely dominate number wise, even when they are having to do a lot of CC. So what makes MM so interesting then? I know a lot of players like it in PVP, but if your shooting someone who has a lot of resilience that isn't going to help all that much. And as strange as this will sound, the only hunters that my shammy has ever had problems with in the BG's are Survival hunters. From a standpoint of leveling BM, I can say for sure, BM does allow you to handle a lot of things that other classes have difficulty with (expect maybe, Warlocks). Given the number of times now that I have survived fights where I was greatly outnumbered by higher level mobs than me, I can say having a pet that can stay alive and kill a mob on it's own has serious merit.

With the proposed changes coming in Lich King for hunters and their pets I am totally chomping at the bit to get into it and play there. I can already see me having my boar, just because he's been with me since the start, my cat and a gorilla. And since they are adding a new stable slot I can tinker around until I find a good utility pet. What this is going to mean for me, as a BM is more options and strategies for leveling and playing. What I have to wonder though is how the changes will affect MM hunters? Of note, I see that a lot of the blogging MM hunters are also in guilds that are in Hyjal/Bt or Sunwell this does make some sense as the hunter gear at T6 level does lend itself more to MM hunters than BM hunters. Hmmm....

Our world is changing again. And we'll change with it, all I can say for now is that I await Lich King with a lot of anxiousness to see the impact it will have on the game. WOW is evolving slowly, but as with a lot of people, is the evolution for the best? So far, it all looks good, especially for hunters.

Happy Hunting. :D

Another Day, Another Kill

Another day, another level. This is becoming quite easy and my friendly banker is really starting to pay off for me. I hit 40 in the next day or so and I have the money to upgrade my armor but I think I'm going to wait and see what rewards I get as well as wait for better prices. One thing about Gilneas's Horde economy is that it is atrocious. Green items marked as "Of the Monkey", "Of Agility", "Of the Tiger" and such sell for as much as the blue items for the same level. I find this extremely ridiculous and will not pay such high prices for things I will eventually come across in drops. Given the large number of drops I get, I will keep posting my stuff at a much lower price so that I can help drive the prices down some. I am really hoping that with the release of LK that prices will plummet on their own and the economy will stabilize. I really detest people who drive prices up high like that because it creates an atmosphere where new people to the game come to rapidly hate it because at the lower levels they cannot afford any kind of remotely decent gear.

For those of you who might want to know, my new cat's name is "Jujukitty." I thought it was definitely appropriate for a black panther. Hopefully today I'll finish off my quests in Desolace and move to start finishing my quests in Dustwallow and STV. I still need to go back to the Swamp of Sorrows and start finishing out those quests before they go grey on me.

Anyways,
Happy Hunting all!

Coming Along

So I headed off into Dustwallow Marsh and started my slaughter there as well. I finished off a number of quests in fast succession and made another level. My new kitty is fairing well, though I cannot wait to be able to fully train her up. I'm still looking for a name, though I haven't come up with anything spectacular yet. One name that has come to mind is "Jujukitty". Let me know what you guys think.

I returned back to STV this morning and cleared up some older quests and situated myself to run some more first chance I get. I got a new bow last night as well from one of my quests in Dustwallow and I am really estatic about this as it has good stats and damage. This means I don't have to look for a new bow for a while! Yipee!

Happy Hunting all!

How Fast Can You Kill?

I've been reading up more and more on hunters, especially BM hunters and the primary focus of what I am reading deals with Haste. Why? Well Haste allows BM hunters to shoot faster, it allows our pets to hit more often, which increases our chances to crit which allows us to go even faster. Or so it seems. I haven't quite figured all of this out as of yet, but I can say that it is important and does make sense. If you look at the talents in the BM tree the important ones deal with base damage and speeding up your attacks. The overall affect is that you do more damage more often. This will be especially true when LK releases although I really have no idea how I will spec out my talents.

One of the reasons why I've come to like my troll hunter is that her racials match up so nicely with the BM tree. The synergy between the hunter, their pet, troll racials is very nice which makes me wonder why there are so few of us around. I was looking at game statistics and learned that Trolls are of the least played race in the game. I guess I have to attribute this to their looks. The males just look gawd aweful, that is true, the female toons aren't bad though. I just find it hard to imagine why horde players don't play more of them given the strength of their racials. Either way, for a hunter, it all works really well, and I cannot wait to get to level 70 and above to see how this synergy really starts to play out. Right now the issue is negligable.

I definitely need more info here.