Okay, Pike's Gonna Sit You Down

And tell you a little story to make a point.

With all my spec testing lately and my latest entry on how my "relationship" to my pet, playstyle-wise, varied according to spec, I fear I may have accidentally given off some false impressions. So, I'm gonna clarify.

There are hunters of all specs who love their pets.

There are also hunters of all specs who really don't care very much either way. This includes some BM hunters who are BM only for the numbers, for example.

The point that I was trying to make in my last post, is that I missed the feeling of splitting my damage with my pet. I missed knowing he was doing 35% of my DPS. It felt awkward knowing that the damage responsibility was basically squarely on my shoulders. It felt lonely to me.

When I say that, I am not at all trying to discredit the relationship you lovely MM and SV hunters have with your pets, or say that they aren't important.

Tawyn was my first ever character and she was Marksmanship until level 55-ish.

The reason is because I had no idea what I was doing or what a spec was. So I asked my friends what to do with these newfangled talent points. At this point I'd actually started putting points into BM already but two different people completely mocked the idea of me spec'ing BM and told me Marksman was the way to go, so I promptly changed course and followed their advice.


Up I went through that talent tree and my owl Tux was there the entire way. He was my feathery little pocket tank. He was my leveling buddy. He didn't dish out a lot of damage but he held aggro like a champ. I loved him dearly. I loved him just as much then, as a Marksman hunter, as I do now as a Beast Master hunter.

Really though, I was hungrily eyeing the Beast Mastery tree the entire time I was leveling. Heck, I went off and made Lunapike so I could have a BM hunter that my friends didn't have to know about. There is a reason why I gave her a red kitty pet, aside from the fact that I think they're cute. It was a conscious, symbolic choice because Lunapike was going to be my BM hunter.


That Little Red Kitty is level 70 now, by the way.

Anyways, back to Tawyn. I finally said "Ya know what, screw everybody else. I don't care if they're going to call me a noob now. I'm respec'ing." So I did, and I'd like to say that I didn't look back.

...except I did look back, once. Because it sort of scared me at first. Tux went from being my pocket tank to being this Big Red Owl of Doom. He was doing as much DPS as I was at the time, if not more. "I've created a monster!" I thought. I spent about a level as BM and then spec'd back to my Marksman safety zone. Tux went back to being my mild-mannered companion. All was well.

Then I started to miss the whole "fast and furious" playstyle of BM and the idea that Tux could be more than just my tanky friend. We could fight alongside each other, each doing equal damage. We could be unstoppable, together.

Together we went through the Dark Portal and stepped into Outlands and that is when I spec'd to Beast Mastery for good and since then I haven't looked back. I wouldn't have it any other way at this point. We fight together. He isn't just there to keep the mobs away from me. He is there to buff me with his Ferocious Inspiration so I can in turn buff him with Kill Commands and tons of Focus, and we both act as an elegant killing machine, as One.

I have a special relationship with my pets as a Beast Master hunter. But that doesn't mean I love them any more than I did when I was Marksman. That doesn't mean I don't value them any more than I did when I was Marksman (although in a gameplay sense, obviously you do have to value them somewhat more =P)

When I was experimenting with non-BM specs in Beta, I felt a certain detachment to my pets in terms of there not being nearly so much hunter/pet synthesis (one procs something for the other) and the reason I was forgetting Mend Pet is probably largely because I was busy trying to work out new rotations. Anyways, that is what I missed about being BM. I missed the hunter/pet synthesis. I didn't love the pets any less just because I shuffled talent points around. That would be silly.

So! That is your Pike-story for the day. Hunters everywhere love their pets, and that is the way it should be. Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, as always, for your comments and support and I will see you all next time.

The Fable of the Gnome Rogue

The Tauren Hunter was merrily bounding into the Silverwing base in Warsong Gulch; she had been enjoying these player-verses-player excursions lately and was rather fond of her 25,000 honor that she had stockpiled for when she would hit 70 in a couple more levels and would need a nice set of war gear to go with her set of standard adventuring gear. She made it to the roof of the enemy building when suddenly she was jumped upon! By a very persistent gnome rogue.

Now, the tauren knew that many of her fellow hunters dislike the rogue because they are very good at taking away that which hunters prize most: space. However, she has an odd knack for managing to catch rogues before they catch her, and even when they do catch her first she has a knack for wriggling her way out of their grasp, so at first she wasn't afraid. She directed her trusty red lynx to Intimidate the rogue, during which time she laid down an Immolation Trap and got a little bit of range and then hit him with a Serpent Sting.

He was soon on top of her again though, and sadly his first initial strikes had taken a critical toll so she was down on her luck right from the start. Still, they tussled for a bit, before the hunter's health ran low and she collapsed to the ground.

She did not release her spirit though, for the rogue was himself weak, and he was still burning from the Immolation Trap and still feeling the ache of the Serpent Sting...

He saw her watching him, so he targeted her and /laughed.

Then, smugly, he started to bandage himself.

Serpent Sting removed the bandage effect.

The gnome's eyes widened. They say in this world of pixels and polygons, facial expressions cannot change. I swear to the Earthmother, though, that his eyes widened as he came to a sudden realization.

The last tick of the Serpent Sting went off and he fell to the floor.

They lay there for a few seconds, simply targeting each other. Then, when the tauren hunter was sure her message had clearly been sent across, she calmly released to the graveyard.

The moral of the story, oh best beloved...

...is do not /laugh at a hunter, for they have a disturbing tendency to have the last /laugh. Or the last /giggle, anyways.

Pay It Forward

I've lately been playing my hordie hunter Lunapike quite a bit. She resides on an RP-PvP server, as opposed to Tawyn who is on a regular RP server, so seeing the game from the PvP-server side of things has been a bit of an adventure. I've been ganked by the obligatory level ??s who have nothing better to do, and I've reciprocated by raiding Southshore. I've learned to be wary upon seeing corpses of mobs laying around-- might be the other faction, after all-- and I've learned to rely oh so heavily on Track Humanoids. (Hunters have it easy here, I think.)

I have had to put up with not being able to go to Halaa to buy my arrows because the other faction has it, and I've rejoiced when we've put together a raid to take it back. (By contrast, on Silver Hand, Alliance controls Halaa about 99% of the time... so I never had to worry about it. Though in all honesty, VeCo Horde has it a bit better than VeCo Alliance in World PvP I think. Us hordies probably have it about 75% of the time when I've been there.)

I read once on the WoW website that, lore and RP-wise, Blizzard considers PvE and PvP servers to sort of be differing dimensions of the same point in history: PvE servers are where Horde and Alliance have established an uneasy truce, and PvP servers are where they are still actively at war. This, I have found, brings some depth to roleplay (nothing like getting demolished by a night elf druid after you have just killed a beast that is important to night elf druid lore) and offers a fun twist on a world that you have perhaps already explored PvE-wise... and makes for some interesting stories.

This particular story takes place in Blade's Edge Mountains. I was doing a semi-long questline that involved putting on a gas mask, talking to a projection, killing some demons, gathering keys, and powering up some big obelisks. As I headed off to do the first step, an Alliance Shadow Priest, only one level lower than me, showed up at pretty much the same time.

She saw me and hesitated for a bit, trying to size up whether or not I would attack her, I imagine. I tend not to attack people first, though, unless they are being annoying in some way, so I went right past her and started attacking the mobs I needed. She did too. We stayed far clear of each other, each of us keeping a wary eye on the other as we turned in our first step in the quest chain.

Off we went to do the second step. About partway through, I noticed that one of my mobs had some DoTs on it... DoTs that weren't mine. Shadow Priest had opted to make the first move and establish herself as "friendly". So I reciprocated a few minutes later when she seemed to bite off more than she could chew and I helped whack the extra mobs off of her.

Still, we remained silent to each other. I have seen it happen in the past; people who do something to assert themselves as "friendly" and then conveniently change their mind shortly later. Despite that, I was getting good vibes from her, so we continued questing.

Then came the final part of the chain, where you used keys to activate five obelisks. Only one person can do this at a time and Shadow Priest got there first. One by one she activated them and I stood by and watched, waiting for my turn.

And what did activating those obelisks do? Summon a level 68 elite.

Shadow Priest was level 66. And alone. Well, alone except for...

She turned and saw that I was standing there watching. I like to think that we somehow communicated something there. Some sort of nonverbal and nonemote "nod". She charged in.

After she got in the first hit I sent in my pet and away the two of us went at the thing. It was a long and hard fight and by the end of it, Shadow Priest was literally down to 3% health, but we did it.

She turned to me and /bowed, our first real communication, and I /bowed back. Then she sat to eat and drink while I went off to activate the obelisks myself. And on cue, the level 68 elite showed up.

I sent in my pet and started my attack. Shadow Priest was right there, tossing DoTs on it after I'd tagged it. This particular elite hits hard and my Mend Pet really wasn't cutting it, but with aggro constantly bouncing back and forth between my pet and Shadow Priest, we somehow managed to do it. Like last time, it had been a close one, and my pet did die in the final few seconds. But, we'd done it.

Afterwards we /cheered at each other. Then she Mind Controlled me and gave me Power Word: Fortitude.

We went on our separate ways, having completed the quest.

Flash forward about an hour later and I was doing a different quest in a different part of the zone. Somehow I'd wound up with more mobs than I could take on top of me. I ran into a tunnel hoping to shake them off, only to unwittingly run into more. I was bracing myself for the final blows when suddenly the mobs were all feared. Feared?

I turned around. Shadow Priest to the rescue! It took a while but we managed to take down all the mobs. I /cheered at her again and she Mind Controlled me again and gave me Fort again before we parted ways.

Later I Armory'd her and found out that she has over twice as many honor kills as I do, and I have a lot-- clearly she's no "care bear". Clearly she likes her PvP, as do I. But while a wise man once said "It's easy to forget what a sin is in the middle of a battlefield", you also never know what sorts of crazy alliances with kindred spirits you'll make.



And I salute ya for that, Syphrilia of VeCo. /salute

Humble Pie

Today I got owned by a blood elf hunter. Twice.

Granted, she had a druid with her. But I had a T6 rogue with me. And later, a mage with me too.

The story? One of my good friends leveled a hunter to ten and asked what sort of pet she could get that wasn't seen every day. I suggested the cute red Springpaw Stalkers in Eversong Woods; it's certainly not every day you see a level 10 draenei hunter with one of those, afterall!

So we pulled together a group of buddies, nabbed a warlock, and us level 70s flew to Zul'Aman and headed into the heart of Blood Elf country.

T6 rogue (a heck of a good one, too) got there first, and I'm not exactly sure how it happened but somehow he got in a spar with a druid and a hunter. I dashed into the fray; determined to save him since his health was dropping quickly, and targeted the hunter.

I pulled out all my usual tricks that I do against fellow hunters; you know, the ones that ensure that I almost never lose against other hunters, as I like to say. And yet somehow they all failed miserably and I was laying rather embarrassingly on the ground before I could think.

Our magey friend showed up and quickly died as well, so the three of us-- rogue, mage, and hunter, decided to rez all at the same time, dispatch of the healy druid, and then proceed to the hunter.

That failed too, we did manage to kill the druid but he rez'd within two seconds and we were all dead again. Dang.

Well by this time more horde 70s were starting to show up, and it was painfully obvious that they were all PvP geared and we were sporting our PvE duds, so we all just sat around in ghost form and waited to deflag before rezzing. We did so, our Warlock pal showed up, we located a Springpaw Stalker and summoned our lowbie hunter friend who proceeded to tame herself a new kitty.

The curious horde showed up about now, all gathered around the unusual bunch that we were, so I /pointed at lowbie hunter and /pointed at her new cat, and /nodded. Blood Elf Hunter /cheered.

Afterwards I logged into a hordie and sent her an in-game mail telling her I'd enjoyed our spar (but she should catch me in my PvP gear next time, I added cheekily) and wished her hunt's luck.

We hunters, we've gotta stick together.

Gone Fishin'

I was at work today, stationed at my usual spot by all the fish (I work in a pet store), and this kid of, oh, about ten or twelve years old or so and his buddy were walking up and down the area, inspecting all the fish and pointing out all the cool ones. Then the first kid stopped in his tracks, and I saw him staring rather intently at our Red Zebra Cichlids...



After staring at them for a minute or two, the kid turned to his buddy and exclaimed "Look! Look! I found the Golden Darters !!"

I wanna cast... Magic Missile

You know, quite some time ago I had a dream that Tawyn had the chance to get the most rare and most awesome flying mount ever. She could get an owl mount, one that looked just like Tux.

And in the dream, I turned it down. My reasoning? It wouldn't be in character.

I woke up and thought "Dream-Pike you dorkchop! Giving up a super awesome mount like that in the name of roleplaying! You don't even roleplay all that often! Real-Pike is much more sensible than that."

Or so I thought.

This is Althalor:



When he was a wee young lad, he and his high elven merchant parents were traveling down Southern Gold Road in the Barrens when they were attacked by some particularly nasty beasts. They fought gamely but they were tired and weary and couldn't much fight back. With their dying breaths they managed to conjure up a spell that made it so the creatures did not see, hear, or smell little Althalor who was hiding in the caravan.

It was the Tauren of Camp Taurajo who found him and took him in. He was raised in Mulgore as an adopted Tauren, as a hunter, because of his uncanny skill with a rifle and his odd rapport with the lions of the Barrens. Today he fights for the Horde, passing himself off as a Blood Elf, although deep inside he feels that he really is a a Tauren in spirit.

So clearly he needs to ride a Kodo. This was the plan from day one. And for that, (unless you want the war mount)... you need to be exalted with Thunder Bluff.

At the tender level of two I ran him all the way from Sunstrider Isle to Mulgore. He cleared the place of quests and this led him to Crossroads, Camp Taurajo, and eventually Freewind Post in Thousand Needles. Considering the fact that I began with a distinct disadvantage (blood elves begin the game as Neutral with Thunder Bluff, not Friendly... and on top of that, a rather long questline in Mulgore is apparently Tauren-exclusive), I didn't think I was doing too badly. Tawyn was exalted with Stormwind at level 37, why couldn't Althalor be exalted with Thunder Bluff at level 40? Easy, I figured.

Then came the change to the mount level. I worried about my rep grind but hoped for the best; turning in as much cloth as I could at my low level and scouring WoWHead for quests I hadn't finished yet.

Today Althalor dinged 30.



...well dang.

Now don't get me wrong. I like the chicken mount. I like it a lot. I was so excited when the Warstrider was announced and then so crestfallen when I found out my taurengirl Lunapike couldn't get it. (She has some MgT farming in her future I think.)

But Althalor, I thought, no, he can't ride one. It would be obscene. In his story he hasn't been to the Eastern Kingdoms since he was a baby. Him on a hawkstrider? It would be So. Out. Of. Character.

So I said "Forget getting the mount at level 30. I'm not getting one until I'm exalted with TB."

I went to work today and realized I'd turned into Crazy-RP-Mount-Dream-Pike.

And I thought about it and I thought about it and I thought about it and I thought about Aspect-of-the-Cheetah-ing all over Desolace and it was this horrible dilemma, you have no idea.

Then I had an epiphany. He's trying to pass himself off as a Blood Elf right? So maybe his Tauren friends decided to help him out by obtaining a Hawkstrider mount for him... and he rode it around for a while because he was very grateful for the thought but it just made him so uncomfortable that he got a Kodo later?

...that sounds viable.

So I went and got the chicken mount.

It still feels awkward but at least my OOCometer isn't buzzing off the hook and blinking red anymore.

There are two morals of this story. One is I think Blizzard has really succeeded if they managed to create a world so immersive that at least some of its players are willing to do crazy things like forego mounts in the name of their fictional character's backstory. Two is that Pike is completely insane. But you all knew that I'm sure.

Return of the Grumpy Care Bear

I was on Lunapike, my level 63 Hordie Hunter, and I was camping out in the inn in Tarren Mill because I'd been helping a friend out. At the moment though, my services weren't required, so I'd alt+tab'd out to do some stuff.

Suddenly I heard a bunch of commotion on my screen and pulled up the game just in time to see a big red cat clawing my face out. I could barely move before I was completely demolished.

Eh, it's Tarren Mill, it's to be expected. So I went back to the Inn and rez'd and then alt+tab'd again.

Same story about a minute later, big red cat destroys me.

So at that point I was getting annoyed but there really wasn't a whole lot I could do, this being my highest leveled character on that server. I started to play a little game with the guy. I'd stand in my spot in the inn, I'd see "Noodle gains Bestial Wrath" and "Noodle gains Dash" in my combat log, Noodle the kitty would run into the inn... and I would log out. I can only imagine the confusion on poor hunter's face when his big red kittycat came running back to him emptyhanded.

I did that a couple times and thought it was immensely hilarious until one of these times I logged in and the hunter himself was standing in my spot waiting for me, and I got demolished.

Okay, this was all getting super annoying, and at this point I was having to wait around in Ghost Form to rez because I'd died so many times in such a short period of time. So I figured I'd head out of there. Which was in and of itself a major pain, because even my Frostwolf Howler is apparently no match for Concussive Shot + Intimidation + Full S2 Hunter, and I died another two or three times on my way out.

Now it was around this point that I think the other people at Tarren Mill were getting annoyed too because they started disappearing and higher levels started showing up. Mr. AnnoyingHunterGuy left somewhere around this time, headed south, and we all made a group to go track him down.

We didn't see him anywhere, though.

But whaddaya do when you're in a group full of ticked off Hordies whose lowbie alts just got camped into oblivion?

You raid Southshore, that's what.

We leveled the place. I mean, completely leveled. There were no NPCs left. There were no quest givers left. The poor level 30-ish Alliance that got caught in the crossfire? Rest in peace. They can thank AnnoyingHunterGuy and Noodles.

Now the respawn rate on the guards was super fast and we were just killing them over and over. So I was figuring the Alliance World Defense must have been exploding with "Southshore is under attack!" which is why I was expecting the Alliance Response Team to show up and put an end to our shenanigans. See, I say that as somebody with experience about the other side. I always have WorldDefense on, and if Tawyn sees "Southshore is under attack" more than a couple times and she isn't in Outlands, she pulls out her PvP gear and hops on her gryphon-- you'd better believe she does. Usually she shows up right around the same time as five or six other similarly-minded people and we successfully defend our town.

But you know what, on this server, it never happened. The Alliance Counterattack I was waiting for never came. Every so often a single level 70 would pop up and they would quickly get killed. That was about it. AnnoyingHunterGuy never even came back (although he did /yell something at us in the middle of it, so you know he was somewhere and knew what was going on-- he just never came out to fight us.)

So after about twenty minutes of having Southshore firmly under Horde control we left not because the Alliance came to take care of us, but because we just got bored.

Victory for us!

So there you have it. Has Pike crossed over to the dark side? Gonna go around ganking and camping lowbies on a regular basis? Nah. I still like /hugs for the most part.

But revenge is sweet.

The best part of the entire night though?



Now I've had people make alts on servers specifically to say hello to me, but I can only think of a few cases where people who already live on that server recognize me. Makes me feel special. <3 And to Mr. Moonkin who asked me that, if you are reading, 'twas fun! =D

Give a hunter a fish...

...and he can feed his cat once. Teach him to fish, and he can feed his cat for a lifetime!

...okay, so that's not really how the saying goes, but I'm sure you've all heard it and know what it means.

I am here to talk about why I blog about hunters, and why I make "hunter kindergarten" posts, and things like that.

I try my best to write readable and easily-understandable Hunter How-To Posts because I think that there is a very big category of hunters out there that fall between the category of "good hunter" and "huntard." These are the people that are spec'd something cookie-cutter like 41/20/0, have gear that is at least mostly correct (no spell hit gems or shammy gear *shudder* ... but maybe going too overboard with one stat or something), and yet do not know why they are doing these things.

I have been in heroics with hunters who show up with a solid spec and a solid set of gear and then they start tossing random Aimed Shots into their non-existent rotation and Serpent Sting stuff they should be trapping. I've seen hunters that use the Auto/Steady macro and have no idea WHY it does so much DPS, they just know that it DOES, so they spam it, maybe with a bow that is several speeds too slow.

Now do I have anything against these hunters? Of course not, I was there once too, and I'm sure I'm still there in some aspects. That is why I write what I write, and that is why I advocate hunters learning to weave their shots manually before switching to the macro (if they choose to do so)... because it's all about the foundation.

I'll never forget how surprised I was one day when this story happened: I popped into game and four of my guildies were in a Heroic. I asked who the fifth member was, and they said a PuG'd hunter. I asked how the hunter was doing (I tend to ask that... I'm curious), but instead of the typical answers, which are always either "He sucks" or more often "He's okay, but...[something]", they told me "She's actually really good."

I got into Ventrilo and popped into their channel just to listen in, and chat a little. I had just got my Choco-Bow and mentioned how fluid it made my shot rotations, and the PuG'd hunter said "Hey, what shot rotation do you use, if you don't mind me asking?"

... /blinkblink

Another hunter was actually asking me about shot rotations. And we actually had an intelligent hunter conversation about them.

MADNESS, I tell you!

That's never happened to me before outside of blogs. I've had a lot of people come up to me in game and ask me for shot rotation advice, which I have always very happily given those who ask... but actually having a little discussion about it was new.

Since then, that incident has stuck in my mind, and it reminds me about why I write. Because incidents like that should not be as rare as they are. I shouldn't have to be surprised when my guildies say they PuG'd not just an okay hunter, but a very good one. I shouldn't have to be taken aback when somebody wants to discuss shot rotations with me.

I'm part of the "WoW Noobs" community over at Livejournal, where I can give advice to newer players (Heck, if you look back far enough, you can find a level 20 me asking what the meeting stone outside Deadmines is for), and I've noticed that new players are attracted to the hunter class like a magnet. This means that we, as hunters, have a big responsibility. Learn why you are spec'd what you are spec'd. Why you've picked one talent over another. Learn why your shot rotation is your shot rotation. Then, pass it on.

"But Pike, if everyone is a good hunter, won't that put you out of a job?" Maybe, but teaching-for-make-benefit-glorious-class-of-hunters is more important. Besides, I seem to have lucked out and I currently hold a monopoly on the hunter class in my guild. It's true, almost all of the other 70 hunters in my guild either /gquit, permanently started playing non-hunter alts, or disappeared entirely. It's really kind of odd and I'm not sure whether that's says good or bad things about me, but... hey. >.>

Stopping by Karazhan on a Foggy Evening

Ever had to chain-trap during Moroes? All the way through Moroes? You get a ton of buffer time on your trap cooldown at the beginning so it's all easy, and then that cooldown dwindles and dwindles as the fight goes on and by the end you're pulling out all the stops with your Concussive Shot and extra Distracting Shots, and frantically running around hoping nothing stupid happens.

Feels absolutely great afterwards when you've successfully pulled it off though. Oh, let the 'locks and the boomkins and the rogues have the top of the DPS chart for that battle-- you, meanwhile, you know that you've got that CC on farm and that you're a big reason why things went so smoothly.

Lemme tell you a lil' about Karazhan; I started playing WoW a couple months after Burning Crusade was released. I was level 6 and everybody else was just getting to 70 and just getting geared up for raids. I walk into Stormwind for the first time and hear the names of these seemingly mythical legendary bosses being whispered in trade chat. Moroes, Maiden, the Curator, Shade of Aran, Prince Malchezaar. This makes an impression on you. You know nothing about the game but you know about this rogues' gallery of bosses that, in your tender young eyes, only the greatest of the great are ever going to see. And to down one of those bosses must be an amazing feat of pure unadulterated epic-ness.

And now you're giggling at me because Karazhan is the Deadmines of level 70, and yeah, I'm giggling with you.

But you gotta put yourself in my shoes for a second and realize that when this stuff sinks into you and makes an impression on you from basically day one-- it doesn't go away. Yeah, it's just good ol' KZ and I won't deny sometimes it does make me want to smack my head repeatedly into the wall, but it holds a special little place in my heart. All these months later the music still gives me goosebumps, and all these months later a successful boss downing still feels special.

Bigger raiders can have their Black Temple or their Sunwell Plateau that they're all proud of; me, give me my crazy lil' tower in the middle of nowhere and all its storied villains.

Pike/Medivh: BFF!



(P.S. I originally wrote a poem parody to go along with the title of this blog post. But then I opted not to post it because I think I want to polish it up. Maybe if you poke me nicely, I'll finish it and post the thing.)

The Carebear Unleashed

Many of you who have been following my blog or my comments in other blogs for a while know that I am a bona fide unabashed carebear. My main is on an RP-PvE server, and Lunapike, my level 62 alt, is on an RP-PvP server but has the tendency to /hug every member of the opposite faction that she meets, before continuing on her way.

But what some of you may not know is that... if you call down the thunder, you'll reap the whirlwind.

Today I reached into my Holding Bag of hunter alts and plucked one out to play in Stonetalon Mountains on that RP-PvP server. I was doing a quest that was orange to me and I somehow kept aggro'ing a mob who was some seven or eight levels higher than me who was immune to seemingly all of my forms of crowd control, and I kept dying. It was sorta annoying, so I figured I'd find another, easier quest. Just as I had rez'd myself for the third or forth time and was bandaging up before heading out, an level ?? Alliance warlock rode up to me, dismounted, and ganked me.

She mounted up again and rode away, and I noticed that she had a non-epic mount...

I logged out and hopped over to Lunapike, who was parked not too far away. Upon getting to Sun Rock Retreat, I mounted up on Snowball, my Frostwolf Howler, and barreled down the road towards my alt's corpse. And ohh, what do we have here, but that level 57 warlock...

She dismounted and popped a fear off on me. I used my PvP trinket followed by The Beast Within and sic'd my lynx Alyosha on her. Game over in about six seconds.

Right as I was finishing her off, a level 66 Alliance hunter... her buddy, maybe?... rode up. He was four levels higher than me, and five levels higher than my pet. He dismounted and stared at me and my pet, the two of us still big and red. I /waved at him.

He sic'd his pet on me, I feigned death to get out of it. And then he made a very, very bad mistake...

He queued up an Aimed Shot.

With me pounding away at him with Arcanes, Multis, and Autos, and Alyosha still big and red and Frenzy proc'd... interrupt city... he queued up an Aimed Shot.

By the time he finally got that Aimed Shot off, I already had his health down to 30%. In a last ditch effort he ran up and tried to melee me and actually proceeded in trapping me, but at that point his health was down to nil and my trusty kitty finished him off easily.

Afterwards I glanced around smugly at the two poor Alliance souls at my feet, then I hopped on Snowball and trotted off.

You mess with one of my baby hunters, you mess with Pike. /grin

Two Subjects, One Post

I remember when I was about to hit 70 on Tawyn. I remember frantically running around Netherstorm, doing quests and killing random things, slooooowly watching my experience bar inch towards the end of the row, knowing it wouldn't be long before that experience bar disappeared and my game experience would all change.

I had a similar feeling today with Lunapike. Except that it wasn't for level 70. No... it was for level 62.



I had been waiting for this moment for a while and I'd actually prepared for it in advance; knowing halfway through level 61 that my [Ironstar Repeater] would be far too fast of a weapon to have so I found another quest that I did specifically for a bow that was sort of a side-grade but had a beautiful 2.80 speed.

The second I dinged I flew to Shattrath, hopped into the portal to Thunder Bluff (Because Thunder Bluff is clearly superior to Orgrimmar) paid a visit to my old friend the Hunter Trainer, hearthstoned back to Outlands, found the first random mob that I could, and unleashed a barrage of bona-fide Shot Rotation.

It was marvelous. Marvelous. Granted, it all feels sort of vanilla right now without Kill Commands to spice things up. But Steady Shot, oh Steady Shot, how I've missed ya. Welcome back, buddy.

And now for something completely different...

The other day I asked several fellow WoW-bloggers via Twitter if they told a lot of people about their blog. I got a few different responses, some people didn't tell anyone whereas some people told friends and guildies. I myself didn't come "out of the closet" to my friends and guildies until recently for various reasons, but the reaction has been rather positive so I'm pretty happy with that.

I wonder sometimes, though, if there's a way to "plug" your blog on WoW without it sounding showy. Perhaps I've just yet to hit on it. But there's a reason why when people ask me for hunter advice, I typically do not link them to my blog. Because I sort of fear that it will come off as sounding like I'm showing off or something.

Yesterday when I was playing Lunapike, I was approached by an Orc Shamaness who was extremely well-spoken (which always garners my immediate positive attention) and told me that I should look into investing in a Ravager for maximum DPS over my other two pets on that character-- a cat and a windserpent. She said she had a level 70 hunter, to which I responded that I had one too (followed by the inevitable "Yes, I know this is my second hunter.") We had a brief discussion about pets and it didn't take long to realize that this shaman was very knowledgeable about hunters and especially pets. I was impressed and sort of wanted to bring up my blog because she seemed like a really neat person but I wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. Then she brought up Mania and Petopia and asked if I knew about them, to which I responded that yes I did, and in fact, if you look at Mania's blogroll you'll find my own hunter blog!

And that's about when the conversation fizzled out and the shaman had to go and used Astral Recall to get to Shatt.

It's sort of unfortunate that the conversation ended when it did, because I didn't mean to come off as bragging about being on somebody's blogroll, rather I was hoping it would enable me to sort of bring up my own blog, it just didn't happen. Anyways, Orc Shaman on The Venture Co. who knows a lot about hunters, if you happen to be out there reading, I appreciate the fact that you offered to give me advice, even if it happened to be advice that I already "knew". =P We need more people like you who are willing to give good advice to newer hunters in a friendly and very intelligent fashion.

Next time on Pike-TV: The Official Intro-to-Steady-Shot Post, Stats for Hunters Part 2, The Initiation of a new Character Spotlight Feature, and Oh-My-Gosh-Does-Pike-Actually-Have-A-Level-29-Resto-Druid.

Same Pike-time, same Pike-channel.

But They Are Lovely Glasses...

So there I was, heading out of Heroic Slave Pens*, and there, standing at the meeting stone, was a level 70 hunter. As I am prone to do when I see my fellow hunters, I decided to inspect him. This is what I saw:

A 23/20/18 spec.
An elemental shammy helm packed with intellect and bonus damage and healing.
Some sort of caster trinket.
Various spell-hit gems.
Two random daggers enchanted with Unholy and something else that I've never heard of before.

So as I was sitting there sort of /boggling at the guy, someone else nearby straight up asked him what was with his gear.

"What about it?" said the clueless hunter.

"It's all wrong for your class," the other guy said.

"Oh... I was trying to get a good balance of everything... how should I do it?" said the hunter.

And something funny happened. I felt sorry for the guy. Ebayed? Without a doubt. But you can't repress my inner hunter-trainer.+

So there I sat and told him what sort of stats he should look for in gear, and what sort he should definitely avoid. Then I told him a little about the different specs and how he should pick one to specialize in, rather than trying to spread out and be mediocre at everything. I told him to look at mine as a rough example.

He asked what the advantage would be of specializing like that, especially if he mostly wanted to do battlegrounds.

So I challenged him to a duel. Bestial Wrath, Intimidation... the duel was over in a couple seconds after he'd done maybe 600 damage to me total. "See?" I said.

"Thanks, I'm going to go respec right now!" he said, and hearthstoned out of Coilfang.

Did I magically transform him from huntard to hunter? Nope, I doubt it. Is he probably going to make some mistakes with his respec, if he even goes through with it? Yep. Is he still going to be wearing crappy gear? Probably yeah. Would I trust him with traps anytime soon? Nupe.

But is he at least sorta tentatively on the right track now? I think so.

I have a tendency to see myself as a teacher. I am Hunter Class Leader in my guild and that is a badge that I wear with pride, not so much because it says I am good, but because it says my guild trusts me to take other hunters under my wing. I do not see myself as an expert hunter by any means; I still have a lot to learn and practice, and there are a lot of hunters out there that are as good or better than I am. Master Hunter? Nah, I'd love to be called that someday, but I don't think I'm worthy of the title. (And even if I am, it's not something I'd want to peg on myself-- that's a title that's got to be bestowed by another master.)

I simply want to teach others how to pull a little more efficiency and a little more enjoyment out of this class. And a lot of the comments left at this blog indicate that I have had at least some measure of success and that really makes me feel good. One of the great things about the blogging community is that we can all teach each other and you can have many different teachers. Because we have that luxury, do not take one person/site/guild's word as gospel. Search around, read different blogs, test things for yourself, reach your own conclusions, and come out a better hunter. That is my advice for the day.

I hope that you readers have obtained a little of that communal knowledge from my blog, and I will continue to do my best to provide more. ^_^

And yes, I know that perhaps I just view Azeroth with rose-colored glasses.


*Funny story here. We got a group together specifically for Heroic Underbog and it wasn't until some time after we'd downed the first boss in Slave Pens that we went "Wait a minute... this isn't Underbog..." We are brilliant, eh?

+My guild is quite aware of this. "Tawyn, ready for a summon?" "Hang on, somebody just asked me how to play a hunter." "...Tawyn... just link him to the website... and get out now while you still can..."

Pet Taming: A Story Told in Pictures

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


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

This Guy.

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

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


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


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

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

So I got one.


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

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


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

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


Same routine as before. Laid down a trap...

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


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


Aaaaand action:




Woo-hoo!


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

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

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

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

It was the best of times... it was the worst of times...

You wanna hear a story? Come gather round and I'll tell you a story.

So there we are in Heroic Mech. By now we've got the thing memorized and we could run it in our sleep. We're goofing off in Ventrilo and a couple of us aren't even in Ventrilo cause heck, it's just Heroic Mech, right?

...I think we took things just a wee bit too casually. We were dying left and right on random crap, we made about a million dumb mistakes, and worst of all, The Sword that Can Not Be Named managed to elude our poor tank for the thousandth time.

But amidst the chaos there was one high point to our otherwise horrific run.

Gatewatcher Iron-Hand, a sort of mini-boss you fight after the first big robot guy. Ya know him? Him in all his "RAISES HIS HAMMER MENACINGLY" glory?

We're fighting him and the tank dies when the boss is still at about, oh, 30% health or so. (Yeah I told you this was an off night. I swear we can do this heroic in our sleep when we're trying. Honest!)

Tank is gone, we've got a holy paladin, a warlock, a rogue, and me and Locke. Boss comes charging to me first so I feigned out of it (I honestly thought we were all going to wipe in a matter of seconds) and he turns and heads towards the warlock, who proceeded to load him up with as many DoTs as he could before his inevitable death. By now I'd realized the group was still alive and kicking, and had jumped up pretty quickly and resumed pounding on the boss as best I could. This whole part here is mostly just a blur, all I know is that Locke tanked him for ten seconds or so before falling, and then the warlock died, and it was down to me, the pally, and the rogue with the boss still at about 15% health.

The rogue managed to keep him occupied long enough for us to chip him down even further until he was at about 10% health, and then there were two: me and the pally.

Now the pally wasn't in Ventrilo at the time because he was watching a movie or something. So I heard myself shouting with my brain, hoping he could somehow catch the mental vibes: "BUBBLE TANK IT! BUBBLE TANK IT!!"

And he did. Bubbled and tanked the guy while I sat there and auto-steady-auto-steady'd (and ran around and arcane'd cause he kept moving)...

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the bubble ran out and our healer hit the dirt. I think at this point the boss was at about 4% or 5% health.

Tawyn vs. the world.

Bring it on.

He raised his hammer in the air menacingly...

...meaning he just stood there and didn't move...

Pew... pew... pew... longest 4% of a boss in my entire life...

4%...

3%...

2%...

1%...

Killing Blow.

You'd better believe I danced on his corpse.

Ode to Locke

This is my cat, Locke.



Formerly known as Rak'Shiri, Locke was tamed at about 4am server time while I was wearing the Leper Gnome Halloween costume. I'd wanted Locke for a while. He is teal, after all. Teal is my favorite color and basically the main reason I rolled a night elf-- teal hair. Teal hair!! So I camped out for him (he's a rare spawn) and finally managed to nab him.

We were level 57 then; today we are both level 70 and he is my Official Grouping Pet. This is mainly because a few people have taken issue with Tux's immense wingspan and I don't want to be a pain-in-the-butt, so I use a pet with a somewhat lower profile. (It's also helpful because I can keep Tux spec'd more for PvP and Locke for PvE.)

Locke has successfully "emergency tanked" two dragons: the last boss in Hellfire Ramparts and the last boss in Old Hillsbrad. He usually manages to somehow double the DPS output of any and all other hunter pets that happen to be in the group. And he has really come to be loved by our little group of instance-runners. He has become our willing guinea pig more than once: "Hmm, do you guys think we can jump here? ...hey Tawyn, have Locke go check it out!" And he has spawned many a guild inside joke. One is that one of these days mid-Heroic Mech run, he is going to randomly disappear and then replace Patheleon the Calculator as the new end boss. (We decided that he is going to be wearing a monocle when this occurs. "When", not "if".)

The other big inside joke is that if anything bad happens and there's no apparent scapegoat-- it's Locke's fault. Many a mysterious wipe or pull-gone-bad has been irrevocably decreed Locke's fault.

We were in Heroic Mech the other day and after one of these "Locke's fault" occasions, we all sort of had a good laugh about how ironic it was that nothing had ever really truly been Locke's fault. Nothing in recent memory, at least (because I recall a few slipups in Dire Maul and Scholo). Locke has always performed his duty masterfully and has never caused any issues unless it's my own mistake. Hunter pets seem to get a bad rap a lot-- but Locke? Nope. He's pretty much got a halo on his fuzzy teal head.

...we spoke too soon.

A couple hours after we'd finished Heroic Mech we made a new group and headed to Heroic Underbog. We were about halfway through, working our way up one of the ramps and slowly and carefully pulling naga mobs out from behind a little open door. Everything was going as intended and I sent in Locke to attack skull, as is customary. And then it happened. I send Locke in to the mob, he somehow manages to position himself so his butt is pointing towards some other naga-- and they must've not been amused because suddenly these extra naga were targeting Locke and charging over to him.

Well you can probably guess what happened next. We already had our hands full with our current pull-- the extra nagas were the death of us. Not to mention I was petless, with Locke having met his untimely demise due to an unfortunate and accidental mooning-incident.

It was all partially very funny and yet also partially very embarrassing and shocking to me. For once, it really had been Locke's fault.

Yet another guild inside joke of ours is that if you make some silly mistake or screw up, you are informed "And that's why you're not going to Zul'Aman." And Locke was not spared. He was informed that he's not going to Zul'Aman and that Tux is going to get to go instead.

Poor Locke. Tux is givin' him heck in the stable, I'm sure.

All About: The Kill Command Bug

Something strange happened to me yesterday in Heroic Slave Pens. I was in the middle of "Totem Duty" on a boss fight when suddenly my Kill Command button seemed to get stuck. You know what a button looks like when you're pressing it down and using it? It was stuck there.

No biggie, right?

Actually, yes.

See, the Kill Command Bug is a mean, horrible monster. The Kill Command Bug says "NO AUTO SHOT FOR YOU!" and then points and laughs as you cry.

Yes, so long as that Kill Command button looks like that, you cannot Auto Shot no matter how hard you try. You can Arcane. You can Steady. You can Multi. But you don't fire any Auto Shots. And that, my friends, is Not Good when you're mid-boss-fight in a Heroic.

Fortunately, amidst my panicking on Ventrilo, my boyfriend picked up Totem Duty for me as I sat there spamming Steady Shot over and over, feeling a bit like a lost and confused kitten. Auto Shot is the solid, unshakable rod that you weave your other shots around, and when it suddenly disappears, the defining aspect of playing a hunter-- the shot rotation-- just crumbles. It was a horrible feeling.

But then, suddenly! The button got unstuck and everything worked again! Hooray!

I wrote it off as a glitch caused by lag or something and didn't worry about it. I got some new epic pants and spent basically the last of my gold gemming and armor-kit-ing them and went to bed satisfied.

This morning I went to go farm motes to make up for all the gold I'd spent on my new pants the day before. I figured I'd level a lowbie pet while I was at it; it makes things more interesting.

And then it happened again. The Kill Command button locked up and Auto Shot disappeared. Helplessly I watched my poor level 67 wolf's health plummet as the level 71 Air Elemental pounded on him; some 40% of my DPS was gone and I couldn't kill the mob fast enough. Barely he survived that thing. *shudders thinking about it*

This is when I alt+tab'd and turned to Google for help. It turns out the Kill Command Bug isn't just something that happens to me, it happens to other hunters too. It occasionally happens with other things, like Rapid Fire. And so long as the bug is active, you also cannot feed your pet or log out.

And apparently, currently the only way to fix it is to crit.

So I ran around using Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot and Steady Shot until finally one of them crit. Ding! Auto Shot comes back home to me and everything is fine again.

It didn't happen again for the rest of that playing session but lemme tell ya, I don't think I'll ever be able to look at the Kill Command button the same way again, at least not for a long time. It sits there taunting me. Just waiting to pounce. Just waiting to catch me unawares and pull the Shot Rotation Doormat out from under my feet again.

So what do we know about the Kill Command Bug? We know that Blizzard is aware of the problem although it doesn't look like it will be fixed until the next patch (it's in the "issues list" for patch 2.4).

We know that so long as the bug is active you cannot fire Auto Shot, or feed your pet or log out.

We know that the bug is "fixed" if you crit or if you forcibly restart the game (/reloadui does not work. It was one of the first things I tried too.)

It has been suggested that the bug is caused by hitting Kill Command too quickly after your Steady Shot. Guess that's what I get for making Kill Command a hotkey and honing my reflexes so I pound it basically as soon as I can. =P I suppose I can take the bug as a compliment then?

Until the patch hits, hunters, be on the lookout. The Kill Command Bug could be coming for YOU next, when you least expect it.

Muahahahaha!

*huddles in the corner and whimpers*

Talent Show

My experience with other classes is certainly not extensive enough to be able to say this with complete surety, but it seems to me that hunters, more so than other classes, are very spec-specific. Think of your average Joe R. Hunter (where R stands for "raiding") and think of his probable talent spec. 41/20/0, 0/41/20, 0/20/41, 0/31/30. Maybe a coupla 40/21/0 and 0/21/40 thrown in for Scatter Shot and good measure.

Now, this definitely isn't to say that there aren't other good specs out there (in fact, I'll address that at the end of my post) but this seems to be what you will see, most of the time. It just seems like that typical end-game hunter strategy is to grab those 20 key points in the Marks tree and then spread from there. I think, however, that what you do with your other 41 points (or even those "key 20 Marks points") can really vary depending on personal preference and what you want.

Here, I'll use my own current spec as an example:


Let me talk about what I've picked and why I've picked them, and why my overall talent spec is largely personal preference... and probably different from your personal preference.

Overall:

Pretty standard cookie-cutter 41/20/0 build at first glance. Typically considered by most to currently be the highest DPS hunter spec in the game, although there are a lot of disputes about whether or not this is actually true, especially when really, really nicely-geared Marks or Survival hunters are involved.

I personally chose Beast Mastery because I find it appealing from an emotional and aesthetic standpoint (geeky, no?); the DPS bonus is some very tasty icing on the cake though.

Beast Mastery:

5/5 Improved Aspect of the Hawk: Has a chance to increase your ranged attack speed by 15% for 12 seconds. This is awesome. It's like squeezing bonus ranks out of Serpent's Swiftness. Obviously this is proc-dependent so it's not always reliable, and if you prefer to run around with, say, Aspect of the Viper up, then this might not be such a good choice for you. But overall I see this as a must-have for me. (Little secret: I am madly in love with the little WHOOSH noise that it makes when it procs and the little picture that pops above your head. That's another big reason I always take this talent.) Warning: there is the possibility that it will mess up your shot rotation, but I've never had an issue with this.

2/5 Endurance Training: Yeah it's maybe a little silly to have these two points here, but I still do a lot of grinding and stuff-- with DPS pets, no less-- so they can use all the staying power that they can get. Note: In my little opinion, 5/5 in this talent is pretty much mandatory for leveling. All my leveling hunters get 5/5 Endurance Training; they can respec later.

2/2 Focused Fire: 20% Kill Command crit is amazing. That's really all I have to say about that.

2/3 Thick Hide: See my comments for Endurance Training. Again, I would recommend a full 3/3 for leveling BM hunters.

5/5 Unleashed Fury: Increases your pet's damage output, pretty straightforward.

2/2 Improved Mend Pet: A lot of people I know do not put points in this and I have to admit it sort of baffles me. I don't think I could live without this talent. This is one of the things that got me to respec from Marks in the first place. Picture this: You're attacking something and your pet gets Faerie Fire or some other debuff that completely demolishes their armor/stamina/attack power/whatever. Whatcha gonna do about it? ...Improved Mend Pet, that's what! Oh, and the mana cost reduction is fantastic too.

5/5 Ferocity: Increases your pet's crit. More pet crits = More Ferocious Inspiration for you (er, for me, anyway). This one's a given.

Intimidation: This is the "Who comes to the rescue when the tank falls down" talent, to quote a line from Hootie the Strigid Screecher. Is your pet a replacement for the main tank? Oh, heck no. But if the boss a five-man is getting to end of his rope, something happens to the tank, and it's your pet or the healer-- this is when your pet comes to the rescue. Usually the healer realizes that your pet is the new tank and will plant enough heals on him to, if things go well, finish off the fight. Locke has successfully tanked both the last boss in Hellfire Ramparts and the last boss in Escape from Durnholde Keep in this fashion. Oh, and this talent is of course the gateway for some awesome talents down the road.

1/2 Bestial Discipline: One of my big personal goals is to have Ferocious Inspiration up 100% of the time. One of the ways I achieve this is to dump a bunch of focus onto my pet, so he has more chances to use Claw, which will hopefully crit. At this point in time, my crit is high enough that when I'm completely buffed and ready-to-roll, I can usually keep Locke or Tux full of focus with Go for the Throat, but there are always those long "droughts" where you won't crit for a while and 1/2 Bestial Discipline helps act as a safety buffer. Note: I would seriously consider going 2/2 here if I were using a Windserpent or something, because of Lightning Breath (costing more focus than Claw).

2/2 Animal Handler: This isn't quite so important pre-level-70, but basically this is your only way to increase your pet's chance to hit, which is going to be very needed in harder instances and raids. More hits = more chances to crit = more guaranteed Ferocious Inspiration.

4/5 Frenzy: Makes your pet attack faster. Again, more hits = more chances to crit = more guaranteed Ferocious Inspiration. You may have noticed I only have four points in this talent. A lot of hunters do that. I'm not one who's much for math or theorycrafting myself, but I do recall reading somewhere that 4/5 Frenzy is just as good as 5/5 Frenzy and in my experience that seems to hold out to be true. I love having an extra point to play with, so 4/5 it is.

3/3 Ferocious Inspiration: This is one of my very favorite talents and I put a lot of hard work into spec'ing myself and my pet so that this is up near-continuously. This increases the attack power of everyone in your party by 3%, and this works on melee, ranged, and magical attacks. 3% may not seem like a lot, but it adds up. And I just love the idea of it.

Bestial Wrath: This is a given; who doesn't want to watch that big red pet doing almost as much DPS as you while being immune to most everything?

5/5 Serpent's Swiftness: I think this is possibly the talent that makes BM the powerhouse spec that it is. This is what defines the BM shot rotation (Steady Shot/Auto Shot/Kill Command) and allows us to out-DPS a lot of Marksman hunters who are hitting harder, but slower. So... yeah. This is a given.

The Beast Within: Some people prefer Scatter Shot; myself, I like having what is almost the equivalent to a "second PvP trinket". This is the Warlock-buster. Oh, and the Warrior's hamstring/Rogue's poison/etc.-buster. =P

Marksmanship:

For the most part, you will see these 20 points on pretty much every end-game hunter. There is one debate though, that I will get to in a second:

5/5 Lethal Shots: Crit is good.

5/5 Improved Hunter's Mark: This is where there's a divide. A lot of hunters-- most, I think-- would rather have 5/5 Efficiency. Myself-- I'm an Improved Hunter's Mark fan. What it does is buff the melee attack power of everyone who is attacking whatever you've marked, whether they're in your party or not. This buffs your pet and it buffs anybody who uses melee attacks. I have always been one who enjoys helping out the party as much as I can, and being able to provide a 110-attack-power-bonus to people is almost like having my own little Trueshot Aura. Also, I have never been in a situation thus far where I've wished I'd taken Efficiency instead. I know, I know, a lot of you are probably saying "Just wait until you start raiding!" And I understand that, and if the need arises to take Efficiency instead, then I will. But at this point I haven't needed it. I would rather be buffing the attack power of my pet and the tank and the rogues and other hunter's pets and the feral druids, than giving myself a few extra Steady Shots before I have to pot. But that's just me. =P

2/2 Go for the Throat: This generates a lot of focus for your pet and in my mind is a must-have talent.

Aimed Shot: I really only use this against healers in PvP (paladins mostly), but it's the prerequisite for another awesome talent.

Rapid Killing: The best place to toss those two extra points you need in this talent tier; it gives you a little boost if you are killing things quickly and shaves some time off of the gigantic Rapid Fire cooldown.

5/5 Mortal Shots: Increases the damage that your crits do. <3 big crits.

Well, there you go. That is why Pike specs the way she does. It's not a perfect spec. But it meeds my own personal needs, and that is what talent specs are supposed to do-- fit an individual's needs. This is why I don't think there is "one spec to rule them all", and this is why I make an effort not to judge somebody based on their Armory profile.

Lemme tell you a story quick, and then I'll let you go, since this post is long enough already!

One of my friends has a level 70 hunter alt. Because this hunter is an alt, he's not all that geared. He has a level 64 green helmet of the Bandit; he has Valanos' Longbow without the scope and overall he's just in quest gear. He has a solid but not exactly cookie-cutter BM spec.

Guess what happens when he, I, and another hunter in Season 1 PvP gear all go into battlegrounds? Guess who, without fail, tops the damage done and the killing blows and the honorable kills at the end?

I'll give you a hint. It's not me. And it's not Season-1-gear-hunter either.

It's Mr. Green Helmet.

He is the only hunter I have played against so far who can beat me in a 1-on-1 hunter duel up to about five levels higher than me (that is to say, other hunters who attack me on my RP-PvP server hordie, cannot beat me unless they have over five levels on me.)

The last time we dueled it was in the Stranglethorn Arena to make things dramatic, and we had a little guildie audience too. There I was, completely decked out in blues and purples and with everything enchanted to the brim. Savagery on my Sonic Spear and +10 damage on my Gladiator's Heavy Crossbow. And there he was in quest blues and greens.

He won.

He had about 100 hit points left when I fell. He told me afterwards that if I'd used Serpent Sting, I would've won. And he's right. But the fact is that I failed to use Serpent Sting and thus he won fair and square.

I haven't a clue how he does it. Somehow he manages to work magic in PvP. He's told me he feels much the same way about me in PvE, he says he doesn't think he could ever pull off what I do in instances. This is very flattering, but it still completely blows my mind that he's working his magic in quest greens.

The hunter I have the most respect for isn't some T6 hunter with Illidan on farm. The hunter I have the most respect for isn't in complete season 3 arena armor with some incredible rating. No, the hunter I have the most respect for is wearing a green helmet of the Bandit and only has one point in Frenzy.

Armory profiles aren't everything. Gear isn't always everything. Spec isn't always everything. You spec the way that is best for you, because you know your playstyle the best. The results may surprise you.

And so it begins...

Finally got around to doing Black Morass and nabbing the vaunted key to Karazhan. We sort of waited around until we had a good-sized group of us in the guild who needed it, and today was one of the rare days lately where schedules didn't clash and we had four of us who needed the key, so we grabbed a fifth person and off we went to what was overall a very smooth run of BM, free of any deaths or major problems. I was on "adds duty" and I got a lot of praise for my job as such, so I must've done better than I thought I would, which is always a plus!

Afterwards we all rushed off to Shattrath and then all the way back to Azeroth and Deadwind Pass to finally nab ourselves [The Master's Key].

Now, you gotta understand something here. Of the five of us, three of us, myself included, had never once set foot inside Karazhan. The fourth had only been inside once and only for one boss, and the fifth had been inside multiple times but never before on this character or even character type (his two other characters are a warlock and a mage; this character is a holy pally.)

So what did we do?

We converted the group to a raid and went inside, of course.

(Insert screenshot here that I should have taken but completely forgot to! =P)

There were some level 71 elite horses that we decided to have some fun with because we were feeling a bit giddy. So that's exactly what we did. Pulled some horses and disposed of them. I even chain-trapped one, which normally isn't a big deal because I do that all the time but this is Kara, after all.

After a couple pulls we were sort of discussing it and came to the conclusion that the mobs so far seemed to be of a comparable difficulty level to the mobs in a Heroic. And as a guild, we've got a few Heroics under our collective belt.

So that's when somebody said "Hey, let's see if we can grab five other people and take the first boss."

So there we were, with that carrot dangling in our faces, and it was as four of the five of us were drooling over the carrot when my boyfriend, who also happens to be the guild leader, spoke up. He said that he had made this guild and leveled up with this guild and become good friends with the people in this guild and he wanted his first Karazhan run to be a guild/good-friends-of-the-guild run. And at the time we certainly did not have enough people in the guild who would be ready to jump into Kara with us.

And we all sort of agreed and reluctantly pushed that tasty carrot aside and left Karazhan. For now.

See, lemme talk about my guild for a bit. I'm sure I've mentioned this before in the past, but I'm gonna say it again. We have a pretty large guild, 120-something characters and 70+ accounts, and we are largely comprised of people who are newer to the game or who are at least new to getting a character to 70. These are people I leveled with. People who learned the game with me. People who have never done this end-game stuff before... just like me. We're all in this together.

I know of a lot of people who are in some big huge guild and they get ushered through Karazhan by the big boys the day after they hit 70 and come out of the other end all shiny and geared. I'm not trying to say that's a bad way to do it, but that's not how I would want to do it. I like the fact that my guild and I are doing it the old fashioned way. A year behind, yes. But that's not the point. We worked our way through the 50s and 60s doing instances together. We learned how to work together as a very unified team. We started doing some heroics and we have done very well on them, if I might say so myself, largely because we have that unity and experience with each other.

Most of us have never been in Karazhan before (except for today's little tour of the entryway). We haven't done end-game before. We don't know what we're doing. This is a big first for us. And it's going to be hard and we're going to get dirty and there is a lot of work ahead of us. And we are going to learn so much. And I can't wait.

We have a lot of people in the guild who are in their 50s or 60s or who are 70 and still need to get geared/keyed. And we agreed that we are going to start concentrating on helping those people get ready. It might take a few weeks. It might take more than that. But we will do it, and then we will have more than enough people for a ten-man raid and we'll trust each other and be able to work as a team because that's how we've been doing it all along.

It sometimes amazes me how much of a role WoW has had in teaching me how to be a team player. We're allowed to say this in job interviews, right? You know, when they ask you the inevitable "Tell me a story of when you had to work as a group" question. I can talk about WoW, right? I might get some funny looks, but hey...

Good Hunters go to Heaven, Except They Don't Die

So I had the rather, um, unique experience yesterday of surviving a wipe. Basically it goes like this:

We were in Black Morass, which none of us had ever done before. This is a very... unusual instance. It consists of you running around killing bosses and other non-boss big elites, while trying to prevent wave after wave of mob from getting to Medivh. Very intense.

Anyways, we were about halfway through and doing okay, for it being everyone's first try. I was on add-duty, so while everybody else focused on the elites I got to run around with Track Dragonkin up, making sure nobody was trying to sneak past. Anyways to make a long story short, we were busy on one of the bosses and then it happened. Tank died. Warlock died. Rogue died. Healer died. ...hunter and pet are running around attacking the growing number of adds. I was fully expecting to die any second, but... nope. You see, I hadn't touched the boss at all because I'd been focusing on adds. So I had no threat when it came to him, so he wasn't touching me.

Furthermore, the adds weren't mobbing me because they were all focused on Medivh. I was able to run around and pick them off one at a time-- or at least make a futile attempt to do so before Medivh's shield fell.

Medivh's shield was, in fact, falling faster and faster and suddenly I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be trying. Maybe I should die while his shield was still up... maybe then we wouldn't have to start over?

I said in party chat: "Hey guys, I'm still alive".

Party Chat: "..."

Me: "Am I supposed to die?"

Party: "Is Medivh's shield falling?"

Me: "Yeah"

Party Chat: "Yeah... maybe dying would be a good idea..."

Okay, suicide. I can do that easily enough. I ran up to the boss they were fighting before and fired an arrow at him. Boss yells something out and charges at me and hits me for a lot of HP, but I was still hanging in there. I braced myself for the final blow...

And then he disappeared.

Medivh's shield had fallen and so all the bad guys had disappeared.

Everyone had wiped and I'd ran up and shot an elite dragon boss in the face and yet my pet and I were still standing, battered, but alive.

Let me tell ya, I never thought I'd see the day where I could say that.

As for the instance, we tried a few more times unsuccessfully (the instance does in fact reset) and then decided we would call it a night and come back later when we needed the Kara key and when our tank was better geared. (Very good tank... needs better gear.)

I think it's starting to turn into a joke among my guildies that I have this mysterious tendency to survive wipes. I am perfectly fine with that reputation.

Why I Play a BM Hunter

Have you ever gone somewhere without your pet? Maybe you had to go tame a new pet for skills, or maybe you were doing a quest where you took control of something else so your pet couldn't be there (that quest chain in Blade's Edge Mountains comes to mind)...

If you're anything like me, going somewhere without your pet is not a pleasant experience. You feel vulnerable; incomplete, crippled even. You skitter nervously past mobs, like a mouse running through a field with hawks overhead. You are weak.

And then you see him (or her): the pet you want you want to tame. Maybe he has just the right skills you need to learn, or maybe he is just the right color and the right style. Maybe you've carefully done your research to decide exactly which pet you wanted to tame, or maybe this one just pops out at you and feels right.

He, like you, is vulnerable right now. His life consists of walking around in zigzags and circles and occasionally pouncing on a hapless critter. Oh he could put up a decent fight against a passing adventurer, but it would probably all be for naught-- he exists so that someone can kill him and loot him for vendor trash or some random green.

You are both vulnerable. But together...

Your eyes meet and he runs at you. You're prepared with a trap, but eventually he breaks free and bashes on you. You try to hold out just a bit longer...

And then it happens.

A flash of light and he is standing by your side. In that instant everything has changed. In that instant, neither of you are weak anymore.

There is a beautiful synergy between hunter and pet that I have been unable to find in any other class so far. Granted, I've never gotten another class past level 19, so perhaps I'm biased. But the fact remains that, for the time being, I've yet to find that synergy elsewhere in the game.

In my last post I was geeking out a little bit about crit. You know why I like crit? It's not just so I can top the DPS meters. Oh don't get me wrong, I love being at or near the top of the meters at the end of the instance. It means I'm doing my job and doing it well.

But this is what happens when my pet crits:
Ferocious Inspiration procs, giving a buff to everyone in my party, including myself.

And this is what happens when I crit:
My pet gets to use Kill Command
My pet gets a bunch of focus through the Go for the Throat talent.

You see that? We're helping each other. We make each other stronger. Everytime that big blue number pops up on the screen (thanks Scrolling Combat Text) and the little alert comes up, it means I not only get to jam my Kill Command hotkey, but a bunch of pet crits are probably coming up too. Those, in turn, further strengthen me through Ferocious Inspiration. It's a beautiful dance and it thrills me each and every time it happens.

That's why I play hunters. That's why, specifically, I finally settled on the Beast Mastery spec. Sure it was Uncle BRK who put the idea into my head in the first place, but it was I who had to try it out and I who had to decide if I liked it or not. It's about more than a DPS increase. It's about the aesthetics. It's about the thrill of the hunt. It's about that companionship.

Because alone, you are weak.

But together, you become stronger than either of you could have ever imagined.