Nonstop XP Gain

The best way to level a dualbox?  With your hunter…

Yesterday I had some extra time while I was waiting for Sthis to finish up the Explorer title (yes, we both have them now – yay!).  So I sat just in the entrance to Howling Fjord with Datouv (pally) & Nyl (warrior) behind me.  With minimal effort, Galoriar and Mypally simply chained all the mobs.  When I got low on mana, aspect of the mana regen.  When I had it back, aspect of the monkey hawk.  When low on health, Datouv healed (even though he’s prot, lol).  Did this for ~ an hour or so and Datouv & Nyl got over a full level’s worth of XP.

Two people said something.  One was rather rude, using foul language and whining like a 2 year old.  He was mad at me for farming quest-related mobs.  I’m sorry dude, but that’s why I picked that spot.  They respawn every 2 seconds, and where I was standing only captures half of them at maximum, thus leaving plenty of mobs for those working on quests.  If you can’t manage to stand at the edge of my range and kill the other 50 million mobs, well you’re an idiot so please delete your account and pick a different game.  And besides, I was in a place where I saved a couple people when they accidentally pulled more than they could handle.  Sadly none of them even bothered to say thank you when they had 2% health left and I just helped finish off the 5 mobs with 80% each health…  Maybe I need to add a blog and my vendetta against “people who think it’s ok to be rude just because we’re online and I can’t see you face to face”…

So anyway, the second person did the “Is that how you’re planning on leveling?”.  No, I did not get to lvl 70 by sitting here blasting the heck out of these guys.  But I just told him real quick what I was doing and he did the “oh, ok, now it makes more sense”.  So he was nicer.  But really, I found a spot to do continuous XP where you aren’t stealing anyone’s mobs (unless they’re an idiot) and your dualbox alt can stay safely behind you.  Not sure how many this applies to, but enjoy!

Hunter Tips 101

Joys of being a hunter.

So you’re grouped together with a friend, objective is to kill X number of this mob.  You pull, start hitting, then realize your buddy is too far away to get the kill.  Since we’re in Northrend and every mob is necessary due to overcrowding… what do you do?

Mmmm, freezing trap baby!

I know, it may not seem like breaking news (I’ve been using it for ages), but this is a 101 class, not a 401.  You’ll have to wait until I’ve seen a marked improvement among hunter skill and knowledge before I deal out greater words of wisdom.  (not to mention I need time to hit 80, gear up and analyze the true effects of all the changes that Bliz has made.

But in any event – the next question comes up “but the trap only lasts so long, what if my friend can’t get there quick enough?”.  Simple answer – that’s what your Gorilladin is for!  Mypally is up to near 20k armor, he can take a beating and won’t even care.  It’s because he knows he’s awesome and that’s his chance to prove it.  So make sure Gorilladin has agro but is on passive.  Wait until your trap is up and then just lay one right under the mob.  Voila!  Trade it back and forth until your friend gets their slow self over there!

And when we get to Hunter 201 or 301 I’ll tell you the basics of chain freezing and how to actually do it.  That way if you manage a PuG invite, they’ll play once with you and realize that hunters actually do have CC!!  Imagine that!  And you might end up with an invite later too!

TGIF

Yay!  It’s been a long week between work and all that’s going on.  The event last night went well, but it meant that all Galoriar had time to do was the cooking daily…

 

However, I am happy to say that it’s Friday!  That means a trip to the Liquor store on the way home (since we’re out of Scotch, heaven forbid!) and a weekend of near non-stop WoW!!!  And if I don’t post on Monday, it’s probably not because I passed out from 15 hours straight of WoW and had to be taken to the hospital.  It’s probably because I’m just plain busy at work and I don’t get paid for this – it’s purely for your (and my) enjoyement.

Teleport to Dalaran

Rather anticlimactic…  So last night Sthis & Galoriar reach level 74.  Our hearthstones have been set to Dalaran since 71, but we though it’d be fun to do the actual quest to send us up there.  We head down to Valiance Keep, find the quest giver and expect “run here, do this, bring me that, talk to this person, 5 more quests” and then “ok, now you’ve earned the privilege of entering Dalaran” or “I need you to go to Dalaran to pick up something for me, here’s a teleport”.

 

But no.  It was just a “here ya go”.

 

Dude, why couldn’t you have done that at level 70?  Heck, if I could get a level 5 over to you, can you port him?  Obviously it didn’t take any effort.

 

So now I’m sad.  And I have to work late tonight.  So I won’t even be online until late, which means even less time to play.  I just want to hit 77 and get my flying mount back so I can farm some ore and level my engineering for my CHOPPER!!!

 

And to pwn anything that comes close while I do it!

KSing

So it’s great being a hunter for many reasons.  But yesterday was because of the use of Explosive Traps…  We’re all crammed into Northrend starting areas (well, a little spread out, but you know what I mean).  So we’re running around and this hunter keeps KSing from Sthis because he has an instant shot and she, as a Boomkin doesn’t quite (well, she does, but it’s harder to grab quick agro on respawns and such.  Hunters just put pets on agro, lol).  He was also being just plain rude by stealing the boxes she had to pick up because something would attack her, and she couldn’t get to them.  It wasn’t too bad because I quickly finished mine and then ran interference for her on hers.  But tell me, isn’t that just mean and annoying?  I mean, share dude!  Go get your own boxes!

 

So this leads me to why I like traps – specifically how you can use them in retribution against huntards…  So obviously we’re in the same area doing the same quests (as are others).  We get to the point where we needed the drop off of 3 specific mobs.  Me being a nice hunter, I invited some of those around us into our group (I mean, come on – I’ve got a guaranteed pull, it’s just not fair to them!).  Along comes little huntard.  Now, he could use a trap but I doubt he knows what it is.  So I put mine down right on the spawn location.  Few minutes later – kaboom! – he’s ours and the little huntard tries grabbing agro first to no avail.  We share the loot among those of us grouped and go on our merry way while huntard sits and sulks.

 

Couple things that could’ve happened differently…  Huntard could have been nice the first go around.  He would have had an invite when we were going for the specific mob and saved himself time and trouble.  Or, well, it’s obviously beyond his comprehension, but he could have also dropped a trap in hopes that his hit first.  Lastly, he could’ve picked a different class and not dirty the name of Hunter.  After all, I may not be a Survival Hunter, but I do know how to use a trap.

Wrath & 80

Am I level 80 yet?  Nope!  The people who have made it to 80 and cleared almost all current end game content are just plain nuts.  Yes, I took 2 days off (Thursday & Friday) of work.  Of course, Thursday morning I installed Wrath and got our computers ready since my wife had to work.  I didn’t get into any content more than checking if our mods were working.  I cleaned the house, dualboxed our alts a little to level them, played CS 1.6 (WC3 of course), and made dinner.  That way Sthis & I could jump right in together.

 

Did we power level?  No.  What’s the point?  These are our mains and we want to enjoy the content.  Instead, we have been taking our time.  We started on the Howling Fjord side, worked our way to the Borean Tundra, etc.  Yes, our hearthstones are Dalaran and we’re still only 73.  Granted, we have 450 fishing and the achievements for 1k fish, bronze gold and silver coins, etc.

 

So will we be a world first?  Nope.  But we will have done the content to get there.  And with friends.  We get to find some of the random hidden things in the game that others won’t.  We’ll fly into certain zones and those 80-rushers will follow us.  Then we’ll disappear because we’re in a more advanced phase…  And yet they beat us to 80.

 

Ok, yes I wish I could have taken off a few weeks to drink beer and play WoW nonstop.  But I can guarantee that if I had a 15 year old he would know to take a break once in a while, keep eating food, and not pass out from a video game – he’d be playing with me!

BRK's BM Build

So I haven’t yet decided what my build is going to be tomorrow, but at least I still have some time.  I do know that I’m changing to Beast Mastery because it has proven to be the best aspect for leveling.  Since I’ll be running with Sthis, I know I’m going to take Gorilladin and we’ll just AOE everything around.  But BigRedKitty (BRK) did have a useful post today about a cookie-cutter BM build.  It’s definitely worth taking a look (http://www.bigredkitty.net/2008/11/11/building-a-51100-bm-hunter/).  My suggestion?  Read it and modify according to your play style to maximize your playing.

 

And if you don’t like it?  Respec.  It’s not really that costly and besides, how often are Hunters asked to respec for a raid?  Lol.

Happy Veteran's Day

I just want to reach out and say Happy Veteran’s Day!  Or, more importantly, thank you to those who serve their country and thank you to their families.

 

It’s not easy being in the situations we often find ourselves, like flying to training the morning after my wedding and waiting on the Honeymoon for over 2 months…  And it’s not always safe, like being on an unguarded Carrier without an air wing or surface support, hundreds of miles off the coast doing nuclear reactor testing…  But we do it for our family and our country.

 

So I thank my fellow Veterans.

 

But also a quick note – I thank those that appreciate the freedoms, privileges, and rights they have as a result of what veterans do.

Wowinsider

www.wowinsider.com

Probably one of the best sites around for updates on WoW, has remodeled their site.  Not to mention, this week they’re doing many prize giveaways.  So what are you doing still reading this post?  Get over there and enter to win!  (Your @$$ is mine if you win the polar bear mount though!).

Huntard Run-in

I may as well add in one of my first run-ins with a true-huntard.  So we’re running one of the Zangarmarsh dungeons and pug’d out 2 slots.  One, surprise surprise, was a hunter.  Working our way through and we get to one area and wanted to use my pet as an OT (common occurrence, fyi) while pulling the mobs to the MT for safety.  Here’s where he displayed his ignorance and what granted him the title “Huntard”:

 

“Ok, so on this pull why don’t you MD skull onto <tank> and I’ll MD X onto Avalanche.” - me

 

“MD?” - huntard

 

“Misdirect” - me

 

“Oh, I never trained that” - huntard

 

[silence as my brain explodes and I try to comprehend his previous statement]

 

“What does it do?” – huntard

 

[brain completely mush at this point…  can’t… comprehend…   gives up...]

 

“Ok, nevermind.  Just stand right here and wait till I say go to start shooting skull.  I’ll pull them all.”

 

[Galoriar MD’s onto OT, pulls the rest, lets tank grab agro over healer, FD, step back, unleash hell w/ an MD for MT to ensure he held agro]

 

So yes, we managed to finish the dungeon.  At the time, I thought that huntard was one of a few bad apples.  Little did I know that the whole farm is bad and there are only a few good ones running around.

Gorilladin Intelligence Nerfed!

I am now sad – they took away intelligence from Mypally with patch 3.0.3.  I’m not talking about the stat – I’m talking about actual intelligence.  While he used to only Thunderstomp when there were 2 or more mobs within range, he now does it for a single mob.  So if you’re trying to pull multiple mobs, you’ll need to turn off auto-thunderstomp and hit it manually.

 

This setback in pet intelligence is not helpful on the way to one of my most desired pet skills…  A “Defend Party” stance.  I mean, come on – Gorilladin spends hours with my friends.  They heal him as much as I do, and appreciate it when he’s taking the blows instead of them.  Many of them have leveled with him as well.  So why does he not have the ability to defend them too?

Awesomness

I just had to take a moment to share that the weather is awesome and I took the bike to work today.  Yes, it’s a little cold and the engine doesn’t like that much, but it runs fine regardless.  And did I mention it’s awesome to still be riding in November?

 

Recruit-A-Friend Done

Well, my wife’s recruit-a-friend xp bonus ran out the other day.  In the 90 days Sthis & I managed to level 3 alts (each) to 60 and 4 more to ~47/48.  We still have some of the bonus levels to hand off to some of our other alts as well, so we’ll have to do that soon to see where we’re at.

 

Sadly between work and the MBA we haven’t had much time to play or relax recently.  This week includes 3 tests and 2 papers…

Vets

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123121980

 

An interesting tidbit.  You always see vets wearing their taco bills & saluting, but now this means that all of us can salute while not in uniform.  It will be interesting to see who does and who doesn’t.  I know most of the time I go to salute anyway (habit), and then have to consciously think about what I’m supposed to do before I manage to remove my cover and put my hand over my heart.