…back again…

Oh my but it’s been a while.

/excuses

So anyway, I’ve not been in wow much and I’ve been in blog-land even less. However, I’m quite sure everything’s been just fine in my absence. I promise tales to astound and confuse shortly, but at the moment stacks of papers beg to be graded and committee meetings beg to be slept through. In the meantime, links!

PuG Basics from the Egotistical Priest. Don’t tell my guildies but these are the things I wish I could say to them.

Songs of Conquest from Matticus. Ask anyone I’ve ever played wow with. I love pump-up music.

Lessons from Behind the Screen from Wil Wheaton. Yeah, it’s not wow, but I’m starting a new D&D campaign (one of my excuses) and I need all the help I can get.

Cheers!

No Brew for you

I’m heartbroken people and there’s nothing your Friendship Bracelets can do for me. The blues have spoken and  Brew of the Year will definitely be a required part of the Brewfest achievement. This means I’ll have to wait two years to be Brewmaster Nimrock.

Bear with me while I run down exactly how hopeless I am about this.

Brewfest and Children’s Week were the only world events I ever actively particpated in. I loved the pets from children’s week and I celebrated Brewfest because I thought it was fun. Two years ago I ran the keg delivery quest every day and I saved up enough tokens to buy the Swift Brewfest Ram. My point is, I participated for the fun of it, before achievements, because I like Brewfest.

Before the patch, I heard something about achievements. The brewfest event was already going on and I checked out what sort of rewards could be had. Brewmaster Title?! I’m in! So I did the keg run every day again to save up enough tokens to get the Brew of the Month membership. Figured I’d drink a brew every month and next year all I have to do is buy the regalia and dance drunk in the streets.

Here’s the problem. The brew of the month membership started the month before the patch with the achievements dropped! I didn’t get credit for the first brew I drank and by the time I realized it, I couldn’t buy any more brews from the vendor.

There have been a couple of posts about this on the forums but I feel like my particular complaint has been over shadowed by the usual climate of hate and selfishness on the forums. Namely, I don’t care about the meta-achievement or the violet drake or any of that. I just want the title.

The blues say they’re happy that some achievements take time, some take luck and some take a certain character level. I’m ok with that, in fact I think some achievements should be harder than they are. Gives people a sense of acomplishment. I don’t think, however, that people who’ve spent the time and tokens on the brew of the month membership card should be slighted based on the fact that the achievement system wasn’t put into effect soon enough.

Here’s my solution: Let people with the brew of the month membership card buy any brew from the past year from the brew of the month vendor. It’s simple, still rewards effort and time spent, and doesn’t diminish the achievement in the least.

I don’t usually get upset about things I can’t control in this game. Nerfs, buffs, patches etc. just don’t get to me (after all, you can always infect the earth with a life ending virus). But today? Today I’m devastated.

Nim

Conceptions of the Hunter Class

Let me first say, I like hunters. Well over 50% of the active members of my guild are hunters. Well over 50% of the good friends I have in WoW are hunters. My second highest character is a hunter.

Having thus disclaimered, let’s have at it.

Hunters drive me batty. Do you remember Othello? The game, not the tragedy.

“A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.”

I think the number one reason hunters have such a bad rep in groups is the fact that there is such a disconnect between solo play vs. group play. When you’re soloing a hunter, you’re the party. You heal, you tank, you dps. They get it in their heads that they don’t need anyone else. A hunter friend of mine never quits with the “my pet could totally tank as well as you.” Then they join a party and suddenly become a caster.

Someone made the point that, with so many hunters around, there’s a better chance you get the bad ones. I completely agree. Same goes for DK’s. I used to see the same thing a lot with rogues too.

Speaking of rogues, what’s with the feign death and the vanish? I guess it makes sense and I’d probably do it if I could, but it just rubs me wrong. Seems selfish somehow.

Hunters also have unholy amounts of things they have to remember before ever showing up for the instance:

• DPS pet
• Growl off (please)
• ammo
• bandages
• potions
• buff food
• pet food
• mana drink

That’s probably not even the complete list.

The longer I ponder, the less this post becomes about bad hunters (I refuse to use the popular term) and more about good hunters. I might even be making excuses for the poor guys.

I do appreciate a good hunter. I happen to know a few.

I apologize that this post is so disjointed but I really wanted to get some of my immediate reactions to Sy’s post down before I forgot them.

So in closing, I give you Nim’s advice on being not a bad hunter.

1. Bring ammo.
2. Bring a DPS pet, with growl turned off.
3. If we wipe, run your lazy butt back with us. We could use aspect of the pack.
4. Use misdirect, lots.
5. Autoshot + tab targeting can get you in serious trouble.
6. Focus fire.
7. Learn to trap.

That’s it.

Nim

Edit: No more consumable ammo? Well there goes that excuse. Back to hating hunters I guess…

*waves goodbye to profits from Mammoth Cutters*

Misconceptions of the Hunter Class, Or an Unfortunate Truth…

That folks is how you write a title. That’s gotta be worth something, even if the rest of this post falls apart, you can all say, “hey, that Sy, he can write a mean title!” . . .

So, anyway, moving past the “Rocky and Bulwinkle”esque title, this topic is something I have been thinking about. I’ve been looking around the interwebs, readingup on some hot points surrounding hunters in general. I then did some further reading, delving into the things that us hunters do wrong.

So, before writing this post, I threw a question out to the Twitter Community. I asked, “What are some of the things hunters are known for, good and bad.”  These are a few of the responses I received.

dechion @Sylus “the biggest is that hunters don’t play well in a group setting. That and how easy the class is to play (but not to play well)”

sparklymegz @Sylus“One word, two syllables… Huntard.”

sparklepipsi @Sylus“I think the standard procedure is to assume someone is a LOLHUNTARD until proven otherwise “

dotcomlarry @Sylus“Always thought of them as lazy and careless about their pets pulling”

Snarktopus @Sylus“very easy to play, good for powerlevelers. doesn’t require any skill or thought. also good for soloers.”

And Our Guildie Slig even threw in her two copper’s worth:

gamedame @Sylus“Huntards in groups and ninja-ing, selfish solo players.”

So, to recap, all of these people see a few key issues that they see commonly among hunters. The first being that we are all huntards. I think most of the other things people pointed out are merely the descriptors of what makes a “huntard.” I use this term lightly, as I hate the term, and it’s one I have fought hard against. So, lets take a minute to address the individual symptoms of a huntard.

First, let me hit the comment about the hunter class being very easy to play. Well, it can be a VERY easy class to play. It’s so easy to not worry about learning all of the mechanics, andjust sendyour pet after the mob,and stand back while shooting a few arrows while you go get a cup of coffee, or a juice box, age dependent. The problem with this is it is just good for solo play. You put yourself in a group situation for the first time…say Wailing Caverns, and have no clue about trap mechanics, pet aggro generation, i.e. cower, growl, pet mechanics in general, i.e. passive, defensive,and aggressive, then you are doomed to fail, and continue the evil stereotype for all hunters to come… So yes, hunters can be very easy to play. Hunters also have a crap ton of things built into their class that can make them very complicated to play. Granted, not the most complicated class in the game, but definitely deeper than the average “huntard” is willing to dig.

Okay, sliggy(AKA Gamedame), really, digging on hunters being the “Ninja” class? Okay, we have our fair share of those, but lets face it, EVERY class has their fair share of Ninja-looting-no-good-peices-of-trash! I won’t go naming some that are on my BAN list on my server, but man is it tempting!

Now, Good Ol’ Larry made a good point. Alot of hunters, and I mean alot of hunters, are not very familiar with certain instance pulls. Ones that require you to keep your pet with you for a few minutes, while the tank drags the mobs where they need to be. I’ve seen, and unfortunately been a part of, putting the pet on the kill mob, only to find that hey, that blind corner there, yeah, group of mobs right on the other side…The conversations goes something like this:

“Group”

“yeah Gozzy?”

Um, meet our new friends.”

“What friends?”

Yeah, those four guys beating on the healer, say hi for me.”

FD…

Well, someone has to live to rez people,lol. (Hunter Engineer Rez FTW) No, really, I’ve never hit the Feign Death button to let the group wipe. I have unfortunatly had my pet pull aggro when I didn’t know the layout of the instance. Meh, it happens. Not alot, but for some, alot more than others. Throw some gold in the ol’ guild bank for the mistake, and move on. (Our guild goof-up insurance)

So, yes, there are HORRIBLE hunters out there, but there are a few good ones intermingled earning the bad rap for all of those “huntards.” So, you’re asking yourself…am I a huntard? Well, lets hope not. But, if you suspect you are, I have a few helpful sights out there for you. The first Is bigredkitty.net. BRK is a treasure-trove of hunter information, delivered in a humorous way. In fact, we have several other hunter blogs linked on our sidebar. Take some time, get to know some of the hunter community members, and don’t be afraid. Ask questions. I don’t want to speak for everyone else in the hunter community, but I know I want to help fight back the inner-huntard in all of us. So, even if you feel intimidated by leaving a question for the BRK, shoot me a line. I’ll help out the best I can, and if I can’t, I’ll point you in the right direction!

So, either this post was a massive waste of your time, as the [wall of text] crit me for about 18k…or you are now well on your way to fighting those steriotypes. Get to it hunters. Make us proud!

Oh, one more thing, I used the wonderful app Twitter to round up the comments on this post. If you want to follow me on twitter, you can find me at www.twitter.com/sylus . I update regularly, and would love for you to say hi!

~Uncle Sy

Reason Number Next, Why I Hate Sy

Cenarion War Hipporgriph.

Props to Pie for the post title, I totally bogarted it.

 EDIT: and TIER 7 Gloves.

Fikkle

May the Horde be with you.

Earn your Brownie Points Boy Scout!

Nimrock from The Wow Commoner and I were talking on vent the other day while destroying baddies on separate ends of Azeroth. He was telling me about a few new players he has adopted as his “noobs.” They come to him with questions, he provides simple answers that get straight to the point, and don’t involve a ton of explanation and theory crafting.  I was quite proud of Nimmy. Taking on a huge task of being someones go-to-guy when there is no one else to go to.

I have taken up the gauntlet, and following in Mr. Nimrock’s footsteps I have found my own little nublit. I don’t want to throw his name out here, that might be a bit embarrassing, and no one likes for everyone to know you are a nublit. Truth be told, we were all nublits at one point, some still more of a nub than others!(if you could see me now, sitting in my computer chair, with my hand high in the air, you would all know I have my nublit moments.) My new player, that terminology sounds so much better than nublit….oh well, Imma call him a nublit! My nublit came to me one day wandering the streets of Orgrimmar asking for enchants. He wasn’t begging for gold, he wasn’t yelling in trade chat where is this, where is that, help me, help me help me…He was being polite. Courteous if you will in his approach. He was a lowly level 17 troll hunter, rolling around with a shiny orange pet raptor at his side. I thought to myself, maybe he’s going to be twinkling at lvl 19 for a while, or maybe he has a main, and this is just a goof around toon. Something. He didn’t come across in his speaking as a nublit. This was good. I asked him what enchants he would be needing, and I linked my list of chants for him via a private tell. He invited me to party, so we continued our conversation about enchants. I then realized he had no clue about  them. I gave him a basic run down of what enchants were, how one gets the materials for enchanting, and a brief summary of why it wasn’t worth paying the high price for enchants when one levels through gear so fast at lower levels. ( I should have listened to my own speech there, my lowbie rogue is costing me a fortune, but she likes her shiny’s!)

After this I decided, heck, my main is a hunter, lets see what gear he is wearing. Then it hit me, okay this guy doesn’t know what gear to be getting…He was at least getting gear, most of his armor was within one to two levels of where he was at the time. The problem though, was the stats he was picking up. He had several pieces with spirit and strength on them. I spent some time telling him about stats, and what stats are good for a hunter to get on his gear.  I then asked about his play history, how long he had been playing the game, what other toons he had, and realized I had the perfect candidate. I had my own little nublit, who was eager to learn the information, and wanted to learn it, but had always been shot down in trade channel.

The trade channel is the devil for nublits. The Devil Bobby. If you have a “noob” question, never, and I can’t stress that enough, NEVER  ask a noob question in trade channel. That’s another post all in itself, in fact, I’m writing that topic idea down…..Okay, I’m back.

The past two days, as I have logged in to check auctions, send mats to people, etc, there he was, asking me questions. This is a good thing. When I started playing Wow, I had a good friend who was playing right along side me, and already had a high level toon that helped me get started. he didn’t hold my hand, and coddle me along, but was there for questions and to the point explanations. Everyone needs a wow buddy like this. If I can be this to that one person, and then when he grows up to be “uberleet” and takes on a nublit of his own, then together we will all be building up the wow community as a whole.

This is my challenge Wow Community. Take on a nublit, teach it in the ways of the force…wait, wrong reference, train him up to defend the Horde at all costs. ( We all know you Alliance out there don’t care about the nublits….just kidding!) So get out there, help out a nublit, don’t be an enabler, show them where to find answers as well, teach them to learn for themselves, and together we will strengthen our numbers!

World of Warcraft Reaches New Milestones!

Thank you all for playing world of Warcraft, the most popular MMO to date. Due to our awesome marketing department, and our extreme love of money, we have added more players to our community, bringing wow subscribers to 11.5 Million!!! What this means to you, the loyal subscriber, is after we have offered you server transfers, to BRAND NEW servers, we are going to make it the recommended realm!!! Congratulations! Enjoy your Que, I mean stay!

Okay, so maybe that was harsh, but seriously, Q times on a brand new server? Thanks guys. Sorry if I am in a bitter mood today, but the authentication server is down, along with a whole slew of servers. But really folks, what does it matter what servers are down, if noone can authenticate to get to our “up” server??? Okay, I better go watch TV.
Bitter for the moment,
~Sy

I HAZ SPIRIT!!!!

SPIRIT BEAST THAT IS!!!!!!

All Win Baby! Now to name her…..

~Sy

My First Northrend Instances

Seriously. It has been a very very crazy month folks. My classes have gotten out of hand busy, my family has had so many get togethers( everyone’s birthdays are in November and December) and I’ve been getting more substitute teaching gig’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Crazy. Just Crazy. Needless to say, my wow playtime has been minimal.

With all of that out of the way, I’ll update you on my toons. Our guild made a mass exodus to Dawnbringer server. We all had the “Que Blues” due to huge login waits right after Wrath was released. The worst I ever suffered was an hour and a half. It SUCKED. If anyone is looking for us on Cenarian Circle, sorry, you won’t find us. Abadon, my hunter, is back to his original name- Gozz. He was Gozz way back in his Earthen Ring days. Gozz is up to almost 76. He lacks almost 6 bubbles to hit the mark. Sylus, is still sitting at 70, but, I did get him to Borean Tundra to work on his Leatherworking. He’s 415ish. Gozz, being a skinner, can send him all of the mats and Sy can pump out the goods. My Priest, who use to be known as Illwynd, is now Kohen, and is healing instances in Northrend. He lacks a few bubbles from 70, but is rocking the heals.

Kohen went into Utgard Keep and Nexus last night. It was a blast. The first group we brought in was Kohen healing, Nimrock tanking, with Rayha, Slig, and Kam (all guildies) rounding out the DPS. We hit a few snags (I’m blaming the fact that I went in healing my very first instance as a healer, and I was only lvl 69. We wiped once each on the first two bosses in Utgard, and from what I had heard about the last boss, I was worried we wouldn’t get through the instance. We DESTROYED the final boss, with no deaths in the group. I attribute that to everyone making great use of the pillars, and a sweet healer to boot.

The Nexus was just as fun. We only wiped once, and it was due to bad timing of the rifts on the first boss. Other than that, it was smooth. I got a pair of boots I can’t wear for one more level, but hey, I got em. That group was Kohen healing, Nimrock tanking, Rayha, Slig, and Vulgore rounding out the DPS. All in all a great first two experiences in Northrend instances. Also, great first time healing experience for me! I think I’m going to level Kohen in instances from here to 80. That way I don’t have to worry about questing. He’s pretty much a healbot anyway.

I did get a sweet screen shot of Utgard as we were heading back to the entrance after the last boss went down. It’s now my background on my gaming rig. Enjoy. With that, I have to get to class. I’m already late, but oh well, I needed to talk to you all! Have fun, and I’ll try to keep this updated a bit more!

Beautiful View

~Sy

First Impressions

Okay, sorry this is so late! I not only have had the busiest week I have had in ages, but I also spent the ENTIRE weekend SICK! Not just normal “hey I don’t feel so good” sick, we’re talking DESTROYING MY BODY sick. I lost almost 15 lbs in 3 days, woot-diggity. I’ve been thinking about loosing some weight, maybe this could be my big launch party… no pun intended.

So, I didn’t really get to play Abadon until last night. Howling Fjord is full of win. I’m about 5 bubbles from 71, and loving the quests. I’m taking my time, reading all of the quests, and getting a good feel for how things are here in Northrend. Personally I like the new feel to everything. Items look rougher, more tangible. Armor looks mean; like it could actually take a hit! The bad guys look, well, bad! I love the way everything is so far, I admit I have a very long way to go, and will keep you all posted.

Everyone knows I was pretty anti-death knight at first. Everyone will have one, everyone will do everything they can to get their death knight to 80, blah, blah, blah. I rolled a death knight…go figure. I have to say, it only took a few hours to get through the starting quest-line, and I must say, it is one of the most epic feeling quest chains in the game. I love the interaction with your environment, the npc’s and the Lich King. The final scene, at light hope’s chapel is EPIC. The conversation drives the action, and the lore is AWESOME! Wow, I did that with minimal spoilers for those of you that haven’t done this yet(FIKKLE).  So, my Death Knight is done with the starter quests, and is now standing around in Orgrammar, where he probably will be for some time to come. I have a Hunter, Rogue, and Priest that all have the gleam of 80 in their eyes!

I’ll keep you all up to date on my slow lvling I have going, and maybe, if you all ask nicely, Fikkle will tell you all how he is doing Powering through to 80. If I remember right, he’s 77 as of today on his shammy! Grats Fik-man, Grats!

~Sy