Farewell

I know what you're thinking..."You already quit once!! WTF?!" Well probably not, but a guy can dream can't he? Regardless, I'm not quitting...I've made the move to wordpress and my new blog address is Hunters, Inc. The first five people to update their links (are there even 5 of you?!) get a free post request and I'll post about whatever topic you request (well...maybe not any) and you'll also recieve!!! my eternal gratitude. Look forward to seeing you all at my new home, that is still under construction so bear with me. Take care and happy hunting!!

Just So You Know

If I'm not mistaken my cable internet service is going to be interrupted against my wishes in the near future so I'll be unable to play WoW or post. I'm hoping this doesn't happen, but I just wanted to warn everyone in the event that it does. I'll try and get everything back in order ASAP if it does happen, which shouldn't be long. After the first of the year at the most.

On Kiting, Zul'Aman & Gear Upgrades

I had one of the best instance runs in my WoW career the other night. It was almost as much fun as the time I went to Shattered Halls and the Ret pally was tanking and healing. This time we were in Shadow Labs, yes I'm still trying to get the Sonic Spear. The group makeup wasn't ideal by any means. Fury warrior tanking, two enhancement shamans healing, my wife's mage and myself. What made the run so great was the attitude of everyone in the group. Rather than bickering about who caused who to die, and no it wasn't a wipefest, we just resed the dead and moved on. Attitude makes a big difference when grouping. If you're in a group full of pissed of people, it's going to make the run seem to drag on and eventually you'll be in a bad mood too. At one point the tank dced and we had a 3 man pull left before the first boss. After a brief discussion, we decided that I was going to tank the pull. Mage sheeped on, I trapped one and kited the other while the shammy's healed/dpsed it down. The tank came back in the middle of the pull and was laughing when he saw that we had pulled and weren't dropping like flies. Then we aggroed the boss before we were ready so that wasn't as fun. We managed to get him down with no deaths though so it wasn't all bad. Then we got to the auditorium pulls and I accidentally broke my own trap (I'm my own worst enemy sometimes) and trap still had 2about 15 seconds to go so I decided to kite this one as well. I almost died, but one of the shaman's threw a heal my way as I ran past with the mob trailing. It made my day when the tank said that he forgot there were actually good hunters out there. I've certainly been called much worse. After that I was assigned a kiting target on the rest of the pulls. I love kiting! It's not something you can just pick up and start doing right away, it takes skill and demonstrates that a hunter at least has a firm grasp on their abilities. Now I just need to learn how to double trap when the un-break it.

Zul'Aman...Zul'Gurub's pissed off little brother. Went for the first time last night, and it was interesting to say the least. RF has only gotten to the bear boss, but we haven't focused on ZA due to the fact that we are trying to progress further into SSC. It is definitely more challenging than Kara, but still fun. We had a few wipes clearing to the bear boss, and wiped 3 times on the boss himself, but once we moved some people around and got a rhythm established we burned him down without a problem...which leads me to my rant...

Does anyone remember before TBC was released, and when you got your tier armor the only thing you upgraded it with was the next set of tier armor or nothing at all? WTF happened to that?! I know the loot in ZA is supposed to be better than the loot in Kara, it's a harder raid, of course it's going to yield better drops. The drops should not be on par with T4 in my opinion. My T4 shoulders, fully gemmed and enchanted are only slightly better than [Pauldrons of Primal Fury], which means as soon as I slap some gems on them and get the
[Greater Inscription of Vengeance] applied to them they'll blow my T4 out of the water. I'm not happy about it, and I wasn't happy that they made me take them either...they were an upgrade for the other hunter as well, but when I said I didn't want to break up my t4 gear I was told to "Get over it, you're going to have to break the set up sooner or later.", and later I shall...when I get my t5 shoulders...

/rant off

Take care and happy hunting!

A Hunter Born

DISLAIMER: This is a work in progress, changes will be made, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure the format is entirely correct. My creative writing/english class days are far behind me. If successful I will more than likely make a separate blog so as not to "clutter" this one. Here is the prologue and the very beginning of Chapter 1. Enjoy and feedback is highly encouraged.

Prologue: A Father's Wishes

The bulky wooden armor seemed to hinder every attempt to parry the rather large, albeit wooden greatsword constantly battering him. Frustration and fatigue were taking their steady toll in sweat and bruises as well. The helm slipping down over his eyes effectively blinding him was more than he could take. Disgusted, he threw his own wooden sword on the ground at his father's feet, only to be rewarded with a swift rap on the top of the head. "Stop!" he cried out in anger. His father's laughter only fueled his anger further. "What seems to be the problem, Aerislan?"
"I can't even defend myself in this armor! Why can't I just wear leather or mail armor?" he asked almost sulkily. "Because leather armor is for druids and shiftless rogues." a grin spreading across the elder night elf's angular features. Might as well be running around in one of those fancy dresses those haughty mages in Stormwind are so fond of."
"You left out gnomes and dwarves."
"Dwarves are noble creatures, a bit too uncivilized for my taste, but noble nonetheless. I'd rather not discuss the matter of gnomes. Always meddling in things that are better left alone, and the fall of Gnomeregan is more than proof of that fact, son. Besides how do you expect to battle the Horde without a sturdy suit of armor and a sharp blade, my petulant offspring." Aerislan's scowl intensified as he met his father's eyes. "There are such things as short swords and axes, father. Maybe I'll even use a bow, or a gun! Not these ungainly over sized greatswords you are so fond of." he said thinking the argument won. "I'll have none of that foolish talk from you, Aerislan. You're to become a Darnassian Sentinel and make something of yourself. I'll not have you guarding some half-forgotten hovel like our dear old Astranaar!" his father's voice had taken on a very somber, yet almost sorrowful tone. "You'll not suffer the same fate as I, Aerislan. I'll not have it." he said, almost at a whisper. "If you like, we'll forget about training tomorrow and you can go to Dolanaar to get the food and supplies for the week."
"I'm sorry father. I didn't mean to upset you." Aerislan said in a sincere voice, tinged with pity. "I might even turn a blind eye to the fact that you'll probably stop and visit with Celesx." his father said with a wink. The shocked look on his face betrayed the lie he struggled to form, and was promptly cut off by his father's laughter. "I've seen the way you float around the house after returning, and I've heard you whisper her name a time or two. Don't be embarassed, she's a comely lass, but I'll have your hide for boot leather if you tell your mother I said so. Take off your amor and go wash up, it's almost time for supper anyway."
He hastily extracted himself from the cumbersome armor and stowed it along with the pair of makeshift swords in the small lean-to shed on the side of the cottage and rushed inside to eat and go to bed, anxious to be off to Dolanaar at first light.

Chapter 1: A Son's Decision

He was already sitting at the table eagerly awaiting breakfast when his father and mother walked into the small kitchen. His mother arched an eyebrow in his direction as she entered, turning her gaze towards her husband. "Arenthal, dear, would you happen to know why our son, who usually has to be rolled out of bed on most mornings is sitting at the table looking as if he had wings he'd have already taken flight?" she asked in an amused tone. Arenthal chuckled and replied "Well, dearest Kiralin, I may have promised the boy..."
"I'm just as old as you were when you joined the guard!" Aerislan said indignantly. "Hush you!" Arenthal continued. "I might have promised the boy that he could skip training today and go to Dolanaar to get supplies for the week." Kiralin pursed her lips together, "Making a stop along the way to visit with Celesx I presume." she stated in a humorous, yet questioning tone. Aerislan blushed, betraying his intentions and suddenly found something outside the solitary window of the kitchen very interesting. His mother laughed, placing a hand on her husband's forearm. "He's almost as bad as you were when you began trying to catch my attention Arenthal."

Happy Feet

I liked the penguin better when he was young...moving on. Someone didn't show up for their spot in Kara 1 last night, so I get to fill in. I wasn't even on the standby list due to being out of town on business earlier in the week. I get a whisper specifically stating they want me in the raid. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Until the raid starts anyway. It seems oRA2 has a cooldown monitor. Said cooldown monitor is bugged and did nothing aside from the fact that it kept me from being able to target anything in the middle of my screen. So my misdirects were a little slow on the Nightbane fight and 2 people died as a result. At this point I didn't realize the CD monitor was the problem. We wiped once due to a healer dieing (not my fault that time...I don't think) and got him with no problems the second attempt and I finally got my [Ferocious Swift-Kickers]. It's nice being the only hunter in attendance sometimes. Now that I think about it though, of all the drops I've ever gotten I think only one was actually rolled on by someone else. The rest were just given to me because no one else needed them, which is 100% fine by me. Default drops ftw! Sorry...I made the coffee a little strong this morning. We moved on to Shade, where I got 1-shotted by his arcane explosion right off the bat. He sucked us all in, I dropped snake trap (took a little too long in doing so) and started towards the wall. I was just about to turn to get Anthies out of range of the blast when it went off and dropped me like a rock. I think I took in the neighborhood of 14k damage. It hurt...a lot. Eventually I got battle resed and we downed him. I managed to get [Drape of the Dark Reavers], once again no one else needed. I almost didn't take it because I already had [Blood Knight War Cloak], but I decided it was worth losing the small amount of AP in order to get the +hit. After all, what good is 2k AP and 26% crit if you can't hit anything. After shade we did Chess, Prince, Netherspite and Illhoof. Wiped once on Illhoof and 1-shotted everything else. We had awesome infernal drops on prince, for once. After we finished I used my badges to get the [Choker of Vile Intent] and then chased enchants and gems all over the place. Luckily my mount fund didn't take too big a hit and was able to replace the gold spent with sold auctions on my bank alt. My fury warrior is coming along nicely as well. I decided to bench krieger for the time being because I have a hard enough time keeping up with 1 hunter, and I've always wanted a melee dps class (that isn't a rogue). I'm also kicking around the idea of starting a "blog novel" or "blogel" if you will. I've got the prelude written and a few ideas for how I want the first chapter to turn out, just not sure if I want to go public with it yet. It's basically Aerislan's grind in story form, but with more of a static plot than just rambling about the quests he did. If I get enough requests for the first chapter I'll post it and you guys can tell me what you think. For now, a piece of advice: Never pet a burning dog. Happy hunting and take care!

Sorry about the lack of posts

Just wanted to let you guys know that I've been really busy with work and family as of late, and that I haven't decided to stop posting again. I'll probably only be able to post once or twice a week for awhile, but I will post! I promise. Just a few minor updates, I got my t4 gloves last night in a mostly melee kara run, myself and a warlock were the only ranged DPS in the raid. It was awesome. I finally broke the 1k gold mark so only 4200g left to go until my epic flying mount! Had to work today, which kind of sucked, but I got an extra $100 for working on a holiday so I guess it wasn't all bad. Happy thanksgiving to everyone and I hope everyone that had to travel made it safe there and back again. Hope to post more once all the excitement dies down. Take care and happy hunting!

You are now Exalted with Your Wife

Went to Shadow Labs to help get one our guild's shaman alts the key fragment there, and hopefully get myself a shiny new [Sonic Spear]. The group makeup was interesting to say the least. Holy spec Paladin tank, 2 Enhancement Shammys, Resto Druid & myself. Fun times. There were so many totems my buff window was overflowing and had little mini buff icons all across the bottom...it was crazy. I was skeptic about how well the run would go due to the fact that I was the only official form of CC, but it actually went really well. We wiped twice on the "stadium seating" pulls just before the second boss, but it was due to the randomly spawning assassins that populate that part of the zone, not bad pulls. If you ever want to amaze a group as a hunter, kite a mob while chain trapping another. Just don't die like I did. The boss fights were surprisingly easy. Hellmaw went down after only 2 fears, Blackheart the Inciter only got 2 MC's off before dying, Vorpil ported to the center and made it about 6 feet before he died & Murmur actually managed to kill our tank, but the 2 fire elementals summoned by the shammy's quickly finished the 3% health he had when this happened. The moral of the story is: If you have 2 enhancement shamans and they alternate their heroism and fire elementals, stuff is going to die, very quickly. It was probably the most fun I've had on an instance run, aside from the fact that Murmur decided to keep his spear. Loot whore.

Oh yeah, this post is supposed to be about my exalted wife faction. Got sidetracked. While we were clearing trash right after Blackheart, [Pattern: Girdle of Ruination] dropped and I won the roll. I thought Mrs. B3 already had this pattern, so naturally I couldn't stop hearing the sound of gold falling into my lap for the rest of the run. It sells for around 1200g on my server. A very nice dent in the cost of my epic flying mount. Once the run was finished I decided to double check and make sure she had the pattern before putting it on the AH. She didn't have it and got all giddy and excited when she found out it dropped for me, then went back to watching Grey's Anatomy. She comes back 10 minutes later and tells me that she would rather I sell the pattern because she didn't want me to give it to her just because we're married (I know a trap when I hear one), and that she wouldn't allow me to just give it to her for nothing since it sold for so high. So I wrestled with the idea of going ahead and selling it, then decided to COD it to her, for 1g. I did tease her and tell her that she might want to see how much gold she had on all her alts and mail it to her mage, so she still thinks I COD'd it for some ridiculously high amount, but I think she'll be happy with the price when she finally checks her mail. Now I just have to find the Wife Quartermaster and see what I can buy with all this rep...

FUBAR (and not the addon)

So I was going to make a post about gear upgrades, but umm, I got about halfway through it and realized that almost every bit of the html code I typed got messed up somehow. Also, it's considerably easier, and less confusing to whoever is reading this for me to direct you to this site, Kaliban's Loot List. Simply select your class and then choose between instance/quests, reputation rewards, pvp, arena, etc. and it will give you suggestions in a way better format than what I attempted with the original version of this post. I guess it's too early in the morning for me to try and do anything requiring a major expenditure of brain power...Anyway, hope this helps and sorry for cheating

The Explanation & Rebirth...

The blog is now reopened. I had originally decided to close the blog due to the fact that I got frustrated with not having enough time to commit to writing/playing WoW, and then I find out that my grandmother on my mom's side of the family passed away. I basically got overwhelmed and decided it would be easier to close the blog. I've decided to reopen it for the simple fact that it lets me see how I'm progressing with Aeris. The lack of comments shows it didn't exactly strike a devastating blow to the blogging community as a whole, but then again it's not like I'm channeling Shakespeare or Henry David Thoreau with this thing anyways. I did say that I would make a post regarding what I feel are easily attainable upgrades for pre-70 to 70 hunters that don't require heroic keys or raids to obtain, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. It's late and I've got a headache so I'm going to bed. To those of you who do read this, thanks for the support and maybe the overall quality of the blog will improve. Take care, and happy hunting.

Sorry...

This Blog is now closed indefinitely

Allow Me To Elaborate

I'm sure you've already seen the new BRK Movie post, but there is something I want to point out something that I myself have overlooked, and I'm sure many other hunters have as well.

The first time Shade pulls the raid in to him and BRK & Hobbes run to the wall to avoid the Arcane Blast, he states that he turns clockwise in order to keep Hobbes out of the blast radius. I've never really considered pet positioning to that extent. Granted, your pet is always going to be within arms reach of you unless you order it to attack a target or stay for whatever reason, but if you turn one way or the other your pet will switch which side it stands on. I can't even begin to think how many times I would have been saved the trouble of resurrecting my pet after a particularly nasty AoE attack.

With the new patch, if the rumors are true, your pet will automatically position itself behind your selected target. This will keep your pet from taking damage from a mob's "frontal attacks", Doom Lord Kazzak's cleave attack is a good example of this, but I've never considered positioning myself to the side or even behind a target when possible to avoid these effects. The fact that BRK does it out of reflex only serves to demonstrate to me that I still don't know all there is to know about being a hunter. However, I'm happy with the fact. The day I know everything there is to know about being a hunter is the day I stop having fun being a hunter...I might have to roll a lock (/shudder) or something. Anthies and I both thank you, BRK, and Anthies more than me I'm sure.

This One's For You Pike!

The fish in the picture is a pike, yay for visual jokes!! On with the post...

Here's what I think:


- Everytime I read the patch notes for the next big patch, it feels like reading WoW for Dummies

- If you are going to argue and complain about a class being OP, play that class then see how OP you think it is.

- Hunters should be able to tame a mount. Locks & Pallies can summon theirs, and druids get flight form. Why can't we get a quest to tame a mount?!

- The gold rewards from daily quests should increase with your reputation. According to Shat'ari Skyguard I'm an "ace pilot that's never been shot down" but still haven't gotten a pay raise. WTH?!

- Rolling another hunter was a really good idea, I forgot how much fun I had grinding Aerislan to 70.

- Everyone should at least know a small amount of the WoW Lore, it helps you feel like you're doing something besides trying to get gear so you can laugh at people with crappy gear

- Anyone that purchases a level 70 character and then acts like they know everything about that class and WoW in general should have their computer dropped on their head from a very high altitude...twice.

- If Blizzard really wants to stop gold farmers from selling gold they should get together with the IRS and find a way to tax it, then nail them for tax evasion.

- There should be an aptitude test every 10 levels to make sure you actually learned something.

- Getting my ass handed to me in PvP and knowing that it was probably a 12 year old kid that did it makes me feel like my dad must have when I used to beat his high scores on Tetris on Game Boy (the big one with the green screen..old school)

- I ran out of stuff to say...

So that's what I think...hope you liked it! I'll try and fill some of the other requests soon, work has been draining the life out of me the last few days, but it will get to them. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Take care and happy hunting!

Just Wondering

I know I've stated that I write this blog mainly for myself, but at the same time I want people that read it to be entertained. So I was hoping I could get some feedback from those of you that read it on a regular basis. What would you like to see on the blog? More "How To" posts (I know I'm no BRK, but I know a trick or two), want to know what addons I swear by, my mother's maiden name, etc. I'm going to work on posting more as well, but the main reason I haven't is because I'm pretty sure reading about me doing daily quests and then going to bed would get old fast. Anyway...go crazy with the suggestions, invite your friends, and I'll see what I can do to make your stay a little more comfortable

So That's What Gruul Looks Like...

In case you haven't already figured it out, I went on my first Gruul's Lair raid last night. Nothing really exciting happened, unless you count me getting my tier 4 shoulders, which coincidently is also the first piece of tier anything I've ever gotten. It was awesome, I was a little confuse on the Maulgar pull because I've never had to hold aggro on a mob while everyone else was alive, but thanks to my awesome class leader and fellow hunters all was explained and we killed him and his lackeys. Gruul's was a very fun fight, had 2 wipes and downed him on the third try with only 2 or 3 deaths i think. Here's a pic of me in my super uber new shoulders:

The Results Are In...

And the respec is a success!! At least in my opinion, and no complaints from the guildmates either. I started a post about what happened in a heroic UB group, in which I successfully kite/tanked 3 mobs (one at a time, thank Elune for multiple CC's) and more impressively kite/tanked the druid boss with the help of an extremely skilled paladin healing. Mrs. B3 was in the group as well and let's just say I showed her things she never thought possible of a hunter. (Just imagine if I was BM spec...). I'm sure I could have accomplished similar feats with my MM build, but nowhere near as easily. Went to Kara the next night, took Moroes down in 2 tries, but more importantly not once in the ENTIRE raid did I hear anyone comment on my traps being loose, except that time the lock doted one, but he was beaten severely about the head and shoulders by the other raiders and promptly swore to never do it again. Went back to Kara last night to take down Prince and Illhoof. Prince was a 1-shot, Illhoof was a 2 shot due to our priest being sacrificed twice in a row. Now that we're all on the same page again, the spec and the changes I've noticed:

-I'm a crit monster now, self-buffed I have almost 26% crit chance, higher crits, more crits, and more DPS from the pet with Kill Command.
-I don't sit at the bottom of the damage meters anymore, I'm usually in 3rd or 4th in raids & 2nd or 3rd in 5-mans.
-More health means less having to run around screaming when I aggro the critters (yanno the lvl 1 rats/spiders/roaches/frogs/etc...that's a joke btw) and I can actually take damage from the mobs without dying in 3 hits.
-Not having Silencing Shot or the bigger mana pool has forced me to rethink my general playstyle, so I'm more inclined to kite/joust mobs when I get aggroed instead of just die, and I have more flexibility when it comes to my traps so I use them more as well.

All in all, I am fairly happy with the build and will more than likely keep it for awhile, but if I do respec again it's going to be BM, I've wanted to try it for awhile now, but haven't been able to justify the respec to my class leader. Take care and happy hunting!!

Random Updates

The most notable of these being my recent respec. Before you crucify me or try to pull my hunter license, remember it's my character and I'll spec as I please. I am more than willing to accept constructive criticism, but I'll happily delete any comments along the lines of, "You're a freaking retard, that spec is stupid!", and so on. Now on with the post! I've decided to give this spec a try to see if it increases my functionality in a raiding situation. If it doesn't I'll respec again. If it does, I'll keep it for awhile. No other really exciting changes, Temoa is almost level 40 and I've made another hunter, Kreiger. I plan to level my new dwarf hunter full BM just to see how much different it is than leveling a MM hunter. So far so good, he's only level 8 at the moment, but I've been busy with raiding, dailies and such.

On an entirely different note, I'd like to highlight a very interesting Blog I've been reading as of late. Saber Squadron, is about a team of hunters being 5-boxed by 1 person. The blog chronicles their advancement from level 1, as well as techniques and other info on how to multi-box multiple characters. Interesting stuff, and something I don't think I could ever do. Check it out if you get a chance.

That about sums it up, I'll post again when I have more to report. Until then, take care and happy hunting!

Casual Farming (No gold farmers were harmed in the making of this blog)

Money may not make the world go round, but if definitely greases the wheels. Hunters are probably one of the most expensive classes in the game, so financial burden is a problem I see often in the hunter community. Here is my first attempt at an informative blog, rather than rambling on about my misadventures all the time.

One of the best ways I've found to make money is daily quests, It takes me no more than an hour and a half a day to complete the 6 daily quests that I have unlocked, and it nets me about 70g plus another 10-15g from trash drops and leather I acquire in the process of completing them. In order to unlock the daily quests in Ogri'la you will need a 5 man group to complete the quests to unlock the dailies, but all 4 of the quests can be done in about an hour with a solid group. The link will tell you where to get the quests to unlock the dailies.

Another way I make money rather successfully is farming the ravagers in Hellfire Peninsula for [Ravager Flesh] and leather. Southwest of Honor Hold is an area known as Razorthorn Trail, this area is covered in ravagers, both big and small. I usually don't even get off a full shot rotation before they die, so you should be able to kill them in mass numbers with very little effort. In 30 minutes of farming them I can usually net a full stack of [Ravager Flesh], full stack of [Knothide Leather Scraps] (LWers can use these to make knothide leather which sells for significantly more on the AH), about a half stack of [Knothide Leather], and they also drop [Fel Hide] and [Fel Scales] (a full stack of these sells for about 15-20g on my server), and I usually make about 4-5g off vendor trash. (If you don't have the AutoProfit addon I highly recommend it). The ravager meat is also used to make [Ravager Dog], a very nice stat food to keep on hand as a hunter.

Another good area to farm is the western edge of Zangarmarsh, where you can kill the basilisks and sporelings for meat and leather. The basilisks drop, you guessed it, [Chunk o' Basilisk] which can be turned into [Blackened Basilisk], I've seen stacks of the food on the AH for 5-10g so if you have a high enough cooking skill you can make the food or just sell the meat, of course they also drop your typical varieties of leather and vendor trash. The sporelings drop leather and 2 types of spores, we're going to focus on the [Strange Spores} because these are used in cooking to create [Sporeling Snack], the only stat food in the game for hunter pets (Anthies swears by them), granted they won't increase your pets happiness, but the extra stamina and spirit they provide is still nice to have.

These 2 areas should net you a decent amount of stuff to sell on the AH (provided you have skinning for the leather, but zangar is a good place for herbs too), mats to make stat & pet food which you can use yourself or sell on the AH as well, with a minimal amount of effort. Hope this helps and maybe in the near future I'll post some farming areas for those more enterprising hunters out there. Take care and happy hunting!

*I apologize for the white text on item links >.<

Karazhan: The Return

So I'm running around Netherstorm doing quests for gold (that [Swift Red Gryphon] isn't going to pay for itself you know) when I get a /w from the Raid Leader asking if I wanted to go to Karazhan. I informed him that I did not have the necessary consumables (if you'd like to know what I consider necessary post a comment and I'll post a list of what I take to raids), and he assured me that they could make an exception this once and he sent me an invite. WOOT! I'm back in Kara!! Bring on the purples!!

/dancecheeromgwtfbbq

We clear the trash to Attumen without a hitch, and down him without a problem. One of our tanks got the [Vambraces of Courage] that he had been after for quite some time, and I don't recall what the other drop was, pretty sure it was druid leather. Moving on...We clear to Moroes and set up to start the fight. The strategy we use is to keep 2 of the 4 adds CCed until Moroes is down, and kill the other 2. This means that the fight is very dependent on the hunter's ability to keep his/her target chain trapped & the priest to keep his/her target shackled. Do not make the mistake of assuming everyone in your raid understands the mechanics of chain trapping. After 2 pulls I had to explain to the tank that I needed to know at least 30 secs before the pull was to take place so that I would have enough time to lay my first trap and let the CD tick long enough to allow me to place my second trap before the first one expired. Once we got everyone on the same page the third pull was significantly better, but by no means perfect. I'm not sure what caused it, but my traps were being broken, thus taking away the time I needed between CD's to chain trap. My 2nd trap broke after about 10 seconds, leaving about 10 seconds of CD before I could place my next trap. I managed to Scatter Shot and buy myself the time needed to place another trap. 3rd trap breaks early and now my trap & scatter shot are both on CD, forcing me to kite him until one of my CD's finish. I managed to get a trap off right before dying and trapped him. Once that trap expired a tank picked up my mob and they finished the fight without another casualty. I still felt as though I had done a poor job of CCing, but was happy that they managed to down Moroes. [Idol of the Avian Heart] & [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch] dropped, priest took the idol and I think the watch was DE'd as all the tanks had it already. Next came Maiden, wiped on the first attempt downed her on the second. There was a rather heated argument over a pair of cloth bracers that dropped, but I was in the kitchen getting something to drink so I missed the bulk of it. We moved onto the Opera event and got Oz. I prayed for [Legacy] to drop, but was denied. We one shotted the event and received [Ruby Slippers] and some leather legs...We killed the philanthropists for some gold to ease the cost of repairs and called it a night...aside from the Moroes incident I don't think I did too bad. I'm hoping next time goes much better though. Take care and happy hunting!

The Hits Just Keep on Coming

I should probably go buy a lottery ticket considering all the good luck I've been having lately. This morning I asked if anyone in the guild wanted to do a BM run, and it just so happened a guildmate needed to finish off their Kara key quest chain, so a group was formed almost immediately. So far so good, we actually had more than enough people volunteer for the run (did I mention I love my new guild?) We zone into the instance, everyone grabs their beacon and we make short work of the wildlife that populates the zone so as not to have any unnecessary adds while we kill the dragonkin that spawn. The portals start opening and the mobs pour out and die shortly afterwards. Chrono Lord Deja appears, dies, and is rapidly forgotten about. Temporus decides to stick his head out of his portal, and has it promptly removed. I turn on AotV and have a sit to drink and regen mana when my wife asks me if I'm ever going to loot him. "Sure!" I reply and run to his corpse and right click him and am rewarded with [Hourglass of the Unraveller] OMG! I can finally replace my [Power Infused Mushroom]!! If memory serves me, it's the last thing I needed to upgrade to be allowed to raid Kara. I did remember the warrior saying that he was after the trinket as well, so I whispered him and asked him if he wanted to roll and he declined (awesome...he's getting a Christmas card this year) so I got it! WOOT! The rest of the run went off without a hitch and we got another guildie Kara keyed. Let's just hope the good luck continues in this fashion.

UPDATES!

So it's 12:54 am and I have to work tomorrow, but I can't sleep due to the incredibly uncomfortable head cold I seem to have developed, so I figured I'd chug a few cups of green tea (antioxidants and what-not) and tweak the blog some. After about 20 minutes of searching I finally found the BRK blog about Favicons & iFrames and decided to give the iFrames thing a whirl. After inserting the html in about 15 different places and causing my blog to look like I did it in the dark...with a hammer...I finally found the proper location for the code and am hoping I can get the link right so that you'll actually see the window pop-up when you mouse over item links (I'm not currently planning on updating previous item links for the record). So here goes...

I went on a regular Botanica run to help a guildie get rep for her heroic key and Warp Splinter decided to part with his [Jagged Bark Pendant] Now to save the changes and check to see if it worked...brb IT WORKS!! Sort of. The pop-up window didn't go away when I moved the mouse away from the link
back to the editing window. Modified the code, testing in 3,2,1:

/grumble

That didn't fix it, why you ask, because I deleted a letter in the code. Double check your code kids, the life you save could be yours. Saving and checking again. It works!! This does, however mean that I have to start linking items from Allakhazam (wth decided to spell it like that anyway...seriously) because I'm not quite fluent enough to figure out how to do it using Thottbot, but hey...I rolled a hunter, I like a challenge.

I received a whisper from the guild raid leader asking if I was interested in raiding shortly after the run and replied that I was still in the process of upgrading gear to meet raiding requirements. Then I got a whisper from the hunter class leader asking the same question. I told her the same thing and she said that she was going to look over my armory profile and we'd discuss my gear/talent spec/schedule and see about getting me into Karahzan. She also informed me that she was happy to see that I had a desire to improve & took an active interest in wanting to raid. Hunters in my guild seem to be a bit lax in my opinion, but then again I think most of them are alts. SO! I might just get to venture back into Kara and get my hands on some more gear in the very near future! Stay tuned & go check out The Hunter's Den and let Galamar know what you think and see if you've got any advice for him, he's very gracious when it comes to accepting criticism (he takes it from me and I'm a nobody). Take care and happy hunting!!

Beast Lord Leggings

Sorry no picture today...I'm sick and didn't feel like trying to find one. I'll update it later, maybe. Anyway! After my 147,332nd run through Steamvaults, Warlord Kalithresh finally decided to part with the pair of Beast Lord Leggings he's been holding for me! Pretty much the only thing left for me to do to get cleared for raiding is replace my Power Infused Mushroom with Hourglass of the Unraveller from the second boss in Black Morass. I've managed to get my unbuffed hp's up to 7k and my RAP (with AotH & TSA) is 198o, which is technically 20 points shy of what it needs to be, but I was told they'd make an exception since it's so close anyway. I'm still doing dailies and farming in the hopes that I'll get together enough gold for my first epic flying mount. I've thought about dropping skinning and picking up herbalism, but I doubt I will due to the fact that I really don't want to go through the same thing with herbalism as I did with mining (e.g. running around hinterlands for 2 hours and only getting 3 skill ups from mithril and truesilver ore). Off to work now, take care and happy hunting!

Anthies: A Tribute

Antheis (pronounced an-the-es), has been my pet for quite sometime now, long enough for me to forget how long it's been anyway. We've seen some pretty amazing stuff together, from Netherspite to that 63 hunter we saw in Hellfire Peninsula wearing Herod's Shoulder (no joke) among various other lvl 40 items. We even got in a rather heated argument with our best friend about why he was my primary pet. I finally won the argument when I explained why I chose this particular pet and named him Anthies.

A long time ago there was a game much like WoW, only you couldn't play it on a computer. Come to think of it, I didn't even own a computer back then. This game was played using massive amounts of notebook paper, calculators, a stack of books that would crush a minivan and dice. Some of the older generations might know this game, for you young'uns it was called AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons...go ahead and laugh, but it was still fun). Joey, a very good friend of mine, played a human warrior named, you guessed it, Anthies. Anthies suffered all kinds of misfortune at Joey's hands, yet he just wouldn't die, no matter what the DM threw at him. Joey unfortunately wasn't so lucky. About 2 years ago Joey was killed by a drunk driver a week before his 22nd birthday. He was like a brother to me and losing him devastated me and the rest of our circle of friends.

While questing in Terrokar Forest I recieved a quest to find and kill a wolf named Ironjaw. I tracked him down and immediately thought of Joey once I saw him. I'm not sure why, he just reminded me of him & Anthies. I killed him for the quest and then waited for him to respawn so I could tame him. I didn't use my normal trapping method of ice trapping then taming to avoid taking as much damage, because frankly Anthies never went quietly into anything, and after being reduced to about 25 hit points I got him and promptly named him. We've been together ever since.

He may not be the highest damaging pet, he may not be the coolest looking pet, but I think every time he gets a killing blow, Joey smiles and brags about how he is still the uberest gamer in history. He's just my way of immortalizing someone that changed my life, and the lives of everyone who came in contact with him, and I don't see him getting replaced any time soon...unless I can tame a dragonling...

The Mission

Time to bring everyone up to speed:

1. I applied and was accepted to a raiding guild: ReigningFury

2. A few friends from my old guild applied and were accepted shortly after

3. My wife took most of my gold...

Now for the mission...

After speaking with one of the officers of the guild & talking with another hunter in the guild I've been benched from raiding for the following reasons:

1. I do not have sufficient hit points to meet the guild's requirements for Kara

2. I need to have at least 2 pieces of my Dungeon 3 armor (I already have the Beast Lord Mantle) for the decreased cooldown on my traps for CC purposes

3. My RAP is a little low for my spec. (Sorry Kestrel...I'm still marksman)

If you've looked at my armory page you'll notice that I already have 2 pieces from Kara and have reached Honored with the Violet Eye. The officer I spoke with noticed as well, and told me that she understood if I was frustrated by that fact. For the record, I'm not the least bit frustrated by the fact. If you recall my LFG(uild) post you'll remember me saying that I enjoy "militant guilds". Being told I don't meet the requirements to participate in a Kara raid demonstrates the fact that the guild has a certain way of doing things (being ranked the #11 alliance guild on the server proves their methods are sound in my opinion) and I've been assured that I shouldn't have any trouble getting help meeting these requirements. A vast improvement over my previous guild.

So I now have the one thing I feel I really needed to actually enjoy playing my hunter. Direction, purpose, goals!! I love it! No more running around aimlessly wondering what I can do next. Now I just need to find a job that doesn't require me to work 15 hours a day with no computer in sight, but hey, we can't all be BRK (/jealous). Feel free to make suggestions on how to go about meeting the above requirements or even ridiculing me for not having already met them, I've got thick skin...I won't mind. Stay tuned for future developments & Happy Hunting!

Shameless Plug!

It's Patch Tuesday, and I'm still waiting for the servers to come back online...what fun. Blizzard added a Machinima page featuring a video by Brandon M. Dennis, also known to the Warcraft community as Oxhorn. It would seem Mr. Dennis is also a writer so I figured I'd show him some appreciation for all the laughs I got watching "Inventing Swear Words" and my son's favorite "ROFLMAO" by linking his blog for those who are interested. Please direct your attention to the underlined text riiight...here. Keep up the good work Oxhorn, you make Patch Tuesday worth suffering through!

LFG(uild)

I'm officially guildless. I'm not particularly happy about it, but in a sense it had to be done. The following reasons were involved:

1. I'm used to what I like to call "militant guilds", meaning there is a very clear chain of command, everyone has a job to do and knows how to do it. I miss that.

2. I was told that whenever I transferred to the Turalyon server myself and some friends were going to attempt to start our own raiding guild. It would have been hard, maybe even nearly impossible, but I looked forward to at least giving it a shot. It never happened.

3. I will not sit by and watch as the guild leader insults my wife (she had a mage in the guild and an alt), tells her that he is tired of her complaining about what is wrong with the guild and never doing anything to benefit the guild, when she has helped 98% of the people that joined the guild after we did that were not already Kara keyed complete the quest chain so that they could raid, she has had all of her heroic keys for quite some time, yet still ran regular instance runs just to help others get the rep they needed for their own heroic keys.

In the GM's defense, he did try to resolve problems with the guild, I didn't approve of some of the methods he used, but he did try. I have no hard feelings towards him, but I have no desire to be a part of his guild due to the way he runs his guild.

Now what are you gonna do Aerislan?! First off, I'm gonna get my account reactivated because my game cards expire tomorrow at 5pm (I'll be at work all day). Then I'm thinking about just soloing for awhile, work on my dailys, farm mats for stuff I need, try to scratch together enough money to buy my epic flying mount...who knows?! I will however be doing research on raids and instances during my down time until I get my account reactivated and can rejoin the WoW community...so if anyone on Turalyon knows a good guild, lemme know and I'll do some investigating. Happy Hunting and I'll keep in touch!

-Aerislan

Respecs & You

First off, thanks BRK for linking my blog, I'm honored to be included in the list even though I haven't made the famed sidebar list. It is a step in the right direction =D. Second, if you want to play with your spec, use a talent calculator, changing it in-game costs serious money if you decide you don't like where you just spent a point. I did make some changes to my spec last night, and although it's only a slight change I did manage to boost my RAP a wee bit, but it hasn't been truly raid tested yet. In response to a few of the comments left on my blog regarding BM spec, the only major concern I have with respecing to full BM is that I'm worried about how useful it will be post Kara. That and I've been Marksman for a very long time and I think it suits me quite well. I'd also like to apologize for the fact that most of my blogs have been negative, I realize that reading about someone constantly complaining can get very old very fast, so I'll try to be a little more positive in my quest for uberdom (made that one up myself...I think). Thanks for the support guys and I'll post more about the respec once it has been properly tested...who knows...maybe I will finally give BM a try now that I'm a little older and wiser. Thanks again and see you next time.

-Aerislan

Under Construction

I'm not happy with my hunter...plain & simple. I don't dominate the damage meters, my pet dies constantly, I'm pretty sure my spec is wrong, and theorycrafting makes my face hurt. I've gotten to the point where the only time I play my hunter is if someone in the guild needs a dps/CC for a 5 man and for Kara raids. When I do go to Kara I jump on the chance to give my spot to someone else because I feel they could do a better job than I could...and I'm usually right. I'm fairly certain that Aerislan needs a complete overhaul...gear, talents, everything. I have the basic hunter skills down, I can effectively CC in instances (except those damn spell shades in Kara), I can effectively manage my aggro so as not to give the tanks problems with me pulling mobs (this could be due to my lousy DPS), I know what is expected of me in raids and instances...The main problem I'm facing is the fact that most of the time I would rather play my shaman than log on my hunter and make an ass of myself. I helped a fellow hunter with a quest in in Hellfire Peninsula today (you remember Hellfire right?) and promptly got my ass handed to me by a lvl 63 elite...maybe I'm mistaken...but there really is no excuse for that...I've researched specs and tactics and so on until I was blue in the face yet nothing really seems to change. No matter what I do I always seem to be the lowest DPS on damage meters and therefore the least useful hunter in the guild. I get raid invited to raids for the simply fact that I know my class inside and out, but once it comes to the application of that information I fall short every time...to be perfectly honest I didn't even want to continue with this blog and almost deleted all my posts, but Mrs. B3 wouldn't let me. She thinks that by sharing my thoughts and opinions on my experiences I can get an insight I wouldn't have otherwise...I can only hope she's right. I know I can do better than I am currently...I've just got to figure out how...hell I'm even considering going BM like I was back when Green Whelp Armor was the creme de la creme (I know that isn't true...I just remember slobbering over it when I was lvl 10 and had it in my bank and didn't know better) Stay tuned and maybe I'll turn this thing around for the better...and get ready for some incessant questioning BRK...

It's Just a Game!

With that being said, we don't take it that seriously right? I think you and I both know we disagree...you might not realize it but we do. How do I know we disagree, you ask? I'll use myself as an example: I'm lvl 70 (demonstrating commitment to achieving max level), I have at least my epic riding and flying mount (farming the gold to afford the mounts/training), I'm at least halfway to revered with most of the major factions in outlands (rep griding speaks for itself), 2 epic drops from Karazhan (I know it's not BT but that stuff doesn't just drop on ever run)...and that's just the time I spend logged in! I spend at least an hour or two every day going over various forums, blogs and other websites reading up on wow/hunter related material...so basically...if your resume resembles mine don't tell me that this is just a game and you don't take it that seriously otherwise you would still be lvl 35 and wouldn't even care that you could get Herod's Shoulder if you went on just one more SM Armory run...

Ready Check

"(insert Tank/Raid Leader name here) has initiated a ready check." Click "Yes" maul the mob and raid progresses...sometimes. Sometimes you click "yes" to the ready check knowing damn good and well you aren't ready because you are too busy laughing about something in vent or you have ADD or your grandmother's third cousins aunts dog threw up on the carpet...and you wind up the laughing stock of the raid. There is a a silver lining however...say for instance your ego is just out of control and you need to get it in check...go to Kara with only 9k hp's raid buffed and stand next to the tank when nightbane lands for his initial assault...when you get 1-shotted and are sitting there staring at your release window wondering wtf just happened...rememeber all those times you thought you were the smartest person alive...you will never have a problem controlling your ego ever again...period...unless you are just an ass. Then there is no help for you.

Spotlight

Wow...I had hoped to attract a few people to my blog...maybe get a small semblance of a following, who knows even get a nod from one of the weblog celebrities, and I did! With my very first post no less. Granted the acknowledgment had nothing to do with the content of my first post, but even if it was just for the pic I posted with it, I still got noticed by the person who inspired me to start my own blog in the first place. I did however catch a bit of flack from his regulars about the pic, stating that it wasn't "mine" and that I stole it, but I didn't claim the pic as my own, and I'd like to go ahead and give credit to whomever it was that created it...unfortunately I have no idea who that person was so I can't officially name names or anything. If you're reading this DPS pic person...thanks for making an awesome pic and putting on the net for me to find. There, that should cover all the bases...btw if anyone wants to see the actual post you can find it here. Btw, if you happen to read this BRK...I still can't get my favicon to work even after removing .html from the link in my HTML file. Happy hunting to you all, and stay tuned for more ramblings

-Aerislan

Procrastination...I'll talk about it later

So I admit, there are a few things I know I need to get done, but I put them off because I'd rather go do something else. Such as run around shattrah babbling incoherently in guild chat, port to SW run around 20 minutes then port back to Shattrah only to realize the whole reason I ported to SW was to put something on the AH...the list goes on and on. I've got a few quests I need to do for various reasons...primarily rep, and I still haven't tracked down all the daily quests...couldn't tell you why...maybe I'm allergic to having a steady stream of income to keep me and Anthies going everyday...part of it is I'm just too lazy sometimes...sometimes. I did however spend a large part of yesterday killing ethereals in Netherstorm so I could get my Smuggler's Ammo Pouch, funny thing is...I should have done it a month ago when Hemet's Elekk Gun was an upgrade instead of just sticking it in the bank because I hadn't use a gun since lvl 42. Regardless I know that I need to get off my ass and get some of this crap done, so I'm gonna try to motivate myself to find something better to do than spam guild chat and make sure the portal between SW and Shattrah is operational...

Crystalforged War Axe...but why?!

It's 6:58...raid invites go out in 2 minutes...fighting through the lag in SW to get to the AH and grab those last few pots & flasks before I hop on the FP to darkshire (I don't like having to be summoned to a raid...) and hop on my swift mistsaber and head to Deadwind Pass...then I see in trade channel: WTS Crystalforged War Axe PST!...and I did! The irony in this story is early that same day I had just read BRK's blog about the hunter with the fiery enchant on their CFWA and gotten a good laugh, so naturally I was hesitant to become his next victim. The raid leader announced we were going to postpone the Kara run due to a lack of healers so I decided to do a little investigating. I asked the other hunters in my guild if I bought the axe and then had the +35 agi to 2h put on it if it would be better than my rusted old Terrok's Quill I'd been using forever, to my shock they all agreed that the axe would be an upgrade with the agi enchant due to the staggering amount of AP that it had. I still wasn't sure if I should do it or not, seeing as how every time I thought about it BRK's blog popped up in my head. The more I thought about it though, BRK was criticizing the choice of enchant and not the axe itself so I went ahead and made arrangements to buy the axe...almost 200g later (apparently enchanters and their mats think very highly of themself) I had my axe with the uberleet +35 agi enchant. I probably stared at the "Equipping this item will permanently bind it to you. Are you sure?" window for 2 or 3 minutes before clicking yes and praying that my RAP numbers went up on my char screen...and they did!! I gained almost 200 RAP from the axe and am glad I did. Just one more step on my way to become an integral part of my guild's raiding group...now if only I could do something about that helm...

In the Beginning...

I'm not entirely sure why I chose to start this blog, but it's started so I might as well introduce myself. I'm a lvl 70 NE Hunter on the Turaylon server (formerly of Uther). I have the good fortune to be a member of Reign, who in my humble opinion has some of the best players I've ever met. I started playing about 2 years ago and have been hooked ever since. Granted it took quite a bit of trial and error along the way, and by no means am I finished learning all there is to know about being a hunter, I feel I have a fairly decent amount of skill in playing a hunter. I never really got a chance to experience much of the end game content before TBC was released so I've been playing catch-up and making sure the same thing doesn't happen again. TBC in it's self changed the way I play dramatically. I suddenly had to learn crowd control, aggro management and various other hunter skills I'd never had been forced to use before just to survive as I started my grind from 60 to 70, and I'm grateful for the challenge TBC presented then and continues to present every time I log in. I would also like to tip my hat to those who came before me and continue to provide me with useful, and often humorous advice every day: Orz, BigRedKitty, Kayless, and countless others that have suffered my constant questioning as I struggled to improve myself along the way. Thanks for all the help and laughs guys. To avoid rambling any more than I already have I'll bring my first official blog to a close and looking forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with you all and hopefully helping my fellow hunters learn a trick or two along the way. Happy Hunting!