Grumble N Autumnn

Guild Names

2011-07-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

With the introduction of the Guild Bank back in patch 2.3 there has been a huge influx of guilds in Warcraft. Most of them are personal bank guilds. It is nice to spend a small chunk of money and have an extra guild with 2-4 tabs of more space for all the stuff we collect.

With creating a guild we are stuck in the same situation of the character creation screen. What is its name? Some people go with a favorite saying, band, movie, or location in game. I have two bank guilds, Hordecore Pwnography and Razorfen Down Syndrome.

What are some of the funny guild names you have seen? Below is a list of a few I've seen over the years that stuck out.

Nagas Gave Me Harpies
Vendor
Burns When I PVP
She Said She Was LvL 18
Built Horde Tough
Crits and Giggles
Gnomeland Security
And Two Stealthed Rogues
Bovine University

Hunter Rep Rewards - Cata Edition

2011-06-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

With Cata Hunters have a lot of options of rep rewards to help gear up for Heroics. Once you become friendly with a faction you can wear their tabard in level 85 instances to gain rep and there are also quests you can do to raise rep. The only faction that doesn't reward rep for wearing a Tabard is the Tol Barad factions. Here is a brief list of Hunter related gear.

Dragonmaw Clan/ Wildhammer Clan

Zone: Twilight Highlands
Quests: Once you have done some of the quests in the zone you will have access to 5 dailies that grant a total of 1,250 rep per day.

Snarling Helm - Revered Head

Guardians of Hyjal

Zone: Mount Hyjal
Quests: Doing all the quests in Mount Hyjal will bring you up to Revered.

Acorn of the Daughter Tree - Revered Neck
Treads of Malorne - Exalted Boots

Ramkahen

Zone: Uldum
Quests: All of the Ramkahen related quests are located in Uldum. There are also 2 dailies which will grant you a total of 1,000 rep per day.

Belt of the Stargazer - Honored Belt
Arcanum of the Ramkahen - Revered AGI Head Enchant

The Earthen Ring

Zone: Vashj'ir, Deepholm, and Twilight Highlands
Quests: All of the zones above contain quests related to The Earthen Ring faction. There currently isn't any dailies related to them.

Mantle of Moss - Honored Shoulders
Softwind Cape - Revered Cloak

Signet of the Elder Council - Exalted Ring

Therazane

Zone: Deepholm
Quests: Once you have completed most of the quests in Deepholm 6 dailies will open up for you for a total of 1,500 rep per day. Once you hit Revered another 2 dailies will open up but only one is available a day for another 350 rep.

Lesser Inscription of Shattered Crystal - Honored AGI Shoulder Enchant
Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal - Exalted AGI Shoulder Enchant
Terrath's Signet of Balance - Revered Ring

Hellscream's Reach / Baradin's Wardens

Zone: Tol Barad and Tol Barad Peninsula
Quests: You will get 5-6 dailies in Tol Barad Peninsula a day netting you 1.3500-1.500 rep depending on how many you get. If your faction controls Tol Barad you will get an additional 2-3 dailies in Tol Barad.

Baradin Grunt's Talisman - Honored Trinket
Dagger of Restless Nights - Revered 1HS
Ravening Slicer - Revered 1HS
Sky Piercer - Revered Ranged Crossbow
Spear of Trailing Shadows - Revered Polearm
Unsolvable Riddle - Exalted Trinket

Day 8 - Least favorite dungeon and why?

2011-06-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

Though there has been a lot of great content through the years Warcraft has had it's share of completely crappy content. With the release of Cata there is one instance that makes me cringe every time I go into it, Throne of the Tides. For some reason my computer hates that instance. Whenever there is someone who has something on them that makes their character not fully appear that toon is under the ground on my screen. Being a Goblin whenever I am in Camo this happens and my Ghost Wolf also appears under the ground. The puddles of slime that appear with some mobs are also under the ground which makes it hard to see them because I can only see the top part bubbling. Even with completely upgrading my computer and making sure my video drivers are updated I still have this problem.

With the older instances it would have to be Blackwing Lair. I dont mind the instance as a whole. It is the first boss fight that I hate. Razorgore is so buggy that it seems like the raid stops before it even starts half the time. Grumble and I went in there last week to try to duo the instance but we couldn't get control of the orb for the fight. After about 45 seconds we would explode. After looking up the fight on WoWHead we learned there is another bug that makes the raid die instantly once the mind control over Razorgore ends. It just seems like a terrible fight to start off a great instance. I would like to run it weekly but hate the repair bills because of no fault of our own.

WoWathon 2011

2011-06-28T10:11:00.001-07:00

One thing I have learned from blogging and just being active in the Warcraft community is how we stick together and how big of a heart gamers have. Starting June 30th a group of WoW gamers are going to have a WoWathon to raise money for Child's Play Charity. Child's Play raises money to buy electronic and board games for childrens in hospitals around the world. This gives children who are undergoing scary treatments a way to get their minds off their condition.

At 8am on June 30th they are going to create a Worgen Druid and Hunter duo (best classes evah!) named Chyld and Playy on Lightbringer-US. They will be leveling up their toons to 85. They have a goal set of $800 by the time they hit level 20 and an overall goal of $10,000. They have welcomed people to make toons with them but said they will keep groups near their level so they aren't power leveled.

If you would like more information please visit their website WoWathon. You can donate by clicking on the ChipIn widget on the sidebar of their webpage or the one I placed in the side bar of this page. You can also check out the Child's Play website for more information on the organization. In addition to monetary donations Child's Play is also looking for volunteers to do things such as hook up and maintain gaming systems at local hospitals.

Day 7 - Favorite dungeon and why?

2011-06-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

There are so many good instances in Warcraft. With the Cata there were a couple of revamps which added some interesting game mechanics to lower level instances. I like how Blizzard has changed things so not every low level instance is just a tank and spank.

As for my favorite instance it would have to be Black Rock Depths. During BC I used to run that instance over and over getting enchanting mats. In under 2 weeks I was able to buy fast flying for both Grumble and I. I like the fact that after the split at the beginning the instance is very linear but when someone new runs it doesn't seem to be linear. The instance is very organized chaos.

I also like the fact that this instance was the first one that involved any type of game mechanics to get through it. You have fights with adds, fights involving a whole group of mobs coming at you one after another, and the room where you have to get the torches and light the braziers within 5 minutes or your torch will go out.

Life Chat Headphones

2011-06-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

(This is not a paid advertisement. This is my personal review on a blog related product.)

A couple weeks ago I went out to look for a new set of headphones because my old ones were about 2 years old and constantly had a tone which was annoying. In the past I would always get Logitech headphones and they have always worked well for me especially since I refuse to buy headphones over $40. The store I went to had just stocked Microsoft Life Chat headphones. The ones I saw were $25 so I thought WTH I'll try them out.

When I was looking at them I liked the fact they were well padded. I have noticed when you use foam a lot of the sound is diffused so you have to turn up the volume to make up for this. My old headphones were always kept at 70-100% volume where these Life Chat ones I keep at around 20-25% system volume.

Another pet peeve is the volume control and mute buttons headphones have in the middle of the wire. What usually killed all other headphones I had was the wires inside that casing would come apart. When I would take apart that casing the wires were usually all frayed and up to 20% of them weren't even soldered correct. With the Life Chat headphones the connectors to the mute/volume are very sturdy. They probably aren't as good as a $150 set of headphones but they are much better quality than the others I've tried in the under $40 range.

The sound quality of the Life Chat phones are excellent! I usually keep my in game sounds low and when I'm flying on a drake my headphones rumble slightly giving me a bit of immersion feel. I have played around with various types of music and it has a lot of bass and completely clear sound quality.

This is the first time I have done a review besides replies on online stores from products I've bought but I have been so impressed with the cost and quality for these I had to let you all know. 8o)

Day 6 - Time Played

2011-06-07T04:10:00.000-07:00

Today is total time played. I have only listed Autumnn and Treeana because they are my main characters I play. All through BC Autumnn was the only toon I played. Once LK came out I started leveling Treeana and she was 80 for the last 9 months or so for LK.

Raiding 101 - Mechanics

2011-06-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am going to start a new series on basics of raiding. There are a lot of raid mechanics that has been used in previous expansions that are being brought back in Cata. With how many new players in LK tactics of older raids are not known to them. I am hoping this series will help you out when raiding. Know that not all of these apply to every boss fight. These are just guidelines that tend to repeat throughout the game.

Don't stand in front of the boss.

Unless you are the tank you shouldn't be in front of the boss. Many times bosses will have a cleave or cone effect that will cause a lot of damage to anything in front of it. Tanks have stats to help decrease this damage and the healers are focusing on them. A stray DPS standing in front will likely get one shot.

Dragons tail swipe so don't stand behind them.

Many of the dragon type bosses have a tail swipe which can cause a lot of damage and sometimes do a knock back. If you are a melee DPS don't stand any further back than the dragons hind leg. If you are ranged or a healer stand off to the sides or at the very least stand near max range behind the dragon.

Don't stand in stuff on the ground.

If you see the ground rumbling or some kind of fire or slime on the ground don't stand in it. Sometimes there is some sort of warning that something bad will be on the ground and other times it will just appear. Move away from these areas asap. Another thing is stuff falling from above. If you see stuff dropping on you then move out of the way. There are a few instances where you shouldn't move out of stuff on the ground like Shade of Aran in Kara's fire but those are few and far between. 95% of stuff on the ground should be moved away from.

You can't DPS or Heal when you are dead.

Not all fights are a DPS race. Some involve so much movement and environment awareness that slow and steady is the best option. If you are putting total focus on your rotation then you are not paying attention to the fire ball heading towards you. An old term for DPS was Glass Cannon. You can deal out a lot of damage but you can take very little. Blizz uses a lot of different mechanics and some are to throw people off of what they think is normal. Think of Heigan the Unclean in Naxx. Before you can DPS you have to master the dance so you wont die.

If you have to click something be there before hand.

This is another DPS flaw. There are some fights like Magtheridon where you need to be at a certain location to click on an object during the fight. When using an addon like DBM go to that location early enough so you are standing by the click for a few seconds at least. Don't try to DPS as much as you can and cut the travel time to the item short. You never know when there will be a knock back or stuff on the ground you have to run around causing you to take more time to get to the click.

If you are to CC then that is your main focus.

If you are in a fight where you need to CC a mob, such as the Moroes fight in Kara, then your main goal is to keep that mob CCed. You doing slightly less DPS will make up for a mob running around smacking healers and wiping the raid.

Not all bosses have argo tables.

I mentioned Shade of Aran before and I will again here. There are some bosses that are not tanked like how we are used to. Some pick a random person and they have no threat level. On these types of bosses the DPS can do everything they can to top out their DPS so long as they pay attention to other game mechanics such as stuff on the floor.

If you are sucked in you need to get out fast.

General rule is if a boss is able to suck you to them you need to get away from them as soon as you can. We have seen this with Shade of Aran in Kara, Karsh Steelbender in Blackrock Caverns, and Asaad in Vortex Pinnacle.

One of the best things you can do when learning a boss fight is to check out web pages or YouTube channels that have write ups and videos. Don't just read one write up about a fight because many times they will list only one tactic and usually have a lot of numbers and theory crafting which is just too much info for the first time raider in an instance. Watch a few videos and once you have the fight down pat then you can go back to theory crafting of the fight.

Day 5 - Fav Raid

2011-06-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of really fun raids in Warcraft. I love Kara, old ZG, Molten Core, and Black Temple. One night I just loved back in BC was our Gruuls/Mags night. I cannot pick one because both of those fights were awesome! I have added some videos of those fights at level. These were taken when Autumnn and Grumble were Alliance - Shandris.

Gruul's Lair

Magtheridon's Lair

Day 4 - Meaning/Significance behind your character’s name?

2011-06-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

Todays question, actually yesterdays but I missed it, is what is the meaning behind your characters name. When I first started MMOs in Everquest my main character was a Woodelf Druid named Autumnwynd Ravensoul. I named her this because Autumn is my favorite season and with her being a Druid I felt in her lore spirits would travel in the wind to speak to her.

Then in 2004 our second daughter was born and I named her Autumn Rainn. Autumn for the same reason and Rainn because I viewed Rain as a symbol for life.

When I started playing WoW I couldn't get the name Autumn because it was taken on my server so I changed it to Autumnn. Now that I have server switched she is now Autúmnn.

Day 3 - Favorite race and why?

2011-06-02T05:07:00.001-07:00

I have played both Alliance and Horde in the past 4-ish years I have been on Warcraft. Ally side I cannot say there is a race I like to play. I usually picked Night Elves in the past but I didnt really click with them and I hate the male model and position in Nelf society. If I had to create another Ally I would choose a Worgen.

Horde side I like all the races. I have had quite a few Taurens and my alt Hunter is a Troll. My new love is the Goblins. Autumnn has always been an engineer and the fact Gobbies are tinkerers is very appealing. I also like their small size. Being a Tauren I had to dismount to get through doors and running some instances like Shadowfang Keep were problems with the Taurens large size. I like how Goblins can get through anything and should always be expected to have a bomb in hand.

Day 2 - Favorite class and why?

2011-06-02T04:57:00.000-07:00

Whenever I play a MMO I usually end up going with 2 classes, Druids and Hunters. When I played EQ I had a Druid main and a Beastlord alt. Now with Warcraft my main is a Hunter and my main alt is a Druid. I never could get into playing cloth classes. I would like to know I can take a few hits and live. I also haven't gotten into playing plate classes. Plate classes in my mind = a tank. I know they can DPS and heal depending on the class but in the back of my mind I keep seeing a tank strobe light going off.

I like the Druids and Hunters because they are nature based. They are friendly with animals and can usually be found somewhere out in the woods. This is how I am in real life.

In Warcraft my favorite class would be the hunters because I like the fact they are a ranged DPS and also the ability to collect pets. Each pet I tame and use are tamed for a specific reason. I like the idea of the Dark Ranger Hero class and it reflects in my pet choices. I have a Ghost Wolf and a Slime as my main DPS and Tanking pet. I also have an array of ghost animals in my stable. I like the idea of almost being a hybrid of a Hunter and a Warlock.

Day 1 - When did you first start playing?

2011-05-31T05:14:00.000-07:00

I started playing Warcraft in Jan 2007. It was about 2 weeks after the release of The Burning Crusade and also about the same amount of time after my first server Shandris was created. I started playing MMOs in Dec 1999 with Everquest. My husband and I played that until 2005. My main characters there were a Druid and a Beastlord. With the release of WoW in 2004 it really hit Everquest hard. A lot of people on my server Antonius Bayle left EQ to play WoW.

My first character was a Troll Hunter named Jayla. I leveled her to 35. My husband wanted to play ally side so I made Autumnn, a Nelf Hunter. We have since then switched our mains to Horde. Now both Jayla and Autumnn are 85 and join the ranks of Treeana, my 85 Druid and Hellmaiden, my 82 Deathknight.

RIP Oniuki

2010-12-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

This past month the members of Hellions-Shandris lost a guildie and friend. It was something that took us by surprise. Our guild leader was told he had a heart attack. It was news to make your body go numb because he was only 35 years old. It made me stop and think about my own life.

Oniuki was a gamer through and through. Before playing Warcraft he played Everquest. It was really nice having another Evercrack addict to talk about old times with. In WoW he was known as a an achievement nut and strive to complete as many aspects of the game as possible. It wasn't uncommon for him to post retro raids so others in the guild could experience content that is usually skipped over.
A guildie mentioned last night he told some real life friends he lost someone close who was online and he received a "ho hum" attitude from his RL friends. I can understand this attitude from a person who isn't online much. Yet if you are online with the same group of friends sharing the joys and sorrows of life you become close. Our society is switching from an in-person mentality to a social networking one. I speak to friends and family more online than in person anymore.

As time passes more and more younger people are having heart attacks. They are people who generally seem healthy. In July 2009 my husband Grumble had a heart attack. He was 40 at the time. Thankfully we got to the hospital in time and he had no muscular damage but has 2 stints in his heart to keep those spots from collapsing. A week later a coworkers wife who was 39 had a heart attack. She survived but for over a month she was on life support and then sent to a nursing home to help her regain the ability to do daily activities.

So why are young people at a higher risk of heart attack than in the past? Our society is actually smoking less than in the past but it still is a risk factor. There are two points that have drastically changed; what we are eating and what we are doing.

People today are turning to premade food more than home cooked meals. Some precooked meals can be generally healthy but more and more premade foods have a whole slew of ingredients to make them cheaper and last longer. One big offender is salt. A person should have anywhere from 2000-3000mg of salt a day. One Cup-A-Soup aka ramen noodles have around 1000mg. That is 1/2-1/3 of your daily intake from just one serving.

Another bad ingredient in food today is trans fats. Not all fat is bad. Poly- and mono-unsaturated fats are considered "good fats". Saturated fats on the other hand clog arteries. A basic example is when looking at fats if they are liquid at room temp they are generally OK. Fats that are solid at room temp will probably be solid in your body. Trans fats threw this off because they are unsaturated fat with trans-isomer (E-isomer) fatty acid. Because of this fatty acid added to the unsaturated fat it causes the bad cholesterol in your blood to go up and the good cholesterol to go down.

Eating healthy does not mean having to eat expensive. Many store brands like Walmart brand and Dollar Generals brand usually do not contain bad ingredients like trans fats or MSG. If the only thing you look on food packaging is if it contains trans fats or not you will be helping out your body.

Another thing todays society is doing more of is sitting on their butts. Gamers, either PC or console, are big offenders. Thankfully with products like WII and Kinect the gaming industry is trying to get people up and moving around while still playing enjoyable games. You don't need to get a gym membership to stay healthy. Walking or biking instead of driving or walking up and down stairs are easy ways to raise your heart rate.

Usually heart attacks do not happen the way movies and TV portrays them. They usually start off slow. Because of this it makes heart attack dangerous to younger people because they try to shrug it off thinking they just have really bad heart burn. If you have pain in your chest, either sharp pains or feeling like your chest is constricting, cold sweats, trouble breathing, and/or pain in your jaw, neck, or extremities call 911 or head to your nearest hospital or doctors office.

MMOs and the Real World

2010-12-04T12:51:00.000-08:00

I saw the video below on Facebook this afternoon. It talks about the vast amount of gamers in the world right now and what kind of impact it has on real life. There are currently about half a billion gamers in the world right now and it is expected to increase to 1.5 billion in the next 10 years. What does this mean?

It means there is a huge amount of young people growing up in a world of computers. They are learning skills previous generations did not. They are learning ways of economics, tactics, problem solving skills, self worth, and social skills in a whole new light.

How does this have an effect on the real world? Let's start from basics.

Young people today are learning computers and electronics much sooner than previous generations. I am 31. I was born into a household with a hacker as an older brother. My first computer I experienced was in 1983 when he brought home one that talked. I was completely amazed. I then turned to Atari 2600. I learned how to count by playing Blackjack on it. Not all kids during this time had some sort of computer or gaming system to play. Today children are given computers before they can even talk. Todays generation have LeapFrog and other learning systems before they can effectively use them. Babies are being accustomed to using electronics before they can walk.

I didnt have a typing class until my freshman year of high school. In 1993 my high school only had basic typing and one DOS class. This continued until I graduated. My generation did not have the mass computer skills they do today. Because of the internet and gaming my typing words per minute is around 55 WPM with 95% accuracy. I was lucky to hit 15 WPM starting out high school. Todays kids, though they use slang, type at a much higher rate then the general populus 20 years ago. Typing skills has gone from a trade skill of middle aged women typing up papers for companies to an every day skill.

If you look at the founders of large internet businesses you will notice they are all of the younger generations. They are no longer the 50+ man who has money to throw around. They are in their 20-30s. Facebook, Myspace, YouTube. All were created by younger people. Armadillo Aerospace was founded by John Carmack, who is the creator of games like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. This company has won awards for their sub orbital space craft. Since the demise of NASA, private companies are our key to space travel, exploration, and research.

At least since Everquest was popular there has been college theses papers written on the economic and social impact online games have and how they could be used to better the real world. Gamers started out with the stigma of being non social fat 30 year olds living in their mommas basement. This is no longer the case. The gamer generation has created a huge social network. Whether it be from Facebook or in game, gamers have a much larger friend base and communicate with friends than their parents had. Families and friends are much more close knit because instead of calling every you know to tell them you are sick or your child won a prize at school all you need to do it log in and say "Hey, guess what!"

Games have taught the younger generation econonimic skills. What are the mottos of auction houses and bazars? Buy low and sell high. Farm the items people need. The harder it is to get an item or the more you need of it the higher you can sell it for. A person playing Warcraft will look at a situation and come up with an idea on how to make a profit. Before the last patch people were scrambling to get Zul'Grub faction before it was taken out of the game. Getting faction items was not hard for a level 80 to do solo but it took time. Time = Money.

How can these economic skills be transfered to the real world? A person could look around and see what people need that isnt advailable to the populus. Live in a small town without a place for people to sit down and talk to neighbors? Start up a coffee shop or diner. Buy products at a lower price and resell them at a higher one. If you have any sort of craft skills you can make up a lot of product and sell them on the internet.

MMOs also teach leadership skills. There have even been reports of people putting the fact they are a guild leader or officer on resumes. If you can succesfully run a guild or be a raid leader of a 25 man you have learned how to lead a group of sometimes unruley people. A good GL/RL can lead a group of people to achieve a common goal. They can problem solve situations and turn them into a positive result. Two guildies fighting can be viewed the same as two coworkers fighting. If you have a firm grasp of leading then you can lead your guild through an instance clear in a productive manner the same as leading your team of coworkers to finishing a project by its deadline. I am not saying just because you are a guild leader you should have a production managers position just because of that fact but MMOs can give you the skills to help you achieve a supervisors position.

So what have you learned through MMOs that you feel have impacted you in your daily life?

A New World Awaits

2010-11-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

So Cata will be released in less than a month. I get a feeling of excitement and a bit sad with all the things taking place. I have been running around the older zones lately getting various achievements and leveling alts. I go to all my favorite spots and have to wonder if it will still be there in a few weeks.

Blizzard has always looked at other MMOs and learned from their mistakes and their good points. One complaint about Everquest is the fact that there are so many zones but most of the lower level zones had no one in them. A years ago when Kunark was released the hit zone for the level 20s was Lake of Ill Omen. You could head there at any time and see 10-20 groups there fighting for spawns much like how the Barrens is in WoW. Then more and more expansions were released and the older zones were forgotten. Many EQ players wanted the older zones revamped so they were more popular. Granted Sony revamped a handfull of zones but overall the older zones laid unused.

Thankfully Blizzard isnt letting the classic zones end up in a screen shot graveyard. By updating these zones they are not only adding new content to old stomping grounds but they are also able to update the coding of these zones and 3d objects so they look better and load better.

Many people scream about how easy Blizz is making the game. It is a chant that has been heard for years. Yes they make it easier for the casual player but they need to do this to keep up with new and returning players. I started playing WoW right after BC came out. I leveled only my hunter Autumnn during that time. Even though I focused on one toon and had her to 80 within 9 months or so I didnt really get to see the raiding aspect of the game. I raided Kara to exalted and then some. I raided Gruul and Mags and got to see Void Reaver and Lurker fall once. Even with spending all my time with one character I only was able to raid about half of BC content at level.

With WOTLK I was able to raid much more and have the option of leveling other characters. During my LK time I have been able to raid up to Sindragosa on both my Hunter and Druid. I also have been able to level up another hunter and a DK to 80 and a shaman currently about 55. Also in LK we had an explosion of PUG groups. At least on my server there wasnt many pugs in BC and when there was it was failed Kara runs even when Sunwell was out. The increased use of PUGs have been a godsend to casual players who cannot raid with their guild because of slots or schedual.

The class changes for Cata has been both hated and loved by all. Personally I dont mind the changes of the Hunter class but I am uneasy about the changes to the Resto Druids. I want my tree back blizz! I have been leveling a Shaman the past few weeks and have fallen in love with their healing style. The release of Cata might just be the thing to get out of my safe zone and try tanking with my druid.

What changes in Cata have you seen that you love or hate?

Blog Cleanup

2010-10-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

I have gone through old posts and have deleted anything that will be out of date with the next patch and expansion. There is no reason to keep things like gems, enchants, raid pots, ect when they will be completely obsolete very soon. Until Cata comes out I will be focusing on Hunter basics and maybe post a thing or two about changes we will see.

The March 18 Movement - Bloggers should not be killed

2010-03-17T10:56:00.001-07:00

On March 18, 2009 Iranian blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi died in prison. He committed no crime besides blogging about the world around him. Some of us are from countries that recognize free speech but some are not. On March 18th help stand up for fellow bloggers.

Grumble has been Haxored

2010-01-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

Well the gold spamming bastards got Grumble. We have never shared our passwords so it was a keylogger. He hasnt played since the New Years and deleted his WoW folder a couple of days ago and it was in there apparently because no scanners are bringing up anything. His account is perma banned atm. His lvl 80s just have badge gear on and our alt guild bank is near empty. We have 4 tabs of mostly WotLK stuff and some BC items and 90% of it is gone. They only left us with the created food and AQ scarabs.

Everyone shell out the 6 bucks for an Authenticator. We have been saying for the past month we were going to get some for our accounts but we waited too long for one. Don't say "it will never happen to me" because we thought it wouldnt happen to us since we have played Everquest for 5 years and Warcraft for 4 years with no hacks.

Pugs

2009-12-29T04:13:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks people have been scurrying around getting badges and loot through the new LFG feature. There has been some cheers and jeers and anyone in a guild or listening to Trade chat has heard people venting, laughing, or praising their pug groups. Here are a few tips for those who are pugging.

Dear Mr RP Pally,

When doing H HoR with you it was funny when you did a bunch of emotes at the start but on the first pull you failed big time. You are suppose to AoE to get all the mobs pissed off at you. Yes the group knew the waves were LoS pulls but letting the mobs kill off people before the pull because you were trying to prove some kind of point was stupid. What was it you were trying to prove?

1337 people,

Yeah you will get some people in your group that have a 2-3k gear score. Usually this is just one person. Do not tell them to get better gear before doing heroics because they are in the gear from quests and normals and are ready to step into heroics. So what if you are doing 30-40% of the damage. So long as the person is trying and is not standing around doing nothing, they are attempting to get better gear through heroics and badges.

Busy people,

If you are in a situation where you need to keep going AFK then maybe this is not the time to be pugging. Your group does not want to wait around while you get your lunch out of the fridge.

To healers and tanks,

Now I have dinged my druid 80 on christmas and currently have a little over 4k gear score. I have worked hard for that. I know that I can heal all heroics through H ToC but the new ones I am unsure of. If you feel you are thrown into a heroic that is rough for you then tell the group to start with. Yeah you may get bitched at by some jerk but it is overall better to let the group know you are unsure of the instance than to play it by ear and hope for the best. You will get more cheers admiting it may be too hard for you than to try to act uber and kill off the group on the first 3 mob pull.

To "Off tanks,"

Yeah you are a plate class but unless you are the tank in the group you should not be getting as much damage as you are. The only time you should be tanking a mob is if one strays away and is attacking someone else in the group. Enable Target of Target or make an assist macro. An easy way to do this is to make a macro /assist focus then when you join a group target the tank and type /focus. This will make you assist the focused tank and you dont have to mess around with changing names in the macro.

Best memory of WoW

2009-11-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

So Blizz has released a mini website in honor of the 5-15 year anniversary of World of Warcraft and Warcraft. There is a video of the game designers talking about what their best memory of WoW. What is your favorite memory.

Mine is when the AQ gates opened on Shandris. I believe it was Dec 26th of 2007 when some guildies and I were roaming around when we noticed server wide messages of the event in Moonglade was finished. We headed down to Silithis for the hell of it to see if anyone showed up. Sure enough there were level 70s down there heading to the gate and logging out.

We went to the cities and yelled out what was going on because according to the server forums people were going to do it on New Years Day. About an hour later there were probably 200-300 people at the gates party'in. It was really cool because for the first time in my game experience that many Horde and Alliance got together for one goal... lots of blues. LoL

Someone rang the gong and everywhere was invaded by bugs and giants. Our guild joined up with a few others and took out some of the big Anubis type mobs outside and the big bugs in the tunnels. A couple of us stayed up until the wee hours of the morning farming the crystal spawns for lots of blues for our alts and the auction house.

Great Power Auras Tutorial

2009-11-19T05:09:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to get together a good Power Auras tutorial but I came across the one posted by Garwulf over at Huntsman Lodge. It is an excellent guide and anyone who is interested in using Power Auras or need some help with getting a good setup should check it out.

Extended Tuesday

2009-11-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

According to Enthati we will be having realm mantaince tomorrow.

We are performing our weekly scheduled maintenance this Tuesday, November 17th, beginning at 5:00 AM PST. No realms will be available for play approximately between the hours of 5:00 AM and 11:00 AM PST.

And as far as the rolling restarts today:

As you may have already noticed, we are currently initiating rolling restarts for all realms. These restarts first began at approximately 9:15 AM PST and will continue until each realm has been restarted. We anticipate each realm being down approximately 15 minutes.

Thank you for your patience as we look to complete this process as quickly as possible.

This restart is unrelated to weekly maintenance, but rather an unforeseen issue which required a rolling restart.

UPDATE: A guildie of mine was hacked into last night in the early hours. There has been a lot of comments in trade chat about others being hacked into last night. Also in the Customer Service forms there are people saying they had the same thing happen. Looks like the sudden rolling restarts may have happened to fix a security breach.

Hearts, Hands, and Voices going strong

2009-11-16T06:06:00.000-08:00

Azeroth United is a group of bloggers, podcasts, and webpage designers with pages related to the Warcraft universe. We have a fundraiser going on right now called Hearts, Hands, and Voices for Child's Play Charity.

Child's Play is a not for profit group created in 2003 by the people of the webcomic Penny Arcade. They have raised over 3 million dollars to get gaming consoles and books for childrens hospitals. They started the charity to break the stigma that gaming creates violence and to help kids with long term illness take a break and get their minds off of their ailments.

Our goal was to raise $5,000 between Nov 1 and Dec 13th. Mid last week we smashed that record and as of posting we have raised $6,358.

AU has 2 forms of gift packages for lucky donors. More info of this is listed on the Azeroth United webpage.

You can click on the widget at the top of this blog or head to AU and donate there. As a thank you for donating AU is offering 25% off coupon codes donated by SwagDog.com. This weeks code is childsplay387 (Expires 11/22). Keep checking back to find out each weeks code until the last week expires on Dec. 20th.

SHARED TOPIC: Best WoW Game Change

2009-11-16T04:59:00.000-08:00

Over at Blog Azeroth they have a shared topic that caught my eye.

Many things have changed and improved within the game between Vanilla, BC & Wrath. Which change that Blizzard released, made a fundamental difference to your gaming experience?

Grumble and I first started MMOs on Everquest. I was AutumnWynd, a Woodelf Druid, and Grumble was Feeg, an Ogre Warrior. We played from 2000-2005. It was amazing being gamers all our lives and going from GERDS to console games and then a major leap to actually playing with others online. We had a lot of fun playing with friends and raiding up to Planes of Power. One thing we didnt like was the fact that you couldnt really play Planes of Power zones without a group.

If you wanted to play in areas equivalent to Icecrown or Stormpeaks you needed a group like how WoW players have groups for instances. Farming mats or Platnium, EQs top currancy, ment you were a good solo class or you had to go with others.

Being a Druid I could charm kite, mind controling an animal to be my tank, or "root rotting", rooting the target and DoTing them to death, was easy to do in Plane of Storms or Plane of Nightmare. I loved to kite and became really good at it. The key was mobs never hit me but if they did I was dead in 2-3 hits.

Feeg on the other hand, being a Warrior, could not do much damage and it took so long to kill mobs that he needed a healer. Many times mobs would hit so hard that it was like a tank and healer duoing one of WoWs WOTLK instances.

Once we got into Omens of War content it was even worse. Trying to level up I didnt have the greatest gear. I would get in zone groups with guildies and it felt like I was raid healing. Think of a non geared upper 70 trying to heal ToC. All the fun was taken out of the game for us. We didnt want to stand around in PoK yelling for groups all night.

After we quit EQ we bounced around Shards of Dalaya and Morrowind but we werent really that happy. When playing SoD other players were talking about WoW and saying how solo friendly it was. They said you could level from 1-60 without ever grouping up with people. They also said Hunters were the best class to solo with. We had a problem with WoW because when it was first released many people left EQ, including a good chunk of our friends. We viewed WoW as the game that killed our favorite game. Finally Grumble tried out Warcraft and we were hooked. After he installed the game I went out the next day to get my copy.

I have to say the best thing that Warcraft did to our gaming experience is that it came out in the first place. Blizz looked at the faults of MMOs already released and made a game that had a better engine, soloing friendly, profession friendly, and used instances for raids so everyone could raid and it wasnt a race against other guilds for boss respawns. When people say WoW is a grind and grinding mats, rep, and gear sucks I just have to laugh. EQ was a grind!

When leveling professions, if it wasnt a recipe that was long trivial you would fail and you wouldnt make the item and would lose all mats. Leveling took forever. Progressing took forever because there was no instances. Say you go to raid Onyxia and your guild kills her. She wont respawn for 3 days on the server. Thats right, noone had a chance to kill her again until she respawned. Guilds would have scouts sent out that had inviz and tracking like druids or FD like monks and necromancers to search for bosses that were still up to kill.

Yeah WoW becomes easier and easier but I would rather have a chance at progressing my character without a headache than to deal with the "lets see what we can do to piss off the players" mentality of EQ.

BTW WOW GM wait times are very short. The longest I have had to wait for a GM response is a little over a day. EQ if you tried to talk to a GM about an issue it would take weeks or months to hear anything from them.

18 Min Dance

2009-11-07T03:41:00.001-08:00

The guild I'm in has been recruiting a lot lately and we have gone from having enough to do 2 Ulduar 10 man raids to having a Naxx 25 raid. So last night a lot of the new people were invited and some regular members jumped on alts and we ventured into Naxx. When we started Heigan people were told the dance sucks. Just try your best and if you die watch the people who are still up during the dance phase to get a first hand view of how the dance goes. Oh did they get a view...

First dance we lost probably 8 people. Understandable. Many of them have never been to Naxx before. Next dance we lost more, and more, and more. Finally at about 10 minutes into it we had an army of 10. Then a few of them died. We then had a group of 5-6 people trudging along trying to get this SOB to die.

My wolf kept dying so I would only rez him when Heart of the Phoenix was up. I would hit Bestial Wrath and he would die again soon after that. Even when I told him to stay with me on stage he managed to croak.

Every time we dance I was running spamming my shot rotation to get off stings and arcane shots. Whenever I could I would spin jump and get Aimed Shot and, near the end, Kill Shot off. Finally the SOB died.

Just a little FYI

2009-11-02T05:57:00.000-08:00

Blizz changed it so the non combat pet for Day of the Dead no longer says Required Day of the Dead. It now just says click to summon and dismiss this pet. We get to keep our lil skellys!!! This morning I finished getting them for my alts. Thank you Blizz!

EDIT: Apparently I have completely lost the pet on Autumnn. My two alts I did the quest on this morning still have theirs as shown above. I went back to the graveyard outside my home town and couldnt get the quest again on Aut. I have put in a petition to get my baby skelly back!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T06:02:00.001-07:00

We hope that everyone is having a great Hallows End! I have managed to get everything I wanted on my Hunter and DK but still after 3 years have not seen the Horsemans mount drop. /sad panda

Last night I had a lot of fun with my guild going through Ulduar. This is the second time we went through there with them and we managed to get 4 bosses down. We will be heading back in there this afternoon to see if we can down a few more.

Tonight I will be taking the kids out trick r treating and this will be the first year I will not be running a Zombie Invasion. Past years I would invite people from other servers to join me in a level 1 Undead run to Stormwind to attack the Auction House. This event has gained popularity in the LJ WoW_Ladies group so I am hoping others will pick up the reins this year.

I believe I have finished updating all the information that has changed or been added since Feb but if you see anything on the page that is still not correct let me know. I have a lot of draft posts lined up and just need to get the chance of making videos of various encounters.

Video Game Girl - Nerf Herder's Parry Gripp Music Video

2009-10-06T08:00:00.001-07:00

Here is a video to watch while waitin for servers to come back up. Gamer Chicks Rock! /flex

Ride My Kodo: Horde Zeppelin Part 2

2009-09-30T07:31:00.001-07:00

Where 70s bands and WoW meet.

Tuesday Patch Day

2009-09-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

So I get out of work this morning to a balmy wind, make it home and start up some Ham and Potato soup. Got the kids off to school and awwww... Patch Day. I already have the Brewfest title and one more day of dailies will net me the minipet. I have battled Corin Direbrew a few times but haven't won the remote or kodo yet. /sad panda

I had a really eventful weekend. As you guys may know I put Autumnn on the back burner for about 5 months waiting on the faction changes and have finally been able to dust her off. Friday night I logged on to be thrown into a Naxx10 raid. They already finished the Military Quarter so I didnt get the 4 Horseman knocked off my achievement but we did do everything except for Frost Lair.

Saturday I signed up for a pug by a well organized raid leader for Naxx 25. We cleared it in 3 hours and I got to achievement spam. I got to upgrade my neck, back, and feet. I was also able to net enough emblems to upgrade my legs. I have already seen my dps shoot up. Non-buffed I was getting about 2.2K dps and I am now over 3k unbuffed. I am still using a Nesingwary for my gun. Realistically I am looking to get the gun from H ToC but my real goal is to get the gun from KT in Naxx25.

I am still raiding as BM and so far have been keeping up on the dps. In heroic groups I am topping the charts still with like geared people. When I was in Naxx25 I was really low mainly because there was a lot of people there in top raiding gear doing 6-7k dps and the fact I have never done the 25 man before. The only thing I screwed up on was fighting Sapphiron. When I saw the frost breath I ran to the side of the dragon, thinking of Onyxia's Deep Breath, and I died miserably. While I was laying there on the freezing floor I watched everyone else hide behind the iceblocked people. I know for next time.

Autumnn

New header and updates

2009-09-22T08:10:00.001-07:00

I have spent all morning updating the graphic header (smexy horde style now) and updating old posts, especially the addons section. There were a lot on there that we still use but they are no longer available for download. I have been using a lot of new goodies so have plenty to add in their place.

Thunk Leaves Home

2009-09-22T06:24:00.001-07:00

Oxhorn has released another great video!

Theory of a Death Knight

2009-09-19T02:16:00.001-07:00

Great video from Myndflame.

Where The Hell Have You Been???

2009-09-05T00:59:00.001-07:00

Well we haven't been on Grumble and Autumnn much the past few months. I had a job offer working 3rd shift in Feb. I no longer had time to raid and the guild we were running split because of people wanting to raid and some of our other members also had work/life changes.

I went back to Horde side and leveled up a Tauren DK to lvl 80. Grumble saw how easy it was to get into PUGs Horde side so he leveled up an 80 Belf Hunter. Day after he dinged 80 they opened up faction changes. I have been leveling up my very first WoW toon, a 35 Troll Hunter, and made it to lvl 68.

We started thinking about how much time we have spent on Grumble and Autumnn and it was a shame to abandon 2 great toons. Yesterday we faction changed them. Grumble is now a Troll and Autumnn is a Tauren. We have been having more fun than we have had for a long time.

Faction changes cost $30 and include character customization and name change if you want. Blizz says allow for a few days for the process to complete but ours were ready in about an hour. Once you change you get a new icon by your toons name and you can change to what race you want and pick skin and such like making a new toon.

Blog Azeroth shared topic has helped us get back into business. The blog will be updated more frequently from now on since we are actually playing the toons its named after and the alts we are playing are the same faction as them. We have been in a family/leveling guild the past few weeks and have overheard many questions I have never even thought about blogging about so there will be a lot of posts coming up on basics I havent seen other bloggers posting about and also some PvP info.

I will be changing around the blog the next few weeks to reflect the changes that have happened. We're back!!!!!

Aut

30 Days of Warcraft

2009-05-31T05:12:00.000-07:00

I found this list via Facebook and decided it would be a nice way to get me back into blogging. I will update it daily here and on my Facebook page.

30 Days of Warcraft

Day 1 - When did you first start playing?
Day 2 - Favorite class and why?
Day 3 - Favorite race and why?
Day 4 - Meaning/Significance behind your character’s name?
Day 5 - Fav Raid
Day 6 - Favorite dungeon and why?
Day 7 - Least favorite dungeon and why?
Day 8 - Favorite guild name(s) you’ve come across?
Day 9 - What are your favorite zones? (Classic, BC, WotLK & Cata)
Day 10 - Your favorite Warcraft quote from a boss.
Day 11 - Favorite WoW holiday (e.g Brewfest, Childrens week)
Day 12 - Suggest any idea for Blizzard that they could put in the game.
Day 13 - Which faction are you “for”?
Day 14 - Healer, tank or dps?
Day 15 - Favorite Battleground and why?
Day 16 - A class you’re awful at playing.
Day 17 - What do you do when the server’s down?!
Day 18 - Favorite Emote and the best situation to use it in.
Day 19 - PVP or PVE?
Day 20 - Which race/class combination are you most like IRL?
Day 21 - Post your favorite screenshot.
Day 22 - Post your favorite glitch screenshot.
Day 23 - Name a funny memory (in game)
Day 24 - Favorite WoW term?
Day 25 - Favorite pet? (combat and/or non-combat)
Day 26 - Favorite NPC?
Day 27 - Favorite WoW related Youtube video?
Day 28 - Best thing about WoW?
Day 29 - Worst thing about WoW?
Day 30 - Where would you be now if World of Warcraft never existed?

Folding@Home

2009-02-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

For many years I have put in computer time with SETI@Home and now Folding@Home. I have decided to create a Folding team of WoW players. I am hoping to help bring this great project to the forefront of the WoW community. It is a fact that if you are a WoW player then you have a computer. How about helping people out in your computers down time?

I have created a Folding@Home team for Warcraft players. It is called: /2 [Trade]Folding says: "WTBCure" If you already know how Folding@Home or other Seti@Home type programs all you need to do is get the program and enter the team number, 160138.

What is Folding?

In your body, proteins are like worker ants. When something needs done the proteins will group together or "fold." Sometimes the proteins do not fold correctly and can cause many types of diseases including Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

What is Folding@Home?

Some of you may know what SETI@Home is. Folding@Home is the same idea. When you download a program from their website it will analyze information sent to you in "packets." When your computer is finished with a packet it will send the information back to the website and automatically get another packet. When using the Folding@Home program, the students and scientists at Stanford University will go over the packets to learn more about the process of folding. Hopefully they will learn ways to prevent misfolds or have a better understanding of the diseases misfolding can cause.

How do I help?

Go to their download page and get the program. Once it is downloaded and running you can right click the red cog on your toolbar and go to Configure. Once there you can enter a screen name you want to use and a team number. This WoW team number is 160138. Also in the configure you can set it to use so much memory. If I am playing WoW or using other high RAM programs I set it to a lower level but if I know I wont really be on my computer for a while I will set it to max. Even running max you dont notice a difference when surfing the net or playing music/videos. So long as your computer is on and the program is running it will automatically process the data and send and recieve new packets.

Lunar Festival

2009-01-22T12:54:00.000-08:00

The Lunar Festival is a holiday on World Of Warcraft during January. It is a celebration to honor the Night Elves, Tauren, Furblogs, and Earthen who defeated the Burning Legion many years ago. This holiday also goes hand in hand with the Chinese New Year, "Festival of Lanterns".

Moonglade becomes the party site, filled with lights, fireworks, dumplings, and a Core Hound named Omen. Omen is one of the Burning Legions minions who tried to crash the party.

Elders of Eastern Kingdoms - From the South to the North.

Starglade Stranglethorn Vale [53, 18]
Winterhoof Stranglethorn Vale [26, 76]
Bellowrage Blasted Lands [57, 54]
Skychaser Westfall [56, 47]
Stormbrow Elwynn Forest [39, 63]
Rumblerock Burning Steppes [81, 46]
Dawnstrider Burning Steppes [64, 24]
Ironband Searing Gorge [21, 78]
Goldwell Dun Morogh [46, 51]
Silvervein Loch Modan [33, 46]
Highpeak The Hinterlands [49, 47]
Obsidian Silverpine Forest [44, 41] - Outside the Sepulchre
Graveborn Tirisfal Glades [61, 53] - Just South of Brill
Meadowrun Western Plaguelands [65, 47]- Just North of road near EPL zoneline.
Moonstrike Scholomance - On Top of Castle
Windrun Eastern Plaguelands [35,68] - In South Tower
Snowcrown Eastern Plaguelands [81, 60] - At Lights Hope

Elders of Kalimdor - From North to South

Bladeleaf Teldrassil [57, 60]
Starweave Darkshore [36, 46]
Nightwind Felwood [37, 52]
Brightspear Winterspring [55, 43]
Stonespire Winterspring [61, 37]
Riversong Ashenvale [35, 48]
Skygleam Azshara [72, 85]
High Mountain The Barrens [45, 58]
Moonwarden The Barrens [51, 28]
Windtotem The Barrens [62, 37]
Runetotem Durotar [54, 44]
Bloodhoof Mulgore [48, 53]
Skyseer Thousand Needles [45, 50]
Morningdew Thousand Needles [79, 77]
Grimtotem Feralas [76, 37]
Mistwalker Feralas [62, 31]
Dreamseer Tanaris [50, 28]
Ragetotem Tanaris [36, 80]
Thunderhorn Un'Goro Crater [51, 75]
Bladesing Silithus [50, 36]
Primestone Silithus [23, 12]

Elders in Dungeons - by level

Wildmane in Zul'Farrak - Instance Level 43-47 - Tanaris - Around the pool with the Gong.
Splitrock in Maraudon - Instance Level 43-49 - Desolace - On the ramp up from Rotgrip.
Starsong in the Sunken Temple - Instance Level 49-55 - Swamp of Sorrows - Upper Center area with Dragons.
Morndeep in Blackrock Depths - Instance Level 55-60 - Blackrock Mountain - In the Arena.
Stonefort in Blackrock Spire - Instance Level 58-60 - Blackrock Mountain - LBRS - Head to the Right across bridge once in Lower.
Farwhisper in Stratholme - Instance Level 58-60 - Eastern Plaguelands
Jarten in Utgarde Keep - Instance Level 70-72 - Howling Fjord
Igasho in The Nexus - Instance Level 71-73 - Borean Tundra
Nurgen in Azjol-Nerub - Instance Level 72-74 - Dragonblight
Kilias in Drak'Theron Instance Level 74-76 - Grizzly Hills
Ohanzee in Gundrak - Instance Level 76-78 - Zul'Drak
Yurauk in the Halls of Stone - Instance Level 77-79 - The Storm Peaks
Chogan'gada in Utgarde Pinnacle - Instance Level 80 - Howling Fjord

Elders of the Horde

Elders of the Alliance

Elders of Northrend

Borean Tundra

Shalozar Basin

Dragonblight

Stormpeaks

Zul'Drak

Elder Tauros in Zim'Torga

Grizzly Hills

Wintergrasp

Elder Bluewolf in Wintergrasp

50 Coins of Ancestry - Loot 50 Coins of Ancestry from the Elders.

Lunar Festival Finery - Purchase any dress or suit from from Valadar Starsong in Moonglade for 5 coins of Ancestry.

The Rocket's Red Glare - Shoot off 10 Red Rocket Clusters in 35 seconds or less. These can be bought from any Lunar Festival Vendor or Engineers can make them.

Frenzied Firecracker - Shoot off 10 Festival Firecrackers in 30 seconds or less. These can be bought from any Lunar Festival Vendor.

Elune's Blessing - Defeat Omen in Moonglade.

Goodbye Keys

2009-01-22T08:57:00.001-08:00

With 3.0.8 there has been some changes in item keys. Scepter of Celebras and Mallet of Zul'Farrak are now stat weps and no longer keys. This means so more portals into Maradon. /sad panda Then a guildie linked the Urn. I just finished that stupid quest a few weeks ago! Now instead of summoning a dragon it is vendor fodder. Seal of Ascension is no longer needed to enter UBRS either.

I wouldn't mind if they changed it so you only needed to have completed the quests and don't need the items on you but to completely oust them is kinda shafty. This and the faction changes have frazzled me. I am 30% through Revered with Zandalar Tribe from blood, sweat, and begging people to go in there pre WOTLK. Now ZG is soloable and any Joe can go in and get uber faction in a couple of runs. Timbermaw faction was a royal PITA! At least I can drink with the Thorium Brotherhood and know our friendship wont be lost to fairweather friends.

/end QQ

Steady Shot Pre 3.0.8 and Post 3.0.8

2009-01-14T07:07:00.000-08:00

I have been playing around on the PTR this morning. I took combat logs against the Heroic target dummy in IF. I am a BM/MM Hunter.

Control

I was using Frostbite Bullets.
I took off my Mirror of Truth because of the proc.
I didn't use my pet.
I didn't buff up any.
I used 200 bullets.
I had on Aspect of the DragonHawk and Viper as needed.
Did not apply Hunters Mark to target.

I used 2 macros both on live and test.

The first macro I used was

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot

This caused an auto to go off before the casting of Steady and Kill Shot when able.

The second macro I used was from Kodo_Rida. They noticed the Steady/Serpent macro we had posted no longer refreshes Serpent Sting after it is used once. TY Kodo.

/castsequence reset=3/combat Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Shot

This puts a Serpent Sting on the target first. Then it uses Steady Shot, Arcane Shot then Steady Shot in rotation. It will use Kill Shot when able.

So how bad is the Steady Shot nerf? Click on the DPS for each to see the WWS image of those sets.

Live

Steady/Auto 844 DPS
Steady/Serpent Sting 877 DPS

PTR

Steady/Auto 752 DPS
Steady/Serpent Sting 866 DPS

Basically we have lost 10 DPS between live and the PTR. Note that this is a 3 minute test with 200 ammo and long boss fights will vary. With the lower 15 second cooldown on Kill Shot that will add a chunk of DPS to boss fights. Also note this test was done without buffs or a pet.

Autumnn has a Spirit Beast!

2009-01-11T05:50:00.000-08:00

After spending days in the Basin I finally found him!

Warbears, We Haz Dem

2009-01-03T00:19:00.001-08:00

We were finally able to take down Thrall tonight. We thank the Dwarf Pally who got the raid together and let us and 4 other members of our guild join. /squee!

Happy New Years!!!

2008-12-31T21:56:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a fun night and a lucky new year.

BTW I just opened up another egg and got a Cobra Hatchling which sets me at 3/4 Oracle minipets. I know. You can send me hate mail. Has anyone else noticed when any of these pets are out you can hear a baby murloc talking every few minutes? It is only happening when I have one my my tickbirds or cobra out and normally there is noone else around. Really people I'm not going crazy!

Achievements and Kara

2008-12-29T11:12:00.000-08:00

Since I have some time off during the holidays I have been working my booty off trying to get as much stuff done as possible. I have finished off the Merrymaker, some fishing and cooking, and Northrend Dungeonmaster Achievements. /cheer Doing the PvP achievement was a royal pain since everyone seems to be killing off gnomes first in AVs.

Also, I have been saying over and over in my guild that I wanted to pet tank Kara. My guildies would just smile and nod. Well it happened. One day last week 4 of us went into Kara and made it through Huntsman, Moroes, Maiden, R&J Opera, Curator, and Shade. (WWS IMG) We tried to do Chess about 5 times and just couldnt get it. The lowest we got their king was 33%. Our group consisted of Grumble and I (2 Hunters with Gorillas), a Rogue, and a Shaman.

Santa came to our house and gave me new headphones. Yeah! Now I dont sound all crackly on Vent.

Connection Issues

2008-12-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

Today WoW Insider did a spot on connection issues between WoW and Comcast. I have been having the same issues for the past few weeks. Both my parents and I use Mediacom. Two different locations about 30 miles apart. When I am on the game at home I have no problems. When I get on game with the same computer at my parents house I disconnect every half hour. We had to cancel an Oculus run last week because every time I DCed I was ported to the graveyard in Westfall and my group had to resummon me. My parents are close to the Mediacom/Comcast line by about 3 miles but they have never had Comcast at their house. Before Mediacom they had Triax which supplied NE IN and NW OH.

So my question is, is this a cable provider issue or a Blizzard issue? It seems to be more of a Blizzard issue.

In other connection issues, the people on Twitter knew we had an ice storm inc Thursday night. I was at my parents at the time with our girls and power went out at 6am Friday. My dad braved the icy roads with his SUV and brought us home because we still had power at home. We got home about 2PM and wouldn't you know, at 5PM a huge tree branch flew about 20 feet in the air and landed right on top of a power line. >< Only about 4 blocks of our town went out and we were in it. We had a chilly night (20 degrees). The electric company told us it would be Christmas Eve before we had power again. Around 11 am an electric truck drove by and got our power working. We thank the electric employees from West Virginia who drove all the way up to northern Indiana to help get us back up. You guys rock!

Happy Winter's Veil!!!

2008-12-15T09:31:00.000-08:00

Trial SS Serpent Sting Macro

2008-12-13T13:53:00.000-08:00

Grumble has been playing around with macros and I think he is on to something. He wrote up this macro to cast Serpent Sting if it isn't on the target, Steady Shot, and Kill Shot at the end. I knew he was up to something because he was out DPSing my Steady, KS macro and he was gloating that he had Viper on most of the time and not paying attention to switching aspects for this run.

/castsequence reset=target Serpent Sting, null
/castsequence reset=3/combat Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Shot

Line one will cast Serpent Sting is there isnt one already on the target.
Line 2 repeats SS, AS, SS and will start over if you pause for more than 3 seconds.
Line 3 casts Kill Command if it is up.
Line 4 is to prevent error messages from popping up.
Line 5 casts Kill Shot if the mob is under 20% life and it is up.

The only time I get any kind of error sounds is when I first start and am trying to cast Serpent Sting. I havent gotten any errors such as Spell Not Ready. We have seen a sharp increase in the damage we have been doing.

PTR Patch Notes 3.0.8 Released

2008-12-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

The first edition of the PTR notes have been released today. There is a lot of interesting things included.

Achievement: The Loremaster of Kalimdor Achievement has had its quest amount reduced.

This is great because I still have about 150-200 quests on both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms missing.

Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostrider? Tauren on raptor? You're not seeing things.

Yeah! Grumble's not the only one who can ride a Robochicken!

Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.

I could see this being bad depending on the situation. If you pull too many mobs out of a camp, the person beside you may not want to help you kill them because they wont get any exp or loot from them.

Aspect of the Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to "deflect" spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 sec. 60 sec. cooldown.
Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.

These are pretty much the same as the ones reported the other day.

Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.

This is a great change. I remember doing ZG and we were told to mana drain the Bat Goddess. There was 4 Hunters back to back Viper Stinging and her mana was hardly going down. Now Viper could be much more useful in PvE.

Slow Fall is now castable on others.

Yeah! I won't die from falling now.

Gifts and Pledges of Adoration for the capital cities are now soulbound.

This means people will not be able to farm Peddlefoot on their alts and mail it to their main. People also will not be able to mail Romantic Picnic Baskets to others.

Reduced the stats on the Savage Cobalt Slicer to match the weapon's level.

Now I dont feel so bad for getting Fang of Truths.

The white Polar Bear mount is now the proper (larger) size.

This is the rare drop bear from the Amazons in Stormpeaks dailies.

Winter Veil Gifts

2008-12-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

Are you wondering what to get that special person in game for Winter Veil? There are a lot of items in game that can give a person a chuckle or a Awww. There is a wide array of wrapping paper in game to gift wrap your item. No matter how long someone has played I always end up with a few people who are surprised you are able to wrap gifts.

If you are a joker at heart there are a lot of items on our Funny Item page. There are movie related items from Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid to Fight Club. Who wouldn't want a little Gnome to ~~throw at the wall~~ play with.

There are also a lot of toys in game. Some are BoP but there's a few like Piccolo of the Flaming Fire which have a high drops rate and we even have a guide to getting it.

Also since non-combat pets no longer take up a bank and a half those are really easy to send to others as pets.

Eat, Drink, Be merry, and have a great Winter's Veil!

Shared Topic: Screenshot Dump

2008-12-11T05:24:00.000-08:00

One of the new Blog Azeroth Shared Topics is to make a screenshot dump. It was then I realized I had 30 megs of SSs since WotLK came out. /gasp

Also check out these other blogs and their screenshots.

Winter Veil Guide 2008

2008-12-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

Time to spread the Winter Veil Cheer! Winter Veil is Warcraft's version of Christmas. On Christmas presents will spawn under the Christmas Trees in Ironforge and Orgrimmar. These spawn like quest items and there is a couple for everyone so there is no need to camp the tree to get them. Some presents are level restricted but every toon will get at least a couple items.

The dates of Winter Veil are:

2008: December 15 - January 2

If you complete all of the Achievements for Winter Veil you will get the title of Merry Maker. Let's go through the achievements for this holiday.

A Frosty Shake

During the Feast of Winter Veil, use your Winter Veil Disguise kit to become a snowman and then dance with another snowman in Dalaran.

You get the Winter Veil Disguise Kit in the mail one day after you finish the quest Stolen Winter Veil Treats. You need one snowball to use this item but you can buy them from any Winter Veil vendor. You cannot move while a snowman but you can /dance.

Bros. before Ho Ho Ho's. Horde / Alliance

For the Horde:

For the Alliance:

Crashin' & Thrashin'

Gain 25 crashes with your Crashin' Thrashin' Racer during the Feast of Winter Veil.

You get a Crashin' Thrashin' Racer Controller under the Christmas Tree.

Fa-la-la-la-la Ogri'la

Complete the Bomb Them Again! quest while mounted on a flying reindeer during the Feast of Winter Veil.

It is unknown at this time how you get the flying reindeer mounts. In the past you used Preserved Holly to change your normal mount into one but there may be actual mounts dropped this year. Unknown if they are to keep or on a timer like Hallow's End brooms.

He Knows If You've Been Naughty

Open one of the presents underneath the Winter Veil tree once they are available.

Let It Snow

During the Feast of Winter Veil, use a Handful of Snowflakes on each of the race/class combinations listed below.
Orc Death Knight
Tauren Shaman
Undead Rogue
Gnome Mage
Blood Elf Warlock
Human Warrior
Night Elf Druid
Troll Hunter
Dwarf Paladin
Draenei Priest

You get Snowflakes when you /kiss Winter Revelers who can be found in Inns.

On Metzen!

Save Metzen the Reindeer. He can be found at 68,34 in Searing Gorge.

Scrooge Horde / Alliance

Throw a snowball at Cairne Bloodhoof or King Magni Bronzebeard. You can get snowballs from Winterveil Vendors or select snow piles.

Simply Abominable

Complete the quest to retrieve the stolen Smokywood Pastures' stolen treats and receive a Smokywood Pastures' Thank You.

Finish the following Questline:

The Winter Veil Gourmet

During the Feast of Winter Veil, use your culinary expertise to produce a Gingerbread Cookie , Hot Apple Cider, and Egg Nog.

These recipes are bought from the Winter Veil Vendor. You will need small eggs to make these. The AH will probably be full of 5 for 25G listings. Go to any low level bird or moonkin for eggs.

With a Little Helper from My Friends

Earn 50 honorable kills as a Little Helper from the Winter Wondervolt machine.

This machine is outside Orgimmar and Ironforge. This turns you into a Little Helper. You have to have this buff on to get the achievement. Do not shapeshift while a Helper or you will lose the buff.

Tis' The Season
During the Feast of Winter Veil, wear 3 pieces of winter clothing and eat Graccu's Mince Meat Fruitcake.

The Winter Hats can drop from a variety of mobs, both in and outside of instances, but below are the highest drop rates.

Red Winter Hat / Green Winter Hat - These have a 100% drop rate on WotLK bosses. There is a chance for them to drop off of random humanoid mobs. You can tell if they have it because they will be dressed up in Christmas garb.

Red Clothes / Green Clothes - Tailor-crafted

Boots - Leatherworker-crafted

These patterns are mailed to people with those skills.

NEWSFLASH: Hunters beaten like a Red Headed Pally

2008-12-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

Ghostcrawler made a post today about the up coming Hunter nerfs. These are the changes they will be putting into the PTR so these are not set in stone atm. Needless to say Grumble and I was cussing him out. Yeah we were doing some nice DPS but ya can't help but get the "Damn the Man and his Ban Hammer" feeling.

1) Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).

Less ATK PWR means less damage.

2) Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AoE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.

This sucks. We really like AoE pulling with our Gorilladins.

3) Readiness – no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.

SCREW YOU GUYS! I was so excited when I saw Readiness was moved into the MM tree and able to be used with the BM tree.

4) Deterrence – has been completely overhauled. It now allows you to deflect 100% of incoming melee or spell damage for 5 seconds, but prevents you from attacking while active. You still must be facing the attacker to deflect the damage (this is a limitation we are trying and might end up removing). 60 sec cooldown.

This will be interesting. Though you cannot attack, if you are in an arena team and you are down to the wire that 5 seconds could be enough time for your teammates to take down the person attacking you. In a PvE standpoint, that 5 seconds you are not attacking means so long as you have a good tank they will be gaining argo and hopefully passing yours.

5) Kill Shot – cooldown reduced to 15 sec (from 35 sec).

This is a surprise being in a nerf patch. Being full instance buffed I have gotten over 8k crits with Kill Shot. Just self buffed I can usually get around 3-5 k easily.

6) Kindred Spirits – now only grants 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.

It's a 5% drop in DPS for your pet. I am trying to be optimistic so... atleast it isn't more...

7) Serpent’s Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. (EDIT: Still grants the current bonus to the hunter.)

See the note that BM hunters are not affected by this, only their pets. BMs will still have Steady Shot as fast as the Global Cooldown.

8) All hunter pet abilities with a cooldown longer than 30 sec have been moved off the global cooldown.

9) Growl— threat generation increased by 20% (same for Voidwalker Torment).

This is nice. When I am just questing or farming I have only used my gorilla because none of my other pets can keep argo without me having to do high maintainence like MDs, FDs, and Shadowmeld.

10) Call of the Wild – now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.

Eh, sucks for party members but isn't hurting our DPS.

11) Rake and Scorpid Poison – slightly nerfed to bring them into line with other pet abilities.

/whispers "Yet there has been SSs of Devilsaurs doing more damage than their hunters."

12) Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.

No more complaining about Spirit Beasts having gimped DPS. They are good pets and with Rake getting chopped up again I am seriously thinking about getting a SB.

Improved Tracking – now benefits damage to all included creature types as long as you are tracking one of them. You don’t have to swap around what you are tracking as much.

So now so long as you are tracking with one of the Hunter Trackings you will get the increased damages for any of the families of mobs included in our Tracking System.

13) Aspect of the Wild – now raid-wide.

Bout time. 8oP

Ally Kings Were Pwned

2008-12-07T08:15:00.000-08:00

Last night 2 guilds on Shandris came through and wiped out all the Alliance Kings and earned their Black Bear mounts. It was a lot of fun trying to defend even though there was only about 20 Alliance at best defending. I was only able to get 4 defense of town kills. Click for larger image. WTB Ally run through the Big Wigs 8o(

Ironforge

Darnassus

Exodar

WTH is that?

2008-12-04T06:42:00.001-08:00

Well we were keeping quiet about the new tame-ables in hopes Blizz don't hotfix them yet but seeing there's info on everyone and their brothers page already.... We have tamed out Ghost Hydra and Slime. That's right. So long as you are level 80 and do a quest chain you can get yours too. What you need to do is the whole Frenzyheart/Oracles questline in Sholazar Basin. Once you finish A Hero's Burden choose to align with the Oracles. One of their dailies is A Cleansing Song. In this quest you go to different spots and call forth 3 spirits, a slime, a ghost hydra, and a ghost croc. All 3 of these are in the croc family.

Know that if you tame these you may log on one day to find some normal modeled crocs in your stable. Tame these because they are different skins but be prepared to lose them at any time depending on what Blizz does.

Here are some pics of what they look like with and without BW. The hydras make noises, the heads fight eachother, and they stomp around. As you can see from the pics (click for larger image), the hydras are pretty see through. The slimes are pretty quiet.

In other news, we have both hit lvl 80. I became exalted with Cenarion Circle last night, Consortium is up next today. I still need about 40 warbeads or insignias. Grumble, Tagreth and I have trioed the mount mobs in ZG. They didn't drop for us yet but at least we know it can be done. Also, if you are interested in the ZG Troll faction, it is really easy to solo the junk mobs at lvl 80 if you have a gorilla.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

2008-11-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

End of week 2

2008-11-26T17:49:00.000-08:00

What a wild and crazy week this has been. Grumble is now 78 and I am 77. I spent about 15 hours trying to camp the Spirit Beast with no luck. Instead I tamed a Living Dead Kitteh. I have been working on dailies trying to get Oracle and Tuskarr faction for their minipets. I have also done rounds trying to get the books of magic for the Dalaran pet.

When I got my flying training I went around and finished the exploration achievement. Talk about one ugly tabard. Bleh!

Our guild Blood of the Dragon is doing good also. We have gotten a few new members and are now able to do 10 mans once everyone is leveled up. Most of us are in the 72-77 range atm. This weekend I am planning on doing some Heroic BC faction runs. I have a bunch of factions that just need 4-5 more runs and I know a bunch of other people are the same way.

I also went out to Netherwing Ledge last night and made it to Friendly with them. I went out there a few times months ago but it was still so packed I couldnt get anything done. Now the mobs are a piece of cake to plow through and in the 2 hours I was out there I saw 2 Horde and no Ally there.

I had a mishap where a cup of coffee tried to mate with my G15 keyboard. I was near tears. Thankfully Grumble waited until I chilled out and told me to look up pages on how to take apart this kind of keyboard. We found a wonderful tutorial over at Lanarchy. Following the pictures we were able to take apart my keyboard and clean up the sticky mess. It is actually quite easy to do if you take your time.

Haste Rating

2008-11-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

Haste Rating speeds up the casting time of your Steady Shot. Steady Shot is on the Global Cooldown which is 1.5 seconds. You cannot cast Steady Shot faster than this.

If you are a BM hunter with 5/5 Serpent's Swiftness you don't need to do anything. You are already casting Steady Shot in 1.5 seconds.

If you are a MM or SM hunter then you need a 523 Haste Rating to bring your Steady Shot time down from 1.74 to 1.5.

Stats

2008-11-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

Agility Conversion

Agility is a stat used to increase your base DPS. This is the DPS you will do before modifiers are added such as Haste and Crit.

1 Agility = 2 Attack Power
1 Agility = .003% crit
324.85 agil = 1% crit

There are a few ways to increase your Agility besides gear, gems, and enchants.

Mail Armor Specialization = 5% Agility
Kings/Wild = 5% Agility
Into the Wilderness + 15% Agility
Hunting Party = 2% Agility

Gems

Agility is the stat you want to stack over any other. You should gem for straight Agility in all gem sockets so long as the set bonus gives less than 20 Agility. If the set bonus does give more than 20 Agility then gem the respective colored gems. Use the Agile Shadowspirit Diamond for your meta socket. Since the requirement is 3 Red gems you should have no problem activating it.

Hit Rating

Hit is imporatant if you aren't already at the cap. Hunter hit cap is 8%. 960 hit rating will get you 7.99%. Draenei hit rating is 840 hit rating or 6.99%.

WotLK Hunter Hit Rating

2008-11-26T16:05:00.000-08:00

The higher your hit rating is the less likely you are to miss against mobs. You will understand hit rating fast if you have ever been in PvP and stood there casting Aimed Shot and then it missed. Then your target runs up to you laughing in your face.

If you are below your hit rating then you will miss against mobs that are lvl 83 (Bosses) when you are lvl 80. If you have a higher hit rating than below then that extra hit rating is being wasted. Once you get into good gear and you are over hit capped then look into what gems and enchants you have that increase hit rating and change them out to Agi or Critical or Attack Power gems/enchants.

There is a talent low in the MM tree called Focused Aim. This will boost up your hit rating.

With no points in Focused Aim you need 296 hit rating to be capped.
1/3 Focused Aim: 263
2/3 Focused Aim: 229
3/3 Focused Aim: 197

If you are a Draenei or have one in your group, you need 263 hit without Focused Aim or 164 with 3/3 Focused Aim. That is if YOU have those talents, not whether the Draenei has it.

WotLK Hunter Rep Rewards

2008-11-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

WotLK has a pretty good listing of Hunter related items you can get through rep. This is nice because it allows non/casual raiders to get a leg up with getting gear.

Alliance Vanguard and Horde Expedition

Sawed-Off Hand Cannon - Alliance
Sin'dorei Recurve Bow - Horde
Vanguard Soldier's Dagger - Alliance
Warsong Shanker - Horde
Enchantment - Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator (A) or Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator (H)

Argent Crusade

Kirin Tor

Knights of the Ebon Blade

The Kalu'ak

The Sons of Hodir

Broken Stalactite
Giant Ring Belt
Stalactite Chopper
Enchantment - Lesser Inscription of the Axe and Greater Inscription of the Axe

The Wyrmrest Accord

Dragonfriend Bracers - Leather
Fang of Truth

Sholazar Basin Factions

You can choose Oracles or Frenzyheart. These factions are like the Scryers/Aldor of BC. Personally I feel the Oracles are the better choice.

The Oracles

The Frenzyheart

End of Week One

2008-11-20T23:06:00.001-08:00

I am pretty happy with how far we have gotten this first week. Both of us are lvl 74. We have some achievements finished. Tonight I managed to max out my fishing and caught A Giant Rat. Enchanting is at 400 and Engineering is about 395. Grumbles Engineering is about the same and his Mining is 425.

We are lovin' the new quests in Northrend. It is nice to see the future me still has a sense of humor.

And what about that Kill Shot?! I'll write more about it later but this is some secksy stuff.

Argo Control

2008-11-20T17:03:00.000-08:00

Hunters can be a nightmare when it comes to argo if they don't know how to control it. Hunters have a variety of ways of controlling argo, be it putting more argo on something else or decreasing their own.

Misdirection

At lvl 76 Hunters get a spell called Misdirection. Target either your tank or your pet and cast this on them. You then have 30 seconds to shoot a target before the effect wears off. All the threat you cause for 3 seconds will go to the person or pet you put the Misdirection on. You want to use the highest damage shots. You can also shoot Multi Shot and all mobs hit will go after your MD target. If you are attacking a large group of mobs only the ones hit by multi shot will attack your MD target. Any that are outside the range of Multi Shot or a single target shot will come straight for you if the tank doesn't use AoE.

If you make a macro like the one below you can target the person or pet you want to be the target of Misdirection and type /focus. Then you can hit this macro every 30 seconds to bump their threat level up and make their tanking life easier.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus,exists] Misdirection

Intimidation

This is a Bm talent that can help BM hunters keep argo on their pet. When you hit Intimidation your pet will stun the target for 3 seconds and make the mob pissed off at them instead of you. This is mainly used while soloing but it can be very useful when in groups and a mob is after a caster or healer. The time the mob is stunned or changing argo over to your pet can save the life of a healer or give your tank time to gain argo. Know that you may kill your pet off doing this depending on if your healer will heal your pet or how hard the mob hits.

Feign Death

This is where Hunters play dead. Feign Death is when you fall to the ground and have a high chance of losing all argo. Know that this don't always work though. The fail rate is low but it still happens sometimes. When you see you are getting high on the threat meters FD. You will be able to stand up and start into your shots again as if you never hit the mob before. This is also useful when you are fighting Big Bad Wolf in Kara. If you are turned into Red Riding Hood you can FD for the time your are RRH and the Wolf will go back to the tank. If you get up before then though you will be attacked.

Shadowmeld

Shadowmeld is a Night Elf racial ability. With 3.0.2 you can use it while in combat. If you get too much argo you can Shadowmeld and get out of combat. When you move or remove Shadowmeld you will have the same amount of threat as when you SMed. Though this does not wipe your threat you can stay hidden until your tank gains enough threat to keep the mob off of you. There is currently a bug between WoWs threat meter and threat meters like Omen. Omen will say you have cleared all threat but you really haven't. Blizz knows about this bug and it is unknown if and when they will fix it.

Shot Rotation

2008-11-20T16:38:00.000-08:00

What is a Shot Rotation?

At lvl 62 Hunters get a shot called Steady Shot. This is a useful shot because you can shoot a Steady Shot (SS) between every Auto Shot (AS). Auto Shot is the shots that happen on their own after you attack. Before 3.0.2 you had 2 choices:

You could get casting timer addons or listen to every AS to go off and hit Steady Shot asap so you could get a SS in before the AS tried to start again. If SS and AS overlapped then you would miss the AS that the SS was casting through.
You could set up a macro that would time AS and SS perfectly so no SS would clip AS. You would then hit this button fast so you would shoot as much as possible.

The act of weaving these shots together is called a Shot Rotation. Some Hunters swear by doing all this by hand. That is great if you do this but it takes all of your attention listening to the shots or watching a bar go across your screen and timing everything right. Using a macro lets you do this without having to fully focus on your shots. This allows you to look around the raid and notice the big nasty mob attacking your healer.

With the 3.0.2 patch the class mechanics changed so AS wouldn't be clipped by SS. You could be casting SS and mid way through the cast a AS can go off. Now Shot Rotation macros piece together different things to maximize your DPS.

What is a Shot Rotation Macro?

This is the macro I am currently using.

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot

The showtooltip line will show you the Steady Shot info when you mouse over the macro button.

The cast Kill Shot line will make you cast Kill Shot whenever the mob is below 20% life and it's cooldown is up.

The cast !AutoShot isnt needed in the macro as a whole but it does allow you to shoot an Auto Shot when you first press the button instead of waiting until a Steady Shot is cast.

Then the cast Steady Shot is the command that is mainly used in this macro. It will cast Steady Shot every time it's cooldown is up which is around 1.5-1.74 seconds depending on your spec and haste rating.

The script commands is to cut down on any errors you see and hear when spamming this macro.

How do I use this macro?

If you click on the computer icon as if you were logging out of the game you will see an icon for Macros. Click on that. You will see a window appear. At the bottom you will see a button to create a new macro. Click on that and pick out an icon and name for your macro, click OK. Then copy and paste the above quoted text into the box. Now you can click on the icon of your new macro and drag it down to a space on your hotbar.

Don't try to time anything with this macro. Just click it as fast as comfortable. This will make you shoot as much as you can. Be sure you have a threat meter like Omen because doing so many shots can cause a lot of agro.

What's your &%*$& game???

2008-11-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

Added via Special Request from Grumble. /Ozzy <3>

WotLK Hunter Talents

2008-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

There is 2 types of talent trees you will be using as you play the WotLK expansion. One will be a grinding spec as you level up and the other is a DPS spec when you get to lvl 80 and start into raiding.

For a leveling spec get any talents that increases Hit Points, Armor, Dodge and Healing. This will really help a lot when your pet is tanking mobs no matter what kind of pet you have. You can see a rough build for leveling BM here.

Beast Mastery

Tier One

I see this one proc all the time. 15% ranged attack speed boost is really nice for cranking out extra DPS.

This is one of those that can be moved around. The extra health is nice for AoE boss fights but can be replaced with another talent.

Tier Two

This has a nice boost in your own damage and depending on your pet the increased chance of crit could mean a couple K extra damage.

If you are BM you are bound to your pet. If your pet gets nuked in a raid you have to get them back and ready for action ASAP. Reduced cast time, reduced mana cost, and increased health will help you do that.

Tier Three

For one point you get a lot from this talent. Do more damage with Viper and a lot more attack power with Hawk. I can see Dragonhawk being a nice aspect for PvP/Arena.

20% is a nice bonus to your pets damage. If you have a tanking pet your pet helps you down mobs faster and if you have a DPS pet you have a shredding machine.

Tier Four

When you are on boss fights mana means a lot. This one saves you mana and can help cure and DoTs on your pet.

More pet damage. Linked to Frenzy so this is mandatory.

Tier Five

This is useful in 3 ways. First off it is linked to other must have talents. Secondly, this is an argo generator for your pet. You can keep cranking out the DPS while leveling/farming without pulling from your pet. Lastly, this is a nice talent when your pet gets below 40% health and you need a few ticks of Mend Pet to hit your pet to boost em back up.

Focus, focus, focus. You can never get too much of it when Claw, Bite, and Smack are focus dumps. More focus - more DPS.

Tier Six

The higher you can get your pet's crit the longer they can have increased attack speed with this talent.

Tier Seven

With WotLK this talent is now raid wide and also stacks with other BM Hunters FI. If you have 3 BM hunters in your raid and they all proc at the same time, which I have seen many times, that is +9% dps for the whole raid.

This is the Big Red Kitty talent. Send casters to the grave with this one. BW is very nice to use on mobs that fear or stun. This ability will also release your pet from any kind of CC.

Tier Eight

This is one I am unsure of ATM. More mana regen means more time you can keep in AotH without changing to AotV.

This talent is why other specs of Hunters hate us. We get an increase in attack speed of the ranged weapon we are using. This can make a So-So wep into a viable wep. Another pet attack speed increase also. Go go Shredder.

Tier Nine

This is a very nice talent because it means you can use your special abilities more often. This can throw off macros that are set up to trigger BW and trinkets on the same timer so take that into consideration when using those macros.

This is the same thing as Beastial Wrath but it applies to you. This will also help you break out of CC and make you immune to fear.

Tier Ten

More pet damage. /cheer

Marksman

Tier One

Increases your crit chance. This is one you shouldn't pass up.

Tier Two

Seeing that many pieces of raiding gear includes Int in the stats, you could really boost up your attack power with this one.

Where Lethal Shots increases your crit chance, this one increases the damage you do on your crits.

Tier Three

More focus for the focus dump abilities and Growl.

A 2 minute chop off of Rapid Fires cooldown makes this one worth while for raiding. The additional damage is useful when farming because when you are raiding you probably wont chain pull enough to put faith in the damage side.

Tier Four

This is really nice if you have a habit of sting-ing a boss where you have to move around a lot. This also helps drain mana from either caster bosses or the random SPriest attacking you when doing the BG Daily.

Tier Five

When I found out Readiness was moved to the MM tree I was estatic. Many Hunters use this when their FD or Traps fail. That was pre-WotLK, this is now. Imagine being able to do back to back BW and rapid fire. /love

Mor Work?

2008-11-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

It seems like I haven't rested since last Thursday. I can't see how people are already lvl 80. That's just crazy talk. Right now Grumble and I have baby Death Knights and are pretty impressed with them. Grumble is 73 and I am almost there. Personally, I love the Tundra and hate the Fijord. I have quested a bit in Dragon Blight and like it there. We also headed out to the Basin last night. At 72 I could easily solo the 75-77 mobs there with my gorilla. Clarabelle never went below 60% when I didn't heal her.

I updated the Hunter Related section to include the new Scopes, Enchants, and Gems. I will be going through and adding food and pots soon.

Pet wise, I have just used my Gorilla. She rocks no matter whether I am farming or leveling. I have made plenty skinners happy when trailing me. Grumble has been using his Gorilla also but yesterday found the glory of the Worm. They have an amazing swimming animation. Oh yeah, and they tank well also. I tried a Rhino for all of 10 minutes. Yeah they may have their use but not for me right now. I like the ability of AoEing down mobs fast and their Knockback is on too long of a cooldown.

Now, back to leveling.

Oh How We Are Lovin' WotLK!

2008-11-14T07:53:00.000-08:00

These baby Murlocs are so damn cute!!!!! I love how they talk. Hey Blizz Can I Haz Plz???? Grumble had to drag me out of the cave.

This item is Brilliant!

Now you see em, Now you dont.

2008-11-11T19:52:00.000-08:00

What a patch day! Going on what... 15 hours of downtime? GMs say we will be reimbursed for the last 15 days of mail. Makes me kinda glad I was getting all those instance achievements and have been putting everything from lvl 20-70 items in the AH lately. /Gasp I wonder if they will reimburse every mail sent. That will mean I will have a bunch of Bijous and Coins waiting for me. /squee!!!!

5 Man Onyxia

2008-11-10T15:12:00.000-08:00

Our guild Blood of the Dragon had a blast Saturday night. First we went to Onyxia and 5 man-ed her. Then we went to UBRS, BRD to MC attune 2 people. Then killed a few mobs in MC. This is our first Onyxia kill. We had 2 Hunters with 2 Gorillas, a SPriest, a Heal-o-tree, and a Healadin. Took us 12.10 minutes to down her.

Watch more video games and play free games at WeGame.

Hunter Vs World 9 Out

2008-11-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

The stunning Dysphoria has released Hunter Vs World 9. If you don't know this Huntress she started pre BC soloing raid and instances and now in BC she solos Heroic bosses. These videos just keep getting better and better.

Beat the leveling rush

2008-11-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

I have seen post after post around the net of people saying they have requested time off from work for the day of up to a week after WotLK comes out. Needless to say there will be a whole crapload of people in the same areas trying to level. There has to be some way to make it a little easier to level, at least at the beginning. Well there is.

I currently have 100X Oshu'gun Crystal Powder Sample sitting in my bank. At first it was because Grumble and I would farm Nagrand a lot getting leathers or leveling pets. We ended up getting tired of always seeing the dust and not being able to skin when there was a dust on the corpse and someone still needed to loot it. When you turn 20 of them in at a time in Halaa you get 11,650EXP according to current leveling. Thats 58,250EXP for 5 turnins. ~Thanks Tagreth

Next, right before you get your copy of the xpac do as many dailies you can. Fill up your 25 quests with dailies but dont turn them in. Once you put your codes in and can continue to level turn your quests in. There will be a big chunk of exp depending on which dailies you do. Remember, there are dailies on the island, Sunwell ones in Shatt, Cooking, Fishing, PvP, BEM, Skettis, and Netherwing. So long as you've been lvl 70 for a while and have done some prequests you should easily be able to fill up your quest log.

I still have Consortium faction to finish up. I am about 60% through revered. The mobs in Netherstorm are lvl 68+. I will be waiting on finishing up that faction until the xpac. Also the mobs in Shadowmoon are also lvl 68+. If you need to farm mats or finish up quests in either of these areas you might want to wait until the xpac.

If you were an inventive enchanter you would have learned when the scourge invasion was happening you could collect all the stones and turn around and buy up purple gear for 15 stones. You could then DE them into 1-2 Void crystals. Voids can be turned into 2 Large Prismatic Shards. Voids and Large Pris is candy for leveling on a red recipe.

If you cook a lot then head over to Terokkar and bring a chair and a beer and fish your heart out. Collect as many Furious Crawdad you can. While you are doing this you can try to complete the achievement to get the Mr Pinchy pet. Also keep a hold of any Huge Spotted Feltail and Enormous Barbed Gill Trout.

Can you think of any other ideas to raise your level or tradeskills and get a jumpstart out of the gate?

Coffee and Photoshop

2008-11-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

Well I was going to start working on another Photoshop piece but apparently Patch 3.0.X and WoWModelViewer are not getting along so well. It will load but whenever I try to look at any models the program crashes. Over at the WMV main forums they have a temp fix which involves making a copy of WoW and just using up to the 2.4 patch. I dont feel like going to all the trouble and I couldnt see all the new WotLK models anyways. They said they have a fix that is stable for most people and when it is stable for all they will release it. Guess I wont be doing any RP type paintings for a while. I do have a nice screenshot of Grumble as a zombie and his Gorilladin grinning at the camera.

The free Starbucks coffee I mentioned yesterday was totally disgusting. It tasted like it had been sitting there for hours burning to the bottom of the pot. Yeah it was free but it turned me away from every having the notion of paying their prices for a coffee. Give me the 99 cent cups from the gas station any day. At least they taste good.

Enchants and Enchantments - WotLK

2008-11-04T13:40:00.000-08:00

These enchants and enchantments are from the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and may be useful to Hunters.

1H Weapon

2H Weapon

Boots

Bracers

Chest

Cloak

Gloves

Enchantments - These are made by other players and you can place them on your own gear.

Scopes - WotLK

2008-11-04T13:35:00.000-08:00

These are scopes for ranged weapons from the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Hunter Gems - WotLK

2008-11-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

New expansion, new list. These are WotLK related gems a Hunter might be interested in.

Remember that you do not have match the socket color and the gem color. Many socket bonuses are not worth putting in a less useful gem just to get +4 STA or ATK. Place your gems so you can use your Metagem and then usually the best bet is to fill the rest in with Red gems, namely Bright or Delicate Cardinal Ruby.

So why ATK for BM and AGI for MM/SV? Because as BM you play as a duo, you and your pet. Your pet gains attack power from you. Though straight Agility gives you increased base damage, attack power, and crit you will gain more dps when you include your pet if you ditch the AGI and slight Crit and go straight ATK.

Need a blue or yellow gem to complete a Metagem but cant decide? Remember that Prismatic gems count as all three colors at once and is an easy way to make bothersome Metas work.

If you know you will be changing gear a lot, say 3-4 pieces a week, then dont waste your money on the epic gems unless you love PvP and buy them with honor. On my server epic gems run around 200-250G where the non epics run around 40-60g. Same goes with enchants. If you have a wep you plan on changing soon dont bust out the Abyss crystals and instead go for the next lower enchant.

Epic Gems

Red

Blue - You will probably not want to stack straight STA unless it is for PVP gear.

Yellow

Purple

Green

Orange

Prismatic

NoN-Epic Gems

Meta Gems

Red

Blue

Yellow

Purple

Green

Orange

It seems we have a failure to communicate...

2008-11-04T07:02:00.000-08:00

So looking at DrudgeReport this morning I saw this story.

"Seattle-based Starbucks is making fast changes -- after being accused of breaking the law with an offer to voters.Prior to Monday afternoon, Starbucks was promoting an ad that said anyone who says enters a Starbucks on Election Day and says that they voted would get a free cup of tall coffee.

Election officials for the state of Washington told KIRO 7 that rewarding voters with free coffee is illegal. Handy said there is a federal statute that prohibits any reward for voting.Starbucks' good deed can be perceived as paying someone to vote, and that’s illegal, Handy said."The way it is written, it expressly prohibits giving any kind of gift," Handy said.Handy said the intent of the statute is aimed at special interest groups trying to influence who and how people vote.To fix the situation, Starbucks had agreed to give a tall cup of coffee to anyone who asks on Election Day.""

So I called the local Starbucks so I didn't look like a total retard asking for free coffee. I said "I heard you were giving away free coffee today, is it true?" The chick said "Yes we are giving away coffee to anyone who votes."

!!!11Eleventy!!

Apparently they didn't get the memo.

Hunters "Duo" Chamber of Secrets Quest

2008-10-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

Grumble and I were on a Kara pug last week to try to take down Tenris Mirkblood. Our group wasnt strong enough to take him down so we went and cleared the rest of the instance instead. The next day Grumble and I went back out there to make sure he was still up to yell for another pug to take him down. While there we started brainstorming.

First I made a macro /target Prince Tenris Mirkblood so I could target him around the corner. Then we put our Gorilladins at the far end of the next room and parked them. I Misdirected to my Gorilla first then Grumble did his. Grumble ran up and opened the door and FDed. I then shot Tenris Mirkblood and tried to pet tank him. My gorilla only took a few hits and died, then we did. When we came back we did the same thing but instead of worrying about our gorillas we just booked it into the room and both of us were able to read the piece of paper in time before Tenris Mirkblood came back. We were so pleased with our plan we sent tells to people on our friends list and got a few people through. I finally remembered to turn Fraps on during the last run.

You will die but at least you can finish the quest if you get into a bum pug.

Watch more video games and play free games at WeGame.

Eh?

2008-10-27T08:54:00.001-07:00

Well here's something new. These Abominable Messengers are neutral and are spawning in Shatt and going through the different city portals. More at 11.

QQ

2008-10-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

I was just checking out the Bug forums and then hopped over to the CS forums. There are a bunch of posts regarding the Zombies and how people are deleting their accounts because of them. All I can say is Boo Hoo! The xpac will be out soon and this is the first part of the story of the Lich King. Think about this... What would happen if zombies would invade your happy little home. It would suck! All your worst nightmares would become true. Yeah it is hard to go through town and check the AH but you know what... it wont last forever. This is a part of the story, which is part of the game. Don't you think Sylvanas Windrunner would have rather sat at home eating Cheesie Poofs and watched Azeroths Next Top Belf instead of being turned into a Banshee?

It's gonna be ok. Take a breath. Switch to decaf. Have some fun. Its just a game and this is just a short event.

Shandris World PvP

2008-10-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today Cleeve on the Horde side of Shandris united both sides in a huge world PvP event. Both sides first met in Mulgore and had safe bases. For the first time Alliance had the upper hand. The raid leaders guessed there was around 70-80 Alliance and 57 Horde. We killed the Horde a bit at the feet of Thunder Bluff and then we went for Carne. That was a mistake. Though we had a lot of good raiders in the group we only got Carne down to about 96%. He was one shotting many people.

Then we all went to Halaa for a little fun. Again Alliance had the upper hand. We defended Halaa but the Horde had all the guards down in 15 minutes. We then danced naked so the Hordies could get a few stones. This was a blast and I hope more of this is in the works. Thanks to those both on Ally and Horde side who organized everything.

Click for larger image.

Getting ready at TB.

Fun in Halaa.

Pole Dancing with Belf chicks.

/mourn

2008-10-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

Tigger Has Gone To The Darkside

2008-10-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

I was also turned into a zombie but was killed before I could take a SS or infect anyone. I will get you back Mage... 8oP

Where Oh Where Has My Little Quest Gone?

2008-10-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

Last night our friend Tagreth was talking about how many quests he has done. We thought he had done every quest in the old world but surprisingly he is missing some. He told us about something he found since the patch. If you go to your tracking, and every class has one, you will see Low Level Quests. o.O MEEP! Once you start tracking low level quests your minimap lights up with !'s. When you go to one of the NPCs they will have an orange ! over their heads. Besides another HH run I know what I will be doing today.

Speaking of HH, I have my squashling!!! Grumble and Tagreth still needs theirs but they felt better once we found out it is possable to get a squashling and hallowed helm from trick or treating. Once the new patch removes the mask collection I will have my The Hallowed title, Tag will have his after getting the pet, and this weekend I will be helping Grumble catch up.

I have collected my 50 mini pets and an the proud owner of Stinker. It was cool seeing Bre from WarcraftPets.com in game now, even if it is just an in game email.

Blood of the Dragon

2008-10-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

Aut is now a guild leader! While we were gone from the game our guild, which we loved, disbanded. Coming back we felt so lost. Some friends X-fered and some joined other guilds. The thought of joining another guild on our server wasn't appealing because they are either no chance of raiding, raid too much, or full of jerks or drama.

We had thought about making a new guild when we returned and we finally said screw it and made one. Right now it just has some close friends in it, but then again it is only about 12 hours old. /smirk.

Blood of the Dragon is a casual raiding guild on Shandris. As of right now we are working on achievements and the holiday farming. As we get enough people we will be doing Heroics, Kara, and ZA. Members in the guild have a good standing with people on the server so organized pugs for Kara, ZA, and beyond are likely. Another thing this guild will be a part of is retro raiding. Our members like old school raid zones and we plan on schedualing pugs for Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and AQ.

Anyone on Shandris feel free to apply at our guild page. Anyone from other servers are welcome to make alts for our guild. If you like what you see then you can think about server transfering.

EU Version of Zombie Invasion Is Now Set.

2008-10-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

ankie over at wow_ladies LiveJournal has stepped up and offered to run the EU
version of Zombie Invasion. It will be on Aszune-EU on Thursday Oct 30th
at 8pm GMT (+1) (20.00 server time). I will be updating both this blog and wow_ladies a few days before and the day of the events.

Zombie Invasion 2008

2008-10-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

Mark your calendars!! On Thursday Oct 30th at 8pm server time (EST) on Shandris-US Grumble and I will be hosting the second annual Zombie Invasion. Note it will be the day BEFORE Halloween. We choose this because many players are parents who take their kids out. We also thought since WotLK comes outsoon, Halloween would be a prime day for Blizz to have their pre-xpac world event since the whole expansion is based around the undead.

We will start raid invites at 6pm server time (EST). Make a level 1 Undead. We will be hanging out around the starting area. We will make a trek from Undercity area to Stormwind and storm the gates. This was a lot of fun last year and we were told we had to do it again or people would beat us up.

Only thing we ask if you dont spam in /general or /yell. Yes it is great to have fun but spamming the same word or sentence just to be a butthead is not cool.

EDIT: For EU servers check out this post.

I will be posting more info as the time gets closer. Stay tuned to Http://grumblenautumnn.blogspot.com

World Server Down.... Again.

2008-10-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

After going crazy for hours last night I was finally able to log on to Shandris about 10PM. Though I tried to get all the map markings in the past there has been a handful of places I have missed. I have OL and EK done and when the server comes back up I'll finish Kalamdor.

I'm really psyched they have old world raids in the achievements like Ony and BWL. Hopefully I can get some runs going to get my butt in there.

I now have a Gorilla to add to my pack. I have taken it to Nagrand and was farming on Ogres for about an hour. The pet seems to be leveling fast because it dinged lvl 66. The fact I can quickly take out 5-6 mobs helps. 8o) I'm going to try out some various animals in my last slot. A spirit beast would be nice and seeing it will be quite a while before I will be the level to tame one I can see how they look like in person before deciding. I might even set Sekhmet free to get one. o.O

The Halloween event will be starting on my birthday this year and I will be out of town until Sunday so I will be getting a late start on the partying.

5/1 The Beast Within?

2008-10-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Well they are definitely changing around talent points. Currently on my Armory page my talents look like this (Click for large image). I'm not sure how I skipped half way down MM tree but hey I'd like that ability still once the servers come back up. 8oP

/taps foot. So... servers were gonna be back up when? /sigh

Aut is back!

2008-10-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

I am finally back in game and apparently just in time for the new patch. I have been off the game since July. Who ever said after 21 days you are over an addiction didn't take in consideration WoW. I had a very nice surprise when I came back on. I checked out my title selection area and found out our 5V5 last season was high enough for a Challenger title. /squee!

And yes, I had to show off my new buddy. I still haven't come up with a name yet so if anyone has any ideas let me know.

Dark Rangers and Conspiracy Theories

2008-09-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

I personally think Bre and Fimlys are putting something subliminal in their blogcast The Twisted Nether. Seems like every time I listen to it I get the artistic bug and start up Photoshop.
Last night while listening to reruns I was flipping through WoWModelViewer and thought the skelly serpent would be a great Hunter pet. Then I thought about the Hero class I would LOVE to see introduced into the game, the Dark Ranger. Dark Rangers are like Hunters but with a Warlock feel instead of Druid. Sylvanas Windrunner is the best known Dark Ranger. I would really like to see players with undead pets and casting plague shots. I think my obsession began when I was a lvl 20 Hunter going through Undead lands to get my Springpaw Lynx in the Bloodelf area. When I first saw a Dark Hound I was drooling. I was ready to stop my trek to tame one of these instead. Then I found out they were undead and couldnt be tamed. I ended up getting a little bit of satisfaction in taming a Ghost Wolf but it isnt the same. I want to be a Necrohunter.

This is where my mind took me. A Dark Ranger with her companion. WoWModelViewer, Photoshop 7, Wacom tablet, lots and lots of airbrushing. Click for larger image.

What would be your characters Theme Song?

2008-08-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

I dont even have to think about this one. It would be Loose Lips by Kimya Dawson. If you have been a reader for a while you will know Grumble and I love to explore. I love the lines about the cops showing up because that is what I feel like while in some area where I shouldnt be.

The one time I was almost caught was when I was roaming under Stormwind. There is a large hole in the ground and I went head first into it. I kept falling, and falling.....and falling. I never died. I finally got to a point where I couldnt fall anymore and could hardly see anything except for sky. I started drifting. Through all the zones going west. I couldnt log out. Couldnt hearth. Unstuck was no luck. After about 45 minutes of drifting I really started to freak out so I broke down and wrote a Help Me note to a GM to come save me.

Time went on and still no knight in shining armor came to rescue me. Then it happened. I hit the ocean! I didnt actually go into the water but once I hit where the water was suppose to be Autumnn stopped moving and I was able to hearth. Grumble reminded me of my ticket so I deleted it while running out of the Inn in IF. I didnt even get to the AH and a GM sent me a tell.

"Blah Blah Blah RP stuff. What help do you need?"
(Ah crap I'm in trouble now.)
"Um its ok I fixed it but TY."
"Ok, is there anything you want to talk about?"
(Dangit Im almost exalted with Winterspring Frostsabers, I cant get banned.)
"Nah, just fell through the ground in Stormwind and was stuck in The Void."
"Ah ok, well be careful of The Void. Some dangerious creatures are down there."

Moral of the story: If you think you will get caught, play dumb.

Light in the Darkness

2008-08-09T08:08:00.001-07:00

Another Blog Azeroth Shared Topic is "What would your class specific flying mount be?" I'm not sure when it comes to Hunters as they currently are in the game but I do have an idea for the Lore class I would love to play. Dark Rangers

A Dark Ranger is like a Hunter and Warlock mixed together. They are Hunters where they used Ranged weapons and pets but they grasp the Undead side of things instead of Nature. Their pets are demons and undead and their spell have more of a Warlock feel to them than their current Druid feel. Sylvanas Windrunner is the most well known Dark Ranger.

This is the flying mount I would like to have as a Dark Ranger. It is the flying mount in Eastern Plaguelands when flying between the PvP towers.

What Will I Be Doing? (WotLK)

2008-08-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

One of the recent Blog Azeroth shared topics is "What will you be doing when WotLK comes out?" Being off of the game atm it is kinda hard to say. Right now I am bombarded with sending a 5 yr old to Kindergarden along with other RL stuff so I am not sure when I will be back.

I really hope WotLK will not be released until the first quarter of 2009 because I still have all the Heroic steps in getting my CotN title. If WotLK is released early, like for this Christmas season, I will be doing a mad rush trying to get that done. For those who dont know, once WotLK is released you have to finish the Champion of the Naaru title line before you ding 71. This is to prevent it from being farmed as people turn lvl 80.

Once I complete that, or atleast attempt to, I will buy up the new stable slots and test out various pets. In my current stable I have Sekhmet my cat and Baskerville my Ghost Wolf. Those slots will never change. My current third slot is a windserpent from ZG which is still lvl 61. With all the new pet changes it will be exciting to see how well pets stand up to various situations. I know first on my agenda will be to tame a Scarlet Tracking Hound. Bears seem more viable as tanks and I might even go hunt me down a pink flamingo and try it out.

I do not plan to rush to lvl 80. When I hit 60 I went through every zone and did all the quests. BEM and SMV were kinda skipped over but I finished them none the less. I will constantly be doing something but I will not stay up for days on end leveling up. That is easy to say now but I'm sure there will be some Friday nights where I see the sun rising because "I am almost done with this quest line..."

Pet News to Squee About

2008-08-07T07:21:00.001-07:00

Wow there has been a lot of new coming out about the WotLK expansion and Hunters. First thing comes from TKASomething. One of the posters on her forum submitted screenshots showing 2 more stable slots! The first new slot (our 4th actually) is currently 50G and the second new slot is 150G. Personally I dont thing thats too bad to get new stable slots. The prices can change before the expansion is released. I dont care if it is a couple thousand to get another slot, the option to get one is well worth it.

Another wonderful tidbit is the new pet categories and pet family skills. You can head over to Petopia for more detailed info on classes and skills of WotLK pets. One thing I am really excited about is the thought of being able to get a Hyena pet and it actually be useful. Hyenas will get a family ability of tendon rip which will cause damage and slow movement speed of the mob by 50% for 6 seconds. I would really like to try that out in PvP. The pic above is my baby Troll Hunter with her pet Snort. I have been eyeing a Scarlet Tracking Hound for a very long time now and have tamed it 3 times but let it go. Hyenas were exactly like wolves without the howl. When I tamed my Ghost Wolf that sealed the deal and I haven't tamed a hyena since. I love how Hyenas sound and behave. I think they are very cute and are an odd pet. With these new changes with pets Hyenas may actually be viable enough to be raiding pets or Arena contenders.

Also in WotLK pets more than 5 levels below you when tamed will be 5 levels lower once tamed. A Tracking Hound is lvl 33-34. Being lvl 70 if I go tame one it will be lvl 65 once tamed. On one side that is really cool because it saves a lot of time but on the other hand it makes my Springpaw normal now. It was really cool having people ask where I got Sekhmet and I told them she was lvl 7 when tamed. Many people couldnt believe I have had the same pet for over 3/4 of my Hunters career.

Devilsaurs are now tameable in Beta but it is unsure if they will be lumped into the Raptor family or if they will be a part of the 51 point BM talent to tame exotic pets. One of the exotic pets reveiled is the Chimera Nuramoc. Blizz has stated as later beta builds come out there will be more tameable Chimeras. My question to beta testers is have you tried to tame the Chimeras in Winterspring and the Vilewings in Shadowmoon?

Another new pet will be the Moths. This is one family that should have been added to the BC release but wasnt. It will be interesting to see how these fair as pets. Their family ability increases their attack power.

One thing is for sure, WotLK will be exciting and I am really liking the new changes besides the instant leveling of newly tamed pets. Personally I would have rather have seen a faster increase in leveling instead of normalizing pets in a way that makes low level only pets rare. Now all the Tallstrider owners and newbie Boar owners will be just another Hunter in the crowd.

Our WoW break and musings

2008-07-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well Grumble and I are off of WoW for a little while. We aren't ditching the blog or anything. We just need a break and need to break the chains of the game. In the week I have had off so far I have gotten down the Wacom and have been playing around in Photoshop. Below are 2 of the things I have cranked out so far. I have started up a new DeviantART site for my new creations.

Autumnn and Sekhmet

Boomkin Love

Legal

2008-07-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

RSS diamond icon by Garcya.us/blog

Goodbye George /cry

2008-06-22T23:35:00.001-07:00

Not WoW related but I don't care. /salute

clipped from www.cnn.com

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- A publicist for George Carlin says the legendary comedian has died of heart failure at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif.

Jeff Abraham says Carlin went into St. John's Health Center on Sunday afternoon, complaining of chest pain. Carlin died at 5:55 p.m. PDT. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. It was announced Tuesday that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

The dean of counterculture comedians, Carlin constantly pushed the envelop with his jokes, particularly with a routine called "The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV."

2008 Midsummer Fires

2008-06-21T04:13:00.001-07:00

These are the locations we have found for the 2008 Midsummer Festival. If you find any other locations of fires please let us know and we will update the list. Some locations have both an Alliance fire and a Horde fire because of being a Neutral location. The fires below are located outside of these towns so they are away from guards. The NPCs at opposing factions fires did not attack me at lvl 70.

You get 5 Blossoms and about 6 gold each fire of your faction and 10 blossoms and about 11 gold for each fire of your opposite faction. Each fire you steal from the opposing factions main city will get you 25 blossoms. You must be lvl 50 to complete the quest for stealing city fires. A thanks to Tag for helping me stay awake in the wee hours of the morning.

Red mean Horde fires. Blue is Alliance fires. Black means there is both fires at the location.

Alliance City Fires

Stormwind - By Stockades
Ironforge - Hall of Explorers
Darnassus - Outside by dock to Darkshore
Exodar - In the Crystal Halls

Horde City Fires

Orgrimmar - Valley of Wisdom, outside of Thrall's Chambers
Undercity - In Throne Room above the city
Thunder Bluff - SW corner of Spirit Rise
Silvermoon City - All the way North between Murder Row and the Teleport to Undercity

Eastern Kingdom - Traveling South to North

Kalimdor - Traveling North to South

Outlands - Traveling from Netherstorm to Shadowmoon

Raid Quotes!

2008-06-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

A recent Blog Azeroth shared topic is Raid Quotes. It is always fun when someone takes the stress out of raiding by saying something funny in /raid or Vent. Here are some of my favs.

"I wonder if I have any porn on this computer."

Raid Leader: "Anyone have any issues before we start?"
Raider_001: "It burns when I pee."

"OMG It really is a big black void in Maidens' crotch!"

"Don't worry. Tag always heals better when he is drunk."

"Whatever you do don't attack the star" - Raptor Mount boss, guy at the bottom of the steps.
You have entered combat.

Raid Leader in Vent: "Is everyone on Vent now?"

Raid Leader: "Ok we are going to take an AFK break."
Raider: "Remember if its more than 2 shakes it's masturbation."

Raider_001: /yell in Kara "OMG we are gonna Pwn you B&#*$!!"
Raider_002: /raid "You know everyone in Kara can see that right?"
/general lots of heckling.

Hunter_001: "OMG I cant use any of my shots! Ive been trying to hit my keys and they aren't doing anything!"
Raider_001: "Are you out of ammo?"
Hunter_001: "I need a summon..."

(From a lvl 70 pug)
"Hunter_001, where is your pet?"
"It died and I didn't have time to tame another one."

Playing on the PTR

2008-06-20T13:33:00.001-07:00

Well today I have set foot on the PTR to play around with the various updates. First I went on my little lvl 30 druid to get her mount. My druid is honored with Darnassus so this is the type of pricing you will see on a regular rep grinding for a lvl 30.

The Skyguard now has a mini pet added for Exalted people. It ends up being 34G with the faction discount.

WeGame.com - WoW Videos

They also changed the height of flying minipets on the PTR. Now they float about waist height but theres a catch. Only your pet will be higher. Other people with flying pets, as of this posting, is still ground level. Below is shots of my pet which is higher and someone elses pet. I have tested out if the pet changes levels when i sit and it didnt. I am really hoping they change this because it really changes nothing if others cannot see your pet higher.
Next is the new Trading Card Game items. Blizz is allowing us to go to Booty Bay and "buy" the new items for this testing round. First is the Disco Ball. It puts down a box with a Disco Ball bouncing around like a Jack-in-The-Box, lights spinning on the ground around it, and a cog type click to make people dance when they click it. Kinda a fun toy. Also you can see the Fel Feet. It comes in stacks of 100 and lasts for 5 minutes. When you walk it leaves about a 10 ft trail of Fel fire behind you.

There is also an Ethereal Trader you can get. It acts like a noncombat pet. When it is out and you kill something it will do a spell like when Warlocks make soulstones and collect its own currency. You can then buy items from it with that special currency. You cannot sell other items to it like a Field Repair Bot.

WeGame.com - WoW Videos

Haris Pilton in Lower City now sells items. Most of them are just junk but she does have a nice bag. The shades look like pink Engineering goggles when put on.