Mentor Musings

Before I knew of blogs and EJ, I wanted to hunter.  I’d leveled one to 60 in vanilla, putzing about on my own, speccing BM because I thought that was cool at the time.  When BC rolled around I decided to make her my main.

I knew, at least, basically what stats to shoot for.  I wasn’t that hunter in strength gear or anything.  But the nuances were great msyteries for me, and suddenly there was more gear choices, more stats (hit?!), more…everything.

I would have been pretty lost, had I been left to my own devices.  But I was not.

I had a mentor.  His name was Olgas–as far as I know he still plays this very toon.  He put up with my billion questions about what gear to get and what reps to grind.  Without him I doubt I would have turned into the top 3 DPS that I did.  He still blew me away–there are few hunters out there was awesome as Olgas–but I held my own.

I wonder if he was proud of me?  I never thought to ask.  I don’t think I ever thanked him, either.  Certainly if I did, it was not enough.

If you have a mentor, go give them a cookie. 

Cheers, Olgas.   Happy huntering.

Let’s Pretend That Meters Mean Something

Yesterday I got the chance to enter ICC 10 again-this time, with an MM hunter along as well.  My goal?  To stalk his heels as closely as possible. 

Here’s where we stood after Marrowgar.  I am, of course, Jamethera…and the MM hunter is Dragonstorm.  Looks about how you’d expect-I trail after the MM hunter by a good bit.

…but here’s the meters for Fester.

Notes: Dragonstorm is a main with a GS of around 5700.  Jamethera is an alt with a GS of 5000.  I think I’m allowed to be pleased, don’t you?   I also have a totally wasted trinket, as I’m so far over hit cap that I don’t even know what to do with myself, and a replacementfor Pyrite Infuser hasn’t cared to drop yet.

I should have the logs for the raid, actually, so I might come back later and post them as well.   I’m not feeling the red headed step child vibe so much these days, though.   \o/

Another note: I decided, after playing around during Twilight Sparkle Party attempts, that Spirit Beasts are EXCELLENT beach ball boppers.  The 30 yard range on their Faux Moonfire seems to elimante the problem with pets on stairs.

Meet The Stable

Omnomnom
AKA That Damned Pet
I love this pet.  Most of my guild loves this pet.  Cranky Tank?  …hates this pet, SO VERY MUCH.  It’s awesome.  😀  HAI I AM A DINOSAUR I AM GETTING IN YOUR WAY STOMP STOMP LOL.

Softpaw
AKA Moonfire!Cat / Not Loque
I find Gondria the first day I look.  Loque?  Never.  Sigh.

Schneeflocke
AKA SCHNEEEEEEEE
The second pet Jamethera ever tamed and the one to carry her from level 14 to level 70.  I love this cat to pieces, but I also can’t bear to surrender the awesome that is Omnomnom.

Cúchulainn
AKA How The Fuck Do You Say That?
I tamed him because…wolves are (were?) technically the highest DPS.  But…he’s a wolf.  Meh.  I almost never bring him out of the stable-I might release him someday to make room for another spirit beast (the empty stable slot is saved for He Who I Shall Probably Never Tame).

I R Melee Huntar

During a chain of heroics, my armor widget thingey that tells me how broken I am must have wigged out.  It showed 75%, but during a trash pull in H Nexus my crossbow…broke.

Because we were in that part of Nexus with the silly little flowers, we were almost always in combat and I couldn’t get out to repair.  Since it was “just a heroic” and several of the others were guildies, I decided to melee DPS the boss.

I flipped on Aspect of the Beast, went ahead an used Red Pet and Kill Shot as usual and whaled away with my pole arm…

…and still did over 1k DPS and beat a DK in the group.

Now to be fair to the DK, he was not really “fail”, merely brushing off a neglected, undergeared toon.  It did however provide a bit of amusement in my day.

And yes, I repaired and ceased to suck after that boss.

Baby BM Hunter: 1-10

The first 10 levels are, by far, the worst of them.  I mean you don’t even have a pet or talent points until the very end!

For the most part these levels consist of shooting things from max range, applying serpent sting once you’ve got it, and raptor striking mobs in the face when they get into melee range.

At 10, you get the quest that sends you out to tame 3 different things before you learn to tame pets yourself.   Now I distinctly recall that for night elves this involved a wee bit of running around the zone-but for Tauren they’re all like, across the river. 

Damn moocows.  Anyway.  So you do that quest, run to the city to complete the second part of that quest, and then go tame your first pet.   If you’re me, you chuckle to yourself and go find a pink flamingo.

I’ve done most of my hunter leveling with a DPS pet, and I reccomend this.  Tanking pets can be useful for some situations, and it may be easier these days to keep two pets at your level-but I still reccomend just sticking with one.  I solo’d many an elite thing with a cat.  🙂

My poor moocow was very poor until I sold some Malachite on the AH-now she has a comfortable 2g in her bags, and I can do a few important things like…train weapons so she can use her heirlooms, and pick up less-fail gear, and oh, PROFESSIONS!

/mourn

So long, Pike (…for now!)

I think perhaps my baby cow will tame a raptor in her honor.  \o/

Meet Hunter #5

My second 60 was a hunter.   The fact that I even had two 60s in vanilla was nothing short of amazing, considering how long it took me to level (a year!).  That hunter, however…was not my first one.  On January 25th, 2005, I rolled my very first hunter: a Tauren named Wayreth.

To this day, she is level 26.  She will…probably always been level 26.  But I’ve always harbored a not-so-secret love for Tauren, as well as for hunters, so a couple of nights ago I rolled a baby moocow hunter.

“But Amber…you already have a hunter.  Er…you have several.”

Yes…but.  But.  Playing Jamethera right now requires an investment in time and focus that I just can’t make.  All that she needs come from heroics or raids, and I can’t often heroic or raid with her due to IRL constraints.  I have 3 raid nights I can make-for two of those, I need to be on my priest.  For the third, they need my paladin.  It’s very hard to hunter blog when not PLAYING a hunter, and my other baby hunters are scattered across old servers, hither and yon…

…so, meet Endingfire.

First Misadventure of the Baby Hunter: having the BoA bow, but not enough silver to train for it.  D’oh!

I Think You Missed a Point

“Without question a very good and very geared BM hunter can pull their weight in raids. …With good enough gear and enough skill, a BM hunter can pass any metric required of normal ICC.

However it is also without question that BM is also doing considerably less DPS than other specs, and they’re doing less DPS by choice. …  Raiding is a team sport. It’s not just about carrying your minimum DPS mark, it’s about doing everything you can to help the team.”  –Scattered Shots

You know what’s also important in a game?  Having fun.

You know what’s also important in a team sport?  Morale.   My personal morale-and thus, indirectly, the morale of those who have to deal with me-is much higher when I play BM because BM makes me happy.   Having a Devilsaur pet is silly.  Having a cat that moonfires makes people giggle. 

I play BM because I love it more than I love being on top of the meters.  My guild wants me to play BM because they want me to go “NOOOO, OMNOMNOM!!!!!” over vent when my Devilsaur dies so they can LOL at me.   I like LOLing and even being LOL’d at.  

I don’t play this game to top meters, I play it to accomplish boss kills with my friends.  In the name of different strokes for different folks, BM is more than adequate.

“Without question a very good and very geared BM hunter can pull their weight in raids.”
“Without question a very good and very geared BM hunter can pull their weight in raids.”
“Without question a very good and very geared BM hunter can pull their weight in raids.”

So shut the hell up already and go back to your epeening.

(Actually, I’d like to strike out that “very geared” part.   Geared, yes, but this implies (at least, to me) that a level of being overgeared is required.  If you look back at my previous post you’ll see my hunter sitting comfortably at 5k on the meters-in her first full 25 man.  If my haphazardly geared alt in 10 man gear can do that, then I don’t think one needs to be “very geared” in order to hit the DPS minimums for ICC.)

So How’s That BM DPS?

We threw together a ToC25, and it happened to be Jamethera’s first non-VoA 25.  I was thrilled with how well I did!  This screenie was for a particular boss fight (Jaraxxus?), but even on the overall meters I finished a solid 4.9k despite being on orb duty for Anub.  Don’t let anyone tell you that BM isn’t a viable spec for raiding, because they’re full of shit. 

\o/

Marrowgar and You

So I’m a little behind the curve, but I finally got my hunter in to at least Marrowgar last night.

First off, LOL.  The change to AoE damage on pets?  Yeah, this fight would have been a nightmare before, what with the fire and the whirlwind.  Now, feel free to ignore your pet.  Give your damage a nice boost by leaving him on the boss during whirlwind, and enjoy the sight of the animal of your choice chasing after him as he madly careens around the room.

Pets are also useful for when the rest of your DPS seems to momentarily forget that sometimes the poor sap standing away from everyone else gets spiked, too.  >:|

Oh, and of course you get spiked during Bestial Wrath.  Of COURSE.