Info Days and Nerd Rage

Title may be a bit misleading but you know what? I don't care. Both will be part of this post its just the nerd rage is not my own. As we all know and have seen (well those of us that keep up with WoW news like a broke crack-head stalks his dealer when he says he's out) probable class changes have been announced for all classes but Paladins. And while Ty is pacing outside waiting for her turn to see what knew shines she gets the Ed has a few things she wants to comment on. That's right kids, its time for Ed drools over hunter goodness.

Lets start with the new buttons that will be filling up more bar space I don't have. At 81 us hunters will be getting Cobra shot, which is a nature based shot and shares a cool down with steady shot. At 83 they will toss Trap Launcher at us (see what I did there?) that will take the place of the current frost arrow and work with all traps. Finally at the cap we will get a tasty skill called Camouflage that will make us unable to be attacked by ranged attack and give us an attack bonus when we attack from it.

Now starting with Cobra shot this shot is making your dear Edy drool on herself a bit. From what I've read this shot is the shot they are aiming to make the Beast Mastery signature shot though all specs will have it. Beast Mastery will have something in tree to make the shot more appealing to us to the point it completely replaces steady shot. Kinda like how Explosive shot and arcane shot work for Survival hunters. Whats this mean to me? Well for one it makes me a happy Edy. Not because its going to be a huge DPS increase or something of the sort but simply because its something new and fresh to add flavor to a spec I already love. Beast Mastery has always been about the pet but all specs have pets so it will be nice to have a hunter shot tailored to the hunter rather than the pet in a spec that was beginning to suffer a handicap from so many pet buffs, nerfs, and scaling problems as it was.

As for Trap Launcher I have one thing to say. Flying snakes. I have needed a reason to randomly yell "eat snakes beeotch" again and well Blizzard seems to have heard my cry. Now if they would just make the damn snakes worth something again...

Camouflage. Well I am a little up in the air about this one. The words that describe it sound good and all but I wont know how I feel about the skill until I see just how useful it is. I mean I can't get super excited by every spell they give us.

With the spells out the way lets get to the meat of things, the over all class mechanic changes:

Mana goes byebye.
I am BEYOND happy to see this is getting closer to the live servers. Mana is a pain for hunters even with our in class regeneration skills. We burn it in seconds and are stuck with juggling aspect of the viper to regain enough to burn again many times over in a fight (though I will be fair and say its more a problem in raiding situations and leveling than any other time) unless we have mana regen in the party buffs or are specced for the mana regen in Survival. We aren't really set up to benefit from mp5. Though to be honest my biggest gripe with mana is the fact that it really doesn't fit the class itself. Hunters are weird. Our attacks are physical. If I were to get silenced you know what it would do? Stop me from rezzing or healing my pet. That's it. I can still shoot you with all my shots and stings. I can still do my defensive stuff. I think I still drop traps (not something I do a lot of in silenced situations so don't string me up for not being certain on this one at 1AM). So other than things I may or may not need to do to my pet what exactly is it that makes me as a hunter a magic user? Yes I know I am a blood elf in game but their are rogues and soon to be warriors in my race. Magic is not a must so I wont advocate for keeping it just because of that. Focus might seem scary now to most hunters but I'm totally ready to try it out. True it will take some getting use to but what changes don't? Ty was worried about the ret pally's loss of intellect on dps plate but those mechanics worked out just fine. So I figure why fret over it until I see something about how its working on the test realms.

Ammo is no more.
I may need new pants the day I see my quiver filled with formerly useful arrows just waiting to be sold to the vendor and a quiver that at that point will turn into a 28 slot bag than only hunters can use. I can hear the QQ now from engineers on their lost gold income and everybody else about the bag but you know what? Edy don't give a damn. I don't see how paying 3 to 10 gold per 1000 arrows that I absolutely have to have to function in my class is fair. Does having a pet mean I have to pay more than the rest of my raiding group just to do my job? Yes other classes need things like poisons and seal of kings to do part of their job in a raid but does that cost them as much as it does a hunter? Can a rogue still not attack a target if they forget to buy poison? Why yes they can. A hunter cant. Best we can do is be a warm body to fill a spot until you find somebody that can attack and actually DO real damage. Can a paladin still buff without seal of kings? Of course they can. Just would take an hour to do one by one but it can still be done. Not like you have to have the blessing to function as a class. Now even take into account hunters use two different types of ammunition in arrows and bullets. You cant fire a gun with bullets and vice versa. That's a lot of extra cash from a class just to be able to function. Now am I saying I am completely thrilled to see ammo go? Well yes and no. While they can't take the cost out of the game fast enough I am a bit sad they are just taking it away all together instead of giving us some sort of ammo item that worked like a regular piece of gear (I was never fond of the elemental arrow items idea myself but it was an interesting one) and could have done cool things. But once I sat down and actually thought about it the removal seems the most logical way to deal with the problem of ammo. Also hunters wont be the only ones to benefit from not having to carry ammo around. Sucks the other classes that can use bows and guns wont be able to keep the a quiver or ammo pouch as a bag. That last thing sounded sincere yes?

Gotta catch em all.
More pet storage makes me beyond happy. The current five slots are nice (I remember three and cant imagine what hell it was to have less than that) but with all the cool pets they keep adding you just don't want to have to give up something you really like just to get and try something new. So as it stands hunters will be able to have 3 active pets with them in call stable at all times and several more in reserve that can be switched with the active ones at a stable keeper. I am a collector by nature so the thought of getting pets based on looks and tossing them in the reserves CAUSE I CAN is like putting me on cloud nine. Some pets are also getting their debuffs/buffs reworked so hunters can bring more utility when taking pets into party situations. This is something I also can't wait to see how it works for myself. I have snuggles and as far as I am concerned he is all I need. Still the possibilities....

Pet from level 1.
Now this is an interesting change for the class. I feel a little mixed about this. Not so much because its making the game easier but more because I wish they had this when Edy first picked up her bow. Getting to level 10 as a fresh wower is a bit overwhelming to get used to. You also play for 10 levels in a manner that really doesn't fit the way Blizzard wants the class to work. Now purest (A.K.A. old grumpy bastards that cant let anybody else have fun) say those levels teach us how to kite. Lets be honest here. I cant speak for everybody but I know I did my share of melee when I first got my account and thought nothing of it. Hunters have ranged AND melee weapons. Why would somebody in the game know that they shouldn't stand there and whack away at the thing they shot to get its attention. I did pick up on kiting fairly quickly after getting tired of getting chewed on but I am a gamer and have been for years. Problem solving is one of the things I enjoy when I game. That in no way means the person that doesn't think "I need to kite" when they are getting chewed on is stupid. It just means they play differently. A pet from level one isn't going to dramatically change the number of hunters that don't know how to kite. When you pull aggro off your pet you learn real quick to run away and shoot it to let your pet get aggro back. All level one pets are going to do is help people have more fun when they role a new toon and start seeing what the game is about. Also will stop a lot of bitching (myself included) from hunter addicts that like to roll a new one from time to time then remember how bad it sucked getting to level 10 without a pet.

Emphasis on ranged.
Yeah hunters are ranged. Blizzard says we dont want you whacking on things all willy nilly since some of us don't seem to understand we don't really hurt things like that. So mongoose bite is going bye bye for sure and who knows what they will do about our dead zone or if we will be able to still whack on things at all. Unless they say we cant use melee weapons for stats I really won waste my time thinking about this one.

Everything else you can read on your own since they are just stat things that I don't have to wait my breath on.

Now as you can see I am far from the "we are doomed" camp about changes and I tend to be pretty open to whatever Blizzard wants to try as long as its fun and keeps the feel of the class/spec. In fact crying over something that's months away kinda irritates me. If you don't like a change don't nerd rage about it and don't just assume its going to kill your class. Blizzard may get things wrong but you have to think about information like this as a chance to make yourself heard to the company in an open forum to say "have you thought about maybe not doing this or X doesn't sound like something that's a great idea". They have proven they do listen when we speak sometimes and are probably more likely to listen when peoples aren't yelling how they suck without explaining why. Things will change between now and the time I get to get my hands on the expansion or the patch with the class changes. You won't see me flip out about the changes and rage away (my rage is special and can not be used without good reason). I want to see the game I love get better and become more fun. If a change is coming I will wait and see what it does. If I don't like it...well maybe its time I find something else to do with my free time.

Edy has spoke.

This Is A New One On Me

Ok so it's not often I feel the need to step in and take the place of my sister on this blog but by the light this is just something that I can not get an understanding of.

Whats that? I cant understand what? Oh sorry I suppose I should at least pose the issue that has this little Paladin so confused. Well as Edy was off doing smelly hunter things I chose to find a group of like minded random souls to descend in the fiery undead depths of Forge of Souls I noticed a fellow light bringer looking for services in the trade channel.


Ok in case I need to be clear about what light bringer confused me I will give you a hint. It wasn't the soul asking for a healer for Naxx even if he was insistent about needing the help and since I wouldn't know what 6.9 or baja have to do with anything there aren't many options.

So I know I'm merely a Retadin of the Blood Knights that occasionally dabbles with the holier side of my calling, ranged heals is a new one on me. At first I thought this Krage person was merely running their words together. It happens to the best of us when we are in dire need of assistance (lord knows Edy is bad about it) so I was about to leave it at that and go about my day, but this person just kept asking for ranged heals. The tank was later dropped from the request (I would assume that somebody understood 1 tank just fine but when one gets hit in the head for a living you cant be too sure) but the ranged heals request remained constant. Even after I returned from my romp through the Forge laying holy waste to everything in sight this poor person was still asking for ranged heals. So it as this point I begin to question myself. I don't go prancing around healing people all that much (I prefer sticking the pointy ends of my axe in things with glowy hammers of divine justice surrounding me) so perhaps somebody slipped one past old Tytanya when she wasn't looking. Wouldn't be the first time. Still as far as I know there is no such thing as a melee healer...though I suppose it could be made to work. See from what I was taught unless there are specific circumstances involves those of us flinging life energy around don't like being up close and personal all that much. Also it would be rather inconvenient to only be able to heal the person standing right next to you. Yes I am aware I do it all the time what with being a ret and all but that's different. I'm not trying to heal anybody. Its just hard to keep that much holy might to yourself.

Now I brought this to the attention of a druid friend of mine to see if he could clarify things for me. He seemed as confused/surprised as me that someone would request ranged heals. "I thought they were all ranged" was his answer to me. And honestly I agree with him. I thought of asking this person myself what they meant by "ranged" heals but their request changed to simply heals (after almost an hour mind you) and I lost all desire to know what ranged heals were when my hunger pains began. This question may nag at me for some time but I am sure some greater matter will arise and I will push past my curiosity and find something new to ponder like how to remove the smell of death knight and ghoul drool from plate. Although if any of you have any information about ranged heals please by all means share.

I Feel So Bad Now

I must say the plight of the young kobold has truly touched me. Where I won't say *cough* but anywho as one of the few races of small angry npcs I run across in my long adventure in Azeroth I have seen the light and this will hopefully show you how wrong this kobold genocide is. I think I might have to kill a human to make myself feel better...or find some sort of plan to convert all kobold quests into ones where murloc and gnolls die...particularly gnolls. There isn't enough time in my day to spill all their blood I think needs to be spilled.

Knowing What I Know Now

Ok though I would have loved to have only the exact song for my blog this is the closest thing I can get to what I wanted so if you would be go kind the song starts at 2:11 on the vid.

*cough*

That said the reason I've posted such a song is simple, I have a lowbie hunter and for some reason this song comes to mind whenever I play her. I look back at my leveling Edy back when I knew nothing of the ways of the hunter and think to myself how horrible and not so bright I was about what I should and shouldn't do. For example:

I know now that you shouldn't fight in melee
shooting and running is fine
I know now that a pet is over powered
at least 'til you're past the 70 line
Just think of it gee,
how great it would be
if I could go back some how
and have my hunter to level oooooover
knowing what I know now

Ok I got more but putting them in song just isn't something my brain can do right now so lets just list.

I know now that as bad as mana management sucks at level 12 it never gets any better
I know now that its a good idea to always keep your pet on passive in a dungeon, in particular ones where you don't know certain things (tank, the instance itself, other dps, etc.)
I know now that strength is not a hunter stat as we don't get ranged attack power
I know now that 80% of other hunters that have played longer than me still don't know these things
I know now that 90% of people you party with in WoW will assume you are that hunter in the 80%
I know now that feign death is the best hunter skill ever
I know now that some pets are smarter than others (I think I wrote a post about this in the past)

So what would you do different if you could do it over again?

Min/Max Makes Edy Wanna Choke A Gnome

It's been a while since I've just been irritated by min/maxing to the point I wanted to post about it but today happens to have just pushed me over my limit. I just don't understand why people are so insistent on wanting EVERYBODY to do the same thing to their characters just 'cause some guy with a calculator said doing X instead of Y would make you some number you wont even notice better and more uber than all the other uber peoples that you see. Then you can just prance around those people, e-peen flappin' in the breeze, making fun of them cause they aren't a carbon copy of you and the people you copied cause it's the "it" thing to do until the next patch or item drop says you must switch to this spec and spend thousands of gold on regemming, chants, and Advil for the headache you just gave yourself.

Breath.

Now that's off my chest I need to be clear I in no way shape or form have a problem with min/max-ers or their spreadsheets (even if they DO make my eyes glaze over). What I don't like about min/max is the pressure it tends to put on the rest of the player base. So you aren't doing what elitist jerks says is the flavor of the patch for your class, does that mean you aren't doing it right? If your numbers look good then I say do what feels good. For example I know that the wolf is supposed to be the it pet for the raiding hunter. I like my cat. Snuggles and me been doing our thing since I been playing and personally I don't want another pet with me as it makes me feel off when I play. Does that mean I am doing something wrong? So I am losing around 120 dps on paper but for me my computer isn't top of the line so I am prone to lag spikes. My cat does more dps himself than a wolf on a target so maybe for me my kitty is a better choice for the way I play. I caved and got a raid spec I think I conformed enough to get by. My spec isn't perfect but I like it, I don't worry about armor pen or stuff like that (I value what little sanity I have left) , and though I might like to be on the top of the charts in my raids as long as I am showing numbers where they are supposed to be I see no reason to give up little things I do in my class that make it more fun for me just to see numbers on a chart.

Now that I've blown off my steam for the "best hunter pet" article I just read and have begun to lose my train of thought again I will call an end to my rant. Happy fun hunting!

What Edy Would Like To See

As the next expansion looms in the near future all the new changes have people a titter with thoughts of what could and will be (no more hunter mana HUZZAH), I've found myself thinking that while those things are awesome I would like more. Now its not game mechanics I am really all that concerned with as I will have my hands full learning the ends and outs of my beloved hunter tree, but more "simple" wish I find myself resting on. I have spoken about my prior MMO experience with City of Heroes and I have dabbled in a few other free titles for giggles and I find WoW the more enjoyable but even so that doesn't mean there aren't things I would like to see improved upon.

I like pretty things. That said I do love the look of WoW considering that Blizzard has managed to keep the game playable on underpowered systems (much like my own though I can still see the majority of the perdy stuff) and even though the graphics are a bit dated I don't have a problem with them. Hell sometimes I even find myself just watching the surrounds as I fly around Azeroth just because of how beautiful it all is. My wish isn't so much that we have realistic trees or the likes. What I would like see changed is character customization.

In CoH my greatest fun wasn't beating the crap out of badly dressed villains crawling in back alleys, no sir, it was the sheer amount of customization that you could do to your avatar in just the basic character building that made me the happiest. Now you couldn't make them look exactly like what you wanted but you could come pretty close and all in all that make the toon feel more like it was YOURS than just a carbon copy of everybody else running around in game. That said I know all the things you could do in character design in that game couldn't really work in WoW. It's not like expect them to fire the guy that makes the super large shoulders on the tier or the people that insist on making the horrid looking hunter and paladin gear in the game. Its the naked toon options I really wanna see more done with. I want tattoos. I want scars. I want more than 5 hair styles and colors. I want to walk out into dalaran and not see 15 people that look exactly like me. I don't roll play in WoW but if I did maybe I would want a toon that was missing an eye or something of the sort. Hell at least give me the ability to change Tauren hair color and fur color separately or let me chose more than 3 faces for my troll. I might even let the fact I never got my dance studio I was promised go if I could give Edy tattoos.

Yes my desire is pure vanity but so what? I am sure many people feel like myself and would like to have their toons be a bit more personalized to their tastes. Its bad enough everybody wears the same armor but I think if you let players choose whats under the armor with more freedom. I wouldn't even ask for body type changes (though they would be nice). I know we have little chance of seeing these things but its something I would love to see happen one day.