Finally It Happened To ME!

Now after that musical interlude I have an announcement.

Thats right boys and girls. Edy kicked that stupid troll in the teeth so hard that his tiger finally came out last night. We were so in shock that my pocket tank Scrawny didn't even think to eat the bastard as per custom. Hell I am still in shock it finally dropped after a year and a half of trying. Many thanks to Scrawny for sticking with me till the end.

Well as you can guess my glee was extremely high so in a very rare moment that I reserve only for the highest of personal achievements I hop back in guild chat after dancing around my room like a woman possessed and said "I must shoot something to spread the love". Four other guildies thought this was a fine idea and off they set to STV so we could ride into Stormwind to show them my new toy. So I parked myself in the Grom inn and tend to something irl real quick only to come back and find a corehound chewing on my rear. The hunter did manage to get me to a forth of my life before I un-AFKed but Eds just rolled up a news paper and smote the hunter he belonged to and his DK buddy with extreme prejudice.

After the others showed we picked up shop and rode to SW to say hello for a while and though they put up a bit of a fight it wasn't enough to keep us interested. One tram ride later we decided to see how the killing was in Ironforge.

The Commons were pleasant so we decided to have a piggy until somebody showed up to fight. They never did. After locking down IF for who knows how long we go back to SW and I found this.

If ever there was a reason kill humans this is it. The damn things are POSSESSED by some sort of Azerothian demons. THEY FLOAT.

Anyway we stirred up a real fight and one last hurrah before we split and called it an evening. All in all a good night.

In other news M.A.S. has moved from 7/12 to 10/12 in ICC with a great run last week. All that remains in our path is Sindy and the king Lich himself. Gotta admit its been a good week for ya gurl.

Don't Tread On Other's Fun

Instancing in WoW has always been a bit of a love hate relationship with me ever since I started running them back in BC. Sometimes its incredibly enjoyable, others you want to just log out for a month and see you feel after. For the past week or so while dealing with some personal issues IRL I have been working on my alliance guised hunter to keep my mind of things and over all its been a blast running instances I never did on Edy herself since I didn't have a need to bother with grouping until I hit Outland. Most of the groups I have gotten have been fairly efficient when we ran, not a lot of tanking over pulls or dps doing stupid things that killed us all, just calm easy runs with a few chats here and there. Even with the bad groups it wasn't anything that ruined the mood for me. If the group broke I just re-queued and hoped for better the next time. Today seemed to be the build up of all the bad groups I've missed so I could have back to back irritation as I made my rounds.

Now its not like any one thing is worth complaining about with most runs. Some were just groups that didn't have a shot to begin with but I will say that running heroic Halls of Reflection twice and not getting the first boss down on either go of it was not a good way to start out. The next run on Eddey (night elf hunter) was kinda like salt on the wound. Normally I can deal with bad groups and it was very obvious from the start this was a bad group as when I got in the healer promptly decided his was to go was better than the tank's so the tank and another party member who followed the priest died and the tank left soon after with the healer running ahead of him the whole time. That was, ok. That kind of thing is relatively normal these days though I am a firm believer in "follow the tank" as he is the one that gets beat on so that we may kill the baddies but what do I know? So the shammy and dps warrior who seemed to know each other talk it out and the warrior begins to tank as we wait for one in queue. Now I am not a tank nor do I profess to know how to tank other than the "oh shit" tanking I do as a hunter when things get bad or the aggro gets a little loose but I would assume if you are tanking multiple mobs as a warrior you would need to thunderstomp and the likes to get aggro so they don't go all over the place like marbles that have pointy things. I, as I have learned will be part of my job in the lower level dungeons, had to hunter-tank (not my favorite past time) nearly all but two of any given mob no matter what I did. Again this didn't bother me. What bothered me was in the middle of this chaos the damn shaman decided to inform me I was supposed to be survival and then went on to explain how he was right and I was wrong because he had an 80 hunter and that made him king genius.

[P] Shammy: You should be SV
[P] Eddey: I happen to like BM
[P] Shammy: but you get more dps as sv
[P] Shammy: i got a 80 hunter i would know
[P] Eddey: thats nice, I have an 80 hunter as well and have played all the trees. I find SV irritating and MM boring.
[P] Shammy: but sv is better
[P] Eddey: you play your way I play mine how about that?
[P] Shammy: geez guy no need to be mad

"No need to be mad," he said. Considering he was the lowest dps and I was at about 40+% of the damage done, was tanking, and doing what I was supposed to be doing in general I'd say I was pretty ripe to get mad. Don't get me wrong I have had plenty of people try and "tell" me how to do my hunter thing. Most I just let roll on by but this guy had to have picked the worst time to say something so stupid. I also might want to clarify that we were in Sunken Temple and in our damn 40s. There is very little difference in specs at those levels to be honest and God help me if I ran with tanking like that in a spec other than Beast Mastery.

I don't nor have I ever believed that somebody should be forced to play in a manner that they do not enjoy no matter how well or sub par something preforms. I have been blessed enough to run with people that are not obsessed with Elitest Jerks and crunching number, or just do whatever people say they should cause its the it thing. In general we play to have fun and perform where we should. When I switched to SV it was to help cause I didn't feel like feel like I was pulling my own weight at the time. I hated SV so I gave MM a shot and liked it better. When Cata hits I will most likely be raiding BM again depending on how I like it. Why? 'Cause I have a genuine love of the spec and how it works. Would I bitch at somebody in an instance because I think all hunters should be BM? Hell no. I even have guildies that raid BM right now and I am completely cool with that. Why? 'Cause its fun for them and when you play a game, damn it, that's what supposed to happen. We wouldn't have choices if we were supposed to do it one way.

As for the end of my run with that group, well things were pretty much ruined for me once that idiot started. We got a new tank but he was just as bad as the warrior and couldn't hold aggro. I snapped at him but apologized and left. It probably could have been a fun run too but I just couldn't get into it anymore. So next time you feel the need to give advice on spec and what not in a 5 man and you weren't asked to just stop, think about what you are about to say, then don't say it. Its a damn 5 man instance. Its not life or death. Its not 10 - 25 people running around in circles for hours. If its a random, these aren't people that logged on to the game to have you berate them for doing something in a manner that you wouldn't. Just shut up and play. Its more fun for us all that way.

Glad I Got Beer For This

I was going to use this song with another topic but hell with all this Blizzard bombshells this week I figured why not, does kinda go with things. *cough* Anywho, unless you have been living under a rock for the last few days I am sure by now you have at least heard of Blizzard's brilliant idea to make our Real IDs the way we use the forum. So fairly soon there will no longer be the privacy of having a fake name to post under but instead your first and last names displayed for the whole internet to see. They say its for trolls, I think its more somebody hasn't really thought about just how violating this really is.

Now I don't wanna go worst case scenario, so I will just look at it from a common stand point. I simply don't want everybody to know my real name. If I did I would have made a damn toon with my damn name on it. My name isn't all that common I don't think it would be taken. I have been on the internet for years and managed to keep my name to the damn facebook account my friends talked me into getting as we were leaving college. And on the subject of Facebook (who blizzard seems to be copying) You dont even have to use your real name there if you don't want to. As little privacy as it seems Facebook does still have options to limit what about yourself people can see. Most importantly when you get a Facebook account you know you will have to give this information. That's what the site is there for. WoW is a damn game, when I signed up it was to play a game not give somebody another way to stalk me.

Next problem I have is the rumor Blizzard employees will not have to show their names. If that BS happens I smell boycotts. "They cant afford to have their privacy compromised". What the hell? So they are more important than everybody else that's being violated because they work for you?? So if some freaky dude gets cheezed off because I disagreed with him on the forums decides to look me up and track me down and does something to me its not a problem? The players have to deal with the same idiots and asstards (yeah I know I was trying to keep the profanity down but this word is needed) so why should you get any better treatment than we do? If they are going to punish the fan base like this we should ALL suffer, employees included.

*Deep breath* Whew I feel a little better now. Look its not like I am completely against every change Blizzard comes up with. I wasn't keen on battle.net but after a bumpy start thats worked out pretty good. I am even all for the Real ID system for cross game interaction. What I am not ok with is when you tell me something that goes against everything I have ever learned about internet safety. You NEVER use your personal information where others can see. A name is personal and you can find out a ton of things about people with only their name. I get they wanna stop trolls but there is a simple action they could use that would work the same way with none of the drama. How about they make us pick, oh I dunno, a user name. Lets see...ooo and that user name could be how we post. Wait a minute I have seen this in action before...oh I know, ITS HOW EVERY OTHER FORUM WORKS DAMN IT! God forbid they use something thats been around for years and works just fine and doesn't violate privacy. Until they pull their heads out their asses I won't be posting on the forums any more (not that I did often) which also means I won't be buying anything else from them as they have a less than stellar online shop that has a tendency to break down and *gasp* require you to post on the forums to have something done. If I get hacked again...well thats just that. If they tell me I have to post for help there then by God my account and Edy and the game just end there. Their isn't much they could do that could make me just walk away from WoW as I still quite enjoy the game but this very well could be the kill shot if this becomes the in game standard as well.

My name is Edyion in wow and here. My RL avatar has nothing to do with Azeroth as it is not her reality. She would like it if things remained that way.

Oh and yes I saw the new changes to the talent trees but after this kind of thing that doesn't matter. Game play changes do not effect my everyday life.

Rhumba Rhumba Rhumba

What's this? Edy is making an entry?? Has Blackrock frozen over??? No gentle reader, Edy has returned for the time being and she is bring random music with her! Ok so there is no real reason for the video other than I like the song and it was incentive for me to do a blog entry for the first time in ages. Did have the word rumba in it which, of course, is pretty much the name of a new hunter talent in the coming expansion. Fabulous as that spell is I don't actually intend on talking about the news given after the NDA was lifted this week. Why you ask? Well its simple, I can't get worked up every time we get new news. Don't get me wrong I am as giddy as a school girl about hunter changes as well as terrified (a good terrified though) its just between now and the time the expansion actually does hit the shelves and our hard drives, things will have changed, people will pout, the masses will scream "it's the end!" just like the do anytime something happens. That's tiring and I decided to sit this round out and just look at things that wont spoil too much for me. That said I will give you a little fun thing that happened when I noticed the NDA was gone. First thing I did was popped over to MMO-champion and looked to see just what all was up on there and I skimmed the hunter changes really quickly. About half way through my reading I decided to look at the talent calculator and see what was what first hand. Once I past how different things look I start popping in points then it dawned on me I had no idea how to spec. Now it wasn't like that was earth shattering in itself but it was the fact it's bean almost 2 years since I was that clueless about a spec (meaning BM, though MM and SV didn't take me too long to figure out how to spec). As I looked at the tool-tips there was just so much going on, focus regen out the ass, names of effects on spells we don't even have yet, and wondering various other things about what would be good to have from the other trees now. It wasn't a bad feeling to be so lost like that but it really sent it home that I really am gonna have to learn everything all over again. That feeling also made me realize I needed to back off the info surge and just wait it out, sit back and enjoy skimming things from time to time.

In WOTLK news M.A.S. has been semi-busy raiding for the past month or so. I say semi because we still don't have a completely stable core 10 (or core 6 for that matter) so its still a lot of switching and adjusting but even saying that we have been trucking along nicely with ICC. In general the runs have been fun, even with the starting like an hour late from the posted time. There are still a few rough spots but all in all the improvement has been great and we are presently at 7/12 bosses. We have also been trying to do Ulduar hard modes but those have been lack luster sadly. Its not all that great trying to P.U.G. people to fill runs that need coordination but the trying has been fun. I can't say that the consensus that Edy must be sacrificed to Flame Lev has me all that thrilled but once we get that one out the way I will be happy.

Still trying for my tiger from ZG (starting to think they have somebody monitoring me and laughing every time I go in there to try for it) and I am hoping against hope it will drop before Cata gets here. My warrior is up to level 80 and I must admit Fury is a blast to play. *taps forehead* Hmmm...well I guess that's about it for whats been up with Edy. Not really much to talk about but I think that's gonna change soon.

Oh yeah and if you haven't checked em out you need to hear the goblin and worgen jokes at http://www.wow.com. Most of them are over the top but they are funny and worth hearing anyway. Until next time, happy hunting.

Happy Mother's Day

A happy Mother's Day to all your mothers and mother type people around the globe. Enjoy your day and I hope its a pleasant one. Now if you will excuse me I am off to enjoy my child free time from children that might as well belong to me.

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.