Top 5 Survival Tips For Hunters

He didn't follow the tips.

Hunters have always had a reputation of being the dumbest WoW players, and that’s because a bunch of folk decided it’d be a good idea to play the class where they could shoot things and have their family pet Fuzzy in the game too.

This has bred a stereotype: hunters are casually based, easily aggravated 12 year olds with a serious ego complex; and if there’s anything they can do, surviving a 5 minute fight in a boss is not one of them.

Let’s make sure that we can by following a couple of simple tips.

5. You’re not the tank, and neither is your pet.

You, the hunter, are not a tank. You do not want aggro. You may be wearing mail, which is a step below plate, but here’s a secret.

The only thing that boss cares is if it’s in plate armor. If it isn’t, then it’s wearing cloth.

This is what you're wearing, and nothing else.

Studies have shown that 100% of hunters who let their pet or themselves gain aggro (under normal conditions) are total huntards, and have a much greater tendency to die shortly afterwards. It’s true! I conducted the studies myself.

Not to worry though! If you do manage to get aggro, there are ways to fix this small problem. Such as…

4. Misdirect can save lives.

This baroquely constructed skill is probably also the most uniquely crafted to saving your ass while returning the tank to his rightful place: as your meatshield.

 

So long as they don’t get in the way.

So what exactly are you supposed to do? First, make a macro that looks something like this:

#showtooltip misdirection
/cast [target=focus, help] misdirection; [help] misdirection; [target=pet, exists] misdirection
/target lasttarget

Once that’s done, make your tank your focus, so that the macro doesn’t  doesn’t break rule #5. Then activate the macro, and shoot the things that you need to! Congratulations, you’ve now actively conscripted your tank to take another beating!

Alternatively, you can force the monster to murder someone you don’t like; for instance, I remember fondly the one time I forced a boss to murder the most aggravating healer of all time. I wouldn’t make a habit of it though.

However, what I would make a habit of remembering includes…

3. Play Dead.

When shit hits the fan and even Misdirect can’t save you anymore, there’s only one more answer to saving your not quite so fabulous hide.

Feign Death.

 

Now would be a GOOD time.

Here’s a little song so you can remember how awesome it is.
When you’re the aggro man, and the game’s name is pain?

It’s time to Feign. It’s time to Feign.

Anytime you have aggro, or the area’s aflame?

It’s time to Feign. It’s time to Feign.

Did you like it? I know I did.

2. Eat food

I’m not even kidding. Go make a sandwhich, then come back. I don’t want you on an empty stomach. Eating has been shown to actually, you know, keep you alive. If you’re dead IRL, then you can’t raid/do ANYTHING.

So go make a sandwhich, have a glass of water, take a potty break, and then get back. I’m sure the article won’t go anywhere.

You know what? Take your time. Make a big juicy burger, sizzling with grease and delicious, tasty meat. Add some onions, take some crunchy lettuce, and add some Ketchup. Enjoy your meal with some people, friends, family… and then you can come back.

Or this. Take your pick.

I’ll wait, no worries.

1. Don’t stand in fire/black/voidzone/electricity/(Insert thing here)

There is no real need to explain this. If it looks like this:

This:

Or even this:

AVOID IT. %$#@.

-Klin

The Great Klinderas Nerfing of 2011

In other news, I’d like to share a story.

I’m spending time with a friend of mine, just being my fabulous self when I look at my twitter.  Someone from the guild, namely @CutDownTheTree, told me fantastic news:

Ghostcrawler had been spotted.

I raced my way  over to Vash’yr, and began combing the area for signs of the elusive crab.  After about 15 minutes, I finally spot him, his shimmering hide clearly visible! I drop a trap, and start taming… but the animation got cancelled because he disappeared.

I thought that he despawned or something,  but no! Apparently his elusive, crabby self just goes invis intermittently.  Right when my friend says this, poof: there’s a crab.  I drop the trap, and begin the tame!

A few seconds, and many, MANY smacks of the nerfbat later, I witnessed a miracle.

NERF ME NOW GC, I DARE YA! HAHAHAHAHA!
Love,

Klin

Why Beast Mastery Hunting?

In a large, flaming, two headed nutshell...

Most of us experienced folks know exactly what Beast master hunters are.  We’ve been around the block, tried the rides, and have settled on the one that we like.

Some people are new to this game, however, and I feel like it’s my obligation and privilege of educating the Cata and Wrath babies as to what exactly is a hunter, and what it means to be a beastmaster.

So why don’t we start at the obvious beginning, with the question of all questions: what is a hunter? What is our purpose? And why are we so awesome?

WHAT IS A HUNTER?
Blizzard defines a hunter as a powerful ranged attacking class with pets to help dish out pain, traps to control the flow of battle, and… they have an easy time soloing.

In essence, they’re right.  We do massive quantities of sustained ranged DPS (Damage Per Second) to kill things dead.  Our pets help us.  Our traps can burn, poison, slow, and even freeze opponents.  And yes, we’re excellent soloers due to our personal tank.

The problem is, it’s a very basic description.  Hunters aren’t just that, and if we were, we’d be no better than warlocks, crafty, smelly, overblown sheets of tissue that they are.  Hunters can perform a huge variety of roles with all their abilities and skills.  If there’s a situation, we always have an answer for it where another class might not.

Here’s a statement for all of you: we are the swiss army knives.  We are the most adaptable.

Our strength as hunters is in dealing damage, but we can literally do everything but heal on a major scale, without the need to re-spec either (Suck it, Shamans/Druids/Paladins!).  We can tank with our pets, as shown by Big Red Rhino.  We can control the flow of battle.  We can kill things as quick as anyone else.  We can occupy and distract enemies, offering help to those currently in trouble.

The fact that there’s a saying that “all loot is hunter loot” is proof enough that we could do anyone else’s job, cause all they’re gear is our gear (It’s actually not, please don’t loot everything.  I understand that spellpower LOOKS like it might help, but we don’t actually use it.  I’ll explain gear later!).  A good hunter can be of huge benefit to a group in more ways than any other DPS class could try to.

TL;DR: We are the swiss army knives of Azeroth, and no one better forget it.  All the loot is hunter loot (Not really, please don’t actually think that.) and we can do any job anyone else can.  Our versatility makes us strong.

SO WHY BEASTMASTERY?
Marksmen focus on ranged damage dealing, specializing in the damage they can do.  Survivalists specialize in damage and crowd control.  What do Beastmasters specialize in?

Their pets, obviously.  And what do our pets do?

Here’s the short answer: pets do everything.  They CC, they debuff, they buff, they heal, they tank, they deal damage, they reduce damage, they increase all kinds of damage…  hell, pets even give bloodlust, Mini-blessing of Kings, and a  Leader of the Pack buff (The second last two of these are only usable as a beastmaster, bee tee dubs)!

So what a better way to be super versatile than to specialize in the one thing that really makes the hunter as versatile as it can be: pets.  As a beastmaster, just about anything can be tamed, and something out there is the perfect pet.

Besides, picking one of the other talent specs makes you a mail wearing mage, and that’s boring.  Mages read books, and do funky things with their hands.  Sure, the explosions are cool, but what happens when you run out of mana? Oh no, you can’t explode things anymore.  Boo hoo.

With a hunter, everything explodes, always, all the time.  And as a beastmaster, you get a large, angry T-Rex coming out of those explosions to eat people.

That’s about as cool as it gets folks. And that’s why we’re so awesome.

/flourish

Homecoming

Here begins our story. Again.

The bar was nigh on empty, the dim light from fading lamps and candles casting flickering shadows across the walls.  The bartender, a blood elf with long blond hair and clear evergreen eyes, cleaned a few mugs just to pass the time.  When you’re a blood elf, you can just magically wish for the dishes to do themselves and chance are, it will happen.  Whistling, the bartender turned towards the patron sitting on the stool in front of him.

“Now stranger, anything else before I close up?” He put the mug he was cleaning in front of the figure.

The man sat in silence for a few moments, his cloak hiding most of his features save for a mesh of rich, auburn coloured hair that fell out of his hood.

“Actually, I haven’t had a bottle of Pinot Noire in… two years? I’d like a bottle.”  He paused for a moment.  ”… please.”

“That’ll be twenty silver coins please.”  The clattering of coin sounded throughout the bar, and moments later the bottle was empty.

The man wiped off his chin, put the bottle on the counter, and smiled at the bartender.  ”You’re a super nice person, ‘tender.  Mind if I call you ‘Tender?”

The bartender just shook his head and continued to clean glasses.

The man stood up.  ”Thank you all for the terribly soundless evening.  It was soundless, like, without sounds.”  He bowed, nearly fell over, and turned to the exit,

And collided with a Death Knight.

The Death knight’s cold, eerie and metallic voice chilled the evening air.  ”Funny, bumping into you here.  Sit down and have a drink, it’s on me.”

The man shook his head.  ”I think I’d rather go somewhere else, if you don’t mind.” He started to make for the exit again, but a large, gauntleted hand grabbed his shoulder and held him fast.

“I didn’t ask.”  Grinning, the Death Knight sat the man down at a table, then sat down opposite him.

The Death knight’s ice blue hair framed his elfen features, all perfectly maintained despite his resurrection.   His cold eyes were the only real give away of his ‘profession’ other than a hefty smell of gore and decay.  His armor was thick and plated, and showed gouges and scars of having fought fiercely up in Northrend against his former master.

“So to what do I owe you the pleasure of my company, Death kinniget?”

The Death knight looked pensive for a second.  ”Actually, it’s to ‘whom’, and a lot of people at that.  First, do you remember Eldadres? He studied for a long time on where you could have been, and how to get in contact with you; and although he didn’t find a way to contact you, he found out a way to track where you were in a general sense.  You went to universes I didn’t know existed, planes where I didn’t you could exist.  What they all had in common were the elements.  Which is where the second person comes in: Windpaw, a shaman.  She focused really hard on learning how to find out which place you were in by speaking to the elements of that plane.  So when you came back to this one, we knew you had come back, down to the second you came.”

The man shifted in his chair, not uneasily, but largely because the chairs were uncomfortable, more so than he remembered.

The Death knight continued.  ”Once you got here, we only needed to track you down.  So, you owe Aifel here too.  The instant you set foot back on Azeroth, he was on your trail.”

From the shadows of the bar  emerged a young blood elf.  His spiky brown hair did nothing to cover the completely uninterested look on his face.  He sat down at the table with them.  ”Sup.”

The death knight continued.  ”Once he had your movements all mapped out, he informed me of where you would be.  And here you are.”

The man smiled.  ”I suppose you got help from another old friend of mine.  Where’s Colemand?”

The Bartender turned around.  ”Alright, now that he knows, can someone take this frivolous magic off of me? It tastes like mildew.”

With a wave of the death knight’s hand and some arcane mutterings, the bartender turned from a young blood elf bartender into a stooped, fearsome looking Forsaken death knight.

“Much better.  I don’t know how you can all live with that crap all the time.”  Colemand sat down at the table as well.  ”Honestly, it’s worse than being dead, and now I know both.”

The Death knight shook his head.  ”Well, no one said you had to be here Colemand.  You could have stayed in your kitchen, feeding the war effort.”

Colemand’s guttural laugh filled the bar.  ”Hellscream doesn’t know the meaning of food! Cooking for his army felt like cooking dirt.  I’d rather go out and make my own food.  Besides, I haven’t made a Gnome pie in ages, and I heard they make them in priests now, too.  If there’s anything more delicious than irony, I want to taste it.”

The man sat still for a moment, then looked up at the blood elf across the table from him.  ”So why all the love? I’m not the most important elf on Azeroth, not by a long shot.  I wasn’t even present to see the downfall of Arthas.  I’m definitely no hero of the Horde, and I’m certainly not on Hellninny’s good side.”

“True, but Hellscream does know that you got shit done.  With Deathwing on the rise, that’s what needs to happen; but that’s not the reason we sought you out.  To be honest, Hellscream probably doesn’t care that you’re here at all.”  The Death knight clasped his hands together.  ”Look, we all know you left to search the universes.  For a woman, no less.  A gentleman’s move on your part, to pursue love; but it didn’t work, did it?”

The man’s face turned sombre as the death knight continued.  ”Maybe she died, maybe she didn’t love you, maybe both.  Either way, she’s not in your life anymore.  And now you’re here, drinking yourself silly from the west coast of Kalimdor to the east coast of the Eastern Kingdoms.  We’re here to make you do what you were born to do.  You are a hunter, and a damn good one.  Maybe not the most practical, nor the most flexible, but certainly one of the best.”

The room went silent.  Aifel sat silently picking his teeth with a dagger.  Colemand starting scratching doodles into the table using a clawed, iced finger.  The death knight sat in silence his hands still clasped in front of him.  The man stared down at the table.  This continued for what seemed like ages, the silence falling on the room like a  musty covering.

Finally, the man looked up at the death knight.  ”I don’t see how a lot of what you said is your business.  You’re treading on ground that I honestly don’t want anyone to tread on yet; but you’re right about one thing, Elnoriah.”

The man threw back his hood to reveal long auburn hair, tied to keep it out of his face, bright evergreen eyes, long elegant ears and eyebrows, and a large smile.  He whistled sharply, a piercing sound, and no sooner had he done so than a large black wolf had bounded into the room and knocked the man over and started licking his face.

“I am fabulous.”

Hellfire Ramparts: Done With, Done Quick

Time... is fleeting.

Well, I’ve accepted another challenge, and mean to make a meme out of it.

Upon looking at the blogs I read, I’ve found a gem of a challenge: a speed run, a race.

How quickly can you utterly destroy the Hellfire Ramparts? How quickly can you mow through that instance, looting all your kills, and destroying the generals and monsters of Kargath Bladefist?

Nance was the first to attempt and post this challenge (to my knowledge) to the internether in general.  He posted his time here.

There are, as always, some rules to this challenge.

Rules and Guidelines

• Start the timer the second you walk inside.
• You have to kill everything inside.
• You have to loot everything inside. Skinning is optional.
• Stop the timer the second you walk outside.

This is what I managed.

18:22

Needless to say, I am pleased with time; however, I know I could do a lot better.  For one, I took a lot of time trying to maneuver Jormungandr away from the corpses in order to loot them.  I also didn’t take enough risks in an attempt to pull MORE mobs at once to volley.

Nonetheless, that’s my time right now.  Which, I might add, is the record! I’d like to add some further rules though, if I may…

• To keep costs down, no raid foods and flasks.  Health and Mana potions included.
• Bandages and plain food/drink (Mana Strudel works well!) are fine though, to help with the speedy recovery of a bad pull.

There ya have it, my fabulousness for all to see! If you want to try it out, but don’t have a blog, then post your times here in the comments.  If you DO have a blog, then write a post! If you’re not a hunter, but want to try this anyway, then do a speed run for your class! I’d be particularly interested in seeing how Priests might manage this, or Mages.

Give it a shot! Hellfire Ramparts Speed Run Meme Starts…

Now!

Ask Colemand: Twitter Edition 1

And now, your host... Colemand!

Hello.

Many people have been wondering what I’ve been up too, in addition to the many questions I’ve been getting.  It seems like you all care for me in some stupid, sputtery kind of way.

…

Okay, I’m sorry for lying.  No one has asked how I’m doing.  Or what’s up.  No one has even asked how are the imaginary wife and kids! I’m beginning to think that no one values the opinion of a dead, old, sarcastic, snarky, annoyed, badgering, weathered, more than weathered, and did I mention annoyed? dead guy.

In other words, no one wants to ask a dead guy anything.  Well you know what? I am going to try to force all of you to do it.  See, if you don’t email me at slowwolfblog(AT)gmail(DOT)com, putting ASK COLEMAND in the subject line, then I will demand everyone who follows me on Twitter to ask me questions.

Here goes our first trial of the Ask Colemand: Twitter Edition!

Colemand, how can you tank? You’re bones! How do you manage to stay together during fights?

Ah? So you’ve heard I’m now a “tank”, which is slang for “pinata for piss heads”.

For one, my bones aren’t actually that brittle.  See, I drink milk.  Loads of it, every day.  It’s good for you, thanks to all the calcium in it! Plus, it tastes delicious, especially when cold.  Which isn’t hard to do, seeing as I have a mastery of cold.

Calcium alone doesn’t cut it though.  You need to have a great deal of armor, thick armor, armor that knows how to be beat on.  If you don’t have good armor, you’re paste.

Lastly, you could always accept the first and most respected tenet of the Pirate Code; make strategic withdrawals.

How’s Mikey, your pet cockroach? I haven’t heard about him in awhile.

Mikey’s good.  He’s a lot bigger, and I’ve taught him to sleep somewhere else other than my stomach!

He is also eating a lot more.  His diet now include: berries, plants, fruit, small woodland animals, large woodland animals, gnomes, humans, night elves, fruit trees, fruit farmers, orchards, buildings, and small cities.

With restraint, of course.  He shouldn’t eat too much, or his itty bitty stomach would start to have a tummy ache.

Isn’t that right, Mikey?

*clickety*

He’s adorable isn’t he?

Why do you love cooking so much?

Good thing you didn’t ask where it came from.  That’s a long bloody story.

I love cooking for two reasons: first, I have a gift.  I am undead, yet I have a perfect nose and a pristine tongue.  That can only mean that I must use these gifts, or it’s a perfectly good waste of my talents, wouldn’t you say?

Second, why wouldn’t I? You all look so delicious, I simply have to try.

Yes, even you there pink skin.  Sitting right there, staring at me.  Who do you think you are?

You’re so tasty
Looking baby
I have to simply give it a try

I look at you
thinking that you
would go well with butter and rye

Oooh, you’re a meal to me
I mean so real to me
I think that you and I should
go out and I should
Get cooking, Um, hooking up with you
Sometime.

You’re face, so tender,
You’re hands, so slender
You’d look really tasty stir-fried

You might as well be
A gorgeous pastry
Topped off with a bit of parsley

Oooh, you’re a meal to me
I mean so real to me
I think that you and I should
go out and I should
Get cooking, Um, hooking up with you
Sometime.

You better believe you're cookable, umm, lovable baby!

What do you think? Made that up myself.  I think I could be a star.

That concludes this edition of Ask Colemand.  If more than one person could please ask questions next time, I’d be much appreciative.

I’m In Your Base, Planning My Heist

Franko: I have a question, say we get into the cage, and through the security doors there and down the elevator we can’t move, and past the guards with the guns, and into the vault we can’t open…
Eldadres: Without being seen by the cameras.
Klinderas: Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention that.
Franko: Yeah well, say we do all that… uh… we’re just supposed to walk out of there with $150,000,000 in cash on us, without getting stopped?
[pause as everyone turns to look at Klinderas]
Klinderas: Yeah.
Franko: Oh. Okay.

A Different Kind Of Secret Project

Minus 1 bear.

In a fit of what seems to be either stupidity, rage, boredom, insanity, madness, a period of being 3 fries short of a happy meal, or just being whacko, I have made a new hunter.

This hunter is different however; he is a dwarf.  Dwarves are typically short(I’m tall), burly(I’m delicate), hairy(which I’m not), drunk(I’m sober), belligerent(when angered), and uncouth(like an Orc).  In short(tee-hee) they are the opposite of me in every single fathomable way.

Why did I roll a new Alliance(eyaugh!) hunter? This idea was brandished before me by none other than Elnoriah/Eldadres of Plagued Candles who has, with Roz from Repgrind and Troutwort from Crits and Giggles, rerolled a new alliance character to play with people from this corner of the Blogosphere on the Winterhoof server.

Also, I’m planting the seeds of the downfall of the entire Alliance, but that’s none of your buisiness.

/flourish

Everyone, meet Franko.

Yes, I am paying some homage with this character. You don't have to like it.

Oh don’t worry.  I’m not completely out of this picture… I’ve left a little bit of myself in this picture.

Everyone… meet his pet.

Welcome to the pack... Klin, the wolf.

He doesn’t have dash yet, either! So for now, he really is a Slow Wolf.

Oh, and because I didn’t take a screenshot of that King guy in Ironforge before I killed him last time…

Yes, my liege. Invest with Enron, they know what they're doing.*snicker*

I might make a little note before I continue:

The dwarf area is HARD in comparisson to the Blood Elf area.  There are mobs who charge, mobs who frostshock, and mobs who seem to come at you in numbers like math problems in a calculus class.  Kiting my way to level 10 has been difficult, but not without it’s reward.  It was a lot of fun, if you ignore the hundreds of leper gnomes, boars, cats, bears, wendigos, rabbits, orchards, farmers, guards, the king, and the wolves you had to kill along the way, not to mention the massive distances and the massive distances.  Did I mention the massive distances? They really are big you know.

Like space, even.  They’re similar.

No wonder dwarves are so tough: they put up with the worst crap from day 1, starting with the fact that they’re short, hairy, noisy, smelly, potentially spacefaring midgets.

Moviewatch: The Final Countdown… Kazookeylele!

Weirder than a summer snowfall.

There are some very creative people in this world.

People that are creative tend to take things, and create new things out of them.  Someone took peanut butter and chocolate, combined them, and made Reeses.  Someone else took hammers, attached them to strings, and engineered a piano.

This guy seems to to have made a most horrible mess, however, and an entertaining one at that!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The Final Countdown… on the KazooKeyLele(Kazoo+Keyboard+Ukelele)!

Kazookeylele – The Final Countdown

Skoll Lightning!

Drawn by MissMonster of Deviant art! Click for link.

I have an announcement to make.

I’m going to be hunting more than one spirit beast it seems.

There is a new spirit beast on the PTR! This is the 3rd spirit beast, which continues the tradition of 1 new spirit beast per big patch, and this is no exception.

Actually, there is one very big exception to this particular spirit beast: he’s a wolf.
I nearly died of shock when I saw this.  Apparently, he has electricity crawling all over him and his light blue fur glows with the crackle of power.  The picture does no justice to all these cool effects, so I order all of you to go drool over this video right now! Skoll in Video

He’s named after a character from Norse mythology: Skoll, the moonchaser.  Skoll chased the moon across the sky in an effort to catch up with her and eat her.  His counterpart, Hati, chased the sun for the same purpose.  On the day of Ragnarok, the end of times, Skoll and Hati would succeed in their ravenous quest and feast on the sun and the moon.

Skoll, the spirit beast, matches his namesake in almost every way.  His lightning fur matches the electricity that was wielded by Thor and other gods, so is a powerful symbol of his Norse heritage.  His fur is blue, the colour of the night he chases under.  His attack is a Moonstrike graphic, the last tie to his Norse namesake.

I, for one, am going to be camping this guy the instant the patch releases and I won’t stop until he is mine.

Loque will have to wait if I don’t have him by then, as I have bigger wolves to catch!

Special thanks to Tigerfeet for pointing out to whom the artwork belongs to(MissMonster’s portrait of Skoll is amazing, is it not? She drew a version for Hati as well!), to Mania for the screenshot of Skoll, and to zub for finding the video of Skoll in-game!