I'm back.... but different!

So, I caved and didn't really quit, but I canceled huntermayhem.com!

I was taking the game way too seriously. I was a class officer and was put in charge of picking the raiding teams for my guild and having to choose dps with egos the size of Texas over good people who do decent but not spectacular dps became just too much for me to deal with. It ceased being a game... a game that once upon a time I had a metric crapload of fun playing.

After 7 weeks of watching seasons 1-3 of Lost, a ton of movies, hanging out at my friend's pub and generally having a good social time, I decided to reinstall everything and play for fun again.

The Method to the Maddness
So, I may raid again some day. Probably in the expansion. Will it be with my old guild? Maybe, maybe not. I have a lot of great friends in that guild and will probably go back at some point. Will I raid with Pelides? Probably not.

Why?

I raided with him for two years. Sometimes I was the top dps'er. Sometimes I wasn't. I had fun playing the role of a hunter for 3 years. I still love playing my hunter. I just needed something different for him. A fresh start.

So, I moved him over to the popular realm of Drenden and started pvp'ing with him. And I've had a blast doing that! Still bugging BRK for an invite to the infamous AC, but to no avail. I've got Pel to 337 resilience, spec him back and forth between marks and beast and am realizing, for me at least, PvP as a marks hunter is more fun. Silence, scatter... death.

I don't see Pel doing anything else for the remainder of his existence.

The new kid in town

About a year and a half ago I made this rogue named Nomeansno. I played him when things got sketchy in the guild. I'd just go off and play him in all his unguilded glory.

After moving to Drenden, I realized I missed a lot of the people I used to play with, so I popped in on Nomeansno and said hey to some folks and just started leveling him. Before my break I had him at level 46.

This last weekend I wasn't feeling terribly well, so I stayed home and played him. As of last night, he's level 55 and dipping his toes into EPL and Silithus as well as almost all the way through most of the WPL quests.

If I raid again, it will be with this guy!

TIME TO UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS!

http://huntermayhem.com/!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like looking through all my old gear

So last night, the guild put together 2 solid Kara runs. One with a new raid leader that everyone said did a great job! Woo hoo!

I was part of neither of them. I, instead, went to a 3rd Kara run. See, a long time ago there was this Fury Warrior who thought he was a Rogue. He got tired of the game for a while after nearly PvP'ing himself to death. Real life popped up and he took a break. Then he came back. Then the expansion came out. He leveled his warrior to 70 and then decided to do what he probably should have done in the first place... rolled a Rogue. He got that to 70 in something like 45 minutes.

Real life cropped up again and he took another break. Both his rogue and his warrior went into the hands of one of the other warriors in our guild, so the memory of this dude has been fresh in our minds.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, a new name appears in the guild roster. Turns out it's our old friend and now he has a Resto Shammy! Level 70! He's a leveling machine! It's great to have him back!

So, while 20 people are stomping through Kara, this guy puts together a friends run through Kara. Nine guild old timers and one of our badass new mages. Seriously, this guy is badass!

We knew this was going to be a walk in the park... but damn! I've never seen Kara stomped like this! Attumen... dead. Did he even spawn? Moroes.... adds fell like flies. Then so did Moroes. Our priest is bored from not healing so he goes to IF and respecs shadow for the run. We twiddle our thumbs for a few then kill the Maiden in 1 minute 13 seconds. None of us need anything in the way of gear here really so we're just picking up badges and shards for the guild bank. We clear to Opera. Wizard of Oz. Boom! Dead. Legacy drops. I contemplate getting a second one to put savagery on, but think better of it. The Pally says she'd like it. We all laugh our arses off and tell her to roll.

A Holy Pally with Legacy! Hunters all over Uldum are going to be so pissed!

We are going so fast it's silly. That will happen though when you don't need to explain the fights or the pulls and the tank is pulling like a hunter on crack! We detour to Nightbane. Dead. My current chest piece drops. It's hunter night in Kara and I already have all this stuff!

Curator. All I'm going to say is ONE EVOCATE... 14k AIMED SHOT! (I had to!) Now, this is one of two bosses who actually has some loot I wouldn't mind. Neither the Gloves nor the Ring drop! They simply don't exist!

Illhoof. Dead. Fast. More shards for the guild bank.

Clear to Aran. We wipe up the floor with him. No sheeping and we were so far ahead of his mana it was sick. He drops the hunter helmet and necklace! Sheesh! So much stuff I just don't need. Oh well, more money for the guild bank.

We chain pull to chess. Everyone pots up! Bwahahahahaha! We grab our badges and our Shammy can actually use the shield! Finally! Something someone can use!

Couple more pulls and we're at the Prince. One of the other guild raid leaders tells about a secret spot to tank him and for everyone to stand. We do as instructed. Prince dead in 3 minutes 30 seconds. He drops Gorehowl, a cloak and I forget which helm token. Gorehowl would be a fun toy and the cloak was actually kinda nice, but our MT wants a dps set. I already have lots of toys... like a set of armor that gives me over 700 stamina!

Here's where it gets funny! We decide to go give Netherspite a try. Someone pulls a flesh beast on the stairs and almost the entire raid! We're at 2 hours 50 minutes into the run and have killed every boss except Netherspite and our first wipe is due to a flesh beast!

We run back. Head to Netherspite. Everyone is kind of bleary eyed. It's 1pm Eastern time and most of the people are East Coasters. They're tired and cranky. We just can't get the rhythm of this tonight. Oh well. We disband and spend 5 minutes in vent declaring what a great time we had!

In less than 3 hours, we got a Pally Legacy, a nice shield for the Shammy, some DPS goodies for the MT, 20 Badges of Justice a piece and we all actually made enough to cover our repairs as well as a little extra.

Damn that was fun!

Trapping and CC

So, all you survival hunters out there can just ignore this.

We've all read the Bible of Chain Trapping. Set the trap. Wait for cooldown. Trap the mob. Run 10 seconds away. Lay new trap. Watch silly monster run into it... lather, rinse, repeat.

So what exactly do you do when you're in an instance where running 10 seconds away means something nasty like pulling another group of mobs by accident or getting out of line of sight of your healer?

Pretty much the same thing actually. Chain trapping is not as reliable as say sheeping is. It's just not. Traps are resisted. Warlocks dot the crap out of your mob and you still have to deal with it.

If you're marks, you have scatter shot. BANG! You bought yourself some time. Strafe away, concussive shot! You bought yourself some time.

Well crap! You're out of maneuvers now aren't you and your trap still isn't cooled down!

WRONG!

I'm going to tell you about the most overlooked hunter ability there is!

Wing Clip!

Most hunters simply don't use this nifty little ability. You can tell which hunters out there went and got their epic bows or spend a lot of time PvP'ing by how often they use wing clip.

Need to buy yourself that extra little bit of time? Don't be afraid... hop into Monkey, run up to that mob and slap it with a wing clip and keep running by! Don't turn around, don't change directions. Run past your mob, pick a safe place to drop your trap and do it.

I've seen it in many pugs and guild runs. If you can handle your broken or resisted traps without freaking out into your vent channel by using all of your slowing skills, people will notice. They know you aren't a glass cannon and actually have some skill as a CC'er.

Combine these with knowledge of the terrain, and you are a kiting, trapping, amaze your friends kind of hunter.

DPS'ing is easy. Being USEFUL and still dps'ing is skill.

p.s. Intimidation is a great last resort, but it causes a lot of aggro and you may have to pull it off your pet afterward.

A night of silliness!

Bwahahahahaha! Last night was a night for Karazhan and, consequently, guild drama!

I chose to ignore that and go kill everything in sight in Zangarmarsh!

The result? Tiny Spore Bat, Recipe - Shrouding Potion, Sporeggar Tabard!

Such a stupid rep grind, but I have a tiny spore bat friend to show for it!

Raid preparedness.

This might be a duplicate post, but it was on my mind as we missed a timed event in ZA last night because of a couple little time sucks.

It's weird writing posts about raiding these days since we don't raid as regularly as we used to... though last night's Gruul one-shot and the recent Lurker kill should help generate some interest.

One thing that has always gotten my goat about raiding is how lackadaisical people can be about it. I don't mean to imply that everyone should be hardcore about raiding, but there are some very basic things that everyone in a raid can do to ensure that the group is able to spend as much useful time as possible inside the instance.

1) Be out of a group at raid invite time. Be ready for your invite.
2) Be on your main toon. Raid leaders have a hard enough time managing all of the whispers coming to them. Don't confuse them with the lvl 5 gnome mage you just made.
3) Get yo arse to the instance on time. Sure, we can all summon from the stones, but it takes so much time. In the time that it takes for us to summon you, you probably could have made it here already.
4) Repair beforehand!
5) Bring you consumables... lots. More than you need. Maybe some extras for others. Hand the tank some stam food and you've made a friend.
6) Don't be "in the middle of a quest" at invite time! You knew the invite time. Don't let your lack of time management skills eat into other peoples' valuable time.
7) For the hunters... BRING ENOUGH AMMO! Fill your quiver/ammo pouch and bring an extra couple of stacks!
8) When the raid leader and MT call a wipe, release and haul arse back to the instance. You are not entitled to a res. Someone res'ing you is a courtesy and not a right.
9) When the RL calls "Group up for buffs"... do it. Fast. Then take your consumables.
10) Again to the hunters... get your pets res'd early so they get buffed as well. If you call out for pet buffs because you were late in getting your pet back up... tough!
11) Join your class channel
12) PUSH-TO-TALK and keep your Vent/TS channel clear during fights for info pertinent to the fight at hand. Save the banter for in between attempts and during corpse runs.
13) The mage vending machine is a very nice thing! Take advantage of it, but if it runs out because you weren't paying attention... make sure you have food and water handy that you purchased beforehand. Don't slow down the raid asking for food and water as the RL does a ready check!

There are so many things to be listed that this could go on forever. Whether you're in a hardcore raiding guild or a casual one, remember this: Everyone's time is valuable. Raid time should be fun and rewarding and it's more fun if you get more attempts in and can run longer. Dilly dallying and general unpreparedness slows down your momentum and will mean less meaningful time learning fights and downing bosses. Screwing around and being not ready means less time to get teh phat lewtz!

What does a Pelides read besides WoW blogs?

So, when things are slow at work and I've gotten my fill of WoW blogs... what do I check out?

http://apple.slashdot.org/ - I'm a geek, not an über geek, and a Mac user. I work in the field of video post production, so it all works out and the Apple section of Slashdot has some interesting articles.

http://www.maccentral.com - Again, I'm a Mac geek. This is where I get my daily infusion of Mac news.

http://icanhascheezburger.com/ - I blame the Squeekie Priest for getting me hooked on this! Such stupid humor, so it's right up my alley.

http://www.fark.com - Ridiculous new stories and Photoshop contests that make my sides split!

http://maps.google.com/ - The actual Google Maps application is a lot more fun, but I try to keep my computer at work free of non-work specific apps. I have a lot of friends that came from different places around the world and I like to research just where they came from.

http://www.veoh.com - I actually run a video blog website outside of this. Mainly a bunch of short films and a semi-regularly published comedy news show and we publish them on this site.

http://www.storypipe.com - A great website full of video goodness.

So what do you all check out when you're not WoW-geeking?

I've been caught...

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

So, last week I read a post on another blog that flat out pissed me off. I removed the offender from my blog roll and just might put it back today actually as the blogger in question did apologize in the comments section for the post in question.

What made me so angry was that he named someone and called 'em out and bitched him out very publicly. Granted, no one is going to be able to find out this person's RL identity through the post, but their in-game reputation could have been seriously jeopardized. Not cool with me.

I've made numerous posts that were meant to vent some of my frustrations. The difference for me was that I never named names if I had a complaint. Sure, the person in question could probably figure it out and get pissed at me and that's fine, but no one else would have a clue as to who it is and this person's reputation remains unaffected.

I started this blog to get myself into the habit of writing everyday more than anything else.

So, while I'm away playing with my nephew and enduring turkey bloat, I log into my guild's website only to see that I have some mail! Apparently one of my posts caused quite a stir with someone I've mentioned here. I have no idea which post it was or what it was that stuck in his craw, but... well, long, uninteresting story. Suffice it to say, I either needed to vent here and keep the guild free of in-game drama or I was going to quit the game. I enjoy playing and have made great friends, so I chose to vent.

I've really enjoyed writing this blog. It's gotten very far away from my original intent, but that's fine. I've found a great wealth of other blogs that I enjoy reading daily and have learned quite a bit in the process.

Not everyone can be a BRK blogging machine of excellence, but I've found since I started this blog, I have actually enjoyed the game a little bit more. And if I write something that offends your sensibilities... bring it on. You're entitled to express your opinion.