On Server Health

71 servers offline at the moment, including all the servers I have characters on (go figure). that seems bad given that there are only about 224 US servers total...

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On Hitting 40

Zhered finally hit 40 the other night and, like any newly minted 40, the first thing he did was run off to get his mount. not just any mount, mind you, but a kitty mount from the night elf lands. why a kitty? because they rock, of course ;) I also like the novelty of riding a cross-faction mount at 40; you see it a lot at 60+, but not so much at level 40. Z did all his lowbie questing in the NE starting zones to get a head start on the reputation requirement. by the time I hit 40 I just had to wrap up 3 quests in auberdine & ashenvale and I hit exlated.

40 also heralded the beginning of a new era for Z; hello Shadowform. it is, to be blunt, hawt. after getting my kitty I headed back to dustwallow to do some questing. while chatting with a quest giver I noticed myself catch fire. now, burning isn't a typical occurence for Z... it's not like he's an engineer or anything. so, I looked around for the source of my new-found crispy state and found myself staring down a warlock with a few levels on me (and still burning). at 39 I would have been worried, but with shadowform? /evilgrin. a quick face-melting session later and the score was: Z with full health and about 2/3 mana, horde warlock kissing dirt. now I feel like a real shadow priest :)

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On Strange Happenings

so, I'm running south from auberdine along the road when WoW decides to disconnect me. annoying, but didn't think much of it as it had happened once earlier today. I log back in and find myself falling through the air... odd, I don't remember flying anywhere prior to dc'ing. then I land in water... odd, I don't remember swimming anywhere prior to dc'ing. hmm, that shoreline looks awfully far away... just where the hell am I, anyway? *checks map* north of tirisfal glade?! ugh... /facepalm

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On Disturbing Images

I went snowboarding today; first time this season. I'll be whining about it come monday, I'm sure, once all the pain catches up with me.

at one point I noticed the ski patrol taking someone down the hill on a sled pulled by a snowmobile and what I saw made me do a double-take. there was a kid on the sled, covered from head to toe with a tarp (I assume to keep any snow kicked up by the snowmobile off of him) and someone had laid his board right on top of the kid.

at the same time my brain was processing this image, another one flashed through my mind. you know those ornate stone carvings that decorate the lid of a great warrior's tomb? where he's laid out across the lid, dressed in his armor with his sword clasped in both hands across his chest? yeah, that's what I saw.

mildly disturbing, to say the least.

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On Tips and Tricks

a few random tricks I've learned over the years:

- you can't be sapped by a rogue when you're in any kind of animal form (druid's bear, cat, seal and cheetah forms, shaman's ghost wolf); handy in the opening moments of arena matches or when defending a node in bgs

- if you're a NE or rogue, you can eat and drink while stealthed; click the eat/drink buttons first, then click stealth

- if your group has a shaman in it, fight close to her totems whenever possible. some totem effects trigger on each tic and if you're forced out of range, you won't get their benefits. tremor totem is a prime example of this; if you're on the edge of it's effective radius and you get feared you may end up running out of range before it tics again.

- you can cast non-damaging debuffs on cc'd targets without breaking cc. for example, you can cast curse of shadows, vampiric embrace, etc. on a sheep and it won't break.

- shaman's disease and poison cleansing totems cost less mana than their corresponding single-target spells.

- if a rogue opens up on you with cheap shot (stun) and you have your pvp trinket equipped, it's often best to wait until he follows up with kidney shot before you use eit or you'll just be stunned again right after you break the first stun.

- if a player kills you in pvp, you don't take durability loss. however, if you're being attacked by both a player and a mob and you die it depends on who delivers the killing blow. if the player got you, no loss. if the mob got you, say hello to your new repair bill. for this reason, I usually try to kill whatever mob I'm fighting when someone tries to gank me unless I think I stand a good chance of taking them both.

- charge mechanics (feral charge for druids, charge and intercept for warriors, etc) can often be used to travel over terrain that players normally can't traverse. for example, you can often charge up the side of a hill to a mob that you wouldn't otherwise be able to run up.

- terrain that is an obstacle for you generally isn't an obstacle for mobs. mobs will run right through fences, poles, rock formations, etc. whereas you have to either jump over them or go around. something to keep in mind when you're running away from that 5-pack of mobs you face pulled.

- when you agro mobs in an instance, they will chase you all the way to the entrance. you can't run away from them like you can in the rest of the world (some boss encounters are exceptions, but they're rare). you can, however, run out of the instance completely and they will usually reset after a minute or two. if you feigned death, used invisibility or vanished keep in mind that even though you've dropped agro, the rest of your party may not have. wait until the entire party is out of combat (or dead) before you stop feigning/hiding or you may end up with agro again.

- when someone resurrects you, you will come back to life standing on the spot where the resurrection spell was cast - not where you died, not where the resurrection caster happens to be standing now, but right on the spot where the actual spell was cast. this is especially important to remember when druids use their battle rez as wipe protection. if the druid was standing near a mob when he cast the spell, the recipient is going to rez right on top of that mob and have a less than ideal life-after-death experience.

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On PvP and PvE Servers

I started playing WoW with a group of co-workers about a month after the game was released. we all rolled horde on Stormrage, a PvE server. we played together for a couple months and then started to drift apart due to IRL obligations, new games, loss of interest in WoW, etc. I was the only one from the original group that stuck with WoW; ended up moving to another PvE server, falling in with a small, good guild and leveled up my first 60.

fast forward 6 months or so and a series of unrelated events all happened around the same time:

1. a big patch for WoW was on the horizon. I forget which one, but it had so many major changes to each class that it was enough to rekindle interest in WoW in my co-workers.
2. Blizzard was rolling out several new servers to keep up with growth in the player base.
3. the masters of the penny arcade and pvp online web comics decided to bring their long-standing "feud" to WoW by rolling opposing factions on one of the new PvP servers. they chose Dark Iron.

I was a long-time reader of both comics and when they made announcements about their new guilds in their forums, I suggested we all re-roll on Dark Iron (alliance - since we'd all played horde already). I'd never played on a PvP server and we thought it might spice things up a bit; add a new element of challenge to the game. PvP servers held a certain mystique for me. only the hard-core players rolled PvP. not only did you have the environment to contend with, but you also had hostile players to deal with as well. players on PvP servers had to be a cut above the rest, I thought.

I've been playing on Dark Iron for the better part of two years. I know all the major guilds and I've been in a few of the better ones, I have a feel for the markets, I've got 4 70s here, I've raided the old stuff and the new and I've made good friends along the way (most of my old co-workers have long since stopped playing). despite all this, I still question my decision to roll on a PvP server to this very day.

why? I guess I was a bit naive about what PvP servers were really like. I thought that the added element of danger, of having to always be looking over your shoulder, would make the game more interesting; more fun. I thought that there would be more large scale conflicts, like the old SS/TM battles or the raids on Org and SW that used to happen on my PvE servers. I thought that each faction would be more tight-knit, helping each other and watching their backs.

what I found instead were roving bands of lvl 60 (and later, 70) gankers that merrily stomp your lvl 20 ass just because they can (and then teabag your corpse and corpse camp you - because they can), raid/arena-geared 70s setting up shop in lowbie zones, killing anyone and everyone they can (players, quest mobs, npcs, etc.), entire zones where questing on some nights can be nearly impossible due to the on-going gankfest and more ass-hattery, even amongst members of the same faction, than I ever expected.

now, that sounds like a whole lot of QQing and I guess it really is just that. I just don't have the ganker mentality and I think you really need that to enjoy a PvP server. if I see horde my first thought is to just ignore them, not run up and turn them into paste. more often then not, if I come across a hordie getting mauled by mobs I'll save his sorry butt. sure, if you're mining an adamantite vein I might make you fight for it. even if I kill you, though, I'm not going to /rude, /spit and /lol over your corpse and then camp you for the next 20 minutes. I don't even begin to understand what compels people to do that.

I'm all for fights on somewhat even ground, like getting jumped by someone within 2-3 levels of me; take your best shot and good luck. three of us and three of you and a rare spawn between us? bring it on and may the best group win. this is the kind of pvp I was expecting, not having a ?? rogue ambush me when I've got 3 mobs on me, have 1/4 health and no mana. where's the skill in that?

so here I am on a PvP server with what I've realized is a PvE mentality. I've got great friends here and I really don't want to leave them, but when my alt (or even one of my 70s) gets ganked repeatedly it really takes the fun out of the game. I could just suck it up and go about my business. I could say goodbye to my friends and guild and transfer servers. I could even re-roll on a fresh server and retire my Dark Iron characters. none of these are ideal solutions, however. what's the right choice? no clue.

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On Hunters and Huntards

hunters are a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I've played a few of them over the years and currently raid with my 41/20 BM hunter, Harl. when most people think of hunters, "pew pew" is what first comes to mind ("huntards" is a close second, I'm sure). while dishing out MQSRD (Massive Quantities of Sustained, Ranged DPS, as BRK likes to call it) is indeed our primary role, we bring a lot of other useful stuff to the party: crowd control (traps, pet off-tank, scare beast, kiting), agro control (misdirection, distracting shot, feign death), tactical intel (tracking, stealth detection), squishy protection (pet taunt, intimidation, distracting shot, mail armor), group buffs (ferocious inspiration, trueshot aura, expose weakness) and even potential wipe protection (feign death + jumper cables ftw!). a hunter that knows all this, that really lives and breaths it, can be a huge asset to any party or raid.

as with any class, however, there are good hunters and not so good hunters. the class attracts players of all kinds, from those who want to kick ass and take names in any scenario (e.g., Harl) to those who want to live out their fantasy of being yet another Legolas clone running around putting arrows in anything and everything. I think partly due to the strong mythology associated with the hunter class (bow-wielding elves from gods know how many fantasy stories, rangers from D&D, tolkein, etc.) and also in good part due to the ease with which one can successfully level a hunter (you can easily solo all the way to 70 without learning how to use even half of the abilities of the class), the hunter community as a whole includes an above average number of... less skilled members, shall we say.

there are a few key skills and characteristics that make the good hunters stand out from the rest. BRK covers all this in far more detail than I'm going to go into, so if you want more info on any of the topics listed here, head over to his blog and dig around.

Chain Trapping

chain trapping means keeping a mob constantly frozen and out of the battle until your party is prepared to deal with it. to do this well, you have to be aware of your lay trap cooldown, you have to be aware of when your trap's going to expire, you have to be aware of where your trap is relative to the mob's position, your position and the expected location of the main fight (don't want stray AOE to pop your trap), you have to be able to run your mob into your new trap each time the old one expires and on top of all that, you have to be dishing out MQSRD on the main target. is it rocket science? not really. is it easy? hell, no. if you want to have any hope of running heroics and raid instances, though, you better know how to do it.

Pulling

any class can pull to start a fight, but hunters excel at it. we can misdirect pull, pet pull, single-target pull, silencing shot pull (for those pesky caster mobs) and trap pull (lay a trap in the path of a pat), just off the top of my head. what really makes us shine, though, is that if the pull goes bad we simply feign death and everything resets. no deaths, no wipes, no loud cursing in vent. get up, dust yourself off and try again. no other class offers that. now, granted things can still go wrong. feign death can be resisted, maybe the priest panics and drops heal on you when he sees 8 mobs rushing in to eat your face and thereby draws agro, whatever. and yes, there are some pulls where having someone else do it (shackle pull, sheep pull, etc) makes more sense. those exceptions and Murphy's Law aside, however, pulling is a hunter's job.

Pet Management

a hunter's pet is one of the defining characteristics of the class. it accounts for 10-35% of a hunter's overall DPS, can act as a tank and/or additional dps, can act as a decoy, can rescue other party members when things go bad, can act as a scout, can buff both the hunter and the party (BM hunter pets, anyway) and can even attack when the hunter himself is out of commission (e.g, stunned by a rogue). why, oh why would any hunter ever throw all this away? and yet, it's not uncommon to see hunters running around with no pet at their side, especially in instances.

a hunter without a pet is gimped, no matter what spec he is. there's no excuse for not having your pet out and active. there's also no excuse for not being fully aware of where your pet is and what it's doing at all times. pets in PVE should always, always, always be set to passive. not defensive, definitely not aggressive, always on passive. this makes the hunter completely responsible for everything the pet does. that means telling it who to attack when, remembering to turn off growl when you're working with a tank, managing any special abilities it has (charge, intimidation, fire breath) and keeping it alive (mend pet really is a no-brainer these days). and that doesn't mean you just leave it standing by your side the whole time. your pet is as much a part of you as your ranged weapon is; use it.

Kiting

back before Burning Crusade came out, one of the measures of a good hunter was the ability to kite Drakk. the success of an entire 10-man raid group was dependent on one lonely hunter's ability to drag a raid boss halfway through the instance without losing agro (had to pop him every now and again to keep him interested in the chase), getting close enough to get hit (had to stay 30 yards away or get roasted) or getting lost and winding up in a dead end while the rest of the raid dealt with Drakk's guards. not many hunters did it well and those that did were in high demand (UBRS was the shit, back then).

kiting is one of the harder skills to master as a hunter because unlike a lot of WoW, it requires pretty good reflexes and coordination. you really need to master the jump shot if you want to be an expert kiter. you also have to be aware enough of your surroundings to avoid running into obstacles, other mobs, off cliffs, etc. all while also being aware of where your kited mob is and dumping as much damage into him on the run as you can.

this is easily my weakest skill as a hunter, but do not underestimate just how important it can be. case in point: during a recent Illhoof attempt in kara things went sour and by the time we got Illhoof down the entire raid was dead except for me and an out-of-mana pally healer. Kil'rek spawned just as Illhoof ate dirt and the only thing that stood between success and a wipe was whether I could kite him around the room until we wore him down. it was an ugly (on my part; the pally rocked!), tense, 3 minute ordeal but we finally got him. if I'd just held my ground and tried to shoot him, it would have been a wipe in about 10 seconds. needless to say, I went out and did a good bit of kiting practice after that experience ;)

Agro Management

hunters have some of the best agro management abilities in the game. we can selectively give agro to another party member (misdirection), we can build agro quickly to take it away from others (distracting shot, burst DPS) and we can dump our own agro (disengage, feign death). using these tools a good hunter is a master of the agro table. with great power, however, comes great responsibility. good hunters *do not* pull agro from the tank (this includes their pets, when soloing), they *do not* shed agro onto squishies, they *do* pull agro off squishies and they *do* control lose mobs until a tank can pick them up or cc can be established.

Situational Awareness

this one covers a lot of ground, but it really separates the good from the merely average (or the truly bad *shudder*) hunters. a good hunter is aware of what's going on around her at all times. she knows where the party members are, where the mobs are, which targets are for what (kill, off-tank, cc), when her trap's about the expire and how long she has on her trap cooldown, where she is on the agro table relative to everyone else, where her pet is and who's face he's eating and where that pat that's due back in a couple minutes is (tracking ftw!). in the midst of all this, of course, she's serving up all the MQSRD she's physically able to which means she's also watching her shot cooldowns, her sting timers, her trinket cooldowns, her special ability cooldowns, etc.

since she's a ranged attacker, the hunter is in an ideal position to keep an eye on the entire fight and react to unexpected changes. mob breaks CC early and the tank can't see it? send in the pet with a mend pet already cooking to hold it until the tank gets there. mob eating the healer's face? distracting shot to pull agro off the squishie. mob running away? concussive shot to keep it from getting too far too fast. unexcepted add? smack it and walk it into a trap until the party's ready to deal with it. these are the sorts of actions that make players rethink the Huntard stereotype.

all of the skills mentioned here are what make up a good hunter. there's one characteristic that I didn't mention, however, and it's arguably more important than all the rest. that characteristic is the ability and *drive* to learn how to be a better hunter. all of us hunters start off as noobs, but some of us work hard to grow out of it.

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