Its nice that we have a larger stable than during TBC for all our hunter pets. Even nicer to now have Call Stabled Pet capability to switch pets when you switch dual specs, if you so like.
I've been running Marksman for about 2 weeks now. I'm very much liking the rotation/priority. My only beef with it is that every so often, I'll end up with Chimera, Arcane, and Aimed all reaching the end of their cooldown at the same time. Means that, for instance, Aimed shot will sit for 2 GCD's during which it is ready to be fired but is lower priority and so sits. No big, but I like complaining.
Lots of forums and EJ's and Pikes say that a Wolf and the Furious Howl attack power buff is king among MM pets.
So I figure I'll leave Memphis the Raptor as my Survival pet, and go ahead and find me a wolf.
Finally, I get to raid with a dog!
And its time for some Role Play.
I can't just get any dog. No, for me, I need to go on a mission to rescue a pup from evil and give him a nice home and teach him things like "sit", "stay", and "sick balls". The kind of pup who lusts to tear the faces off of bosses during the day, and curl up on the couch with me and watch some American Idol at night.
So I set off to Mulgore. Seems those cows from Thunderbluff have been mistreating their animals and Amava is going to try to set things right.
Found the lowest level (5) Coyote puppy I could and offered him some cookies.
He was reluctant at first, but I eventually earned his trust.
And wouldnt you know it, badda bing badda boom, he's level 75. Man, these kids sure do grow up quick.
Now its time for a name.
Wanting to stick with the Native American vibe in Mulgore/Tauren lore, I went to look up various tribal translations of the name Coyote.
As it would turn out, none of them felt right when translated to Night Elf lingo.
However, a common theme in Native American legend and myths is the portrayal of the Coyote as the Trickster (aside: often depicted with disproportionately large junk, so big in fact that our little trickster sometimes wears a backpack to carry his mule. pure win) who is a master of deception, usually using his guile to get into somebody's pants (again, pure win).
And after spending a few hours to level him up to 80 grinding rhinos and elementals in Storm Peaks, the name stuck.
So lets all welcome Trickster the Coyote to the Stable. Tonight's his first raid, so we'll see how things go.
Showing posts with label pet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pet. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Monday, July 14, 2008
Go Brush Your Teeth...
...because you've got Muckbreath.
I've been intermittently doing the daily fishing quest. Mostly taking it if its the Mudfish one in Nagrand, because I usually catch a stack or so of Mudfish before I catch the World's Largest Mudfish, and I like the buff food that comes from my Muddy friends.
Crocolisks in the City. Why not, I'm on my way to Stormwind to cash in on some PvP loot, so might as well.
3 casts, and I catch the baby crocolisk.
Get my PvP loot, hearth to Shatt, fly to fisherman.
What's this in my bag but a little Muckbreath companion pet.
He's awesome.
Muckbreath has become a permanent fixture to my Battlegrounds. Upon rezzing, I whip out Muckmuck, become a hawk or viper, and mount up.
He looks especially nice as he tries to move his little legs fast enough to keep up with my epic mount and riding crop.
I've been intermittently doing the daily fishing quest. Mostly taking it if its the Mudfish one in Nagrand, because I usually catch a stack or so of Mudfish before I catch the World's Largest Mudfish, and I like the buff food that comes from my Muddy friends.
Crocolisks in the City. Why not, I'm on my way to Stormwind to cash in on some PvP loot, so might as well.
3 casts, and I catch the baby crocolisk.
Get my PvP loot, hearth to Shatt, fly to fisherman.
What's this in my bag but a little Muckbreath companion pet.
He's awesome.
Muckbreath has become a permanent fixture to my Battlegrounds. Upon rezzing, I whip out Muckmuck, become a hawk or viper, and mount up.
He looks especially nice as he tries to move his little legs fast enough to keep up with my epic mount and riding crop.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Free Range Pets
I've often heard mention of the intimate bond between Hunter and Pet and the seamless union of souls where the pet becomes an extension of the very fingers of the hunter.
As such, its often recommended that a Hunter keep their pet on passive. Doing so leaves the Hunter in supreme control of each and every action, save for the focus-consuming attacks that are left on auto cast.
The latest installation of that philosophy was put up recently by Pike. The article offers excellent advice with some basic instructions that Hunters, new or veteran, can benefit from. Go, go. Read, read.
For instances and raids, no doubt. Passive is King. Last thing I want to do is have my pet off and doing its own thing, pulling the entire room of dancers before Moroes' dinner party. Not that that's ever happened :-P
But, do you really want to be an oppressive overlord? Do you want to crush your pet's sense of style and independence? Do you want to hurt your pet's pride by constantly micromanaging her every move like Mother Hen?
In a raid setting, sorry Condoleezza, but you're gonna have to listen to what I tell you.
But...a Ravager's got to spread her pinchers and fly. She needs to roll around and feel the soft grass of freedom on her carapace.
If I'm constantly ordering her around, not only does it tire me out, but it downright makes her cranky.
And its actually more productive for combat to let her call the shots from time to time.
For example.....
I'm a skinner. Nagrand is chock full of skinnables. Just to the east of the Spirit Fields is a little meadowy slope where packs Clefthoofs roam, usually 7 or 8 individuals in each pack. A daddy, a couple of mommies, and a couple of babies. Its good to be a Clefthoof Bull.
Until Condie gets her chance to play.
Having no AoE to write home about, a Hunter is faced with needing to be innovative if he wants to make quick work of these walking leather dispensers.
So, I set Condoleezza on defensive, and send her in to attack the Bull. Once Growl is about to fire again, I kindly ask her to consider attacking one of the neutral Clefthooves, and Growl it. Now two mobs are securely aggroed onto her, with one Growl each.
While this is going on, I also go ahead and cast Misdirect onto her. And I take my time, firing one shot at each of three other neutral Clefthoofs. I don't use Multi-shot, because that might hit one of the two mobs already in combat, and I'm going for AoE-like effect here. She's now got 5 mobs securely on her.
And they're on her securely enough that a Mend Pet ain't gonna pull aggro off of her.
For fun and maximum skinning efficiency, I usually drop a freezer and pull another neutral one over to me. Or if the remaining neutral Clefthoovi haven't walked too far away, and I've crit-ed during the misdirection which means she'll have enough focus for another Growl, I'll gently nudge her in the direction of another mob.
From there, the rest is up to Condoleezza.
I now just keep Mend Pet up, and assist my pet. I've got my assist pet command mapped to F1 and just spam away at that one and follow her kill order.
As each one burns down, she kindly picks another. I check Omen to make sure she's got enough threat for me to open up, and badda bing, badda boom, 6 or 7 dead Clefthoofs in 40 seconds or so, with minimal tap dancing or scrambling or kiting or much fuss at all.
Double bonus points if you immediately switch over to another pack of Clefters that cross paths with the one you're killing. And Triple bonus for when the third pack intersects. That's insane. It takes longer to loot and skin them all than it does to kill them. Although the misdirection cooldown kinda interferes with this one.
Granted, this technique depends greatly upon your armor/stamina so the pet can take all this damage. Plus it depends upon your combined firepower to burn down the mobs.
But if you're looking to complete the daily gathering quest nice and quick, AND you're not on Terokkar server (keep your carapaci off my Clefthooves), go give it a whirl. The best part is, they're all neutral, so you get to choose how many mobs you engage, and can tweak the numbers to suit your armor/stamina/dps.
Make sure your pet gets ample cuddle time after putting in such an admirable job of taking all those hits, and also feeling free to dictate her own kill order for masses quantities of mobs.
Oh, and watch out for Durn. He likes to walk by during the madness, but I find his aggro range is kinda messed up, as I've actually had him walk directly over me without entering combat.
As such, its often recommended that a Hunter keep their pet on passive. Doing so leaves the Hunter in supreme control of each and every action, save for the focus-consuming attacks that are left on auto cast.
The latest installation of that philosophy was put up recently by Pike. The article offers excellent advice with some basic instructions that Hunters, new or veteran, can benefit from. Go, go. Read, read.
For instances and raids, no doubt. Passive is King. Last thing I want to do is have my pet off and doing its own thing, pulling the entire room of dancers before Moroes' dinner party. Not that that's ever happened :-P
But, do you really want to be an oppressive overlord? Do you want to crush your pet's sense of style and independence? Do you want to hurt your pet's pride by constantly micromanaging her every move like Mother Hen?
In a raid setting, sorry Condoleezza, but you're gonna have to listen to what I tell you.
But...a Ravager's got to spread her pinchers and fly. She needs to roll around and feel the soft grass of freedom on her carapace.
If I'm constantly ordering her around, not only does it tire me out, but it downright makes her cranky.
And its actually more productive for combat to let her call the shots from time to time.
For example.....
I'm a skinner. Nagrand is chock full of skinnables. Just to the east of the Spirit Fields is a little meadowy slope where packs Clefthoofs roam, usually 7 or 8 individuals in each pack. A daddy, a couple of mommies, and a couple of babies. Its good to be a Clefthoof Bull.
Until Condie gets her chance to play.
Having no AoE to write home about, a Hunter is faced with needing to be innovative if he wants to make quick work of these walking leather dispensers.
So, I set Condoleezza on defensive, and send her in to attack the Bull. Once Growl is about to fire again, I kindly ask her to consider attacking one of the neutral Clefthooves, and Growl it. Now two mobs are securely aggroed onto her, with one Growl each.
While this is going on, I also go ahead and cast Misdirect onto her. And I take my time, firing one shot at each of three other neutral Clefthoofs. I don't use Multi-shot, because that might hit one of the two mobs already in combat, and I'm going for AoE-like effect here. She's now got 5 mobs securely on her.
And they're on her securely enough that a Mend Pet ain't gonna pull aggro off of her.
For fun and maximum skinning efficiency, I usually drop a freezer and pull another neutral one over to me. Or if the remaining neutral Clefthoovi haven't walked too far away, and I've crit-ed during the misdirection which means she'll have enough focus for another Growl, I'll gently nudge her in the direction of another mob.
From there, the rest is up to Condoleezza.
I now just keep Mend Pet up, and assist my pet. I've got my assist pet command mapped to F1 and just spam away at that one and follow her kill order.
As each one burns down, she kindly picks another. I check Omen to make sure she's got enough threat for me to open up, and badda bing, badda boom, 6 or 7 dead Clefthoofs in 40 seconds or so, with minimal tap dancing or scrambling or kiting or much fuss at all.
Double bonus points if you immediately switch over to another pack of Clefters that cross paths with the one you're killing. And Triple bonus for when the third pack intersects. That's insane. It takes longer to loot and skin them all than it does to kill them. Although the misdirection cooldown kinda interferes with this one.
Granted, this technique depends greatly upon your armor/stamina so the pet can take all this damage. Plus it depends upon your combined firepower to burn down the mobs.
But if you're looking to complete the daily gathering quest nice and quick, AND you're not on Terokkar server (keep your carapaci off my Clefthooves), go give it a whirl. The best part is, they're all neutral, so you get to choose how many mobs you engage, and can tweak the numbers to suit your armor/stamina/dps.
Make sure your pet gets ample cuddle time after putting in such an admirable job of taking all those hits, and also feeling free to dictate her own kill order for masses quantities of mobs.
Oh, and watch out for Durn. He likes to walk by during the madness, but I find his aggro range is kinda messed up, as I've actually had him walk directly over me without entering combat.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
In the blink of an eye
You ever have one of those moments where you hesitated a drop, only to look back and wonder what the hell happened?
My postings and chronicles of my WoW experience sorta went through that this weekend. The short story is, lots of stuff happened. I didn't write an entry about it on monday. Lots more stuff happened. Now the stuff from the weekend seems an afterthought and silly.
Here's the slightly longer version, but still pretty short. What happened to Amava over the weekend....
1) Lots of guild drama and officer chat and he-said-she-said stuff.
2) Ding 56
3) /gquit. The discussions in step 1 above revealed to me that the leader guy and I share different visions of how a guild can be fun, so I decide to part ways.
4) Ding 57
5) Tamed a new pet. Poor Teddy, the bear I got when I was a wee lass at lvl 10 and has been my exclusive pet ever since, has been retired to the stables.
So that's the slightly longer version. Of course the full version would include all the gory details of how people's RL drama will influence guild drama, and just how painful the 4-hour in-game chat was that I've neatly condensed into the one line item in #1 above. Also all the fun questing I did to level up those two steps. The only one that's probably worthy of some additional detail is step 5, especially since this is a drop of a hunter's blog.
Teddy. My bear who I got at lvl 10, and who has travelled with me tanking all sorts of mobs and only asking for the occasional mend pet, and some mystery meat from time to time. Poor fella, he's been put to pasture. I've known for a while that bears are not the optimal pet. I picked him originally because of the cinematic trailer to WoW. You know the one...it opens up with a Dwarf hunter and his bear trudging through the snowy hills of Dun Morogh overlooking IF. To rewind a few months, when I first installed WoW, it was on a brand spankin' new computer, and I had just hooked up the sweet sweet new monitor and surround sound system. Cranking the subwoofer, I fire up WoW for the first time ever and the cinematic trailer starts rolling. You see that dwarf's huge nostrils, and then the bear's snow-encrusted fur blowing in the wind. It blew me away. I wanted a bear.
When I hit lvl 10, I wanted that bear. I got my bear. And he's been by my side ever since. He's been with me through my first foray into Marksmanship spec, and my bewilderment over why people say a hunter's pet is so awesome. He couldnt hold aggro worth a damn (at the time, I thought it was his fault. i have since learned the error of my ways). He was with me through my first respec into Beast Mastry spec, and some changes to how I open fire. Holy S. Teddy can hold aggro now. He went into all sorts of instances and BG's with me. And his only complaint is to make a little yellow frowning icon to let me know he's hungry. What a trooper.
Farewell, Teddy! I hope the stable is nice, and they keep your straw bed fresh.
Because mama's got a new friend.
Over the past several weeks, I've started reading a bunch of blogs, some of which are dedicated to hunter topics. You know the one, and the other one. They all hype up boars as good levelling pets. Ok, let me try that out. What's all this hub-bub about "charge"? Head over to petopia to read up on them. Hmm, seems that Grunter is a cool boar around my lvl. Ok, that sounds good, I'll have that. Fly over to IF and put Teddy in the stable, then head to Blasted Lands where Grunter likes to hang out. I have never tamed a pet since Teddy, so I barely remember how. But I know that I'm running sans pet and feel pretty naked, so let me tame whatever beast I run into first, just so I have a bodyguard, and I'll throw that one away when Grunter shows up.
So I run around the area. No Grunter. No Grunter. Run some more. No Grunter. Petopia says he's "rare" but I don't know what that means. Run some more. No Grunter. Let me check thotbot. Oh, "rare" means he only spawns every 32-48 hours. Gotcha. So I guess I wont have me some Grunter. For now ;-)
But I did keep my Ashmane Boar, who is pretty cool, coming with charge level 5 right out of the box. I was lvl 55 or 56 at the time, and she was 49, so she misses alot against the mobs at my level. She's levelled up a bunch, so its getting better, but since Teddy was always at my level or just 1 level below, its a bit strange experience. There was also something weird going on where Growl wasn't firing, so between the high miss rate, and the Growl not firing (even if I turned off automatic mode and did it manually, and yes, I did have enough focus), threat generation was low as can be.
The Growl situation was really bugging me, so I logged off and logged back in. Growl now worked as expected, with automatic mode firing as often as focus would allow. Strange, but ok, don't look back.
Charge rules. Ruby hits a mob with her rank 5 charge and instantly generates about 2.5k threat. I can open fire immediately and pretty much never pull aggro. Very nice as a companion for levelling.
My postings and chronicles of my WoW experience sorta went through that this weekend. The short story is, lots of stuff happened. I didn't write an entry about it on monday. Lots more stuff happened. Now the stuff from the weekend seems an afterthought and silly.
Here's the slightly longer version, but still pretty short. What happened to Amava over the weekend....
1) Lots of guild drama and officer chat and he-said-she-said stuff.
2) Ding 56
3) /gquit. The discussions in step 1 above revealed to me that the leader guy and I share different visions of how a guild can be fun, so I decide to part ways.
4) Ding 57
5) Tamed a new pet. Poor Teddy, the bear I got when I was a wee lass at lvl 10 and has been my exclusive pet ever since, has been retired to the stables.
So that's the slightly longer version. Of course the full version would include all the gory details of how people's RL drama will influence guild drama, and just how painful the 4-hour in-game chat was that I've neatly condensed into the one line item in #1 above. Also all the fun questing I did to level up those two steps. The only one that's probably worthy of some additional detail is step 5, especially since this is a drop of a hunter's blog.
Teddy. My bear who I got at lvl 10, and who has travelled with me tanking all sorts of mobs and only asking for the occasional mend pet, and some mystery meat from time to time. Poor fella, he's been put to pasture. I've known for a while that bears are not the optimal pet. I picked him originally because of the cinematic trailer to WoW. You know the one...it opens up with a Dwarf hunter and his bear trudging through the snowy hills of Dun Morogh overlooking IF. To rewind a few months, when I first installed WoW, it was on a brand spankin' new computer, and I had just hooked up the sweet sweet new monitor and surround sound system. Cranking the subwoofer, I fire up WoW for the first time ever and the cinematic trailer starts rolling. You see that dwarf's huge nostrils, and then the bear's snow-encrusted fur blowing in the wind. It blew me away. I wanted a bear.
When I hit lvl 10, I wanted that bear. I got my bear. And he's been by my side ever since. He's been with me through my first foray into Marksmanship spec, and my bewilderment over why people say a hunter's pet is so awesome. He couldnt hold aggro worth a damn (at the time, I thought it was his fault. i have since learned the error of my ways). He was with me through my first respec into Beast Mastry spec, and some changes to how I open fire. Holy S. Teddy can hold aggro now. He went into all sorts of instances and BG's with me. And his only complaint is to make a little yellow frowning icon to let me know he's hungry. What a trooper.
Farewell, Teddy! I hope the stable is nice, and they keep your straw bed fresh.
Because mama's got a new friend.
Over the past several weeks, I've started reading a bunch of blogs, some of which are dedicated to hunter topics. You know the one, and the other one. They all hype up boars as good levelling pets. Ok, let me try that out. What's all this hub-bub about "charge"? Head over to petopia to read up on them. Hmm, seems that Grunter is a cool boar around my lvl. Ok, that sounds good, I'll have that. Fly over to IF and put Teddy in the stable, then head to Blasted Lands where Grunter likes to hang out. I have never tamed a pet since Teddy, so I barely remember how. But I know that I'm running sans pet and feel pretty naked, so let me tame whatever beast I run into first, just so I have a bodyguard, and I'll throw that one away when Grunter shows up.
So I run around the area. No Grunter. No Grunter. Run some more. No Grunter. Petopia says he's "rare" but I don't know what that means. Run some more. No Grunter. Let me check thotbot. Oh, "rare" means he only spawns every 32-48 hours. Gotcha. So I guess I wont have me some Grunter. For now ;-)
But I did keep my Ashmane Boar, who is pretty cool, coming with charge level 5 right out of the box. I was lvl 55 or 56 at the time, and she was 49, so she misses alot against the mobs at my level. She's levelled up a bunch, so its getting better, but since Teddy was always at my level or just 1 level below, its a bit strange experience. There was also something weird going on where Growl wasn't firing, so between the high miss rate, and the Growl not firing (even if I turned off automatic mode and did it manually, and yes, I did have enough focus), threat generation was low as can be.
The Growl situation was really bugging me, so I logged off and logged back in. Growl now worked as expected, with automatic mode firing as often as focus would allow. Strange, but ok, don't look back.
Charge rules. Ruby hits a mob with her rank 5 charge and instantly generates about 2.5k threat. I can open fire immediately and pretty much never pull aggro. Very nice as a companion for levelling.
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