A Bitter-Sweet Goodbye

Today we watch as another blog of huge importance (for me and many Hunters, anyway) shuts down for at least three months. For once, though, I understand and completely agree with the reason - usually the blogs I read just cite "real life" and leave it at that, but our good Daniel Howell of BRKWWA has explained why. I won't go into that, just head over and read the post. I'll wait.

I'm not going to turn this into a eulogy - the guy isn't dead, he's just not blogging/playing right now. But I do feel the need to thank him better than I could in the comments, thus this post.

Thank you, BRK, for teaching me how to trap and kite, the mechanics of aggro and why it's so important to Feign Death early.

Thank you, BRK, for showing me it's ok to love a spec even if it's not the "best" one.

Thank you, BRK, for keeping the love of the Hunter class alive for me through all the nerfs, buffs, lag from my ISP and disapointment from not being progression-worthy DPS.

Thank you most of all, BRK, for the laughs. For not being afraid to admit that you Disengaged off of a boss platform right after the pull. For sharing the conversations between you and your Brain (and incidentally calling attention to the fact that I have some inner dialogue like that, too).

And thank you Daniel for sharing your stories of the Air Force, showing it's not all drills and spittle and running around pointlessly, and inspiring me to take a step out of my comfort zone and talk to a recruiter myself. I always saw a lot of potential, but it always scared the shit out of me too. But hey, you seem to have had good times as well as bad.

We will miss you while you are gone, and if that ends up being forever, well... Thanks for all the fish.

-Eric (Xanthelei, Alliance - Suramar)

Just In Time To Curl Up With

I can has teddy bear transport?







Yes, but only at the cost of catching the flu, it would seem. *sigh*

In other news, Skinning has reached slvl 375 and I have Aspatha the white moth to level and test for DPS. At least I can keep myself busy while I'm sick.

/Sigh

So. We now have one week until Wrath hits. One. Week. Then we get to start leveling again. In all new areas. With all new abilities. And a totally different plot line. (And maybe no Burning Legion would be good?)

I am a Burning Crusade Kiddo. I have never played true Vanilla WoW, honestly hadn't even HEARD of WoW way-back-when. So the stories of what it was like when BC was totally new have me stoked for release night. Only one problem.

I work the next day. At 8 AM. And I'm a good hour drive from work.

So, unless my best friend in the whole world *hint* is willing to let me stay the night at his place - which just so happens to be about 5 MINUTES away from work - with my computer, I will not make the midnight opening. Which leaves me as a sad Space Goat.

Hmm. I must remember to find some blackmail on M before the 13th...

The Results Are In

Obama is the new President of my country.

Not sure yet who is the new Governer of my state, as the numbers were all over the place and I can't stay up any longer. Definitely going to have to buy a newspaper tomorrow!

Animal Handler is no longer the must-have talent is was, and I still don't know if my pet is getting any of my hit. /pout

And I can has bat minipet. Tomorrow. My addiction to the stupid election news and lack of a TV in my room caused me to miss a Kara badge run. I'm thinking I'll have to pug it tomorrow.

And it's almost an hour past my bed time! Why am I still awake!?

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Sorry the blog has been a bit quiet lately. Besides the fact that First Strike isn't doing much raiding right now, I've also found out that my satellite internet service, Wild Blue Communications, has a hidden clause that states "You have 12,000 MBs of downloads in any given 30 day period." (It resets to the last 30 days every day.) How much have I used? 12,115. So they've slowed us down to about 30-40% of the normal speed that we pay $70 a month for.

It takes a while just loading my own blog. =(

So, if I haven't been raiding, what have I been doing? I have messed around on the PTR a bit more, and am happy to see they've finally fixed the Beastial Wrath bug. For a few builds, having The Beast Within was a wasted talent point, as every time you used Beastial Wrath it would ONLY apply the pet buff. Your poor Hunter would stand there, watching his big red pet sadly as he himself was denied the joys of being big and red.

But that's fixed! So /cheer! Also fixed is Spirit Bond. It may take a while to register with the server, but it does now affect Mend Pet. I gave my L65 bear full Stamina and Rhino Blood, then had someone hit him a few times to see what MP would tick for. I got about 165 per tick, which isn't bad. Then I popped one of my unspent talent points (I have a habit of only taking the "duh" talents when on the PTR, so I can check various effects and such) into Spirit Bond and took him on the Dailies grind.

At first, I was disappointed, as I couldn't see any difference in the Mend Pet ticks. The tooltip also hadn't changed, so I figured it was a lost point in Spirit Bond and I should report the bug/misleading talent tooltip. About five minutes later, I noticed that MP was indeed ticking for more healing now - and probably had been for some time. So I dropped another point into SB to see if it would increase again, wrote down the new number, and continued on. About 3 mobs later, Mend Pet began giving 215 health per tick - much better at keeping my little bear alive against L70+ mobs!

On Live, I've been going into a collector's frenzy. I already have increased my mini-pet collection from about 5 unique/rare pets to, say, 14. I've listed out all the Horde-only pets, the grind-pets, the rep pets, etc. and do plan on getting all of the ones I can. Why? Because in about 8 days mini-pets will no longer take up bag space! Same with mounts - I've been grinding rep with the major Alliance factions for the racial mounts, and have actually bought all three L30 Stormwind horses. (Yes, I'm a nut, I want them all!)

Hmm. I'm going to need more gold. /plot