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)

Bring It On Home

Well, it's been a while. I simply wasn't having fun playing on Xanth, as Suramar is a plain PvE server, I can't seriously raid in anything progression, and I remember days of Huntering around Azeroth with no lag.

So what changed? Well, Tuesday night my best RL friend called me up.

"Hey E, you up to doing a 10 man Naxx with the guild? We got a lot of people interested with alts, but we need more DPS."

"I don't know, M..."

"Come on, we haven't raided together in too long. And I'll be on my priest! I'll heal Alvar for ya."

".... Fine, I'll go sign up on the forums."

So I do so, and the raid gets underway. Full guild alt/second string raid, nothing much to be proud of, but hey, it's been a while and maybe I'll get some achievements I haven't managed to snag yet. We start clearing the Spider wing, and lo and behold, Maexxna drops her Wraith Spear - and I'm the only one who wants it. /cheer! Nice upgrade, even if I'm losing some hit with it.

Move along a bit, and we're killing Gluth. I dislike Gluth because, even as a Hunter, all I can really contribute to chew toy kiting is my trap. Seriously, my lag is bad enough I can't kite shit around a frost trap and keep aggro off the pocket healer! Sad times... So we had the holy pally kite them around, I unleashed all the Survival DPS I could, and we got the kill. What drops? The token for my tier chest! Did I mention we had no Shamans, and the Warrior had it already?

"I think the GMs are trying to tell me to come play Xanth again, M."

"You should."

Last night we finished everything up to the Four Horsemen (had a few troubles with our Spriest tanks in the back eating it, thus making the raid explode - is it bad I found the latter part hilarious?) and I picked up the tokens for both the legs and the shoulders.

I am now 3/3 in tier from Naxx 10. Plus an awesome polearm. In a matter of two nights.

Wakey wakey Xanth, we have baddies to shoot in the face!

Stable Master

I don't know about any other Hunters out there, but I adore my pets. I've had a few over the years - Vryth-the-cat who became Vryth-the-carrion-bird, Yona the black bear, and Irwin the ghost-croc to name a few - but I've only held on to the ones I truely love for any great length of time. Currently all the pets in my stables have a story to them, and because this is my blog and I can, I'd like to share them with you. :D

Meet Alvar. This is the pet that, as soon as I hit 21, I begged my Shaman friend to help me find and tame. He's a Ghostsaber, the only "official" ghost pet in the game (all the others with ghostly appearances have been rendered untamable). As you can see, he's transparent. How awesome is that!?

Alvar has leveled with me from 21 on, almost always staying right up there with me. If Blizzard ever decided Hunters are allowed only one pet, Alvar is the pet I'd keep.

This is Wailflash, my Gorilladin. He spent a few days as Gorilla because I just couldn't think of a good name. The solution? Name him after guildie Mages of course! :) He comes with me to grind leathers, since he can handle piling them up in a neat skinning mound for me.

Now, I read over at SES that all tanking pets will have access to Thunderstomp come the next patch... So what, if anything, would replace Wail as my farming buddy?

Hmm, I don't think he's impressed.

Next in line comes the newest member of the team, Aspatha the Broodmother. (Anyone seeing a theme here?) The name rocks, so she got to keep it. I've heard rumors that Moths are actually decent for raid DPS, so I'm going to level her up to 80 and do some pet-only testing against Alvar. And should Mrs. Flappy win out, Alvar will get a well-deserved break from dying in a fire during Sarth raids. (Seriously, wtb better way to position pets against bosses!)

For the rare occasion of PvP I like to bring out my WaspofLSDoom (yes that's the pets actual name!) because once I sic him on Rogues they can't Vanish for the stunlock - which means I have a infinitesimally better chance at kiting them to their death. Will it ever happen? Heck, not on this connection, but it's a nice dream eh? :P

I have to give a shout out to BRK for the inspiration for his name - he's been calling the Hive Queen "LSD Wasp of Doom" for a few months now, and it totally fits!

Last, and just maybe least these days, is Reptilicus the Devilsaur. He's stuck in the stables while I run around as a Survivalist, and seems less than happy with that. Once Aspatha is up to level 80, I might just spec back to BM to finish leveling the poor thing, give him some fresh air. ...Or maybe I'll be lazy and demote him to Raptor status. <.< Dunno if I can get away with this, but I would love for BRK and Pike share their current pets and any stories behind them. I'm sure Pike has an RP background for them all (loved the story for Wash). If not, I'll be content with this snapshot of my stables, for posterity's sake.

It's Kinda Like My Raid DPS

So I changed the layout a bit. I think this is less distracting than the old one, and hopefully a little less dull. I tried to keep with the colors on the Kill command icon in game, but I think I only did so so... At least it's less formal feeling. :)

Should I ever figure out how to work a paint-like program, I might even have a header someday! /cheer

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.

Xanthelei the Argent Champion

Has such a nice ring to it, I must say.

When In Rome...

Pike at Aspect of the Hare was recently tagged for a meme to show off the 6th screenshot in her folder, regardless of what it is, and in turn tagged anyone who wanted to. Well, I happen to like my 6th screenshot, so I'll share. :)

This is the coolest picture I have ever taken, bar none:

The view of Light's Chapel from the Death Knight staging grounds, just before charging in for a one-sided fight. But while I love the DK starting area - and it's quests! - I just can't get that into my DK. So he's probably going to be stuck as my auctioneer.

/comfort Tenderizor