I love huntering.
I have found a good rhythm with it. I like the ding of my crit, followed by the GARR of kill command. I like the sound of two bow shots fired one after the other when steady and auto are timed just right. Sometimes there are special shots, but 90% of the fights are exactly the same. Which is comforting to me. I like that.

But right now? I also really LOVE being a druid. Jesinta turned 21 today. My quest buddy and I spent some time killing tigers and spiders and bears (oh my!) around Tarren Mill. She prefers bear form, so she runs up and starts smashing them around a bit. I usually faerie fire (weaken armor) and moonfire (dot) them. From there? It’s different every time. Sometimes I stand back and cast Wrath. Sometimes I pop into kitty form and play with the combo points. Sometimes ImmaBear too. If we have several mobs, I usually just dot them all and heal her until I’m out of mana then run up and beat on them with my shiny new staff.

I know that once we get higher and start specializing in a talent line and choosing a specific kind of gear, it won’t be nearly as flexible. But for now? it’s super fun. I love druids.

(and yes, Kadomi, I joined the guild!)

I’ve never gotten into RPGs or MMOWhatevers before. I do love video games. I mostly play the silly simulation/time management games from Big Fish. My friend Nya sent me a free trial of WoW. She said we could play together and we could talk. She doesn’t like to talk on the phone, so I tried it out. She wasn’t able to play with me right away, so she suggested I try it out a bit and we could meet up in a few days. Oh, the frustration!

I rolled a dwarf hunter. Mainly because I like turtles and Nya said I could have a turtle pet. One of the quests in the starting area gives a reward choice of Rabbit, Wolf of Boar “handler gloves.” I thought those gloves would allow me to have a pet. Rabbits didn’t seem like very strong pets. I had just finished killing a bunch of wolves, didn’t seem like a great idea to try to make friends now. Boars! Yes, we raised pigs when I was a kid. Pigs are strong and stubborn. I would choose Boar gloves.

But the Boar gloves were all red. Like “do not pick.” I couldn’t figure out why. I did what he asked of me, he said I could chose whatever I wanted, but then he seemed to be discouraging me from picking the ones I wanted. And? even after backing down from my boar excitement and choosing Rabbit gloves (they are cute!), I still didn’t have a rabbit pet. I saw a few hopping around in the snow. I tried to pick them up. I yelled “Hey rabbits, I have special gloves now!” I was pet-less and pissed off. I logged out and wrote a note to Nya.

All of our messages back and forth were saved. Its so funny to flip through them now and read all the things I didn’t understand. Things that are now so obvious that I can’t even remember ever not knowing. Here are some quotes from my messages to her:

“tank”- I gather that a tank in war is a strong machine with good defense. I assume that is what it means in terms of tanking with a person, that they are a strong fighter?

I read on one of the warcraft pages about different servers to play on. the ones where the players fight each other and the ones where they don’t. I want to be on the “please don’t fight me” server.

Gretadelle: Day 1

I killed a bunch of stuff and looted and got money and other items and some of those I wasn’t allowed to wear/use either. Is that because I am a dwarf? or the wrong level? (I’m talking about a shield and anything that was chain mail.)

since I couldn’t equip that stuff and my back pack was full, I went back to the guy at the beginning who is selling stuff and I tried to sell him my stuff. but it was in a menu called “Merchant Buyback” and now I wonder if he is just holding onto it for later or what?

I found a big building with a lot of trainer people in it. I bought some training from the hunter guy but I’m honestly not sure what it does. I thought he would teach me, but he didn’t. I got “track animals” and “aspect of monkey.”

how do I tell which items are the best ones to equip? I assume its by the numbers. I got dwarf leather which is number 29 with 35/35 and that seemed good so I got rid of my other pants. but some of the clothes don’t have numbers… like the shoes I started off with didn’t have any numbers.

do I run out of bullets at some point? where do I buy more? I’ve been mainly fighting by shooting at guys and then when they get close to me, I hit them with the axe.

I killed a bunch of boars as a quest. right now I’m working on two quests at the same time of killing a certain number of things. I pretty much talk to every guy with a question mark and say yes to the quest, but I’m not sure I’ll remember what they are and where to go back when I am done. I delivered some mail. I need to bring some stuff to an Inn but have no idea where the Inn is.

I’m going to log in again now and try to just kill more stuff and earn more money. I haven’t ventured too far away from the starting area because I’m not sure how big the world is or how to get back if I get lost.

I did get killed at one point by accidentally standing in a fire while talking on the phone and then I had to use my spirit to find my body.

People keep asking me to be in their groups. I don’t even know what that means really so I keep saying decline.

I hope we get to play together soon. Have a great nap!

Gretadelle, Day 2

okay, played for awhile longer. (yes, it is a bit addictive, even if I don’t understand things at all. heh)

my character seems to be self-healing? she loses power during battles but it comes back quickly. do they all do that?

when do I eat? i keep getting food and water but not sure when to use them. or how to use them.

what does parry mean?

am I supposed to go to save points? or will I always continue right back where I was when I quit?

I’m having trouble with choosing rewards after doing quests cuse I’m not sure which stuff is better. after killing a bunch of trolls, I got to chose a weapon. 3 of them were red which I think means my character can’t use them, so I picked the anvilman hand axe.

I figured out where to buy bullets… “light shot”

still not understanding the equip. for example:
frayed robe
chest- cloth
8 armor
durability 34/35

is 8 how good it is? like should i always keep the items with the highest number? or is that how heavy it is maybe? so I would want the ones with lower numbers? the durability makes sense, it gets weaker/torn up as I battle and things need to be replaced.

I think I got rid of that and chose a ragged leather vest because it was 31 armor and that seemed a lot better. is 31 better than 8? it has 45/45

when I “sell” stuff, it seems like the shop keeper keeps it until I exit the game and then it goes away, is that right?

dead crag boars say “skinnable”- how do I skin them?

I went to the thunderbrew inn and there is something about a stone that brings me back there. so is that my save point now? when we play together, where will we meet up?

there is a guy teaching first aid and cooking and some other stuff. do I need to learn that? what are the best things to spend my money on first?

snow boots are number 7 17/20 but I got them as a reward so I thought they would be better than ragged leather boots. but the leather ones are 16 20/20 so the numbers are higher. are the snow boots faster or something?

Yes, I’m endlessly amused by reading these old entries…

I got invited to the tail-end of Kara run tonight. And woot! I got my T4 helm. Gemmed with Wicked Nobal Topaz and Relentless Earthstorm Diamond. CE enchant 34AP/16hit. so, its pretty uber. (and now I get the feign death bonus)

However, its uuuuuuugly. so very ugly. I think I’ll save my old helm to wear to parties. I really loved that one.

Be Imba now puts my gear level at the middle of Gruuls and Mag, so I guess I’m feeling confident enough to sign up for my first run. I think my guild goes again in two or three weeks.

And… I planned a Kara run for this Thursday. Got lots of support on the sign-ups so it seems that the epic fail of my first run hasn’t tainted my name too badly. I’m hoping Attuman will be nice and drop some new bracers for me. (I’d like a new chest too, but from what I’ve read, I need to hit Magister’s Terrace for that. I’ve only been once. It was… awful. And not in a fun way.)

–
in druid news, my little horde baby is 20 and got her cat form. I havne’t even set up the action bars yet though. I think its time to start playing with her UI.

okay, so I haven’t written at all about the expansion. It seemed like most of the info around was “rumor” and no point in getting too excited about rumors.

But.
One of my guildmates is in the beta group. She just posted screenshots for us. And? She’s a BM hunter too. So many of her screenshots related to pets/bows/talents. And I’m all squeeeee!

Example of Hot New Talent:

Heart of the Phoenix:
When your pet dies, it miraculously returns to life with 10% health. Cannot occur more than once per 10 minutes.

so now I’m kinda searching around blog-land for info, and there is quite a bit out there. Mania’s Arcania FTW

I was surprised to wake up this morning and find a few people have already opened up here about their warcraft/addiction/moderation/experiences.

Kadomi is in my hordeside sister guild. I haven’t felt comfortable talking about this with my guildmates so its really comforting to have your feedback.

typhoonandrew- I really appreciate your comparison to football.

I hadn’t really thought about it like that, but you make a very good point. Lots of people have hobbies that take up a ton of their time, hobbies that they are passionate about. Some people play golf, some people make quilts, some people play video games. Video gaming is really looked down upon compared to other hobbies though and Warcraft is the hallmark cliche example that everyone uses of how gaming is bad. When I was playing Sims2 and Elebits (and yes, I made websites/guides about both of those), I wasn’t embarrassed to tell people what I was playing. Now that I play Warcraft, I just imagine the look on someone’s face, the eye roll, and I basically don’t want anyone to know.

Larisa’s post led me to this one. The comment I posted there:

I’m an old lady compared to most players, long out of school and its interesting that WoW is actually bringing me back to an academic mind set. I haven’t studied anything in years, but now I really do study warcraft. The math of shot rotations. Boss strategies. Reading blogs and guidebooks, taking notes, calculating what gear would be best… while some people will say that Gamers just sit around getting addicted/stupid, I find that gaming has reactivated my drive to learn and study.

And, er, don’t take me off your read lists. I promise to get back to regular hunter posting shortly. I’m drafting a ginormous add-on post (cuse those are my favorite to read).

In my web surfing lately, I’ve run into a bunch of stories of people who are addicted to WoW and felt it ruined their lives. Of course this causes me to reflect on my own relationship with the game.

When I first started playing, I was literally on all day every day. (And often all night too.) Like just about everybody else, I got into WoW when I was at a down point in my life. I’m disabled and I’m home alone a lot. I used to spend my days watching tv and writing on messageboards. I started playing WoW and it fulfilled both my boredom and social needs.

I realized that I was playing way too much and also that it wasn’t very much fun anymore. That I was logging in when I didn’t even want to “play” because I felt that my friends would be mad at me if I didn’t. I needed a break. I let my account expire.

A couple months later, a friend started playing so I joined up again to play with her. It was fantastically fun. We mostly ran around killing easy stuff and gossiping. Its cheaper than a long distance phonecall and also gives the illusion of “being together.” I loved being able to help her with things, buying her presents… things I can’t do in real life because of distance/money, but in game it was possible and I feel is strengthened our friendship.

She got really busy though and we stopped playing together. I changed servers and joined an awesome guild. I’ve met some really great people and I enjoy playing with them.

These days, I still login everyday but often its just to check my mail and say hello. It’s summer and I’m doing some volunteer work and a bunch of other “real life” things. There are still days, like today, when I’ve got nothing going on and I quest all day with a friend. But overall, I’m not playing nearly as much. I feel like I’ve kind of struck a comfortable balance with it. My boyfriend teases me that I like reading about the game more than playing it, which is probably true. I still take my guidebooks into the bathtub with me. But I no longer feel such a compulsive pull to spend all my time in game.

Obviously my “real life” changes are a big part of that. I think the other part is that I realized that I simply cannot keep up. When we were leveling, I was so afraid of falling behind my friends and having to quest alone. Now that we are 70, the big push is to get more money for an epic flyer and do more heroics for more badges for more loot! I tried doing dailies everyday and saving toward my epic flyer…. dailies got boring. Feeling like I ‘had to’ do them got old. I had a realization that getting an epic flyer would only allow me to do more dailies quicker. And I didn’t want to be doing them anyway. So I stopped. And as for heroics? I have a friend who is on this frenzied push to get 10 badges a day. That’s at least two heroics. Per day. Every day. I just can’t do that. I can’t keep up. I can’t get gear as fast as my friends and so tonight while they were in TK, I was watching So You Think You Can Dance and eating taco bell with My Honey.

I do enjoy raiding. I like working in groups. The few times I’ve been to Kara have been really fun. But I’m just not willing to force myself to do hours and hours of stuff so that I can hurry up and get to the other dungeons before the expansion comes out. If I don’t see them, I don’t see them. There will be more. There is always more.

Really though, the point of this post is to talk about how no one talks about the addiction. My guild forums are really active with people planning instances and asking for gear advice. But this is a topic that never comes up. And there are a LOT of people in my guild who are on significantly more then I am, which is already enough to qualify as a part time job. So I guess I just wish it was something we could talk about, something we could support each other in. If you notice that I’ve been sitting at the computer for 5 hours straight, kick me in the ass and remind me to go get some food and fresh air…

I’m not sure whether I would consider myself a “warcraft addict” or not. I do really want to be conscious of where I am at and the choices that I’m making. I want to write about that honestly here. I feel like a lot of people don’t talk about this because they are afraid of judgments or shame or whatever. But I think being secretive about something makes it even more of an issue. And the internet is weird. I can easily find a bunch of “warcraft ruined my life” stories and ten zillion “warcraft is awesome” blogs, but I don’t think it’s black and white like that. I’d like to see some discussion of the gray area. I think honesty is usually gray.

Please share your experiences and feelings with me. Has the game given you more confidence? Are you addicted? Do you worry about your friends? Has it helped you feel less isolated? Anonymous/fake name comments are okay too.

Patch today! And hooray for level 30 mounts!

Jesibel is only my second toon to ever get a mount, so this is a pretty exciting moment.

I haven’t really played her since I last posted, so I decided to take her out for a spin again. Wow, shadow spec is sooo much easier. And an adjustment to my bubble-routine has also greatly improved my time spent alive. (I love when guildies explain things to me in hunter terms. “No Greta, you have to bubble BEFORE you pull so you can beat the cooldown and have another bubble ready, just like trapping!” OOOOOH!)

So, lets talk about Questing add-ons and leveling guides for a minute. Lemme tell you about something DUMB I did when I started playing WoW. I spent $35 on the Alliance Leveling Guide at iDemise. It installs into your game, but it doesn’t know what you are doing or where you are, so you have basically a bunch of lists and checklists and you have to tell it what you are doing and then it tells you what to do next. Which, um, isn’t actually any easier then just reading the quest myself. So please folks, DO NOT BUY the iDemise guide. The interface is suck and even after dropping the money on it, I still didn’t use it.

For the longest time, I’ve been using Quest Guru (with Quest Initiators plus Lightheaded.

Quest Guru: makes the quest log double wide for much easier reading/use. has an announcer feature so you can keep your party updated on what objectives you complete. tracks a history of all the quests you have done in the past and the ones you have abandoned. puts the tracker in a movable window.

Quest Initiators: adds the name (and co-ords) or the person who gave you the quest.

Lightheaded: adds a pull-out window to your quest log with a ton of useful information. Basically imports comments from wowhead.com so you’ll have co-ords and advice on how to complete the quest. I have Cartographer installed too, so when I click the co-ords, it automatically gives me the waypoint arrow.

Since the patch today, there is a lot of buzz on the blogs/forums about QuestHelper. Apparently the patch broke it, but there is an easy “edit this line” kind of fix. I’ve never tried it before, so I downloaded, edited and installed. It looks at all the quests in your log and marks your map with where to kill the monster/get the item/whatever. I totally get annoyed when I run all the way back to town only to realize that I should have done these other two quests while I was over there. QuestHelper also attempts to create a “shortest route” between all the places. I think its a bit buggy from the patch though, because today the route is jumping back and forth like crazy and kind of making my mini map freak out. (Probably not best to try an add on for the first time when you specifically know its broken! haha) I’ll definitely be interested in playing around with it again once its fixed up.

I’ve also seen people talking about Jame’s Alliance Leveling Guide, so I took a peek at that today too. No add-on there, just a website telling you where to go at your level and which quests are most efficient on your leveling path. His way of doing things is very different from my own. I typically go to a zone and do all the quests there (or all except one or two that I hate) before moving on. He recommends skipping around a lot, doing a few quests in one zone, then another, then going back to the first, etc.

For Jesibel’s level, he recommends a bunch of quests in Shimmering Flats. I’ve never quested there before. Its always more fun (to me) to quest in new zones. So I went to check it out… I like the flatness of everything. (Hills are crappy for those of us who run using the keys. Constantly having to switch to mouse to adjust camera.) And I really really like that its all beasts. Beasts>>>humanoids. But, I really hate that I can’t skin. So much so that I’m thinking of dropping alchemy and picking up skinning. (Though I guess I’d have to then go run around the newbie zone for awhile to catch it up.) All those animals lying dead in the sun are yelling “SKIN ME PLEASE.” It feels very, er, MESSY, to leave them there.

I wish I could buff hordies. Particularly hordies who see that I’ve grabbed two red-level mobs at the same time and they come pull one off me. /thanks nice troll girl

this is the first time I’ve written about add-ons for awhile. I keep changing around my UI and I’m using a bunch of new ones these days, so I’ll make it a point to write up reviews soon.

so, the second half of Kara this week went well. I came in second on WWS for the overall damage. Averaged 681 dps (higher on boss fights). We killed everything except Nightbane. (5 tries on him, including switching people out for a moar geared tank and another healer… still no luck.)

I actually remembered to take a boss battle screenshot!

click pic for full size

And I won the roll for Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix! (Yes, I know its not as good as some of the other bows out there, but it’s certainly better than the Valanos Longbow I’ve been using for months. And it MATCHES MY HELM! (And my fire festival tabard too, I should put that on…)

P.S. Thanks for the replies to my last post about clipped shots. I guess I was hoping there would be a really easy indicator on the WWS that I’m doing it… but if clipped really means DELAYED and not SKIPPED, then I guess I need to go say “Hi” to Dr. Boom.

Okay. BM Hunter. 1:1 shot rotation.
steady- auto- steady- auto.
I get that part.

I’ve got recount and I know (sort of) how to use WWS. When I view my log, I do see:
steady
auto
steady
auto

But here’s the big question: How do I know that I have clipped a shot?

What does “clipping” mean exactly?
The auto shot is SKIPPED so I would have two steady shots in row? Steady-Steady-Auto
or the auto shot is DELAYED so it would still be steady-auto-steady-auto but the TIME in between is longer?

I’m either never clipping shots, or I just don’t know what a clipped shot “looks like” on a WWS report.

I’ve read blogs and watched videos… so I’ve got a decent understanding of “how to do it right” but I just don’t know “how to tell FOR SURE that I’ve done it wrong.”

Please explain? Examples are helpful.

If you somehow arrived here from hunter noob land, welcome! Please see other people’s smart Shot Rotation posts here:
Pike’s hunter kindergarten post and movie
Drotara’s Macro post
BRK’s Recount shot rotation movie