Update

I can´t believe it´s been close to two years since I last posted here! Gosh how time flies...
My last post was about the talent changes and the new talent tiers in Mists. I also remember going crazy over those tamable crane birds and feeling slightly confused with having playable pandas in the game, although also fascinated, because you have this panda monk pet in the game and I figured this would cause some weird kind of alternate reality vortex where you have the ´old´ model on one hand and then a sparkly new panda model on the other, and how weird that would be. Except that we also have the old model worgen pets in the game and new playable worgen... but anyway, I have found myself wanting to write again, especially since there is a ton of information coming out about WoD.

So, hope to see you on my new blog. I am keeping this one in the air for laughs and giggles, but if you want to follow my more recent adventures or like to join in to all things hunter, I hope to see you on zaphirethehunter.blogspot.com!

MoP Talents

Now that Mists of Pandaria is on the horizon, it's very tempting to start musing about what talents to choose once it comes out.

Layout of the new talent system with 6 tiers

How it works: In the new system, you have a choice of one talent per tier. Each tier has a mixture of abilties useful for PvE or PvP, or in some cases both. As talents are no longer part of a spec, everyone gets to choose from the same talents, no matter what spec they are.

Every 15 levels, another tier opens up. Each tier seems to be centered around a theme: moving around, cc-ing, self-heal and survivability, burst damage, finishing moves and AoE. Here is an overview of the new talents:

At level 15, The talents seem to focus on three forms of Disengage:

• Posthaste: Your Disengage frees you from all movement impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 60% for 8 sec.
• Narrow Escape: When you Disengage, you also activate a web trap which encases all targets within 8 yards in sticky webs, preventing movement for 8 sec.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera: Reduces the cooldown of Disengage by 10 sec, and the cooldown of Deterrence by 60 sec.

At level 30, the theme is ccing:

• Silencing Shot: A shot that silences the target and interrupts spellcasting for 3 sec.
• Wyvern Sting: A stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 30 secs. Any damage will cancel the effect. When the target wakes up, the sting causes 2,730 Nature Damage over 6 sec.
•  Binding Shot: You fire a magical projectile, tethering the enemy and any other enemies within 5 yards of the landing arrow for 10 sec. If targets move 5 yards from the arrow they are stunned for 5 sec sec (3 sec PvP) and will be immune to the effects of Binding Shot for 10 sec.

At level 45, it's all about self-heal and survivability:

• Exhilaration: Two minute cooldown. Instantly heals you for 30% and your pet for 100% of total health.
• Aspect of the Iron Hawk: The Hunter takes on the aspects of an iron hawk, increasing ranged attack power by 10%, and reducing all damage taken by 15%. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. Replaces Aspect of the Hawk.
• Spirit Bond: While your pet is active, you and your pet will regenerate 2% of total health every 2 sec.

At level 60, all about burst and bonus damage:

• Fervor: Instantly restores 50 Focus to you and your pet and an additional 50 Focus over 10 sec.
• Readiness: When activated, this ability immediately finishes the cooldown on all Hunter abilities with a base cooldown less than 6 minutes. Previously the domain of MM hunters, now BM and SV hunters get to have a second burst as well. 
• Thrill of the Hunt: You have a 15% chance when you fire a ranged attack that costs Focus and Kill Command to cause your next ranged attack that costs Focus or Kill Command to be free. 

At level 75, the common theme seems to be finishing moves:

• A Murder of Crows Summons a flock of crows to attack your target over the next 30 sec. If used on a target below 20% health, the cooldown is reduced to 60 seconds.
• Dire Beast. Summons a powerful wild animal to assist you in combat for 15 sec. Each time the animal deals damage, you will gain 5 focus. 
• Lynx Rush Instant, 100 yard range, 1.5 min cooldown. Your pet rapidly charges from target to target, attacking 9 times over 4 sec, dealing its normal attack damage to each target. The pet must be within 10 yards of the target to Lynx Rush. 

At level 90 has new powerful AoE abilities:

• Glaive Toss 20 Focus. You hurl two glaives toward a target, each dealing 110 to 327 damage to each enemy struck and reducing movement speed by 30% for 3 sec. The primary target will take 8 times as much damage from each strike. The Glaives will return back to you, damaging and snaring targets again as they return. 
• Powershot: You wind up a powerful shot, which deals 400% weapon damage to the target and 100% weapon damage to all enemies in between you and the target. Enemies hit by Powershot are also knocked back.
• Barrage: Rapidly fire a spray of shots forward for 3 sec, dealing a total of 320% weapon damage to the enemy target and an average of 80% weapon damage to each other enemy target in front of you.

I like how every tier is sort of centered around an important aspect/ facet of being a hunter, and it is nice that you can decide out of three in what way you want to do it. This makes it easy to really customize your talents according to your own play style and needs. It's very tempting to start theorycrafting about what talents are the most viable and which ones are not very useful, but as we are still in the Beta phase, everything can still be changed.

Are you excited about the new talents? Which ones are "no-brainers" for you?

Things Cataclysm brought

Patch 5.0 is soon on the PTR, which means that Mists of Pandaria is fast approaching, which also means that it is almost time to bid Cataclysm farewell.

Bye bye Deathwing

A lot of gamers seem to have been a bit lukewarm about this expansion. It was fun while it lasted, but it wasn't that epic or challenging or memorable, say a lot of players. Content-wise, I think so too. I never really got into the Deathwing-story. I missed some kind of common theme in this expansion, like there was in Wrath. At the same time, Cataclysm has brought a ton of things I now can't do without:

- Flying in Azeroth: Remember flying the first time on your own mount over Azeroth? It was so cool! When Cata hit, I was level 78 or thereabouts, and I was so jaleous of all those people who could buy their Azeroth flying. I power-levelled like crazy and was incredibly happy when I could finally purchase that flying license. I spent over two hours flying all over Azeroth and being all squeaky and excited over all the different zones and being able to see it all from above. Awesome.
- Transmogrification: Okay, so this is one of the more recent changes in the game, but it´s still something Cata brought! I am a huuuuuuuge fan of Transmogrification. It´s such an intergral part of my gaming now I can't even remember ever having done without it. I totally spend many hours running old instances assembling outfits, stalking other hunters for inspiration and being a total girl. Love it.
- No more ammo: Back in Wrath, when I was playing as mage, I made a Draenei hunter alt out of curiosity of hunters. I didn't really play her past level 10, but I remember that back then, a hunter used ammo to shoot. Remember that? By the time I got to level 3, I had run out of arrows? bullets? and I didn't know where to get new ones, so I ended up going like, 5 levels without a bow... I am glad that in Cata the ammo system was thrown out the window and we no longer had to buy friggin ammo to just be able to shoot. 
- The dungeon system: It used to take ages spamming trade to find a decent group, and, at least on my server, if you didn't have the achievement, it was pretty darn hard getting in anywhere. Sure, the queues are annoying and it's easy for people to just go "Screw that, I'm gone" and fake a dc etc, but meh, at least it's become easier to find a group. Edit: The dungeon finder came out in WOTLK! My memory fails me sometimes...

On a more personal note:

- Being part of a raid group for the first time: I became part of my old guild a little after the Cata launch. It was my first proper guild - I'd been an officer two years before that but I hadn't really been used to being in a social guild again. A month or two after I joined, a hunter spot opened up in the main raid group. I applied for it and got in. It was so much fun - we tried to do Blackwing Descent, and later Bastion of Twilight. We weren't really great or professional but we had a lot of fun and it was just a very tight-knit group. We raided with some intermissions - sometimes real life got in the way, but we did manage to steamroll through Firelands both normal and heroic, and afterwards Dragon Soul. Eventhough I am no longer in the raid group or the guild, I still have fond memories of those raiding days. Cataclysm was the first expansion in which I really learned to be a hunter and raider. 
- Doing achievements I never got to do on my mage: I raided Ulduar on my mage, but I never got to finish it because my guild broke up and I left the game shortly after that. So when I got to go Ulduar on my hunter again, I was incredibly pleased to be able to do the whole thing and finally see what the whole raid was about. It also got me my first dragon mount on June.
- Hunting Spirit Beasts: Gosh, the amount of time I spent camping those spirit beasts... of course spirit beasts aren't new to this expansion, but it was in Cata that I actively sought them out. Loque'nahak in particular was incredibly hard to get. I looked for him for days, and was so happy when I finally found him!
- Getting Time-Lost Protodrake on June: I was flying around Storm Peaks one afternoon - probably looking for Skoll - when I saw a dragon flying past me and my npc scan started to go crazy. I typed to my guildies whether anybody was interested in killing a rare dragon since I wasn't that bothered - I did not know about the existence of Time-Lost, or that it dropped a mount until my guildies told me. Bby then I was halfway to Sholazar. When I got back I couldn't find him initially - the nerves were driving me crazy - but after flying around a little, he eventually re-appeared. He still is my go-to mount.
- Ultimate Battleground with my guildies: My guild did this thing called Ultimate Battleground during the 5th anniversary guild celebrations which was basically a fight to the death in the arena in Blade's Edge with almost everyone from the guild fighting eachother all at the same time. I died quite quickly, but two of my guildies, a frostmage and a feral druid, fought it out for over an hour. It was epic. It was also pretty sweet that one of the GM's messaged our Guild Master that he was watching.

I am probably missing out a ton of other things, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment ;-)

Will I miss Cata? Probably not. Cata has been fun while it lasted, but content wise, I am ready for something new.

This post has been inspired by this article from WoW Insider. Read it and let me know what you think - I'm curious to know how other players look back on this expansion. Are you going to miss Cataclysm, or can't Pandaria come soon enough for you? 

Barrage looks awesome

Just a quick video with a rundown of useful PvP abilities at level 90 in MoP - it looks incredibly cool. Barrage hasn't really been the most anticipated spell for MoP, but it looks like an awesome ability (at least for PvP).

Season 12 PvP Hunter Set

The new PvP sets for hunters have been released!

This set has got a bit of a Beaststalker/Giantstalker vibe going on, no? 

I don't know which one I like more though, the Tier 14 one or this one - I guess you can't really beat a wolfshead on a shoulder but then again the Tier 14 shoulders were pretty neat too.

Here's another picture of all the colours of this look: (For a detailed look click here)

Tier 14 First Looks

The looks for Tier 14 have been released. This is what it looks like:

Not too bad eh? I have to say, the set does look like it belongs in Northrend rather than Pandaria, but that's okay. I love the skull on the shoulderpad. The only thing I'm a little meh about are the colours. Hunter tiers tend to come in either some shade of brown or grey-blue - and it's getting ooollld. I wish they'd use more interesting colours, like this set.

Also, I'm pretty sure I saw some images of a different looking hunter set that looked absolutely amazing on MMO-Champion a few months ago - it had this Chinese Imperial archer Mulan look to it- but it was only a speculated look for Challenge Mode set, and I fear it might have been changed in the meantime (unless they do implement it, in which case I'll be a happy June!). Here's a picture:

Not a Murloc's head this time!

Click here to see more details of the Yaungol Slayer Battlegear.

June's Uber Basic Beginner's Guide To Huntering Part 2

This is part 2 in the Uber Basic Beginner's Guide To Huntering series. In this post,I'll cover levels 15-30, and we'll look at PvP / PvE, spells, where to quest and keybinds. For part 1, click here.

While levels 15-30 are often considered unmemorable rookie levels, I think they're great. You finally get to do battlegrounds, dungeons open up and after having to run everywhere you finally get a mount. So what's in store for first time hunters?

PvP
At level ten, you're able to go into battlegrounds. Not only do battlegrounds give you great XP, they also give you pretty good practice to think fast and mess with your spells to see well, what they do against an opponent slightly stronger than Hogger. As a hunter, you'll do pretty good damage. At the same time, you're pretty squishy too. The trick is to always try to keep your distance, but as warriors and the like have nasty charges, you can't always prevent them from getting all up in your grill. Luckily, hunters get a few spells/abilities for greater survivability rather early in the game, which compensates for your squishy-ness a little:

- Disengage. Available at level 14, this spell makes you leap away from your oponent. It has a cooldown however, and you need to be in combat in order to use it.
- Scatter Shot. Available at level 16. Scatter Shot will be one of your favorites in the battleground. Your opponent loses control of him/herself for a few seconds, giving you time to get away.
- Wing Clip. I'm not suggesting you should run up to the enemy just to Wing Clip them, but when they get all close, at least you get to slow them for 50%. Available at level 12.
- Concussive Shot. Like Wing Clip, it slows the target for 50%.
- Immolation Trap. Traps are your best friend in battlegrounds. This trap burns the first enemy that approaches you. You can put it on capping flags like the ones in Arathi Basin for example, or just throw it under someone's feet. Available at level 22.
- Freezing Trap. This trap becomes available a little later, at level 28, but will probably be one of your go-to traps in PvP. Any oponent that runs into this traps gets stuck in a block of ice, unable to move for a few seconds. One of the tricks I've learned to lure someone into walking into your icey trap, is to Scatter Shot them and then throwing a Freezing Trap right under their feet. Since they lose control over themselves, they can't really dodge your trap that easily.

When it comes to moving around, it is generally suggested that you shouldn't do any "keyboard turning", meaning, that you dont use the arrows to turn left or right. When moving, try to turn with your mouse, while running forward by either keeping the two buttons on your mouse pressed in, or by using the "W" key (the standard key for moving forwards). Another important part of moving through a battlefield in aan easy way is by doing something called strafing. These are keys on your keyboard that make your character move left or right with turning being done by mouse. This is great for running and shooting at the same time - which you will be able to do at a later stage when you have Aspect of the Fox - but is also great for lower level battlegrounds as it gives you a bit more control over your character's movement.

With every oponent that you kill or battlegrounds you win, you get awarded honor points. You can trade these points for gear or other supplies like flasks and gems. Some people like to trade them in as soon as they have the right amount together for a piece of gear - others like to save them up for when they reach 85 - since you'll be doing so much levelling anyway, you'll grow out of your low level PvP gear pretty soon - unless you will want to level through PvP only, I'd say you're better to save them up until you've reached level 85.

PvE
If PvP isn't really your thing, you can try your hand at dungeons at level 15. In PvE, your role as a hunter is simple. You are there for ranged damage and for ccing whatever enemies need to be cced to keep some of the pressure off your tank