New hunter gear

Yesterday was a great day in the battlegrounds. My fear of Eye of The Storm has finally dwindled away. I've collected the 40 badges I needed to purchase the Vindicator's Chain Sabbatons. I shy away from the Guardian version because my hunter does not carry an arena rating. Somehow I cannot bare myself to beg for a partner for throw-away games. Once I have assembled a full PVP gear from the BGs I'll go into arenas but not before.

I am also considering to enchant my fugly Crystalforged War Axe with Savagery. To be honest - it will take me quite some time before I replace it with the PVP axe. 27.000 honor can be spent on much more resilience in form of armor... and then I probably should get the Crossbow before the axe anyway...

I gather about 1k honor each day from a few BGs. Certain days I'll get more (~5k) others nothing at all. That said, getting the Axe requires almost a months of BGs...

So far I've collected:

Guardian's Chain Girdle, the Vindicator's Chain Sabbatons and the Medallion of the Horde.

Right now I am saving up for the Vindicator's Chain Bracers and I am 1500 of 9800 honor there. After the bracers I'll probably look for the Sergeant's Heavy Cloak or even the Merciless Gladiator's Chain Armor...

Choices choices...

oh and my hunter broke 5000 hks yesterday... yay! It is nothing compared to the fighters you fight with in the BGs. Most of  them with any gear to speak of have at least 34k....

Epic mount

I have finally saved enough gold to shell out the 5200 gold required for the epic flying mount. I did test fly it this morning and it feels truly epic. Doing the bombing quest in Skettis was so much more painless not to mention just flying about gathering minerals.

With the gold farming complete I've not only gotten myself an epic mount but I have also completed the farming myself. I've had a few "rich" friend offer me the gold but I've learned that if you get it yourself - it is so much sweeter. Having goals in WOW is the only thing that keeps me playing the same character. Being an altoholic I only need a few days of boredom before starting up a new char. I've decided to try to stick with my hunter for as long as possible. Also levelling up new pets is * almost * the same as levelling a character =)

My trusty black wolf is now level 67 and received his name today - Bloodmaul. I figured it would go nicely since he is a Bloodmaul Wolf from the Bladespire Mountains.

With the mount done I am going to save up some gold for my next project - enchanting and gemming my PVP gear. Next on my shopping list is Swift Windfire Diamond for my head and the enchant Surefooted on my boots.

Gold paradise - Fire Festival Revisited

I think I was too harsh on the Fire Festival earlier. It is actually a great event - for getting gold. Three hours of fire festival celebration netted me little over 400 gold. I didn't have ultra fun (as in running around in WSG/AB) but it was ok. And my hunter is desperately needing gold for the epic flyer.

So how does this get rich scheme work with the Fire Festival?

Easy.

Outside most settlements in Outlands and Azeroth are the crazy fire worshippers and their bonfire. With the faction of your choice (I play horde so that will be "my faction") you'll get a quest to worship the fire. Get the quest and voila - 5 gold (if you are level 70) for every horde fire. Now go to the pesky alliance settlements and "use" their bonfire (actually the bonfire has a quest marker) and you'll get 11 gold and some change.

Easiest way to do this is to start in Outlands - Netherstorm and then make your way to shadowmoon valley. Once there, back to Shattrah and take a portal to Silvermoon and work your way through Eastern Kingdom. Once you reach Booty-Bay hop on the boat to Kalimdor and from Ratchet take the flight to Cenarion Hold in Silithius. Now work your way all the way to Draenei starting areas...

Personally I skipped the Night Elf starting area - Dolanaar. To complicated for my "Get rich quick scheme".

In the enemy capitals (Exodar, IF, Stormwind & Darnassus) are special festival fires for you to desecrate. My impression is that they yield slightly more gold but that you will have to fight your way to get there. If you stick to regular settlements you can do this solo without breaking a sweat. Well maby a few drops if you play on a PVP server.

Each continent yields about 200 gold... and in order to make this really easy for you I've spotted another blog with a list of all settlements:

Grumble N Autumn: 2008 Midsummer Fires

 

Great guide to the locations. It actually inspired me to visit all the places. Oh it took me about 3 hours to complete the entire run. Happy riding... you'll miss your flying mount in the old world.

I know only need 600 gold to buy my hunter an epic flyer... almost there!

Workcraft

Just got this dumped in my lap... it hillarious!

WeGame.com - WoW Videos

Where is the Fun in the Fire festival?

Who likes Fire festival? After looking around a little bit on the blogger scene, I've deduced that most of us doesn't really care for the firef festival events. Personally I think the added city art is nice and the midsummer pole and the dancing is a nice touch in the cities. The questlines and the fire rewards are however totally uninspiring. The people I've talked to force themselves through the torch tossing/catching just to get themselves the rewards. All while they moan and bitch about how hard/boring it is. It's a game. Do stick to things that you enjoy.

I tried the torch tossing, easy. I tried the torch catching. Bleh. Running around to various ally cities to dose their flame could be fun in the right group. On a PVP server it guarantees lots of interesting moments - or ganking.

My wife took one look at the new city art and then demanded to get to play... she loves the events, and that my friends is all it takes for me to think Fire festival (however boring it is) is a good thing. I am off to ignore the festival some more. Need a wee bit more honor before the new seasonal PVP gear is introduced on Wednesday.

Hunter engineering goggles

Last night I crafted Surestrike Goggles v2.0 for my hunter. With primal nether being available from the AH it was easy to gather the rest of the materials. All my collected ore has gone into this though... I am not sure what the cost would add up to. The materials I bought from the AH - Primal Nether (40g), Nightseye x2 (60g) and finally Heavy knothide leather x6 (15g). Approximately 120g and then the time to get all the ore... about 20 hours of playtime? It sure sounds expensive. I hope it is worth it in the end.

I am slowly putting together a PVE set to go with my PVP set. With the engineering goggles equipped I finally broke 1000 RAP. I now have to take additional measures to avoid drawing aggro from my pet. Something I've never had to do before. It is not unusual to manage a string of crits and then have the mob switch targets. I am thinking of starting to use a Misdirection macro in regular pullls... but it seems highly mana draining. Mana is what I have very little of... I rely on Aspect of the Viper more than Mp5 and Int. Maby time to put together a farming set too...

I am saving up for an epic flyer... but at the same time I want to gem and enchant my gear. I keep telling myself that after I've gotten the epic flyer getting gold will be much faster and smoother.

Reputation update:

Exalted with Mag'har! I now ride a Cobalt War Talbuk.

I need a new goal. Perhaps the consortium since I do enjoy killing the poor Ogres in Nagrand. 200 warbeads will take me to honored... I probably should do the Netherstorm quests before.

The Scryers - Revered - 800 sunfury signets required for Exalted.

Thing is... I am not overly interested in any of those factions. Then perhaps Sha'tari Skyguard could be something? Those Skettis quests are really a pain in the ass though.

Medallion of the Horde

My first purchase to improve my PVP gear was the Medallion of the Horde, effectively giving me 20 more resilience and cutting down the cooldown from 5 to 2 minutes. The resilience is nice but the new CD makes it extremely useful. I would say almost making it usable once in every BG encounter. On the other hand... almost everyone have this trinket which means that you should never expect your Freezing trap to actually CC anyone... However it will give you an early warning of an incoming rogue or druid.

I am holding off any other purchases until 27th of June...

Last night I passed 4000 lifetime kills. My previous character record is held by my old alliance hunter Ninaeve at 7673 kills. Sadly she only got to set her foot in Outlands once before being laid to rest.

In total my characters have raked up 21345 kills. Interestingly enough my rogue Hexapuma has the ranking of Knight-Captain with only 3581 kills. I miss the PVP titles... Hmm looking at my rogue that hasn't been active since October last year I see he logged out the last time with resurrection sickness. Poor thing.

 

Reputation update:

I am currently working on Mag'har rep. 16264/21000 meaning I only need 100 more warbeads or 474 ogre kills to Exalted. 

Ding 70, now what PVP gear to upgrade next?

So late yesterday I finally dinged 70 while doing a little bit of questing in Shadowmoon Valley. I wanted to be close to the riding trainer to get the flying mount asap after the ding. After getting the flying mount I spent another hour collecting the newbie PVP armor available at 70 - The Stalker's Chain Battlegear. I didn't have the rep required for the breastplate (requires honored with the Keepers of Time).

So now my hunter has the following setup:

Ranged: Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer

Melee: Crystalforged War Axe

Head: Stalker's Chain Helm

Shoulder: Stalker's Chain Spaulders

Chest:  Sundered Chestpiece of the Bandit

Hands: Stalker's Chain Gauntlets

Bracers: Feathered Armbands

Waist: Girdle of Gale Force

Feet: Blood Knight Boots of the Bandit

Back: Delicate Green Poncho (of ugliness)

Ring 1: Warmaul Slayer's Band

Ring 2: Ogre Slayer's Band

Trinket 1: Insignia of the Horde (cheap one)

Trinket 2: Bladefist's Breadth

 

I feel pretty comfortable with my Destroyer to leave it for awhile. My biggest concern is which order to upgrade the gear. No way I am enchanting/gemming gear that soon will be replaced. I am going to get myself an epic flyer before plowing down that gold.

I am thinking of getting the improved insignia of the horde first but other than that I have no idea. I suppose it would be smart to upgrade non-pvp items first (boots, bracers, belt etc) before swapping out the Stalker's chain battlegear. If you have any good suggestions now is the time =)

Reputation update

After a quick check on the WoW Rep Calculator my hunter has the following rep needs:

Honored

Lower City - 90 feathers left (2.2 turn ins)

Sha'tar - 410 Sunfury signets left (40.1 turn ins)

Revered

Mag'har - 190 warbeads or roughly 900 ogre kills

If I can squeeze in an hour or two today I'll finish up the feather gathering and start with the sunfury signets in earnest. I might actually just buy the signets from AH. They sit at about 50-60 silvers apiece.

Update:

Lower city - honored
Sha'tar - 10 signets left (1 turn-in) Did a little AH shopping...
Mag'har - 160 warbeads or roughly 770 ogre kills

My hunter is now only 5% away from the BIG ding. So far I've only done questing in Hellfire, Zangarmarsh, Terrokar and Nagrand. Meaning I have epic mount money from Blade, Netherstorm & Shadowmoon... I should have my golden wings pretty soon. My latest goldstatement was in the vincinity of 3k.

Reputation grind - for the PVP starter kit

Getting into the 70 bracket battlegrounds or even worse the Arena is tough with all those 70ies running around in various PVP gear. Fortunately Blizzard loves alts and new characters so they've made sure that if you have grinded the most popular factions in Outlands to honored status you can get a good starter kit.

Lassirra at The Hunter's Mark has provided a good write-up on the kit for hunters - L70 Hunter PVP Starter Kit.

Megan at Out of Mana has a lot of very useful PVP oriented material for Arena players and battleground'ers alike. Actually her posts are in general very interesting (that is if you don't read the raid related posts ^^). Check her New Arena Player in 2.4 post.

My hunter is about to ding 69 and I am hesitating on staying 69 to farm the battlegrounds for honor and tokens while he is in the top crop... (as soon as the 70 ding hits, he'll be lowest of the low in AB, WSG and EoS). While I got things figured out I am concentrating on getting my reputation up with various factions.

Lower city - Friendly - 4200/6000

Grinding Arakkoa Feathers for the rep. I just need 240 more feathers.

Sha'tar - Friendly - 737/6000

Grinding Sunfury signets (since I am going for the Scryers faction) - 420 signets required for honored.

Keepers of Time - Neutral - 0/3000

I am not bothering with this faction since it requires instancing - and my limited game time does not allow it at this point. Should I decide to do it... I'll need 3.3 times in Old Hillsbrad for friendly status... and then probably another 6 times for honored.

Mag'Har - Revered - 5284/21000

Technically not required for the PVP starter kit but I really want the Talbuk mount! I need 310 Obsidian Warbeads - or ~1600 ogre kills. A probable combination would be 600 ogre kills to just get the warbeads... and then about 200 warbeads.

I've got some serious grinding to do... if you need to check out your characters reputation requirements... just head to http://wowreputationcalculator.com/ ! It is an amazing tool for checking out your Outlands rep.

Shooting ogres

I've been having a long weekend followed by a few days spent to sick to go to work. Naturally I've had some extra WOW time to even out the boredom. As my hunter soared through Nagrand he also managed to ding 68 and get halfway into 69 - and I am still not yet out of quests in Nagrand. Still have the ones down in the southwest for the Consortium.

How come the fast pace? I blame rest XP and the incredible amount of kill missions in Nagrand. I swear you are hunting all various types of mobs in Nagrand at one time or other. Just killing things in random gives you both reputation with Mag'har and/or quest items. It is crazy - and fun as hell.

Nagrand is now my favorite Outland zone! Just don't have me kill more Elekks. I've gathered lots and lots of ivory for the consortium. They sure seems like a shady kind of bunch, but in the end I got an envelope stuffed with cheap gems.

I am not much for rep grinding but with the Mag'har it goes incredibly fast. There is not much I want from their quartermaster save a Cobalt War Talbuk. Grinding ogres and collecting their Obsidian Warbeads for Mag'har turn-in I figured my grinding speed (when uninterrupted by PVP) is about 2000 rep / hour. I have grinded/quested my way to revered status now so there is about 20000 rep left - or 10 hours of grueling repetitive farming. I have about 8-10 hours of average wow time per week... I also have countless of alts and goals but this should be doable. It will be the first faction I've grinded to completion.

I am already longing for my next Nagrand session... did I mention it is rich with ore! Just from gathering random ore that appears around me I've raised my engineering from 230 - 243... Slowly getting it up to 250 and then we'll see if I'll start gathering the materials for the Surestrike Goggles v2.0.

Ding 66, Hello Kill Command!

My hunter dinged 66 earlier today while grinding away on those arakkoan birdmen in Terrokar forest. I need those feathers for Lower City rep. After a swift hearthstone and a portal jump to Thunderbluff the venerable hunter trainer awarded me with a new skill - Kill Command. (He also gave me a few ranks of aimed shot that I apparently had forgotten - I am such a noob).

Kill Command is interesting, for 75 mana you'll add around 127 pet damage every time you crit. I am sure it will affect my mana pool and at least do some magic in the DPS department. An interesting note is that Kill Command can crit, and there are BM talents that increases its crit ratio with 10%/20%. It also means that I need to update my hunter shot rotation macro to the following:

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorFrame:Clear()

This excellent macro was found on wowwiki.com, and they have plenty more of various hunter macros that are really useful.

I am getting ready to move on from Terrokar and into Nagrand soon. I just need to finish up the feather grind.

My little dagger

Outlands questing doesn't do it for me. There is something with the quests and the zones I don't like. I can't put my finger on it. My hunter is 65 and at the moment I have no strength to push on and level up. I've done a little battlegrounds (which is great) but even that is boring because I need to get to 70 to get all the good equipment.

Soo... I've been looking at a little alt of mine. A rogue in her 19's. I've been doing lots of Warsong Gulch and it is amazingly fun. Although I haven't twinked her out anything at all. I really don't like plowing down tons of gold on twink gear. When going up against twinks I get my ass handed to me. My meager 400 HP can't really stack up against their 14-1700 HP. My typical backstab crits for 140... That is 10 backstabs of just chewing through their health.

No it is a game of cunning and tactics for me. I've gouged, sapped and escaped so much it feels like a game of cat and mouse. With me being the mouse. Yet I cap flags, I end up high in the damage department. I think it is because most of the rogue twinks out there can't play for shit. They just run after a target and mash sinister strike... and their strikes hurts but they have none of the wits of a true rogue player.

Now I am actually considering to twink up my little one...

Hunting ... fish

My hunter's fishing skill is slightly lagging behind at a whooping 258. It is not sufficient for any outlands fishing at all. So I took this morning to try to get it up to par... 1 hour later and my hunter's fishing skill reached 280... it is slow and boring. You better have a good podcast to listen. Personally I go with Analogue Gaming Hole.

Now I probably need at least 1 more hour to get it to 300 and be able to do some serious fishing in Zangarmarsh without getting the "Fish got away" message.

Alterac Valley at level 64

Needing a break from regular questing I queued up for Alterac Valley yesterday. My hunter is only 64 but I figured it wouldn't do that much of a difference. Boy was I wrong. Most players were level 70... and as you all know the difference between pre 70 and and 70 is gigantic. Luckily as a hunter I don't have to be in the frontlines against those resilient 70ies.. I picked out a healer group and made sure they had all the flares and traps they needed. Whenever someone singled them out me and my pet did the best we could to help them out. It worked out ok in the end but it was kind of a painful time. I'll wait a few levels before venturing into AV again.

My hunter has now left Zangarmarsh behind him and is grinding away in Terrokar Forest at 40% into 65. Can't wait for Nagrand, I am sure it is an awesome place for hunters.

My pet's first Sporeling Snack

Earlier today my trusty pet - a Frostsaber named  Lovelace - got her first Sporeling Snack boosting her stamina and spirit with a whopping 20 points. I was kind of surprised that the snacks aren't fed the same way regular pet food is. Instead of selecting Feed Pet and then click on the food stack, you just use the snack.

Slugging it out in the swamp

For the last couple of days my brave hunter has been slugging it out in the swamp. Everytime I come to Zangarmarsh with a character I am amazed of the beauty of that area. I just love it. It seems that everything you kill in the marsh is used for some sort of quest or reputation.

I've just dinged 63 and gotten my hands on the Survivalist Pike. A very yummy hunter weapon. It is super easy to get quickly.

1. Get over to the little Sporregar quest dude - Gzhun'tt -  in the Spawning Glen to the very south east.

2. Go collect enough of the little Mature Spore Sac to get to friendly status - I think 40 or 50 is sufficient depending on how many giants you've killed so far.

3. Go back up to the Sporeggar village and get the quest "Now that we are friends". The quest is about killing 12 Bloodcrest Slavedrivers and 6 Bloodcrest Enchantresses...

4. Get back to Sporregar and get your polearm. It will last you a long time.

My biggest question is... what to enchant it with.. Intellect or Agility? I am leaning towards agility...

I've realized that I need to grind Thrallmar honor tokens for the Mark of Conquest. Seems like I am getting back to Hellfire for some PVP. I remember that type of world PVP to be boring at best. Running back and forth to the various points and getting slaughtered by level 70 druids in between. Lots of corpse running.

Ding 62, bye bye Hellfire

So I squared my bloodelf shoulders and grinded onward... almost all Hellfire quests done as well as quite a few in the neighbouring Zangarmarsh. It took me quite awhile though... and altism caught me a few times. I have a little rogue that is helping me through tough times. It possibly my 5th or 6th rogue...

Somewhere around the end of the quests in Hellfire I also managed to get honored with Thrallmar. That allowed me to pick up two Grunt's Waraxe for some dual wielding fun. Unfortunately my Axes skill was at an amazing zero. A scroll of intellect and an hour in SM later my axe skill was up to par... One thing that I thought of while levelling is that the gear I've gotten from quests boost agility or AP but generally lack stamina. Most of my 58 gear was really stamina and agility balanced.. I started level 60 at above 5k hp and its been declining since. Now I've gotten back up above 5k again. I really need to start focusing a bit more on stamina or I'll have a hard time in PVP situations.

Stamina is king... agility is a mere prince in my humble opinion.

Hellfire Peninsula - a major drag?

My God, the Hellfire Peninsula is boring. I made up my mind to skip the Thrallmar repgrinding via instances before taking on the quests. Instead I would blast past the area much faster. But there is something very boring with the area in general. Now I love Zangarmarsh and the other Outlands zones but Hellfire just kills me.

I've cleared the initial Thrallmar quests and are now busy with the ones you get from the southern outpost. Its back and forth into Zeth'Gor, killing undead spectres and gathering various herbs. Bleh. These quests are not radically different from those you get from other zones but the mobs are quite densely packed in a very open landscape. Add the roaming 70ies that can't resist the urge of swooping down on an unsuspecting victim... Actually I am usually not bitter about high-level ganking because it adds a certain spice to the gameplay experience. A bit of random difficultness. And there is nothing like actually beating or at least escaping the bullies.

I guess I just need to square my shoulders and grind on. I do send loving peeks at Alterac Valley... PVP is what I play for these days.

The Little Big Ding!

My hunter hit the little big ding - 60 last week. Awesome. With my hard earned honor I went ahead and bough the level 60 PVP gun - [Warlord's Street Sweeper]- and went through the portal. I am in no big hurry to level all the way to 70 at once.

Just a few hours into the Outlands grinding (I need 350 [Unidentified Plant Parts] for the Cenarion rep) I decided to go back to Azeroth to get the last few skill points in fishing & cooking. Man, fishing is boring. I did get it from 240 all the way to 260 before I lost patience.

Oh, and I got a new pet. I finally got rid of the Winterspring Owl I had. While it looked great and all I f ound it very annoying in combat. Always in the way for targeting (re-targeting). I now have a Frostsaber... its a real beauty and I've named it: Lovelace.

I'll see if I can manage an hour of fishing before returning back to the Outlands now that I have a fish eating pet...