How did my banana go from “completely fine” to “all moldy” in 4 hours!!
Now I won’t get 1 of my… well, 1 a day fruit intake. /distraught
Defending Arathi Basin
I had a little bit of time on last night, and didn’t feel much like levelling (tbh that was a mistake because I’m a nats nut away from 63).
Instead, I got my fishing up to 100 and cooking somewhere around 50 - the reason being I want them high enough to cook up my own special pet food buffs. W00t.
Anyway! I had time for a couple of runs in AB, and I was really satisfied with the performance.
In a post somewhere on our guild forum I mentioned that normally I leap from base to base killing as I see fit. Its great fun, keeps the action high, and there’s extreme satifisfaction involved in headhunting.
However. As my GL pointed out, it is a selfish self-gratification, and so I decided that I would ONLY DEFEND during my next AB encounters.
… it was brilliant! I got two games in. (warning, EPIC post!!)
(1) Seeing people head off to Stables and Lumber I made my way to mines. Not the best strategy to be honest, it would have been worth seeing where the zerg was heading and bolstering those defenses (in this case, Lumber Mill). I was greeted at the mine by a wave of horde and was unable to hold on. At the same time Lumber got contested and the weekness of the “hit all the nodes!!!” strategy was obvious. For a few minutes I resumed my usual preference of finding people and mixing it up, I grabbed a few kills and died a few times. Normal.
I respawned and took a moment to review the map. The horde were buzzing around pretty much as one at the time, so I took the most direct route to Farm which was open - assisting in any melees on route. I didn’t move from farm for a large portion of the match. I was dropping Frost traps on the flag, scanning for hidden, popping flares up, and set my Cat to Agressive. It was a bad day for Rogues! I was stood on my Trap for the most part, so even if I was suprise sapped the trap would spring and give me some time to get range - hit intimidation - fire up Bestial Wrath - Concussive shot - and kite them until they were dead. I’m not saying these were all one on one, but I was definately doing my share.
Alliance were actually spread across the map in a suprisingly organised way - manning all the nodes we had (3). And this is how it remained for the whole match… we held all those bases and the resources ticked away. I had a little wonder up to the Lumber Mill to see from up there if a one man assault was possible on stables but decided against. I moved on to contested Blacksmiths and got some great fights and kills in - but once the area was cleared I left it in someone elses hands and got back to defending Farm.
My first taste of holding nodes has been satisfying. Alliance were overwhelming at the defended nodes and still had a three man unit pushing their bases and getting kills. It was beautiful. We won by a fair margain, and I had come mid table on kills and nearer the top on HK’s. Paricularly pleasing considering the amount of 69’s in the mix. Team work people, it works!!
(2) Match 2 - I held stables… and didn’t move for the entire match. This was the most personally satisfying game of AB I can remember.
I headed straight there from the opening, and I dared anyone to try and claim it! What fun. I did the usual, popping traps on the flag, putting flares up, and pet on agressive for those pesky rogues. There were three other people with me, a couple of Rogues and a Priest - and we did a fine job in my opinion.
There was little of no action for a few minutes, but I was patient (for once) which was hard considering we went down 4 nodes almost straight away. But I knew we’d get incoming soon….
First wave was mainly warriors and Shaman. I was throwing in concussive shot and backed off the flag to draw them in. Once they were popped in the trap the rogues got to work and I rained arrows from range with my pet running down the fleeing. Nothing is more fun that watching your big red cat chasing down a shaman, as he’s running in cirlces trying to get away or get a hit in - pop intimidation and stun them for 4 seconds - more chasing… and dead. HK!
Back to defending, reset the trap, and throw up flare on the flag. On this occasion I can see a Rogue on the map holding 30 yards off the flag. No problem mate… I see ya. I send a flare in the wrong direction to give him room to move and to lure him in, and I back off the flag (where the trap is). He takes the bate and makes his way for flag glory and springs the trap. The Alli at stable pound him.
The rest of the match isn’t going so well, we are holding stables and lumber but not making much of a move for anything else. We are ticking resources just fine but so are horde, and they’ve nudged ahead. It appears to sit like this for some time, with the Horde mainly throwing Rogues around.
A couple more assualt of stables occur, with dual stealthed druids. I’m incapacitated by one, while the other springs my frost trap on the flag (tut tut). I get my cat on the one who attacked me - hit inimidation and pop bestial wrath. He attacks my pet, and I simply move around him concussing when we runs and I drag him down with Arcane shot. The other Druid is now free from the trap and engaging the Priest. Another engagement is happening around us, with Tauren warriors and shaman involved. I quickly step in to help the Priest and we drop the cat formed druid in no time. I get a heal! ;-)
As soon as I’m done with the Druid I drop a frost trap where I stand and turn to let it rain on the warriors and shaman engaged in melee. More concussive shot to slow them up and I’m running arcane shot all over the place. I get a friend and am charged and stunned. My cat engages and again “intimi-Wrath!”. We both fall out of stun and I make him chase me back to my previuosly laid trap with my pet nipping at his heels. In he goes and he’s frozen. I get range, send my cat, some of the other melee are free, and we rinse him in seconds.
Back to defending.
And this is how it went until we lost. Not by much, but a loss all the same. I was second in Alliance for HK’s and I hadn’t budged an inch.
It is definately a great role for a hunter. We have some fine tools to stopping incoming and enough offensive to…. be offensive!!
Perhaps next time I take the opportunity of defending downtimes to review the map and make some calls becaues I am still rubbish at communicating. However on these occasions I’m not sure much needed to be said. For once, Alliance seemed to be quite organised and defending bases in numbers - which ultimately was an unspoken rule.
… or perhaps I never notice that because I’m usually running around the map like a headless chicken chasing down any hordies I encounter.
*Jerrard, how can you read that and not want to WoW PvP :-)*
Instead, I got my fishing up to 100 and cooking somewhere around 50 - the reason being I want them high enough to cook up my own special pet food buffs. W00t.
Anyway! I had time for a couple of runs in AB, and I was really satisfied with the performance.
In a post somewhere on our guild forum I mentioned that normally I leap from base to base killing as I see fit. Its great fun, keeps the action high, and there’s extreme satifisfaction involved in headhunting.
However. As my GL pointed out, it is a selfish self-gratification, and so I decided that I would ONLY DEFEND during my next AB encounters.
… it was brilliant! I got two games in. (warning, EPIC post!!)
(1) Seeing people head off to Stables and Lumber I made my way to mines. Not the best strategy to be honest, it would have been worth seeing where the zerg was heading and bolstering those defenses (in this case, Lumber Mill). I was greeted at the mine by a wave of horde and was unable to hold on. At the same time Lumber got contested and the weekness of the “hit all the nodes!!!” strategy was obvious. For a few minutes I resumed my usual preference of finding people and mixing it up, I grabbed a few kills and died a few times. Normal.
I respawned and took a moment to review the map. The horde were buzzing around pretty much as one at the time, so I took the most direct route to Farm which was open - assisting in any melees on route. I didn’t move from farm for a large portion of the match. I was dropping Frost traps on the flag, scanning for hidden, popping flares up, and set my Cat to Agressive. It was a bad day for Rogues! I was stood on my Trap for the most part, so even if I was suprise sapped the trap would spring and give me some time to get range - hit intimidation - fire up Bestial Wrath - Concussive shot - and kite them until they were dead. I’m not saying these were all one on one, but I was definately doing my share.
Alliance were actually spread across the map in a suprisingly organised way - manning all the nodes we had (3). And this is how it remained for the whole match… we held all those bases and the resources ticked away. I had a little wonder up to the Lumber Mill to see from up there if a one man assault was possible on stables but decided against. I moved on to contested Blacksmiths and got some great fights and kills in - but once the area was cleared I left it in someone elses hands and got back to defending Farm.
My first taste of holding nodes has been satisfying. Alliance were overwhelming at the defended nodes and still had a three man unit pushing their bases and getting kills. It was beautiful. We won by a fair margain, and I had come mid table on kills and nearer the top on HK’s. Paricularly pleasing considering the amount of 69’s in the mix. Team work people, it works!!
(2) Match 2 - I held stables… and didn’t move for the entire match. This was the most personally satisfying game of AB I can remember.
I headed straight there from the opening, and I dared anyone to try and claim it! What fun. I did the usual, popping traps on the flag, putting flares up, and pet on agressive for those pesky rogues. There were three other people with me, a couple of Rogues and a Priest - and we did a fine job in my opinion.
There was little of no action for a few minutes, but I was patient (for once) which was hard considering we went down 4 nodes almost straight away. But I knew we’d get incoming soon….
First wave was mainly warriors and Shaman. I was throwing in concussive shot and backed off the flag to draw them in. Once they were popped in the trap the rogues got to work and I rained arrows from range with my pet running down the fleeing. Nothing is more fun that watching your big red cat chasing down a shaman, as he’s running in cirlces trying to get away or get a hit in - pop intimidation and stun them for 4 seconds - more chasing… and dead. HK!
Back to defending, reset the trap, and throw up flare on the flag. On this occasion I can see a Rogue on the map holding 30 yards off the flag. No problem mate… I see ya. I send a flare in the wrong direction to give him room to move and to lure him in, and I back off the flag (where the trap is). He takes the bate and makes his way for flag glory and springs the trap. The Alli at stable pound him.
The rest of the match isn’t going so well, we are holding stables and lumber but not making much of a move for anything else. We are ticking resources just fine but so are horde, and they’ve nudged ahead. It appears to sit like this for some time, with the Horde mainly throwing Rogues around.
A couple more assualt of stables occur, with dual stealthed druids. I’m incapacitated by one, while the other springs my frost trap on the flag (tut tut). I get my cat on the one who attacked me - hit inimidation and pop bestial wrath. He attacks my pet, and I simply move around him concussing when we runs and I drag him down with Arcane shot. The other Druid is now free from the trap and engaging the Priest. Another engagement is happening around us, with Tauren warriors and shaman involved. I quickly step in to help the Priest and we drop the cat formed druid in no time. I get a heal! ;-)
As soon as I’m done with the Druid I drop a frost trap where I stand and turn to let it rain on the warriors and shaman engaged in melee. More concussive shot to slow them up and I’m running arcane shot all over the place. I get a friend and am charged and stunned. My cat engages and again “intimi-Wrath!”. We both fall out of stun and I make him chase me back to my previuosly laid trap with my pet nipping at his heels. In he goes and he’s frozen. I get range, send my cat, some of the other melee are free, and we rinse him in seconds.
Back to defending.
And this is how it went until we lost. Not by much, but a loss all the same. I was second in Alliance for HK’s and I hadn’t budged an inch.
It is definately a great role for a hunter. We have some fine tools to stopping incoming and enough offensive to…. be offensive!!
Perhaps next time I take the opportunity of defending downtimes to review the map and make some calls becaues I am still rubbish at communicating. However on these occasions I’m not sure much needed to be said. For once, Alliance seemed to be quite organised and defending bases in numbers - which ultimately was an unspoken rule.
… or perhaps I never notice that because I’m usually running around the map like a headless chicken chasing down any hordies I encounter.
*Jerrard, how can you read that and not want to WoW PvP :-)*
Raiding?
So, over the last few weeks I have actually been able to get in a couple of instance runs! Very unusual for me. I don’t normally get involved because most of the time my schedule is random, my work time is shift driven, and I’m often pulled away at the last minute to do non-wow things. All this adds up to letting down the group I’ve signed up with, and ensuing the wrath of our GL.
*cowers*
Anyway, I did have some time on a couple of Friday nights and I signed up for the Zul’Gurub raid a couple of weeks back, and more recently a quick run through Blackrock Depths. Both very different obviously. One’s a 20 man, and the other is a 5 man for example.
So I thought I’d do a quick summary of what I thought of the runs, what my role was, how well I performed, and any problems I encountered.
Zul’Gurub
This was great fun. Not been in a raid party that size before, and not even met/spoken to half the people in it! As a guild we have “Allied” with a couple of other smaller guilds we know and share a common chat channel. This was a stroke of genius in my opinion, and allows these small guilds to participate in big content. Wonderful.
What I thought of the instance?I really like the open topped instances I must admit - I find it helps with my positioning. Its a jungle/ruins kind of place and the weather effects really kick off the atmosphere. It was a huge place, but there were experienced people in there that knew their way around.
What my role was?Most of the time my role was “visitor”. I was one of the lowest lowbies there (at 62), and as I’d never set foot in this place before - I had to be led around like a lamb. However, when called for I was raining down arrows with the best of them and REALLY having a great time hearing the strategies around boss kills and seeing them carried out. There is something very satisfying about that, and very addictive - I can see why people like raiding.
How well I performed?I did OK. Like I said, I was new to the instance, new to a raid group, so I just shut up and kept my ears open for “ranged attack group” or “someone res Lofgrin”. I died a couple of times for getting to close, or being at the mercy of adds that were beyond me… but once the coordination within the group settled down things went a lot smoother. Actually Ael did a write-up on her blog (with comments on group coordination :-)) check it out: Ael’s Zul’Gurub post
Problems encountered?I was probably the only one without an epic mount - so I was playing “catch up and find the group before I die” a number of times. Apart from that, I had enough ammo, I had pots, I had pet food, and I managed to ensure my pet didn’t wonder off and come back with half the instance.
Blackrock Depths
This is a cheeky little 5 man. Hosted in an underground, fire and brimstone, kind of setting.
The main drive behind the run was for MC attunement, which is gained at the very uninteresting rock at the back of the instance. We did venture into MC for laughs at the end and all I can really say about it is “GIANT GREAT BIG FLAMING DEATH THINGYS FROM HELL!!!!”. Anyway, BRD…
What I thought of the instance?Think of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey when they get sent to hell. That scene where the boulders are hanging on chains, and they are being pulled in towards the devil. Yeah, like that!! You even get to walk down those sorts of chains!! It ruled. I thought it was a fun, quite spacey instance - where the foes where quite far below the quality of our group and we didn’t struggle at all.
What was my role?Bowslinger. The guys knew the instance well, and as I mentioned we over powered it, so it was elementary stuff for the most part. Sit back, see which targets the tank was grabbing, hit my “Assist Tank” macro to select his target…. then let it rain! Holyshell was on damage for a change, and was topping the damage metres (or so she says, I could not authenticate this boast as I don’t have any installed :-)) so my role quickly became “burn the mobs down first and beat Shell to top-spot!!”. However, usually by the time I was winding in good shots, and sent my pet to rip peoples faces off all over the show, the mob was down, dead, and looted. But it was fun winding up the DPS occasionally. Would have liked the opportunity to throw around some traps, and CC a couple of mobs just for practice considering the mobs were below us - but I forgot all about it because the place was new to me and I was having fun!
How well I performed?I did alright. I use to getting myself into position quickly now, knowing how long to hold back before unleashing arrows, and when and how to use my pet to the best effect. I did get reminded about putting my pet away for a drop down to another level - and to be completely honest I would likely have forgotten on that occasion (I’m normally pretty good with it). But hopefully now its in the forefront of mind. Drop down = Dismiss pet.
Problems encountered?No, not that I remember. Apart from the whole pet business as mentioned above. Other than that it was simply a nice paced smack down.
So there’s a quick breakdown of the fun I’ve been having doing some group runs recently. In addition I ran a guildy through Deadmines earlier this week to grab him some items and get some of the older quests and the whole zone done and dusted so he can move on. Was fun overpowering everything (one shot kills and all), and I was glad to roll all the gear over to him for some pocket change… but I think we’d both agree that when we hit the end of the run it was a bit unsatisfying. I’d wiped the floor with most things before he’s even got a shot off, and I suggested that next time finding a group - no matter how long it takes - is probably a lot more enjoyable.
I should take my own advice now and again!
*cowers*
Anyway, I did have some time on a couple of Friday nights and I signed up for the Zul’Gurub raid a couple of weeks back, and more recently a quick run through Blackrock Depths. Both very different obviously. One’s a 20 man, and the other is a 5 man for example.
So I thought I’d do a quick summary of what I thought of the runs, what my role was, how well I performed, and any problems I encountered.
Zul’Gurub
This was great fun. Not been in a raid party that size before, and not even met/spoken to half the people in it! As a guild we have “Allied” with a couple of other smaller guilds we know and share a common chat channel. This was a stroke of genius in my opinion, and allows these small guilds to participate in big content. Wonderful.
What I thought of the instance?I really like the open topped instances I must admit - I find it helps with my positioning. Its a jungle/ruins kind of place and the weather effects really kick off the atmosphere. It was a huge place, but there were experienced people in there that knew their way around.
What my role was?Most of the time my role was “visitor”. I was one of the lowest lowbies there (at 62), and as I’d never set foot in this place before - I had to be led around like a lamb. However, when called for I was raining down arrows with the best of them and REALLY having a great time hearing the strategies around boss kills and seeing them carried out. There is something very satisfying about that, and very addictive - I can see why people like raiding.
How well I performed?I did OK. Like I said, I was new to the instance, new to a raid group, so I just shut up and kept my ears open for “ranged attack group” or “someone res Lofgrin”. I died a couple of times for getting to close, or being at the mercy of adds that were beyond me… but once the coordination within the group settled down things went a lot smoother. Actually Ael did a write-up on her blog (with comments on group coordination :-)) check it out: Ael’s Zul’Gurub post
Problems encountered?I was probably the only one without an epic mount - so I was playing “catch up and find the group before I die” a number of times. Apart from that, I had enough ammo, I had pots, I had pet food, and I managed to ensure my pet didn’t wonder off and come back with half the instance.
Blackrock Depths
This is a cheeky little 5 man. Hosted in an underground, fire and brimstone, kind of setting.
The main drive behind the run was for MC attunement, which is gained at the very uninteresting rock at the back of the instance. We did venture into MC for laughs at the end and all I can really say about it is “GIANT GREAT BIG FLAMING DEATH THINGYS FROM HELL!!!!”. Anyway, BRD…
What I thought of the instance?Think of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey when they get sent to hell. That scene where the boulders are hanging on chains, and they are being pulled in towards the devil. Yeah, like that!! You even get to walk down those sorts of chains!! It ruled. I thought it was a fun, quite spacey instance - where the foes where quite far below the quality of our group and we didn’t struggle at all.
What was my role?Bowslinger. The guys knew the instance well, and as I mentioned we over powered it, so it was elementary stuff for the most part. Sit back, see which targets the tank was grabbing, hit my “Assist Tank” macro to select his target…. then let it rain! Holyshell was on damage for a change, and was topping the damage metres (or so she says, I could not authenticate this boast as I don’t have any installed :-)) so my role quickly became “burn the mobs down first and beat Shell to top-spot!!”. However, usually by the time I was winding in good shots, and sent my pet to rip peoples faces off all over the show, the mob was down, dead, and looted. But it was fun winding up the DPS occasionally. Would have liked the opportunity to throw around some traps, and CC a couple of mobs just for practice considering the mobs were below us - but I forgot all about it because the place was new to me and I was having fun!
How well I performed?I did alright. I use to getting myself into position quickly now, knowing how long to hold back before unleashing arrows, and when and how to use my pet to the best effect. I did get reminded about putting my pet away for a drop down to another level - and to be completely honest I would likely have forgotten on that occasion (I’m normally pretty good with it). But hopefully now its in the forefront of mind. Drop down = Dismiss pet.
Problems encountered?No, not that I remember. Apart from the whole pet business as mentioned above. Other than that it was simply a nice paced smack down.
So there’s a quick breakdown of the fun I’ve been having doing some group runs recently. In addition I ran a guildy through Deadmines earlier this week to grab him some items and get some of the older quests and the whole zone done and dusted so he can move on. Was fun overpowering everything (one shot kills and all), and I was glad to roll all the gear over to him for some pocket change… but I think we’d both agree that when we hit the end of the run it was a bit unsatisfying. I’d wiped the floor with most things before he’s even got a shot off, and I suggested that next time finding a group - no matter how long it takes - is probably a lot more enjoyable.
I should take my own advice now and again!