No screenie this week, only a quick doodle - my hunter gather-bot Dryn is feeling a little overworked at the moment…

It’s rainin’ cats and.. cats. Hehe. See what ah did there? … don’t look at me like that… No even a wee laugh? Bah.

Ugh, I’m always soooo late about posting stuff. Ergh, oh well. So, I was reading Bre’s post on the competition and noticed a name left by Fikkle. Monsoon. Monsoon… Totally fell in love with the name and, handily, Bre decided to go for something else so I just damn well pickpocketed it right from her comments! So, Dryn’s new kitty-cat is now named Monsoon. Thanks to everyone else who suggested names!

And she’s level 63! What a pretty kitty - look at those eyes (and yay for transporter Malfunctions). Also, I’ve found a very fun place to level her - I need Fel Armaments / Marks and I can fight the mobs for them without my kitty having to get squished! It’s a nice spot in SMV at Legion Hold and normally a good grinding area because of the fast respawns and 8 out of the 12 mobs (around the three pillars) can be killed by a hunter from the ramparts around them - more if you have the range boost talent. Just remember to take lots of bandages!

Bloody dragged me intae the jungle. The Jungle! Wi’ trolls and snakes and all that sorta thing. Tae get… a tiger. A big, bloody, toothy tiger. If ah had known whit it wis he was ‘wanting a hand with’ before he dragged me tae Stranglethorn Vale I’d have told him tae go jump off a waterfall! He says it’s fer a competition wi’ the rather tasty dwarfette, Breana. Big skinny git has nae chance against a good dwarf woman!

Bre paraphrased the conversation she and I had rather well here. Basically we both wanted new kitty pets for our hunters (Without gettin’ the black-with-silver-stripes one from Terrokkar that everyone and their aunt has) and decided on Zul’Gurub ones. Ick! levelling them through to 70 is boring but not… if you’re competing! Arharhar! Starting today (Monday 2nd Jun) we’re going to see who can get their kitty to max level fastest.

Now, I went to get my kitty on Friday knowing I’d be out all weekend and that often Monday is a quiet guild day (hard to grab someone to form a raid). I told Bre and she conceded she’d trust me not to cheat but I likes to have my proof so this morning I asked the following in the BA chat:

So, Noobie and Softi are my witnesses! As you can see in the screenie there be no xp and no loyalty gain. I fed the kitty enough to make her hapyness go green so she’d not run away if something odd happened. Yay for goldseller spam. *Ahem*.  Yes, I do use grid on my hunter. And I have no macros. I am a huntard! What more do you expect from a grind-bot!?

Naming

I also have the usual problem of needing a name for my beauty! Any suggestions are appreciated - I’ve decided my kitty is a ’she’ so female names or, rather, no majorly masculine ones. Like Bob. I would like something jungle-ey or troll-ey or exotic-ey. She’s a tiger, for goodness sakes! Of course she needs an exotic name. I was vaguely thinking of Suma but it doesn’t quite come off the tongue ‘right’.

Anyways, Bre, you better get levelling fast! *wink*

Thon over-tall elfy git told me he wis gettin’ tae the peak o’ his game. I told him he still was a long way off of that, no matter whether he had finished his trainin’ or not!

“Bah…. no motivation to level my hunter… he’s 10% into 69 and it’s taken months to get here from 60…”

“I’ll give you ten gold if you beat me to 70!”

“How far into 69 are you?”

“60%”

“… … …”

*LEVELS*

It honestly was so much fun! I never did beat him (there wasn’t much chance) but I did only have three bubbles left to go by the time he got to 70! A few hours later and my little baby hunter became a little grown-up hunter. Yipes.

Good Intentions

Dryn has had a bit of an odd ‘life’. I started him with the sole intention of being a gatherbot for me - I needed a herber and figured I’d take skinning too, to make some gold. His journey to 70, though, taught me a few things about what I like and dislike in WoW - specifically regarding levelling.

1-58 I levelled Dryn as I had levelled most other characters - running quickly through quests with a vague eye on Jaime’s levelling guide (I prefer to deviate as my play sessions are often shorter or I don’t like a quest hub etc. etc.) However, I knew once I got to 58 I could, theoretically, be a reasonable gatherbot already!

Grinding vs. Questing

I had decided to only level through quests in Hellfire and then level via grinding to maximise gold from quests, later, and to maximise the time spent herbing / etc. on the character. I spent a long time grinding bog lords - reading whilst auto-shotting, herbing, retarget, send pet, auto-shot etc. and got utterly, utterly bored. I cracked and blasted a level or two via quests. I think Iwas about 65 - I decided to go to Nagrand and grind there for shadow motes. Same thing. Bored.

Now, I can happily grind when I know the outcome will benefit me mats wise etc. but it seemed that adding the element of levelling made it seem more painful - I figure, possibly, this had something to do with the fact that XP gain through levelling is so damn slow at that level.

Anyways, I had been doing this on and off, long phases of grinding interspersed with small bunches of quests until the above conversation. I had not enjoyed my hunter in a long time but, in those few hours, I really did.

I prefer questing. I prefer blasting through goals in smaller chunks which make me move around a bit and keep me from being bored whilst watching the XP creep up. Stacking quests - doing a number which coincide goals-wise with each other - and then handing them in all at once is a real pleasure and works well with WoW’s usual habit of rewards for time spent.

Gathering vs. Crafting

The one thing I had done different to usual as I levelled to 58 was take dual gathering. Never again. Half of what I love in WoW is the crafting side of it! I dropped skinning before I hit Outlands and power-levelled Engineering. Again. Ugh. But! It brought about the benefits of healing + mana potion injectors (I’m woefully low on bagspace) and got me Goggles + Zapthrottle Mote Extractor. i.e. > Another farming tool with a crafting profession. Win-win, in my opinion.

I know a lot of people prefer to grind or instance than to quest but personally I love it when I’m in the groove and blasting through quests - only stopping to get some recipe or craft some upgrade or maybe to grind enough rep for a non-combat pet!

In General

Blizzard seem to be trying to make some more quests which are deviations on the norm - unusual mechanics or npc interactions have been sprinkled quite frequently through new quest areas (including those added to Dustwallow). I’m thinking I might do a few posts looking at interesting / unusual quests and quest lines.

Still, some quests just seem a waste of time, boring or badly designed (I have to be hit by mobs to gain electrical charges for this quest? As a BM hunter!? Wut?). Even so, I find them more interesting, on the whole, than grinding. Going to stop rambling now at it’s 7am and I’ve not slept yet!

p.s Shortly before hitting 70 Dryn ’switched sides’ in more ways than one due to his first transporter malfunction! <3 Engineering!

/sandwich

Some things ye just don’t see comin’…

I had totally never noticed that male night elves and female dwarves shared a very similar ‘directed’ spell animation. Just struck me as amusing. Yes, I’m easily amused.

Modelling this fact is my hunter and a certain person’s new Dwarf rogue! We’ve gone through both Deadmines and Wailing Caverns for a laugh and some quick XP and I have to say it’s been quite fun for me. I love running through and one-shotting the denizens of each place - though I’m a bit of an evil host - “Stand there and don’t even think about moving or, goodness forbid, hitting something!”.

I used to love boosting my friends through various places on my druid but rogues are not good at boosting and resto shammies are only slightly better. Hunters are a nice middle ground - I can’t AoE taunt or pick up as many mobs as my druid could but I can pick them off without having to get up close and personal.

I miss having a tank…

/me Sneaks onto his new druid.

Do ye remember thon’ we hunter? Aye the Night Elf lad. Well, dae y’ken he’s in Outlands now? I know, who’d have thought! Seem’s hes doin’ well for himself, too.

Every time I update anything about Dryn he seems to have leapt a great deal forward - He’s now level 65 and has been out getting himself a new pet:

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A good rogue has to know where to look fer his information. Without information y’might as well stand oot in the broad daylight, twiddlin’ yer thumbs and hopin’ the job will do itself!

Puttin’ these all in one place so that, maybe, someone won’t have to look as far and wide for the links. There are, of course, plenty I’ve ‘missed’ but these are the ones I use on a regular basis for reference, not every single useful link ever.

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