You know that sinking feeling in your stomach?

Well, I felt it when I read this:

Death knights, druids, hunters, mages, rogues, warlocks, warriors, oh my! For those participating in our public testing of the upcoming minor content patch 3.3.3, look out this week for a host of fascinating new adjustments to these classes. Chains of Ice innately does what? Nature's Grasp has how many charges? Vitality boosts stamina by how much? Stay tuned to find out the answer to these and more questions!

Fascinating new adjustments... to the hunter class? Please tell me they don't mean what I fear they mean... Please tell me they aren't reintroducing a whole new class mechanic in the middle of a content patch, just as I'm finishing my time in WoW. Please tell me I'm just over reacting, and I won't have to end my play time before I want to...

Loneliness

One of my dear friends/guildmates quit WoW today. His life brought up some sudden obligations, and he decided to make the necessary sacrifices. His account time ended, and he uninstalled WoW. We are in contact through Facebook, but I will still miss him greatly in game. It was he who motivated me to transfer back to Kilrogg in the first place, even though he hadn't said a word to me about it - it was just the memories of the years we spent together as guildees and friends that made me decide to end my time on WoW with friends.

He's only been gone one day, but I suddenly feel extremely lonely and friendless. I joined a VoA25 PuG, and as usual, I inspected the other hunters. One outgeared me, was gemming correctly, had a bit of an unusual spec, but I still wondered if I wouldn't beat him. Sure enough, after Koralon, I got whispers from the hunter (and a lock, wondering about Piercing Shots and if they had renamed Chimera Shot...) asking about my DPS. I have no idea how I did or how I compared since I no longer use a damage meter, but it was a nice ego-boost having people inquire about my damage - one I would've shared with my friend. There was nobody on to talk with, and it saddened me greatly.

This is another nail in the coffin, I'm sad to say. Obviously, I have not yet killed the Lich King, so my time on WoW is not over yet, but it is approaching. I just wish it didn't hurt so much.

Hunter 2.0 - Level 20

Nerdette hit lvl 20! Yay!

For my pet, I took Mania's advice, and tamed a beige/glowing blue scorpid from Durotar. In keeping with my 'nerd' theme, I named it bCarboline - after beta-Carboline, the organic amine that causes scorpions to glow blue under UV light.

I also picked up chemistry alchemy as my second profession, with fairly nice results so far, though I am reliant on my baby shaman (38) to herb for me.

I did two instances through the LFG system, Ragefire Chasm and the Deadmines. It was the first time I ever did either instance at level, and it was fun, though a bit frustrating when I had all of two shots available to me. The RFC run was reduced down to me, the bear tank, and a priest healer when we killed the demon boss, and the other two DPS took their look bag and ran. We finished off the quests, and it was fun three-manning the rest of the instance. The Deadmines were particularly interesting since it is a historic Alliance instance, but it was a lot of fun.

Other observations of leveling a hunter four years later:

• Regardless of your weapon speed, autoshots take forever when you have no other instant shots available to you.
  
• Getting Multi-shot felt like a breath of fresh air, but it sucked my perception of having a decent mana pool dry.
• Hunter's Mark has to be the most useless spell at level ever. I used it on name guys, and that's it.
• Talk about a refresher of kiting skills! I have become so pro at the run-stop-autoshot-run kiting scheme now. Also, Wing Clip and Concussive Shots, may I never belittle you again.

Regretfully, I have a lot on my plate lately, along with some drive to level my druid and shaman up some as well, so it might be some time before Nerdette hits 30. She will though!

So...

By now I wanted to have a post about Nerdette hitting 20, but she's still 17.

I also wanted to have a post about our 10man downing Sindragosa last night, but we never got her past 17%, despite conceding that we needed to bring in a second tank for the last several attempts.

Regrettably, my sinuses have gone on strike, leaving me with a strange fuzzy feeling in my head, driving away most witticisms I had lined up for this post. It also doesn't help that the Boy is going to be gone for the third week in a row this week, dropping my motivation to get any Real Work done like a rock.

I'm afraid you will have to wait for an interesting post. This isn't one.

/crawls off

The World (of Warcraft) I Know

A fitting summation of the last three expansions. Hope you had a wonderful President's/Darwin/Valentines Day!

Suffer, mortals!

I'm a lucky individual. I don't kid myself that any skill or riches or divine intervention had any input on my life - I'm just fucking lucky. It makes you appreciate the good parts in life that luck sends your way, certainly, and you don't take for granted when a little more luck comes your way.

I've found a 10 man. They raid at 5 PM server time - 8 PM for me - and ends whenever, usually around midnight for me. They care about raiding, they are interested in pushing content. They can't wait to down the Lich King and start working on hard modes. I think I'm in love. The first night I raided with their 10man group (as opposed to the 25man GDKP they do that I run as well - more about that later), we downed eight bosses. The second night we downed two more, and got another to 17%. I can't say I've been happier since I came back to Kilrogg.

A note on that last boss we worked on: Sindragosa is probably one of the most fun fights I've experienced in a long time. It might even be in hunter's favor that our spells do not trigger Instability and autoshots do not trigger Chilled to the Bone. (I only had four stacks of the debuff three times in probably seven attempts.) We can disengage out of her Icy Grip, though not far enough to be safe or out of melee range (fucking dragon hitbox). Having a min-range does make it difficult to break the Iceblocks, but I ended up meleeing them anyway, just to whittle their health down over the course of Phase 2. We worked on P3 through the trial-and-error system, working on how many stacks of Mystic Buffet should be the limit before we clear it through an iceblocked individual and when to break him out. It was a wonderful experience, and I wouldn't trade it for much.

The group that comprises this 10man were Alliance on a smaller PvP server that decided to xfer over. They have experience and a sense of camaraderie, including a lot of wonderful sarcasm. They started their own GDKP run based on this core, with the intent of pushing content. They are in it for the raiding and not the gold, and I absolutely love them for it. The leader dislikes how the other GDKP runs are placing a minimum bid of 2000g on every epic item in ICC25 (as opposed to the now standard 500g), and so far, our GDKP ICC25 is the only group capable of downing more than the first four bosses. The best part about all of this is that both the 10 and 25man raids start early, letting me raid at normal times while remaining with my friends on Kilrogg.

Life is pretty grand!

Hunter 2.0

Before I log off of WoW for the last time, I want to relevel Neg. I loved leveling her; it was what I looked forward to the most with both expansions. Sadly, pressure to hit 70/80 usually took all the fun out the experience, and I never got to enjoy the pleasure of questing for experience instead of gold like I wanted to. So, before the hunter class gets a huge overhaul, I want to level the class like I know it.

Obviously, there have been several changes to the class since I leveled it for the first time over four years ago, and I'll never again be able to experience what it was like leveling Neg, but compared to what they are going to do in Cataclysm, I think it'll just have to be close enough. After all, I never had Steady Shot or Aspect of the Viper. I certainly never had the incentive to get gear with Int on it. And Aimed Shot? Yeah, that was a cast.

It goes without saying that I'll be leveling as Marksman. Why change up something I love? However, I won't be leveling as a Tauren. I know, I know - the race is practically in my blood - but I already have four Tauren, and I want to break away from the Family and do something a little more exotic and more appropriate to the class (stupid, stupid racials). Her existence will be outside the storyline of the Highmountain Clan, though I suppose if anything, you could call her Negathle's protege (oooh! potential for a Krunch-Gid type of relationship!) Professions will be Skinning and... I'm honestly not sure yet. The skinning was going to be a given, since I miss the profession on Neg a lot, but I'm not certain about the second prof. She won't be a Miner or an Herbalist, since I absolutely detest having to switch back and forth between two types of Tracking. I already have a Leatherworker, Blacksmith, Jewelcrafter, Enchanter, and Engineer. Alchemist, perhaps? My baby Shaman is an herbalist...

Anyway, without further ado, I give you: Nerdette

They said it couldn't be done

They said it was impossible.

It could never be realized.

But I have come today to say that the impossible could be realized.

Dreams do come true.

And Neg has leveled an alt to 80.



Okay, okay, so I cheated and rolled a Death Knight. Her entire existence is dedicated to farming, so I don't feel too ashamed about it. Regardless, now that Zinaida is 80, this gives me the excuse I've been waiting for to roll my second hunter! Squee!

Good-bye Greatness!

No more i200s! It's a wonderful relief to get rid of the year-old trinket, even though I feel a little guilty for going outside the guild to get it. I hate having to call it for my guildees at 11 pm server time because I'm falling asleep at 2 am, so I figured they would appreciate having a 10th that wouldn't cut their time short.

I ran the ICC10 with members of the GDKP community, but that didn't prevent it from being a little frustrating. We ended up calling it on Festergut due to tanks getting one-shot, but I had to fight for hunter's rights to stand still for a fight even before we called it. The same healer that scolded me for trying to down Twins faster couldn't understand why I was advocating one of the two hunters stand as a focal point for the range spore collapse as opposed to the shadow priest. I dunno, perhaps because spriests rely very little on stationary DPS, while hunters gain a considerable amount for it? The lack of bottom-line, basic class mechanic knowledge astounds me.

Fuck me gently with a polearm...

(Cookie if you get the movie reference.)

So we have some loot from the last boss of Icecrown.

Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger General

Admittedly, this is heroic, and I'll never see it; however, this does not stop me from being faintly aroused at the sight of those stats. Blizzard, looking at this weapon, with a name that does, in fact, label it as a Hunter Weapon, I can almost forgive you for what you are doing to my class and the game next expansion, though this is only because most of the blood has stopped flowing to the brain and instead went in a more southerly direction.

This makes up for the very good but very anticlimactic cutscene.