My Favourite Hunter Mods

One of my other favourite things in Warcraft is Mods/Addons. Ever since I got a computer powerful enough to comfortably handle having them, mods have become a major part of my warcraft enjoyment. I love having a helpful and clean UI. Every few months or so I change my UI based on what I need/like to have. I've never been able to get into pre-made UI packages, preferring to build my own using the mods I like the most. I must admit that that playing with my UI is perhaps one of my Warcraft guilty pleasures. Particularly when it comes to aesthetic mods and mods that I don't really NEED, I just... like the have them. I also love seeing the UI setup of other players as well.

Today I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite hunter centric mods.

JS' Hunter Bar
This mod gives you a separate fully customisable focus bar. Allowing you to easily track how much focus you have and also gives indications of how much focus you will gain from certain abilities. The mod also allows you to add in timers for hunter cooldowns (Bestial Wrath, Ancient Hysteria etc) and allows you to add your own timers. Also provides indicators/alerts for aspects, hunter's mark, traps and tranquilising shot. Last expac this mod became serenity, however the author, JS, decided to remake it as JS' Hunter Bar for this patch/expec to make it a little easier to manage.

Focus bar with first low focus warning

Focus Bar with Tracking/Cooldown Timers active

All my active bars unlocked - these can be moved wherever you like

PetEmote
PetEmote is a gorgeous mod currently been hosted and maintained by the folks over at the Petopia Forums.What PetEmote does is produce random family specific emotes on behalf of your pets, which both you and others can see. A lot of the emotes produced have been written by the Petopia Community themselves. This mod gives some wonderful personality to each of your pets, and looks like there is going to be some beautiful emotes added for the new Mists of Pandaria pets as well.

Improved Stable Frame  
All this one does is put all your stabled pets on one page so you can see them all at once without having to swap back and forth. A little thing, but I personally like it.

Hunter Stable Info
Is a data broker addon (I use it with Titan Panel) which gives you details about your stabled pets as well as all the pet families. It tells you what pet you have active (when the pet it out) and when you hover over it it tells you which pets you have in your active slots and which are in the stables, as well as what each pets names, level and families are. When you select the pet it gives you a picture of that pet.

When you right click on the mod it changes and gives you all tameable pet families, what their spec is (not sure if this will be removed with this patch or not) and all of their abilities.When you hover over each ability it tells you what it specifically does. Alternatively you can select the pet family name and all of it's abilities will appear in your chat window, allowing you to click on each of the abilities to get a tooltip with the information.

Since hyena and serpent abilities have changed they are no longer appearing.

 

 Unfortunately this mod hasn't been updated since August last year, but hopefully with Mists we will see more up to date information come up.

And that's my favourite hunter centric mods I use :)

Happy Hunting!

Pet Spotlight: Raiden

It wasn't until Wrath of the Lich King was announced when I really started to get more interested in the taming of pets. With the increased stable size up to 5, as well as exotic pets, collecting pets was becoming a lot more attractive.

It was while following the information coming out of the Beta that I came across the pet which would change what being a hunter meant for me. 

The moment I saw Loque'nahak I knew I had to find and tame him. The fact that he was a rare-spawn, who could potentially spawn in one of several locations and was possibly only available for 10-15 minutes before despawning again did not deter me from desperately wanting this pet.


The moment I hit level 76 I instantly began the hunt for this magnificent beast, only to learn two things which put some rather significant dents in my plan of getting my dream pet.

1. Attempting to circle Sholazar Basin on a ground mount at level 76 takes a very, very long time, and.
2. I am incapable of camping anything.

Despite my best efforts to try and devote time to finding Loque, I learnt the hard way that finding this pet, especially with so much competition from other hunters, was going to much harder then I ever anticipated. Searching became easier once I hit level 80 and was able to start flying, but without the time and more importantly the patience, it was looking more and more like the pet I wanted more then anything else, was going to be the pet I would never get.

As my unsuccessful hunting streak continued, hunter blogger Big Red Kitty was partaking in the Loque'nahak frenzy. Having shared his story of a successful tame, he was now running a segment on his blog devoted to the success stories of other hunter's long awaited tames. These stories were disheartening, and yet hopeful in many ways, however time after time I returned to Sholazar Basin only to be let down. My Loque hunting was reduced to the occasional fly-by when I was in the area and little more.

All of that changed one evening when I was reading yet more success stories and I found myself suddenly inspired to log in and fly over to Sholazar Basin for just one fly-round, just to try my luck. I began my circuit near the undead area, pausing briefly over each area to check the Track Beast dots on my mini-map for the elusive Spirit Beast. As I flew over my second check point I nearly had a heart attack. Right before me, casually strolling around amongst the gorillas, was my Loque. As I plummeted down to the ground I filled my guild chat with "ARGH!!!" and other similar exclamations. Hands shaking, I barely managed to dismount, target him and find my tame button, eyes flickering between my surroundings for any other hunters or general jerks, and my taming cast bar.

As the successful tame flash appeared around my new companion, I found myself breathing in for what felt like the first time since I had first spotted him. After so many unsuccessful circuits, seeing so many others with him by their side and reading so many stories from others he was finally mine.

After fighting by my side for the first time, he earned the name "Raiden," named after the Japanese god of Thunder, reflected in rolling growls and blinding flashes of his special attack.

Since his taming so long ago he has been my most steadfast and loyal companion. Together we have quested, explored, PVP'd and raided, accompanied by the sound of the thunderstorm has followed us everywhere.

And together we shall ride the storm into the Mists of Pandaria.

A Knitted Interlude

As I mentioned in my first post I also want to use this blog to share some knitting, so here goes it.

I've only been knitting for about a year now. Mostly I've just knitted a few scarves and several pairs of gloves. (with misc works in progress lying around) I have been enjoying knitting immensely, it gives me something to do when watching TV, reading, or on the train to and from work. I even knit while flying between dig sites in Warcraft :)

One of my latest finished projects are these "bandana" baby bibs. (Currently in the process of drying after blocking)

A warcraft friend just had a little girl. I thought some little bibs might make a nice, practical gift for her. And they look so cute!

Stable Call

Having recently discovered the very nice way that many of the lovely folks from the Petopia Forums share their stables, I made my very own to share.

Grid layout courtesy of Vephriel

This is my current stable setup prior to Mists of Pandaria. With the three spots remaining I hope to also tame an up-and-coming goat, as well as any possible spirit beasts which may catch my eye.

Looking at my stable I am sad to admit that I don't use very many of these pets. While in many ways having 25 stable slots was a good thing, I also find that I collected a lot of my pets, simply for the sake of having a pretty or unique pet - not unlike collecting sea shells and/or pretty rocks. Being a raider has played some part in this, being obligated to bring your max dps pet to all fights gives little opportunity to enjoy all your pets regardless of what abilities they have. However with the new pet talent design coming in Mists, I'll hopefully be able to give some of my more neglected pets a little more one on one time.

It's my intention to share some stories about why I have picked certain pets/pet skins and more importantly, why their particular names. Names are very important to me when it comes to pets. It always makes me sad to see a hunter who hasn't named their pet (especially if a see them over a course of time and their poor pet never gets named) Some of my pets names are references to characters of books or shows that I am fond of, others have meanings which I feel fit the individuals. I think that a name has to fit just right, or your pet never feels right.

I can't decide what I like more. Taming pets, or naming pets.

The First

(I wasn't going to put up three posts in one day, but I wanted to get some groundwork down - that and I got a bit excited about getting started *blush*)

The first pet Dali tamed was a ravager. He lasted right up to the point where I encountered my first cat.

I had owned this particular skin on one of my original hunters, and knew I had to get him again. He was nothing fancy, just the stock standard Night Elf starting area cat, but together "Mightypaws" and I wrecked havoc upon whichever unsuspecting bad guys we got pointed in the general direction of. It was not long after entering Stranglethorn Vale however when I encountered:
 

The Shadowmaw Panthers. I feel in love with the sleek glossy black skin, and the fact that they came with Stealth (if my memory serves me) was just an added bonus. After much deliberation I decided it was time to let Mightypaws return to his home of Teldrassil and find myself a new companion, one who might find himself better suited to long travel and bloodthirsty battle. It was then that I learnt one of the most important things you need to know when you are a hunter.

You cannot tame pets which are a higher level then yourself.

There was a gap of a least two levels between myself (now petless) and my desired pet. In fact, all of the versions of this skin, were a higher level then myself. You could perhaps hear my wail of despair several zones away. After a brief stint with a trash pet, I returned to once again claim an elusive Shadowmaw Panther as my own. Who make me work for my tame by being extremely difficult to find. At the time these panthers were stealthed around the zone, and they all varied in levels. I can imagine I might have looked a bit strange to any onlookers, running aimlessly around the base of trees waiting for large black panthers to leap out at me so I could check their level, then running away when they were to high to tame. (If I were a better artist I would draw a picture, instead just try picture a draenei creeping around calling "here kitty, nice kitty" then running away yelling while waving her arms in the air)

Finally I found the right one, and "Greebo" (named after Nanny Ogg's bad tempered mean old cat in the discworld novels) joined me on my continued journey.

It was some time before Greebo (the nasty biting little demon he was) was encouraged to retire to the stables in exchange for a younger, perhaps less volatile companion.

Viggo (the destructor) inspired by the bad guy in Ghostbusters 2, and each time I spoke his name aloud it was in a drawn out "spooky voice" (Veeee-goh) with a squinty eyes and shoulder hunching. This was occasionally accompanied with evil laughs.
Viggo has stayed with me ever since, though he has spent increasingly more time in the stables of late, he is still one of my favourite pets. Whom I doubt I could release after all this time. Though he has changed somewhat over time, especially notable after a long term stable stint during Wrath when I went to retrieve him to discover that he had someone aquired black stripes. My first thought was "Viggo has evolved!" Either that or kids are breaking into my stables and painting my pets while they are sleeping. It wasn't long after that (which happened to coincide with a brief trip to Winterspring *shifty eyes*) that he returned to his former pure white beauty. Now Viggo has grown past his youth and sports a little extra colouring on his coat waiting patiently for the day I require his assistance once more.

(As a note for future posts - I am not much of a roleplayer, I am however a bit of a storyteller (or so I like to think). So my posts will be a combination of my personal reflections and opinions, with a character mindset spin. - If that makes any sense. It probably doesn't. Also please forgive any lousy grammar and sentence structure. It's been a long time since I've written anything. Another reason for deciding to start this blog.)

The Beginning

Like many others, I began playing Warcraft because I knew someone else who played. In my case, it was my older brothers. I dabbled around for a while, but no character I created made it past level 30. It wasn't until I moved out of home and into the city when I got the time and the opportunity to really start getting into the game.

It was just after the Burning Crusade came out and my brother let me create a new character on his account to play while he was at work/sleeping. Dalianza the Draenei hunter was born. When I got my own account for my birthday six months later, she moved over with me. Alts have come and gone but one thing stays the same and that is Dalianza, the character who became my main and has been my main for a very, very long time.

Hunters were (and still are) well suited to my play style. I can be bit of a social reject, so having a character with which there was little I couldn't do by myself was well suited to me. Just me and my cat, killing anything that moved and enjoying myself immensely in the process. Coming from a "gamer" family, having played a fair amount of Warcraft 3, as well as lots of turn based strategy games, I fortunately had a basic understanding about what stats were important for me to do well (though I'm sure I had more than my fair share of unfortunate gear mishaps), as well as a pretty good idea about how hunters worked.
 
It wasn't until I hit the level cap when I became I lot more involved in the game than I ever had before. I entered my first instance (I say first, my FIRST first instance had been way back when I started playing and was a very bad experience) but even then it was only with my brother and several of his friends. Not long after that I had my first raid with the aforementioned group plus others they knew, and ever since then I have been what I consider a "casual-core raider" Perhaps raiding a bit more often then your regular casual groups, but still having plenty of time to enjoy the game (with the exception being when 10 and 25man TotC came out, so many runs, on so many characters, for so long.... bwargh)

With the long lull between Cata and Mists, my raiding guild has all but disappeared, so these days I find myself completing those few achievements and rep grinds that I never could quite bring myself to do. I just completed 100 Mounts and ground out the last of my Netherwing Rep.

It's interesting to see how far one person can come in a game like this. When I started I never interacted with anyone I didn't know, didn't go anywhere near the auction house, couldn't level a profession past 100, played with the bare bones UI + minor misc CTMods, never researched anything and didn't even explore too far (because getting your face eaten by a mob you can't even see the level of is a little off-putting). Now I am partial raider, a hunter pet nut, a mod/add-on fanatic, and spend a significant portion of my time when not playing the game, reading the blogs and websites of others who do play.

I often look fondly back on the way I played before and often wish I could bring back both my ignorance and the sheer wonder and awe with which I once viewed the game. So much is taken for granted by long term players of this game (myself included) these days.

My goal for Mists of Pandaria will be to try view it with a mindset not unlike I once had way back when - to play for the sake of playing without a higher goal other then "I'm going to explore what's over here..."

Because it's been way too long since I've had a random high level mob eat my face without warning.  

Why am I here?

In short, this is my place to recount the stories of how I become the hunter I am today. 

I wanted to record some of the tales I have accumulated from my years of playing Warcraft. To share what I love about the game, and the occasional vent and if others get some enjoyment out of them, then all the better.

I also intend to throw in a little bit of library and knitting related rambles along the way. Hence the title "Tame, Knit, Read, Repeat. After all, it's what I do.