Taming Mists: Savage

With the announcement of the new hunter rare pet system and tracking "challenge" I only really found myself looking forward to one of the pets available from the start and that was Stompy - the grey goat.

However, I can't resist a challenge - that was the reason why I tamed Ban'thalos, and the reason I tamed Deth'tilac. While I had no burning desire prior to coming across them in the wild to tame, once I saw them there I couldn't resist, now they are two of my preferred pets. The same thing happened today with Savage.

Running around the Jade Forest, intending to explore my last uncovered area, I came across the Bloody Tracks.

For those who haven't been following the Mists information, there is now a new way to tame hunter specific rare pets. In the previous expansion, these pets only dropped useless items - however they were often still killed by other players, generally to upset hunters. With Mists, hunter only beasts are invisible to everybody, the only sign that they are in the area are tracks visible on the ground which only hunters can see. Hunters need to follow the tracks (backwards oddly enough) until they can see the tracks appearing before their very eyes, then they use the hunter ability "Flare" in the next estimated location of the pet in order to expose them - then you tame away! (For more details go and see Kalliope over at her blog, she's got some wondeful video guides for each new hunter only pet)

Now that everyone is up to speed, back to the story.

I admit seeing so many successful Savage tame stories today and getting a few good looks of his skin in the game environment made me more inclined to tame him, however I wasn't going to go out of my way to get him. I have limited stable slots left and already had two cats in my stable. As always though, plans change.

After coming across his tracks I decided to give following him a shot, after all - I would need the practise for tracking and taming Stompy when the time came. I guess I got really lucky because I only had to follow his tracks around (and I mean around, I found myself running in circles trying to locate the next one) for about 10 minutes or so before I finally managed to flare him out and tame him for my very own!

Unfortunately to get him I had to temporarily release Ryker, my orange and purple riding skin raptor that I recently got from Drak'Tharon Keep, whom I have fallen in love with (despite having never really "clicked" with the raptor models before). So looks like I will be making a trip out to Drak'Tharon again very soon.

I also decided to release Nathaniel - one of my cat skins. He hasn't seen as much play time as he used to, so Savage will take his place as my alternate cat for now.

The hardest thing to do now, is to name him. I am torn between giving him a brand new name, or considering transitioning Viggo into another new skin - thus leaving myself with one cat.

Despite my initial lack of interest in Savage, I will admit that he is a beautiful cat, and I am very happy to have found and tamed him :)

Happy Hunting!

Looking back on Cataclysm.

Cataclysm has been an interesting expansion. I thought I might sit down and briefly reflect on the patch that was and what I enjoyed and didn't enjoy.

The Good

The Raids: I quite liked the raids in this patch, many of the mechanics were interesting and while my guild rarely completed them before the next one came out, I did get to experience more then enough.

Archaeology: Initially I didn't like archaeology, but with time it really grew on me, I still haven't got a lot of the rares from Cata, so I hope to work on them some more over time.

Transmogrification: I LOVE this feature. Being able to change the appearance of your gear is a lot of fun, and it was nice to be able to make yourself a little more unique rather then just being yet another hunter in the latest tier gear.

LFR: I didn't use it much, but with looking to change my playstyle a little (breaking away from a lot of guild orientated raiding) I am looking forward to raiding when I want to, if only just to try it out.

Challenge Tames: I didn't try for many, but I did enjoy the ones I did get (Bantha'los and Deth'tilac)

The Bad

I didn't do as much overall during this one as others, my fear of pugs reached an all time high and barely ran any dungeons without people I knew.

Too much downtime: The break between the last major patch and the pre-patch for Mists really was a bit too long. While I did get some achievements and similar things done, really I spent way too much time paying for a game I wasn't really playing.

Fire: I am so sick of seeing things on fire, or lava, or lava with fire in it.

Vash'jir: I couldn't stand this zone, I plan only to enter it again to complete all the quests there for loremaster, then never again.

Looking forward

I am really looking forward to Mists. I am planning on taking my time and really enjoying the expansion in my own time - previously I have felt obligated to rush levelling to get ready for raiding etc.

Pandaria looks amazing, so I am hoping to really take it all in without ignoring all of it in favour of speedy levelling.

There looks like there is going to be so much to do in the new expac, so I am getting pretty excited about the whole thing =D

Happy Hunting!

My First Mount (or, why you should never challenge siblings)

Like many others who are new to the game one of the first things I was looking forward to was getting my first mount. This was dampened slightly when I started Dali and saw that the Draenei mount was the Elekk. I was rather... unimpressed. As I got closer to level 40, I set about researching my alternatives, luckily I discovered that I could get mounts from other factions if I was Exalted with them. My favourite faction mounts were the Saber Cats, so I decided that I was going to get myself exalted with Darnassus, before even reaching level 40, so that I could start my hunter on a Saber cat from the very start. 

When I informed my older brother of my great plan - to hit exalted with Darnassus by the time I reached level 40 so I would never have to ride an Elekk, he laughed and informed me that if I managed to hit exalted with a faction by the time I hit 40, he would pay for both my mount AND my riding training.(being still new to the game, I was hopeless at making money, I don't think I went anywhere near the auction house until AFTER I hit level 70).

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Thus I set about on my first reputation grind. Slowly but surely I made my way through each and every night elf area that I knew of, when I ran out of areas I knew, I took to the internet. Thotbott was a big help to me at the time, being able to sort quests by the reputation gains you got from completing them helped me immensely. I was just over level 30 so when I ran out of Night Elf areas I could access, I resumed levelling for a short while, so I could access even more NE quest givers. During my research for grinding rep I learnt about roll-over rep, where rep gains for one faction rolled over into "linked" factions. In this case, all the Alliance areas were linked, so when I ran out of Darnassus quests to do, I started on Stormwind quests beginning the whole process again - clearing out human area after human area) I started also farming cloth for the repeatable reputation hand-ins that were available for each faction.

It took a lot of work, but in the end I hit level 40, and exalted with Darnassus in the same day. My brother (who I like to think was somewhat impressed with my determination) handed over the gold and watched me proudly buy my new Saber cat. It wasn't long after that when I hit exalted with Stormwind and managed to scrape together the gold to buy a horse as well (even if Draenei did look a little silly on horses - better a silly horse then an elekk any day)

I have to say of all the achievements I have managed in Warcraft, this one - getting exalted with a different faction well before the "normal" time (and proving my brother wrong) was one of my greatest. Getting that first mount was amazing, and what made it even better to me was how hard I worked to get it. It was a great feeling, summoning my Saber for the first time and riding around knowing how much time and effort and research I poured into making it happen.

Now my main has over a hundred mounts, and with the introduction of the latest patch, majority of my alts have over a hundred mounts too.

It makes me a little sad that now getting your first mount on other toons is an expectation. It's not something that as a seasoned player you consider important or special - not having one is a hindrance, and then when you do get one, you spend most of your time complaining about how slow 60% speed is, and later, how not being able to fly is a pain in the rear.

It's not too often anymore where I go through what I would consider undertaking an "epic" grind like this one (though farming for my talbuks comes in a close second.) It's thinking about this feeling of losing that epic-ness that usually triggers me going on and on about how my perception of the game has changed since I started playing, however I think I might leave that for another post.

Your first big in-game achievement is always special. I know I will remember this one for a long time to come, and there are few other things I've done in-game which will come even close to what this one meant to me.

Also, my brother has never again bet money on me being able to do or not do something again, so it's lucky I eventually learnt how to make my own gold XD (though I have had to get him to throw me a loan on more then one occasion).

(This picture is not directly releveant to this story... but I also have matching dragonhawks!)

Happy Hunting!

A Knitted Interlude 2

Lately I have been looking for something new to knit that would be interesting, fun and something to help me learn new things or practise new techniques. After some searching on Ravelry I found these:

TINY OWLS!!

Owl Puffs designed by Jenna Krupar

These have been a lot of fun to do. They use knitting in the round (specifically in my case, magic loop knitting) and I had to learn how to do Kitchener Stitch for finishing them off. Spotlight were having a sale on some yarns and I had a gift voucher with some money left on it from earlier in the year so I was able to pick up all my supplies really cheap.

I've been having an absolute ball making them (though they are a little bit fiddly at times) and I feel each time I make one, I get a little bit better at it. I also plan on decorating some - I can get tiny glasses from Spotlight, and well as tiny hats (even possibly... a tiny top hat *evil laugh*)

And soon, I shall have an army of tiny owls which shall help me CONQUER THE WORLD.

I mean...

I'm planing on giving them away as gifts to family and friends, but no doubt I will keep way too many for myself. 

New Look

Though this blog is still young I decided to change it's appearance a bit to better go with my new banner (picture of my Loque'nahak pet, Raiden courtesy of LupisDarkmoon over at the petopia forums - she made him look so good!!!) as well as to better suit the theme of my blog overall!

I've been a bit quiet lately due to dog-sitting, (meaning I don't have access to my PC and I prefer to write there, instead of on my laptop) I should have some new stories coming in soon though!

I have been busy in game getting a few achievements completed before Mists comes out next week.In the past weekend I managed to complete 40 Exalted Reputations, Diggerest, It Belongs in a Museum! and a few other miscellaneous Archaeology achievements along the way. I'm probably going to start working on polishing off my Keepers of Time rep next for The Burning Crusader. I also discovered that with the introduction of account-wide achievements, I only need three more for Glory of the Hero so that's on the list too.

When working on some dungeons in Northrend, I found an amusing side effect of the new hunter talent Blink Strike, in that if you are attacking a target that is flying, and use that ability there is a high chance that your pet will teleport to the target, then stand and fight in mid air.

It's Miranda, the amazing flying Rhino!

I spent way too much time in Occulus trying to get decent screenshots of it, and probably enjoying myself a bit too much in the process.
 

Happy Hunting!

Random Pet Challenge

On the petopia forums they have a Random Pet Challenge. You give one of the forum regulars (TygerDarkstorm) your toon name, level, and if you would like any exotics or if you have any pets you don't like/want, and they will then give you a random pet to tame and report back on. For this it's suggested that you do a variety of tasks with the pet and closely examine details about it that you might not normally pay attention to normally. It was a lot of fun.

I figured as might as well post this here, as well as on the petopia forums just for fun :)

Random Pet Challenge (undertaken on my level 82 hunter alt Laetificat)

Pet I was given: Wind Serpent (Green)
I went and tamed one of the Wind Serpents from just outside Wailing Caverns. 

Name I gave him: 
Malachite

Model:
The model is really very smooth. Unlike some other older models all the various parts fit together well. One of the first things I noticed about Mal where his colours. I really love the colours and patterns on this model. The variations on the scales look really good. My only complaints were the "feathers" on the wings of the model look a lot more like skin, lacking the details of feathers on some other models, and his face looked a bit... off. The eye looks fine, but he appears to have a slightly concerned leer, which was a little disturbing when I look back at the screenshots. From the back his crest was also noticeably 2D, whereas from other angles it was a lot more fleshed out - once again though, I was under the impression that the crest was also supposed to be feathers, which was a little hard to believe.

His wings also looked a little bit too small, but that might just be me.

Animations:
Idle: Mal didn't really have an idle animation aside from the flapping in place that they do. Animations are not as smooth as they perhaps could be, it tends to "kick" suddenly at points which is a little bit annoying considering you expect it to a be a bit smoother (not unlike a snake really). In motion the kick isn't as noticeable, but it gives an impression of being very taxing for him to fly along. When you are mounted and he follows, the fast fly looks a bit silly.

I have a dragonhawk on my main and the flying/idle animations look so much smoother and well rounded then the ones on the Wind Serpent. Dragonhawks look almost elegant, compared to Wind Serpents who give the overall impression of struggling to stay airborne most of the time. An idle animation of them resting on the ground similar to the snake models would be nice. 

What I did love animation wise though where his swimming and idle in water animations. When idle in water he paddled with his wings with his head just above the water. When in motion in water he folds his wings in and slithers, which is one of his best animations, it really is lovely to watch.

 I didn't get any good shots of Mal swimming with me, I'm currently using my laptop so I can't swim, swivel the camera and take screenshots at the same time (have to press two buttons on seperate sides of the keyboard at once to take screenshots unfortunately)

When fighting he has two animations - a bite/lunge and a tail lash. The tail whip looks quite good, he raises himself higher in the air using his wings and swipes his tail forwards. The bite/lunge he lunges forwards slightly and bites (a bit obvious, but there you go)

Sounds:
Mal didn't really make too much noise, especially compared to some other pet types (Raiden, I'm looking at you boy). In combat he made the usual snake hisses and snarls, but aside from that there was little other noise. Out of combat the only sound he appears to make is the wing flap noise

Abilities:
His main special attack is a debuff which causes the target to take extra damage from magic for 45s. This is pretty useless to a hunter, but could be beneficial in raids/pvp if you have a lot of casters and don't need to bring another type of buff for the raid.

All in all, I didn't mind having Mal around, so I think I will keep him for the time being. If only to get him out and take him swimming with me :)

Malachite saw what you did there.

Please tell me you saw that!

Time for another long post where I talk way too much in order to make a minor point! Huzzah! (if anyone asks I'm trying to improve my writing skills - true story)

I'm not an extraordinary player, I'll comfortably admit that. I tend to have issues with severe tunnel vision, the occasional zone-out moment in the middle of fights, and a high chance of button mashing when under stress.

I have watched a lot of warcraft videos where hunters (and other classes as well) have pulled off astounding moves that I could have never comprehended, things which make me "I wish I could do something like that."

I have also had a few of those moments where I have managed to pull of one of those aforementioned astounding moves by pure coincidence and must live with the knowledge that I will never be able to do it again, and all I can do is hope that someone else saw me do it. The most memorable of these moments for me was back in Wrath of the Lich King, during the Anub'arak fight, of the Trial of the Crusader raid.

First, some background information. Basically the Anub'arak fight consisted of several phases (and I'm not trying to be very accurate or detailed here so some information might not be exactly as it was at the time). The 1st phase was effectively a tank and spank fight, however, one raid member was required to shoot down ice orbs which would leave icy patches on the ground. These icy patches were needed for the 2nd phase where Anub'arak would burrow underground, being replaced by adds. The adds needed to be tanked on top of the icy patches to prevent them from also burrowing underground and causing general chaos. Also during this phase, Anub would move around underground creating a large (and very painful) trail of spikes which would target and chase players, getting faster and faster each second. If he caught a player, they would take a large chunk of damage and get thrown in the air, landing once more on the spikes. Not a very nice way to go. The only way to stop him in this phase was the run over an icy patch, which would cause him to get stuck momentarily, then pick a new target and resume chasing. After about a minute this phase would end and you would go back to phase 1 and so on and so forth until his health was low enough to enter the last phase.

During raids with my guild I tend to be the all round handy-man sort of player and as a result often get picked to do the perhaps less exciting work. This is in part due to most of the people I raid with having roughly the same co-ordination and raid awareness as a blind, three-legged dog - the enthusiasm is there for sure, but things never quite go the way they're supposed to. My guild leader knew that I could both understand and follow instructions without him needing to repeat himself or remind me of what I was supposed to be doing each time. It was pretty much "Dali, do this" and I say "okay!" and do it.

During the Anub fight, I was mostly on ice patch duty. Shooting down the ice orbs in the appropriate places and monitoring them throughout the fight to ensure there are enough down in the right places at the right times. I quite enjoyed this - while I didn't get to take part in the bulk of the first phase fighting, I knew that the job needed to be done and I was someone who could do it well (and had a high enough single shot damage output to do it quickly as well).

During one of those fights, in the second phase, I found myself being the sudden target of Anub. The only problem with this being that Anub was between me and the ice patches I had just shot down and there were no orbs nearby to save myself. My only choice was the turn around and run back the other way and hope that I could find some way to save myself.

With Anub right on my tail I spot it, a single icy orb, but the chances of being able to shoot down an orb, have it fall to ground and then run across it (with the 80% speed reduction debuff that they gave you) before Anub caught me, were pretty slim. In a blind moment of panic I relied solely on my hunter instincts to guide the way.

I ran towards the orb,
I shot it down,
I spun on the spot,
and I disengaged - right over the icy patch, just before Anub caught me, landing safely on the other side and catching Anub in the patch, making him reset his target.

Now this may not seem all that extraordinary, but I could count the number of times I had used disengage on one hand, and most of those times it was in a panic or by accident and generally wound up with me disengaging off a cliff and meeting an unfortunate (yet slightly hilarious) end.

I remember standing on the other side of the icy patch watching him start chasing someone else, heart racing from my earlier panic thinking, "Did I actually just do that?" Next thing over vent I hear the raid leader, "I saw you do that, Dali, that was awesome." Once the boss was dead cue me running out of my room and into the lounge where my brother (also in the raid) was playing. "DID YOU SEE ME! DID YOU SEE ME DO THAT?! THAT WAS AMAZING! I AM THE GREATEST HUNTER ALIVE!!!" With a gratuitous amount of me telling him exactly what I did in great detail. (What can I say, I get easily excited about little things)

NEVER AGAIN have I been able to use disengage like that since. I have tried and tried, but alas to no avail. On the other hand, I have used disengage a lot more often ever since.

And I almost never disengage off of cliffs anymore.

Almost never.

If anyone has any similar stories I'd love to hear them, what is YOUR greatest accidental hunter (any any other class) move that you have never been able to repeat?

Happy Hunting!

My World of Warcraft Devices

Working in libraries, using a computer frequently, as well as recently taking up knitting, I live in constant fear of getting a RSI. The slightest twinge in my wrist and I begin to envision all manner of horrors.It didn't help that one of my lecturers during my library studies course had previously suffered from severe Carpal Tunnel, mostly caused by her work in libraries, which took her out of work for 5 years .I have never seen an entire class of people look so horrified.

When I started raiding a lot more frequently I found that within an hour or two of playing, I started getting pain in my mouse-hand wrist. While it went away when I stopped using it for short periods of time, I knew I shouldn't really push my luck, even if it was only while using the computer long term, so I started researching things I could do to help reduce my discomfort. After some searching I came across Trackballs. Trackballs are a type of mouse which allow you to control the cursor using a ball located on the top of the device instead of moving the mouse itself to control it. My mind made up, I brought myself my first trackball mouse, the Logitech Trackman Marble.

TADA!

 

Not the most attractive device out there, but it did reduce my wrist pain to nothing. 

However, after so many years of using a regular mouse, learning to use a trackball requires... patience. Trying to learn to use it while playing Warcraft, was... interesting to say the least.

One of my biggest problems with using the trackball was the lack of accuracy and precision. To move the cursor over the whole screen easily (without having the constantly scroll), I had to really boost the speed and travel distance of the cursor in the settings, which meant having to learn how to pull off fast scrolls and sudden stops. In Warcraft, keybinding has never been one of my strong points, so my main action buttons (attacks) are bound as standard (numbers 1-0) and all other buttons I used, I would click with the mouse, as a result my reaction time took a bit of a hit for a while while I adjusted to the new mouse.

Another problem I had was the reduction in buttons, I had previously used a standard logitech "gaming" mouse, so I found myself missing a few buttons that I took for granted. Missing a scroll button was the most noticeable. You don't realise how much you miss a scroll button until you don't have one. I never knew how much I zoomed until I had to rebind it to my keyboard.

One of major in-game issues I had with the trackball I discovered when taming new pets. When it comes to rare spawn pets, I get pretty worked up while taming them, to the point where I get the "taming shakes." This was never too much of an issue until I got the trackball and I discovered that it is extraordinarily difficult to use a trackball when your hands won't stop shaking. This was evident during my attempt to tame Ban'thalos, a hard enough tame, without the added stress of not being able to physically use my mouse to click on anything. I would up having to move all my needed buttons - mount/dismount, arcane shot, disengage, and my tame macro, in order along my main action buttons just so I could select what I needed it, when I needed it. Instead of dragging half my buttons around my UI, or missing entirely. I managed the tame in the end, but the next time I tamed a rare-spawn I had to do my best to suppress my shakes until after I finished the tame (It still took me two tries to click the right buttons - bwargh)

While I adapted to using the trackball soon enough, I found myself still lacking slightly when it came to on the spot in-game reactions. To compensate I got my next piece of technology. The Logitech G13 Gameboard.

With this I began playing around with keybinding a bit more. Moving my main action buttons, along with most of my short cooldown abilities and frequently used abilities to the gameboard. The gameboard is a really nifty little device which is fully customisable with a variety of profiles which you can set yourself. I use it for playing both Warcraft and Skyrim. I will admit that I do not use it to its full capabilities. I tend to only use it on my main when I am raiding and the buttons are not bound as elegantly as they could be (my Skyrim controls are set up nicer and I get awfully confused when switching between the two profiles/games) I am hoping with Mists I will be able to train myself to use it full time and rebind my Warcraft controls a little better so I can have both my action buttons and my movements all on the board. (At the moment I have abilities and strafe on the board, and all movements with the mouse)

With this and the trackball I improved my in game-performance and reduced my wrist pain considerably. It was a bit of a learning curve adjusting to both of them, but I find I can't play to my full capabilities without them anymore.

I also found that once you use a trackball as your primary mouse, going back to regular computer mice is weird. I've spent a lot of time at work running my fingers/thumb over the top of a mouse and wondering why the cursor doesn't move. XD  

I would definitely recommend a trackball to anybody who notices that they get wrist pain/twinges when using a computer long term, and are looking for a simple preventative solution for gaming or otherwise. While you do lose a little bit of control, adjusting doesn't take too long if you put in the time and the difference it made physically was really noticeable. For me the trackball/gameboard combo works well for my playstyle, but having said that if you use a full gaming mouse, the trackball would probably be a massive downgrade.

I recently got a new trackball with a slightly different design from the original, looking and and acting more like a regular mouse.(The Logitech Trackman M570) It also has more buttons! Including a scroll and an extra button on top which I now have my random mount button bound to (which is very nice let me tell you, before the patch I was able to do all my archaeology using only my mouse).

New trackball, now with 100% more scroll button then the last one.

Its also wireless, which is awesome for using my computer from my armchair - all I have to move around is my screen! Of course, I had to learn how to use a trackball all over again, which has caused no short amount of cries of frustration, but we'll get there in the end. I just have to keep reminding myself that I've done it before, surely I can do it again.

And I wrote all that effectively just the share the story about how difficult it was to attempt taming rare-spawns with a trackball mouse - Boy am I good at much to much detail for very little reason :)

Happy Hunting!

Learning how to Hunter: Part One

When I hit level 70 and started taking part in more dungeons and raids, I quickly began to realise that my regular play style wasn't really suitable anymore, especially with the emphasis in BC dungeons being placed on Crowd Control.

When I took part in my first ever real dungeon group (fortunately with some guildies) I got asked to  trap something, and after a miserable attempt to manage this (I got the mob trapped... about 2 seconds before everything else was dead and the tank pulled it) I realised that I had quite a few vital things to learn about being a true hunter and I needed to learn them very quickly if I intended to continue to take part in these sort of things.

So I began looking at researching my class properly. Just having a glance around at a few resources for specific things wasn't good enough. I needed to really focus on making myself a better player all round. So I found myself turning to one of the pillars of hunter society, BigRedKitty.

BigRedKitty was one of THE hunter bloggers of the time. His blog was hilarious, informative and interesting. It was entirely thanks to him, that I became the hunter I am today, and it was a sad day when he announced he was leaving Warcraft, and blogging about Warcraft for the foreseeable future. He taught me about shot rotations, stat priorities, raiding and dungeoning, hunting for rare-spawns and all manner of other hunter skills and tricks.

One of the most important things I ever learnt from BigRedKitty, that I have never forgotten, was how to chain trap. (I also learnt that "hunters are the superior class, foshizzle"as he would say, but that's irrelevant for now)

Long before trap launcher (but after the dreaded feign-trapping skill that so many vanilla hunters had to learn) there was chain trapping. The art of taking your target away from the group and keeping it trapped for a long as you possibly could.

With BigRedKitty's guide to chain trapping at hand, I wandered around the lengths of Arathi Highlands slowly but surely, pulling raptor after raptor into freezing traps until I pull one raptor into at least 2-3 traps in a row. When the time came once more to enter a dungeon, and the announcement of "Dali, trap the square" came over party chat, I found myself putting my new found skills to the test.

There have been only a few times during my years of playing Warcraft where I have felt such a sense of achievement as when I managed to pull of a successful chain trap in a dungeon for the first time, and subsequent times as well. Chain trapping became of my favourite things to do as a hunter in a dungeon - I had a greater purpose then just dpsing. I was bringing something else, a skill that not everyone could do, which was highly valued in groups. I will admit I got incredibly jealous when we had a mage in the group cause they would often get CC priority over myself. But you win some, you lose some.

I was rather disheartened when Wrath came out and chain trapping (or indeed any CC) was not essential anymore. While some groups still asked for it, over time it became a dying skill, and by the time Cataclysm came out and the trap launcher was released it was rarely done anymore.

I feel that Chain Trapping was one of those skills which really defined being a hunter. Being able to go into a group and chain trap without hesitation was a great feeling, even more so when it was acknowledged by others in the group as a job well done. These days I sometimes feel like there are no more of these defining skills which made you take your class and their abilities seriously, where what you can bring to a group is an expectation and not something that you can take pride in, knowing that you poured time and effort into learning something, and you can see the result right there in front of you.

As corny as it may sound, the day I successfully chain trapped in a dungeon for the first time, was the day I strated to feel like a true hunter. 

Ah nostalgia :)

Happy Hunting!

Things I am enjoying about Patch 5.0.4

1. All mounts, all the time! 
I'm getting a real kick out of having all my mounts on all my toons. Especially since I recently completed grinding out my Netherwing Rep (finally!) AND got my 100 mounts achievement. I also had a few rare mounts on alts I don't play very often that I wanted on my main, so now she has them too! (Hello Brewfest Ram and Kodo!)
What I love about it even more is that because it is battle.net account wide, my secondary account gets all the mounts too. So my hunter on my secondary account now has more than a horse and a griffin to ride. Huzzah!

2. AOE Looting
Enough said.

3. Any pet I want at any time.
Being able to change the spec of my pets is nice. It means I can use whichever of my pets I want to use without having to feel like I am not doing as much damage as I should be. While this isn't really an issue at the moment since I am neither raiding, nor running dungeons. It is nice to know that I can pull any pet out and have them be dps set with a click of a button. Independent special abilities aside. I hope this will encourage me to use a lot more of my pets more often and form better bonds with each of them. I feel like I have my 1-4 go to pets for each situation and that's it. Of course, now I have to decide who I feel like taking out today...

4. Having a real choice
I am really enjoying the new talent system. Having the ability to choose which talents/abilities I want is wonderful. No right or wrong choices, just what I think suits me and my current play style. I've heard a lot of people say that they don't like the new system, but I personally think it's a good change. Different - but good. 

4. No minimum range
While it doesn't feel quite hunter-ish, being able to attack things up close (and actually do significant damage) is very nice. Even if I do still automatically back up or strafe aside when something comes into range.

5. More dig for your sites
You can now get more artifact digs out of a dig site for Archaeology. I'm still a bit undecided about this one since even though I get more artifacts per site (which is nice), it makes trying to get a certain artifact type digsite appear take a lot longer. (I only needed 1 more fossil fragment for my pterodaxx mini-pet, could I get a fossil digsite? Sure, about 2 hours later. *headdesk*)

6. Trap launcher being an aura-type ability
This is quite cool, now you can effectively "toggle" trap launcher on, and it will stay on, allowing you to launch traps at anytime. And it doesn't need to be refreshed after launching a trap. 

Things I am not enjoying about Patch 5.0.4
Mods being broken and then discovering that some of them haven't been updated in about a year :( While I love looking for new mods, I'm rather attached to some of the ones I have, having to find replacements - especially for the little, more unusual, aesthetic only ones, is frustrating. *sigh*