Features I like(d)

I like some random, inane stuff.  Tiny cute things.  Anything green.  Completely extraneous Easter-egg stuff.  So over the course of WoW there's been a lot of random stuff I've like from each expansion, regardless of whether there were other things that drove me batty (like gated profession stuff and losing both ships on a 92% mission fail).

But this is about stuff I like, so here's some of them:

Fished up bosses.  The first of these (as far as I know) was Gahz'ranka in the original Zul'Gurub.  Unlike later fished up bosses, like the Lurker Below and the Pandaria fishing quest bosses, Gahz'ranka required a process to fish up.  This is also why I was a bit irritated about Nat Pagle forgetting who I was every expansion - he taught me 225-300 fishing skill.  But yeah, I liked that having done what a lot of people hadn't in Vanilla (maxing fishing) was useful for something besides obscure food.

Yes, I still have my Mudskunk Lures.

Long quest chains with both strong emotional payoff and decent equipment rewards.  The Major Windsor escort through Stormwind (and Bolvar's subsequent badassery).  The Cipher of Damnation (Burning Crusade edition).  Alas, Andorhal.  The Battle of Darrowshire.  Drakkuru.  Zul'Drak's troll gods quests.  Terokk's story in Spires of Arak.  When I specifically seek out these zones to quest through again, it means they're doing something right.

Zapthrottle.  So I'm still carrying around my mote extractor.  As an engineer, I loved suddenly having resources that only I could gather.  I may have occasionally frustrated people by being en route to some group thing and getting distracted chasing down balls of gas.  It was worse than ore tracking.

Floating islands in Nagrand.  They're so full of Easter eggs, and they were fun to go hang out on if you had to afk for a bit.

Water with currents.  After how many years of waterfalls and such, Pandaria finally gave us water that would pull us around!  I especially liked the currents off the southern coast of the Dread Wastes.

Phasing that lets us change zones over time.  One of the things I was a bit sad about until phasing went in was that, no matter what we did in WoW, nothing changed.  You go help someone out and as soon as you leave, it all resets.  But in Mount Hyjal, we helped beat back the Twilight's Hammer and start the healing of the fire-scorched areas.  In Pandaria, we contributed to the devastation of some of their pristine areas.  In Deepholm, we repair the World Pillar.  And Gilneas!  Oh, Gilneas.  One of the things that impressed me most in the Cataclysm beta, playing through Gilneas for the first time, was that the moment of the cataclysm itself - so bluntly shown in Kezan as Deathwing disrupts a sports game - you feel it when the devastation hits, and your village begins sinking into the ocean.  It was visceral and amazing.

So, uh, sorry, west coast of North America.  It's going to be devastating when you fall into the Pacific, but it's going to be amazing for your narrative.

Tol Barad.  I liked that some PVP opened up some basically PVE daily quests with mount and pet and gear awards for the related currency.  The zone was interestingly creepy, as well.  I suppose Winterspring was also in this vein, but Tol Barad felt more polished.

The Seahorse in Vashj'ir.  The only thing I didn't like about it was that you could only use it in Vashj'ir.  Going fast underwater was almost better than flying.  It didn't hurt that the place was gorgeous.

The turtle boats in Northrend.  It was slow, but it was a nice thematic touch for the Tuskarr, and when you forgot which zeppelin went where as frequently as I did, it made schlepping over to the other end of Northrend prior to having flying much easier.

Garrison followers.  I love my bird-buddy Ishaal, and a lot of the followers just make me more connected to Draenor in general.  I may hardly leave my garrison, but I do have cool people hanging out with me.  When I'm not making them do random menial tasks.

NPCs that use class-specific skills.  The last boss in Nagrand's Ring of Blood shaman-popping.  Yrel in that Talador cutscene.  Anytime I see NPCs we're interacting with behave the way I'd expect someone of that class to - it's just awesome.  (Seriously, I kinda teared up when Yrel popped wings in that video, because Yes! That is a paladin!)

Rexxar's rat innkeeper.  Because it's cute and adorable.

Pet biscuits.  Because rats bigger than gnomes are awesome.

Ahem, #94

Totally unexpected.


Monday night I came home from gaming (D&D) and logged in to see inquiries about whether anyone else wanted in on a Darnassus raid. I had planned to just do Brewfest dailies on my alts and go to bed, but I decided to go. So! We one-shot Velen and Tyrande with 21 people with no problems, and get on the boat to Stormwind. Varian was at 9% when too many of the PVPers by the battlemasters came over and said hi.

So tonight, when we didn't have enough for an Onyxia-25 raid, we headed back to Stormwind. Varian went down this time with a raid of about 24 people.

Then we logged off in the tram.

For twenty minutes.

A few of us have Alliance toons, so we logged over to watch /trade and /localdefense. Eventually the Alliance got bored and stopped watching the tram.

So everyone logged back on after we lost Wintergrasp, and we hit Magni Bronzebeard with about 26 people. For the Horde!



Then hearthed, flew back to the Zoram Strand, went back up to Exodar and Darnassus and wiped out those bosses again.

Bears for everyone!

Marksman 1-80: Levels 11-19

Levels 11-19

Getting your pet quests done can easily get you a level or two, depending on your questing style. Levels 11-19 introduce a lot of your skills. You'll want to be putting your talent points into Lethal and Mortal Shots.

Skills, Levels 11-19

• 12: Arcane Shot (Rank 2), Distracting Shot (Rank 1), Mend Pet (Rank 1), Wing Clip
• 14: Eagle Eye, Eyes of the Beast, Scare Beast (Rank 1)
• 16: Immolation Trap (Rank 1), Mongoose Bite (Rank 1), Raptor Strike (Rank 3), Aspect of the Cheetah
• 18: Aspect of the Hawk (Rank 2), Multi-Shot (Rank 1), Serpent Sting (Rank 3), Track Undead

Level 12 makes your kiting easier, even though you now have a pet: you get Wing Clip, a melee attack to slow your target down. It no longer does any damage, but it's still quite useful in PVP, as well - you can use it to try to slow a flag runner in Warsong Gulch long enough for help to catch up if you can't kill it yourself. You also get another rank of Arcane Shot and learn Mend Pet. Mend Pet used to be channeled, but is now just a heal-over-time (HoT) on your pet, a vast improvement. You also learn Distracting Shot. This used to just be a high-threat shot, but it's now just an out-and-out taunt (which is important to remember much later, when you get Misdirection). Distracting Shot will be more useful to you later, when you're trying to pull mobs into a Freezing Trap, but you can also use it to pull a mob off your pet or a friend for kiting.

The Beast Mastery skills you get at level 14 are interesting, and fun to fool around with, but most of the time have limited application. Scare Beast is the most useful; you can use it to temporarily shed an extra mob, but it really shines in PVP, against druids in a Feral forms, and to a lesser degree against shamans in Ghost Wolf form. This means fearing the flag runner in Warsong Gulch. Enjoy. ;)

The other two skills you get at level 14, Eagle Eye and Eyes of the Beast, are of less frequent utility: they're basically scouting skills. As I mentioned when I was talking about glyphs, Eyes of the Beast was basically used for pulling two bosses in Molten Core, as it lets you put your sight into your pet and control it directly. (Running around on your pet, if it has Dash, and hopping all over is, admittedly, kind of fun. It can also freak out newbies unfamiliar with hunters.) Eagle Eye is similar to the shaman Farsight - you click on a distant spot of land, and your point of view is transported there. You can change your camera angle, but not move it. This is another skill that can be useful in PVP, especially places like Arathi Basin, if you're trying to find a weakly defended node to assault. All in all, though, they're more fun, or for scouting, than readily combat-useful.

At level 15 you can equip your first glyphs, one major and one minor. I'd go with either the Serpent Sting or Mending glyph for the major slot, and the Mend Pet glyph for the minor slot.

Level 16's skills are somewhat more useful - you pick up your final melee special attack, Mongoose Bite (which can crit nicely at higher levels with a slow two-handed weapon), another rank of Raptor Strike, and your first trap, Immolation Trap. Immolation trap is a single-target trap that does fire damage over time (a DoT). It's a nice bit of extra damage that keeps ticking while you're, if needed, kiting. (I'll include my trap macros when we get a second trap.) You also get Aspect of the Cheetah, which you used to have to wait till level 20 for (as of patch 3.2 - so not quite yet, but soon). Cheetah is a nice speed boost, as you won't get a mount until level 20 (as of patch 3.2 - originally it was 40, then 30), assuming you can afford it. The major detractor is that if something attacks you, you're going to get dazed. It's only a 30% boost, not the 40% shamans and druids get, but it's still quite nice.

When you reach level 18, you pick up new ranks of Aspect of the Hawk and Serpent Sting, and you get to track Undead. No, this does not include the Forsaken - they're under Humanoid tracking with the rest of your fellow players. You also pick up Multi-Shot, which is your first multi-target ability. For a long time, when Aimed Shot had a 3 second cast, Multi-Shot was in its position in the full Marksman shot rotation. Now, though, with its higher mana cost and Aimed Shot benefiting from the same talents, save Multi for actual multiple-target situations - it's especially nice in PVP, as you don't have to worry about pulling aggro off something (although you're likely to have someone in your face, regardless).

If you're playing Horde and have the Burning Crusade, doing the quest chain in the Ghostlands that leads up to "The Traitor's Destruction" will land you a nice blue bow. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent ranged weapon from quests on the Alliance side. If you don't want to hit up the Ghostlands or, alas, are playing Alliance, there's a slightly better bow from Lord Serpentis in Wailing Caverns.

Missed Screenshots

There are quite a few screenshots I wish I'd taken, but just didn't think to at the time. (This applies to most max-level dings on my toons - I don't remember where most of them hit 60/70/80.) The one that comes to mind first, though, is the gnome in Warsong Gulch.

I used to do a lot more PVP, and despite how much I loathe it, I was, for whatever reason, in WSG. I think I was actually on my priest at the time, probably around level 59, probably getting marks for her level 60 undead pony.

Anyway, I'd just run into the Alliance base via the upper upstairs door, heading for the balcony. I was in that space between the balcony and the ramp when a little female gnome mage pops out. Now, my priest has always been mostly Discipline with a good deal of Holy, and this was well before the healing/spellpower change. She did most of her WSG by healing the flag runner, or running it herself until she died and someone else could pick it up.

The mage almost immediately sheeped me, and then, as I'm wandering around all sheepy-like, she pulled out a rocket launcher.

Yeah.

I so wish I'd gotten a screenshot of that.