Flying in Azeroth & Beyond

Is flying good or bad in WoW?

The short answer, really, is both.  The lists of reasons for both sides is similarly short:

Positive aspects:

• Allows for three-dimensional zone structure (think the floating islands in Nagrand, or Vashj'ir, which was a flying zone disguised by water)
• Allows for non-linear/random patterned activities (such as travel between archaeology zones, which are not directly correlated to flight paths)
• Flying is fun, especially on a druid or with a Sky Golem

Negative aspects:

• Masks otherwise cumbersome zone design
• Makes some zone challenges (generally, the mobs) trivial

There are some places that I absolutely prefer the change in access flight has made: anything in Blackrock Mountain, for example.  Those chains!  I used to parachute into the lava rather than run the chains.

I used to farm ore for extended periods on a ground mount, usually in Un'goro Crater, where I could go more or less in a circle and hit all the nodes up in the nooks in the cliff wall.  I went back to Un'goro recently and discovered that a lot of those nooks... are gone.  Closed up.  That seemed weird, now that we have flying and getting into them wasn't even tricky.

The problem of flying making zone travel trivial is easily negated.  You remember the forge camps in Blade's Edge?  The cannons that would shoot at you as soon as you mounted up?  Or the frostwyrms in Icecrown that made flying in front of the citadel dicey (even if there were a couple good ore nodes there).  The air can be made dangerous.  Imagine roving zeppelins of pirates that would shoot you out of the sky the same way a whale shark would just eat you.  There are options for that.  (I... kind of want roving zeppelins of pirates now, with ships that can be captured and/or defeated like world bosses.  The Dread Ship Vazuvius takes flight!)

The real downside is when flight masks otherwise cumbersome zone design.  I hadn't thought much about this until last night, when I was thinking about why losing flight would be bad.  Really, no flight in a new space isn't bad - that space will be designed with no flight in mind.  (As long as it doesn't have bridges with stunning mobs that my healer can't kill, a la the Timeless Isle, probably not a big deal.)  The problem is when zones for levels without flying are designed with flight in mind.

Cataclysmic Ladies

There are a handful of female NPCs I enjoyed questing with or around during Cataclysm; some of them will fade into the background now that we've moved on to the Mists of Pandaria, but I'm hoping we get to see some of them again.  (Especially Lorna, because Lorna is cool.)

The ladies:

Lorna Crowley - We first meet Lorna during the initial battle for Gilneas, when she saves your nascent Gilnean from death at the hands of a worgen.  We see her consistently through the zone, assisting in or leading efforts to combat the ravaging worgens, helping flee the flooding from the Cataclysm, and fighting the invading Forsaken armies.  (I have to say - one of the things that impressed me when I first played through Gilneas in the beta was that there is a distinct moment in the starting quests when the Cataclysm happens.)  Lorna is often seen toting what is one of the prettiest gun models in the game.  Eventually she trades in her rose for armor, and when we last see her (for now, I'm sure), she's going back into Gilneas with her father to continue the resistance against the Forsaken.

Matoclaw - Matoclaw is basically the organizer who makes sure the rivets are ordered and arrive on time to make the invasion of the Firelands happen, on schedule.  Her quests all basically revolve around making sure the supplies and people get where they're supposed to be and do what they're supposed to do.  I think of her kind of as the Pepper Potts of Firelands:  Malfurion and Hamuul are calling the shots, but she makes it all work.

Fiona - Fiona drives a caravan around the Eastern Plaguelands, ferrying members of the Horde and Alliance and the Argent Dawn alike.  She takes the responsibility for her charges very seriously, and when push comes to shove, she carries a sweet-looking rifle (same model as Lorna's, actually - must be a Gilnean make) to take care of trouble.

Zaela, Garona, and Lady Cozwynn - Zaela starts out in Twilight Highlands as an opposition leader amongst the Dragonmaw, and you help her become their Warlord.  Garona is much older than Cataclysm in terms of lore, but you meet her in the Twilight Highlands and help her fight Cho'gall and his cultists there.  Lady Cozwynn helps coordinate the assault on the Twilight cultists in the Highlands.  Taken together, though, these three ladies are your support for taking on Skullcrusher the Mountain.  (The Alliance are stuck with three guys.  Much less awesome.)  When the three were assembled together, I had a FFX-2 flashback.

Unexpected delights

Hm... I was especially emo yesterday, no? Today, something more positively reflective!

With the change to focus, et al, that hunters underwent, quite a few changes didn't become apparent until I'd started playing a while with them. Many of these were awesome.

You can Multi-Shot while moving! For the longest time, Multi-Shot had a built in cast time of .5 seconds, which meant you had to stand still for it. Now you can spam the button as long as you have focus while desperately backing up and hoping that the pet-targeted Misdirect you just cast will eventually stick one or more of the bazillion mobs you're trying to get at range with back on your bear/crab/etc. Multi-Shot is one of my long-time favorite skills, and I was including it in my regular rotation in Burning Crusade before an Arcane Shot/Multi-Shot/Steady Shot rotation was de rigueur. There is nothing quite so satisfying as being the unorthodox player whose methods suddenly become, for your spec, the orthodoxy. True, enchanting my 2-handed weapons for Int, or getting +mana librams on my T1 (more mana = less feigning to drink mid-boss), never caught on, but leveling in "of the Falcon" (agility/intellect) gear was more appreciated once the Int -> Attack Power talent went in. Of course, those days are gone.

That green and orange cat in Felwood is tameable! No, seriously! I've named him Octavian, and he's currently my DPS pet in 5-man's just because the color scheme is so hilarious. I need to team him up with a troll feral druid for something...

Glyph of Misdirect is amazing. I mentioned this in my macro post a couple weeks ago - if you're soloing without Glyph of Misdirect, you're missing out on the awesomeness of sending your pet into a pack of a gazillion mobs, dropping Mend Pet on it, and alternately spamming Misdirect and Multi-Shot. If you are like me, you will forget the first two Misdirects and end up in the scenario described under the Multi-Shot entry above.

Trap Launcher is surprisingly fun, if still clunky to use. I have not yet developed good macros for making Trap Launcher more stream-lined, but being able to toss an Explosive Trap on a tank for non-elite adds, or to throw my Snake Trap over at an add on a healer to hopefully pull the aggro off onto the snakes, is really handy. I wish Trap Launcher + Freezing Trap were more useful for something besides crowd-controlled pulling, but it seems like every loose add I want to trap is bleeding or poisoned or burning or in the throes of agony from a curse. Hence the substitution of snakes for adds on the healers.

Camouflage is quite fun, although I've yet to use it for its supposed strength, PVP. Mostly I pop it on in 5-man's as we're moving towards or around groups to avoid my huge cow ass pulling something. (I had problems with that in Nexus for a long time. >.>) The additional bonus of cloaking my pet is great if I don't have the cat out.

The fox pet dances! I got a Black Fox a couple weeks ago (from Redridge) and named him Hawkins. If you don't get that joke, I am disappointed in your movie tastes. "Play" + "Move To" was highlighted by someone else, but for especial hilarity, go to Thunder Bluff and dance your fox back and forth across the pond. I was giggling way too much.

Scatter Shot is a baseline skill! This wasn't a surprise, but despite having it sitting there on my bars, I had mostly forgotten about it until I went to Tol Barad the other day (successful defense, woo!) and oh, God, Silencing is still on cooldown there it was! It was a favored shot while leveling, and having it around again is great. Hawkeye, the other talent Survival stole from Marksman years ago, also sort of went baseline - most of the damaging hunter shots have longer range, although Multi-Shot, Silencing Shot, and Tranquilizing Shot still seem to have the old base range, which means on fights you're going to need them, you have to make sure to move up enough for them. Basically, the two formerly Markman talents that made me put points in Survival in Burning Crusade and Wrath are now mine for free.

Hey, I can get Improved Mend Pet! I don't know if I'll keep it when I put together a raiding spec (and my devilsaur and worm are doomed to a life in the stables), but it's been coveted for a good four years, so it's definitely staying in my soloing spec.

A non-huntery unexpected delight were the quests in Uldum. I love Vashj'ir - it's gorgeous, and the ecological details were greatly appreciated. The ultra-violet canyon is beautiful, and for some reason the secluded emptiness of the Abandoned Reef makes it one of my favorite places. (It is also where Ghostcrawler roams - beware the Nerfbat.) But Uldum - it took a little bit to get into, but as soon as I ran into Harrison Jones, the quest chain just skyrocketed in its level of awesomeness. The end of the chain (spoiler) was unexpected but had me laughing. The reworked Silverpine and Hillsbrad are also amazing for their quests - Siliverpine for the drama, Hillsbrad for the comedy.

There are always disappointments with changes (Aimed Shot's more or less neutering is one of them - if it's going to be only for opening or a proc, at least make it hit hard enough for it to be special - it's our friggin' specialization skill), but I am enjoying most of the changes.

Current Hunter Macros

So, 4.0 broke a bunch of my macros. It wasn't so much a change in the macro syntax as that abilities changed in function, so I've had to adapt or do without.

The biggest loss was my left click/right click trap macros - Trap Launcher uses a version of the spells with a different spell ID, so if I hit Trap Launcher, my traps grey out on the bar if I'm using a macro to stack them onto one button.

This is what I'm left with:

The Shot Rotation /castsequence

#showtooltip
/castsequence Chimera Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

What changed: It's still not optimal, but this will keep your Improved Steady Shot buff up and get you back to your Chimera Shot cooldown with enough focus to use it, while not completely ignoring Arcane Shot. If you've got Rapid Fire up, you can probably squeeze in an additional Arcane or Steady depending on your haste and focus. Aimed Shot is now mostly used when Master Marksman procs (a depressing development, since it is our level 10 specialization shot, but our signature shot is Chimera).

With the changes to Kill Command and Silencing Shot, you no longer want to bind them to things. Kill Command you use but rarely, if ever, as Marksman, and Silencing no longer does damage, so you want to save the cooldown for when you actually need to silence. (Woohoo, Lessrabi!)

In other news, I still can't do the priority manually and not stand in fire at the same time. /shame

Misdirect

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1, target=focus] Misdirection; [button:2] Misdirection; [button:3, target=pet] Misdirection

What changed: Nothing. Still works great. Add in the glyph of Misdirection, and you are good to go for soloing - or for picking up mobs in a hurry if the tank dies. (Oh, that Pit of Saron PUG... Luckily, I was leveling my turtle, and he was 79.)

Taunt the Deformed Fanatic for Kiting

#showtooltip Distracting Shot
/tar Deformed
/cast Distracting Shot

What changed: The mob will be different, but if you need this at some point, it still works.

Fire Traps/Frost Traps

They were:

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Explosive Trap; [button:2] Immolation Trap
#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Freezing Trap; [button:2] Frost Trap; [button:3] Freezing Arrow

But Trap Launcher has broken them. (Freezing Arrow is also gone, and Freezing Trap was renamed.) I'm going to try playing with them again and see if I can work in a fix - I really miss them.

Feed Pet (put the food in the appropriate slot)

#showtooltip
/cast Feed Pet
/use 3 1

What changed: Nothing! You're still good to go.

Mend/Revive

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1] Mend Pet; [button:2] Revive Pet

What changed: Nothing! You're still good to go.

Mount Macro: My mount macro is currently broken (pre-Azerothian flying) for all my characters except my baby hunter (ahem... Duskmoon; I have a new baby hunter) - I don't know why. Once flying goes it, it probably won't matter, since I can just drop my Nether Ray straight on my bar, but I'll hit up WoWwiki at some point and see if I can find a new one.

Random Pet (from WoWwiki)

/run DismissCompanion("CRITTER"); CallCompanion("CRITTER", random(GetNumCompanions("CRITTER")));

What changed: Still works!

With the changes to spells, the addition of the aspect bar, and the removal of such things and Scorpid Sting and Freezing Arrow, we have more room on our bars now, and less need for space-saving macros. I think my priest (and her focus healing, left/right click macros) is now the only one really short on macro space.

One day I will learn, and put my hunter macros in my general macros page, so that I can stop having to copy them over between each other.

Baby hunter, again

I didn't realize just how much I missed having a toon to level. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when this one's maxed, because I'm really out of toons to delete on Bronzebeard.

So the new baby hunter is 25, with her cooking sitting at 380 (thank you, Pilgrim's Bounty!) and her engineering and alchemy capped at 225. I will be sad when some quest item comes along and displaces my pilgrim hat.

The new Silverpine is, like most of Cataclysm's quest changes, rather liner, but the zone finale is awesome. Hillsbrad is awesomely done, as well.

Worgen hunter

So I figured since I'm unlikely to play a Worgen in live WoW, I should do it in the beta.

As a hunter, of course.

I named my dog Max, even though he looks nothing like the dog Max I named him after.

Female worgen still play as males. /sigh All that time picking hair for nought.

Oh, my God, the NPC hats, they are awesome! I wants one.

Cake vs. Pie. /snork

Hahaha... bucket of live *wiggling* worms.

I don't particularly like the way the male worgen runs. Hopefully the female will be better.

This is definitely a place you don't skip your quests - you keep losing towns!

Engineering!!

I'm sure this is prettier over on MMO-Champion somewhere, but I transcribed this straight out of the beta today. I missed the first couple skill level requirements.

Note: Tinkers can be discovered while making other things.

• Authentic Jr. Engineer Goggles (Equip: Makes you appear more gifted and attractive.)
• R19 Threatfinder (Use: Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged hit rating by 88.)
• Volatile Energy Converter (Part)
• Handful of Obsidium Bolts (Part)
• (455) Quickflip Deflection Plates (Tinker: Permanently attaches quickflip deflection plates onto gloves, allowing you to increase your armor by 1500 for 12 sec. Gloves can only be activated once every minute. Attaching teh armor webbing causes the gloves to become soulbound. An Engineering skill of 500 is required to keep the webbing active.)
• (455) Volatile Seaforium Blastpack (Use: Blasts open locked doors and chests that require lockpicking skill of 525 and below.)
• (460) Safety Catch Removal Kit (Use: Removes the safety mechanism from a bow or gun, increasing its ranged haste rating by 88. Using this kit causes the bow or gun to become soulbound.)
• (465) High-Powered Bolt Gun (Tool/Use: Fires several charged bolts at an enemy for 6800 to 10200 damage and briefly interrupts casting. Consumes a Handful of Obsidium Bolts each time it's fired. (2 Min Cooldown))
• (475) De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion (Use: Teaches you how to summon this companion.)
• (475) Personal world Destroyer (Use: Teaches you how to summon this companion.)
• (525) Cardboard Assassin (Permanently attaches a tiny device on your belt, allowing you to create a Cardboard Assassin that enemies will attack. Lasts 15 sec. Can be used once every 5 min. Can only be used on your own belt,a nd doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Requires at least 500 skill in Engineering to use.)
• (525) Deadly Bio-Optic Killshades (BoP, Mail, Head, 1977 Armor, 301 Agility, 512 Stamina, Meta Socket, Cogwheel Socket (2), Socket Bonus 20 Agility, Requires Level 81, Item Level 359, Requires Engineering (525))
• (525) Elementium Dragonling (BoE, Unique-Equipped, Trinket, Blue Socket, Requires level 80, Item Level 333, Requires Engineering (475), Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 212. Use: Activates your Elementium Dragonlin to fight for you for 1 min. (5 Min Cooldown))
• (525) Elementium Toolbox (36 slot engineering bag)
• (525) Finely-Tuned Throat Needler (BoP, Crossbow, 1265-2350 Damage, Speed 2.90, (623.3 dps), 107 Agility, 161 Stamina, Requires Level 85, Item Level 359, Equip: Improves haste rating by 77. Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 63.)
• (525) Gnomish X-Ray Scope (Use: Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged critical strike rating by 88. Attaching this scope to a ranged weapon causes it to become soulbound.)
• (525) Goblin Barbecue (Use: Set out the barbecue to feed your entire raid or party! Restores 64903 health and 45000 mana over 30 sec. If you spend at least 10 seconds eating you will become well fed and gain 60 Stamina and 60 in another useful stat for 1 hour.)
• (525) Grounded Plasma Shield (Tinker: Permanently attaches grounded plasma generators to your belt, allowing you to activate a powerful shield that absorbs 16200 to 19800 damage. Can only be used on your own belt, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Requires at least 500 skill in Engineering to use.)
• (525) Heat-Treated Spinning Lure (Requires Fishing (250), Use: When applied to your fishing pole, increases Fishing by 150 for 5 minutes.)
• (525) Invisibility Field (Tinker: Permanently attaches thousands of tiny mirrors to your belt, allowing you to turn invisible while out of combat. Can be activated once every 5 min. Can only be used on your own belt, and doing so will cause it to become soulbound. Requires at least 500 skill in Engineering to use.)
• (525) Kickback 5000 (BoP, Gun, 1221-2269 Damage, Speed 2.80, 623.3 dps, 87 Agility, 161 Stamina, Red socket, Socket bonus 10 Agility, Requires Level 85, Item Level 359, Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 73, Equip: Improves haste rating by 49.)
• (525) Loot-a-Rang (BoU, Requires Engineering (125), Use: Retrieves the loot from a nearby corpse. (10-Sec Cooldown))
• (525) Lure Master Tackle Box (BoE, 36 Slot Tackle Box)
• (525) Overpowered Chicken Splitter (BoP, Bow, 1121-2269 Damage, Speed 2.80, 623.3 dps, 107 Agility, 161 Stamina, Requires Level 85, Item Level 359, Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 77, Equip: Improves haste rating by 63.)
• (525) Spinal Healing Injector (Tinker: Permanently attaches a specialized injector kit to your gloves, allowing you to inject a Mythical Healing Potion directly into your bloodstream for increased effect. Only a skilled engineer can activate the modified gloves. Can only be attached to your own gloves, and doing so causes the gloves to become soulbound.)
• (525) Synapse Springs (Tinker: Permanently attaches synapse springs to a pair of gloves, allowing a skilled engineer to increase their Intellect by 480 for 12 sec. The gloves can only be activated every minute.)
• (525) Tazik Shocker (Tinker: Permanently attaches a tazik shocker to your gloves, allowing a skilled engineer to deal 1049 to 1282 Nature damage to an enemy at long range. The shocker can only be used once every 2 min. Can only be used on the engineer's gloves,a dn doing so will cause them to become soulbound.)
• (525) Volatile Thunderstick (BoP, Gun, 705-1309 Damage, Speed 2.8, 359.7 dps, 62 Agility, 93 Stamina, Requires level 83, Item Level 300, Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 41, Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 41.)
• (525) Z50 Mana Gulper (Tinker: Permanently attaches a specialized grip to your gloves, allowing you to power-drink a Mythical Mana Potion for increased effect. Only a skilled engineer can activate the modified gloves. Can only be used on the engineer's gloves, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.)

More Coherent Beta Stuff

Ok, so far I've just been posting the notes I make as I jot them down. I'm thinking perhaps I should do something more cohesive. More... paragraphy. Lots of spoilers! Don't read if you don't want to know!

So, to start:

Hunter stuff

The new hunter talents actually aren't too bad. I miss certain things (specifically faster pet reviving), but for the most part the Marksman stuff seems to be working out all right. I have no idea what kind of damage I'm doing, but I've found that, firstly, having automatic hunter's marking is awesome, and secondly, I can macro a rotation still, so I'm not entirely screwed.

Yes, I really said that, you can use a shot rotation macro with focus. The same way it was with mana - it's not ideal, and you have to reset it if you move or use another cooldown (by manually cycling shots until it resyncs), but if you're someone who can't watch a bunch of places on your screen without doing one or more of dying/dropping DoTs/missing cooldowns, the rotation macro still helps. (I can't keep Serpent Sting up and not die in fires without one.)

I love focus! I occasionally run into problems soloing where I try to front load too much and have something in my face while I really need to be hitting Steady, but it's really not bad at all. I've run one whole instance (Throne of Tides, excluding the bugged last boss), and I really didn't have resource problems. The macro worked great there, as well.

I had been thinking, as I'm soloing old instances on the live realms, that I'm going to miss Volley, until that Throne of Tides run where I discovered that, OMFG, the new Multi-Shot is spectacularly awesome. It's like shooting fistfuls of arrows at large groups. If the group is large enough, you will crit often enough that you can just spam it a lot until more of the group is dead, and you have to pop a Steady or two to keep going.

Trap launcher seems great, but I think it's somehow broken my left-click/right-click trap macros, which means I'm going to need five buttons for my traps instead of three. I'll have to work with the macros once things go live and see if I can remake them.

Aimed Shot I'm a little disappointed with, mostly that it's your signature shot as Marksman, but you can't really do much with it until you can get the talent points to make it proc as a free shot - which is really only good in groups. Yeah, yeah, it'll probably go back to hitting like a truck soon, which will make it more useful for soloing again. Right now it's not hitting hard enough to make it worth opening with on random mobs out in the world.

My bear seems squishier than he used to, but that may just be scaling needs adjusting. He seems to hold aggro a little better than he used to, at least.

I've yet to have a chance to really look at the glyphs, although from what I've seen, there's still some decent ones. I need to get my hands on glyph of Kill Shot for boss fights at least - if your Kill Shot doesn't kill the target, its cooldown resets (once every six seconds). Awesome. At least in theory.

Zones

I've mostly looked around Vashj'ir and Deepholm. I flew into Hyjal, but then went elsewhere. I've flown around the Twilight Highlands and Uldum, as well, but didn't do much beyond touring.

Vashj'ir is very pretty, lots of sea life, plants, nice details. The 480% speed Seahorse is amazing, and I really wish that were the faster flying we were buying. That would be worth another 4k or 5k gold. There are a few quirks in the questing that will hopefully get worked out before they go live. One is a quest with a terribly low spawn rate on the mobs, and the other major problem I've run into is that the floor in Nespirah (a giant... turtle? shell fish?) is horribly buggy, and 80% of the mobs fall through.

The Throne of Tides in Vashj'ir is also neat; its entry is, like Coilfang, down. It took some poking around to find it. The bosses took some coordination, but were all in all not terrible to PUG. The jellyfish elevator was quite cool.

Deepholm is underground, and most of the zone is absolutely gorgeous - but then, I'm the person who took two geology classes as electives. And, well, diamonds are a girl's best friend, and all that. Most of the quests there are not buggy, but they are fairly linear, so if you're competing for a quest mob, you can't do much else until you've gotten it.

Except mine. Oh, my God, the ore in Deepholm. I'm sure live servers it will be much more competitively farmed, but I've sold 11 stacks on the beta auction house for sick, sick amounts of money. I've already determined I'm spending the first day or week or whatever mining as much as I can.

Hyjal I mostly flew in and left, but if you've been to the battle of Mount Hyjal in the Caverns of Time, you're familiar with the basic geography. Much is wrecked, and your fly-in cinematic will give you great views of both Deathwing and Ragnaros. (I got goosebumps about Ragnaros. Oh. My. God. I need him as my ring tone.) And you run into Ysera and Malfurion Stormrage right off the bat. It's a lore nerd's dream.

The Twilight Highlands I haven't done much more than fly around, wave at Alexstrazsa on my way past, and mine all the elementium I could find. I saw one Pyrium (Pyrite?) node, but it was before I could hit it. Lots of ogres there.

Professions

Engineering is still NYI more than Wrath schematics, so I haven't been leveling it. I have, however, maxed mining. I've found, so far, Obsidium, Elementium, and the Pyrium (that I couldn't mine yet), and five types of volatile elementals - earth, fire, water, air, and shadow, all from mining. I've gotten five colors of gem (red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple), two in rare quality (I don't remember all the names at the moment). I've gotten first aid up into the 490s.

I haven't found anything that drops meat to cook! That must all be in Hyjal or something. I haven't tried fishing yet, partly because my inventory has been so full of ore I haven't done much else.

Quivers and ammo pouches become hunter-only bags - the Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina becomes an awesomely huge bag that definitely makes it feel worthwhile again. And I'm definitely making myself the largest-size ammo pouches or quivers (depending what I have patterns for) for all my hunters to see how many I can equip once the patch rolls over. (Banks slots. Oh, God. It probably won't work.)

Glyphs show up in your glyph interface as a list, so you know what you don't know, such as it is. I haven't managed to acquire any more yet. (If there's a glyph vendor, I haven't found it yet.)

I haven't touched most of the other professions yet - I should probably transfer more toons over and see how they translate. (Priest and warrior, maybe?)

Interface, guilds, etc.

The basic interface (where your buttons are, etc.) hasn't really changed, but once you pop open a screen for anything (character, spellbook, trainer, etc.), you see immediate changes. I... think? I like the trainer changes, but I'm not entirely sure.

I definitely like the spellbook changes. Pets, mounts, and such are all over there now. Your spellbook tells you when you have something new to pick up, too, if you haven't hit your trainer yet. The talent UI is... better than before, but for some reason comes across as arrogant to me. I know that sounds weird, but opening my talent pane makes me feel somehow affronted.

The professions UI has a couple nice options - filtering by what gives skill-ups, and revised chat linking options. The new character sheet is nicely customizable - you can move around various stat blocks or minimize them if you don't care about them.

The auction house and vendors haven't really changed. I'm hoping AuctionLite translates over to 4.0, because I still like its buy and sell panes better (even if the new default sell pane is essentially a ripoff - the auto searching and price setting is nice).

The guild UI has changed a little - there's a sort of messages page, and you have various sorting options for the roster. Ranks are easier to rearrange. And of course there's authenticator options for ranks.

Beta Adventures, Part 6

(A shorter session)

There was a guild wipe, so I'm now in the beta SHP when my husband remade it.

Dude, Millhouse Manastorm. Was NOT expecting him like that.

The box quests are always fun.

So much ore, and I can't find a forge. Argh.

My pet's dot shows up on the minimap again. /awesome

Hahaha... Avalanchion, we meet again.

New elemental stuff stacks higher than 10. Awesome.

Bugged right now to constantly run in place. While mining, eating, bandaging, etc.

167 Agility!

Troggzor! Earthinate!

Finally got a crab for Nespirah.

Good lord, people, stop skipping the quests in Vashj'ir that get you water breathing and the seahorse.

Beta Adventures, Part 5

The notes from the 5th beta adventure session:

Nespirah's floor is glitchy. Can't do the quest to communicate with her.

Can't loot mining nodes. (Relogging to see if it fixes it.)

Ok, at least got Nespirah to work. The floor is still like Swiss Cheese, though.

Haha, Obsidian requires a forge to smelt.

Ok, the crabs have all fallen through the floor in Nespirah. Going elsewhere.

Hey, kvaldir dudes.

Ooo, Ruins of Vashj'ir.

Ok, going to go wait for a crab and see if that works. Meh, I'll go find the instances.

Oooo... IN the whirlpool.

I think I know *why* they're making 310% fly speed trainable - the old world is friggin' HUGE.

Ok, in the Throne of Tides.

Holy God, I like this new Multi-Shot AOE. It's like shooting a fistful of arrows at a group.

Hey, a cut scene.

Level 82!

Apparently the squid at the end of Throne of Tides is bugged.

Mining Elementium. :D

Whoops - alt+tab/click to move/fatigue line.

Ten minute flight paths still, heh.

Trained up, set my hearth to the Valley of Wisdom.

Into Deepholm! The obsession with whirlpools is unexpected but somehow amusing.

Mining past 500 - I can do rich elementium now.

Deleting my cache to see if I can get the bugged items to work.

Deepholm is gorgeous. I love the alabaster.

I just mined an elemental for Savage Leather. I MINED FOR LEATHER. WTF?

Holy shit, Myzrael!

Ah, damn, the Gorged Gyreworms can't be tamed.

Hahahaha... Ok, so there's a quest you're supposed to jump onto a griffin from the airship in Deepholm. I disconnected right as I jumped and sailed off into the air. Log in: Parachute Cloak for the win!

And people wonder why I want to roleplay a Dwarven Shaman. Dude!

And off to raid!

This sparked much excited cackling.

Hello from Amazon.com.

We now have delivery date(s) for the order you placed on September 07 2010 (Order# [order number code]):

"World of Warcraft: Cataclysm"

Estimated arrival date: November 26 2010

SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!

Beta Adventures, Part 4

This is Part 4 because I didn't write anything for my level 3 undead hunter (stupid missing quest mob), my premade level 85 *cough* blood elf *cough* hunter (it was my only Horde race choice at the time), or Dusk's flying tour of Uldum (cat people! camels!) after I was able to transfer her.

So we're beginning now with my flight up to Hyjal (awesome scripting on the first flight in) and my adventures in archaeology.

Discoveries:

The pet bar is currently letting me change all 10

Why the **** am I wearing my tabard of the explorer on the loading screen? It's not the one I had on!

Anyway, the pet bar is letting me change all 10 buttons around.

Oh, hey, Mabs is transferred over. (Logging in.)

...

...

...

Crashing in?

/waits

Hm, many of my old keys are gone. This saddens me.

I've learned already that the epic quiver from the Molten Core Leaf quest chain becomes a 24 slot bag. It looks like the other quivers are maintaining their bag size (although I didn't have a 28 slot quiver made for testing).

Tenuous Dreadstones all become Glinting Dreadstones (Agility + Hit Rating).

Anywho, back to Duskhawk.

Pet talents seem to be unlearning every time I log.

(Waiting to see if I crash again. Looking likely.)

Nope!

More Night Elf artifacts.

Huh, my bear can "rest" now.

Farming thorium is less painful with flying. Not that I can do anything with it, since engineering is Not Yet Implemented. /sigh

Dancing Troll Village: now with Alliance quests? o.O

Holy God, Darkshore is visually *much* more interesting. Chasms, whirlpools, vortices... Twilight Drakes? Huh.

Tree branches are still 2D, heh.

... Bear is going to sleep every time we enter combat. /Turns off Rest's autocast.

Dig sites seem to have about 3 artifact spots per site so far.

Hey, Fishing works. Just had to retrain it... like everything else. o.O

Flight paths have definitely been reworked.

You know, I got on the boat to Vashj'ir, but after hearing the speech, I'm not sure I'm still interested.

On the other hand, I kind of like Vashj'ir itself.

Huh. The crossbow off Lich King 10 has higher damage than the heroic Njorndar Bone Bow.

Lol, a Gollum quote.

And another crash.

/deletes caches

Teehee, schools of undead fishes.

Hm, I can smelt obsidian with no forge. I guess I'm gluing glass shards together?

Giant sea serpents!

Huh, a JC pattern.

Did I mention that every time I zone, my pet's talents reset?

Ooo, a fox.

Hey, Tirion. You seem shorter.

Oh, hi, Alexstrasza. Fancy meeting you here!

Ettins!

Damn, I can't mine Elementium yet.

I can't queue for any Wrath dungeons. >.> I haven't 'found' them.

Take these orbs and make snake tornadoes!

Much crashing. Almost 82. Off to fill a spot in ICC25 on (undergeared) Duskmoon for two fights.

How crazy am I?

Crazy enough to be working on a second Loremaster.

I have 7 level 80s on my main server, all Horde. Add a DK serving as a name holder and bank rogue, and that leaves me one slot: Mabs, my original character, my first Marskman hunter.

She's 71, with heirloom gear from Dusk (I actually own two sets of the hunter mail heirlooms). I sent her over money for the fast flying (via my husband and the neutral auction house), although given my first project on her, it probably could have waited.

She got the Kalimdor loremaster achievement today, and is about 80 quests from the Eastern Kingdoms one. (Go go dwarf newbie zone!) After that it's Netherstorm, Shadowmoon, and Blade's Edge (plus cleanup in the other zones), and back to Northrend.

I've been doing the exploration quests on her at the same time; I think I just need to finish Durotar and Mulgore, and then mix and match single locations in four or five zones in the Eastern Kingdoms. I figure this way I'll see as much as I can of all the stuff that's going to be gone in a couple months with Cataclysm (or the 4.o patch, rather) finally hits.

*grumble*

*grumble* *grumble*

Stupid talent point changes.

*grumble* *grumble*

Stupid real names on forums thing.

*grumble* *grumble*

(Reduction of talent bloat? Awesome. Making you put 31 points into a tree before getting access to the others? Grr. I want my Hawkeye, Scatter Shot, and fast pet Revive before I want my 31-point Marksman talent, Blizz.)

Cataclysm stuffs! Woo!

So, with that non-disclosure agreement lifted, MMO-Champion has lots of tasty info posted. Unfortunately Engineering is not yet implemented, but the hunter stuff seems to be mostly there.

Highlights: (Stop reading now if beta mechanics aren't what you're into)

• Aimed Shot is being reverted to its Vanilla flavor. Normally I don't care for Vanilla, but Aimed Shot out of Camouflage? I loved Aimed Shot out of Shadowmeld. This will be awesome, especially when combined with Readiness and, if needed, Feign to get out of combat. (That old Subtlety Rogue/Marksman Hunter multiclass I used to dream about? It's happened.)
• CRAZY LIKE A FOX. Autoshots on the move if needed.

The new Widow Venom + Chimera Shot will have a modest self-heal. This is a nice bonus, especially if persistent damage is as common in Cataclysm as it seems to be in Icecrown.

With the redone talents, and 5 extra points, I think I'm going to be able to pick up everything I want in the Marksman tree, plus Improved Revive Pet, Hawkeye, and Scatter Shot. /swoon

Whee! Cataclym Hunter Preview

The Cataclysm Hunter preview has been posted! And not, as I suspected it would be, at 3 a.m. EST. Of course everything in it is still subject to change, since they've just started sending out the press invites for beta, so we're a while from release yet. At least a likely late-summer date of some sort means I won't be standing for 45 minutes around midnight outside a Wal-Mart that lost power in an ice storm, waiting for it to reopen. (That was TBC. I could have gotten a collector's edition, but didn't.)

Anywho, stuff:

The new abilities: Cobra Shot, Trap Launcher, and Camouflage.

The first is supposed to act as a nature-damage version of Steady Shot, which says to me that, basically, Armor Penetration (besides going away on gear) is definitely not going to be like it has been in Wrath. Instead of stacking a stat and dropping non-physical shots for heavily armored targets, we'll instead have something in our arsenal to deal with it. (I wonder how it will work in PVP versus plate wearers.)

Trap Launcher just makes me squee because I want to throw snakes at people. Actually, the idea of traps being less situational and more useful from a distance (you know, add pack over there just aggroed on your mage) is awesome all around. And not having to run up to drop frost traps for Saurfang's blood beasts...

Camouflage won't, unfortunately, be quite as awesome as Aimed Shot+Shadowmeld was in Vanilla, but since it will provide immunity to ranged attacks, we can be over on one side, dropping our traps safely, and the mage or pole-dancing dot/hot Disc priest that won't die will have to actually come over and, you know, hit us to break it... setting off our carefully laid traps, muhaha.

Focus

We've known about this for a while. From what the preview said, focus will regen slower than a rogue's energy, but Steady Shot, Haste, Rapid Recuperation, and other things will help us regen faster.

I'm looking forward to this change, even though it means I'll need to relearn what I'm doing. My rotation macro will be completely dead, and to some extent it will be more like playing my rogue, but at range, without finishers or combo points or any of that to worry about. No, it'll be more along the lines of hitting Chimera, Aimed, Arcane whenever they're available, keeping my stings up, and hitting Steady/Cobra in between. Not really much different, but almost certainly not cast-sequence macroable. I've got 3 hunters to level and learn on, though. I may see if I can train myself to keyboard exclusively without the mouse in combat so I can keep using wasd...

Other changes

Ammunition is going away, and quivers become large hunter-only bags! (Note to self: make a large quiver for each hunter before change just in case. Since Iceblade Arrows are Gnomish Engineering-made only, I've actually been considering going back to a quiver. Just so I don't have to bug my husband for ammo as often. I'm not too keen about the idea of going back to a 4-slots open normal bag crunch, though.

Stables being expanded with limited active pets is nice - I have pets I don't want to ditch, but probably won't use much, or would use in rotation. (Bored with the cat for a while? Switch to the hyena.) That cat was leveled up the old way from 8-70 at 70, damn it. I don't want to get rid of him. Since they're making more pets have varying utility skills, this is especially nice. No lock in the raid? Bring your wind serpent. No kitty druid? Bring your hyena, and your Hunger-for-Blood Assassination rogue will love you.

Hunters starting with pets I think will lead to less confusion for people picking up the class who aren't long-time or intuitive gamers. I didn't start sending my pet in to tank for me until I was in the 50s - I'd shoot something and let the pet pull it off me before that.

Alas, poor Mongoose Bite, we knew you.

The Mastery bonuses all seem pretty straightforward, although the mechanics of "Double Shot" aren't really laid out. Whether it will act like Lightning Overload, or like a Black Mage's "Double Cast," we don't know yet. I kind of doubt the former, actually, given that we already have Wild Quiver (unless that's going away), but if it just randomly procs a "next shot is free, causes 50%, and does not trigger the global cooldown" buff, kind of like Surge of Light, it could be neat.

Brief thoughts on the Cataclysm

The leveling guide will continue shortly.

In Cataclysm, hunters are going over to focus. I've heard that in the pre-release versions of WoW, focus was the planned resource system for hunters, but for one reason or another, we got switched to mana. This is probably the biggest change I saw for hunters coming out of the eventual 4.0 release; I'm looking forward to it. It'll take some relearning, but we simply have too many stats to watch right now. Cutting Int out of the equation entirely is good. I have a level 74 rogue, so I'm not unfamiliar with that style of resource.

Haste, on the other hand, will change some things. Haste will make focus regenerate faster, but since it won't affect our attack speed, that also means that our autoshot speed is probably going to be less mutable, and Rapid Fire and Improved Aspect of the Hawk procs will be more important to watch.

Attack Power on gear is going bye-bye. (/cheer) I loathed the switch from 2 AP from Agi to 1 AP from Agi and AP on gear since it happened. (From my enchanter's point of view, things are going to get... weird. All those Spellpower and Attack Power enchants are probably going away - possibly to be replaced with Agi, Int, and Str enchants? We'll find out!)

The change to talents - paring out passive stat/damage boosts for "fun" talents - should prove interesting. I play heavy MM in both my specs, and 5 more points means you should be able to invest enough into a 2nd tree for the first or second mastery bonus.

I like that we'll be coming back to Azeroth. I'm looking forward to underwater mounts. (I'm sitting at 90 pets/90 mounts right now.)