Last week was pretty busy for me, both inside and outside of WoW. Let’s hope this one is a little less hectic. I wouldn’t mind enjoying the last shreds of summer while there’s still time. I just wanted to update you all on a few bits of news from the hunter community.
WHU is back
Warcraft Hunters Union is going to be receiving updates once again after an extended hiatus! Artemishowl (previously interviewed here) will be taking over the reins of the website. You can see her introductory post here.
Frostheim: It’s been about a year since I retired from hunter blogging, and as you may have noticed, the WoW hunter world has continued in my absence (though Ghostcrawler just couldn’t bear to go on without our deep platonic bond). As always, the hunter community remains strong and new hunter voices have stepped forward to take the reins: new hunter podcasts, new hunter blogs, and new all-hunter raids.
One of those new voices is Artemishowl. If you’re in the WHU Facebook group you no doubt know her from the hunter raids she has been organizing. She recently asked about taking over the WHU to keep this venerable tradition going, and I have great confidence in her abilities and am excited to see the updates and changes that she brings to the site. So we’re clearing out the mothballs and you’ll be getting regular posts on the WHU once more, now from Artemishowl and others that she badgers, cajoles, and intimidates into helping out.
Welcome to the hunter blogging world, Artemis! I look forward to seeing the content that the next-gen WHU will be putting out.
Femaledwarf.com is closing shop
Zeherah’s Hunter DPS Analyzer is no longer going to be updated for patch 6.0 or Warlords of Draenor.
It’s been over 5 years since I started FemaleDwarf.com, and it’s been a great experience for me. I’ve learned a lot from my work on the site, and I’ve greatly enjoyed being able to contribute to and participate in our wonderful hunter community. It’s with a heavy heart that I announce I don’t plan to update the site for the Warlords of Draenor expansion. I’ve greatly enjoyed my experience in WoW over these almost 10 years, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue playing in the upcoming expansion, and I just can’t make the time investment required to keep this site up to date with it.
When I started this site, hunter options for optimization and theorycrafting were a lot more limited. Simulationcraft is now a much more mature and easier to use tool. Esoth is now working on his own web based theorycraft tool at http://www.wowhuntertools.com/hunter/. Ask Mr Robot is a popular alternative option. I hope the hunter community will continue to be well served by these and any new tools that may come along in the future.
I want to thank all the people who’ve helped make the site a success over the years: the authors of the original hunter spreadsheets that the site was inspired by and based on, the hunter bloggers that helped get out the word about the site, the many hunter theorycrafters whose work has helped me keep the site up to date and accurate, the devs who’ve made a real effort in the last few years to engage the theorycrafting community and the player base at large, the volunteer translators that have helped make the site more useful to WoW players in many countries. I also must thank the many wonderful users of the site, some of whom have sent donations over the years, or have shared their stories with me of their experiences with the site, helped make suggestions for improvement or have offered to help in whatever way they could. The hunter community is full of great people that made me proud that I could do my bit to help.
– Zeherah of Stormrage
Thanks for all your contributions to the community, Zeherah! I can’t tell you how much I used the website. It was so handy to check out a new piece of gear or talent change. Sad to see you might be quitting WoW, but we all know no one ever really quits WoW. 😉 Regardless, Zeherah will forever be immortalized in WoW with Zeherah’s Dragonskull Crown.
As she said, we have a new web-based tool at Esoth’s Hunter Tools which is already functioning with current beta changes. It’ll give you estimates for both single target and AoE DPS and provides a lot of extra detail on a per-shot basis. Can’t wait to use this tool more once 6.0 drops.
Gara is still an unsolved mystery
If you missed it, check out my big post/guide about Gara the spirit beast. It’s a long and complicated quest of sorts to tame a new spirit beast (void wolf).
We’re still stuck in a rut. No idea where to proceed next, but the folks at Petopia are still actively discussing possibilities. We will figure this one out eventually!
Update: Gara has been tamed!
Wow, I leap for joy at the thought of the WHU returning, but then I cry inside at the thought of Female Dwarf going away.
This has been an emotional weekend for hunters!
Indeed righteous moment with WHU coming back just to be bombshelled by the new of female dwarf going away talk about an emotional roller coaster this weekend
Gara solved, we finally did it.
Enlight, us! Oh wiseman…