All posts by bendak

Hunter News

R.I.P. Scattered Shots

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I’ve known for about a week, but Alex just posted it publicly today, so I’ve already got the initial disappointment out of the way. But yes, class columns are getting shut down at WoW Insider. The only reason for this is budget cuts, and it’s not just WoW Insider that’s affected — it’s other AOL sites like Massively as well. This is by no means the end for WoW Insider.  It’s still being staffed by a big group of people who love the game, and I’ll still be going there for my daily WoW news fix.

I’ve only been there for 5 months, but in that short time I’ve met some great people. I had fun hanging out in the work chat room all day just talking about WoW and whatever else was on our minds. There’s a ridiculous number of talented writers and it’s sad to see so many go, but I’m glad to have made their acquaintance and I’ll still be following what they all do on Twitter and whatnot.

Continue reading R.I.P. Scattered Shots →

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Hunter News

Blast from the past: Rhok’delar

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Recently, some of the WoW designers have been posting photos of their oldest surviving design notes on the game for “throwback thursday.” Today, Alex Afrasiabi (Creative Director) posted up his ancient design notes for the hunter class quest in vanilla. This quest was truly an epic undertaking, and at the end you were rewarded with Rhok’delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers.  The quest also rewarded you with a melee weapon, Lok’delar, Stave of the Ancient Keepers.


In order to start the quest, you needed to get the Ancient Petrified Leaf to drop in Molten Core. Unfortunately, this is no longer available in the game. It was removed in Cataclysm and I’m still kicking myself for not completing it when I could in Wrath. The problem was, back then I never would have thought we’d get transmog. Oh well.  This quest took you to Felwood, where you were then sent to slay 4 demons across Azeroth. They all required specific strategies and you couldn’t have any help or else they’d despawn. Finally, you’d have to kill Onyxia before turning it in for your weapons. Frostheim also wrote a great article on the quest back when it was still available.

Are any of you lucky enough to still have this on your hunter?

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Hunter Transmog

Hunter Transmog: Gold ‘n Blue

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You may have seen this transmog featured on previous Scattered Shots columns. I often get requests for the item list, so here it is! It’s a mishmash of a few hunter tier sets.

I’ve put this set together in a Wowhead item comparison so you can quickly view it on other races in 3D (click the little triangle above the item icons).

Hunter transmog

Got a cool hunter transmog to show off?

Submit it, along with a complete item list and a link to a high resolution screenshot (1200+ pixels wide) and I may feature it on the site!

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the week: Cida

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Nope, this pet isn’t Princess Huhuran, though up until recently the princess was the only one who used this particular model and skin. This here is Cida, a rare wasp found in Felwood which was added to the game in patch 5.2.  Why would you tame Cida over Huhuran? Because Cida retains her large size once tamed unlike the rest of the wasps (or any other pet for that matter). I wouldn’t necessarily recommend using this one in a raid unless you want the melee and tanks to hate you, but it’s extremely fun in PvP.  I named mine Anaphylaxis.

Cida is level 45 and  spawns at precisely 45,32 in Whisperwind Grove in Felwood. Cida doesn’t patrol or have any other spawn points. The respawn timer is anywhere from 3-6 hours.

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Hunter News

Hunter Aspects being removed in Warlords of Draenor?

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That’s right, it looks like hunter aspects are being removed from the game. The below video is from Blizzard’s recent press event for Warlords. It features someone playing a hunter who, frankly, has no clue how to play a hunter. It’s a little painful to watch at times, but there are a couple hunter things we can learn from it, and you get a good look at the new Shadowmoon Valley.

You might be thinking the player just forgot to use an aspect (after all, they don’t even use a focus generator), but careful examination will show that the hunter aspect bar is missing from the default UI. That’s pretty solid evidence for their removal.

Continue reading Hunter Aspects being removed in Warlords of Draenor? →

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Hunter Transmog

Hunter Transmog: Gronnstalker

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This right here is my “go to” transmog set on my main hunter. Whenever I’m not sure what to wear, I usually default back to my favorite tier set. Sometimes I’ll use the set helm, but nowadays I’ve been using this cool eye patch (one of the only eye patch models available for hunter transmog).

Continue reading Hunter Transmog: Gronnstalker →

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Hunter News

Proving grounds silver medal for heroics

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In the recent WoW press tour, Watcher has announced that heroic dungeons in Warlords of Draenor will require a silver medal from the Proving Grounds in order to queue for random matchmaking.  Their reasoning for the requirement is that Warlords heroics will be higher in difficulty than what we’ve been used to recently. If you enter with a pre-made group, there is no medal requirement. Warlords will also have normal mode level 100 dungeons (Mists didn’t have max level normals), which I am guessing will be similar in difficulty to Mists heroics. I am assuming item level will still have a minimum requirement, but it can probably be lower than it would need to be without the Proving Grounds medal.

There’s been quite the uproar over this, from both sides of the fence. In my opinion it is a good thing, but that’s only because it’s going to make randoms less frustrating for me. It also ensures I’m grouped with people who know the most basic principles of the game. I’m sure that I’m not the only one with horrific flashbacks of doing Cataclysm launch heroics in random groups. Good grief that was frustrating. I totally understand Proving Grounds are not something everyone wants to do, but I don’t think asking for 20 minutes worth of “tests” to be completed before you enter harder content with random people is too much to ask. You don’t even have to go anywhere, you queue right from any class trainer.

However, I don’t really think it is necessary for the requirement to be completed on every character, unless it’s a different role. For example, if you get a DPS silver on one class, then all future DPS toons are eligible. For those people who run with 10+ max level toons, re-doing the Proving Grounds over and over could get tedious.

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Hunter News

Welcome to Eyes of the Beast

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My name’s Bendak and I’d like to welcome you to my new hunter blog. Some of you probably know me from the writing I do at WoW Insider for the Scattered Shots column.  Scattered Shots was actually my first go at blogging, and I’ve since enjoyed writing about hunters every week. I figured it was time to start my own personal blog so I can talk even more about hunters and WoW. And with large sites like the WHU now retired, I don’t think it would hurt to have another regularly updated hunter blog out there.

If you’re wondering about the name, yes, it is named after our extinct Eyes of the Beast ability. I had several ideas for the name, but this was the only one with a .com domain available so it won by process of elimination. I kinda like it though. What you can expect from this blog is a combination of hunter news, guides, transmogs, and opinion pieces.  Some of the posts may simply be pointing out a Blizzard tweet that’s relevant to hunters, and others may be 1500 word columns like what you’ve been used to on Scattered Shots. I’ll probably post about other games I’m playing from time to time, but those will be categorized as Off Topic so you can choose to only view the hunter categories if you wish. Make no mistake, the main focus of this site is all hunters, all the time.

Continue reading Welcome to Eyes of the Beast →

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