Category Archives: Off Topic

Hunter News, Off Topic

Sunday Catch Up: WoD release date, hunter spell effects, and other stuff

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November 13, 2014. Only 10 days away from the actual 10-year anniversary. I like the date. It’ll add an extra level of excitement to the BlizzCon festivities since they’re so close together.Ā  I’ll be killing Iron Horde at the Dark Portal and the revamped UBRS on one screen, with the BlizzCon livestream on the other.

The only thing I don’t like is that it’s a mere 5 days away from the release date of Dragon Age Inquisition, a game I am very excited to play. Sorry, Dragon Age, you’re going to have to be put on the backburner for a while.

There’s some other bits and bobs I wanted to mention. Small stuff I didn’t think was deserving of its own post, so I’ll cram them in here. šŸ™‚

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10 Years, 10 Questions

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The ALT:ernative Chat blog has started a “10 Years :: 10 Questions” project, asking players to answer 10 questions about their finest memories in World of Warcraft. She plans on reading them all and producing a series of podcast documentaries featuring some of the best entries.

I thought this project sounded pretty awesome, and I’ll never turn down an opportunity to wax nostalgic about my old times in WoW. I chose to answer my questions in blog form, but you can also submit your answers directly to the project here.

Ready to be crit with a wall of text for over 9000? Then continue reading…

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Roast Mutton

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“Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don’t look like mutton again tomorrer… “

Recently while leveling up in Spires of Arak, I ran into my favorite vignette yet! For those not in the know, vignettes are rare mobs or little “events” that you will find throughout Draenor. Each one of them gives you loot of some kind, along with Garrison resources. There’s a lot of them.

If you’ve read The Hobbit, or watched An Unexpected Journey, you should immediately know what this reference is.

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TBT: My first beta

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The first WoW beta I ever participated in was the Wrath of the Lich King beta. According to the screenshot’s filename, this was taken on September 16, 2008. The first thing I did, as any hunter would, was take a trip to Shadowmoon Valley to tame Uvuros. Core Hounds were a new pet family being introduced in 3.0 and I remember being quite excited about it. They weren’t shrinking very much once tamed, as you can see. I always liked the ridiculously large pets, even though melee must hate them with the fury of a thousand suns (sorry melee).

This was only a month before the pre-expansion patch 3.02 came out, so it was near the end of beta. I don’t remember doing a ton of testing in Wrath content. I think I didn’t want to spoil myself. That’s not really a thing anymore in the age of content being datamined before the developers can even open their mouths. That pre-expansion patch is worth another TBT in the future.

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TBT: The WoW machinima I was never able to finish

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Taking cue from Delirium and Darkbrew, I’m going to have my own TBT (or Throwback Thursday) posts from time to time. Especially now, there’s really not much to talk about aside from the occasional alpha or beta build. Since I’m not actually in the alpha, I can only say so much about what I read in the patch notes. Whenever I get in, that should change, but for now the odd nostalgia post will help keep me busy.

My first post is about my first (and only) WoW machinima I did back in mid-2009. It was called Conquering Ulduar and it was a cinematic look at Ulduar 25 raiding. The concept was pretty simple: I’d turn off my UI, and then run around and film the raid at interesting angles while trying not to get killed. I was killed a lot as you might imagine. Some of this video was filmed from the perspective of my corpse or resurrected as a DK ghoul. My guild was kind enough to carry me as I did this filming. I was inspired to do this video by Jack (who is also a hunter!) and all of his cinematic WoW machinimas he’s been making since vanilla (I love those things).

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Obligatory “I’m not in Alpha” post

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I’m currently living vicariously through twitch streams of all the cool kids who got invited to the alpha. Boy, it sure looks like a lot of fun. One of the few hunter streams I’ve found so far is Azortharion’s. Feel free to point out any others you find in the comments.

I’m kind of sad I’m not in, but it’s understandable since I’m pretty new to the community and not very well known. I started writing Scattered Shots less than a year ago and I wasn’t blogging before then. Eyes of the Beast is even more recent. It hasn’t even been 4 months yet! I am happy with how the site has taken off though (in terms of page views, way beyond what I imagined). The hunter community has been very supportive.

Speaking of them, it’s too bad there are no hunter bloggers (that I’ve seen so far) who got in.Ā  Needs more hunter love, Blizz. Come on! Even some of the folks at WoW Insider don’t have an invite yet, so I guess it’s been mostly limited to streamers. That’s what it feels like anyway.

Hopefully the invites ramp up soon and I’ll get into beta. I am just chomping at the bit for some new stuff, and I’d love to write about it over the summer.Ā  In the meantime, back to Twitch (ever try listening to 3 streams at once? Yikes!).

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Off Topic: Diablo 3 is, surprisingly, still holding my attention

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I didn’t think I’d still be playing Reaper of Souls on a regular basis 2 months after release, mainly because vanilla Diablo 3 only lasted me about 3 weeks before I basically shelved it until patch 2.0. The game still has its problems, but I have to hand it to the devs as they’ve balanced out the reward system remarkably well. I still have motivation to find more loot, even though my Demon Hunter is powerful enough to solo Torment 6 rifts now.

Just recently I finally completed the 6-piece bonus of the Marauder’s set, and, well, if you’ve ever played a DH you understand how crazy those set bonuses are. Basically, I can drop sentry turrets which automatically fire my own hardest hitting abilities… without any resource cost. Since I can drop 4 sentries at a time, the screen is littered with Cluster Arrows and Multishots. It’s made it where Torment 5 is my “comfortable” rifting difficulty, but Torment 6 is still doable. And there’s still upgrades to be had.

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Just used up my luck for the next year

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About a year ago, I got the Reins of the Onyxian Drake and Reins of the Azure Drake on the same day and I joked then that my luck would be bad for the next year. I was right. But then this happened:

ashesfiery

I’ll say once again that my luck is used up for the year. I look forward to my next rare mount drop in 2015!

For those wondering, it was 88 Kael’thas kills and approximately 60 Attumen kills.

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Off Topic, Opinion

The end-of-expansion doldrums

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My WoW playing time has dropped off a cliff over the past few weeks. My motivation to gear up any further is mostly gone, though that isn’t anything new. I always feel like that at the end of an expansion when I know quest greens and dungeon blues are about to replace all my purples. There’s nothing wrong with that. I look forward to getting the new gear and starting fresh.

But for some reason this lack of new content just feels worse than previous expansions. I’m guessing this is due to a complete and utter lack of WoW news. I don’t want to say they promised it, but the way devs were talking at BlizzCon certainly implied that Warlords would be out sooner than normal. Now we know this is not the case and the lull in content may even be longer than Cataclysm’s. Dragon Soul lasted about 10 months, and Siege of Orgrimmar is going to have its 10 month birthday on July 10th. Judging by the estimate of a fall release, SoO is going to last a minimum of 12 months. Also, does anyone else feel weird using their Warlords mount and pet 6 months before the expansion actually comes out?

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Thoughts on Elder Scrolls Online

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I am a big Elder Scrolls fan, having put many hundreds of hours into both Oblivion and Skyrim over the years. It seems at least once or twice a year I will get the Skyrim urge again. Elder Scrolls Online seemed like the perfect fit for someone like me who enjoys both Elder Scrolls and MMOs.

I’ve participated in the past 4 beta weekends and have come away somewhat impressed. At first I was a little put off by it because I was so used to MMOs copying the WoW formula. Once I stopped playing the game like WoW and tried to play it like the developers obviously intended, I had a much better time. You can click any of the screenshots that follow in this post for the original 2560×1440 versions.

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