So I’m in a new guild … of my own. Not wanting to leap right back into steady raiding (although what we were doing was far from steady), I decided to chase down lowbies for signatures and start my own guild to house the family. I still have to get someone who I can trust to join and make an officer so they can invite the entire roster, but that will be easy enough.

I think I’m going to take this time, between now and 3.3.5 and on to Cataclysm, to try to shore up some lame achievements, make money to be prepped for the expansion, and just again enjoy not having raid pressure. I don’t care much about hard modes or what not, or even killing the Lich King (though I wouldn’t mind it it), so PuG’ing raids once in a while is good enough for me. I’m sure once people get the hang of it The Ruby Sanctum will be easy enough. Perhaps I can even snag that new ArP trinket, which is like a marriage between DBW and WFS. Zomg!

That’s all.

What now? What comes next?

Categories: alts, guild
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Frakk!

So what I thought would happen happened, the GM basically disbanded the guild. Only, he didn’t. He told people in vent that he was tired of the no-shows, sign outs, raiding with terrible people, blah, blah. He then said they’d probably do 10-man stuff and to those that wanted to stick around could.

However, this is what threw me for a loop. He said, in vent: “Now I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, but I’m going to kick some people that I hate. I hate raiding with you, talking with, everything. Just get out.”

And boom, I got Das Boot! I don’t have any personal feelings about it, just confusion really. I’d been talking to the GM off and on, and last night about this situation. However I’ve shown up to every raid, even wrote the recruitment thread and maintained it on the forums. Yet apparently I wasn’t “buddy” enough with him. I’d have preferred if he would have just manned up earlier and said he didn’t want me in the guild if he had a problem.

As with all people that hide behind their avatars, they are rarely upfront with you in game.

So, once again the family is without a guild. I’ve been here before. It’s not a major deal, I can PuG stuff on all of my characters to be honest. And what better way to start the beautiful Minnesota spring and summer than to have no in-game obligations again and be able to play at my leisure. That’s what happened last year and I had a great summer.

So I say bring it on. But if anyone needs a good healer or hunter DPS, pst plz.

Categories: drama, guild
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So the guild is making good progress, but the problem as always is just being a person or two short. We killed (or healed rather) Dreamwalker on Tuesday and got damn close to killing Blood Queen Lanathiel tonight. We’d have killed her had if we had a full raid on, but severe weather, sign outs and some Internet outages took some of our raiders out. I’ve been trying to help with recruitment on the forums, but so far no luck.

Regardless, I’ve been having fun. My rogue is almost at 80 and I’m looking forward to gearing him out. Stab-stab DPS is awesome.

Raid changes
Honestly, I think it is pretty awesome if executed right. We often have 25 people logged on on our first raid night, then less and less the following two. If we could continue on the same level of progression on the nights without a full raid, morale would be much higher and I think people would enjoy the raids more. I wonder if 10-man strict guilds are going to be pissed though. Overall it seems like most people are stoked.

Cataclysm better come soon though, I want to start < Project Mayhem >, an army of goblins that level and raid together from 1 to 85. Who’s coming with me?

Categories: Cataclysm, guild, raids
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So, after only having healed one ICC fight in 25-man I managed to find myself in a 10-man ICC guild run. Their hunter was AFK so they spammed trade for a fill in. I stepped up and assured them I could hold my own in the DPS department (though I will admit I was a little worried since I still had an Ulduar ranged weapon). However once we got in, I realized my DPS was fine. The ArmorPen spec and gear I am using right now does really well. Problem is, if I continue to get upgrades there is less and less ArP on hunter gear. Will probably have to scale it back and respec if I get more ICC/T-10 gear.

Speaking of the ranged weapon, I finally got rid of the gun and picked up the Njordnar Bone Bow. Really happy about this as I’ve needed a new ranged for some time. Though I do lose some ArP, the overall DPS increase is worth it. Plus arrows aren’t as noisy as bullets.

We one-shot everything but Saurfang, which took a few tries and the victory left me dead at the end (as you can see above). However, after being through all of the fights on my hunter I can now offer some tips. Of course, other guilds/groups may switch it up but this is how I saw things. Also, I’m only going to look at this from the 10-man perspective, including loot, since that’s what I saw.

Lord Marrowgar

This fight is relatively easy for hunters: stay at range, pew pew, get people down from bone spikes, run run run from fire…repeat. OK, not that easy. Everyone can stack near Marrowgar’s ass (if you can call it that), but hunters still have to stay at range. The best place to be is behind the folks standing close. Keep up the DPS and about 5 seconds before Bone Spike Graveyard you should close in so that if it cast on you the melee are closer and can get you down. If someone else gets spiked, immediately change targets and get them down.

Fire is easy to avoid, and if you are at this level of raiding it should be a simple matter of paying attention and moving. During Bone Storm avoid the fire first and Marrowgar second. If you can, continue to DPS. Right before Bone Storm is about to end, I throw a Misdirection on the tank picking him up and start firing. Keep this up and he should go down fairly easy.

Loot you may want
• Linked Scourge Vertebrae – Nice belt, with two sockets and some hit in case you need it to cap out or shuffle your spec around.
• Bone Warden’s Splitter – Nice axe to dual wield, if you’re into that. I’ve seen a few hunters with one of these and Quel’Delar (1H version), which is awesome for an ArmP setup. Would like to do that, but will have to pass on this unless there are no rogues, enhancement shamans or DW DKs in the group.

Lady Deathwhisper

At first this fight seems chaotic, as there are a lot of adds to remember, odd kill orders and other factors to consider at all moments. It’s even more hectic on 25-man. However, once you get a rhythm down it is relatively easy.

The first thing to know is that there will be Death and Decays going out all during the fight. This is the standard “get out of stuff on floor” part of this fight; move out of it! In 10-man, only one wave of 3 adds spawn at a time; adherents and fanatics. I believe we were tasked with killing the adherents first, then fanatics. If one casts Dark Martyrdom, try and burn them down ASAP. If they explode, they come back as skeletons immune to one type of damage. If it is a Fanatic, casters need to burn it down, if it is an Adherent, physical DPS (YOU) need to burn it down. Whenever there aren’t any adds up, DPS Deathwhisper to get her mana shield down. Once it is down, phase 2 begins.

During phase 2, burn burn burn. Deathwhisper will continue with DnDs, so move out of them. There will also be some untargetable spirits roaming around. Try and kite them if they are beating on you.

Loot you may want:
• Njordnar Bone Bow – Great bow with hit and crit. However, if you’re running around with a ranged from 25-man TotC, this will not be for you.
• Handgrips of Frost and Sleet – Yes please! Two red sockets (though bonus is meh), ArP and a lot of hit.

Gunship Battle

To be honest, I’m not sure of all of the factors going on in this fight. Rocket packs, cannons and craziness; that’s what I saw happening. My job was to kill the rifleman on the other ship. If this is your task, stand at the edge (but don’t fall off!), and just burn them down as they appear. After I got the first wave down, there was never more than two up. If your DPS is good enough you should be able to handle them solo. Call out for another ranged to help out if necessary. However, if your DPS is super duper and you get all of them down, you can turn around and help out with adds on your ship. The other ship will be firing rockets at you too. It puts a little mark on the ground similar to Mimiron rockets, just move aside. They’re super simple to avoid.

Seriously, I wish I had more advice on this fight. I didn’t even realize we’d won for a few minutes. Apparently though it’s not that hard, but I would like to experience this from a healer/tank perspective.

Loot you may want:
• Pauldrons of Lost Hope – Nice shoulders in the T10 model. ArP, haste and two sockets; not bad if don’t plan on getting the actual T10 shoulders any time soon.
• Icecrown Rampart Bracers – A red socket, more hit and crit. I think Blizzard is making up for the loss of ArP with the sockets and putting hit on items instead. This way, the ArP aspect of gear is left up to you through gems. I like this, as it gives more flexibility with some gear.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Now here’s where things get fun for hunters. Now, I love just DPS’ing as much as the next hunter, but being tasked with handling a specific mechanic in a fight is far more interesting to me. This fight gives hunters the chance to bring out some of their abilities which may be a little rusty.

Every 30 seconds Saurfang will summon two Blood Beasts. These need to be pulled and kited toward you and through a set Frost Trap. I positioned a few yards in front of the teleporter and would place my Frost Trap a few yards away from the bottom of the stairs. When the Blood Beasts spawned, we had one tank stun one of them while I used Distracting Shot to pull the other through the trap. You and the other DPS should burn it down and then kill the other one. If it gets too close, kite away and/or have a Boomkin Typhoon it back. It is VERY important that they don’t hit you or anyone else, as it gives Saurfang stacks of Blood Power. Hopefully you can kill the beasts in less than 15 seconds and can get back on the boss as much as possible before the next wave.

This is a mana intensive fight for hunters since you are using more abilities than normal, plus there isn’t much of a break to go into AotV. You want to do max DPS on Saurfang and kill the beasts as fast as possible. My suggestion, using a mana potion or, if totally necessary, use a Potion of Speed and go into AotV on Saurfang after you kill a wave of beasts. It’s hard, but can be done.

And damn it all if you get Mark of the Fallen Champion, which is what happened to me on our winning attempt. This person takes tons of damage and if they die Saurfang heals for 5% of his health. It sucks, but luckily I was the only one that died and they made it through. The guild I was with was pretty damn good and coordinated. So good in fact I decided to join them as a substitute after the run. So Hesston is in a guild again, w00t! Krakattoa might join him as well.

Loot you may want:
• Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts – Better than Crusader’s Dragonscale Breastplate, but not by much. The increased AP makes up for the lack of Agility, but the crit loss is made up as well. OK, maybe it is better. The loss of ArP is kind of bad, but if you need it there are the three sockets. I’d ignore the bonus.
• Saurfang’s Cold-Forged Band – Yes please! A socketed ring with a lot of AP, haste and ArP. Uh, I’d like this to go please.

So that’s what I know. The first gate of ICC is both challenging and fun and has a lot of great stuff for hunters. Can’t wait to see what the second wing has, if I can get in there. Take care, good hunting.

Categories: 3.3, PvE, guild, hunters, raids
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The Cataclysm expansion is a long way off, however I’ve been thinking about a fun little experiment that I may throw out on the forums called “Zeroes to Heroes.”

With the two new races of the expansion, the new race/class combos and new features in the old world, tons of people are going to be leveling new characters. I imagine 90 percent of those will be of the new races, but I’m sure there will be a fair amount of folks wanting to get that dwarf shaman or tauren paladin to end content.

What would be awesome would be to get a group of 8-10 people, and perhaps pick up more on the way, and level all the way from starter zones to 85 together, as a group. It would be scheduled similar to a raiding guild, though less strict of course. The idea would be to level together, not only to speed it up, but also to tackle any of the lower-tier raid/dungeons along the way.

Now my attempt to start a 10-man horde guild pretty much flopped, but I think this idea has some legs and I think I could get some interested parties. To me this would be a lot of fun and make the monotony of leveling from start to end game less of a drag.

Either way, I’m going to document the life of Hesston Jr., a goblin hunter, as soon as Cataclysm hits.

Thoughts?

Categories: Cataclysm, guild
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So clearly, I’ve been hitting the leveling on my Hordie druid pal (61 as of right now). He was 35 when I faction transferred a little less than two weeks ago. Not bad I’d say, but the heirlooms and Hallow’s End candy buckets helped a ton. Seriously, if you’re leveling an alt hit them buckets. Tons of free experience kids, and candy!

Hesston has taken a backseat lately, with the exception of some PvP and dailies to get Crusader badges. The reasons are many and varied, but chief among them is that I just haven’t been having fun on the Alliance side of things or with the guild. Since I can’t raid anymore, I really don’t fit in with Summit anymore. I play to have fun and stressing about jumping into random raids but not getting any direct reward (which is my own doing, not theirs) simply was not fun. So, I’m taking a break–from Hesston, not the game.

Recently I’ve started to date someone in my real life who is not a WoW player. She in fact has only had negative experience with WoW (a roommate who was “addicted”), and asked a valid question when I told her I play: Why?

I’d been wondering this myself after the minor issues with the guild mentioned previously, and when asked directly I didn’t have a really good answer. To me, it’s like reading or watching movies. Sure, you can give the basic answer of enjoying stories or being transported to another world. But when it comes down to it, those who enjoy either reading or watching movies or both, usually just enjoy it. Often the exact reasons can’t be quantified.

I enjoy playing and interacting with the world simply for what it is.

Some people aren’t big into the lore of WoW, and while I’m not a lore junkie, I like the story. This is one reason I decided to check out things from the Horde side with Krakattoa. I’ve played Warcraft since the first, lo-res RTS game. So to me it’s like watching the evolution of a world I’ve been paying attention to for a very long time. Missing raid instances sucks not only because of the loot, but it also feels like I’m missing out a chapter of the larger story. Most likely I will never be able to go through and clear Icecrown Citadel when it hits in 3.3, and that’s a bummer. Again, it’s like missing a part of the story. I’m sure I’ll hear and read about it, but I’d like to be a part of it.

This leads me back to the pressing question that first came up when the loot issue reared its head: Why? What am I trying to get out of paying my $15 a month and what does it matter if I do or do not get a new purple piece of gear? The truth is that it doesn’t matter in the way I am approaching the game right now. For those doing hardcore progression raiding, a new piece of gear for a few raiders can easily swing the pendulum from wiping to winning. However, skill still trumps gear and I know that I’m good at this game. That’s a bit arrogant, but it’s true. So getting more gear right now, though great, doesn’t really matter. I’m sure when 3.3 drops and I go into the new 5-man bits I can do as well as I need to, and I’ll have fun.

I do this because it’s fun. I’m not playing to supplement some empty part of my real life or to substitute any interactions or relationships I am missing. I’m playing to have fun and I’ll do what I need to do in game to continue to get enjoyment out of this thing I like so much. If that means faction transferring characters or leaving a guild I don’t feel I fit in with anymore, so be it. Because the second any of this stops being fun and more like a chore, job or obligation, is exactly when you should cancel your account and find something else more personally fulfilling.

/EndRamble

Categories: alts, guild, ooc
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So the other night the guild needed to fill one of their raid spots on 25-man Yogg. I’m no longer raider status since I can’t commit the time, but can jump in from time to time. They’d been practicing on Yogg a lot and have a pretty good strategy down, but he still did not fall. Regardless of how many guilds have downed him, Yoggy is a bitch. However, I had a blast doing it because I haven’t gotten to raid with this bunch in a long time and it was loads of fun. Some roles have changed, for the better I think, and it will be fun to jump in when I can. Barring any serious fallouts or unforeseen circumstances, I’ll probably stick with Summit well through 3.3 and Cataclysm.

Last night they needed a similar fill-in spot for Trial of the Crusader, something I haven’t got to do yet. We downed Lord Jaraxxus, the Faction Champions and the Twin Val’kyrs. I must say that the Faction Champs fight is really fun for some reason, it’s like doing PvP without actually doing PvP. Sadly, two juicy pieces of hunter loot dropped, the Lupine Longstaff and Sabatons of Ruthless Judgement, but huge upgrades for little old Hesston. However, I wasn’t eligible because I haven’t been raiding. The sad part is that our other hunter passed and both went to offspecs. I understand it still helps the raid overall, but come on, throw a dwarf who will rarely get to raid a bone.

I did however snag the sweet helm from Onyxia over the weekend, though it clashes a bit. And through badges I got the ilevel 232 T9 gloves, giving me a two-piece bonus. Serpent sting crits is so badass, especially as an MM hunter because SS is always up.

OK, I promised myself that if I started blogging here again it would be less about simply gear, raids, WoW news, etc. People can get that anywhere. I’d like to try and write a little more about why we WoW and what it means to people. I mean, in reality it’s all just a repetition of the same thing. So why? I point this question at myself as well, but that’s a conversation for another post.

Toodles.

Categories: guild, raids
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OK, so not exactly old, but friends nonetheless. I rejoined as a casual, aka ‘Friends and Family’ member, so I could have some cool people to hang with and maybe hit up a raid once in a while. Work still is too much for me to commit to a regular raid schedule but pugging just got to be too much of headache (even though I’ve geared up both toons quite nice doing it), so I decided to jump back into the guild play.

I think it will be quite fun.

Categories: guild
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So 3.2.2 is dropping today and with that I think I will mark the return of my WoW blogging. I’ve been away from it (but not the game) simply because I didn’t have much to say. The trio of Hesston, Minalias and Laramie are still unguilded as of right now, but they’ve been getting playtime. With the fun that looks to be 3.2.2 and everything in the pipeline, I don’t anticipate quitting WoW completely.

It is one of my happy places.

In addition to the time commitment to raiding that I could no longer meet, some folks began to ruin my happy place. That is why I felt I should leave Summit at the time. Since then I’ve been playing casually, got some upgrades for Hesston, discovered I love tanking on Minalias, made money, finally snagged epic flying for Hesston and some fun mounts, did some achievements that I wanted for a while and basically rediscovered my happy place.

The game is fun again, incredibly so.

And so with that, I’m back. Though I’ve been healing/tanking a lot on my paladin, whom I frickin’ love right now, I will always be a hunter loyalist. When Cataclysm comes out it will be like a whole new class and I can’t wait to rediscover how to be an elite hunter again. Oh, and I might have to re-roll then, because a Goblin Hunter just sounds so bloody win it hurts.

Random Hunter Tip:
Through tanking I’ve noticed a few newbie hunters doing something really annoying…asking for a mana break. A hunter should NEVER have to ask for a mana break. As a tank, especially in a simple heroic, the only one I give a mana break is the healer. Everyone else is on their own. Hunters have Aspect of the Viper for mana, use it. You can pop that, sit down and drink some honeymint tea for about 10 seconds to gain almost your entire mana pool back. Don’t ask the tank to stop. Use your skills nub. That is all.

One final note, all of my raid videos were force deleted by Vimeo. Seems they don’t like gameplay vids. Jerks.

Categories: guild, patches
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Aka, Mimiron downed. Seriously, probably one of the most satisfying kills in a long time. It takes a lot of tenacity, concentration and, at times, a fair amount of luck. I’m gonna miss being there for every big kill and achievement hereafter, but I’m glad I was present for this one.

Summit, Silvermoon-US vs. Mimiron from Hesston on Vimeo.

Slightly lower quality because of all the madness going on in Mimiron’s encounter.

Categories: achievements, guild, raids
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