Hunter is Overpowered

Last night included further experimentation with the Battlegrounds, again on a hunter, but this time on my Nelf Hunter, Berryl. I think I played five or six Warsong Gulch games, and two Arathi Basin games. She was about half-way through her level, fully rested experience, and managed to get to level 26 by the end of the night. I haven't had that much fun in a battleground in a long time.

I stuck with Warsong Gulch for the first two tries, just to get a feel for the character again. Unlike Gruun (level 12), Berryl has quite a few more tricks up her sleeve (level 25, now 26). I'm even proud to say that on one of the games, I was the top damage-dealer for the Alliance. I've never been the top of the damage list. It gave me giggles. :D

Luckily for me, talent points had been reset for hunters, so I made her Marksman. I'm liking her current build so far, and I'm loving the Spider pet's special ability. I'm sure it pisses the other players off to no end to be suddenly rooted in place by a hunter's pet while I'm whaling on them from way over here, where they can't get me. Plus, her little 8-legged beastie can do some decent damage by himself.

That's not to say I don't die. I die plenty. Usually to some class that can bubble or to those damn rogues. Many of them are over my level and can one shot me if they catch me at below full health. Their crippling poison is a real pain, too. Still, I do really well, especially on defense. Set a freezing trap at the flag, leave Obsidian (her spider) on aggressive in the center of the flag room and go to the corner to Shadowmeld. Perfect.

I even did the Battleground daily for Arathi Basin last night, which got me some extra honor. It's too bad I can't get her any heirloom gear. I see plenty of players in the heirloom shoulders and I'm green with envy. Not only are they probably getting an increase in experience, but the gear itself is a nice boost. And gear is going to become a main concern here, soon.

See, you can't get gear just from fighting in a BG. You have to earn enough honor to buy stuff, and it seems like most of it isn't available to use until much later. I'll have to do some research because otherwise it looks like the AH and I are going to be best friends. Or, rather, my gold and the AH will be... :(

The Perfect Gun and BG Experience

Blizzard has once again honored one of the elite, one of the great players of their game, with an in-game item. In this case, it is a gun, specifically tailored for Hunters, and it's a drop in the tribute chest in the new Argent Tournament Coliseum. That's right, everyone's favorite Beast Mastery Hunter, BigRedKitty, aka BRK, has a new weapon named after him.

The BRK-1000. Isn't it pretty? *sigh* We miss you Daniel and it looks like Blizzard misses you, too! This is a pretty nice way to remember him, I think. Good on you, Blizzard, this was a long time coming for the guy that taught me more about playing a Hunter than anyone else.

And speaking of hunters, I recently dug up an old alt of mine to test the Battleground experience change, since ED was locked out with a 400+ server queue to get in. His name is Gruun (troll males FTW!) and is located on the Underbog server. At level 12, I knew I'd probably get stomped into the dirt in Warsong Gulch, but hunters are good for PvP, so I gave it a shot. I set him up with his 3 talent points in Improved Tracking (+3% damage against whatever I'm currently tracking, obviously humanoids for the BG) and queued up.

He actually did okay. No twinks, although there were a few level 19 and even a handful of 20's in the bracket that could one-shot him (he only has just over 300 health). He got several of the PvP achievements that night and I actually had fun for once. It definitely makes me want to take another toon out to the BG's and tear up the place for fun.

I like hunters for PvP, with their kiting abilities and decent damage, plus pet. I'm fairly certain hunters have gotten a talent reset (I definitely didn't pay for his talent change last night) and I think Berryl might make a good candidate for BG leveling. She's higher up and will soon have more access to Arathi Basin. Warsong Gulch is fun and all, but the experience gain vs. time spent is pretty awful. The developers are definitely watching this, they've said as much on the official forums, so hopefully they'll bump the experience gain for WG soon.

Gear is still a factor, but not having to worry about twinks makes life easier. And, it may have just been my good luck, but there appeared to be a great deal less QQ in the BG chat last night. If a happier, friendlier Battleground is what awaits, then I'm all for a great deal more Battleground excitement.

Wanting a Rogue

Today I woke up and really wanted to play a rogue. I'm certain it's just a minor issue with my altoholism, it will pass, but I find it funny. I have a warrior at 80, a Paladin well on her way to 80 (especially once I get my nice internet this weekend... I'm excited!) and a slew of alts. Far more alts than I'll ever be able to play, or want to play. The new Armory app for my iPhone has made that exceptionally clear.

I have two rogues, though, that I've created and actually played in the last 6 months or so: Loem, a male human rogue on ED, and Untainted, a female Belf on Gul'dan. Loem is only just over level 10 or so and is Leodry's brother (RPlol). Untainted is sitting pretty at level 39 and I've run a few battlegrounds with her, but I'm not sure how I want to work her. Patch 3.2 will bring battleground leveling, but something tells me it won't be nearly as efficient as regular leveling. Honorable kills don't count towards the experience, for example, so it makes me wonder just what does.

I'd love to level at least one of them in the battlegrounds, just to see how it would be done. Instead of dungeon drop blues, I'd get some nice PvP rewards. Instead of questing, which requires tons of travel, I could just stick in a major city at all times (thanks to queuing from anywhere now). That would mean lots of rested experience. If I could get some BoA shoulders, too, it would help. I hope this battleground experience thing works out. It would be a really interesting way to level up a toon and I'd be able to focus entirely on PvP for once.

The Daily Grind

I do many daily quests. I do them for reputation, for profit, and for fun. Some are easier than others. Some take more time than others. All of them have a purpose of some kind. You can do 25 a day and there was a time I thought I'd never ever have so many to do that I'd hit that limit. To be honest, I doubt I have time each day to do all 25, even with my increased travel speed. They take you all over Northrend, helping various factions and earning a nice amount of gold. I think I can get around 350 Gold a day thanks to dailies. Well, maybe not that much, as I often load up the AH and my income per day is increased thanks to the occasional letter from the Auction House. Still, it's no small amount. I'll need it all once I start raiding for enchants, material for my professions, and buff foods and scrolls. So what is my daily grind? Well... Check out a normal day for me below (along with my primary reason for doing the quest).

I usually start in Dalaran, thanks to the fact that my hearthstone is set there. Most days I do the cooking quest (gold), grab the daily PvP quest and then take off from the Landing to K3 in Storm Peaks to do Overstock (gold). Then I fly up into the mountains to talk to Gretta the Arbiter in Brunnhildar Village who will give me a random quest (a chance at a bear mount). I'm still waiting on that polar bear of doom, Gretta. From there, it's a quick flight down the Valley to the Sons of Hodir.

The Sons of Hodir give me several quests, especially now that I'm on decent terms with them. I complete the 5 quests available to me (reputation). My favorite is one that just opened to me, Thrusting Hodir's Spear. Yes, yes, we all get the innuendo. The fight with the Wild Wyrm is just epic, not to mention frantically fun, if occasionally frustrating.

From there I fly to Icecrown to do some regular quests for the Ebon Blade (reputation) along with some dailies. I generally pick up the daily from the Argent Crusade, and a few from the Vanguard, mostly the ones that focus on the central Vrykul village (reputation). When I finish up with those, I locate that little goblin and his mechagnome and jump to the top of the mountain and back down (gold).

My next stop is Scholozar Basin and the Frenzyheart. I do their three quests with Dajik in tow (reputation). I do a quick circut of the basin, mining all the saronite I see as well as vaccuming up the various steam clouds with my extractor. I love farming in the basin. It's very convienient.

Once that's done, I'll fly to the Borean Tundra to hang with the Wyrmrest Accord folk and hunt down a drake and ride another (reputation). The second one is fairly tough and I've eaten rez sickness before thanks to dieing at the top of the Nexus on a platform, so while I don't often skip it, if I'm feeling burnt out by now, I may think twice about it. From there it's a quick hop over to Dragonblight to Defend their temple (reputation).

Now, if my bags are full of worthwile stuff, I often run back to Dalaran at this point to empty them out. That's usually when I get a bit distracted and see if Winterspring is up soon. If not, I'll generally take care of the PvP daily (honor/gold). If Wintergrasp is up, I'll go help out and attempt to complete at least one daily there (gold). I'll often port from there to the old world, specifically Silvermoon City. It's quiet and deserted which makes it perfect for working the Auction House quickly. I've only been annoyed by one gold-begging noob there so far. Once everything is set up on the AH, I'm running to Undercity to take the zepplin or a bat to Stonard to head through the gate to Outlands. I fly directly from Hellfire to Shadowmoon to work on my Netherwing quests (rep). I collect extra ore and such if I have the time to make the next day easier, but by now I've usually been playing for way too long. I hearth back to Dalaran once I'm done and log out, ready to start the cycle again the next day.

That may seem like a lot of work, and not fun, but the daily quests are interesting enough to keep my interest. And if they don't... it's no big deal. They're just dailies. They'll be there again tomorrow. You may have noticed that I don't list the daily instance quests... I usually don't try for those except on the weekends. Weeknights are hard for me to get into a group and go through an instance reliably. Weekends have those included though, when I can get a group. :)

Wintergrasp

Yrovi entered Wintergrasp yesterday. While it wasn't the first time I had done this, it was the first time I had managed to enter, stay connected, and really, REALLY enjoy myself. This was epic. This was fantastic in every way. I'm still not exactly sure what was going on (although I've done a little reading up on it now, and I think I'll be a lot more helpful next time around). This is what PvP should be in my opinion. A huge battlefield, lots of my Horde bretheren nearby, and a chance to really make a difference, even though I'm a tank (yay for siege engines!).

Also, as an engineer (and a Goblin engineer no less), I have access to two kinds of bombs that do siege damage. Next time I go to Wintergrasp I'll be sure to be well stocked with them. What can I say, explosions are fun. ;-)

Thanks to my joining on a whim, I was able to get two achievements as well: the obvious "Wintergrasp Victory" and the more surprising "Within Our Grasp." In the case last night, the Horde were on the attacking side and easily took the keep from the puny Alliance. It makes me feel really good inside knowing that I helped gain us the right to Stone Keepers Shards and opening up the raid instance inside the keep for our side. I might even work on getting all the Wintergrasp quests and work on them too. I even have half a mind to create a PvP spec when 3.1 hits with Dual Specs. Before now, I never thought about PvP very much, certainly not enough to get a spec or gear specifically for it, but with Wintergrasp it may be worthwhile.