Work on easy Achievements

That’s right. Some achievements don’t involve killing a single monster (or critter.) For example, if I ever find some idle time, I’ll work on:

• To All The Squirrels I’ve loved Before – There’s even a handy guide by BBR at Random Ravings.
• Classic Dungeon Master – Yes, part of this one involves invading an opposite faction’s capital city, but once you’re in the instances, they are relatively easy to clear (and usually solo-able). A small group can quickly do the higher-level dungeons.
• Explore! Visit those nooks and crannies of Azeroth and Outland that you may have missed. uncover those fogged-out areas on your maps. It’s kind of relaxing, in a way…
• Level up a lowbie alt *

I’m probably going to see very little of Northrend during the first week or so after the expansion drops since I really don’t want to let the lag and spawn-camping slow me down. I went through it when the Burning Crusade dropped, and it’s simply a buzz-kill. Working on an alt can also be relaxing too because of the lower number of players in those “old-world” zones.

• Do something other than play WoW *

Yeah, yeah. This one is actually a tricky one. However, I’ve got games on consoles systems, for example, that I haven’t cracked open yet. Playing them could be fun…

Or, I could maybe go out and see a movie or something. Having friends outside WoW can make for a good social event during those evenings when playing WoW isn’t fun.

Whatever happens, make sure you print out your bingo card before you go, and then throughout the weekend, cross off everything that you see on there. If, by the end of the weekend, you’ve nabbed five across, you win!

I’m printing my Bingo card right now…

via WoW Insider

tabard - Ryagas of Sanctity guild - Azuremyst realm

Yeah. I’m pretty die-hard when it comes to WoW…

I think the guild I’m in has been in The Black Temple for quite a few months and this is only the second time I remember this weapon dropping. The first hunter to get it is no longer on the server (or in the guild, sadly) and I certainly didn’t get it terribly cheaply, but that didn’t matter much because my DPS took a serious boost. Goodbye, Legacy! Hello, Halberd of Desolation!

Edit: Pirate-ized for Talk Like a Pirate Day

BigRedKitty: Channeling Larry King – WOW Insider:

Except for Death Kniggets, no class got more new toys than Hunters. Mages and Paladins and the other lesser classes got some presents under their WotLK-tree, but we got so many gifts, we can’t see the floor. It’s good to be us!

Now, while many classes seem worried and anxious about how drastically they’re going to change in the upcoming expansion, it seems the nerf-hammer has been mercifully not heavily applied to us hunters. I, for one, missed being a raiding Marksmanship hunter and do not cringe in fear at the thought that gasp, my DPS will depend on my skill at weaving shots again, even as a BM hunter…

Since the The Age of the Raiding Macro-Masher could be over, the DPS of your average hunter versus the other DPS classes will probably decrease. Whereas hunters used to dominate almost all pre-Tier 6 DPS charts, the frequency that a hunter will get the top spot will decrease, as more skill will be required to maximize our potential. Skill > Gear, and WotLK is going to prove that for our class.

JL2003 on Flickr

As much as I liked being at the top of the DPS charts, being a macro masher was not as exciting as the old days of anxiously timing cooldowns to get the perfect shot rotation to work (if a perfect one existed, I didn’t find it…) Again, I’d rather work on actually being a skilled hunter than a one-button killing machine. Just like when I knew I was going to respec to BM, it was for raid usefulness, and I’m sure any future respec (even back to BM) for the expansion will still allow me to have fun with whatever play style I choose. I might even dabble with Survival for leveling. Who knows? I think I’ll have to play around with the different specs in the PTR (and beta, if I can get a key…)

For now, I’m not gonna be a “Wrath-Freaked” hunter.

A sign of things to come? This line took 2 hours and was to tame The Kurken, one of the exotic beasts that hunters will be able to tame in the upcoming patch. The long wait was due to a certain orc hunter who would kill The Kurken occasionally while another hunter was taming it. That probably won’t happen on PvP servers (it’s an alliance starting area), but I can see this happening on PvE servers. I believe that type of harassment is reportable on live servers, so it might not happen too often…

At any rate, two hours later, the job was done:

Nightelf mohawk, FTMFW!

I hope it’s worth the wait…

Thanks for doing the hard work, BRK!

Halberd of Desolation has only dropped once since I’ve been visiting the Black Temple. My mantra for now remains “maybe next week the dice roll will be favorable…” Good thing this is the first boss in the instance or I would seriously get back into arena. If I’d only have known it would take so long. It hasn’t beaten Legacy as the most annoying drop for me though. I’d have to get it after we get Sunwell on farm first.

That’s not happening for a while yet. It won’t be too long though, compared to this wait.

Even though lots of things in beta are “borked” at this point, I still hope I get a beta key soon. I’d like to try out other hunter specs without the pain of respec costs (a semi-hardcore raider’s gotta conserve gold as much as possible…) and I’d like to take a Deathknight for a spin as well.

I hope episode 2 comes soon. Rawr!