Oldies but Goodies

Sometimes I wonder this. Am I old? Not physically, I mean I am only 21 after all; I'm one of the youngest members of my guild. I'm actually younger than most people I know on WoW, despite the stereotype that Horde/Alliance are 13 year olds (depending on your faction).

But I find myself often being the oldest character in most situations. I know about 6 other players who have been playing the same length (and 2 longer than me) of time on my realm. I'm sure they're are far more than that, but all considering, most of my realm are Burning Crusade Babies (as I like to call them). And now we have an even larger rush of Wrath of the Lich King Babies, and alot of these people are returnee's to WoW after TBC.

I've been playing my Hunter main, Rikaku, for 4 years. She's been the only toon of mine to actually hit the level cap, despite the fact I have over 20 alts of varying classes and levels. I don't consider myself a Hunter guru by any means (but ask me about the Lore of a quest, I dare you!), I'm just your regular Hunter casual who enjoys a good quest and loves mount-loot. But with this large influx of new players, I find myself often quoting things of the past that just go over newer players heads.

Does anybody remember Ragnaros? Those 3 days of Molten Core runs, hoping your Giantstalker peices would drop? Or maybe you'd finally get Tranquilizing Shot? It's funny how, now, when I mention it most Hunters don't believe me we had to get a drop to learn it. I also remember when Molten Core first came out how Hunter Pets and Warlock Demons could be "the bomb" and be dismissed; Only to be summoned in Ironforge and wreck havoc amongst the populace.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there isn't memorable stuff in Wrath of the Lich King. There is! Between fighting as Arthas against Illidan, to the Wrath Gate, to defeating Malygos; there's memorablia in it all. But sometimes, there's fond nostalgia. "Time makes the Heart grow fond", and I think that's true for the old dungeons. With the Achievement system implemented, there are daily Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Qiraji & Zul'Gurub runs, you name it.

So, take it from me, if you haven't ran any of these dungeons before and you're a BC/WotLK Baby, run one of these dungeons. If you're a mount collector, achievement-collector, aspiring Loremaster, or even just a collector of neat looking weapons, there's something for you in the old dungeons; Just gotta dust them off and experience it.

The Balancing Act: 3.1's Pet Standardization

In an effort to just understand the new PTR patch which includes pet standization, I decided to write a feedback thread on the WoW PTR. It seemed innocent enough, until I did the math. Now, I'm out on a mission to inform the other hunters of just the possibility of ramifications of this and I want to see their ideas! So maybe if you're interested, after reading this arguement, you'll drop by the PTR Feedback thread and give your ideas!


"Cunning, Ferocity and Tenacity pets now all have +5% damage, +5% armor and +5% health bonuses. This should make more pet families feel viable, while additional talents have been added to distinguish a pet’s abilities based on its specializations."

Perhaps it's only me, but this doesn't seem to make any pet more viable. The numbers and dps are what make pets "viable" to raid, solo, and pvp with.

Just because your Gorilla now does +5% damage more than it did before, and you increase it's damage with talents does not mean it's a viable choice to bring to a heroic and/or raid. A Ferocity pet will still out-damage it because the Cat or Wolf or Raptor talents just make it stronger than any "dps-specced" Tenacity pet.

This change isn't helping anyone. In fact it does more harm then good. It almost nullifies the bonus damage of the new talent "Shark Attack" (which was added as a 'perk' to taking the 51 point BM talent). Shark Attack increases damage by 6%, and by losing the extra 5% damage Ferocity pets used to get pre-standardization, you're really only getting a 1% damage increase compared to pre-standardization stats. That doesn't justify taking a 51 point talent at all.

Now it is only a 1% buff pre-standardization, along with the nerf to Wild Hunt (from 40% to 20%), I don't see how any of this is making the pet families more viable. It's the exact opposite. If anything this makes it almost mandatory to bring a Ferocity pet just to make up the loss of damage and dps.

If you were going to implement an idea where all pet families are viable, you should change the system to where players can choose the spec of their pet's talent rather than it be based on the family. Tenacity wolves, ferocity crabs (way better than thunderstomping crabs!), and so on and so forth. This sort of Pet Talent Spec system would work far better with a standardization. However, the system should be to where once you put a talent in a certain spec , you cannot change your pet's spec until you re-train it.

Such an example of this would be, once I put 1 point (In say, Cobra Reflexes) in the Ferocity tree, my Warp Stalker cannot put any points in Cunning or Tenacity. I would have to go to the Pet Trainer and re-train him in order to re-spec him.

In theory, pet standardization is a great idea, but as previous stated, it's not going to work with the status quo. There either needs to be all pets are standard, you choose your pets spec & thus have all pets theoretically viable OR no pet standardization, pet talent spec system is decided by the pets family & thus the viable pets are a select few for specific purposes. It can't be both ways or the entire idea is lackluster and falls apart.

From WoW PTR forums:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15443420948&postId=154420134243&sid=1#0