Operation Re-Roll: All That Glitters is Gold

If there's one thing that WoW has taught us, it's time is money. Thankfully, unlike real life, WoW tosses gold at you out of every orifice. Dailies, Professions, Quests, even vendoring greys at level 80 are almost an assured 1-3 gold profit. However, if you're like me, then you make gold just about as fast as you spend it. Despite all the dailies I've done and all those quests for achievements, I am usually in the 2k range of gold. 2k doesn't buy you too much in Wrath and it's safe to assume that in Cataclysm prices will be drastically more. So what's a re-roller to do?

Save your money from you.

So here's a tip from the first hint of re-rolling for your future cataclysm Hunter (or other classes, but I'm just gonna cover Hunter). Everyday you can generally make money without trying. 400g a day isn't that hard to accomplish given just the bare minimum of dailies (and that's not counting what you vendor!) and let me share a little math with you.

Hey don't worry! I suck at math too, so I promise it's easy! ;)

Let's say that MMO-champion and other sites are right and Cataclysm releases in the Spring. Let's say March. That's 7 months from now. Now, since I never did memorize which month has 30 days and which has 31 days in the year, lets go with the 28 day (4 week) minimum. That's 196 days of saving up you can do! Now let's say you only want to save up 250g a day til Cataclysm comes out just for your re-rolled Hunter.

That's 49,000 gold you will have just for that re-rolled Hunter.

250g a day for 49k g?! That's insane, but it's also genius. Keep in mind when you re-roll, you'll need to pay for mount training all over again. Just training to epic flying alone costs a total of 5,844g (not counting the Cold Weather flying!). So by saving up now, you will have over 43k gold you can spend on your fresh new re-roll! Who doesn't like to roll around in style, right?

So start saving now! Even if you save 100g a day, that's 19k you'll have by that same date. Still a nice chunk of change to set to the side.

Quick List:
Total Mount Training Fee*: 6,844g
Total Mount Costs: 161g

Again, these are just rough numbers to show how much gold adds up if you set aside even a small amount everyday.

*Counting Cold Weather Flying at 1000g

Operation: Re-Roll Hunter

Wow...what an eventful 48 hours. It was so much stuff in that first day alone, I was almost too exhausted to even blog. Luckily for another browsers, there are many sites that did a great job blogging about Blizzcon and the announcement (of the year) Cataclysm. So what am I going to do? The same thing I always do, plot my next insane "Operation" as I call them.

If you're like me, coming Cataclysm, you're re-rolling a new race. Maybe you're like me and are switching from your Orc or Night Elf Hunter and trying out a Goblin, Worgen, Human, or Undead Hunter. Now, while we do have some time before the expansion even comes, there's lots you can do now to prepare for a smoother leveling experience in Cataclysm to get your new Hunter caught up and into those new Heroics to prepare you for the showdown with Deathwing.

So, I'm going to share my insane plan over the next few days with you guys so that way, perhaps you'll get some new ideas too or even decide to share your new ideas on it.

Now, I'm not doing this so I can get some Feat of Strength or something. Not at all. In fact, I like taking my time leveling. This is mainly to ensure a smooth leveling experience regardless of your actual "speed of leveling".

Throwing a Monkey Wrench into the Plans

As a Hunter, we’ve all experienced taming a pet and eventually letting it go. We’ve faced the drama of which pet stays and which ones go quite often; despite the fact our stable slots jumped from 3 to 5. As a Beastmastery Hunter, I tend to get overly attached to most of my pets. I say most because I’ve let many a raptor, devilsaur, or generally non-wolf, non-spirit beast and non-cat pets go.

Currently I have a worgen filling up a slot and a cat I planned to let go come patch 3.2 for Skoll. However, given that it took me 5 weeks to get Heero, I doubt I will be lucky to get Skoll right off the bat. Which is a shame, I really liked Storm Peaks, but I’m sure I’ll grow to hate it too soon enough.

Anyways, back on topic.

My dilemmia is this. While running through Hinterlands, collecting Mithril, I found myself heading back to Aerie Peak after a bag full of the stuff. While passing through the pack of wolves and gryphons, I found myself having a jog down memory lane. I recalled one of my first pets, Kiba, also known as Old Cliff Jumper. I remembered spending many a night in Hinterlands, spamming my target macro as I ran to avoid wolves that seemed to always knock me off my Striped Frostsaber. Then, right as I was heading back after giving up, I finally found OCJ on the top of the last hill.

As with all things, I soon picked up Broken Tooth finally and really never looked back at my poor Kiba. Feeling bad I was just letting him sit there, I let him go. Years passed and it wasn’t til Wrath (3.1 to be exact) that I really looked at wolves again.

Anyways, back to mining mithril… as I came into sight of Aerie Peak, I thought to myself “Why not give OCJ one lap around for old time’s sake?” So, I did just that. I ran a quick circle around the small pack of wolves. As I suspected, there was nothing there. As I turned to head back and continue on my journey to the FP which would then take me to IF where I would train and sell ores and bars, something in the corner of my screen caught my attention.

The tell-tale dark black coloration of a worg that could only be OCJ. Surprised, I hovered my mouse over and sure enough, it was him; Old Cliff Jumper! I Call Stabled Pet, put my spirit beast away, grab my throw away cat, abandon said cat and begin taming OCJ.

So here’s my problem…

Instead of being in IF, smelting ores and selling bars and training my Mining, I’m sitting in Dalaran trying to think of a name for this wolf, figuring out what I should do (Keep him[but I’ll get attached!] and dump him when I see Skoll? Keep him and kick out Worgen?). Essentially, I’ve doomed myself to hours of leveling this wolf 5 levels just to try and take him into Ulduar tomorrow…

/sigh

Oh well, guess mining will just have to wait.

The Battle for Dominance: Part 1

No other class seems so angry as the Hunters of World of Warcraft. Beastmastery Hunters are upset at the nerf, Survivalists are basking in the glory, and Marksman Hunters are feeling like they're lost in translation. The feeling of vindication fills many, while a few keep a level head. Of course, this is the cold hard truth. Never before have I seen a class with specs ready to jump at each other's throats. Sure, Ret Pallies get pretty darned close, but Hunters are a special bunch. As a lover of Hunter and one of it's greatest followers, I feel I have to post the following.

Too often are the specs looked at with vindication; quite frankly I'm annoyed by it. So many hunters who have only been around post-TBC launch have been spouting "Well BM was the top dps spec in TBC, it's time for another spec to have a chance." One, I do not agree with this style of thinking, and not because of my main spec being BM. Obviously most of these players were not around in "Vanilla" WoW.

Back when LFG DM didn't mean LFG Deadmines, back in the original days of WoW, there was only one spec; Marksman. Sure, you could level as BM, but endgame? Not happening. Back in my day (wow that makes me feel old O_o) our guild leaders told us "Dismiss pet!", if we didn't, we got kicked. You want to talk about cookie cutter specs? Try cookie cutter class. It wasn't until the pre-TBC patch 2.0 that everything changed.

But should this really be how Hunter specs work?
Survivalists are an interesting lot though. Beastmastery has always been a favorite, and I think that's something that won't change among MANY of players. Hunter is about the pet, it really is what makes us different. You don't see Warlocks with "pets"; you see warlocks with "minions". Sure, according to game tactics and playstyle there is no different between "pets" and "minions"; however to some players there is a difference. Many BM hunters treat their pets like another person. Honestly, who hasn't heard a BM hunter on vent say (or in party chat) "dammit they killed !" Many players who play Hunter get attached to their pet, and irregardless of a nerf, many players will stand by their pets side.

BM have been the "All-Stars" for awhile of Hunter specs. But now, we're looking at SV. SV was the oddchild of Hunter specs. I can honestly say that if someone told me a year ago that SV would be the current DPS king of Hunter specs, I would've died laughing. I'm all for equal specs, but even I know that in Vanilla WoW there was NO SV hunters, and even in TBC they were but a whisper.

Some of these SV hunters are now upset they are being nerfed and even more upset that BM is getting buffed. Even though this has the possibility of making all specs viable, there are still several hunters very upset about this change. Yet, I don't see many BM hunters cheering at the nerf of SV. I'm sure they're out there, but I haven't seen them yet.

Perhaps I'm just ranting aimlessly, but this is my blog and I can do that. But, here's some food for thought. Shouldn't we have a class that allows you to choose your spec purely based on playstyle and your skill with that spec? And still be competitive? Shouldn't we, as the Hunter community, work together to make all our specs viable and not just burn the spec we don't want to be, who is the top dps, at the stake?