Peter's Blog

After the short-lived Ruby on Rails Daily News theme died after three episodes I have been quiet on the subject. I have used Ruby on Rails for an Intranet application and I find I really like it. The system has a great depth of design, as if every little thing has been thought about, yet it is all done in a very simple way. Need a new static page on your website? Just create a .rhtml file for it, give the file the right name and it will be there on your site, no wiring required. Modifying your database schema? Want to add a column to a table? Create a migration that will both add the column and delete it if you change your mind. Once the migration is loaded the column is there in your mysql, sqlite or whatever database and also available in your object model.

The application I have built has made the users happy but needed what seems like a tiny amount of code. I haven't used the Ruby language much but you do seem to be able to express yourself more succinctly than you can in python, mainly due to the use of blocks.

My main reason for picking up Ruby-on-Rails apart from it being mainstream and commercial was that I can buy books about it and the Pragmatic Programmers books are very good, both "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails" and "Programming Ruby".

While the python web development platforms Django and Turbogears have no mature blogging packages ready (I can only find various "works in progress") Ruby on Rails has at least two, Typo and Mephisto. Typo comes with InstantRails and Mephisto appears to have a very small codebase given what it does. Both could be the basis for a CMS and I am very tempted to go this route since the Ruby-on-Rails platform is robust and well documented and the Ruby language is at least as good as Python.

Summary: Ruby on Rails is worth learning ruby for.

• Third day without logging on. I do miss the game. At first I tried looking at forums and just the letters WTB annoyed me with their overfamiliarity and I had to stop.
• I looked at the new Lord of the Rings game. It sounds like a WoW clone. I found the books pretty boring and the films were great cinematography but the plot left me cold. WoW doesn't try to have a plot. If I play LotR I am back to square one with no gold. I don't want to pull the plug on WoW and I don't want to pay two subscriptions. Then again LotR is a new game, WoW is well trodden ground, everyone is an expert, everyone else is a noob.
• Still can't face paladin
• I've read my WoW books, looking at the different classes. Is it alt time?
  • Priest: shadow for levelling then no problem getting in raids if you respec holy
  • Rogue: great DPS, kill things quickly, stealth, lockpicking, pickpocketing, already have a level 10 rogue.
  • Hunter: best solo PvE class if you don't mind being one of the throng or having everyone suspect you of being a bot.
  • Druid: good hybrid class but have to be a night elf and start off in fairyland (then again, you can do forward somersaults).
• Tempted to play as female dwarf just to be different. Only ever see female dwarfs selling wow gold. However, dwarf restricts you to paladin, warrior, hunter, priest, rogue and you have to ride a sheep.
• Whatever I choose would have to be able to kill quick. Fed up with pally attrition.
• Whatever alt I picked I would probably use a levelling guide to level it up quick.
• Would be twinked as much as possible from existing funds. Epics aplenty.
• If I do log in as paladin it will be to check mail, do blacksmithing for alt's, administration etc.

Right now I'm working in Python yet I am already missing Ruby Blocks.

What I am doing is I am sending commands to firmware and processing the results. I have common code like this:

def DoCommand():
   try:
      SendCommand()
      oResults = GetResults()
      #
      # Process the results
      #
   except:
      ProcessError()

Different types of command yield different results and I have to duplicate all this with different result handling code. In ruby I could do it like this:

   1  def DoCommand()
   2     begin
   3        SendCommand()
   4        oResults = GetResults()
   5        #
   6        # Process the results
   7        #
   8        yield( oResults)
   9     rescue
  10        ProcessError()
  11     end
  12  end

and call it like this

DoCommand() { |oResults| print oResults }

i.e. I pass the result handling code as a block and the block is executed within the exception handler.

There are many other ways I could structure this but using blocks seems like a nice efficient way to do it using a minimum of typing. For example, in python I could do it like this:

   1  def DoCommand( oResultHandler):
   2     try:
   3        SendCommand()
   4        oResults = GetResults()
   5        #
   6        # Process the results
   7        #
   8        oResultHandler( oResults)
   9     except:
  10        ProcessError()
  11  
  12  def HandleOneKindOfResult( oResults)
  13    print oResults
  14  
  15  DoCommand( HandleOneKindOfResult)

I have to define multiple functions like HandleOneKindOfResult and I have to think of names to give them where in ruby these are just nameless blocks.

So why am I doing what I am doing in python and not ruby? Two reasons:

• short deadline
• I am using wxPython, pyserial and pyexe and don't know of or have experience of any ruby equivalents.

• I guess this means I'm back. I had a cold that made me terribly feverish (in bed, fully dressed, with jumper on, feeling cold, with the weather we've been having recently?) and this may have affected my mood.
• I still want a break from the paladin so I've started a new alt and I've gone with Female Dwarf Hunter for pretty much the reasons I went through yesterday, Female Dwarves are more exclusive (and I'm safe with my sexuality) and Hunters seem to be one of the easiest classes to level. I could theoretically have continued levelling the night elf rogue auction alt but... dunno, not a fan of night elves and I've a feeling that rogue play is too much key-mashing for me.
• I've used Boston's 1-12 Dun Morogh Leveling Guide to speed my progression. Compared to when I did it the first time this seems to involve much less wandering about. It took me two and a half hours to get to level seven. I'm now level nine, looking forward to ten when I get to train a pet.
• The play style is a nice change from paladin in that I have a BIG GUN. It has a good range, 35 yards, so you shoot a beast at maximum range and keep shooting while it runs towards you (I didn't realise they ran so fast, with the pally I had to run to them). By the time it reaches you it is half dead and you finish it off with an axe. If you are in the right area surrounded by beasts you don't have to move you just pick the next one. You get a nice beast tracking ability so you can see the beasts all around in your minimap. If you are hunting crag boars for a quest you just find them on the map.
• The gun has a range of 8-35 yards so once within 8 yards you must resort to melee. Adds are a problem as they come straight into this area. Hunters melee skills are not that strong, on equal-level mobs she can handle it but two is too much, where for pally this is no problem. At these low levels it is pretty easy to run away (she doesn't get dazed when she turns her back) and the minimap makes it easier to avoid running into more mobs. She's died three times so far, from getting add's while in a cave full of trolls with no escape route. One good thing about shooting at 35 yard range: if you get a bad pull and two come running it is easier to turn and run and you can see from the minimap when it is safe to stop running. Guns and cowardly running away, a match made in heaven.
• I've picked up cooking and first aid but not fishing as I'm still not sure I can stand it. I know some people love it (I'm looking at you Urban) and it's free pet food but I don't like standing still. I'm deciding on primary professions:
  • engineering: could make guns, ammo, sniper sights, bombs, could be useful but higher level engineering toys are just toys and have a tendancy to backfire. A bit of a money pit profession, not very profitable. However my main can mine all the materials very easily which would give me a spare profession slot.
  • blacksmithing: main already highly skilled
  • mining: main already maxed out
  • skinning: not really interested
  • leatherwork: not really interested
  • tailoring: not really interested.
  • enchanting: as a hunter I'm not sure she would be too welcome in raiding groups (Hunter's strength is the pet and pets are hard to control in instances) which means no Uldaman which means no higher level enchanting training unless she can get a portal to Shattrath (hum).
  • herbalism: the sensible choice, for the money. Auction alt is a herbalist but he doesn't get out much.
  • alchemy: experience so far says she will be needing health pots. No self healing spells!
  • jewelcrafter: again main can do the mining
• Looks like herbalist/alchemist, the health pots are the clincher. My auction alt could drop herbalism (since he never goes outside ironforge) giving me another spare slot but I'm not sure how high he can level a profession without levelling his player skill (level 375 engineer on a level 10 character?).
• The newbie areas seem deserted compared to when I was a noob last november. There were maybe three other lowbies, all male and all, I suspect, alts (especially a gnome called 'BlackNinja', last seen struggling vs two trolls: would you help someone with a name like that?). I did seem to get some attention but I don't know if that is because I was playing a female character or because they had few other people to talk to/group with/trade with.

• Ground my way as quickly as I could to level 10. Had my first experience of running out of ammo just after agroing a spellcaster and had to run all the way to the nearest ammunition seller. It didn't seem that long since I had bought 400 bullets and all gone? It may be advisable to never leave town without full ammo bags. One of the hunter's bag slots is permanently reserved for ammo so they are comparatively short of inventory space, what with having to carry pet food as well. I will probably equip her with top-of-the-range 16 slot bags although all she loots is animal parts worth five copper. Is it worth paying 16g for bags to carry 0.0005g animal parts?
• Level 10 and pet training! There is a quest series for Hunters where you have to train a Large Crag Boar, a Snow Leapord and an Ice Claw Bear. Training is a matter of selecting the animal and right clicking on the training widget and waiting for 20 seconds. While you wait the animal tries to disembowel you and your armour is debuffed to zero so you have to make sure you are on full health when you start.
• Once the Crag Boar was trained I gave it a try out. Click on target animal, ctrl-1 to get boar to attack it. Boar hurtles off and engages beast. Start shooting at beast myself, beast is busy fighting with boar, after about three shots beast dies. Very quick, very efficient, very nice. I'm addicted.
• Trying the three different animals was interesting. The Snow Leopard was hardest to deal with because if I landed a powerful Arcane Shot I would draw agro from the beast and it would ignore the leopard and come running to attack me. When this happened I had to stop shooting so the pet could regain the beast's attention.
• If a beast attacked me directly, within melee range I could still target it with the pet (or let the pet automatically defend me), let them start fighting, walk back eight yards and start shooting. It is going to be a challenge to take the time to maintain my melee skill level.
• At the end of this I got the pet training abilities proper and had to choose a pet. I chose the Ice Claw Bear as when I was a paladin these seemed pretty tough and I want something with tanking ability, I'm happy to take care of the dps myself with a big gun. I decided to call the bear Colin.
• Questing went out the window, it was just a killing spree, we wiped out everything that got in our way. It's nice having a pet.
• I wanted to take him to see the trolls so they could rub his tummy. We found a troll camp and I was unsure of our capabilities, what our limits were. I was lvl ten, he was eight and there were four trolls in the camp, all about level nine. I sent him in and he managed to agro three trolls and we got in a big fight. We took out a couple of trolls but we both died. I used the spirit healer and tried to summon Colin and was told he was dead. What? But I'd only had him a few minutes
• I had a 'revive pet' spell so I guessed I was supposed to find his corpse and resurrect him pally style so I went back to the troll camp. No body. Had the trolls eaten him? I decided to try the revive spell anyway and he just appeared next to me. I had to feed him to restore his health and make him happy. Then we polished off the remaining trolls. I can't really believe that I can just bring the pet back to life, give him a feed and we're rolling again. No debuff, just a bit of down time?
• If I learned anything from this it is that a bear in a camp is a bit of a loose cannon, once one enemy is dead it is likely to hurtle off and attack anything else that had attacked it and you don't have a lot of control over it. It's a very powerful weapon but the AI will take some getting used to.
• Morning and time for a short killing spree on the way to a quest turnin. During this time I dinged 11.
• We came across a 'named' level 10 wolf with two level 8 wolves either side roaming about. I was unsure whether we could handle it but I decided to try in order to get a feel for our limits (I'm already using 'our' instead of 'my'). Anyway I sent him in to attack the ten, the two 8's attacked him and I blasted away with the gun. From his health bar I could tell he was going to die and he did, leaving me with one wolf to finish off easily with melee. I revived the bear and fed him. I can't believe it was that easy, that there are no penalities associated with the pet dying, no ten minute debuff, just revive, feed, loot and carry on. I can't remember if a level 10 pally could have handled this but it wouldn't have been that easy. If my character dies I hate it as apart from defeat it's a corpse run or a spirit healer job. The pet dying seems to be the hunter equivalent of a pally having to bubble in terms of it being a hollow victory.
• Finished up by just killing things. It is very addictive because it is so easy. About three gunshots is all it takes. Colin dinged level 10: he has an experience bar just like me. Collected lots of boar and wolf meat, cooking skill is already 50 out of 75 and Colin likes the food, it makes him happy. Sometimes when we've killed something I wish I could pat him on the head.
• By a bizarre coincidence I had to go visit someone in Real Life yesterday. They had a dog and it inflamed my allergies so much that I wanted to claw my eyes out. I've been allergic to cats for years but now it's spread to dogs as well. But this doesn't matter, now I have a virtual pet and it can rip the virtual guts out of virtual trolls.

• Since I get the pet I've been continuing with the levelling guide and finished off Dun Murogh. I died once, in a troll cave where there was no place to run but that's the only time I can remember. Colin may have died a couple of times but that does not seem like a big deal since bringing him back to life is so easy. I did have one situation where I ressed him in a dangerous area and he got involved in another fight while his health was still at 15% and he died again. Have to be careful with that, he is very enthusiastic about defending me.
• With myself at level 11 and Colin at level 10 we managed to kill Vagash, a level 11 elite. I remember that I couldn't manage this when I played the paladin at level 11. The fight mainly consisted of me running away and occasionally turning and shooting with Colin clawing at his back. It wasn't pretty by any means but a kill is a kill.
• I decided on Herbalism and Alchemy as professions. I made a large supply of health pots, some armour pots and health dribble pots. Then I realised, the pet needs these more than I do but I don't think I can give them to him. I made 10 or 20 health pots and so far I've only used one or two. Is alchemy all that useful to a Hunter?
• Herbalism is now at level 54, the cooking even higher and I will have to visit the trainers to raise the ceilings.
• I've done some fishing, got that to 20. It's not so bad and Colin likes the fish. I think I'll set myself a target of at least five fish every now and then when I go near water. I set Colin to aggressive mode while I fish so he'll attack anything that tries to sneak up on me. When I've finished I have to remember to turn this back to defensive and also swap the fishing rod for an axe (we've all been there, no?).
• I've continued with Boston's 12-20 Alliance Leveling Guide which has again been very helpful. So far it is mainly in Loch Modan which I'm finding far easier than I did before. I've got to level 14 (Colin 13) without dying myself yet I wiped out two trogg camps that I don't think I could have managed with the paladin. The hunter has more tricks than a paladin and if I send the pet into a camp and things go pear shaped it is much easier for the hunter to run away as she is already 35 yards away when she starts running.
• A couple of times I've seen Colin draw too much agro and I've got some myself so I've run. When I've stopped running I've assumed Colin was dead so I've started a revive and been told he's not dead. I use the 'Summon' command and he appears next to me, safe and sound. Once I tried going back to the camp to find him and see what he was doing but he wasn't there. I wonder if the pets vanish if you go outside a certain range?
• With all the killing I've been having big inventory problems already. I bought two 16 slot netherweave bags for 8g each which seemed reasonable and a 12 slot herb bag for 5 silver. The herb bag actually seems like a waste, it only ever carries about three different herbs, I may be better off with another netherweave bag. I autoloot a lot to speed things up, hence the bag problems.
• On the advise of the levelling guide I installed the Titan panel add-on and it's very good. It adds bars at the top and bottom of the screen, including the time, coordinates, experience so far this session, experience per hour, predicted time to level, durability, bag slots available (but this can be set to slots remaining which is more useful), all kinds of useful stuff.
• To get to level 14 I went into a ruthless killing spree, the hunter is very good at this: kill anything in the area and don't always bother to waste time running and looting it. According to the titan panel I was on 8500 XP/hr which is about 100 kills an hour with no rest bonus. I finished 20 minutes earlier than the estimated time to level due to quest turnins. At level 14 I equipped a green gun I had already bought which will double (yes double) my gun dps.
• In summary, I'm having too much fun as a Hunter to go back to the paladin just yet.

• I have continued levelling, following the levelling guide. The guide makes things easy in that most fighting is against lower level enemies. Since I'm still following the guide I won't go into detail about every step. I have got as far as:
  • Player level 18
  • Colin level 18
  • Cooking just over 100: cooking is proving useful for turning plain meat into something palatable for Colin. He doesn't need feeding all that much but I have to watch the food situation. The problem with cooking is knowing the recipies, having the ingredients and finding a cooking fire.
  • Herbalism in the 90's
  • Alchemy in the 90's: the healing pots have saved my skin a few times and it's nice having a regular supply. I have three one-hour buff pots I can make (armour, stamina, health dribble). I haven't really bothered trying to sell anything yet, I'm focused on levelling.
  • Fishing about 30
  • First Aid: um, in the 70's I think. TBH haven't been using the bandages much, don't get injured enough. I decided to have a bandage making session and found I could make over seventy bandages: with all the carnage I've gathered huge stocks of linen, I've been dumping it when my bags are full.
• I need to spend more time fishing. In Lakeshire the skill wasn't high enough to fish. I tried using a bauble which brought the fish skill up such that I could fish but everything got away. A pond in Westfall works, I'll have to grind there a bit. The fishing is proving useful for food for Colin. I think the rule is to keep your profession skills at five times your player level so I need another 60 levels of fishing
• As I mentioned above, I haven't been doing anything about making money with the Hunter yet. The money she can make is peanuts compared to what the Paladin can rake in so I haven't worried about it.
• As a commenter has confirmed, Hunters suffer badly from inventory problems. I've equipped her with three 16 slot netherweave bags and she has her original 16 slot bag and an ammo pouch. After ten minutes of emptying at a vendor the bags are full again and I'm constantly having to decide what to destroy. I've put the herb bag in the bank and am using another netherweave bag instead. Since we are following the levelling guide we don't visit the bank much and carry all the baggage around. I put a load of low-level healing pots in the bank and vendored the rest when she got the next level healing pot recipe: then I discovered that the low-level healing pot is needed to make the next level healing pot. I just made some low-level pots in the field and then upgraded them. I carry a stack of vials in case I need to whip anything up.
• She is picking up green drops at a nice rate and these are being sent to the Auction Alt for disenchanting. This is the main money maker right now. The investment in Netherweave bags means she is running at a loss, she's had about 30g spending money sent to her so far and she has 9g left.
• My hunter skills are still evolving but here is my current attack method:
  • put Hunters Mark on target (you've all seen it, it's nothing to do with the pet but it increases ranged damage).
  • Send Colin in
  • When Colin engages, use his 'Growl' so that he keeps agro. If I don't do this the monster is likely to come running at me when I start shooting
  • Fire Serpent Sting at monster for a DoT (doesn't work on elementals)
  • Fire Arcane shot for burst damage
  • by now gun is into auto-shot, it will fire automatically till monster is dead or in melee range
  • Get Colin to Claw for a bit more damage and to see blood spurting
  • Wait for auto-shot to kill, repeating Serpent Sting if the DoT expires or repeating Arcane Shot when the cooldown expires (if the monster lives that long, doesn't normally).
• When it comes to multiple enemies, we can handle about three. Four starts to get tough. One enemy on me is ok too but more than that and it's time to run. The Hunter isn't totally squishy but she's not a tank.
• For attacking camps I have found it is better to pull monsters out using the gun than to send Colin in. If I send Colin in it usually causes chaos, agros the whole camp and Colin ends up dead. If I pull a monster out with the gun I may get one or two come with him but this is not a stretch, apart from the little problem that they are coming for me and I have to get Colin to intercept quick. In theory Colin dying in the camp is not a big deal, I could revive him and repeat but apart from the animal cruelty issues I don't think this is the most efficient way of dealing with the problem (reviving Colin and feeding him is down time).
• I'm happy with Colin as a pet and I'm not tempted yet by a different creature to get more DPS for example. I use him as a tank and I've given him every armour and stamina boost I can find and his stats for these are better than mine by some margin (his armour is about 1500 for example, not too shabby). I think this is the best approach for tackling multiple monsters, my protection paladin experience is coming out here. The hunter's dps is such that we can still kill quite quickly, it's not like a classic protection pally with poor dps and waiting for the foe to die.
• In my WoW book there is a useful table of all the animal talents that can be learned and which animals to learn them from. This table could save me hours compared with having to tame every type of animal to see what skills it has. I found I could tame a wolf in Dun Murogh and learn the 'Bite' skill from it which I could then teach to Colin. I had to repeat this in Westfall so that he could learn rank 2 (rank one gave 6 damage when his normal strikes were dealing 25 so it needed upgrading badly). Once I have learned the talents from the wolves I've abandoned them. When you abandon them they just disappear: I guess this is so that you can't abandon some level 65 horror in the Ironforge auction house and let it run riot.
• Talent wise, I'm going down the Beast Master route, since I like the pet aspect so much. The points I've used so far have all been improving stamina/armour. The three talent trees are along these lines:
  • Beast Master: improves abilities with pet. This is favoured by Big Red Kitty, a hunter blog that has been recommended to me a few times. The writing is amusing if you like rampant hubris.
  • Marksman: these talents improve your ranged firepower. This is favoured in raiding groups and turns you into a 'mage in mail'. You shoot things.
  • Survival: you get improved traps and suchlike and I think (but am not sure) that your focus is more on melee fighting. I'm not sure why anyone would choose this and not roll a Warrior or Paladin if they like melee but maybe the traps and things make it interesting? The only trap I have so far deals a fire damage DoT if a monster walks over it. I've been forgetting to use it and this hasn't been a handicap.
• Let's talk guns. I'm using a level 14 gun, nothing special but it kills things. There was a blue level 16 weapon in the auction house, 'Tommy's Pea Shooter' (update: make that 'Lil Timmys Pea Shooter') which had impressive dps but it was very expensive (60g) and I figured that at the rate I was levelling it would be obsolete in a few days so I passed. I was on the AH this morning and saw a level 53 blue gun for 6g so I grabbed it. I'll either wait for level 53 or flog it for profit.
• I haven't found a crossbow to try yet and I haven't investigated bows and arrows. I haven't yet looked into theory on shooting speed and how it affects dps. As I mentioned earlier, killing things isn't a problem at the moment, I'm not sure this becomes an issue until the late 20's like it did with the pally.
• While I was in Westfall I couldn't resist doing the secret chicken quest (which isn't in the levelling guide). This goes like this:
  • target chicken in Saldean's Farm
  • use /chicken a few times
  • if chicken's name doesn't turn green, find another chicken and repeat
  • right click chicken and get quest
  • buy some chicken feed from farmer Saldean
  • find chicken again and /cluck (update: should be /cheer, see comments).
  • give chicken feed
  • get an egg
• The chicken egg is used to summon a chicken pet! It didn't take me that long to get one, maybe 30 /chickens. Now I run around with two pets, Colin and the chicken! A team! This is most amusing, especially when the three of us are diving. The chicken's dps is very poor but he's very low threat and doesn't generate much agro. Here are my chicken egg tips:
  • the chicken that worked for me was across the field from the farm, in the corner near an old barn
  • create a /chicken macro and bind it to an icon unless you like typing
  • mix use of /chicken with grinding
  • turn the sound off or the chicken noises will drive you mad
  • if someone kills the chicken you are talking to, ignore them (bastard).
• In summary, hunting continues to be fun, although I am wondering if the levelling guide is making things too easy. In Westfall I found one of the whirlwind things and started blasting before I realised it was level 19 while Colin and I were level 15. It died easily.

Here's Maevyn's page in the Armory. The picture is not like her (she's a brunette) and there's no mention of Colin or Mavis (the chicken).

Hum, looks like she could do with some armour upgrades, she's wearing green and white drops ten levels out of date, not very impressive at all. Let this be an indication of how easy things are.

• I don't really want to keep saying this but I'm still following the levelling guide, I haven't deviated from it much at all. It's sent me trudging all round Westfall and I'm getting sick of the place just like I did last time and I haven't even done any corpse runs to the deadmines yet.
• Hunter is at level 19 now, closing in on the big two-oh. She'll be finished with the current levelling guide then and also finished with Westfall. I have the next levelling guide lined up (there are loads of them here).
• When I reached the coast near the lighthouse I found one of those whirling schools of fish and had a good fishing session. I caught lots of Oily Blackmouth which are used in alchemy. I also caught two treasure boxes and one had a green drop in it! I've got the fishing up to 75 now, it's starting to look respectable, although it does mean I am carrying six different types of fish around in my limited bag space. Still, fishing doesn't seem as boring now. Peter's fishing tip: zoom in to first person perspective for a better view of the fishing bob.
• I managed to get Colin killed three times this morning while attacking Murloc camps. It seems three level 18ish murlocs (and a couple of crab Murloc Hunter pets) is beyond his limits. My hunter managed to run away every time. I really should work out a way to call him off, it's kinda tragic watching him get more and more agro and knowing he's going to die. I wonder if dismissing him would do the trick, although I'd have to be ready to run. There was a recipe for Swiftness Potion on the AH this morning but there was no buyout: I need to get one of those to expedite my escape strategy. Even without it the hunter can run surprising quickly with three spears sticking out of her.
• Hunter died once: was busy fighting when she received the personal attention of Old Murc-Eye the big murloc.
• Inventory problems are driving me crazy. I spend more time deciding what to dump than I do fighting. Must organise my bags and put strict limits on how much fish, meat etc I carry around.
• I tried out my new 'Multishot' for the first time: it shoots three targets at once. Predictably, the first time I used it on two monsters Colin was fighting with it made one of them come running to me. I abandoned it for a while, then this morning I tried it on single monsters and it seems I can use it to get in an extra more powerful shot as it is on a different cooldown to the Arcane shot. I was killing level 14 boars incredibly quickly. I think this is what hunters mean when they talk about 'rotations', firing off the different special shots as each six second cooldown expires.
• I bought a green bow for more dps as there don't seem to be any decent guns available for the next few levels. I don't have bow skills so ran to Woo Ping in stormwind for archery training. He told me he couldn't do it, I'd have to go to Darnassus! That means either a risky run through wetlands to Menethil Harbour or bribing a mage! Gave up on the archery plan. Luckily the bow was only 50s or so.
• The level 53 gun I bought for 6g looks like quite a lucky find, it's a Shell Launcher Shotgun. It would be nice to find a level 19 blue for 6g but there seem to be a lot of twinks on this server driving the prices crazy.

• I decided that the auction alt should drop herbalism (since he never leaves Ironforge) and take up engineering so he can make Maevyn guns, ammo and scopes. I haven't seen any suitable engineer made guns in the auction house at all and there are no other decent guns available till level 21. She is still using a level 14 gun and I feel it is in need of upgrade. A Lovingly Crafted Boomstick would be nice. This gun fires lower damage faster for a reasonable average damage (aka dps) but each hit is less likely to take agro away from the pet and on to the Hunter. The auction alt can train engineering up to level 150 without raising his own player level which should see Maevyn as far as level 30.
• To this end I bought a load of Rough Stone to make Blasting powder, then copper and linen to make copper bombs and soon he was up to level 75. At this level he can start making Crafted Ammo which is 1 dps better than the vendor ammo which doesn't sound much but is about 10% more dps at this level. However, Crafted Ammo needs coarse stone and the price of this in the AH was outrageous, over 1g a stack and I wasn't going to be gouged. I put this off and decided to use the main to do some farming.
• I'm going to stick to chronological order so next objective was to get Maevyn from about level 19.5 to 20. I turned a few quests in and only had two quests left in Westfall, killing the defias messenger and the escort quest. I ran around killing things while waiting for the messenger to spawn but it was taking too long and I got bored. There were lots of people in moobrook and I think the messenger was being ganked repeatedly. Since the levelling guide had no better ideas I decided to grind on Murlocs. This went ok apart from one death (Maevyn, not Colin, usual story, agroed a camp) but did find a rare spawn murloc to kill for a green. It took about half an hour to get to 20. I got the messenger on the way back, as soon as I saw him I shot at him to tag him before anyone else could. I didn't bother with the escort quest.
• During this period I found out for the first time why hunters have a mana bar. I was using multi-shot a lot and this seems to eat the Hunter's mana, 25% at a time. It looks like the more you shoot, the more mana you use so there is ultimately a limit to how much dps you can expend apart from running out of ammo. Had to take a mana break! At least she's an alchemist and can knock up mana pots.
• To Stormwind double quick for Hunter training. Oh my, blizzard is a hunter:
  • Disengage: when fighting melee, stops you fighting and reduces your threat making it much easier for your pet to take agro away from you so you can run back and start shooting.
  • Frost Trap: freezes monster that walks over it for 6 seconds. Now I can learn kiting.
  • Dual Weilding: what's your left hand for if not to hold another sword? I think total dps is about the same as having a two-hander but:
    • it's still more dps than a one hander
    • it looks cool
    • paladins can't do it (or anything cool for that matter)
  • Aspect of the Cheetah: OH YES increases running speed by 30% all the time it is on. It has a debuff that makes you more vulnerable to stun when running away so:
    • need to remember to switch it off when fighting (should use aspect of monkey/hawk anyway)
    • still need swiftness potions for legging it
• Bought a green sword for the main hand and moved the old white scimitar to offhand. Melee dps is looking more respectable. I have 30 levels in which to aquire dual Hanzo's
• Quick trip to Lakeshire to try new skillz out. They work. Colin and I mele'd a level 17 dragonling to death with reasonable efficiency. UPDATE: after reading BRK's latest WoWInsider post I feel I should mention that the dual weilding is mainly for defence when things go wrong. After suffering 63 levels as a paladin the BIG GUN is my main weapon. I still need to melee because I make mistakes and have to fight hand-to-hand. This is horrible, sometimes I even need a heal afterwards!!!
• Decided to try tackling Bellygrub the level 24 Boar. Fought valliantly but Colin had a hard time keeping agro as he is still level 19 (once his level matches his owner he stops getting experience: he only starts getting it and can start levelling again after his owner has levelled). Frost trap worked but forgot that damage breaks it. Disengage worked for a while. Got him to 50% health but died anyway. May try again when Colin levels and have got a better gun than a level 14. Oh and REALLY MUST remember to turn Aspect of the Cheetah off when I fight.
• Was getting hassled by whispers to join various guilds. I had been thinking of ending my antisocial period and joining Maevyn up to the Mercz so whispered floyd who is an officer and Maevyn is now a member (an initiate to be precise so better not cause any trouble).
• Morning, 5:30am argh can't resist this game. Decided to roll out the main and do some farming. As I recalled, coarse stone came from tin veins so to Loch Modan for Tin Farming. He picked up any copper he found too and in 20 minutes had over 40 copper ore. Not so much tin though. He came across three level 17ish elites I've never met before in all the time I've been there. Almost forgotten how to fight as a paladin. Where's Colin?
• A lap of Badlands but Iron Ore gives heavy stone and don't need that. Killed the level 55 elite buzzard for some nice level 50 plate boots. Decided to go to Westfall for more tin and to hit deadmines. With a level 63 this is a tiny bit one sided. I'm not sure his health bar ever moved. Must have picked up ten greens, two may be useful to Maevyn, one was a piece of the defias leather set which is overvalued on the AH, the rest can be disenchanted. Got as far as the cannon on the door to VC. Didn't have time to go in.
• May return with Maevyn for a proper run through so she can get some Blue Bind on Pickups (which, Dean, the main cannot pick up for her). Since many of the guild members also have alts (it's not only me that has found Zangarmarsh too uninspiring) we can swap run-throughs or go on a lowbie alt raid.
• The number of members of Mercz in the high sixties is getting.. can't think of a good expression that doesn't insult them as they were before. Anyway there are now a few >= 65. Pooky is being left behind. Problem is, even running him today for the first time in ten days, I am still more interested in running the hunter. Pooky needs a couple of days play to get Seal of Vengence, his first new fighting toy for a long long time. The Hunter is still getting new fighting toys every two levels. Unfortunately, I cannot resist new toys.