Peter's Blog

• Spent an hour and a half (three underwater breathing pots) underwater fighting lobsters and opening lobster pots, seeking the Big Iron Fishing Pole. No luck. Ran out of breathing pots. Picked up a stack of Strangleweed but because of my disparaging remarks about Oily Blackmouth yesterday there were no schools of these around for me to make more pots and the farming is about five times more tedious when you have to keep surfacing for air. There are 'air pockets' on the bottom of the sea but it's still far easier to use pots. The time would have been better spent farming Thorium and spending the proceeds on a pole in the auction house but now the challenge has been thrown down.
• When I ran out of pots I continued with my cunning plan: continue swimming south from Desolace to Feralas to get to the Feathermoon Stronghold and the Master Alchemist for Artisan Alchemy training. By swimming I avoided all the level ??? nasties that were on the land route. You are now reading the wafflings of an artisan alchemist! Alchemy is still stuck at 205, not really into artisan territory and I couldn't train any new recipes but I can see what I have to look forward to and it is a motivation to go flower picking. I now have the flight path and can return whenever I need to. I have three orange recipes, most useful is mana pots but they need goldthorn which is in short supply. I can buy it in the auction house for 7g a stack but I'm determined not to spend my way through alchemy levelling and the pots I could make are worth less than that.
• Flew back to Desolace, Nigels Point, to do a little more levelling as I was only ten minutes from level 38. Ran to Kodo graveyard and looted some skull bones and this did the trick.
• Couldn't resist the lobsters so went back to that area. I was looking for Oily Blackmouth schools and ventured too close to the village there and was ganked by the level ??? horde guards. Did the corpse run back from Kodo graveyard (so I knew the way!) but still no Oily Blackmouth. Tried a bit of diving and was underwater messing about with my inventory when I drowned: oops, no breathing potion.
• Used spirit healer and hearthed to Hillsbrad and flew to Ironforge for a spot of training and to study herb stocks in the bank. Training was forgettable next rank stuff and I didn't have enough herbs to make anything although I had enough oily blackmouth for one more breathing pot.
• Time for a quick trip to Arathi highlands to look for Goldthorn. Found one yielding three leaves (or whatever the unit is) and then knocked off an easy quest I had left over in my log, killing sixteen syndicate whatevers in ten minutes. Despite having 'Track Stealthed' I tried the trick of pressing tab to target any nearby stealthed enemies and it works a treat, they light up like christmas trees. I tried the Hunter 'Flare' ability which I think is supposed to reveal stealthed enemies but that proved totally useless: it gives a tiny target area on the ground where you send the flare, then you wait while the flare does a feeble arch, then it goes phut on the ground and nothing's there. I hope I didn't spend good money on that 'talent' (no I don't care about detecting rogues in pvp).
• I swapped back to Colin and although he was only level 35 it was disappointing to see his dps is only 35, 10 less that Tiddles who, being a cat, has more base dps and 'Cobra Reflexes' on top. I've got my doubts about whether it is worth levelling both him and Tiddles. The only thing he has going for him is the fact that he is on maximum loyalty which increases the available training points. If I dumped him and decided to pick up another tank pet later on I would have to wait for its loyalty to build up before I could train it. During that time it's agro management in particular will be poor until I can train it to Growl (which reminds me of an interesting observation: you can teach scorpids to Growl so I guess this is the difference between scorpids and scorpions, the latter don't often growl). The question is do I really need a tank pet?
• The bigger question: what to call the impending level 40 mount? The answer to both these questions could be to dump Colin and call the mount (inevitably a ram) Colin II in his honour.

Lots happened over the weekend so more of a summary:

• Maevyn and Tiddles are now level 40. Levelling was mostly following the levelling guide with some exceptions in Badlands where it was difficult to find rock elementals of the correct type that had not already been slaughtered by other Hunters. There seemed to be lots of people around levelling. To finally ding 40 had to wait for off peak time on Sunday morning.
• Maevyn bought a white ram and his name is Clement. Compared to Aspect of the Cheetah he seems quite slow, something to do with his lengthy gait. When Mae is running with Aspect of the Cheetah her legs move faster and give more of an impression of speed: Aspect of the Cheetah is 30% faster than normal speed, Clement is 60% faster. Didn't bother with getting a crazy cat lady sabre for two reasons:
  • couldn't be bothered to grind for darnassus rep
  • in patch 2.1 the pet is dismissed while the Hunter is mounted so the whole 'riding one cat while another runs along beside' image has gone. Still, look on the bright side:
    • level 70's don't have to spend their precious primal farming time dismissing their pets
    • Blizzard don't have to spend their precious nerfing time writing code that distinguishes between land based mounts and flying mounts.
• Things a Hunter can do while the pet is in combat:
  • Loot corpses
  • Pick flowers
  • Bandage herself
  • Run away
• Things a Hunter cannot do while pet is in combat:
  • Mount and run away
• Things I haven't tried while pet is in combat:
  • Bandage pet (i.e. to save mana or Mend Pet faster)
• Other level 40 Hunter goodies:
  • 31 point Hunter talent 'Bestial Wrath' makes pet give 50% more dps for 18 seconds during which time it cannot be stunned, feared, etc, can only be killed. Only a two minute cooldown too. This is nice, Tiddles turns red and grows in size. Looks good and being a 31 point talent is the trade mark of a Beast Master Hunter.
  • Freezing trap (or is it frost?) now freezes for 15 seconds. Have managed to bandage tiddles during this time in a protracted fight against rock elementals (a chain of level 43-44's).
  • Volley: er, not sure what this does, haven't tried it yet. It was mentioned on a forum post about rarely used skills that I read so I haven't investigated it. It's in the mediocre damage for high mana cost category. UPDATE: appears to be an aoe, something like a bomb/DoT. Only useful if you really want to draw lots of agro to yourself, have a really good tank or are into PvP.
  • Mail armour. More armour points are not a big priority but bought a few pieces of gear with +agility. UPDATE: how wrong can you be? Pet armour stats are depedent on Hunters armour stats so mail will help the pet. I'd better get some more.
• Maevyn has the running away trinket. She had to kill a level 45 to get it but armed with Bestial Wrath, Rapid fire etc this wasn't too much of a stretch. She didn't need a pot. The trinket is 40% speed boost so 10% faster than Aspect of the Cheetah (with less risk of being dazed) but 10% slower than a swiftness potion. It'll do.
• Also killed level 45 rare spawn rock elemental 'Rumbler' and a level 38 rare spawn coyote 'Barnabus' for two greens. Was tempted to train Barnabus as he is a distinctive looking beast (the only brown coyote) but Tiddles is my dps pet. UPDATE: damn, Barnabus has bite 6 and may be a compromise dps/tank option. Must keep a look out for him but in all my farming in Badlands, I've only seen him twice (including this time).
• Fishing: spent another hour under water farming for the Big Iron Rod but eventually gave up. In total I spent two and a half hours on it (five underwater breathing pots) and towards the end I was into the cynical end of probability theory, the part that says that there is a good chance that I will have to farm for two and a half hours more.
• Took Urban's advice and spent some time running around Arathi picking flowers. Arathi was good but found better selection of profitable flowers in Badlands: Goldthorn (which all my orange recipes seem to need), Purple Lotus, Firebloom, Kadgars Whisker, Fadeleaf etc.
• Got alchemy up to 225 and flew to Gadgetzan to learn to Transmute. Made a philosophers stone and transmuted some Mithril into Truesilver. This increased its value from about 40s to maybe 60s. Tried transmuting another and discovered I couldn't do it for another 1 day and 22 hours. Checked on Thottbot and this applies to ALL transmuting, not just mithril->truesilver so for now transmuting will be earning me a cool 70s a week. Got alchemy up to 240 by making various pots, including Lesser Stoneshield Potion (1000 extra armour for two minutes) which she picked up in a quest in Badlands. This goblin wanted a Lesser Healing pot and some Invisibility potion and by a fluke Maevyn had both on her.

• I decided Maevyn needed a new gun as her gun skills were being left behind. When I looked I was surprised to see she was using a level 36 bow, four levels out of date. Seems only yesterday I bought it... There don't seem to be any level 40 guns so I bought her a level 39 sniper rifle and a stock of level 40 Accurate Slugs to go with it. It is a slow weapon, 3 seconds firing rate, but was noticably more powerful than the bow. I normally buy about two thousand bullets/arrows at a time, they last her for about a level.
• Following yesterdays inspiration re armour helping the pet I bought more mail and it indeed beefed Tiddles' armour up by about 10%. I also tried out a stoneshield potion (+1000 armour for two minutes) and that effects the pet's armour too. Nice to have a way to buff the pet. I bought Maevyn a mail tiara thing that had stamina and agility. When she put it on her ranged crit went down from 6.7% to 6.1%! The old leather head band had intellect and stamina, I had no idea that intellect effected ranged crit, thought it mainly effected the mana pool. I was under the impression that agility effected crit. I'm going to have to do some homework.
• She visited the Darkmoone Faire and spent the Vibrant Plumes she ground in Thousand Needles on two greens and a bag. She has three or four spare bags (insert female stereotype comment here).
• The levelling guide had left me in Badlands with the instructions to grind until I got to level 41 which was just less than half a level. I remembered a quest that the guide hadn't told me to do, one that involved killing whelplings until one dropped a heart. I went off and did that, the quest reward was a firey enchant for a melee weapon, not a big priority to a hunter that only melees when the threat management and crowd control have failed but doing any quests at all is more interesting than aimless grinding. On the third or fourth Whelpling I was pleasantly surprised when a Dark Whelpling Pet dropped. In the auction house these things go for 100g, it's potentially the most valuble drop I've ever had. I'm in two minds about selling it, on the one hand it's a unique pet but on the other I don't like whelplings, they killed my pally too many times for me to think they are cute (ranged fireballs are a problem for pallys). I'm going to wait till the weekend, till peak times and see how the whelpling market is. Mae now has three rare(ish) pets, Praerie Chicken, White kitten and Dark Whelpling. ARGH tempted to farm Un'guro for an oozeling.
• Carried on killing whelplings, levels 41-43, not very difficult at all, mindless fun. It wasn't boring, the Dark Whelpling drop put me in a good mood. It took nearly an hour for the heart to drop and I was ten minutes from level 41 according to Titan Panel so I decided to turn the quest in and take a stroll, gunning down any wildlife I came across. Titan panel is really useful like this, the XP/hour display and the target time to levelling help keep me motivated. While I was killing the whelps I was maintaining about 30,000 XP/hour and thats with no rest bonus and no quests done. The author of the levelling guide was pleased with himself for maintaining this kind of rate so I'm doing no worse than him.
• While killing I had a look at Maevyn and Tiddles' dps figures. Maevyn (with Aspect of the Hawk up) was 60 dps but Tiddles was 65! That's a total of 125 dps. My level 63 pally is 125dps when holding a two-hander with no seals running. What gives? Am I doing something badly wrong with the pally or is a dps class really that much more powerful? I'll look into installing a damage meter, see how well each can do when they are actually fighting rather than just raw white damage. I don't want to get into a numbers war, I just want to optimise the paladin to make levelling him as fun as it is with the hunter.
• Killed wolves and things and finally arrived at the ogre camp in the south west corner of Badlands, the hardest one. Did some nice pulling with concussive shot to take out two guys on the side, then killed the two left in the camp, going for the shaman first (death to casters). It was surgical. Had to kill a few more ogres to ding 41. Titan Panels prediction of levelling time was correct to within one kill.
• Something else a hunter can do while pet is fighting
  • Hearth
• Spent some time doing administrative chores in Stormwind, cleaning inventory, organising bank etc. Vendored thirty Whelpling Tongues I had accrued. Had big piles of silk so made it all into bandages and got the first aid up to 210 and read the mageweave bandage book.
• One other Titan Panel feature: whenever I visit a vendor who can fix my armour, Titan automatically hassles me to repair everything: I like this, it stops me overlooking my durability. I don't recall Maevyns armour ever breaking, then again it's the pet that takes the flak. Now I come to think of it, pet hasn't died for a few levels. Last time Mae died she was running away and fell off a cliff. Reminds me of a pally point I noticed: Pooky can run around Loch Modan like he's immortal, killing everything with Consecration but he is just as susceptable to falling damage. He was busy making patterned bronze bracers after a fall took 50% health and a level 16 started healing him!
• Morning and levelling guide takes me to Booty Bay for some fun and games. After a while I realised I had abandoned a pretty important quest, one that appears to open up three more quest lines and I had to waste about ten minutes flying to Southshore to talk to some guy. After that I could assasinate 'Pretty Boy' Duncan and get Catelyns Blade which yielded the follow up quests to gather fifteen loads of snuff and some guy's eye. I'll be doing that tonight, if I can maintain 30,000 XP/hr for two hours I'll be level 42 and I can make a reference to the eighties band of the same name for the second time (oops just made one now).
• Other projects to contemplate:
  • Artisan Fishing: fishing is 195, if I can get it to 225 while I'm in Stranglethorn I can pop over to Theramore and pick up the Artisan Fishing quest that involves catching fish from four different areas of the world. Some of these areas are covered in the levelling guide so I can pick the fish up on the way.
  • Artisan cookery: was killing naga this morning and they dropped clams so I picked up ten Zesty Clam Meat which I can save for the artisan cookery quest in Steamwheedle port. Just need some cheese and some giant eggs.
  • Only 19 levels and Maevyn will be needing an Epic Mount. Better sell that Whelpling and get going on the Arcanite Transmutation.

Finally 'got' the Big Red Kitty name. Comes from the influence of Bestial Wrath the 31 point Beast Master talent.

In case anyone noticed, sorry for lack of blog yesterday. A freak babysitting accident put me in A&E.

• Maevyn got to 42 and is half way to 43 after much running around Stranglethorn. She's now finished there, apart from fishing expeditions. I followed the levelling guide pretty closely except for one death where she accidently aggroed a load of level 44's while she was 41. She took the spirit healer and followed the guide in a slightly different order which didn't make much difference but saved her a corpse run half way down the map. During the ten minute resurrection sickness while all her stats were down to 25% she did a spot of fishing.
• As opposed to when I did it with the paladin I had little trouble taking on all the camps in Stranglethorn. Beastial Wrath is a nice thing to have, Tiddles could tear up a pair of casters in no time. It's one thing I like about the Hunter, if a fight turns nasty I can use Bestial Wrath and/or Rapid Fire to turn it up to eleven. When a paladin fight turns nasty you're looking for ways to heal yourself which isn't as much fun. As a duo Maevyn and Tiddles can handle at least three enemies one or two levels higher or a single five levels higher. More than one caster is a challenge to a paladin but not as much so for a hunter. I always use viper sting on casters to give them a mana tap and I take them out first in case they are healers. Intimidation is still the best way to interrupt a healer, stun them at about 50% then arcane shot, multi shot and they are down.
• I did one additional quest that the guide didn't say I should pick up: I took on the quest to get an elite crocodile's skin. These elites are only level 38 and easy to kill at 41, I had to pass the area where they live on the way to pick up a tablet and the quest netted me about 3000 XP.
• Since her cooking was already maxed out at 225 she took a trip to the Hinterlands to kill Owlbeasts for their Giant Eggs. Combined with the Zesty Clam Meat and some Alterac Swiss Cheese she could learn artisan cookery. This ended up taking about an hour, searching for the owl beasts and only about one in five dropped the eggs. She died once when a pack of level 46 wolves tore her to bits. She had already bought the cheese in the Stormwind Cheese Shop so when she had all the eggs she went to Gadgetzan where the butcher in the Inn exchanged the meat, eggs and cheese for artisan cookery skill and some Clammette Surprise. Tasty.
• At first in Hinterlands Tiddles was having trouble holding agro against level 44-46 monsters and I wasn't sure why. When she dinged 42 I gave her training in the next rank of Growl which fixed that. Right now Tiddles is the only pet I need and I have been neglecting Colin. I haven't abandoned him yet but I don't feel any need to continue to level him up. If I ever feel I need a tank pet I can train one up at that time. For now Tiddles is a tough enough tank (with the help of Mend Pet) and gotta love the dash into a fight and the dps when she gets there. REMINDS ME: get Dash rank 2 and any other pet next ranks before I leave Stranglethorn.
• She has been working on her fishing (Maevyn, not Tiddles): next stop in the levelling guide is the Swamp of Sorrows and she also has to catch a fish there for artisan fishing. Since the Swamp of Sorrows is about the least inspiring area in the game I would prefer to go there as few times as possible. By hitting the fish schools in Strangethorn she is up to 213, twelve more levels to go before she can pick up the artisan fishing quest and she has to catch about six fish to go up each level. However, she has caught Oily Blackmouth, Greater Sagefish, Firefin Snappers and Stonescale Eels, all quite desirable fish. She has enough skill to fish in Strangethorn with a basic +5 skill rod without many fish getting away, she doesn't need any lures. The Big Iron Rods in the auction house are 25g, may have another go at farming for one when I return to Desolace for one of the artisan fish. Have enough Oily Blackmouth and Stranglekelp to dive for a few hours.
• According to the character pane, Maevyn and Tiddles dps now totals 130. I installed a damage meter (the appropriately named DamageMeter) but that only showed total damage, I didn't see how to get it to show dps. While the character pane says Tiddles does more dps than Maevyn, the damage meter gave Maevyn the advantage since the char pane doesn't include arcane damage, crits etc. Maevyn's crit rate is now 8%: because she is already 31 talent points into Beast Mastery and she has Bestial Wrath I have decided to put some points into Marksman and am aiming for Aimed Shot (ha). The first Marksman talent points have been improving her crit rate and she won't get aimed shot till she is 50. On the way she will be able to make her shots and stings more mana efficient which is all good stuff. If I stuck to Beast Mastery Maevyn would get the Beast Within at 50, an interesting talent that gives her the same effect as Beastial Wrath (50% more dps, unstunnable, big and red etc). However, I think basic Marksmanship talents will be more useful on a day-to-day basis than a kind of incredible hulk talent that she will only use when things go tits up.
• Saw another Female Dwarf Hunter with a Ghost Sabre this morning. Dammit, stealing my style. In consolation, she was a red-head.

• I had to level my fishing up to 225 to start the artisan fishing quest so I ran around the coast of Stranglethorn looking for schools of fish. I got the required 12 levels which involved catching about 72 fish. It wasn't as tedious as it sounds. I could have just sat in one place catching crap fish but searching for schools made it more rewarding and I ended up with stacks of Oily Blackmouth, Firefin Snappers and Stonescale Eels.
• Took the boat to Ratchet and flew to Theramore to find Nat Pagle, the artisan fishing trainer. He was awkward to find, he is on a little island in the bay and I had to resort to thottbot to get his coordinates. He gave me the quest with the four fish I have to catch and I decided to go to Feralas for the first one. I flew to Feathermoon and took the boat to the mainland and went inland a ways. I found the river and it took me only a few of minutes to get the fish: I used a shiny bauble for +75 skill and the bauble still had seven minutes to run when I got the fish. All the fish I caught there seemed good, all giving a minimum of 800 health, probably more when cooked. I felt like getting on with the levelling so I hearthed back to Booty Bay.
• Just to note Maevyn's favourite food: cooked Greater Sagefish. Gives her both health and mana and leaves her with a nice 15 minute mana dribble. Yum Yum. Yes, hunters love mana, without it there are no special shots or stings or pet healing or Bestial Wrath. Tiddles gets whatever crap food Maevyn can't be bothered to cook: mystery meat etc. Sometimes she needs feeding every couple of minutes if the meat isn't satisfying enough. That's the trouble with cats, you feed them Whiskas and then they won't take anything else so it's better not to spoil them in the first place. This rule applies to Toddlers too: mine is now too fussy to eat Whiskas.
• The levelling guide sent me to the Swamp of Sorrows and I went by the book with the questing. It was almost too easy, the monsters were about level 35 and for a 42 it wasn't a challenge (one fight against two enemies and their pet imps was over before Tiddle's 18 seconds of bestial wrath were finished). The toughest things in the swamp (apart from a level ??? dragon) were the dragonkin things at level 45 and those were easy enough to kill, although they took a bit longer than the 35's. The XP rate I was achieving was about 10k/hour, fairly poor when you need 100k to level and probably because I was killing such low level monsters. There is somewhere a sweet spot in terms of speed to kill, time to travel from one monster to the next and monster level. I had heard that the murlocs along the coast were good for level grinding and this indeed seemed to be true, they were about level 43 and easy to kill and not as closely grouped together as murlocs usually are. I didn't spend long on them though, just long enough to collect a load of driftwood for a quest. I ran into some buggy murlocs, I couldn't draw them into a fight, the game kept saying EVADE and I couldn't loot a treasure box near them because it said I was still in combat.
• The Burning Crusade expansion seems to have added two more quests in the Harborage that weren't mentioned in the guide. I did these too, one involved killing just three 'Cursed Lost Ones' (level 37) and the other quest involved running around the Sunken Temple collecting artifacts. Its a bit more XP and a tiny bit of Exodar rep but I wonder why Blizzard bothered adding these.
• Swamp of Sorrows is great for a herbalist: stuff everywhere. I got over a stack of Blindweed which I am needing for the orange Alchemy recipes. While I was in Feathermoon I picked up a great recipe for a +25 agility pot, excellent for a Hunter. I'm getting to the nice recipes now, the ones that give useful boosts. Both my main characters will be getting the best pots.
• Caught the Swamp of Sorrows fish for the Artisan Fishing quest. This one took a few of minutes to catch, longer than the Feralas fish. I picked a random place on the eastern shoreline and didn't need a lure.
• Nearly finished Swamp of Sorrows now, only quest turnins to do. There aren't many quests there. I may be back for the herbs though.
• Plan:
  • Go to Nethergard Keep to turn in quests
  • Back to Booty Bay and catch next fish for Artisan Quest.
  • Leave Stranglethorn, maybe never to return...
  • To ratchet and Desolace for the final fish.
  • Theramore to be crowned an Artisan Fisherwoman
  • Gadgetzan to continue questing in Tanaris. This won't be way beneath my level so should be more of a challenge.
• Did I mention Maevyn dinged 43?
• I haven't mentioned the guild much, mainly because I have become a little isolated, in my own little world focused on levelling Maevyn. The guildies are popping 70 and working on Netherdrakes, Karakzan etc, doing well and having fun. I feel too rusty to run Pooky and if grouping with 70's he would just be making up the numbers. Maevyn is about the only active character in the forties. I have a feeling that by the time she is 70 the guildies will be flying said netherdrakes and wearing epic armour and Maevyn and Pooky will be left behind. I don't mind though, I'm having fun. I hope Maevyn's Alchemy will be useful to the guild one day, I do appreciate them. Hey guys, if you're reading this, would +25 pots be at all useful in karak or should I wait till alchemy 375?

BRK has a nice post on how to build your talent tree as you level. He advises sticking to BM and not erring to the dark MM side like I have, he thinks my crits may start drawing agro (how long do you have to play WoW to pick up the jargon?). He makes Serpents Swiftness sound mighty tempting. I'm not so bothered with Feroscious Inspiration as I'm not grouping at the moment: I hate pugs and I'm the only active player in the guild around my level, the others are mainly >= 50's and their <= 30's alts.

I have just one point in Improved Mend Pet because that is all it needs to give a chance to cure diseases, poisons and such and I don't like it when Tiddles looks a bit green. I cure her with Improved Mend Pet and Meavyn with Stoneshield. I haven't thought about putting a second point in Improved Mend Pet, our healing seems effective enough. I have no need for Improved revive pet either, Tiddles rarely dies, I'd rather run and summon her out of trouble than watch her die. One thing to watch when doing this: the monsters will chase you an awful long way!

If I do a respec I may lose the Bestial Swiftness, since Tiddles uses Dash all the time.

Saturday special while Maevyn takes the long flight from Booty Bay to Ironforge.

• Finished off Swamp of Sorrows quest turnins.
• Back to Booty Bay and a short trip to catch the Strangethorn fish for the Artisan Fishing quest. Caught it in Southern Savage Coast, only took a few casts.
• Soloed Tethis the level 43 elite dinosaur. Very easy, Tiddles had Bestial Wrath and I healed her once but we finished the fight with Maevyn on 100% health and Tiddles on about 80%.
• Turned in Tethis's claw for the raptor mastery quest and went to find King Bangalash as I felt like training him. He has Dash rank 2 and Claw rank 6 and I fancied the challenge. He used to be THE pet to have but since they normalised all the pet skills he is Just Another Cat, Cobra Reflexes, Dash 2 and Claw 6 could be learnt elsewhere. I found him but two other cats joined in the fight and I had to run away: didn't want to have to kill him. Crept back and got him alone, dismissed tiddles, laid freezing trap, concussive shot to pull him, train him, 15 seconds he was frozen and couldn't hurt me, five seconds damage till training finished and he was mine. He is actually such a nice looking beast that now I want to keep him. I've called him KB as the game won't let me call him KingB, King or suchlike so from now on when I talk about KB I don't mean the keyboard. He is so white he seems to glow.

• Who could prefer a pet pig to a fine animal like this?
• More importantly, what kind of noob runs around equipped with a fishing rod and poses in snapshots with it?
• Tiddles is in the Stables with Colin while I beg blizzard to add more stable slots for us pet collectors.
• Travelled to Desolace to get the final Artisan Quest Fish. Caught it in about three casts.
• Spent forty more minutes trying for the Big Iron Fishing rod before I couldn't stand it any more. No longer agro the lobsters but don't get experience from killing them either. The slow swimming speed was driving me crazy and I had to hearth out. I'll wait for the fishing rod quest in Outlands.

• Didn't play huge amounts what with sunshine and stuff. Bought a barbecue in Sainsburys for £5.99 and it works nicely, filled the house with smoke though. Maybe we should have used it outside.
• Quested in Tanaris and Feralas, following the levelling guide as usual. Nothing remarkable to report except the Hunters abilities continue to astonish: Maevyn and KB are now 44 and this morning they took out a 49. I used to be happy if the paladin could take out a monster five levels above but the Hunter does it much quicker (i.e. less than three minutes). I didn't use Bestial Wrath, although I piled on the arcane shots and multishots. I've found that where the levelling guide warns me things may be tricky, the Hunter (not me, the easy mode class) can handle it.
• By a curious fluke, the level 49 dropped a level 44 two-handed axe which would have been great for Maevyn if only she had taken two-handed axe training. Her melee weapons are still level 22: cannot find any cheapo green melee weapons and don't want to spend 5g on them as they are not a priority. Willing to train her in two-handers and level the skill up from 1. May pop to darnassus for this. Vendors sometimes seem to sell nice green weapons but their prices are worse than the auction house.
• One death: was supposed to get back to Feathermoon Stronghold from down the coast aways so decided to leave her swimming while I went to make breakfast. When I came back she was dead from exhaustion. Used spirit healer and the whole deal was still quicker than messing around waiting for the boat. The questing in Feralas so far has been along these lines:
  • Take boat to feathermoon
  • Talk to some guy
  • Talk to some other guy
  • Talk to first guy again
  • Take boat to mainland
  • Kill a few things
  • Take boat to feathermoon
  • Talk to some guy
  • etc
• Sometimes I swim or hearth instead of using the boat but there is a still lot of tooing and froing: it can take as long to reach a camp of monsters as it does to kill them. One of this mornings 'circuits' involved killing three flying snakes and clicking on a boat.
• Got alchemy as far as 265. Made a load of agility pots that raise Maevyn and KB's dps a couple of points and puts Maevyns crit rate up to 10% so one in ten shots gives added damage. I have ten hours worth and this morning I didn't bother with one, forgot they were there. I might just sell them, I sold two for a couple of g. I could probably get the alch to 275 if I tried, I have enough weed to make stuff to sell to other classes but I'd rather find Sungrass so I can make big Mana pots: I use these far more than anything else to get a quick mana fix while grinding. Feralas and Hinterlands are supposed to be good for Sungrass but so far I have only found one. I would like to get alch to 275 as then I can start making Arcanite for the epic mount fund. SUDDEN THOUGHT: I've been assuming that arcanite will sell for more than arcane crystals. Since the Auction House tends shred assumptions with Bestial Wrath I must make sure this is the case.
• Had a look at first aid and found I had enough mageweave to make 100 bandages or something silly like that: so much killing, so much mageweave. I got the first aid to 225 and am awaiting a trip to Theramore to do the artisan first aid quest. I use the bandages to heal the pet after a fight as it saves mana. First aid is my last profession to get to artisan level. It's cool, not only levelling Maevyn at a good rate but all her professions as well AND without buying loads of mats in the auction house, just gathering as I go.
• I still like KB as a pet. Because he is solid, not transluscent, it is easier to watch him. When he gets bored you can see his ears twitching and when he yawns you can look at his huge fangs. His loyalty level is close to maximum now so I have enough training points to give him much more stamina and armour. I haven't trained him in any resistances yet. If I was truly fanatical I could train him in, say, fire and arcane resistance and Tiddles in nature and shadow resistances and then run to the stable master and back whenever I met a different type of caster (there are not enough training points available to train them in everything). In one fight we agroed a whole camp and my first reaction was to run and summon him from a distance. I did this but three mobs caught up and we got an added item of wildlife. I decided to try to slug it out and we prevailed, pets makes such good tanks. I Mend Pet at lot during these fights which brings me on to my Mend Pet peeve: it's a heal over time but there's no easy way to tell when it has finished apart from waiting for the green +200's to stop floating up the screen (I know I can mouse over his portrait to see if the buff icon is there but I don't want to fiddle about in the middle of a big fight).
• Peter's time+mana saving hunter tips
  • when the mobs health is down to 10% stop shooting and start moving in so you are ready to loot at the point it dies, preferably before it hits the ground. You may have to finish it off with raptor strike but that's good for your melee skill.
  • on easy mobs, ration yourself to one arcane shot per, and use it early in the fight. Don't use it as a 'finishing' shot as some of its damage may be overkill. Also it may not be time efficient if it means there is wasted time between the enemy dying and you being able to loot it.
  • For truly time efficient looting, send the pet into the next fight before you start looting the previous corpse. Press tab to retarget the enemy when you rejoin the fight. The pet should be constantly killing while you dabble in looting, herb picking, nose picking etc.
  • Don't waste time feeling sorry for paladins as you pop Bestial Wrath just to see a mob go down in a shower of blood. This uses precious mana but sometimes you have to live a little.
• Class trainer at 44 had a couple of next ranks, some of which I didn't bother with as I never use them (Mongoose Bite and explosive trap). Next rank arcane shot and mend pet are ok though.
• Half way to 45, hope to get there tonight.

• Continued the questing in Feralas. The levelling guide said I was supposed to collect yeti fur but I didn't seem to have the quest so I had to skip it. One thing about slavish following the levelling guide is that you do things and you don't know why, where you picked the quest or where you turn it in. Will have to look back through the guide to find out where I was supposed to pick it up. I have collected all three chicken robot homing beacons but the guide said the one in feralas would need a group to do so I'm going to leave it a few levels so I can solo it. If I do all three robot chicken escort quests I get my own robot chicken!
• Speaking of pointless pets, Dark Whelpling has still not sold I saw a guy on a boat running around with one and I still don't like them, remind me too much of the paladin being blasted by two or three.
• My extra kills when getting Giant Eggs for artisan cookery meant that I hit level 45 just when the guide said I should if I had done Uldaman so I'm on schedule.
• Back to Tanaris. Killed more wastewater bandits, ready for the pirates next. Ought to tackle that in the morning as I expect that area to be busy in the evenings.
• I've been wondering if my pet's apparent toughness is because of my decision to buy mail armour so the pet can benefit from the knock-on armour buff? Some hunters seem to stick with leather armour for the stats but I've found mail armour with stats so I'm happy.
• KB died in a big fight when I agroed a camp with four voidwalkers and their pets. It was funny running away, I switched the camera view to look behind me and there was a purple cloud of angry looking voidwalkers running after me. I have the camera view flip mapped to my ' button, it's handy to take a peek behind now and then.
• I saw that I had enough ingredients to make a big batch of Elixir of Greater Intellect. Since it is a guardian elixir it stacks with agility elixir so I'll give it a try. It should increase the size of the mana pool and I will see if it makes mine last longer, although it's probably spirit I would need to refill it quicker: there is nothing to be gained from having a larger empty tank. However spirit seems to be regarded as the hunters least useful stat. I am probably better off sticking to making mana pots.
• Making these potions pushed my alchemy to 275 so I fired up the paladin to email sixteen arcane crystals and some thorium bars, ready to go into the arcanite business.
• Had a big garage sale of crap. Accidently put it on 8 hour sale instead of 24: was using laptop where auctioneer is still broken following 2.1 and I've not fixed it yet. By this morning only about a third of it had sold. Things seem to sell slowly these days, all the rare weapons are usually at gougy prices, there's no fun in the auction house for me any more.
• Reminds me, I got a blue drop, a big knife. Must put it up for a gougy price.
• Also got a nice dagger as a quest reward so I could bin the old level 23 axe I was using. Looking at Maevyn's armoury profile, she is carrying an impressive number of items from quest rewards. My favourite is her long flowing cape, it's blue but still a bit matrix in the way it flows while she fights. I wonder where she got it...? UPDATE: cool, if you click on the item in the armory it tells you the name of the quest and where you got it so the cape came from getting Dizzy's eye in Stranglethorn. HEY now I can figure out where other players get the cool stuff!
• This morning I dropped my wife's bottle of tahitian noni water on the floor and lost fifteen minutes playtime mopping it up. Was still logged in when I got back, odd. Does it only boot people when the servers are loaded? Not many people in Ironforge this morning.
• Going out tonight, possibly servers down tomorrow morning, don't expect big things.