WOTLK down for maintenance and travel screenshots

 

Transportation in WOTLK

 

 

I was hoping to get another WOTLK post up today, exploring some of the hunter shots and talents in more detail.   But alas, the Beta has been down for maintenance every time I have tried to log on.  I have a nasty suspicion that means there is a big patch coming too, with hours of downloading :>(

So you will have to make do with one I prepared earlier… some shots of some of the travel options in WOTLK.

1.  First up we have the boats that take you to Northrend.  

 

Paddle Steamer

 

 

2.  These are not the only boats.  There are the wonderful turtle boats, which will take you along the coast between the Tuskar villages – just speak to the dockmaster.

 

Turtle boat

 

 

As you probably know, you cannot use your Outland flying mount until you have completed a quest at level 77.  So next up we have your land mount.  But not any old land mount.  This is my gnome death knight on her death charger.  She obtained this awesome mount via a simple solo quest at level 55.

3.  Deathcharger

 

Death Charger

4.  Plane!

I found this little plane while I was doing some dodgy quests for some equally dodgy pirates.  The pirates let me borrow it for ‘a one way trip’.  I was worried that meant it was going to crash, but I had a fun ride up the coast.  It looked as if this was repeatable.

 

Plane

13 Hunter Macros (and then some – updated for 3.0+)

Edit: 12 May 09 – I will be overhauling this post in the near future to update the macros for 3.1 and beyond.  There were some significant changes to macros in 3.1 and changes to spells such as Kill Shot being placed on the GCD, meaning that some of these macros may no longer work.  Use at your own risk until I test and update them all.  I also have some new ones I shall be adding, so watch this space.

I have now edited these so that they work with 3.0+  Most of the original macros continued to work, but a couple like the pull shot macro needed adjusting.

Edit:  22 Jan – even more hunter macro goodness – I have lost count of how many are here, but a lot more than 13 now!

You can also check out – WOWWiki’s Hunter Macros, which have been updated for 3.1 here.

In between all the WOTLK goodness, I am continuing to update this site with basic content, but don’t worry the Wrath stuff will keep a coming.  This mornings article covers useful hunter macros.  (Oh and there is a participation request at the bottom of the page, it would be nice to get some useful comments on this one.)

A macro is a simple little command that performs and action or multiple actions such as sending your pet to attack and casting Hunter’s Mark both with one touch of a button.  They cut down on the number of buttons you have to press, and the number of spells you need on your tool bars.  They can make you faster and more efficient and can result in higher dps.

Note:  The coding used in macros can alter slightly in updates to the game.  For instance you may see Stopcasting lines in some older macros, this has not been needed since patch 2.3, although does not break macros.  Refer to patch notes and the official Macro Forums to changes in macro code.  Mostly, old macros will continue to work, but occasionally they will need updating with the new code.

To create a new macro type /m and press enter in the chat window.  This will pull up the Macro Window.  (You can also open the Macro Window from your Options Menu – either by click on the icon or by pressing Escape.)

Press the New button

In the new little window that appears, Type in a Title for your new Macro in the Enter Macro Name box

Select an Icon for your Macro

Click OK

In the text box at the bottom of the Macro Window type the text for your Macro

Drag and drop the Macros icon onto your toolbar

Click Exit, and your’re done.

 

Here are some macros I use:

I am a macro thief, most of the macros I use I have found elsewhere and then perhaps edited slightly.  So thank you to all the original writers out there who understand the code better than I do

1.  Pet Attack

/petattack

/cast hunter’s mark

Use:  I put this on a tool bar and assign a key binding (a) in my case.  when I select a mob and then press (a) my pet rushes to attack it and I also cast hunter’s mark on the mob with the same key press.

EDIT:  You can also add Kill Command to this Macro – meaning that your pet will start off with some high damage attacks and your Kill Command cooldown will start ticking immediately:

 

/petattack

/cast Kill Command

/cast hunter’s mark

 

 

2. Pet Follow

/petfollow [target=pettarget,exists]

Use:  Will recall your pet to your side even if he is about to attack, or is currently attacking a target.  Good if you accidently sent him to attack something, you can pull him out before he aggros it.  Good to use him to pull a mob from a distance, e.g. an underwater one to the surface because you don’t want to get your mail rusty.  Good too to recall him if he has run off in pursuit of a foe in a BG, but is not far enough out of range to be able to use your whistle.  Also good if you need to pull him back during a boss fight, when the boss hits a damaging aoe type spell.  (Before using this, I would have to toggle between defensive and passive a couple of times to recall him, this is quicker and more reliable).

Edit:  If you are using a shot rotation macro which includes a pet skill such as rake in the macro (to make sure he uses it when its available), this might interrupt your ability to pull your pet back from a situation using the pet follow macro.  You attempt to pull him back, but at the same time you are spamming your macro telling him to attack with his special skills – obviously he gets a bit confused.

 

3. Assist Pet

/Assist pet

/cast Auto Shot

Use:  I put this on a toolbar and assign a key binding (b) in my case.  When my pet is attacking a mob I don’t have to select the mob to start attacking it, I just press (b) and I start shooting at the same mob as my pet.  Excellent time saver when switching between multiple mobs.  Also excellent for ensuring that you are shooting at your pets main target when you pet is being hit by several mobs, so that you don’t accidently pull a mob off the pe

 

4. Assist Tank or party member

the same macro can be used to assist the main tank or a party member.  

/Assist Edaddy       (where Edaddy is the main tank)

/cast Auto Shot

Again, this will make sure you are targeting the same mob as Edaddy and not pulling another mob off him.  Obviously, this is not just of benefit to hunters.

 

5. Assist Focus

An important variation on this macro can be used to assist your focus.  You can set your focus.  This is a bit like a stored target, but is not your currently target.  To set focus, create another macros:

/Focus Target

Select the person or pet you want as a focus, and hit the macro.  This stores this person as your focus target, when they are selected you will notice they have a shiny glow around their character picture, showing they are your focus.  Your focus can also be an enemy mob (many people make their focus the mob they are chain trapping for instance).

 

6. Create an assist focus macro:

/Target Focus

/Assist Target

/Cast Auto Shot

This is a bit more elegant version of those macros above. It can be used on any pet or tank, rather than you having to go in and manually adjust the name.  I usually have this on my tool bar as well as the standard one to assist my pet.

*Removing the auto cast line from these macros, allows you to target the target of the player you want to assist without shooting at it until you are ready.  This is preferable when you are assisting a tank, who needs to build up aggro before you let fly with the arrows.  Experiment and see which works before for you.

 

7. Misdirect

Misdirection is a hugely useful spell that hunters learn at level 70.  It allows you to middirect your next three shots so that the mob thinks the damage (and therefore the threat/aggro) come from another player/pet.  You use it to help a tank establish or re-establish aggro, or to help get aggro off yourself or another player and back onto your pet or tank.

This one uses the focus target above.  If you have a focus target (e.g your tank), it will misdirect the shots on to him/her, if not, it will misdirect the shots onto your pet.

#showtooltip Misdirection 

/focus [modifier:alt] 

/cast [target=focus,help][help][target=pet,exists,nodead] Misdirection 

/clearfocus [button:2]

 There are several different misdirection macros out there.  Some stopped working after patch 3.0.2.  I experimented until I found one that worked the way I wanted it.  Just don’t ask me to explain the new code – I don’t understand the [button:2] bit  (ah – it’s to do with right clicking with your mouse button – that explains it – I play on a laptop with a track pad and don’t use a mouse – I know I’m a newb and am scared of going into the Occulus).  

 

 

 

8.  Pull Shot

#showtooltip Distracting Shot

/cast Distracting Shot

/target Tinuviel

 

 

 

 

Edit:  The original pull shot macros no long works because of the changes to auto shot.   The simple solution is to target yourself after the Distracting Shot or other shot you use to pull into the trap, this stops you continuing to shoot auto shot.  You can change Distracting shot for something that does minimal threat (e.g. arcane shot (Rank 1)), however my pally tank is an threat machine, and often pulls generating threat onto multi-mobs at once, including the one to be trapped, so I need a sure-fire way to get it off him and into the trap.

Use:  When trapping in an instance.  Place trap, target mob, when tank pulls hit this.  I then follow up by hitting the button that targets my tanks target so that I can begin laying down the dps.

Edit:  If you are a Marksman Hunter with Silencing Shot (talent) you can use this variation:

#showtooltip Distracting Shot

/cast [mod:shift] Silencing Shot; Distracting Shot

/target Tinuviel

I have my macro bound to key [9] on my keyboard.  I lay my trap, target the mob and when the tank pulls I hit key [9], which distracts the mob towards me and into the trap.  If the mob is a caster, I hit [shift] + [9] and being silences for 3 secs he will run towards me and hopefully into the trap (as long as the run is less than 3 secs for a long distance pull).

9. DPS button

When you want to open up and let the target have it, e.g. the last 20% of a bosses health or similar.

#showtooltip Rapid Fire

/cast Rapid Fire

/cast Bestial Wrath

/use 13

/use 14

You will have to smash this button several times to get all the things to work if they are all off cooldown.  If some are on cooldown, but not others, it will cast those that are available.  13 and 14 refer to your trinkets equipped on your character.  It will activate any on use procs these trinkets have.

Edit:  You might want to leave Rapid Fire out of this one and save it for mana regen phases with Viper Sting.  You might also want to add pet abilities in like Rabid and Call of the Wild with extra cast likes.  But I tend to leave these on autocast to ensure the pet uses them as often as they are up – not as focussed DPS, but it makes sure he uses them as often as possible.

 

10. I win button

Beastmaster hunters with Intimidation and Bestial Wrath talent points only need apply.  Variation on the above, similar results.

/Cast Bestial Wrath

/Cast intimidation

 

11. Shot Rotation Macros

Everything changed here with the advent of WOTLK.  Previously in BC, many hunters were using shot rotation macros to weave auto shot in between steady and other shots.  The two most common (at least for beast master hunters) were the 3:2 and 1:1 macros – for historical purposes only here they are:

3:2 Macro   (this one goes something like… auto, steady, steady, auto, steady…. repeat)

#showtooltip Steady Shot

/Cast! Auto Shot

/Cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

/Cast Steady Shot

/Script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

 

1:1 Macro   (this one goes… auto, steady…. repeat)

 

#showtooltip Steady Shot

/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot

/Cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

/Script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

With WOTLK neither macros are used.  Auto shot now fires automatically, and threads itself between your shots, without you having to do it.  

There doesn’t seem to be a cookie cutter macro currently.  A lot of people are not using a macro at all, just spamming Steady Shot, and threading stings and other things between it.

Some people are using macros like this one, which does 2 things.  First it makes sure the pet uses its special skills when they are available, and second the inclusion of the !Auto Shot line, apparently improves DPS very slightly.

#showtooltip Steady Shot

/cast Steady Shot

/cast !Auto Shot

/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Rabid

/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command

/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Rake

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

 

When 3.0.8 comes out and Steady Shot is nerfed, and Arcane shot buffed, there may be a case for a macro that weaves Steady and Arcane shots.  I have tested a couple out, and this one seems to work.  What’s more it appears to fire Kill Shot too.  I have only done a little testing on it though on mobs I am killing quickly in the field (only found it yesterday on elitist jerks forums), I need to go and use it on a target dummy, boss, or something else with a lot of health which takes a long time to kill.  At the moment it will not be very mana efficient, but after 3.0.8 it may be very useful.  You will still need to weave in Serpent Sting when it is about to expire, and start with a pet attack with Kill Command, and then renew Kill Command every minute (I tried putting it in the macro, but have not got it to work with that as well yet):

 

#showtooltip Steady Shot

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0

/castrandom Kill Shot, Arcane Shot

/cast Steady Shot

/Console Sound_EnableSFX 1

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

 

If anyone has a better one, let me know.

And here is a similar shot rotation macro for Marksman Hunters:

 

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()

/cast kill shot

/cast kill command 

/castsequence , steady shot

/castsequence chimera shot, arcane shot, aimed shot

/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

You can delete aimed shot if you have mana problems or want to stick just to the others.

Start with a serpent sting manually, the macro should refreshi it with chimera shots, but you need to watch the debuff on the target, sometimes it might get missed and you will need to manually thread another serpent sting in.

12. Feed pet

(a) very simple

/cast feed pet

/use roast quail

/emote ’s pet wolfs down some food and licks his lips!

Use: I assign the feed pet icon to this macro.  Now every time I want to feed my pet, I just click the button, and as long as I have some roast quail he will get fed.  I also added the emote, so that I get an emote text saying, “Tinuviel ‘s pet wolfs down some food and licks his lips!” but you can dispense with this line if you like.  Remember, if you change food, you will need to change the text ‘roast quail’ in the macro to the appropriate food.

 

(b) preferred feed pet macro

/cast feed pet

/use 1 1 

/emote ’s pet wolfs down some food and licks his lips!

 

where – 1 1 – refers to 1st slot i.e. top left, in first bag from right after your backpack [which is bag 1].  Just make sure this slot has some food in it that your pet likes to eat and your’re all set.

 

13. Switch Aspects

Switch between your preferred DPS aspect and Aspect of the Viper for mana regen, and back again, with one button.

 

#showtooltip Aspect of the Dragonhawk

/castsequence Aspect of the Dragonhawk, Aspect of the Viper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use:  I have similar buttons for aspect of the cheetah/pack and Beast/wild just to cut down on the number of buttons on my toolbar.

 

14. Switch Tracking

Switch between different things you are tracking with one button.

 

 

/castsequence Find Herbs, Find Fish, Track Beasts

 

 

Use: You could put anything you could track on here – I use these three as these are the ones I tend to switch between when out farming.

 

15. Free your healer

Uses Master’s Call to attempt to free the target from movement impairing effects.

 

 

 

#showtooltip Master’s Call

/target Anelf

/cast Master’s Call

/targetlasttarget

 

 

 

Use: I use this on Anelf in instances, such as Culling of Strat when Meathook puts him in chains.  I think it works – the cat certainly runs to Anelf and back to the target, and it sometimes sets the cooldown going on Master’s Call, just not sure how well Master’s Call works.

16.  Hunting for elusive prey?

Target rares macro:

 

/tar Dirkee

/tar Vyra

/tar Time

/stopmacro [noexists]

/tell Tinuviel > %t <

I found this on a Wowhead forum when searching for info about the rare spawn (Time Lost Drake).  There are three rare spawns in the area, so it attempts to target each of them.  If it targets one, or if you target something else while spamming it, it sends you a whisper telling you what you have targeted.

IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH ANY OF MY MACROS, CAN SUGGEST MORE EFFICIENT WAYS OF WRITING THEM, OR SUGGEST OTHER USEFUL ONES, PLEASE ADD A COMMENT BELOW.  THANK YOU – HAPPY MACROING!

 

17.  Mounting

I use the Addon Coconuts usually for random mounts.  But I have become a mount collectors and have a couple of really cool mounts like my kodo, mammoth and albino drake and some mounts I don’t like like my elekks and mecanostriders (just bought to get the drake).  I have therefore started using the following macro to limit my random mount to one of my 5-6 favorites:

/run if IsMounted()then return end local t if((GetRealZoneText()==”Dalaran”) and(GetSubZoneText()~=”Krasus’ Landing”) or(GetZoneText()==”Wintergrasp”)or not IsFlyableArea())then t={2,16,20}else t={1}end CallCompanion(“MOUNT”,t[random(#t)])

/dismount

(Need to work out how to put a modifier in for the dismount – I accidently clicked it earlier while very high up on my drake, and dismounted to fall to my squishy doom.)

The numbers refer to the positions of your favourite mounts in your mount tab of your character screen – first set are land mounts, second are flying mounts e.g. my Armored Brown Bear is mount no 2.  while my Albino Drake is mount no. 1.

 

18.  Spammable melee button

I just save 2 spaces on my action bars with this one – combining wingclip, raptor strike and mongoose into 1 button.  Spam away in melee or disengage and get back to range asap:

#showtooltip

/castsequence reset=target/3 Wing Clip, Raptor Strike, Wing Clip

/castrandom [target=target, exists] Mongoose Bite

 

19.  All in one pet button

My bar mod has been causing problems – so I have gone back to the standard action bars until the 2 main bar mods iron out their problems.  But the standard bars have too few buttons, so I have been trying to condense some of mine – here in another space saver I found:

#showtooltip

/castsequence [nopet] reset=20 Call pet, Revive pet

/cast [modifier:shift] Dismiss Pet; [target=pet, dead] Revive Pet; [pet=nodead] Mend Pet

 

If you pet is present pushing him with mend it: shift pushing it will dismiss him.  If he is dismissed, pushing it will recall him.  If he is dead, pushing it will revive him.

 

Want to know more?  Check out the following links (I put these in the original article – some but not all may be updated for 3.0+):

World of Warcraft Macro Guide: Part One

Cogwheels Complete Macro Guide

WOW Wiki Macro Guide

WOW Wiki Useful Macros for Hunters

Arena Junkies General Macros

Arena Junkies Hunter Specific Macros

*Note: some of these sites may contain some outdated macros.

Now it’s your turn:

Do you have a useful macro to share, or an improvement on one of mine?  Post it in a comment to this post and I will publish it on the site.  

WOTLK screenshot spoilers – random shots

I have a post for pictures of hunter pets, one for landscapes, and one on its way for a bestiary.  This one is for none of the above.  Random pictures of new items in the game that people might be keen to see.  Once again, I will be updating it as I go, so check back.  Also, once again, click on the pictures to see the full picture.

A demonology lock in his demon form

 

The new zebra mount

WOTLK spoiler screenshots – landscapes and artwork

I am one of the explorers of WOW.  I like to solo, and ride off into the unknown exploring new areas.  Part of the reason I like to do this, is that I love the visuals of the landscapes and the art work that has gone into the design of the landscapes.  And boy! Northrend does not disappoint.  The landscapes are absolutely beautiful.

I have heard it said that overall, Northrend is about half snowy, half non-snowy.  This looks to be the case.  The areas I have visited so far, all mirror a northern cold environment, but still manage to be different and changing.  There are icebergs and icefloes, snowfields, tundra, giant redwood forests, gnarled old deciduous trees covered in ice, and many changes of level.  

The colors too are very different from Azeroth or Outland too.  More muted and realistic, but at the same time with a richer classic fantasy or gothic feel to them.  Some of the design reminds me of fantasy art of Arthur Rackham and some of the Tolkien artists like Alan Lee.

Anyway, I will be posting screenshots here showcasing some of the landscapes.  Check back, as I will be updating this post.

(Again, click on each picture to see the full screenshot, I need to fix the cutting of pictures on my blog, still a work in progress).

 

I should make a note of where these are in future - I think this was up in the Grizzly hills

Dragonblight mature forest

Grizzly Hills - or Yellowstone Park in the Snow

 

Shoveltusks grazing the Borean Tundra

 

On the ancient lift - howling fjord

 

Tuskar, orca, icefloes, and the aurora borealis

Preparing for WOTLK

This is a work in progress, I will be adding to it and amending it, so keep checking back.  As I go through WOTLK Beta and read up on it, I will be making notes of things one can do to prepare for the expansion. The Beta is a moveable feast, so many of these may get deleted (especially some of the achievements or profession ideas), but I will try to only list things that look pretty likely.

Much of this is based around the new Achievements System.  There are hundreds of achievements, each awarding points.  Your achievement window shows how many points you have achieved over all.  This adds another facet (grind/time sink, or enjoyable aspect your choice) to the game.  There is no news yet on the rewards for amassing a large number of achievements and high number of achievement points.  It may be that there are no rewards at all except for the kudos of the achievement, and a rank on a database somewhere.  Or, or there may be small cosmetic rewards, like the pet skunk that has been announced as a rewards for collecting 50 vanity pets.  But I would guess there are going to be some tempting rewards, because this could be a big sink of time and money, keeping people in game, and playing the game for longer, particularly those who cannot access raid content, and I would guess Blizzard are going to want to encourage people to invest in their achievements.  Many of the achievements will be awarded retroactively, so you can do them before WOTLK hits.  I advise you to do this – who is going to want to go around exploring the old world, when there is fun to be had and leveling to be done in Northrend?

1. Money – you will need some – stable slots, next step of trade skills, etc.  I spent several hundred gold on these things in a matter of minutes.

Edit:  Mammoth caravan mounts – you will want one – but they cost 20,000G!!! Yikes!  Do buy gold, but do get saving your pennies, and dream of owning a 3 person mount, that carries vendors when you aren’t giving a ride to friends.

1. World event – Blizzard have hinted that there will be a world event, heralding the expansion, as there was with BC.  At present the war supplies collectors are in Iron Forge on the Beta, collecting bandages, leather, etc. and rewarding you with commendations that can be exchanged for faction rep.  In Stormwind there is a quest giver sending you to see these guys, who talks about AQ and the Scourge.  There is Scourge is Northrend, so they may be revisiting the scourge invasions, which happened before BC, or this could be a place holder for another event.  Anyway, it will be worth doing these handins for the rep, as one of the Achievements in the new Achievements System is to get to exhalted for all of the 5 old world capital cities.  The items they are collecting for the war effort are:
   • Linen, silk and runecloth bandages
   • light, medium and thick leather
   • copper, iron and thorium bars
   • Rainbow fin albacore, yellowtail tuna, and roast raptor
   • Stranglekelp, purple lotus and arthas’ tears
   Edit:  It looks like this is what they call a ‘legacy item’ and might not go live in WOTLK.  The war effort collectors are still in IF as of 10/1/08 (patch 900 and something), but they still have the same text about AQ, that was there for the opening of the gates of the AQ instances.
2. Herbs – it looks as if the new profession, inscription will be linked to herbalism.  Inscribers will need low level herbs like Peacebloom for their early recipes.  If you intend to be an inscriber yourself, or if you would like to make some money off people power leveling inscription, horde your weeds.   It’s actually unclear whether they expect everyone to go back to the low level areas to pick Peacebloom, or if there will be a vendor somewhere selling it.  I certainly haven’t seen any in Northrend (and I’m a herbalist). I would think it’s worth hoarding.

Edit:  Confirmed, inscribers are going to need bundles of herbs, including old world low level herbs.

1. Achievements – the following look set to be achievements.  You can do some these before WOTLK hits:
   • Explore all of your map: – if you use cartographer, there is an option for shading the unexplored portions of your map a different color, this can be very useful when going around trying to find parts your haven’t yet visited.
   • Max out your profession skills – if you are interested in professions you are will want to do this for WOTLK anyway, it’s not something you would do just for an achievement
   • Max out all your weapon skills, including unarmed combat.
   • Get exhalted with the 5 major cities
   • Get exhalted with as many other factions as you can.
   • Collect tabards and vanity pets (bag space permitting.)
   • Participate in all the world events (brewefest etc.) between now and WOTLK
   • Do instances, kill bosses
   • Collect mini pets.  Although remember, these won’t take up any bank/bag slots in the expansion, so don’t buy up all the easy to attain ones unless you have the space to store them.
   • Collect keys – here is the list of keys
   • Read books – here is the list of books page 1 and page 2
   • Get the recipe for delicious chocolate cake – this is a cooking achievement.  The recipe only comes as a rare drop from the level 70 daily cooking quest.  I do these fairly regularly on my two level 70’s, but only Soupdragon has the recipe so far.

Things it doesn’t look as if you will need:

1. Frostweave is the new cloth for first aid and tailors.  So if you are maxed out, you should be able to move on to frostweave, so no need to horde netherweave.  

As I said I will be updating this one – so watch this space :>)

WOTLK – Pets screenshots

 

 

 

If you are reading this blog, I am sure you have already been over to Petopia and Big Red Kitty to read all the WOTLK pet goodness there.  But if not, don’t miss out.  Mania and her helpers have done a terrific job, keeping Petopia up-to-date.  I’ve wanted to help and have been running around casting beast lore on anything with a brain, trying to find undiscovered tameable pets, but I haven’t found one yet that isn’t already listed on Petopia.  Big Red Kitty is excelling himself with some excellent hunter guide movies.  He’s really captured the excitement of the beta.  

 

I have been experimenting with some of the new pets.  No video software on the machine I am playing beta on, unfortunately, but I do have some screenshots (for some reason they are cut off on the blog – but click on each to see the full picture – hehe at least in most cases this serves as a spoiler alert):

The mighty Devilsaur - he roars and stomps and has great dps :>)

 

 

The even mightier Rhino - now this is a tank!

 

The polar bear cub - cute or too cute? That is the question.

 

The Northrend wolf - so many things for him to eat, do the wolves here have major tapeworms?

 

The silithid - he hops and skips and wiggles - he's a happy little chap - I like him!

 

The Wasp - Stops rogue's stealth? He's a thing of beauty.

 

The Moth - High DPS pet? It's true. Moths are scary.

 

The Chimera - so not the pet for me.

 

It's a worm! Err, I am not sure what else to say... it's a worm!

 

 

 

The condor - a beautiful black and white condor - not bad for a flappie!

Edit some more screenshots:

 

Bald Eagle - bird of prey - cunning pet

 

 

 

Tyrantus - level 71 devilsaur, Netherstorm

 

Pitch - level 76 black lion Humar-lookalike from Sholazar Basin

Pitch (renamed Tin) was tamed by my level 80 premade dwarf hunter, Beren (in case your’re wonder whether WOTLK allows race and sex changes!*)   *it doesn’t, btw – just you hair and piercings.

 

 

Thought’s on pets so far:

 

• I love what they have done with the pet system.  The talents trees and family skills make a lot more families viable pets, allowing hunters to choose and spec pets for their specific needs and play-styles.
• 5 stable slots – what’s not to love about this one?  Oh yes, I want even more!  And I want to be able to carry my pets around to summon at will, as I now can with my mounts and mini-pets, without taking up bag space.
• Doing away with loyalty, automatically knowing skills such as growl and claw, and these scaling with level, plus low level pets jumping to 5 levels below the hunter when trained all have important implications.  These are actually both good and bad.  
  • The good is that it is easy to keep several different kinds of pets leveling with you.  If your bear falls behind, because you have been playing with your raptor, no problem, just go train a bear at your level and bam you have a bear with all the skills and loyalty of one that had leveled with you.  (This of course only works if there are bears of an appropriate level to train, and may limit your choice of skin.)  
  • If you want an unusual skin, but it is on a much lower animal, you train it and bam it jumps to 5 levels below you, so now you on have to level it up 5 levels not 25.  
  • You also save a stable slot, since you don’t have to keep one to stable your main pet whilst going out to train animals to learn skill upgrades from.
  • No loyalty seems in practice to also mean less frequent need to feed your pet.
  • The bad is that it take a little of the skill away which separates the good hunters from the also rans.  The good hunters researched pet skills, went out and trained them, and ensured their pet always had the most up-to-date skills.  Now the distinction will be in choosing the most beneficial pet talents and family of pet for your situation, spec, and play style.  So there will still be a distinction, but it may or may not be as marked.
  • The bad is it also encourages hunters to switch pets more, and discourages loyalty to one pet from the beginning.  This is not so bad in terms of killer play style, but may not appeal to many RPers.
• At the moment some things are still a bit buggy on the beta.  Growl does not seem to be working properly all the time.  Sometimes my pets hold aggro well, other times growl seems to get switched off, or cower on (even though I have turned it off in my spell book) and they dump aggro like water off a ducks back.  Some of the pet talents don’t seem to be fully implemented yet.  Also, currently the pet still only has 4 active spaces on its pet toolbar.  Yet now it has more than 4 active spells.  You cannot drag spells on to your own toolbars, so the only way around this is to create macros to cast those spells, which then can be placed on your toolbars.  I am still trying to figure on what the pet will and will not auto-cast and when, how its focus is working, and which spells I should micromanage.

Edit:  Ghostcrawler recently announced that they have added another rank of growl.  Also some of the aggro issues seem to be fixed and pets are holding aggro better now.  

• My biggest bug bear is cower.  Why of why does a tenacity pet come with cower as a standard skill?  And why is there no option to unlearn this skill all together, which is something I always did when training any pet in the wild, which had it as standard.  I take it off the toolbar, I turn it off in my spell book, but it looks to me as if the pet is still cowering sometimes, and it is getting turned back on.   Cower, just say no!

Edit:  I seem to have a work around for cower – if you put it on your toolbar and turn it off, it either does not get turned back or or does so a lot less frequently, than if it is just in your spell book.

• As for the pets I have trained so far, I haven’t played with them all extensively, but my first impressions are:
  • The Rhino is hilarious – but in reality he is too big for anything but a novelty.  At the moment he doesn’t have a family skill, unless this is something earth shattering, then he will be a fun toy only.
  Edit:  Rhino’s family skill is now a charge with a knock back for all enemies.  As well as being a lot of fun, this probably have uses in pvp, but is less useful for instance, where you would not want to knock back one group of mobs into another.  So Rhino will be popular, but his size and skill will not make him a good choice for instances.
  • Devilsaur’s will be popular pets – their dps seems very high and they look great.  The only downside is there are only 4 in game currently, and 3 are low level, so will need leveling from 65 for level 70 hunters.  I want to start Northrend with a level 70 pet, not a level 65 one.  I will try taming the Netherstorm devilsaur at 71, but I suspect he will be difficult to tame because of his fear (need a friendly priest to cast fear ward, me thinks).
  Edit:  I tamed him solo quite easily.  Cleared an area around him set a freeze trap; trapped and tamed.  I also equipped all the haste gear I had picked up in game, I am not sure if it actually affected the speed of my taming channelling, but it seemed to, he remained in the trap and only got out the second before the taming finished.  He did not have chance to fear me.  They have also added a 5th green devilsaur out in Northrend (see Petopia).
  • Silithid – he’s a lot of fun – nice animations, nice family skill.  However, as BRK points out most BM hunters aren’t going to run with cunning pets.  Also there aren’t any level 70 or higher ones yet, so you are going to have to level him up 5 levels.
  • Polar bear cub – he looks great from behind, has a brilliant cub noise as he charges into battle.  However, why oh why couldn’t they have given him a more realistic face?  He looks like a stuffed toy not a real (or WOW world) bear.  I went out and tamed a grown-up bear after a while.
  Edit: The polar bear cub is no longer tameable.  Ghostcrawler announced he was never meant to be tameable.  When he was tamed he grew rather than shrank and his pixels were right, also his animations were never developed because of this, so he doesn’t open his mouth for instance.  This explains why his face looked so stupid, but I know a lot of people liked him and have been crying to replace him.  Of course I would prefer them to fix the look of his head and his animations, than to make him untamable, but I guess they have more urgent things to do.
  • Moth – looked like these could be real high dps pets, plus their self heal ability is a great little bonus.  But are we really going to see a lot of moths around?  I think not.  They are just not as sexy or aggressive looking as a devilsaur or a wasp, and the rate at which their wings flapped and the noise they made was annoying imo.
  • Wasp – I much preferred him to the moth.  His animations were better, he looked better,his family skills is good for both pve and pvp, though in truth the moths family skill might still be better.
  • Chimera – can you say abandon.  I hated the stop start on this big flapper as he made his way to the target.  No dash for this critter, even though he is supposed to do it.  He keeps stopping to figure out whether he is in range to cast his lightning breath.  A pain.  Also imo the wings are too big (but then I am not usually a fan of the flappies).  Big Red Kitty liked him, but then he tamed the chimera while it was still dishing out 4-5k crits, I think they had fixed it by the time I tamed one.  I notice BRK doesn’t have one now either :>)
  • Wolf – I always like wolves and worgs – although their family skill is poor.  Not sure what I think about the new model.  It’s certainly different.  But is it nicer than the happy coyote or the broad shouldered worg, matter of personal taste I guess.
  • Worm – same problem as the chimera – a stop-start action as he looks for his spit range.  He’s an unusual look though, with quite nice animations.  At the moment the tooltip does not say how much his spit reduces armor by.  Tanking pet, but not going to replace bears in my heart.
  • Condor – he’s beautiful!  The screenshots don’t do him justice.  A ferocity pet with demoralizing screech and dive – in other words an old world owl with a cats dps (owls are now cunning birds of prey).  I could get over my dislike of flying pets for this one.
  • Bald Eagle – another beauty – a bird of prey, cunning pet with disarm as his family skill.  He seems to hold aggro very well and has some nice utility talents in the cunning tree.  I like him a lot.
  • A note on the cat – I love my cat, Gwind – but is Northrend the end of the road for him?  Prowl was only ever useful with shadowmeld for guarding stuff in pvps, but other family skills are now much better.  Plus, there are now lots of ferocity pets to choose from, some of which (devilsaurs and raptors for instance) are probably going to put out more dps.  And given there don’t seem to be too many cat models in Northrend to keep your cat caught up, if leveling with something else, is this good night sweet cat?
  Edit:  Cats are now getting Rake – see my later post – this will improve cats dps, probably placing them above raptors and just behind devilsaurs.  So cats have a reprieve – yeay for Gwind!
  • It was cats, ravagers, raptors, scorpids and windserpents, in the Burning Crusade.  Which will be the top 5 pets in WOTLK?  Any suggestions?

WOTLK (spoiler) Picture diary – Day 1

 

 

 

 

Storwind Harbor - boy! those dwarves worked some major overtime!

 

 

Sailing into the Borean Tundra - what did they say the name of this ship was called, Titanic?

 

 

beastmaster hunter goes pet crazy in WOTLK - I want them all, starting with the big ones!

 

 

Journey into the howling Fjord (and yes another weird pet)

Wrath of the Lich King Beta – First Impressions

WOW!  Ok, I think that sums it up :>) (that and death knights, as far as the eye can see)

 

 

I feel like a kid in a candy store, just running around looking at everything, taming every new pet I see.  But also like a kid, I’m a bit lost in this big new world, I don’t know where anything is, I have no map (and no cartographer and lightheaded addons for easy mode).

 

Currently, I haven’t installed any addons, I’ve written a couple of my simple macros like pet attack and assist pet, but I’m on a vanilla UI.  However, people on the beta sever do say that some of the addons work, so I might look into installing recount to see if I can get an idea of the damage my different pets are doing, plus quartz and some kind of cooldown timers so I can see how shots thread with auto shot, and see when my pet is using its special skills.

 

But back to first impressions.  It took an age to download everything, and when I finally got it, the first thing it asked me to do was change my name.  Not sure if this is standard, or if there was another Tinuviel on the beta server (well it’s not exactly unique, it is).  I tried Luthien, but that was also unavailable, so you will see me as Tinn in all the screenshots.  My guild call me Tin, anyway (just a case of adding the extra letter as Tin was also unavailable).

 

I appeared in Shatt in my hearthstone location.  No talents, and all my pets in the stable.  First thing to note, Beren my level 59 Winterspring bear, I trained just yesterday, was still level 59.  He did not level up to 65 automatically.  I have heard a Blue saying that they are trying to fix this issue.

 

I grabbed Gwind out of the stable.  As I did so, I noticed the stable master offered to retrieve my Spirit Darter vanity pet for me, who I had released into the wilderness when short on bank slots.  It seems they will give you rare quest items like this one back, but not necessarily every day pets that you got bored of.

 

I also purchased my 4th and 5th stable slots (woot) 50G and 150G.

TIP:  If you get a beta key – transfer some money to your character before you do the character copy – and take it out of the mail.  You will need some start up capital and its no good in the mail as all your mail disappears and doesn’t get copied over.

 

Vanity pets like the spirit dater go into slots on your char info (c) pane – there is also another sub-tab for mounts, and a tab for tokens.  When I clicked on the spirit darter to put him in there, I got an achievement pop up to show I had attained a vanity pet.

 

TIP:  Before you mount or transfer your mounts to a stable slot, apply any riding crop or carrot you have to your mount when it is in your inventory (like applying an armor kit).  Currently, there is a bug that you can do it now, but once you put the mount in the stable window it doesn’t work.  I’m sure they will fix this.

 

I set my talents to a deep beastmaster build 51/10/0 – with the end point talent allowing me to train exotic pets.  I was disappointed to see, I still seem to have the talent build with the 5 point talent for aspect mastery at the top of the tree, instead of a 1 point talent further down.  I also played around with by cat, wolf and bears talents, giving their full set of skills.  Each has more active skills than fit on the toolbar, I am not quite sure (without my addons monitoring cooldowns) how he is using them all if they are not on the toolbar, or if he is.  I need to read up on this, and test it out some more.  May have to get better at micro managing my pet skills instead of relying on the pet to use them, for the most part.

 

Before setting off for Northrend, I decided to get myself a new haircut.  Unfortunately, the barber shop in Stormwind (which is located in the lane behind the ah) wasn’t working.  I couldn’t see the hairstyles on my character, and could only see one choice on my char info screen – that of a girly blood elf – so I gave that a miss.  A side note on this,  I later created a NE death knight (though I haven’t logged in with her yet), here I had a wider range of hair options than usual, but they were obviously selected from the models designed for other races.  There were some I recognized from blood elves and 2 dwarf styles.  Frankly, they did not suit my night elf, and I hope that they improve the range and design of hair styles, rather than just sticking dwarf hair on an elf.  The death knight, btw, had a wider choice of hair colors, not available to the other classes of night elf.

 

OK, back to Tinuviel and her journey to Northrend.  There are two ways to get their, either from SW Harbor to the Borean Tundra starting area or from Menethil to the Howling Fjord starting area.  WOTLK has two starting areas, and you can begin in either.  You might have seen the construction work going on on SW harbor near the cathedral in game at the moment.  Well, wow those dwarves worked some major over-time.  The harbor is massive and has a huge wow factor.  The ship designs are new too – fierce looking steam paddle ships.  Very cool.

 

The second wow factor is coming into the Borean Tundra – there are icebergs floating in the sea.  (Actually, later I went to the Howling Fjord from Menethil – and that one is even more visually impressive to sail into).

 

Valiance Keep in the Borean Tundra is a half built Theramore, being attacked by spidery things and flying bat monsters.  Just outside on the hill are more quests at Farshire – for Farshire think evil Westfall with plaguespreaders.

 

The early quests here are very simple.  The one worry was how it will be on the first days of Wrath, with the intensive competition to kill quest mobs.  As it was, there didn’t seem to be enough Harvest Collectors for me to kill.

 

The gear reset looks to be about right.  I’m mostly in T4/5 gear (full Merc glad gear, Wolf Snipers Rifle – everything purple).  So far, no quest reward is close to being an upgrade.   Although a lot of it has haste on it, which I don’t have, which is interesting.  People on the server suggested T4 can expect to upgrade their gear about level 75, T6 should already be at the 80 greens level.  This was backed up by the ammo on sale.  I usually use the epic mysterious ammo (which requires revered rep with the violet eye), level 75 vendor ammo had the same dps as this.

 

After running round doing some of the early quests, it was time to go pet crazy.  Nothing to tempt me directly around Valiance, so back to the old world.  First stop Devilsaur’s of Un’goro.  For some time I was the only person in the whole zone, until another hunter turned up to also tame a Devilsaur.  I grabbed the black backed one.  He’s huge, with stompy feet.  he jumped to level 65 in level when tamed.  He’s great fun, and I think could prove one of the highest dps pets, but I also decided since Silithus was next-door, I would go grab a bug.  So, I few across to Silithus, stabled the devilsaur and tamed a Hive’ashi Sandstalker.  These are the silithid that walk on 4 legs, and look rather like the mounts fro AQ.  I have to say I was surprised how much I warmed to this pet.  He’s really cute, I love his animations, he has this little hop and wiggle, and seems happy.  As a cunning pet, he also has some interesting talents for soloing and BGs, that I want to play with a bit more.  So I found myself keeping him out much longer than the devilsaur.

 

I decided though, what I really needed was a level 70 pet, preferably a tenacity pet, for soloing.  So back to Northrend to look for a level 70 bear.  I decided to go via Menethil this time and check out the Howling Fjord.  The boat is another paddle steamer, but leaves from the same dock as the Auberdine boat.  The journey up the fjord is hugely impressive, the art work is beautiful.  I have to say I like this starting zone and its quests better on first viewing.  Although, they are possibly a little more challenging (but that’s good in my opinion).

 

Having done a couple of the initial quests, I set off exploring, riding around the zone and into the Grizzly Hills.  Lots of interesting sights, snowy area, tall forests, cliffs and lots of changes in landscape.  No bears though, although I did grab a scrawny white wolf.  I think he was a Winterworn Worg (see Petopia).  And he was certainly ‘worn’ – I killed his previous owner – well it was easier than finding the local Humane Society to report him.

 

The wolf didn’t stay long though, later I found a quest that involved diving into an icy lake and attacking reeds to shake out bait fish.  Either a fish or a level 69-70 red crab spawned, which had to be killed (similar to the fishing traps off the coast in Desolace).  Well, wolf got set free, and the crab got nabbed and trained.  No sooner was he trained though, than he rolled over and died, his legs in the air.  What?  lol.  As a spawned animal, he died when his spawn timer was up (this also happens with Ghostsabers in Darkshore).  The simple solution was to use the Revive skill to get him back.

 

Wandering around, I came across several other quests, including some for the cute walrus looking people, whose village you get to down a gondola type lift.  All in all a good first day, very exciting.  I was impressed at how finished the game looks, there are still some bugs, but I can imagine that it could be ready in time for Christmas.

 

Insignificant details

 

Turkeys!  There are turkeys in Northrend.  What’s more when you kill one, its body turns into a cooked turkey icon, lol.

 

Storm Giant = Northrend’s tourism welcome officer (a la Hellfire’s Fel Reaver)

 

There are orca whales and huge hammer head sharks in the waters.  Very cool.

 

Groan.  Servers go down.

 

Groan.  When I try and log on again a couple of hours later, there is a major patch, which took me 6 hours to download.

 

Groan.  When I finally did log on at 11pm, I got to play for 5mins, before there was a warning that the server was being taken down in 15mins.  Went to bed.  I think this is a sign of how it might be playing on the beta.

Woo Hoo – Beta Key!!!!!!!!

Anelf and I signed up for the Beta.  I am so unlucky when it comes to competitions, drops, rolls of the dice, etc.  But Anelf got the golden ticket from Willy Wonka (or that’s what it felt like).  And being the big sweetie he is, he gave it to me – yay! (unlucky in rolls of the dice, but lucky in love – aww sweet).

As I write, I am downloading the beta on my other machine.  It looks like it is going to take around 16 hours :>(

If you do get an invite make sure it is a valid beta key.  There are lots of scams flying around.  

Our email came from WOWExpansionBeta@Blizzard.com

Subject: Wrath of the Lich King Beta Invitation!

Sent to the email associated with Anelf’s account.

The email gives you a key and sends you to http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com .  You then follow a four step process to setting up your beta account and downloading the beta client.

Note there may be one or two variations on this that are still valid, but check the URL it send to you and make sure it is a valid blizzard one.

Initially, I had a problem, and I was worried that I couldn’t associate the key with my account.  The email did not specify that it had to be associated with Anelf’s main account, just a valid Blizzard account.  However, whenever I tried to put in my username and password I got an invalid login message.  Looking on the official Wrath forums, I found the problem.  If you have changed your password in a couple of weeks, try your older passwords, I found my previous password worked.

So now I sit, watching the MBs trickle down the inter-web.  This is torture for an impatient person like me.  I want a devilsaur now!

There’s some great information about the beta coming out – BRK has some fun videos of the exotic pets – petopia has lots of great pet info too – and Drotara from Less QQ, More PewPew has some excellent posts.  I hope to add to this info, without repeating it.  I will be posting about:

- hunter talents and skills

- pets 

- early zones and quests

- gear and difficulty reset

- professions (maybe)

- achievements 

- colors, design, art work, the world

I’ve also copied Soupdragon my level 70 shaman to the beta servers, and may write about her, and I am sure I will be tempted to start a deathknight at some point.

Our second trip to Zul’Aman – one dead bear boss :>)

On our first trip to ZA I had very mixed feelings.  The first few pulls just seemed to be too good to be true.  We raced through them with few problems.  Then we hit a brick wall in terms of the two mounted trolls, the penultimate pull before the bear boss.  We just could not keep our tanks up, while we dispatched both the mounts and their riders.  It was quite an anti-climax to not even be able to get past the trash to the boss himself. 

Well, we went away for a week or two, our GM/raid leader/and excellent pally tank/ all round hero, geared up his defense rating, the rest of us also got a couple of upgrades, and we came back.  BAM! One dead bear boss :>)

We were a bit messy on some of the trash (Anelf our druid healer, might have stronger words than this, since it was his tree that got chewed up every time we let something run a muck).  But we got there.

Took us a couple of goes to learn the fight, but we got him down on the 4th try, with perfect aggro swapping between the 2 tanks (prot pally and warrior), and excellent healing from our three healers (druid and 2 pallies).

It was a very long fight, Neokia, our uber Destruction Lock, found he was very threat limited, with the aggro swapping between the two tanks, meaning that he couldn’t lay down his usual high levels of damage.  It was a great fight for hunters though, very pet friendly, and with our feign death dump we could really lay down the damage.  My only issue was the length of the fight, it was the first time I really struggled with my low mana pool.  I have a couple of pieces of rogue gear (great dps, but no int), and have never really prioritized int.  As such, I have a relatively low mana pool, which I usually manage very well through pots and an alchemists stone trinket (which increases the effectiveness of pots).  However, I had a period in this fight where I was down to auto shot for about 30secs, while I waited for a pot cooldown.  Need to get some more mana me thinks (and remember my weapon oil next time).  Still, I did around 24% of the damage on the boss – so must have been doing something right :>)

 

Soldiers of Fortune down the bear boss in ZA (Gwind isn't camera shy, unless the bear boss's corpse, which you can hardly make out)