The one thing I don't like about Dragon Age: Origins

So Dragon Age: Origins is incredible there's no arguing that but there's one problem, at least for me. See they have this cool thing where you kill big bosses like Ogres in awesome slow motion kills. Which is awesome nothing bad about that except for one thing you don't get it if you're a ranged class. Mages and Archers don't get these awesome kill shots. Now I don't see the point in me running up and shooting something in the face, but why can't I plant an arrow in it's forehead and watch it hit the ground face first. Or hit it with a fireball and watch it explode. It's already challenging enough being a swishy ranged class and even rangers are squishy to me in this game though we were medium armor, we could at least get some of the awesome kill action.

My cat

The second pet I ever got as a hunter was a cat (First goes to a Bloodtalon Raptor named TalonStrike), a Savannah Prowler named ThunderFang, but as soon as I saw the yellow cat model I had to have my own personal cheetah, of course I had to wait until I could reach the badlands since i never saw, and have yet to see Dishu. But once i got him that was it, BoltFang was my main pet for pretty much the rest of my time playing wow, but when WotLK was announce and the Dreadsaber were shown i decided he needed to beef up, thus at 76 BoltFang Became BoltSaber and remained that way until I saw the Corrupt Spawn of Har'Koa. By this time Bolt had been supplanted by Strykar as my main pet, but with the onset of Dual Spec i was gonna need a pet for my other build. It was at this time that I changed from my old naming style to my new one and instead of Bolt-something he became Stalkyr. But after some time i ired of the fairly common model and wanted a change, so i headed over to Darkshore and grabbed myself a Ghostsaber, but being a writer and lore nerd I never got rid of BoltFang, he just changed a bit.

1. The original Stal'kyr (BoltFang) the cub that a Young Stri'dah befriended as he journeyed with his family to join the new Horde.

2. Accompanying Stri'dah to Northrend the bountiful life energy of Sholazar Basin caused a change in Stal'kyr, he grew to a much larger size and gained a huge increase in strength (BoltSaber).

3. Unfortunately sensing the potent energies within the cat he was captured by the Drakkari in Zul'Drak and drained of the power. The dark magics used on him had terrible effects darkening his color and causing his eyes to glow with dark power, but it also increased his intelligence granting him the magically ability to comminicate with Stri'dah, but the dark magic of the curse also drained most of his hope and happiness aswell.

4. With the help of the Loa Goddess Har'Koa, her mate Loque'nahak, their son Stry'kar, and Stri'dah's borther See'kah they were able to remove the curse from Stal'kyr, but the potent magics used to lift it had a surprising effect giving fur of pure white and magic causing him to take on a spirit like form from the energy.

With the comming of Cataclysm new hunter pets will emerge, new families and new models, which means Stal'kyr sensitivity to magic could change him once more, but we'll just have to wait and say, and whose to say he'll be the only one?

Building A Hunter From Lore: Marksman

Given the name of the class is slightly misleading, I'll admit, but the idea of the marksman, at least from a lore perspective refers to a very specific type of hunter, a Gunman. Where as most hunter have a connection to nature you could care less. The Marksman represent the other end of the hunter spectrum, the advanced warrior who wields the new technology of firearms to great effect. Marksmen love to spray hot lead into their enemies plain and simple. Masters of guns in any form be it pistol, rifle, or shotgun. For the marksman there are two possible paths Gunman and Sniper. Essentially they represent ranged versus really far range combat. To transfer this to the game takes two distinct Builds. one SV and one MM this is where dual specs might come in handy. Spec wise the MM build as potential to do fairly good DPS while the SV buil looses a some potency by ignoring traps and explosives, its more about discretion.

SV Build (Sniper)

MM Build (Gunman)

The MM build focuses on single target damage and efficiency, with a focus on physical damage and arcane shot. Utility and CC are pretty much ignored entirely. While the SV build does much of the same focusing on single target damage Lock 'n' Load procs will go towards Arcane Shot rather than explosive. Since the SV build focuses on range and sniping traps and explosive shot aren't very fitting, but you could work in Explosive Shot if you really wanted to. Improved Aspect of the Hawk is a great addition to either bui

ld if you move some points around.

SV Glyphs

MM Glyphs

The glyphs are pretty standard for marks in both builds, Glyph of Kill Shot, Glyph of Chimera Shot, and Glyph of Hunter's Mark, swapping Chimera for Glyph of Aimed Shot in the SV build. If it existed a glyph of Black Arrow would have worked as well but since traps and explosive shot are ignored Aimed Shot or Steady Shot if you prefer are your best choices. You really have no choice but to use guns in this build, that being said Engineering is gonna be your profession of choice, goblin if you're gonna be raiding ICC and can get the recipe for Shatter Rounds. Dual Wielding daggers is gonna be the most sensible choice for your melee stat sticks. As for pets Wolves are a good choice, Birds of Prey are good picks thematically, but for the most part you don't to much care about pets so pick what you want. Now the only things missing are pistols, but more on that at another time.

Note: I finished this post last week but waited to finish the formatting and forgot about it. Sorry to anyone who was waiting for it.

Dragon Age Warhound

So Dragon Age: Origins is awesome this we all should understand. One thing in particular is the dog. He is f****** awesome. The dog is one of the most helpful characters to have around with warrior stats and an AOE stun he makes every fight easier especially when you play a ranged class like a ranger. But my favorite part about it is the equipment. It's not like what you'd have for a regular humanoid character but its perfect for the dog warpaint and a collar. The only thing missing is the inventory (which i loved in Dungeon Siege), but Dragon Age uses a party inventory so that doesn't matter. But why am i talking about this? Because this is the perfect pet system in my opinion. For a class that relies heavily on pet and a single, or very specific pet (as opposed to summoners, conjurers, and necromancers with a vast repertoire of pets) Like Hunters and Warlocks, and lesser extent Unholy DK and Frost Mages. See one thing i always wished is that my pet could check bodies for me so I didn't have to run up to everything after fights. When your melee it's one thing, you're right there, but when you're ranged sometimes it means backtracking quite aways to pick up a few copper. Now the thing is i'm not thinking a huge inventory, that be unfair to other classes, though before the changes to soul shards and ammo I would have argued otherwise, but fetch can't be that hard to teach. But what about the equipment? well as we all know there have been issues with pet scaling for forever and its one of those things that make life hard for Demo locks and BM hunters, well if you equip a bit of gear to your pet then your all good. Screw the axe give your felguard a giant two-handed hammer. Deck that rhino out in some battle armor, or give that raptor a tribal headdress like the fast mounts have. Make them quest rewards like the crappy totems, and badge items for the higher level stuff. With something like this you can offset some of the scaling problems, sort of the way hunter dps was balanced around ammunition. The thing is for hunter pets it would take some doing if there was going to be a visual change, but that part isn't even necessary (though it'd be really cool) not say it's an easy fix but it makes later fixes easier. Pet damage to low? Buff the pet gear, to high? nerf it. And different sets for pvp and pve means you can balance one with out affecting the other. Now i suspect that this may have been thought of before, even by blizzard, and i can tell this would be a massive amount of programming (expansion worthy even) but still it'd be cool right?

Back on the Horse

Been AFK for a while, the holidays really shake things up, but school's in and with it returns the massive amounts of boredom that arise from avoiding homework. Which means I'll be back posting again hopefully i'll have the Next BHFL up by next Wednesday. With the break and the release of 3.3 a lot has happened so there should be no shortage of stuff to write about.