Back Again

It seems as though my pattern of blogging is something like this.
School - No Time - Blog
Summer - To Much Time - Everything But Blog
Well sense I'm Back in school that means that hopefully I'll be posting more regularly again. I've had a lot of ideas brewing and a few that just recently come up. Look for a few posts on Dragon Age 2 companion system, Guild Wars 2 character and weapon ideas, and of course more WoW stuff, Including an interesting concept for a Shadow Hunter class that's horde specific (and it's alliance equivalent), plus which spec could be given a ranged DPS option. I've Discussed it before but I'll go into more detail one which classes could with a bow and arrow or otherwise. So look for more in the coming weeks.
   Stri'Dah

Class Combos that should exist but don't

Cataclysm added a lot of class options for players but there are still some that don't exist, and I have my theories as to why.

A Small Qualm with Focus Fire

As a main spec BM hunter I use Focus Fire extensively. The mechanics of the move are great and feel very BM. Based on your pet's Frenzy stacks you gain additional haste, awesome. But it stops there. Even though this move has very BM feeling mechanics nothing else about it feels BM. Both the animation and the name feel very Marksman-y. It's understandable for some hunter moves to feel very general hunter, but the problem here is that this move is in the BM talent tree. If it were just a general Hunter move, it would be alright. Then again if it were a general hunter move it probably wouldn't be BM. The thing is BM hunters already had a Haste talent back in Wrath, called Serpent's Swiftness, and it was a must have for any BM specs. The talent pretty much gave us a 1.5 sec cast on our steady shots, which meant we didn't ever need to stack haste to get it.

Now I understand they didn't like that Hunters had Serpent's Swiftness and pets and Serpent Swiftness which increased pet attack speed but look at the mechanics of the move. When you activate Focus Fire you consume your pets Frenzy stacks, which increase it's attack speed, to increase your own. Thus in a way we are gaining the Serpent Swiftness our pets have. Now i'm not saying that the move should be renamed Serpent's Swiftness, that's just the easiest option. BM hunters and Feral druid essential have the same naming conventions. Anything with animal names, wild places, instinct, or synonyms/variations of the word beast work, plus anything implying connection to your pet is game for BM. In truth you don't even need to change the icon, maybe pallet swap it to green or something, toss one of the old aspect animations into the current one (aspect of the beast, viper, monkey are unused, plus the never used aspect of the wolf animation) and give it a new sound effect. When i activate this move I should feel like I'm gaining my pets frenzy, not activating a mini Rapid Fire. That's cool for a general hunter move but for a spec move it takes away from the feel of the spec. 

Flintlocke's Woodchucker

GREATEST. ENCHANT. EVER.

We already have 60 abilities, right? What's 2 or 3 more?

In a resent Dev Watercooler post Ghostcrawler spoke on the Number of abilities each class has. At what point are there too many? and Overall rotational abilities. Given that about 4 abilities is the bases for a rotation and each class has 3 specs assuming most glasses are not hybrids means they will share at least one rotational ability that's minimum 10 abilities, that's without the situational. Let's look at hunters specifically

Relics and Ranged, the Problem Slot

World of Warcraft is a game with a very strict division between ranged and melee. If your ranged your ranged, and if your melee your melee. You do not cross rolls, in this sense. Yes there are classes with both ranged and melee dps specs, those being Shaman, Druid, and to some extent Paladins (ie Shockadin), but the split is made very clear by the simple fact that there is no gear overlap between ranged and melee. Melee is almost purely focused on physical damage, with supplemental magical damage, while with the exception of the hunter ranged is primarily a spellcaster's game. For majority of my time playing WoW Hunter's played more like physical caster's than anything. We used mana. We used a filler spell until our other abilities came off cooldown or proc'd, and most of those abilities did magical damage, Kill Shot and Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot did physical damage while the rest of our damaging abilities did some kind of magical damage either nature or arcane. Really the only difference was that our weapons affected our dps and auto attacked and caster wands didn't.

Jadefang!

After only a brief hunt i met with success My goal pet for cataclysm has been tamed.

Endless Digging

As a Lore nerd and completionist I have a unquenchable desire to uncover every artifact available in archaeology. In fact most of my time spent in Cataclysm has been doing archaeology. I level to 82 and 84-85 almost solely through archaeology, and at the beginning had a rapid string of rare artifacts pop up. With all the time spent with this profession I do have my qualms with it. The method of gathering artifacts through the hot and cold style surveying doen't bother me, and neither does the traveling from one dig site to another, but there are things I think could make the game more exciting and enjoyable particularly for Lore lovers.

It's been a long time, Shouldn't left you [URL Change]

So yeah, haven written anything in months. Partly due to the fact that I haven't played WoW in months. That being said I've played a lot of things other than WoW during that time. Many of which i really should have posted on at the the time. I played and enjoyed the Rift Beta, subscribed to DCUO, and wasted an entire spring break on Dragon Age 2. Recently though the call of the MMO Siren that is WoW reached my ears again, and so my triumphant return. My plans for the Blog have shifted, and I want to spend a bit more time outside of WoW in my posts. But that day is not today. Today I return to battle my Arch-Nemesis Intimidation.