Mend Pet

The title is a reference to some shirts BRK was recently vendoring.  I like it.  And I love my Gorilla, it has been amazing to level with him!

By the way… I FINALLY picked out a name.  My Gorilla is now called “Hanno“  (which means merciful), named for Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian explorer who noted what he observed as a tribe of very hairy women when he was traveling through Sierra Leone. He called them “Gorillai”, which is the origin of the name Gorilla.

<3 Wikipedia.

Now let me say, AoE grinding always scared me.  My mage does not like to take on more than one thing at a time.  It usually results in a dead Gnome.  And I was always the same way with my hunter.

But after so much time studying and practising my Huntering skills, my hunter has become like an extension of myself.  I’ve played her enough that I know exactly which keybindings do what, I know where my panic buttons are (AH! Feign! Feign! Feign!), I know what abilities are best used when.  I’m comfortable in my Troll skin!

When I’d first heard about the AoE tanking of the Gorillas, I was a little nervous, but excited.  I don’t want to be pulling aggro and getting myself killed, but I wanted to see what kind of stuff I could take on.

And it’s AMAZING!  It’s almost a chore to try to pull aggro from my gorilla.  I just send him in, bounce him around to a bunch of mobs within the area, pop a Mend Pet on him, and give those mobs an arrow shower!  It’s so nice to see 5 or 6 XP gains pop up at a time.  Wee!

It’s going to take a really great gear upgrade for me to break my T5 2-piece bonus.  I rarely really need to use Mend Pet, thanks to the healing caused by my Volley.

I haven’t really used other Tenacity pets since Wrath came out.  I did pick up Sparkle, my Rhino, and he is pretty decent at single target tanking… but so is Hanno, AND he can multitank.  So there.

Anyone else having a little love affair with their Gorilla?

Blog Announcement

With the coming of the end of my school term in the next couple of weeks, and with all the lovely content spewing forth, and with Unemployed having official sign ups again, it seems it is time to reinvigorate Mend Pet.  I am announcing the return of my weekend regular posts of This Week in Raiding and WoW Word of the Week!  I will also try to post daily during the week, but I still might miss a day or two here and there.  School isn’t over just quite yet.

Also, while I’m leveling, I’m going to end my posts with a little update on my skills and level, in case you are curious about where I’m at.

Brajana – Level 74 Troll Hunter

• Skinning: 450
• Leatherworking: 405
• First Aid: 400
• Fishing: 381
• Cooking: 392

So things have been pretty busy for me, IRL.  Wrath came out midnight on Thursday, but unfortunately I had two very large and difficult exams on Thursday, so I didn’t make it out to the midnight launch.  Instead of getting only 2 hours of sleep because I’m busy working on a Death Knight, I only got 2 hours of sleep because I was busy studying relational database design and token ring network topologies.

My original plan was to head out to EB Games and pick up my preordered copy at 2:30PM, after my second exam.  Unfortunately, I also have an extremely large final project due on Tuesday, and my group partner decided Thursday afternoon/evening was the time to work on it.  So we worked til 6:30, I managed to convince her we needed to take a dinner break so I could go pick up my game, and finally I was able to play 10PM that night.

I didn’t ge to play much Friday because I had ANOTHER exam on Saturday morning.  But I got a bunch of Fjord quests done anyway. Saturday, I had my exam at 10AM and then a couple local guildies and I had an afternoon of board games.

So my real Wrath time didn’t start until about 7PM on Saturday.  But I had all of Sunday to play, even if I shouldn’t have.

I’m sitting about 75% through level 73, with all of Howling Fjord and most of Borean Tundra finished off.  Here’s my take so far.

Howling Fjord is amazing.  I loved it there, and enjoyed all of the quests.  From the first quest on, I felt really engaged and interested in the story, and found the atmosphere beautiful.  I felt like I was just flying through the content, and there was no time that I felt like I really wanted to stop.

Borean Tundra… well, my first impressions weren’t great.  After figuring out how to navigate Warsong Keep, I get outside and am surrounded on all sides by these Nerubian creepy crawlers and everything was all grey and burnt red.  As someone who never enjoyed places like Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge, I was not very pleased.  But once I got out of the initial area, I was a little more satisfied.  Borean Tundra has some fun quests, like the D.E.H.T.A. quests and the seige tank quest, but I got very sick of swimming very quickly.

“Go swim out to these ruins.”

“Go swim out to this rift.”

Come on.

The Tuskarr are my favourite thing in the expansion so far.  They’re so cute!  They are walruses riding turtles!  And their quests are fun!  And they have a little non-combat penguin pet at exalted.  hehe!

I did actually start a Death Knight, which I wasn’t planning to do for a long time.  But I’d come up with a good name (wish I could do that with my Gorilla…) so I started him up and did about 20 minutes worth of quests.  I like the starting area, even though I haven’t seen much of it yet.

I have also now tamed a Rhino!  I wasn’t sure what to replace, but I figured… I never really used my wind serpent, and I can always go back and get a new one if I feel it’s necessary.  So I said goodbye to Sparkle, and hello to… Sparkle!  Yes, I named my Rhino after my wind serpent.  He’s fun, and I can’t wait to get him out on the AV bridge and make him punt gnomes all over the place.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now.  Next time I’ll talk a little bit about instancing and how that’s going.  When I leveled from 60-70 I only ran 2 instances.  Now that I have a guild to level with, I’m getting a lot more action in there.  It’s been pretty fun!

This story is from back just after 3.0.2 hit, but I’ve just finally gotten around to finishing the post on it.

The second pet I’ve picked up is Gorilla.  Okay, he doesn’t have a name yet.  I’d picked out a name, but it is apparently a “reserved” name that can’t be used.  Fooey.  I liked that name so much for him that I am having trouble coming up with something else, so for now… he’s Gorilla.

Anyway, this gorilla is not just any gorilla.  He’s Unk’loc.  He’s blue and white.  I’ve always had a thing for white pets, I don’t know why.  But there is a story behind this guy.

See, back when I was around level 50, I decided to switch my Turtle tanking pet for a Gorilla, and this is the one I picked.  He was a rare, but darn pretty.  So I headed to Un’goro and… boom!  He was sitting RIGHT there waiting for me.  Well, that was easy.

I used the gorilla a bit, but I used my cat more.  When I got to 65-ish, I wanted to pick up a Warp Stalker, and I had a choice to make.  My gorilla was still sitting at level 60, and I hate leveling pets, so I waved goodbye to my gorilla and made room for Willy the Warp Stalker.

Little did I know that when 3.0.2 hit, Warp Stalkers would become relatively useless, and Gorillas would be the stars of the show.  So, I released Willy to make room for this new guy.  Little bit ironic.  Just a little.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as lucky this time with the spawn of Unk’loc.  I arrived at the cave, and found a good camping spot.

It started the day after patch day, 8AM.  I had a lot of school work to do that day, so I figured it was a good time to watch a camped mob while I worked.

2PM rolls around.  It’s been 6 hours, and this guy has a 6-8 hour respawn.  Some hunters have come and gone, most not willing to sit and wait it out, but we each promised to let each other know if we caught him, so we could time the respawn.  He should be there within the next two hours.  Unfortunately, I had a job interview at 3PM.  I had to go get out of my Pajamas and get downtown.  So I left for… two hours.

4PM, I returned to camping.  No news on whether he’s spawned.  I sit and wait, get my unarmed skill up to 347 on the gorillas, get the [25 Fish] achievement in the little pool.

9PM.  I just can’t do it.  I need to get out of this cave!  The new patch has hit and I’ve barely scratched the surface!  I take a 1 hour break to run some dailies.

10PM.  Back to the cave.  No news, no gorilla.

1AM.  Homework is done, I’m going to bed.  Stupid gorilla.

The next day, while I took a few minutes to check in when I woke up, I had class all morning.  I returned at 12PM to wait and watch.

I sit there until at least 5PM.  Talk to the other hunters, they are amazed at how few hours I’ve been out of the cave.  I want to play!  Come on!  But I can’t give up now, because then all of this will be wasted.  And he’s really pretty.

I take the evening off, starting to give up on the effort.

Day 3, 7:35AM.  I have mail!  It’s one of the hunters who was also camping for the gorilla.  She’s caught him, and it was only half an hour ago!  What does that mean?  Unk’loc WILL respawn sometime between 1PM and 3PM.  Luckily, it’s Friday, and I’ve got the day off.  I return to the cave around 12:45PM to wait.  And wait.

2:40PM.  I’m watching TV while keeping an eye on my screen.  A flash of white goes past my screen.  Wait!  Was that him?

OMG!

*plops down a Freezing Trap*

*tames*

Bing!  And he’s mine.  Within 10 seconds of taming him, a group of level 50 alliance walk in, and kill every gorilla in sight.  Talk about timing!

Hi!

So I thought I’d give a bit of an update.  To be completely honest, I had a post all written up about what I’ve been doing since 3.0.2 hit, but I keep forgetting to insert the screenshots I want in it, and so it’s been sitting around waiting for the longest time.

So here’s the quick version.  I plan to elaborate on most of these topics in independent posts, but here’s an overview of what’s goin’ on.

New pets!  Woo!

I am loving the new pet changes.  I can hardly even contain myself about how much I love being a hunter right now!

I’ve picked up a Moth, just like I said I would.  His name is Ambrose, and he’s purpley and flappy and a darn good Ferocity-tank.

I’ve also picked up a Gorilla, who still needs a name.  He’s the Unk’loc skin though, and I spent two whole days waiting for him to spawn.  But that’s another story for another post!

The hunters of Unemployed have picked up Orange MC Core Hounds.  They’re pretty nifty, but mine is remaining in the stable until they get rid of the screen shaking.  While it’s true that if you are the hunter with the stampy pet, it doesn’t affect the screen nearly as much, I feel for the other players and won’t subject them to that.

Spellpower Changes?

Okay, Ferguson has nearly retired until the expansion comes out.  But I did log on to check out the spellpower changes to his gear, and between my Shadow set and my Healing set, I’ve formed a super set of spell power gear.  Just one set of gear.  It’s pretty nice.

Achievements…

are fun!  But I am not nearly as dedicated to them as some people I know (points at Boostah).  I haven’t gotten any new titles yet.  More on the achievements later.

Alts-ahoy!

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time leveling a couple of alts.  I resurrected my level 45 Gnome Mage and transferred her to my boyfriend’s main server, which is a PvP server.  How it remind me why I left that type of server in the first place!  But I’ve gotten her to 55 with little problems, and I am enjoying setting things on Fire.  Although Fire Mages have very little to do with healing or huntering, I’ll probably write something up about playing a new class.

I also spend a very significant portion of yesterday playing a new character.  It’s a hunter.  There’s a bit of a story behind how I ended up starting a second hunter, and I’ll get into that in another post, I’ll introduce him formally.  He’s cute, I think you’ll like him!

Unemployed’s Second Annual Hallow’s End Costume Contest!

Last night, we took a break from the zombies and everyone dressed up and met in Brill.  We had a blast, and some of the costumes were amazingly creative!  Way to go, Unemployed!  Mine was about as second-hand as you can get, but I still had fun.  Screenshots inc, I promise!

Well.  It looks like I’ve got quite the load of posts to work on.  You don’t even want to know how much stuff I’ve had going on IRL lately, to boot.  Busy, busy, busy!

What’s this?  Brajana is posting?

Yes, my friends.  It’s 1:30am on a Tuesday monring, I’ve spent the last 6 hours getting 5 questions done on a 10 question assignment that is due at 8:30am.  So what am I doing?

Writing about Wrath of the Lich King.

As the expansion gets closer and closer, my mind has been pushing forward and starting to think about how I’m going to handle the new expansion when it hits.  Our guild has almost stopped raiding completely, and have found ourselves only pulling enough interest to do ZA.  And I’ve found myself with little time to do anything but my Brewfest dailies for the last little while.

In fact, I don’t think I’ll be getting much done on Brajana between now and November, and I’ve almost put Ferguson in a little hibernation chamber waiting for the expansion to hit.  I really miss playing my priest, but with school and work and November all going full-speed ahead, there’s just no time for rep grinds and Kara runs.

Anyway, back to the point.  What am I going to do when Wrath hits?

When The Burning Crusade came out, I picked it up the evening after it came out, and barely played it in the first week it was out.

I’ve gotten a lot more involved since then, and part of me wants to hit up a midnight release and join my guildies in that first burst off the boat, racing for quest mob respawns and trying to get to 80 ASAP for raiding.

But the other part of me, the sleepy part and the part that genuinely enjoys questing and exploring would rather sleep in, pick up the game after class and take my time doing the quests.

Next question – pets.  I did my little review a couple of weeks ago – and yes, I took screenshots… but now is not the time for me to look for them – and I’m still pretty set on getting a Moth.  I can even get one when the patch comes out, and then I’ll probably have a level 70 Moth to bring out to Northrend with me right away.

And I think I’d eventually like to get a Gorilla.  I’ve watched BRK’s Gorilla videos, and heard what he’s said about the tanking ability in instances and such.  I’ve never been much for AoE grinding, but I sure don’t think it could hurt to be able to hold a bunch of mobs in place.  So I think, at whatever level the first Gorillas are in Northrend, I’ll probably grab one of those.

*looks at looming algorithms assignment*

Hrm.

Soo, achievements!  Getting a bit excited for some of those.  I’ve even been working on the Brewmaster ones, because “Brewmaster Brajana” is just such a cool title.

Amava Knows Aggro has had a couple interesting posts about her opinion of achievements, and it’s been nice to hear another player’s honest view of them.  Someone who isn’t working their butts off before the expansion even hits to get these things unlocked.  I don’t think that’s what they are meant for, but I suppose they are for whatever you mean them to be!

I must admit, I picked up the 60% Brewfest Ram today to add it to my collection.  And I’ll probably work on a few more mounts once they are learnable.  But I’d be likely to do that whether their were points for it or not.  I have always seen my mount collection as a pukka achievement!

Speaking of which, anyone know if there has been a way figured out so you can randomly summon mounts?  Maybe someone will make an addon that could do it?  I hope there’s something.  Because that is one of my favourite tricks!

Okay.  Enough rambling.

The Algorithms are calling me.