Where's my gear?

Another semi-rant. Again, about Lilanis. Doesn't really feel like a blog about alts, does it? Oh, well. I guess I just have to get it out of my system.

So Lilanis is at a very interesting place in her life, being in her early 40s. I like hitting 40, it usually allows access to some interesting talents (assuming you've been focusing on 1 specific tree), new skills and, of course the mount. At least until Blizz make the mounts level 30. It gets even more interesting when you're a warrior, pally, shaman or... You guessed it - hunter. Good bye icky-smelling leather. Hello cold hard metal. Now, obviously, having access to more armor is good thing. But it also means I now have to replace everything I'm wearing, and with the number of alts I have I can't actually afford buying armor off the AH. So I make do with the occasional lucky drop or, more importantly, quest rewards. And this is where I start ranting...

One expects quest rewards to be useful. In all the time I've been playing the game, I have not once seen a Cloth item with +str on it as a quest rewars. Why? Because it's useless. It's vendor trash by definition. But when you hit 40 you run into a strange situation: rewards are obviously geared towards characters who are in their 40+ (as evidenced by the abundance of plate armor you can get), except that I've not yet received 1 decent piece of hunter mail armor. Practically everything I get has +str on it, and even the few items that do have +agi simply aren't as good as the leather items I can get. Just as an example, I was really happy to get my Golden Helm, only to replace it 5 minutes later with the Skirmisher's Cover*. I mean, seriously, at this level there are 2 classes that should be using mail - hunters and shaman. Considering that alliance didn't actually have shaman when these quests were designed, I would have expected a lot more hunter oriented gear.

I hereby issue an ultimatum to Blizzard - fix my loot, or else... Uhmm... Or else I reroll again. Yeah, that'll show 'em. *sigh*

* That was actually a pretty tough call. I like the stat bonuses on the cover a lot better, but the armor bonus is, obviously, much smaller. But even being on a PvP server, most of my fighting is solo with my pet tanking so the stats ended up deciding it for me.

Huntard or just misunderstood?

I've been playing Lilanis (my Draenai hunter) quite a bit lately - I rolled her 2 weeks ago and already she's 44. I guess that could be considered slow for someone who has a lot of time to play, but the sad truth is I do have a job, and other things that need doing other than WoW.

During her travels, there have been the usual comments one might expect from the kind of people who "know it all" and need to reaffirm their superiority over others. Unfortunately, their arguments tend to be along the lines of "l2p noob" rather than constructive criticism (well, who wants that? If I actually take their advice and improve they wouldn't be able to feel superior anymore).

So what is one to do? Usually, set forth into the vast expanses of the Internet and read what other (possibly) better players have to suggest. Which I do quite often - there's no better way of passing time at work than reading WoW blogs (good thing I have no readers, would be embarassing if my boss saw this), and it did teach me a lot about how to play the game.
The problem, however, doesn't stop there. In fact, a big part of the problem is caused by all this flood of information for 2.5 reasons:

1. There are "trends" where certain things are considered popular, or the "right" way to do things. Of course, being popular, you can usually find the same opinions in many places.
   
2. Most people don't really do the whole "critical reading" thing. If it's on a blog, it's probably true. If it's popular (hence on a lot of blogs) then it must be true, and must be the only way to do things.
3. I'm not most people.

So, yeah, I have learned a lot about the game, but I'm not about to turn into a "bot" like most hunters advertise for leveling/soloing (i.e.: get a boar, send it charging in with Growl and Auto/Arcane shoot the mob(s) to death in AotH). In fact, I rarely use Growl and Arcane Shot. Does that make me a huntard? I suppose, if it was done out of ignorance one could call it that, but it's not. There's actual reasoning motivating it (don't know if it's actually sound reasoning, but it's reasoning nonetheless):

• Lilanis lives in a RP-PVP realm. Getting caught with your pants (uhmm, I mean health/mana) down and ganked is not fun. Yes, I want to kill things quickly, but if I have to sacrifice some of the time it takes me to kill a mob to be able to react to someone jumping me in the middle of a fight, that's a trade I'm willing to make.
• So, we want to preserve mana. That means no Arcane Shotting mobs.
• Next comes choosing aspects. Personally, I mush prefer Monkey for PvPing - the added survivability and damage (yes, damage. Mongoose Bite FTW) in melee is more important to me than ranged damage. If I get in range, I'm OK with kiting a little longer until the other guy is dead.
• Right now my DPS is pretty gimped, right? Right, but... Lower DPS has its advantages too. I also don't produce as much threat, so my pet has a much easier time tanking for me. So let's try switching off Growl. Well, lookit that - now Tora has enough focus to Bite and Claw to his heart's content. That leads to a nice boost for both DPS and threat - obviously it's not as much threat as Growl, but it's enough to keep aggro.

So let's see, what do we have here? Less DPS than your usual hunter, but I have no downtime at all and I'm ready in case an Undead Mage 2 levels higher than me jumps me while I'm fighting a mob 3 levels higher (don't worry, the incident ended with no injuries. Unless, of course, you count the mage who attacked me and the mob I was fighting, but they aren't important, are they?). Most importantly, it works for me and doesn't affect anyone else (again, dead undead mages not withstanding) since it only relates to solo play. Slightly less important, but still important, it is thought out and is the result of experimenting with different styles.

Hmm, I wonder if there was actually a point to this. Probably not, so let's make one. *drumroll* As long long as you keep learning, keep experimenting and have fun with it you'll do fine. You won't be a huntard, and all those who call you one can safely go screw themselves.