[Editor's note: This has nothing to do with hunters or pets. Feel free to skip it.]
I’ve been trying to write this post for some time, but it keeps coming out wrong. You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as much here lately — where ‘lately’ can mean anything up to and including all the way back to the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, depending on what you mean by ‘much’.
Part of that is my day job (a.k.a. my day-and-night job), which I’ve ramped up in deference to the recession. Some of that is other professional projects that my husband and I have voluntarily taken on in the hopes that one day we will find someone to give us massive amounts of money to implement our dreams. And a decent part of it is that … well, expansions are exhausting. I needed a break.
Recently, though, I started to get the bug again — that itchy under-the-skin something-is-missing feeling, that why-am-I-lying-awake-thinking-about-The-Barrens feeling, that if-I-can-just-finish-this-bloody-PHP-I-can-log-in-for-an-hour-or-two-and-just-putter-around-and-won’t-that-be-nice feeling. In other words, I’ve wanted to play.
But there’s been a problem … For example, last night I finally had some time cleared to sit down and play WoW. And what did I do?
Mostly I stared at the character creation screen.
I started off by logging in Mania, my main. But she’s currently nude and untalented — a sure sign I was doing pet testing last time I was on. And I just didn’t have the heart to go through retalenting right now, given that I’ll have to do it again in a week or two for Patch 3.1. Plus I can’t decide whether I want to play with my limited-edition slime or my cat Cloud, who’s been with me since level 23. Eventually I’ll need to make a decision about that. But I’m not in the mood to make decisions.
So then I looked at my alts. But I don’t even remember where most of them are, much less have any visceral enthusiasm about what they are doing.
Maybe a new character? A fresh start! Just playing around! Nothing serious! Pure fun!
Yeah … I couldn’t do it. Somehow it seems like a terrible waste to be starting yet another new character when my main has so much still left undone. I feel like I should be working on something worthwhile — like completing achievements or collecting mounts or gathering data on pets — on a character that matters, instead of futzing around with something I’ll abandon in a week.
And this is the same problem I am having with the alts, in fact. I want to play, but I also want my playtime to mean something — to be advancing me in some way or another that feels ‘real’. This is why I play MMOs instead of single-player RPGs, after all. The shared world and long-lasting community makes the time I spend on these games feel more worthwhile to me.
But there’s a vast difference between feeling worthwhile and feeling like work. The fact is that any playtime on any character is equally worthwhile — in the sense that it connects me to the experience that I enjoy — and simultaneously worthless — in that all characters will cease to exist at some point. So the fact that I’m hung up on this right now, unable to enjoy the play experience unless it somehow also feels like work, probably means I’m still partially burned out.
But I want to play! So what to do?
My husband actually helped me come up with a solution to this. We were talking about the upcoming changes to engineering mini-pets and I mentioned that one of those annoying decisions about Mania that I don’t want to make right now involves her professions.
Mania has been a dual gatherer since the Burning Crusade expansion in order to provide money to the lower level alts. But if I am serious about collecting all the mounts I can with her then she needs to become a tailor/engineer. Ironically, my Horde bank alt is already a talior/engineer — and I don’t want two of them — but I’ve already collected enough mounts on Mania that it would be a waste to switch to mount-collecting on the bank alt.
My husband said, “So the bank alt can switch professions later. Don’t worry about that now.”
Me: “Yeah, but that still means moving away from dual gathering, which means less money.”
Him: “So before you do that, you need to get another character to 80. But that’s perfect — now you have a reason to level up another character! Like … maybe your bank alt?”
Me: “No, no, that will never work. First off, the bank alt stays in town. You can’t gather in town! And secondly … I know very well that if I start a new character my chances of getting it to 80 anytime soon are nil. I always bomb out in the 50s.”
Him: “So start a death knight.”
Me: “I only play hunters.”
Him: “They get zombies, right? You’ll be like an undead hunter.”
Me: “…”
I’ve always wanted an undead hunter. I’d kill Mania herself if it gave me the opportunity to play an undead who can tame undead beasts. And I did really love the bit in the Death Knight intro quests where you turn miners into zombies and they call you ‘Mama’ …
And so the notion grew on me, until I was almost — dare I say it? — excited. Plus, taking the short path to 80 for dual gathering helps ameliorate the weird guilt I feel right now with pure frivolous play.
I won’t be posting about my pretty little semi-insane zombie-hugging chickadee here. (Her catch-phrase: “You can’t spell ‘Zanica’ without ‘zany’! Except you have to replace the y with an i, of course. Or the i with a y, depending on which word you start with and which you want to end up with, I suppose. I didn’t mean to imply one was better than the other. And really they aren’t pronounced at all alike. And as a proper name, Zanica doesn’t have as much linguistic context as it does phonetic context, so the pronunciation is pretty important. So anyway … what was I saying?”)
*cough*
But I am hoping that having an outlet that I am excited about will help me reconnect with the play experiences I’ve been missing lately.
Sometimes you need a break. Sometime you need to realign your priorities. Sometimes you need to try something completely different.
Goodness, Mania, you scared me with that first paragraph there. I was expecting you to say “So, that BRK had a great idea, that’s all folks!” at which point I’m pretty sure I would have broken down sobbing.
(Not to say BRK’s idea wasn’t great of course, or that you should be tied to his blog forever… but you know! =P)
I agree, change is good sometimes. Enjoy the Death Knight ^^
I’m with Pike, that idea terrified me at first (‘God no!! Not another one!’)
I completely sympathize. Lately I’ve been real burned out on Hunter. Not that I don’t love my Hunter to peices, but lately I just haven’t been feeling the groove for it like I normally do. I mean sure, I can farm more money and get a Choppa, or collect more mounts, but I really just want to play.
Instead of DK, I went (surprise surprise) Druid! It’s actually pretty fun, now I know how my hunter cats feel like when I send them to claw people in the face XD But it’s renewed my WoW experience, and I hope trying something new does the same for you!
My God, Mania! i almost fainted;P
I hope you’ll like the Death Knight – one trouble- these guys are not ranged, rather confusing at the beginning^^ (or maybe it’s just me, since i’m blonde^^)
Congafury:
You have no idea how often I don’t get into range for my melee attacks cause of my Hunter-time XD
i can agree with you that sometimes it gets difficult to get any motivation and that like you i want an undead hunter , but i tried a death knight and it was just not the same , to many buttons to click and to much time waiting for spells to be available so it was such a short lived alt for me.
Like you i am torn in deciding what alt does what trades , but since i got all huntered out and i decided that i just had far to many hunters and so now have created a team of gatherers from different classes , not sure if i will keep them all as yet as some classes at least at lower levels are no where near as fun as a hunter to play .
I guess in a lot of ways like you i am really waiting for this next patch to finally arrive as even my main at 72 is just farming the grey areas for my alts needs.
hehe, I thought the same thing as pike and rikaku….. “wth? now, I didn’t pay much attention to BRK, now Mania is going down with him….wth?”
but yeah, I totally get it. I started out on and orc hunter when I started wow. and at lvl 56 or so, got really tired, and deleted him… the race seemed bland to me for some reason and for some reason made me sick of it… so at some point, of trying some of my alts for a bit, I desided to restart my hunter…only this time a blood elf (my current main). I haven’t really gotten overly tired of it yet, but I’m sure someday, I’ll be looking to my Undead-hunter subistute.
This weekend I spent some time doing just pure grinding for rep with CC and AD. Some old world factions that I was always too bored to do back then.
It’s perfect to load up your favourite TV show or movie in VLC player with “Always on Top” in some corner of the screen and watch it while playing. Just make sure you’re running WoW in windowed mode. I think I watched over 10 episodes of Mythbusters while grinding ^^
death knights are fun, in a frozen-breath kind of way :)
enjoy your adventures gathering with your pet ghoul by your side.
Aye Mania, I too was there, am there, burned out on my hunter. I now play my alt healie priest more than my hunter who I only raid with now. It’s a nice change of pace. Have fun with the change! :)
BTW, I learned my lesson, as BRK did, not too long ago. I don’t play nearly as much as I used to. I do sometimes go on a saturday or sunday bender, but then I’m not seen much till raid night on Thursdays. Family, love, and real life are so much more important!
I have had the same bend on my hunter as well. So I had to have a sit down to play a melee class, warrior, rogue, feral druid, enh shaman. After looking at all the glyphs and being able to punch mobs in the face dual wielding 2 handers I had to go with the warrior again (He is my oldest character and was at 52) and I have to say I love it and at level 57 im itching with happiness to get to the point of dual wielding a couple of 2 handers and laying havoc to everything in my way :)
I’ve also always wanted a Forsaken hunter – Sylvanas Windrunner is totally my queen. Unfortunately I had to settle for a NE one… and I hate playing melee characters; I’m no good at it. Hope you have fun with your DK though :)
I’ve had about a similar problem with my hunter and mage. So much done on my 80 hunter that it feels pointless to play her right now, but grinding my mage is soo much work. I could make another alt, but that’d add to my collection of stuck before level 35 characters. Meh.
But after finally making it to 50, it seems a lot more like fun again, burning stuff to a crisp.
Still can’t help looking to the side and thinking ‘where’s my pet?’
I’ve always been a proponent of ‘escape’ alts, meaning alts that are rather different from one’s main. Heck, that’s how I ended up playing (and loving to play) my hunter. My main has always been my prot warrior. I love to tank, but before WotLK, prot warriors weren’t exactly the best solo’ers in the game and my dps was a joke.
I created the hunter just to enjoy and putter around on. Soon, though, he started shooting through the levels and instead of just being a gathering alt that helped fund the warrior’s repair bills, he became a much-played character. As with TBC, I seem to have ended up progressing and gearing my hunter up much more quickly and easily than the tank.
Currently, my fun ‘escape’ character is the DK. I’ve managed to get him up to 66 and am in no hurry to get him up to 80. It’s a very fun class. Like hunters, the basics are easy to learn, but it takes skill to be a really good DK. I don’t consider myself a well-played DK, by the way. I do okay, but I’m not great at the class.
Take a break from the hunter. Have some fun. Variety is important, after all.
I know what you mean. My problem is mostly on my hunter that the only two things left are grinding and raids. And I hate grinding. So raid it is, but that only covers a two-three nights a week. So alt time it is. But DK’s I havent figures out yet. I havent really tried to be honest. And all that meelee is confusing. No, give me some distance. Currently im enjoying my druid again. It had been left for dead at lvl 30 or so, but since i ran sour with my main ive been lvling it up and now its lvl 44! Which isnt much, but its enough to become a Boomkin (yay). So root them to a spot and kick their butt from a distance is just the ticket.
Still love my hunter though. But there is only so much to do… Enjoy your DK :)
tbh the only problem I have with alts is with other servers, cause my friends don’t play there. That’s my problem. Not big on soloing.
I got alt itus too tho aha. Lv 80 Hunter, lv 72 Warlock and his ‘sister’ a lv 70 Hunter, both belfs. Then I’ve got a 57 Paladin, a lv 60 hunter, again, a lv 40 hunter, a lv 64 dk a lv 35 hunter… a lv 22 druid and a lv 2.. warlock.
As you can see my friends running joke is I’ve made enough hunters for them all and the guild.
But it is nice that you’ve got a new reason to keep playing Mania- and I was a bit worried you would be leaving too, or that it was about BRK cause the ‘on purpose’ made me think it was possibly a poor april fools [early too] joke from him.
And I gotta agree with Boven, a DK is kinda like a rogue-warlock-warrior, even if you can’t play well you have fun and those who can play well steamroll everyone.
Tho Mania I do suggest you do read up or ask Palla what stats you really need [if you go blood/frost/unholy or a mix of the three], as I only really know they need strength/hit/parry
I’m not liking them moving the ghoul up as far as they did. But guess that’ll be my incentive to level.
far down* I mean.
I was thinking the same as a few other people that replied, but I’m glad we were wrong. :)
I love my main hunter to bits but if I played her, and only her, constantly I think I’d be burned out. She does get a lot of my attention due to being my mount / vanity pet / achievement collector, but sometimes I need a break. On another server I have an unholy DK that I love PvPing with (I’m not big on PvP but it’s so much fun with her!), in fact, she got her Frostwolf Howler today!
Best of luck with the DK. I am sure you will have lots of fun! :D
I understand about needing a change…but…but…a DK?!
When I started an alt,I went through all of them..war,pally,drood,shammy…bleh.
I HATE meleeing! Getting close to beat a mob down is NOT my style..”lol”
Then I played mage.Whee!! Frost Nova? Frostbolt? Water Elemental? Yes please!
Mob gets too close? “Blink!” It’s fun being a squishy,knowing that you can’t take more than a few whacks before your eating dirt,and having a few seconds to figure out what to do and Frost Nova is on cooldown..(hint: It’s NOT pulling out your staff and whacking the mob..lol!). She just hit 75 and I can say that it’s been a blast the whole way!(( I know Mirror Image is borked right now,but I cant WAIT to
play with it!..lol!))
But Kit is,and always will be my main. Hunter still has my heart.Have fun with your DK,Mania.
Kitairra
80 Hunter
Elvirra
75 Mage
Pike said it, you pulled an april fool’s a day early on me. I’m sure we will all tolerate an occasional DK post here as you play with the class. I myself am trying to decide if i want to level my DK to 80, or go back to the very lowbie paladin. (i want a miner of some sort in northrend.)
And Mania, you should know by now that if you ever feel like the website is getting overwhelming for you there are plenty of us that would gladly apprentice to you and help keep things running smoothly. All you have to do is ask.
Ralowae and BlackTooth, Zangermarsh
Double post ftl!
I meant no dis-respect to anyone out there who play Druids(semi-ranged,yes?),
and Shamans(some ranged,mostly melee?). As evidence by my post,I didn’t play them long enough.Obviously.
My apologies.
Kitairra
Ironically, this is the same way I’ve been feeling on my main (Which is actually a Death Knight) – Lately I’ve been unable to motivate myself to farm for any new pets, rep, or mounts – I’ve killed Rivendare 41 times now, and it’s getting old. Likewise, my alts are all stuck at low levels – my hunter’s 24, and I can’t manage to figure out how to make getting through the 20′s an enjoyable experience. Thousand Needles makes me want to shoot myself, it’s so boring. My shaman is 70, and I don’t really want to run Northrend again so soon, and my Warlock is at 33, but I don’t really enjoy the playstyle.
Anyone have any suggestions?
afaik; Elemental = ‘ranged’/caster, Ench is the melee and Resto is ofc the healing spec, Kit. I played a Shaman enough to get it to lv 20, and while I did love ghost wolf form, I just didn’t really like playing a shaman. I might roll one on the server my friends and I have dubbed ‘the ally server’ [tho I still got a few horde alts there 8D]
And I know this has nothing to do with the topic or alts or anything but my email is acting up and doubt it’d be noticed by Mania if I posted on the forums- but searching for pets for ‘themes’ [another crazy idea me and my friends are doing], I noticed the purple spider, the Dread Creeper was flagged as tameable on the gallery of pets.
But it’s lv 81 O.o
Mania,
I hear you – cool as hunters are, eventually you feel like you’ve tried out just about every interesting spec/pet/gear/quest/achievement/etc package that you care to, and find yourself in the “what now?” doldrums.
This just happened to me (again) – I got my 3rd “pure spec” hunter up to 68, and parked her at Garadar until I have a chance (read: work up the motivation to deal with a PuG) to do the dungeon portion of her “heroic maghar huntsman leggings” quest chain… not so much because the leggings are that great (they barely hold even with starting WotLK gear), but because A) if I wait any longer to get them, they will be a complete joke and B) I’ve never seen the cinematic that is supposed to come at the end.
So I’ve resumed playing my ret pally… it’s been fun to get acquainted with the latest pally spells/talents (when I last played her, judgements still consumed seals, blessings had to be constantly reapplied after BoF/BoP and her mana fell like a rock), and they can be monsters in melee… but I know she’ll never be able to pull off the kind of takedowns a hunter can with kiting or FD kiting, i.e. my ret pally will always be that much more gear-dependant and in the end she is another WYSIWYG class.
Which is not Blizzard’s fault – IMO they’ve done a good job with all of the classes… it’s just that pet casters (and particularly hunters with their aggro diverting tools) get to explore an entirely separate dimension of the game thanks to being a meta-group all on their own.
THAT is the main thing preventing me personally from embracing the other classes to the degree I have hunters… and I’m hoping that the future will bring the other classes into this realm as well, specifically giving players the ability to acquire say up to 2 companions of various race/species/class – probably won’t happen in WoW as it would likely require a massive amount of re-engineering, but perhaps in future competitors (or, best case, Blizz rolls out a next gen fantasy MMO to redirect the bleed of bored WoW players back onto their own “turf”).
One can hope. In the mean time I’ll be very interested to hear how it goes with Zanica (?) – or maybe I’ll dust off EvilDolly at some point and see for myself…
Thankfully I didn’t believe you would start a post about leaving wow/blogging with “skip this”.. :)
Awesome that you are trying a DK. I thought the same thing in terms of the ghoul pet. It’s pretty fun actually.. It’s nice sometimes to just be BAD.. :P
If you ever feel need to post about your DK experiences and don’t want to do it here, you are welcome to guest post on Asleep at the WoW any time.. :)
I was actually going to suggest making a DK, Mania. I’ve said this before, I think, but my main is a Prot Paladin that OTs for my guild… he’s been my main since Burning Crusade. My #1 alt is my Orc Hunter, Corrado, whom I love (and my baby Hunter Hemingway, whom you’ve met).
Anyway, I was getting burned out on those characters. So, I rolled a Draenei Death Knight on my brother’s server because they needed a tank for Naxx, and I thought it might be fun.
WoW BECAME FUN AGAIN!!!
I am glad you’re giving that a shot. My Horde DK is Unholy spec, so his Ghoul is out all the time. My new Draenei DK is Blood spec so she can heal while leveling, so I rarely have my Ghoul with me. :( But hearing you talk about your DK like an Undead Hunter made me seriously think about respec’ing mine back to Unholy, haha.
I sincerely hope you have tons o’ fun in your free time. You deserve it, O Den Mother of Hunters. :)
Well, I feel the same since two months or longer. After crafting my Chopper in December I drove around for some days and then lost all motivation to do anything. Can’t really understand what the problem is. There are so many things left to do! I didn’t even complete a single quest in Zul’Drak!
At least this caused me to create a Horde character. What the heck – I never played Horde in the past 4 years! I’m playing together with a friend for the first time. So I think my motivation comes from not playing solo.
However, enjoy your DK. And if you like, write a bunch of ghoul emotes and send them over. ;-)
To start with, Ghouls are very interesting little critters. Fair DPS, crappy armor, good hit points, BUT to get them to that point requires both talents and glyphs. Otherwise they are a minor nuisance.
Something I had to get over when going from hunter to death knight…..ghouls are expendable. In fact, PLEASE expend them. Later on when you get death pact, feel free to eat them whenever you are dying, and immediately resummon another. This won’t be as big a thing with ghoul frenzy around, but if your ghoul is getting low on health, corpse explosion them. Let them off tank things while you beat the snot out of other things. Try to death coil them whenever you can after battle, but don’t be worried about whether or not they die. With the right talents, you’ll almost always have another ghoul waiting in the wings for you, and it isn’t like death knights really NEED ghouls anyway. They are sort of a side bonus to unholy. They help, but you by yourself will still rock.
I have felt the same way mania as you do about WoW time to time. I quit for a while, tried warhammer and didn’t like it enough to stick with it. Came back to WoW mainly because of all the pet changes in WOTLK, one’s that I posted hundreds of times in support of on the forums.
Now that I am 80, tamed the cool pets, I feel really bored, especially as one who dosn’t really like to raid, and the good battleground gear has not been implemented yet.
Anyways, you will have fun on your DK. Their different specs are cool, and have some fun abilities. Plus being a mail wearing hunter for so long, will be a nice change being able to wear plate and actually be able to melee.
Keep up the good work !!
I’m with Palla on that, Ghouls are completely expendable. While I go out of my way on Hunter to preserve my pet, there’s no way I feel anything like that to the rotting corpse next to me.
Though, if you go Unholy and spec your ghoul right, like Palla said, you will be an unstoppable force. I wouldn’t say they’re a “side bonus” to Unholy though. They’re alot more important than that. In either case though, Unholy was always my favorite. I never do elite group quests anymore on DK, I just solo them. XD
How timely. Periodically I get the same thousand yard stare when logging in. I go through many of the same though patterns that you relate, and end up just logging out. I recently, however, decided to get my second alt – a rogue – up to speed and out to Northrend – and the impetus was as odd as can be: pick pocket some Worn Troll Dice. He was already about 65, so that wasn’t too much effort. the hardest part was remembering how to play a rogue. I pinged some guildie rogues for specs and started anew. It became a bit of a drag at times, and for a month or so I thought I’d NEVER get to 70. Then I broke through. I started paying attention to the numbers. I have a lvl 80 hunter that has almost NO hit rate. I never noticed, I always geared for AP, and since I’m solo 99.99% of the time, it seemed logical. But I teamed up in an instance or two and stank. badly. So when I went back to the rogue I started watching what gear he had, and suddenly it was very interesting. Now he’s about to hit 77 and he can fly in Northrend (yea! that is SUCH a pain to fall back to ground mounts). From there to 80 is nothing.
Like you I have revamped my professions – costly as it is, the rogue is an engineer. I did roll up a couple of DKs, though I never thought I’d play them, as I’m hunter first, and sorta kinda rogue second. Never a tank or healer. but they turned out to be *fun*. I got my DK up to 78 and maxed in blacksmithing (that and the gold for flight and epic flight ate up all my funds). Now he can make stuff for everyone. I leave him in Dalaran, like a bank alt.
My first character I rerolled probably 2 dozen times, always coming back to druid. I rolled a druid first – and never spent enough time to get to the point I liked playing him. He’s stuck at 48, in Gagetzan, wondering what to do. Same as going back to the rogue – it’s a huge change in my thought processes and sometimes I am not willing to invest the brainpower. I’m tired. I just want entertainment. So, I shift servers and hit my horde folks – love my undead rogue, but can’t get past some of the questlines. I got my horde hunter to 77 and stopped. dunno why. just got tired of it all.
Good that you recognize the issues, and are focusing on them. I just stared and wondered what the hell was going on. even went to other games that I played once in a while (I beta test a lot). but that wasn’t the answer, I was coming back to the login on WoW.
/shibumi
I haven’t posted in some time due to the obligations of my job and my school work. However, I have a love of pet classes and healer classes. My DK is Unholy. I also have a Warlock and a Hunter. Each of them I play differently, but I love them all.
I was miffed at the fact that Blizz is dropping the Ghoul Master talent down pretty far in the Unholy tree in order to make it less of a sacrifice. I wrote to them and told them that they might as well just make the DK a pet class and get it over with. However, to give Unholy DK’s greater options for pets such as a Geist and a Banshee deep in the tree.
However, Mania, I have to say that I would get bored with the game if it weren’t for my rotation of characters. I play five all told now- Hunter, Warlock, Death Knight, Shaman, Druid.
I think you mentioned that you play on RP servers. You should give RP a shot! I find it can really add to my play experience when there’s a story and motivation behind my characters. For example, my Draenei hunter’s pets are all creatures that are unique to Outland.
I find myself wondering what to do when logging on too, but it’s more a matter of what I work on — there are so many reputations and achievements and things to be done.
You’re right — the timing was unfortunate, and I apologize to anyone that I worried with this topic. :> As I mentioned, I’d been struggling to write this for awhile and once I felt like I had a handle on it I just posted it.
Death knights are loads of fun — and mine is only 58! I hope you enjoy yours.
Enjoy your new experience, Mania :D I just got my Death Knight to 80 and have really enjoyed the play style. If you spec Unholy, it definitely feels like an undead hunter-type character. You get all these randomly generated zombie names and if you click on your little friend he talks to you. I too chose to level gathering professions (one, mining) on my Knight, for the extra income as I do not like to funnel money from my main too much. It stinks having to start at level 1 in your profession, but it goes by quickly. I turned it unto a game, making sure to visit every zone by appropriate level until I discovered all of Azeroth. Have fun!
Taking a break from anything you enjoy, is always a good thing. It makes you appreciate the enjoyment even more when you return to it.
As for the Death Knight thing, you could totally focus yourself on boosting your pet, not only to maintain the Hunter / Beast Mastery dealie, but also to distinguish yourself from others. That is to say, focus on equipment, enchants and gems which the pet also benefits from. If the ghoul doesn’t get boosted by a stat, avoid that stat. Try and make the most powerful little shiny-grabbing-dead-thing EVAR! :3
Sure it might not be the ‘best’ method, but it sure is pretty awesome when your character does something which they normally are not known for.
Welcome to the ranks of the Unholy, Zanica. May your ghouls be blessed with ridiculous names.
Gauntlet: Like Casketmuncher and Gravelgobbler?
Or was it Gravelthief
I have to agree with Pike and several others. I too was worried that we were losing another really great blogger. However, knowing that this is not the case, I have a simple question for you…
If you burn out in the 50s… how the heck do you get through the 30s?! I always end up getting snagged in the 30s. If I can get a character through there, everything else flies by.
But, have fun on the DK. And as others are saying? Go unholy, that way you get named pets! :D
Nachtalia – instead of going through 1K Needles again, try Hillsbrad out. I’ve flipped where I level on several alts. I enjoyed Hillsbrad as a change from the Needles. Or Stonetalon? Though I can’t personally bear to kill another harpy. And Ashenvale is also an option.
Keep changing the scenery. Its the way I keep playing.
It seems to me that alot of people are starting to get a lil, dare I say bored?, with the seemingly endless grind for wow. Especially when it comes to trying to lv alts and such…I know my DK is sitting in outlands collecting dust atm, because…well…after getting 2 characters to lv 70 there, I am a lil bored of it. My druids siting around ready to heal for guildies should they need it, and Makoes is grinding elements for mats for my druids LW. Though I did deside to try to tame Loque, and knew it’d probably take weeks before I was lucky enough to find even his corpse right? Much to my near heart attack surprise I found him alive on the 2nd day. Near wiped on the tame when a mob of Drones came, had to run away, heal up, luckly he was still then where I came back, and managed a flawless tame.
So for me, I’ve suddenly got this new cool pet, and cant wait to see how he handles in a dungeon. sometimes something new can lead to alot of fun!
Mania: DK’s are like undead hunters, and if you go Unholy you will also be able to get a Gargoyle to come to your call as well, to you’d have two “Pets” lol. Sometimes breaking away from the norm can lead to alot of unexpected fun!
I’m another long time beastmaster who’s mostly been playing an Unholy DK recently. I started down unholy with my gnome DK because I was getting rid of a gnome warlock I never played, so I decided the DK was the same person as the warlock, killed and raised; and unholy was the most warlock-ish tree. I had ideas about what the character was going to be like, and I didn’t even know about the Master of Ghouls option.
But the first time a ghoul called me “Mommy”, the character started to drift inexorably away from my intentions for her. Then I got Raise Dead, and said, “cool! pet! i wonder if there’s any way to have my pet active more than 2/5 of the time.” And then I found I was almost to Master of Ghouls. And then the character really started shifting under my feet.
Axelandra remembers every ghoul she’s ever had. And especially, she still remembers the special ghoul she had when she broke free of the Lich King’s influence: Batstealer, her only friend at the time. And then one day he de-summoned and Axelandra completely fell apart (warning: i’ve gotten in trouble for making people cry with that link).
It does take getting used to that ghouls are here and gone, unlike hunter pets, no matter ho much you love them.
The other weird thing about DKs as a pet class is they are melee. A DK, unlike all other pet classes, really doesn’t want her pet to intercept a mob before it closes with her, so I’ve had to set up my ghouls in a totally different way (leave them on passive, with a /petattack built into the macro for certain of my melee abilities).
Shibumi said
I recently, however, decided to get my second alt – a rogue – up to speed and out to Northrend – and the impetus was as odd as can be: pick pocket some Worn Troll Dice.
heh, yes. It’s good to have goals! When I was leveling my rogue alt, the thing that kept her going through all the grind was the goal to obtain every single item that came only from pick pocketing. She’s got quite the cabinet of curiosities in her bank :D
Haven’t made too much progress in Northrend pockets yet, though (though I did get the “Forbidden Love” romance novel from the pocket of a Scarlet, which is just hilarious).
Go frost cause they have a talent to use a few moves at about 30 yards range.. That way, it’ll feel like a hunter for a few seconds! My horrible DK’s frost ONLY because of the ranged. Screw the “effective” specs, I wanna attack stuff from far away~! :P
I have to say, you did better than me when you got tired of WoW. I just quit for a few months at a time…
Just a word of caution about fun alts; don’t forget the main. When wrath came out I did a grand total of 2 levels with my hunter. Shortly thereafter I created a brand new warrior. Now he’s 80 and I’m just barely getting started on my hunter again.
I must say though, good choice on using a melee class as the relief. Being separated from the entire aspect of fighting at range is an excellent barrier from anything that was troubling you with your hunter. As to playing a druid, I can attest to enjoying it, but, I can never seem to stick with it long enough to actually hardcore level it. And I dont want to hear anyhting about using Pally’s. No offense to players that enjoy them, but they are too different and out there to be a relief to fussing with ammo. Far too much hassle when the entire point of the alt is to get away from hassles that are dragging on you.
Anyway, I think I’ve rambled far too long. But at least I covered the points without being vague.
yeah,kinda upsetting with the BRK thing,and then u saying what u did.Yeah i have had a hard time with my Hunters in the past,I mean i absolutely love hunters but once i get to around 30 i just give and can’t seem to get far(so i delete and make something new),and now that i have to many lvl 80′s(1 of each class,except for hunter(only lvl 56))it comes down to what do i do next,and which char do i play on,and which do i focus on raids.it’s to bad DK’s only get ghouls(and not have a choice of undead things as pets(like thasarian with his pet)).
I totally agree with you. Sometimes I’ll get really into getting stuff for my level 80 (who is a rogue, not a hunter, though I do have a hunter alt in the 50′s). Achievements, profession levels, items, gear, etc etc etc. I feel like I should be DOING something “productive” with my time if I’m playing WOW, so even if I’m not really that interested in gear hunting, or not having fun trying to do all the quests in Icecrown, I still make myself do it anyway. And then wonder why I’m just not enthused about the game.
Recently, I’ve started making myself step back and think about it. World of Warcraft is a GAME…as in, a thing made entirely for having FUN. When it turns into a gear/profession/achievement leveling chore, it’s a JOB, it’s no longer a GAME. But it’s made to have fun on. So…if I really just want to make a new lowbie character, just to putter around for a few hours, have fun with it, and see if it works, why can’t I? As long as I’m having fun, then the game is fulfilling its purpose, right?
Felt a lot better since I recognized that :) Now that I only play a character when I genuinely want to, the whole experience is so much more rewarding.
-Velkyn
Seidouyumi! I’m just glad your alright, you disappeared there for a while.
I have no idea WHAT rules ghouls play by as far as strength goes, but uh, they get a lot from you. Like more then 100% of it. I’ll have to test this out before my time runs out.
I agree with Anskar… DK’s need to get more pets… like be able to “Possess” undead minions, and talent spec them like a hunter’s pets… but i have a feeling if that happened then all would be: “QQ!!!!! teh dumm DK’s are too uberly OP… nerf the sh*t outta them like teh meany huntards til they are barely anything!!!!QQ!!!”
Actually Gimlion, depending on the level bracket for BG, 60, 70 and 80, at DK, Retridins AND DK’s are overpowered as the balance that is in the game, even if bare minimal, is not in play for them and they can quite easily tear through classes. Level 70 is bad because when I was farming the marks needed for a BWStrider on Rosa, I’d see lv 67-69 dks tearing thru wars/druids and they’d be down to xx ammount of hp and all a sudden they’ve regened it all back in a couple of attacks.
Retridins well, I don’t like to 1v1 a paladin at all if I can avoid it; they can tear you apart before you can even hit deterrence.
TBH the ghoul could be made standard- but understandably Unholy has them stronger, and all that. Having a Gargoyle summonable is enough imo, when played right a DK doesn’t really need pets to kick ass, as that’s not how the good DKs own my characters in BG.
But it is funny when those who can’t play worth crap run away from a lv 72 Warlock and they’re lv 80.