I join the growing chorus
Posted: July 19, 2016 Filed under: Leveling, PvP, Raiding & Dungeons | Tags: druid, feral, hunter, Legion, marksmanship, PvP, raiding, survival, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft 1 Comment![Anacrusa stops by the Herb Garden of her garrison for a photo while preparing to leave AU Draenor for Azeroth, July 18th, 2016 [Photo by Mushan, Petty Mirror Images]](https://mushanetc.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/wowscrnshot_071916_001531.png?w=590&h=519)
Anacrusa stops by the Herb Garden of her garrison for a photo while preparing to leave AU Draenor for Azeroth, the evening of July 18th, 2016. [Photo by Mushan, Petty Mirror Images]
As of right now, I have no concrete plans to change anything with respect to that. This is Mushan, Etc. I will very likely play Mushan, the toon, the hunter, in Legion. To some extent.
On the other hand, I will definitely play my druid, Anacrusa – last my main four expansions ago – in Legion.
***
The news
In an announcement that is months in the making, I’m writing today to tell you that, barring ‘Cataclysmic’ changes – to MM hunters, cat druids, or both – between now and Legion’s launch, Anacrusa will be my main at the start of Legion.
(I’ve even changed her back to being my main on the character screen!) *[yes I know, I haven’t used my boosts yet…]
Wait, what? (You scratch your head, puzzled…)
Well, it’s been a while, so let me briefly paint you a picture of the last few months.
WoD was not fun for me. This was caused by both real life circumstances – my work volume since mid-2014 has made it nearly impossible to participate in group content – and by… well, the expansion itself was not that much fun for me.
With Legion’s announcement, I felt minor pangs of anticipation, but the slow creep of development seemed to have finally bested me this time. By February, I was contemplating the heretofore unthinkable: that I would keep playing WoW for free (thanks, Tokens, for saving me $180/year!), but that I would deliberately not purchase an expansion for the first time in 10 years.
I was somewhere around… here:
“I don’t have time to play consistently, but at least I will still be able to get on from time to time to chat with the few friends I have left who still play the game. And I can revisit some of that nostalgic old content that I enjoy, delve a bit more into lore occasionally, and not worry about anything further…”
A not-insignificant subset of my reasons for potentially going this route included the fact that certain people that I am close to decided that I would love to hear about certain beloved lore characters who are going to die in Legion.
Yeah. I shut that faucet off quickly.
When I found out about who I found about about, it ruined my day, and I began to think it was time to admit to myself that Blizz has indeed jumped the shark, and that it was time for me to get out while I was ahead.
For several weeks, I ruminated on this premise.
***
The hunter
Survival as I know it is dead, and its memory is being partially forced into Marksmanship, and partially split off into a different hunter fantasy: the melee hunter. As such, Mushan – a long-time SV/MM hunter – doesn’t know whether he knows everything now, or, alternatively, nothing anymore (“Me forget how Survival, but me also learn some old Survival stuff as Marks?” . . ah, fuck it. ‘Gameplay trumps lore/fantasy,’ blah blah, but that shit – continuity – is important to me).
Subsequently – and I apologize, but I can’t articulate it like other hunter bloggers have – I feel sick about my hunter. What’s happening to the class in Legion doesn’t seem right. The way the class is being changed, I wasn’t going to be interested in taking Mushan into Legion, without roleplaying part of my own class fantasy away from what it is turning into and isolating myself from others in the game.* At least, that’s where my mind was headed.
*Apologies, I know that is vague. It’s hard to describe feelings sometimes, as well as the personal way that one plays this game. I spent enough time feeling like crap about my hunter that I’m trying not to dwell on the minutia.
***
The druid
And then, one Sunday, I happened to dig a bit into the Legion beta feral druid. And something amazing happened: for the first time in years, I felt a love for the feral spec that had long been elusive. Something long-dormant welled up in my chest, and sparked my mind, and it stayed there – and it’s still there: druid-related excitement that I haven’t felt in a long time.
I’ve been playing her for several weeks now, almost exclusively. She is now my highest (modestly) geared toon, and she’s starting to feel powerful like she used to in WotLK… back when she was last my main.
The cat druid doesn’t seem like it will be THE perfect spec – that’s not what I’m interested in. However, I’m thinking of it as a spec I will enjoy both for PvP and, possibly, if I have the opportunity to get back into raiding again this fall.
***
The wrap up
This was rambly, but what I’ve tried to say, in short, is that, if it hadn’t been for falling back in love with my druid, I might not have purchased Legion. As such, it’s a good thing that I’ve switched mains.
I’ve tried to cut a lot of the negative hunter stuff out of this post. Why? Well, the truth is that, unlike a couple of months ago, I am excited for Legion, and it starts with my druid. It continues with certain artifact weapon quests that the lore nerd in me is excited about (along with other nerdy lore stuff that I love), and culminates with the possibility that I might be able to begin raiding again in the fall if the stars, both IRL and in game, align. More on those things to come.
***
Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc.
Wild/Warmongering Gladiator’s “Tunic”…
Posted: July 8, 2016 Filed under: Gear, PvP, Transmogrification | Tags: druid, gear, PvP, transmogrification, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft Leave a comment
…is a fucking bra.
…
Let me back up.
So, I was reading Bendak’s recent post about how to acquire a serviceable Survival weapon once Patch 7.0 drops, and one of the options he listed was picking up a PvP weapon beforehand.
I haven’t done a thing with PvP since the early days of WoD, and so I was entirely unfamiliar with the fact that there was any PvP gear available (because I just didn’t care, didn’t have time, etc.: My experience with Ashran in early WoD left me so unimpressed that for the first time since Burning Crusade, I failed to enter a battleground or care about PvP for the entirety of an expansion.)
I know I’m late to the party. Due to real life situations, WoD was like the lost xpac for me. So my knowledge is lacking in some ways. But, I figured, “I’ve got a few of these Honor/Conquest thingies you can get from doing garrison missions… maybe I can use them to grab some modest upgrades for my druid.”
So I bought myself a solid Conquest trinket upgrade, and then I started looking at how to use the remainder of my currency. I picked up a ring upgrade, and then decided to check out the chest pieces.
The Season 2 chest was “Wild Gladiator’s Tunic.” Mind you, that’s tunic. T-U-N-I-C. Those links take you to generally accepted definitions of “tunic.” Usually covers your chest and waist, and so on.
Meanwhile, here’s that picture, again, of Blizzard’s definition of a tunic:
It’s a fucking bra!
For un-funny giggles, I checked the Season 3 version, “Warmongering Gladiator’s Tunic.” It wasn’t much better:
Hmm… oh, wait-
IT’S A FUCKING BRA!!**
**My reaction had me thinking of this video, in which Lars Ulrich of Metallica reacts to the ridiculousness of Jason Newsted leaving the band and then leaving butt-hurt messages about the band not paying attention to his messages, demands, and angry tirades. He sort of snaps and goes off for a minute. After I came down from yelling, “IT’S A FUCKING BRA!” at my screen about 15 times, I started laughing when I thought of this..
(I know it’s not a perfect one-to-one analogy, but it’s kind of how I felt. In a different way…)
Anyway…
Then, just for comparison, I checked the alternate Season 3 choice, the “Chestguard.” Which… actually covers.
Oh, hey, a chestguard.
Still, though… a tunic is not a bra! Look it up, you tone-deaf dev-people! I even provided links before the damn screenshots, so you don’t even have to type anything.
Sheesh.
Anyway… ultimately, none of them looked cool in the slightest, and there was no question that I was going to transmog the shit out of whichever piece I bought. So I bought the Season 3 “tunic” (Pfah! I can’t even accept that it’s called that..) along with a couple of other bits, and I did, indeed, transmog everything back to my idea of what a normal, respectable, ancient night elf druid would wear into battle.
Or, around town, for that matter.
***
It’s been a while since I stuck my beak into the argument against this kind of crap. But it seems like not much has changed in the couple of years since I made whatever contributions I made toward the conversation. But really, Blizz? In an expansion setting including a place like the wilds of The Everbloom, you can’t have a more druid-y, plant-y, robe-y “tunic” for us to wear in PvP? You have to go the ‘basically underwear’ route?
Fiannor at Misdirections wrote recently about the fact that someone needs to donate a ton of dictionaries to Blizzard, because sometimes they seem to have no clue what the fuck they’re doing. In this circumstance, I was 100% with her.
Anyway, apologies for the rant/language; next time, we will be back to our irregularly scheduled programming. Thanks for reading.
Mushan’s New Journal: Back on Azeroth
Posted: June 19, 2016 Filed under: Mushan's Draenor Journal, Roleplaying | Tags: Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft Leave a comment
Back home on the farm
Hello.
My name is Mushan. In order to protect my online privacy, I will not be disclosing my surname.
This is my second entry in this online journal. The first was over a year and a half ago. I had not intended to leave such a long gap between entries; however, as life is unpredictable, I confess that I did not foresee the circumstances that led to such a hiatus. Let it be sufficient when I say that I was over-worked during my time on Draenor, and uninspired to write.
There really wasn’t much to write about, at any rate. Being in Draenor was a lot of repetitive work. It was not even like past “adventures,” though.
For instance, I remember being in Pandaria – where I am currently getting some post-Draenor R&R, actually – and tending my garden almost daily before work, and then going out to repel various threats to The Golden Lotus, August Celestials, etc. Work is work, and many things in life are repetitive. This was an entirely different level of tedium, however.
Let me illuminate you, in case you aren’t familiar.
Imagine you work in your favorite place to shop – it could be the The Legerdemain Lounge or A Hero’s Welcome in Dalaran, or The Golden Keg in Stormwind, or- well, those are some of my favorite places to “shop” lately for better or for worse. I’ve said enough, and probably too much, about that.
Anyway, to my point: imagine you’re working full-time in your favorite place to shop, but you spend a significant portion of your day – every day – making the schedule. Except it’s like the heptathlon, because you’re making the schedule, and giving orders, and placing orders… and sifting through salvage, and going down into the mine to pry some ore out of several veins, and picking flowers, and holding your employees’ hands while they try to get better at being not-terrible, and sending ships that were designed by a master shipbuilder, but are apparently under-matched against virtually everything else out there, on apparent suicide missions… every day. That was my time on Draenor. It was… not a pleasant diversion. It was not heroic. The “adventure” was muted, to put it politely.
Being a commander was/is frustrating, because you’ve recruited all of these people to assist you, to make things happen, but you have to make those things happen along with them, rather than delegating to them and then handling the most urgent activities on your own. By the middle of my time there, I was “General” of the Alliance forces in Draenor, but I felt like less of a hero/leader than ever. Who ever heard of a commander joining his imported-from-Stormwind miners for a bit o’ ‘swing-the-pickaxe’ every day, before this trip?
. . .
My apologies… I’ve been hanging with a lot of dwarves lately at some of the previously mentioned establishments, and I find that their vernacular infiltrates my own from time to time.
At any rate, I will get down off my proverbial salvage carton and refrain from further ill manners for the time being. I simply wanted to relate these points to my lack of follow-up posts after my initial journal entry so long ago. There will, Elune-willing, be more such entries in the future.
100
Posted: December 2, 2014 Filed under: Gear, Leveling, Lore, Unconventional Leveling | Tags: gear, hunter, leveling, lore, marksmanship, MM, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft 4 Comments
Beyond The Dark Portal
I started playing Warlords on launch day – November 13th – during the day. I took my time with it. Regardless of my decision not to blow through the content, I didn’t have much of a choice anyway. In real life, I work retail, and during the past month-plus the place has been devouring all of my time and energy. As such, I started playing that Thursday, spent the next week doing little more than a few quests at a time when I could snatch an hour to play, and finally hit 100 eleven days later, on Sunday the 23rd.
(And here I am, nine days later, finally writing about it. Yeah.)
I had a good time. The game looks beautiful; I took more than 2800 screenshots along the way to 100, both to have a record of quest progress and to simply capture the beauty from time to time. I read the quest texts, and will re-read them the next time I take a character through.
An ancient road in Gorgrond
However, now that I’m 100, I don’t know what to do. Since I am not raiding, I’m not trying very hard to gear. The only real post-100 gear that I’ve been going after, very occasionally, is PvP gear. More on that in a moment. I’m basically spending time at 100 doing Garrison dailies, a little bit of PvP, and trying to decide which toon to bring to Draenor next. And that’s about it for now.
Anyway, here are some of my early thoughts on the expansion…
Gearing for Leveling
So far, only Mushan has stepped through the Dark Portal, so I can only vouch for how this worked for that character. However, I can tell you that early-Pandaria heroic dungeon gear is more than adequate for leveling on Draenor.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I started WoD with an item level of 471 (upgraded Heroic dungeon gear). I kept every piece until I was a good way past 92, at which point I picked out the best pieces I had gotten from quests and rares and equipped those. This brought me to ilvl 511. Then, I kept all of those pieces equipped until I was 95, at which point I swapped gear again and bumped my ilvl to 543.
Second gear swap on Draenor
So halfway through the leveling process, I was still basically wearing gear roughly equivalent to Siege of Orgrimmar flex, before upgrades, with no set bonuses.
Before I go further, let me also mention that I did the first couple of levels without a pet. My first use of a pet was during my first Garrison invasion, before which I tamed a wolf because I felt that it was time, and because I did not know what to expect during the invasion. Before that, though, I did the group quest where you kill the elekk elite near your fort by myself, with no pet. I took some hits, but I managed to kite it well enough that I was able to persevere and take it down with little problem.
Anyway, I kept that gear until I was level 98, and when that swap was complete I was up to 580 and had finally eclipsed my top Mists ilvl.
Third gear swap on Draenor
I rode that gear until I hit 100, and then I made my final mass-swap and jumped up to 604. I haven’t built much upon that since, although I haven’t had any real problems out in the world with that gear.
I like that I was able to get some use out of the gear acquired through leveling. I enjoy that part of the leveling process – getting gear as I progress – and I believe it helped me appreciate the enemy encounters along the way much more than if I had Husqvarna-ed my way through Draenor with SoO gear.
It was also nice not banging my head against the wall in SoO over the last couple of months trying to get gear and the heirloom weapons (or legendary cloaks for my alts). I got weapons at regular intervals throught Draenor, as I had suspected I would, and they served me well. It was a much less stressful way for me to play.
PvP
After hitting 100, I went to check out Ashran.
After about an hour and a half of play there over three occasions, I don’t have many thoughts on it, other than that the same two bosses always seem to be engaged, and that the fighting always seems to be taking place on the road in the same place. The zone is pretty cool – I’ve enjoyed exploring around – and has been compared to Wintergrasp, but my early impression is that it doesn’t hold a candle to Wintergrasp. I’m pretty disappointed overall. I still want to try out Southshore vs. Tarren Mill, and get my feet wet in some other BGs again. But overall, my time in Ashran has caused me to be more interested in leveling my next toon than in PvP.
Garrisons
I’ve enjoyed the Garrisons more than I thought I would have. I’m glad that I didn’t fuss over them extensively before the launch. It was fun to have the ins and outs revealed to me as I progressed.
I decided to go with the Barn and Tannery to supplement my Leatherworking and Skinning. This has turned out to be beneficial, since I don’t really have time to go out and acquire mats for the daily cooldowns. I also went with the Salvage Yard, Stables, Storehouse, Barracks, and Gladiator’s Sanctum. I’m still leveling my buildings, since I missed a lot of days leading up to and during the holiday. It’s fun, but it also seems like a lot of busy work.
I like having followers. There are some cool people hanging out at my Garrison now: I really like having Admiral Taylor, Rulkan, and Lantresor of the Blade around. I like doing missions, although I’m somewhat handicapped by the fact that I have no followers who can mitigate spells. I’ve got, like, 37 rogues, 12 priests, 15 warriors, and 26 paladins. At least, it seems that way. For now, though, I don’t really mind. I’m still not done doing everything in the game yet, like some of the quests and all of the dungeons, so we’ll see what happens.
I just wonder what spending time in my Garrison will look like six weeks from now…
Dungeons
As much as I love dungeons, I haven’t gotten into any of them yet. I got invited to one last week while I was partially afk, and didn’t have time to do it. Other than that, though, I’ve only been doing content that I can leave at any time, because, as I mentioned, I’ve been very busy, and when I get home from work, I am usually extremely tired.
Story (Alert!! Possible spoilers below, if you haven’t finished all of the questlines yet!)
A couple of random story thoughts…
– Deaths. AU Velen, I was feeling a little shocked, but I understood and admired his sacrifice. Maraad, I was quite saddened by. AU Orgrim, I thought to myself, “oh shit, no way!” but that didn’t affect me like Maraad’s death, and I was just glad that AU Durotan was still alive.
However, I absolutely loved the cinematic at the end of the Nagrand storyline. Dude had it coming, and he got his in epic fashion!
– At the end of the Auchindoun questline, we defeat a demon, and then take the gate to Auchindoun, where Exarch Maladaar and Soulbinder Tuulani seem to have different and somewhat bizarre reactions to the disappearance of Gul’dan and Teron’gor…
The Exarch is happy that we slayed several baddies. His reaction is completely without regard to the situation on the ground, or in Auchindoun:
Yay, we won! :P
Meanwhile, Tuulani is saddened and mystified:
What happened?? :(
Apparently neither really knows how instance portals work…
Generally, the leveling story was pretty good, but I felt there was something important missing at the end of this questline. Any normal player/hero knows that they jumped into the instance, which took them out of PvP. Right? And Teron’gor is a boss in the Auchindoun dungeon, so… yeah.
It just didn’t seem written well at all.
Huntering
Man, I miss Scatter Shot.
I also kind of miss Arcane Shot as Marksmanship, but I’m okay without it. In Warlords, it would have made rotations smoother. But I generally enjoyed MM for leveling: the Aimed/Chimaera double-whammy was nice on single mobs. And while Multishot seems terribly ineffective, Explosive Trap is awesome when you pull a bunch of little podling b-holes…
As I said, I had no problem leveling with no pet for a while, and with simply using the leveling gear.
Closing
There are a lot of words in this post, and not a heck of a lot of substance. Oh well. I hope you don’t mind; I just wanted to check in since I have a rare day off and the servers are down for maintenance. I’m still here, and checking the game out a little bit at a time.
I’d like to decide today who I want to take over there next. I’m actually thinking of starting more than one: I have a mage, warrior, and death knight, and I’d like to see which of them I want to take to 100 first. The problem with the plate toons is that I don’t know if I want to level them as tanks or damage specs. I’ll probably stay Blood/Prot, because ultimately I’d like to tank some dungeons once the holidays are over and I (theoretically) have more time, but we’ll see.
If I get all three into Draenor this week, I can start on their profession stuff, which will be nice.
Until next time, hope you’re all having fun!
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Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Follow me on Twitter at @MushanEtc. Comments are welcome!
Mushan’s New Journal: Preparing for the Iron Horde
Posted: October 31, 2014 Filed under: Leveling, Lore, Mushan's Draenor Journal, Roleplaying, Unconventional Leveling | Tags: gear, hunter, leveling, lore, marksmanship, roleplaying, RP, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft 1 Comment
Mushan, awaiting orders in Stormwind
Hello.
My name is Mushan. In order to protect my online privacy, I will not be disclosing my surname.
I am a hunter. I can do almost anything that hunters around the world can do, but I specialize in pinpoint marksmanship, and I always have. To be certain, I have spent more than my fair share of my time working different magics into my arsenal, but lately I have been trimming the fat from my shot selection. In my opinion, there is nothing more satisfying than eliminating an enemy with carefully aimed, heavy, devastating shots.
Recently, I received a summons from King Varian Wrynn, and so I reported for duty in the Blasted Lands. For those who are not familiar with the situation there, Orcs calling themselves the “Iron Horde” are flowing from the Dark Portal, which is now red. Interestingly, they are attacking both Alliance and Horde alike. They allied with the ogres in the region, and took both Nethergarde Keep (killing several friends of mine) and Okril’lon Hold. I was charged, by Vindicator Maraad and other Alliance officers, with a variety of missions designed to weaken their offensive, destroy their commanders, and, from what I understand, allow us to begin to set up a defensible situation there.
Once I had completed those missions, I reported to King Varian, who recognized that this incursion by the Iron Horde is a serious threat. I left him to come up with his plan, and assume that he will be contacting me within the next few weeks with further instructions.
Since then, I have been preparing for the worst. I am not privy to the king’s thoughts, but to my mind, the “worst” is likely to mean that he will be sending Alliance forces through the Dark Portal again. It has been years since I was there last, and I have no idea what is on the other side. I assume that Outland is our destination, but without having walked through it yet – and, assuming that the Dark Portal is still a two-way portal… and that I come out on whatever is on the other side alive – I cannot say for certain. However, as I mentioned, I am preparing for whatever journey the king and his commanders deem necessary.
Preparations have included many tasks.
First, I cleaned out my bags. I will take what I need, but I intend to travel light. In addition to not knowing where I will be going, I will not risk losing valuables in a possible trip through the Dark Portal.
Once the bags were ready, I prepared food packets to take with me. I do not expect that I will not be able to provide for myself wherever we go. After all, I am a hunter. However, without knowing what kinds of fish and game are available on the other side of the portal, I could do worse than having dried noodle soup available when I need it. Perhaps by now the entirety of Outland is completely devastated like Hellfire Peninsula was years ago. If that is the case, I cannot rely on the availability of boar, talbuk, clefthoof, and other game.
Nevertheless, I took some time on a recent Saturday to clean, oil and test my bow and supply my quiver. I also made certain that my tackle box was well-stocked. If there is still fishing to be done over there, I will be fishing if time allows.
A major decision that I made was to jettison the armor that I picked up during the Siege of Orgrimmar. If you have yet to see what was available there, it was heavy gear that made me look like a cyborg. I prefer something far more more lightweight, for both comfort and style.
I packed various supplies into a couple of bags. I have bandages and potions, thread, leather and other supplies for repairing my gear and skinning beasts, traps, a charm that will allow me to breathe underwater, various other charms and gadgets that could prove useful, an anatomical dummy for target practice, my inflatable fishing raft, various tools, and writing materials. I also packed extra bags, since they have a variety of uses in a pinch.
Everything else I will leave at home or put into storage.
I have several pets, but I will not be bringing them along with me through the Dark Portal. It is simply too dangerous. I am willing to put myself at risk to defend the lands and citizens of the Alliance, but I will not put my friends in danger. They will be in good hands. This weekend, I am going to hire someone to look after those that choose not to simply wander the land while I am gone. I consider myself capable of defending myself against Orcs, and will be better able to do so with the peace of mind that comes from not worrying that my pets could be ripped to shreds by potentially unstable forces during the journey through the portal. If there are beasts to be found on the other side, I may tame one there.
Of course, I have also been practicing my marksmanship and woodcraft, running and exercising, and trying to sleep well. With so much uncertainty about the near future, I will treasure the remaining nights that I am able to spend sleeping in a bed.
This entry does not do proper justice to the amount of effort I have put into making preparations for my imminent journey. However, I intend for there to be many more entries, and thus more details.
Until then, Ishnu-alah.
* * *
Editor’s note: Dear readers, this is the first journal entry that Mushan has ever given me. I didn’t even know that he journaled; however, I’m happy to pass along whatever he is willing to share with you.
Sincerely, “Mushan at Mushan, Etc.”
* * *
Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Follow me on Twitter at @MushanEtc. Comments are welcome!
Gearing down for Warlords
Posted: October 9, 2014 Filed under: Gear, Leveling, Unconventional Leveling | Tags: gear, hunter, leveling, Mists of Pandaria, questing, Siege of Orgrimmar, stats, survival, SV, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft 6 Comments
The new Mushan?
Yes, I wrote that correctly…
In the wake of the Warlords of Draenor announcement at Blizzcon 2013, I wrote a few posts about my desire to approach the leveling process differently. One of them described my desire to self-nerf: to gear down, as opposed to “gearing up” for the expansion.
There was some discussion about the subject here at the time, and then I put it on the back burner. My preparation for Warlords over the past year – gear-wise – has basically consisted of keeping a reserve of Timeless Isle tokens on an alt so that, at the least, I could slap that gear on and be done with it.
At the time, Quelys suggested going in with T14 gear, but I got rid of those pieces as I replaced them, for the most part (basically, I kept Fang Kung, Tao’ren, and the DMC). I was thinking I would probably just go with Timeless Isle gear, as I didn’t see myself putting too much effort into it. However, with Patch 6.0 drawing near, over the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself soloing MoP heroics, painstakingly assembling a dungeon set. Of course, being the behavior-driven nerd that I am, I found myself upgrading that gear once I discovered that I was Justice-capped. This, in turn, set up a nice cycle for me, where I drove myself to get both the gear that I wanted and the JP to upgrade it.
Mushan’s end of MoP dungeon set (almost)..
^^Possibly my last screenshot of the old Mushan?
As you can see, as of today, my mission is almost complete. I’m having no luck to-date with respect to pants and helm, but I do have some time before leveling begins. And if worse comes to worse, I’m going with the Golden Lotus JP pants and the 476 PvP crafted helm. The goal is to get down to an overall ilevel of 471 (463 plus upgrades, on average), and I think I can get there with that combination if I can’t come up with those last two pieces.
Some thoughts:
- In this set, I’m doing roughly 60k DPS single-target (casually, un-buffed) on a raid dummy. It’s interesting how many times-over the damage multiplies from the beginning heroic dungeons to the end of the expansion. Additionally, I’m sitting at about 55% of my SoO health level.
- I’m unclear about how my health level will translate with the stat squish, particularly with respect to mobs on Draenor. However, I’m still confident in my ability to handle them, even though…
- I’m planning on leveling as Survival. While part of me wants to try leveling as Marksmanship (and that was my plan previously, because I’d love to try “one-shotting” stuff), it seems to be the new (and only) hotness as far as hunter specs go (thanks
ObamaBlizz). On the positive side: as gutted as it is, leveling as SV could present me with some challenges, which is something I am definitely interested in. I’m looking for an epic experience, and playing hunter with no Kill Shot and no Multi-Strike… will most likely make killing mobs more challenging, if not epic. - I’m planning on carrying my raid gear with me for dungeon purposes, particularly at the lower levels. I don’t necessarily know that I will run dungeons along the way, but the possibility is definitely there. And if I do run dungeons on occasion while I level, I will not be causing my group any extra anguish brought on by my self-nerfing activities.
- I’m still going to level like I have in the past in new expansions with respect to buffs, enchants, gems, etc. I’ll be appropriately specced out, have consumables with me, use drums, etc. I just won’t be starting out grossly overpowered like I used to.
* * *
I mean no offense by this, but I get a chuckle whenever I read about people specifically “gearing up for WoD”… and doing so by raiding. Needing that cloak, needing that heirloom, needing that 4-piece. I fully understand the players who are looking for those items because they’re great to have, but I’ve seen many, many people who are frantically chasing after those pieces for their alts… “for Warlords.” On Twitter. Blogs. WoW Insider.
More power to them, but to me it seems unnecessary.
Think about it this way: I am very, very far from being among the best players in the world… But when I level a new toon, I don’t stop at level 80, get a bunch of raid gear, and then proceed to 85, get some more raid gear, and then proceed to the next endgame; I simply go to the new zone and start tearing it apart. All of my level-90 alts that are between ilvl 510 and 550 are very prepared, gear-wise, to romp through the opening levels of WoD before they start to get some gear… and none of them have either heirloom weapons or legendary cloaks.
It just seems like when we do that, we’re actually “over-preparing to overpower”… like we’re trying to get the biggest hammer possible in order to smash a sandwich with it.
* * *
I’m looking to stretch myself a bit as a player – perhaps for the last time in this game.
I may have mentioned this on Twitter briefly a few weeks back, but I got another promotion in September – my second in the last five months – and, where my free time was limited over the summer, it’s downright precious now. I’ll be very surprised if I raid at all in Warlords, and once I get done playing through Draenor, I don’t know that I will keep going. However, that’s a decision to be made sometime down the road.
As such, I’m looking to have an experience on Draenor. Discovery, story, taking my time and enjoying the scenery. Testing my skills as a hunter. Talking with my friends about it all, here and on Twitter, as time and energy permit. I’m looking forward to it!
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Warlords of Draenor cinematic, release date, and other miscellaneous thoughts
Posted: August 16, 2014 Filed under: Leveling, PvP, Raiding & Dungeons | Tags: druid, hunter, leveling, lore, marksmanship, PvP, raiding, SV, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft 1 Comment
It’s been quite a while since I chimed in here…
But now, with November 13th now solidly penciled in on the calendar, we have some long, long,
…
LONG…
…
-awaited closure with respect to the Warlords of Draenor release date.
As I mentioned back in March, the 11/13/14 release date means, since it is indeed after October 21st, that
“Warlords will have both A) taken the longest time-after-previous-expansion to release of any expansion in the game’s history and B) given players the greatest amount of down-time after the previous expansion’s final content patch in the game’s history.”
So, we’ll have to see how this expansion unfolds, with respect to measured content updates and shorter downtime between final patches and new expansions. That will be another year or two (or more). Blizzard says that they are already working on the next one, but we’ve heard that before. They’re still bleeding subscriptions, and they failed to solve that problem this go-round, so we’ll see.
The question is, how many of us will see…
* * *
Anyway, how about that cinematic? I have to say, I loved it, in spite of the exclusion of anything other than male orcs and a demon. The setting was compelling, the production spectacular, and the action was thrilling. I absolutely loved the flying-Grommash-axe-to-the-head killing of Mannoroth.
I’ve watched the cinematic approximately twenty times. It makes me want to do two things: re-read Rise Of The Horde, and read all of the books post-The Shattering – in particular, War Crimes. That’s something to put on the list of things to get done within the next three months.
It was quite possibly the best cinematic yet. As good as Cataclysm’s seemed at the time, this and the trailer for Mists absolutely destroy it, in my opinion. Wrath’s was awesome too, and I loved the original WoW trailer as well. Darkbrew published a list of his favorites, and mine would be similar.
Here’s a recurring thought I have every time we get the expansion trailer: Blizzard should make a complete movie with CGI. I’m willing to be impressed by the live-action movie that will grace us in a couple of years, but I would love to see something killer like the past couple of cinematics become a major motion picture. Perhaps the cost/risk would be too great – I don’t know about these things. But hey, a guy can dream, right?
* * *
I’m still playing, although I basically stopped raiding near the end of June. My job has been stressful, and I wasn’t finding it a productive use of my time to come home from work and promptly beat my head against a wall until a couple of hours after midnight, particularly when I would have to be back at work early the next day.
In fact, I’m becoming convinced that my raiding days may be behind me. Barring a change of circumstances, I’m not going to have the time and focus to commit to raiding and raiding well. Real life comes first, and I am at an age and in a situation where I can’t let structure in WoW interfere with my future. The idea of not raiding can be a painful one, but the way I’ve felt the past few months, I don’t know that I can do it going forward.
With that (and other things) in mind, my plans for Warlords have been shifting over the past couple of weeks.
I had already planned to not race to level 100. What’s shifting may surprise the socks off of some of you…
I’m thinking of leveling a different toon first. As in, not Mushan.
* * *
Why not Mushan? I know, it seems anathema to lifelong hunters out there, but I’m not the average WoW hunter. I’ll be honest: I’m not terribly happy with what I’ve read about the changes to Survival. It seems like it’s a shadow of its former self. I know that’s a simplified way to look at changes to the spec – and I’ll certainly try it out when Patch 6.0 goes live – but I’m not feeling it right now.
And, while I feel a little better about Marksmanship than SV, it seems like, pre-numbers-pass, Beast Mastery is the way to go. And (here’s where I know I differ from other hunters) I don’t enjoy BM. To me, it’s like being a guy with a water gun and a remote-control car, and you shoot your water gun and remotely control your car, which sometimes gets stuck on a rock in the dirt or some other protrusion and ends up getting stepped on. Perhaps this reflects the true lack of skill I have in the game, but I’ve never enjoyed playing a hunter less in the post-mana era than when I went BM for Council of the Elders in ToT.
Anyway… *washes hands of the issue* I’ll be able to better make a decision on that when the patch goes live and I’ve had a chance to try out each spec to see if I like one of them.
* * *
As for what I’ve been up to in WoW, there hasn’t been much of note.
I’m steadily making cloth for Royal Satchels: So far, Mushan and my druid, Anacrusa, are fully Satcheled-up, with a few other Satchels on various other toons. Now that we have a release date, I’m certain that I will not have full Panda-bags on each of my main toons, but I won’t need that space immediately since I am not racing them all to 100 ASAP, so I will probably leave Modhriel (my Tailor) at Halfhill for the foreseeable future while that project is going on.
I’ve taken up PvP on my druid, which has been interesting. With a gear set largely composed of Timeless Isle gear, about a week ago I stepped in and started losing a lot of random BGs. Compounding the gear problem was my inability to play the spec well, and vice-versa. It’s been a long time since I PvPed regularly on my druid – three years or so – so there has been a lot to learn. I felt a bit guilty for holding my teams back, but I shouldn’t have – I wasn’t the main problem. Most games, we were getting crushed. Ana in full Prideful gear wasn’t going to turn most of those matches into wins, believe me.
Along the way, I’ve picked up a few pieces of Grievous, and the weapon will be next (and a huge upgrade). Things are getting better: I’m getting the hang of the spec, which is my #1(a) goal, with #1 being to have fun doing something that is both old and new.
Aside from that, I’m casually grinding Valor on my warrior, druid, DK, and paladin. My mage has had horrible luck getting a weapon to replace his T14 Sha-Touched sword, so I’ve basically given up on that (and on grinding other gear and Valor) with him. When he finally gets to Draenor, he’s going to destroy mobs anyway, so I’m not terribly worried about it. Frickin’ guy has a 544 ilvl, so I think he’s going to be just fine, even in spite of his 491 weapon…
I’ve also been hitting up some old raids on Mushan. A couple of friends and I went into Ulduar last weekend and wiped the floor with 25-player mode, which scored me a boatload of achievement points. Before that, we did the same in ICC-25. I also finally completed my Valorous Cryptstalker set on my hunter (at least to a point where I could use the gear), which I may talk about in the near future.
* * *
Without making this a book, these are just some miscellaneous bits from the world of Mushan.
Etc.
More, soon. :)
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Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. You can follow me on Twitter at @MushanEtc. Comments are welcome!
My favorite raid encounters as a hunter in Mists…
Posted: June 25, 2014 Filed under: Nostalgia, Raiding & Dungeons | Tags: Heart of Fear, hunter, Mists of Pandaria, progression, raiding, Siege of Orgrimmar, talents, Terrace of Endless Spring, Throne of Thunder, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft 6 CommentsAll of them.
Ok, well not really – that’s just my own predilection for hunters shining through!
Today, The Grumpy Elf wrote about his three favorite raid encounters as a hunter in MoP, and Delirium followed with his top five. As I read each of those great posts, I got to thinking about some of the fights I particularly enjoyed because I was playing a hunter, even if I wasn’t in love with the fights themselves. Here then, in no particular order, are some favorite moments/mechanics:
Imperial Vizier Zor’lok
- Disengage to the furthest shield during Force and Verve on Platform 1? Check.
- Continue rotation uninterrupted – by casting on the move – while avoiding discs during Attenuation on Platform 2? Check.
- Quickly change targets to burst down Converted players on Platform 3? Check
- Combine all three on the floor in Phase 2? Good fun.
- Jump-Disengage from platforms –> Deterrence to avoid Pheromones of Zeal damage when transitioning between platforms? Check.
T14 was a butt for my raid team. We struggled to get past certain bosses like Stone Guard, Elegon, Blade-Lord, Garalon… yeah. It was rough. But I had fun on Zor’lok.
I used to try to Disengage directly into my assigned shield during Force and Verve. The first time I did it, I called it a ‘three-pointer,’ although it was more like a hole-in-one. It’s the simple things, right? Not an amazing feat, but fun nonetheless. But while Zor’lok wasn’t necessarily a ‘use all the tools in your toolbox’-type of fight, I really appreciated being a hunter on that fight.
Lei Shi
Let’s see here… how about I start with running while casting during Get Away! ? Yeah, that was great. I enjoyed that benefit while playing my hunter, but my appreciation for cast-on-the-move grew when I took my frost mage and resto druid into ToES. What a difference.
I also got to use Wyvern Sting to CC Animated Protectors during Protect, because it was instant / more reliable than Freezing Trap.
On the other hand, one of the more annoying things was having virtually nothing to do during Hide. Watching mages and warlocks rain down ice and fire made me nostalgic for good ol’ Volley in that case. And, in general, that fight was a pain with all of the phase changes and so on, so I didn’t necessarily enjoy it. However, being a hunter certainly served me well against Lei Shi.
Thok
Thok has “hunter fight” written all over it. Both Grumpy Elf and Delirium wrote about how great that fight is for hunters, and with more detail and expertise than I could. Nonetheless, it has to be mentioned here. Casting not interrupted? Jump-Disengaging with Posthaste when Fixated, while still damaging Thok on the move? Tranq Shot if necessary on the adds? The fight is a lot of fun for hunters. I’ve only ever done the fight on one other toon – my resto druid – and it’s a complete pain in the ass. But for hunters, Thok is definitely a good time.
* * *
I could continue with my list, but most of it would just rehash the posts that inspired it. I have to agree with Grumpy Elf that Sha of Pride was great for hunters. Additionally, I absolutely love his ‘welcome’ speech:
“Come, face me. Give in to your pride. Show me your ‘Greatness’.”
So, so condescending. I love it.
So many other fights were good for hunters. Gara’jal, Tsulong, and Immerseus come to mind immediately when I think about taking out adds in something akin to a turret-style manner. There are many abilities one can use during Will of the Emperor for add-control. Disengage is handy in so many fights, from Feng to Sha of Fear, Jin’rokh to Lei Shen, and throughout SoO. I’ve used Deterrence a lot on Stone Guard, H Jin’rokh, Dark Shaman, Lei Shen, and so on; Concussive Shot on Tortos, Will, Immerseus…
It’s been great to be able to interrupt/silence, slow, root, and otherwise impede mobs in raids – while almost continuously dealing sweet, sweet damage – throughout this expansion. It’ll be interesting to see how that kind of thing pans out in Warlords with a less diverse toolbox. In the meantime, it’s fun to look back and remember how, in spite of variable class balance *cough*, Mists has been a pretty fun expansion in which to play a hunter.
Thanks to The Grumpy Elf and Delirium for the inspiration for this post, and for sparking some good memories!
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Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. You can follow me on Twitter at @MushanEtc. Comments are welcome!
500 Valor
Posted: June 3, 2014 Filed under: Gear | Tags: gear, hunter, Mists of Pandaria, questing, Siege of Orgrimmar, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft Leave a commentUpon logging in on Friday, I was surprised to see a new buff amongst the normal ones on one of my characters: Heart of the Valorous.
This, after I logged in on Tuesday on my Resto druid and promptly spent 30,000 Timeless Coins to get my other toons (who are somewhat more “Offense-ive” or “DPS-ish” characters than my healer) the Valor of the Ancients buff.
It’s all good. It’s all good. Friday was a good fine whatever time to plop that buff down…
Seriously, though, it’s a crazy good buff. It’s even better when you add it to the Valor of the Ancients buff. The first toon that I finished the Empowering The Hourglass weekly with, Mushan, on Saturday got 500 Valor Points from it!
Here’s how that works:
Heart of the Valorous = +100% X (Normal Valor Reward 200 VP): you get twice as much Valor;
Valor of the Ancients = +50% X (Normal Valor Reward 200VP): you get 50% more than base Valor.
The (probably unnecessary) ‘equation’ looks something like this (where x = 200 VP in this case):
2x + x/2 =
500 Valor Points for turning in a quest.
It was awesome!
Think about it: it’s kind of un-frickin’-believable. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve never seen this (a potentially 500 VP turn-in) before in WoW. I remember when the Barrens weekly was active; I posted something on Twitter about how I VP-capped my hunter, which allowed me to get 300 points per turn-in on my alts; someone replied that I was a genius… (You could also do something similar with the weekly Champions of the Thunder King on Isle of Thunder for 225 points with the buff.) But this is different. This stacks, so any Valor you earn once you have both buffs is 150% more than usual.
With this buff, along with the initial use of Deeds of Valor to cap my druid on Tuesday, I managed to cap five toons this week without too much effort. I killed one raid boss with my hunter on Friday, finished single LFR wings on my mage and DK, and otherwise earned the bulk of my VP by doing the Shaohao daily (leading up to Empowering The Hourglass, of course) on Timeless Isle. With the mage and hunter, this is a piece of cake, and with the warrior and DK tanks, it’s still not much trouble. It was nice, considering the current incentive provided by the extra eight ilvl upgrade points available on 5.4 gear.
* * *
I should qualify the apparent noobishness of this post by saying that I’m reading WoW news about once every week or two. I can’t hang daily on Blizzard’s every tweet/reveal… I just can’t: I don’t have it in me to do so when there are so many months left before Warlords becomes a reality, and there isn’t even a beta yet. So when the Heart of The Valorous buff arrived in my interface, I had little more than a vague recollection of reading about it somewhere, whereas it turns out that most people I follow were expecting it with 5.4.8, or any day now…
Oh well. I guess that’s part of what comes from being willfully ignorant in the face of nothing new being playable, for all intents and purposes. It was certainly a nice surprise.
A couple of days later, I learned that this buff was temporary; apparently it ends during maintenance on June 10th. So this week is the second and final week that I will cap five toons with very little effort. Once the buff drops off, I’ll resume cherry picking which toons I want to focus on, which will likely vary since I don’t have clear outcomes in mind for any but Mushan (cap upgrades, start killing some heroic bosses when/if possible). My alts are gravy, so at that point I will probably go back to spending more time with my new hunter on the different server.
In the meantime, this week is about capping those five toons. One will be via Coins. The others will be via those two Timeless Isle quests, for the most part. I’m glad I happened to be back during the time that this was happening, since it’s like I can ‘make hay while the sun shines’ with respect to the upgrades without burning myself out again.
Hopefully.
* * *
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I’m still here
Posted: May 21, 2014 Filed under: Leveling, Off Topic | Tags: blog, hunter, leveling, Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft 4 Comments
Hi all…
I’m still here. I haven’t written here in five or six weeks. But I’m still keeping up with everyone’s blogs, and I still have plans for this blog, although if I do end up going a while before that manifests itself in the form of posts, I won’t be surprised.
I can’t do the squeeze-whatever-news-and-speculation-I-can-out-of-every-day thing, which is why I’ve kept quiet. I simply can’t justify budgeting the time and emotional energy into “waiting and hoping” for, and writing regularly about, a launch that is looking increasingly like it could actually go all the way to the end of – or even pass – the December release window.
(To those who are doing so, by the way, kudos and thanks!)
So it’s highly likely that posting will be sporadic for the foreseeable future.
However, a couple of things are happening.
For one thing, I recently returned to the game after a two-month break. I’ve actually raided with some friends a couple of times – although I have no weekly commitment – and I’ve done some other things here and there with my regular toons. But the majority of my time over the past couple of weeks has been spent leveling a new toon on a new server.
He’s a Marksmanship hunter, Skinner/Herbalist, and I’m enjoying leveling him all by himself, with no guild and no other toons from my account on the server (so far). As such, he has to manage bag space and gold as he levels. I’m having fun dealing with these rather mundane issues.
Additionally, I recently got a promotion at my job, so I’m spending a lot more time at (and thinking about) work.
As it’s taking more of my time, any WoW-related activities – and considering the conditions I discussed above (the waiting game) – consist of either playing the game or reading about it. Nothing terribly important is happening in my WoW-world, so there’s little for me to write about. I’m leveling a toon, and that’s basically it. It takes me back to earlier, simpler times.
There is a good chance that I could take another break before Warlords of Draenor manifests itself. I haven’t decided, or given it much thought; the fact remains that we could be six-to-eight months away from a ‘go-live’ date. So we’ll see how it goes.
Anyway, I just wanted to say hello!
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Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Comments are welcome!
Mushan, Etc. 