Spirit for Paladins is like Strength for Hunters!

There, I said it.

Fadenkreuz, Hunter

Hunter. The last class I create and attempt to level. Again.

The class which our guild has the most of. The class which 4 of my close friends have all played to 70. One of them has done it twice.

Vayexxa was my first real attempt at the hunter…a troll. This was pre-BC, back when Marksman was all the rage and both Survival and Beast Mastery were for…those other people.

Nowadays, if BRK has anything to say about it, Beast Mastery is a valid raiding spec. One of the friends I mentioned (the one that’s leveled two hunters) is 0/20/41 Survival. Expose Weakness and uber-trapping make that spec worthwhile.

And so, what of Marksman nowadays? From what I’ve seen, they crit big, for short periods. It seems it’s been destined to be a pvp tree, like Retribution (paladin), Arms (warrior), or Subtlety (rogue). I’m no hunter expert, just an observer.

Anyway, Vay made it to level 22 and I pretty much quit. Deleted her not long thereafter. As much as I might say I was too focused on other characters at the time, I really just wasn’t enjoying it all that much. I was trying to do all the extravagant things like kiting and fighting multiple mobs…but my pet was fragile and I wasn’t very survivable. I lost interest.

I had a grief with the class that stalled me from playing it in the first place, and that was the pet. Micromanaging is not usually my thing. It keeps me from playing druids and rangers in D&D, and I usually just ignore my familiars as Sorcs/Wizards, forgetting I have them or not using them for anything. I always opt for variants that remove the pet for some other benefit.

What of the warlock then? They have pets too!

I’m not sure, to be honest. Perhaps what I wanted of the hunter was an archer rather than a ranger. A bow-using class without such a strong tie to nature. Like a warrior with a ranged combat tree.

Well, here I am trying it again. I’ve been reading BRK’s stuff quite a bit since I discovered it (though I admittedly stayed away from it at first because well, it was called “Bigredkitty”), and the hunter is sounding more and more appealing. If I ever play Fad to 70, time will tell. As of right now, I like the idea of going full survival and trying to max my agility for that Expose Weakness proc. Trapping sounds fun too, I’m used to point-and-click CC.

I probably won’t go Marksman, at least not very deep. 0/20/41 seems decent enough for a supplement to your ranged dps, but I may try something else.

Also, I’m not positive on this, but I think “Fadenkreuz” (FAH-den-kroyz) is German for “Crosshair”. :)

Hunters and Druids and Paladins, oh my!

[Merciless Gladiator's Ornamented Gloves] today when I get home, yay.

I did 10 arenas last night with a friend to help him get the games in since his usual partner was unable to. 5 games with his hunter, 5 with his druid. They went fairly well, we managed to increase their rating a bit, but the last game we did…was against another paladin and druid. That went on for half an hour.

Neither team really seemed to know what they should do. The druids couldn’t kill each other, there was too much healing. The druids couldn’t kill the paladins for the same reason. It was nuts, I had to re-bless, got innervated twice…

In the end we lost though…not that it mattered, I think I would have been done and gone to bed before much longer anyway. What happened was I got too far behind, or he got too far forward (distance-wise) and he missed a crucial heal so they were able to burst him down the rest of the way. Darn Hammer of Wrath got through BoP.

Anyway, working with a hunter wasn’t too bad. Toss him Blessing of Freedom and he’s set to go for most occasions. We went 5-0 partnered that way (as opposed to 3-2 with the druid). The first game we did was against some poor lone gnome mage, either he queued solo (can you do that?) or his partner didn’t make it. None of the matches were overly difficult (the team rating was low at the time), so that may have affected the 5-0 standing heh. Perhaps we should have done it the opposite way with the druid for the first five games and then switched to the hunter, since he’s got more experience with the hunter. Regardless, except for that very last game againt the other paladrin/druid, and how damn long the queue times were (8-11 minutes between games…yay for double monitor setup so I have something to do between games), it was fun.