Fuzz Balls returns to being a normal blog

As much as it sucks to say, I really have no motivation to create yet another Hunter blog. There are plenty out there from Big Red Kitty to The Hunter's Mark, and more that I've browsed through. These are all really established blogs and to make yet another one is just that: Yet another Hunter Blog. The information is rehashed and someone's already done all the work. Whoopee.

However, I am NOT leaving the blogging world. I've just moved on to other things. Most notably is Death in a Tin Can. Yes, I re-rolled alliance and I have re-rolled a totally new class. The Hunter will always be my first love and will always be something I can fall back to. But the Death Knight brings something new and fresh to the table for me. New formulas to find, new techniques to learn as well as a whole new level of play style.

Fuzz Balls will return to being my personal blog about everything I can think of to rant about. As for it being a WoW blog, I may rant about that too. But for being a Serious WoW blog, Death in a Tin Can is my project for that. Cheers to the few readers I had hoping to see something in here about Hunters. It was worth a shot and at least I had fun trying to pull it together!

Plans for Wrath

With Wrath of the Lich King just 2 days from release, I guess I need to figure out what it is I'm going to do. As my post before last said, I started an Alliance alt and leveled her to 55. I've set my foundation for a Death Knight on Earthen Ring, but I have a solid foundation of Eredar as well. What I'm torn between is starting over in a new server with people I've grown to like over these past few months (one of which has become very dear to me as a friend), or staying on my home server of almost 4 years with Months Behind.

The thing about Months behind is that I haven't been able to raid with them for nearly 2 years due to a shift in my work schedule. But with 10-man raids with 25-man counterparts coming up, I won't fall so far behind in the gear set anymore like I did so drastically in TBC. I've also updated my machine immensely since then. I just don't know many people anymore in MB. There's been a lot of turnover since Blackwing Lair and not many people know me nor do I know them. Hell, most of them don't even realize that I was the one who got Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood, and very few remember the laughable drama that caused.

However, on Earthen Ring, there are many people who I've come to get to know and feel comfortable playing with. Like before, all of them I met through Lore but created a relationship on my own. I've joined the guild Eventide under my beta name of Raydis who now holds the name for my MALE (yes you read that right: Male) Death Knight. Now while I enjoyed playing on Eredar as both the DPS and the Tank (aka Feral Druid), I feel almost excited to prove myself to someone new. That I can do the things I say I can and not have someone roll their eyes at me. I've also played with a few Earthen Ring people in the beta.

So therein lies my dilemma: Stay on Eredar or start over on Earthen Ring. Decisions, decisions...

Turning of the Ti....er Seasons.

Ah, the air is comfortably cooler. Trees are changing colors to beautiful oranges, reds, and yellows. And the change of fish has come to Azeroth! What? You thought I was actually going to talk about the outside world? I'm a gamer geek, for crying out loud. So yes, if you're fishing for a certain type of ocean fish in Azeroth (old world, now. Not Outlands.), it's now time for the Winter Squid to appear. If you're looking for Raw Summer Bass, you'll have to wait until next spring for this fish to come back. It's just one of those flavor joys that makes WoW that much more enjoyable.

Speaking of WoW, My husband Lore and I have purchased our copies of Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition and eagerly await its release. November 13th never seemed so close. Or far away depending on you look at things. :)

Edit: Okay, common quality items don't really look too good on this blog. Whoops.

Alt-itis

I have been bitten by the alt-itis bug again. This time I reside on Earthen Ring. She's a Night Elf Hunter (go figure), with a Puppy for a pet. Since Sydril lives on an RP server, I must now make the obligatory background....but I shall do that later as it is 12am and I need to be at work at 7am. So come say hi if you want to. I'll be on her a lot until Wrath since I want a taste of the Dark....er...I mean Alliance side. Heheh.

Death Knight Tanking

My thoughts on Death Knight Tanking in Utgaurde Keep:

Absolutely amazing. I've tanked before in instances. I've even main tanked in raids (but lost the spot due to poor computer performance.), and had no problem with it as far as enjoying it. But Death Knight Tanking is a whole different pie. As of right now, I am a Frost Specced DK, so my upfront burst dps is outrageous. I was able to hold and maintain aggro on all 4 bosses in the Keep without any problems. We did wipe once on the Prince, but that was because I was being overzealous and run straight in without knowing what the hell I was doing. Other than that, there was very little wiping involved. Death Knights have so many threat generators that, if balanced correctly with rune cool downs and gcd, one could maintain aggro very effectively in a 5-man instance.

Death Grip alone pulls a massive amount of threat as an opener. If you pull multiple mobs, toss a Death and Decay down. It generates high amounts of threat and, if the mobs are not immune, it periodically fears them in place, interrupting any casting. Because Blood Boil doesn't force aggro onto the DK anymore, we were given a taunt, Command Threat. Those three taunts, if managed correctly make a Death Knight an effective tank.

While my gear was all quest rewards and geared mostly for attack power, my healer had little to no problem healing me. I did have to pop a pot here and there only because of a boss's ability to stun random people, but with Lich Born, Icebound Fortitude, and Unbreakable Armor, she was able to keep me up while I hacked away at mobs.

If I can pull myself away from Frost Spec long enough, I may try tanking in both Blood and Unholy sometime. I'm a little leery about Blood though as it bolsters a bit on survivability rather than raw damage. But I'm willing to give it a shot just to see if Frost Aura makes choosing a tree trivial to tanking.

All in all, I think I just found my new tank.

New Shadow Rendering

There are a slew of graphical renderings only found in WotLK and those can be found here.

But my favorite was the Shadowrendering. It renders an ACTUAL shadow from you and the world around you, including mobs! Check it out!



Did you see it? No? How about now?



Pretty nifty, no? It's a simple console command only found in the beta right now. So don't try this on live. You won't get anything.

Here's the command to get this nifty look in your Beta:

/console extShadowQuality 0-6 (choose a #0-6 to get your effect. The higher the number, the more your computer will have to render. Mine is rendering fine at 1, though I may try 2 later on. It nearly died at 4 though. So unless you have one of those uber computers, 1-3 might be a good look for you.)

Something is Wrong here....

GG Vindication.

Please note that I was not in that BG for it's entirety as I entered in the middle of it...../cry