Well…almost….

5k more rep to go with Argent Dawn!

The quickest, easiest, and most boring way to get Argent Dawn rep is to grind Stratholme.

Oilcan had not done many quests in either Eastern or Western Plaguelands though, and since he doesn’t have the Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms achievement yet, off questing he went!

There’s two main quest hubs: Chillwind Camp in Eastern Plaguelands and Light’s Hope Chapel in Western Plaguelands.

At Chillwind, most quests take you into Andorhal or North of it. There’s a mini-boss with about 20 mobs around him in the center of Andorhal, so each time OC head out (and back in) he cleared them, getting Scourgestones and Runecloth and stuff each time (and 50 rep from the mini-boss and the occasional 10 rep from a “big” elite). There are also dailies concerning the four Cauldron locations which net 50 rep each.

…DON’T FORGET TO EQUIP YOUR ARGENT DAWN COMMISSION !!

In addition to the rep from the quests, Scourgestones can be turned in at either Chillwind or Light’s Hope for 50-100 rep, depending on the Scourgestone, and give a  Argent Dawn Valor Tokens, which is worth 100 rep when used.

At Light’s Hope, in addition to more quests (not all give AD rep - and Scholomance…Scholo runs don’t give it either), there are also 5 item turnins you can do, each requiring 30 of the item. Your FIRST turnin of each kind gives 1000 rep..but subsequent turnins only give 20 rep. Bone Fragments, Savage Fronds, Dark Iron Scraps, Crypt Fiend Parts, and Core of Elements are the five (each stacks to 250), and can be bought off the Auction House if you don’t want to farm.

OC’s pretty much done the quests (except the ones inside Strat), and the dailies, and the turnins (each once or twice, Bone Fragments a lot as they drop off of the undead skellies in Andorhal), and so a run or two into Strat for the quests and the rep should net him Exalted with Argent Dawn and The Argent Champion..and a nice new title =D

Baby Tauren Hunter has hit 30, and Beastmastery is getting interesting. Pets start getting talent points at level 20, so up until then Baby T could out-aggro his pet. Growl has a 5 second cd, and combined with a pet’s intial attack, would generate about 300 threat. He could dps enough to steal aggro in those 5 seconds and so would usually wait a couple of seconds before shooting, allowing a second Growl to land before his damage pulled the mob. Freezing Trap at level 20 helped if he drew a second or third mob. But it was essentially the same process that Oilcan learned while leveling Survival.

But following a BM-only talent spec, at level 30 Baby T learned Intimidation. Intimidation + Growl + pet’s initial attack equals about 900 threat ^-^

Baby T, with pet on defensive and at max range, can open up with Arcane Shot - Multi-Shot - Serpent Sting , blow every cd he has, get in a couple AutoShots…..and when the mob gets halfway to him, his pet nails him…and BAM…pet has aggro on its first attack.

Intimidation is also useful to save for the *second* mob….Growl twice on the first, and hit Intimidation on the second, and Baby T don’t draw teh aggro

Level 30 also teaches two hunter spells from the Hunter Trainer: Aspect of the Beast and Feign Death.

Aspect of the Hawk increases the hunter’s RAP, and thus his damage…to the tune of about a 5-10% dps increase. While using Aspect of the Beast will reduce the hunter’s ranged dps, by increasing his pet’s dps, his pet will aggro better, especially nice against multiple mobs. And remember….BM pets’ dps will become a larger and larger part of a BM hunter’s overall dps as they level.

Finally, perhaps the one spell hunters have the all other classes envy: Feign Death. FD-Envy is an acceptable fact of life for non-hunter classes…..you all want it, you know it, don’t hide it.

With a BM pet able to hold aggro on two mobs, a Freezing Trap laid down for a third, and FD to divert a fourth or fifth…..at level 30 the number of mobs a BM hunter can take on is limited only by the damage his pet can handle. And with Glyph of Mending, that damage is quite a lot. Baby T and his turtle, OldWarsong, are both 30, and easily handled 5-6  level 29s.

I am BeastMaster, hear (my pet) ROAR!!

Well, Blizzard does, that’s who.

The Opening of the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, and the attendant War Effort, were a staple experience on any server…until February 2009. After that, servers were opened with the Gates already open.

If you started playing WoW after that, or if you began before that but on a server with the gates already open, you’ve missed a rather incredible part of the game, unfortunately. OC’s own experience will be a subject for a future post(s).

Although pets and talents have changed much since I rolled Oilcan, this change is one that while not directly affecting my Baby Tauren, nonetheless plays a large factor in the difference between his leveling and Oilcan’s.

Oilcan leveled up to 20 or so before the War Effort started, and 30ish before the Gates were opened on Steamwheedle Cartel. Prior to the War Effort, his skinning was primarily for getting his Leatherworking up, and leftover mats that wouldn’t help his skillups anymore would be auctioned. A stack of Light Leather would typically sell for 5-10 silver. When the War Effort began, those types of basic mats could now be turned in for Signets, which could be turned in for rep…and prices, literally overnight, skyrocketed. Stacks of Light Leather and Linen Cloth were 5 silver one day, and 1-2 gold the next. A lot of folks got “rich” this way; Oilcan turned his in for rep. Since there were relatively few max levels (level 60 at the time), prices for other things like drops and crafted blues were also low to start (5-10g), but as folks got more gold, they began to rise. Things like Deviate Scale Belt had sold for 4-5g, and soon were selling for 30g. Until level 20, Oilcan thus had to scrimp and save sometimes for training money, and playing the AH really wasn’t possible….there just wasn’t the gold on server. After the War Effort though, the gold was there, and OC began playing the AH some.

This structure of a weak starting economy, suddenly bolstered by a server event, was a staple part of a new server. The contrast between OC and Baby Tauren is pretty startling: Baby T has never wanted for gold, even though he is NOT playing the AH. His first stack of Light Leather sold for 2 gold, the Trade Vendors in a start area or two had early trade recipes that auctioned for several gold, and even his extra crafted goods from skilling up Leatherworking sell for 50s-6g. His server is a new one, but with the Gates already open, folks are free to level, level, level and the economy is already strong and gold abounds.

With the Gates open, with easier XP gain, with max level now at 80…..all this means gold is plentiful. And with that much gold, and easier leveling, folks just don’t spend time grinding an instance for a certain drop. With less gold and longer leveling times, Oilcan actually ran instances not just once for the AP, or twice for quests…he ran them several times, sometimes 5-10 times, in order to get a drop he wanted. But it is MUCH easier now for folks to either simply BUY an upgrade, or it takes much less time for folks to simply LEVEL up to the next instance, the next drop.

Baby Tauren now joins LFG as soon as he logs on and takes a run group any chance he gets, simply because it’s empty most of the time. Not because folks don’t want to, or there aren’t that many folks on, but because leveling is too fast for folks to stick around a bracket long, and gold too plentiful to worry about a drop. No one cares about a level 20 dungeon quest when they’re gonna be 80 in a month. And if they want the AP, they’ll just come back and solo when they are a higher level.

Oilcan ran a fair amount of dungeons while leveling, and if it wasn’t for the BGs and RP and professions and so on, would have run more.

Baby Tauren is barely able to get even ONE run in before leveling past it, and that might be the biggest change in my play experience from Oilcan to now.

This is Spout, and he’s old school. He leveled side by side with Oilcan, and did it the old-fashioned way: he earned it!

One of the more pleasant changes to WoW over the years has been the various improvements to pets. The differences between Oilcan and Spout, and my BabyTauren and his cat, have pretty much all been improvements.

Kritty isn’t going to run away, for example. Spout never did either…but OC did have a pet or two wander away. Used to be, if your pet got to be unhappy enough (unfed, or usually from multiple deaths - think Gnomer wipe after Gnomer wipe), he’d run away. You’d turn around and *poof*…..no pet. Pets nowadays aren’t subject to that, so hunters aren’t going to lose their pets after all the hard work searching for and finding just the right one.

Having multiple pets is also now much, much easier. Pet leveling experience used to lag behind the hunter’s. It wasn’t too hard to keep just one pet near your level, but trying to keep TWO near-level (and useful) was damn hard work. One pet’s xp was barely enough to stay with you…split that xp into TWO pets, and soon a hunter would find he has two pets, both 10 levels behind him. Pet xp scaling is much improved nowadays, and one pet will more than keep pace with the hunter, dinging soon after him. Also, taming a pet back then meant accepting the level the pet was at….if the hunter was level 50, and the pet he wanted was level 25….well, he now had a level 25 pet! Blizz changed that, so now a tamed pet, if more than 5 levels below the hunter, is automatically bumped to within 5 levels of the hunter. Hunters can get the pet (and more importantly, the color/style scheme) they want now, and not have to work as hard leveling a pet 5x as much as the hunter.

Way back when, pets would have to be trained much like any other class: hunters had to pay for their own training, and then, also had to pay again for just their pet’s training. Various points could be allotted to skills (most similar to the ones they have now), but there was a limit (level-based) on how many points you had to spend. Aside from a pet’s inherent basic attacks (melee, a special, and maybe a DoT), everything else had to purchased and trained. Each spell resistance (Nature, Shadow, Fire, etc.). Each level of Growl, or Cower, or Bite. All cost additional points.  And if the pet was capable of learning an additional type of attack, but it wasn’t inherent (say, Slash)….the hunter had to go out and FIND a beast who knew that attack….tame it..and fight alongside it for a while…and THEN the hunter would learn the attack, which he could THEN teach to the first pet. Ugh…very inelegant, time-consuming and tiresome.

The current Talent Point system is a 100%+ improvement.

Finally, the various pet classes had their basic abilities buffed a bit over the last three years. Tenacity pets’ Growl has more threat….Ferocity pets’ damage is better….Cunning pets’ abilities are more and better.

Neopets are one of the things Blizzard has done right over the last 3-1/2 years

Chapter Four

Discovering Spout in that cave had been a boon to his efforts. A five hundred pound snarling Ice Claw Bear a foot from your head tended to hold your attention. Garl could shoot freely at his target now, had barely used his axe of late. It was getting easy. He sighed into his ale. It had been a while since he had felt a real rush of adrenaline-fueled fear, not since his first foray into Frostmane.

The inn was crowded. Buy from the traders, talk to the cook or physician, learn from the stories (for the price of an ale, of course), there were always folks traipsing in and out, and no small few that were settled at benches and tables, either. The dwarf moving from table to table, then, wasn’t notable until one realized he neither left, nor ever sat. Garl eyed him over his ale, suspiciously. Such one as that, who had no specific business or pleasure at the inn, was either a beggar or looking for someone to do something unpleasant, and as the innkeeper had yet to chase the small one out, he suspected it was the latter. He turned back towards the fire. His own work was dirty enough, and getting boring, but at least it was for himself.

“trolls”

The cup stopped halfway to his lips, then dropped back down as he listened intently to the dwarf talking to the two others seated at the table behind him.

“Tha Frostmane trolls grow a plant, shimmerweed, high up inna hills t’ th’ east. They use it inna their strange, tribal rituals. We dwarves hain’t found much use fer it, but it ‘as a unique taste…an’ ah want t’experiment wit’ it inna me brews!”

“Not interested? No? Ye sure? Thanks anyway, then.”

Garl turned around in his chair, catching rather than meeting the dwarf’s eyes.

“Tell me about tha trolls.”

* * * * *

They allowed him to pull the beasts with a shot, and then Harul attacked them from behind while Ceamus did his wavy thing with his hands. Again and again, they brought down the huge bears, Harul taking blows that should have knocked him silly, but Ceamus’ art kept him standing. Priestly blows to soul and spirit and a rogue’s dispatch to bone and sinew left little for Garl to do but fire the first, and sometimes the last, shot.

A trip that would have taken him and Harul weeks, if not taken their lives, took a mere days. Somehow, the pack was lighter on the way home.

* * * * *

The trail led up, into the hills, bordered at haphazard intervals by tilted and twisted torches. Oilcan picked his way carefully, his and Spout’s ears and eyes alert. The path was narrow, not ideal terrain for a hunter. He stopped abruptly, just before a bend, sensing a single troll beyond. A couple of scouts later, he was breathing easier. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too hard getting the shimmerweed, as long as the trolls were staying in small groups, just one or two.

Around the last bend, though, he spied the troll camp. Three, four, five were in the camp, with more perched on the low hills surrounding it. He skirted the camp, keeping Spout quiet. The bear shared his distaste for trolls. It was obvious Spout wanted to charge, ripping and shredding, into the camp. He picked off the sentinels, one by one, working his way westward around, improving the chances of his planned attack on the camp with each kill. Halfway around, though, the sentinels he had seen approaching the camp had gone. No, they were there, just not standing anymore, or even breathing. He heard low words, and a tingling in the air, both not lately familiar, coming from over the next rise. He approached the crest slowly.

He peered over the precipice of snow in time to see a young priestess, with a short, quick wave, finish off a troll, soul-dead before he hit the ground. He waited, to watch her next attack. The attack on soul and spirit was quick and efficient; a wave of her hand and the few blows that had landed were as if they never were. He smiled to himself as he pet Spout. As good as Ceamus. Almost.

The troll hill scouts were gone, all of them; he came over the hill and stopped, eyeing the priestess, then the camp below. She saw him, scanned the other hilltops, and seeing nothing, smiled at him, then returned her gaze to the camp, also. Neither spoke a word. He knew what a priest could do; she obviously appreciated a hunter’s skills. He cast his mark on the first troll in the camp, knowing both she and Spout would know what was forthcoming.

They knelt by their packs, sorting out shimmerweed and other loot from the dead trolls loosely circling the camp. Talking, now, about the few close moments and the brutal efficiency of their teamwork. They swapped potions and linen as they walked down from the now-empty hill. He noticed a small patch on her robe, and asked Erana about it.

“My guild tag. Final Ascensions. We’re looking for a good young hunter, Garl”

“Call me Oilcan. My friends and enemies both do!”

They talked all the way back to Kharanos. The ale at the inn seemed cooler than last time, and the fire much warmer.

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

Frostmane Hold

 

The welcoming warmth of the inn at Kharanos was beginning to wear off as he headed off to Brewnall Village. The heat and light reflecting off the stone walls and the chattering hum of traders and trainers had lulled him to an early bed last night; up with the dawn, Garl had eaten a light breakfast of bread and milk before starting out, but even at that dim hour the inn was busy, the fireplace stoking the soft talk of both those who had never gone to bed and those who had just left it.

 

He had been tasked to go to the west, past Brewnall Village, where some trolls had been causing trouble. He was a little worried about the trolls. He had hunted many beasts, and even the Wendigos in The Grizzled Den. Trolls, however, were an ancient race, as old as The Earthen and Tauren, with old magic. The Earthen and Tauren had developed their own magic, and created their own cities, but the trolls had split among many tribes.

 

The one at Frostmane had been an increasing nuisance. Granted, they were an enemy, but Garl had never fired his gun at a sentient being before, one who could think and react with something other than instinct. What he knew about them in battle was limited to a single letter.

 

 

He opened the drawer slowly, not to be quiet, but rather not to disturb anything. Garl’s father was off to a neighbor’s, repairing yet another of his inventions. Gnomish engineering was tricky enough for a gnome; as a dwarf, his father, Tomass, spent as much time visiting his creations as creating them, and would not be back for a while.

 

He found what he was seeking, a letter from his older brother, Tumas, one of two his father kept in the drawer. Last night, as the elders drank around the fireplace, they talked of battle and glory, for the Third War was drawing to a close, they all felt. Their sons and daughters would be home soon, they said. After all had left, Garl watched as his father returned to his dresser and read this letter. Four of the sons of Tomass would not be returning, and as Garl peered through the crack in the door, he watched as his mother comforted his father. What was in that letter? Stories of battles and honor? Strategy and tactics?

 

Garl peeked out the window; his mother, Mari, was in the garden, teaching young’uns. He opened the scroll and began to read:

 

 

Dear Father and Mother,

 

I hope the delay in my letter has not brought you worry. After my constant letters during my training, I did not wish to add to your troubles with a letter before we headed to the front, instead waiting to write you when we returned, which we have, victorious. The sight of our unit heading to battle was something to see, banners and flags flying, formations of well-drilled soldiers; we, of course, got to the battlefield only to be held in reserve, watching others fight as we fidgeted and paced, hoping we’d get the chance to do our part. The battle was lengthening, the casualties mounting, and finally we were called upon. A company of trolls had turned our flank, taking a hill there, and was raining fire upon our troops. We were ordered to retake that hill.

 

As we advanced, the troll shamans and mages flung spells at us, downing many. Our commander realized we could not withstand the ranged assault, and gave the order to engage at close quarters. We hurled ourselves at their lines. The next few minutes could have been hours; I remember little other than swinging my ax and parrying with it, advancing with my company up the hill towards the mages and shamans; we killed many trolls, but I recall none of them, but one. Upon cresting the hill, we attacked the mages and shamans; without their defenders, they were easy targets for our weapons. I spotted a young troll mage, off to the side and went after him. Focused as he was on his attack, he never saw me until I separated his arm from his shoulder. As he lay on the ground in front of me, I swung a killing blow, as I surely had done before that on this day. He raised his other arm, whether to attack or defend, I do not know, and as my ax came down, his arm met it. His face was in great pain as I looked down upon him, his arms on either side of him, and our eyes met.

 

I saw his mother and father, his brethren, his friends, his life in that instant. Our trainers had told us the Horde were monsters, beasts to be slaughtered, and I had believed it, not knowing better. My training said this was a Horde troll, to lift my ax and finish him. But as I stared in horror at him, my arms would not lift. I do not know how many seconds passed before he died, but his wounds were grievous, it could not have been many. As his eyes grew lifeless, I rose up and realized we had won the battle, the enemy was fleeing. But I had lost something, I’m still not sure what.

 

We have returned to camp. I will write again soon.

 

Love, your son,

 

Tumas

 

Garl replaced the letter in the drawer, next to the other one. The last one that came. From Tumas’ commander.

 

 

Garl looked across the clearing past Brewnall Village, and saw troll pickets spaced around their encampment. As he scouted around the area, he realized they were placed too far apart; he could pick them off one by one, independent of each other. He drew as far back as his weapon would range, and fired upon the first one. His shots wounded the troll badly. But not so badly he didn’t charge. Garl arced his ax at the troll, finishing him off. One down, he headed to the next. He found he preferred it when they charged; the casters would stand off, but his own fire was too strong for them. Yes, he definitely wanted the trolls to charge, to take them down right in front of him. They were tall, like elves, and strong, like orcs, but with his shots weakening them, they were not a match for his quickness with the ax His breathing was heavy, his eyes narrow; he wanted them all dead. They were not the Horde that killed his brothers, but they might have well have been. This was different than hunting, this was revenge.

 

He cleared the pickets, and looked towards their camp. Several were there; perhaps he could draw one out. He fired, and one came charging out. Good, he was ready. As he steadied himself for the attack, he realized a caster, too, had seen him, and was preparing a spell. He backed away, drawing the caster away from the camp, then met the charging troll head-on. He downed him quickly, but the caster’s spells had taken their toll on him. He charged the caster, now close by, and swung.

 

His back was cold, his front warm with blood, his vision gray as peered up, into the face of the caster. Ugly, horrid things they were, he thought, as he saw a final spell being cast, as he passed out.

 

He awoke to dancing firelight and intense warmth, and the faint sounds of song and clinking silverware. He opened his eyes to meet those of a night elf with a bow across his back.

 

“Rest easy, boy, you are back at the inn in Kharanos. Good thing I came along when I did.”

 

He closed his eyes, to dream of killing trolls who had no eyes to look into.