Posts with tag big-red-kitty

When they first come to the game, many players instinctively know what they want to play. For me, my first love was, and ever shall be, my female tauren druid, the lollopy-gaited, bemused-emote, hoarse-voiced heifer. I can't even explain why she appeals to me so much, because her casting animations are relatively boring, and the female tauren voice actress sounds like she's nursing a 40-pack-a-day habit. It matters not. She is loved.

When it comes to other characters, though, I can usually point to someone or something else that inspired me to roll that alt. Big Red Kitty made me want to play a dwarf hunter (now level 67) with a Frostsaber Pride Watcher. This video made a tauren shaman look awesome, so now I've got one at 71. And it was World of Roguecraft, oddly enough, that made a male undead warlock (as opposed to rogue) look like it could be fun; the scene with the warlock and rogue taking a stroll around the Lordaeron ruins with the warlock's imp toddling beside him, for whatever reason, sold it for me. When I look around my list of alts, for each I can name something or someone who just made that particular race/class combination look cool. Who or what inspired you to play the races and classes you're playing right now?

Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

Patch week? Oh, yeah. Speaking of patch week, we all knew that patch week was going to be rough. We knew there would be delays, and bugs, and restarts, and false starts. We knew that hardcore players would gripe, that newbies would be confused and that there would be plenty of contentious debate from all sides.

What we didn't know is that we could be caught unaware by even geek crafts. Take it from mibluvr13, who took one look at the baby Hordie shirt
featured in this week's World of WarCrafts column and began groping for the Escape key. "Ooooh, god," mibluvr13 moaned. "I never thought WoW.com would punch me in the biological clock. BRB, having a kid."

The week in reader comments, through the bleary eyes of our punch-drunk, patch-distracted readers, after the break.

A little while after BigRedKitty closed shop on his blog last week, there was another post from TJ on there asking for help with a "secret project" (that lots of you let us know about -- thanks!). And now, the secret has been revealed: a few of BRK's fans have put together a goodbye video for the knowledgeable Hunter with the big red cat, and you can watch the whole thing above.

Very touching, and very cool to see a community come together to thank someone who's done a lot for them. BRK also reported on his blog this week that he hasn't left Warcraft for good, but it does sound like the choice to focus on his real life and family rather than what happens in Azeroth was an excellent one. We've also heard, through the grapevine, that Blizzard may be honoring BRK in their own way in the future, much like they did with Phaelia of Resto4Life. We'll keep an eye out for nay Big Red items we may come across.

Big Red Kitty may have just created the most ideal training tool for up-and-coming Hunters within an age range of "walking" to "why do you still play with toys?" If you've yearned for the elusive Spirit Beast from Sholazar, you can now own one yourself with this unique Spirit Beast pull toy. I have to admit, I didn't expect to ever see this. Now that I do, it's totally cool, and I wish I'd thought of it myself.

You can order one of the "SBPTs" to either include the wheels, or leave the wheels off. Of course, without the wheels, it's not much of a pull toy, but I don't think anyone will judge your choices. Wheel-less, the silhouette would probably look good mounted.

If you get the wheeled-and-ready-for-rolling version, the Spirit Beast is about 4 inches tall and 9 inches long. It's only about 40 bucks from his store. These are only available to be ordered through this upcoming weekend (March 14th). You should probably hurry if you want one.

While I don't foresee myself rocking one of these in my workplace, I have a certain nephew who should expect one for Christmas. I don't know if Mr. Kitty is signing these pieces, but maybe that can happen if I ask real nicely. For my nephew, you see. He's a fan.

So, Wrath of the Lich King is here, and it is awesome. We here at WoW Insider want to make sure you have all the tools you need to oil your guns, string your bows, and feed your pets.

Let's take a moment and review all the basic sources of information you can use to help propel your level 70 Hunter into Northrend, on to level 80, and then on to greatness!

GENERAL TIPS

• Scattered Shots offered some basic tips for Hunters getting ready for Northrend, including some suggestions for levelling specs
• There's a few tweaks still needed for the sake of Hunters even at release time, but Scattered Shots shows you how to handle those bugs in the mean time.
• Make sure you understand the new defensive setting for pets
• BRK display Green Arrow's oldest trick in Freezing Arrow and a new Wolf.

TALENT TREES

• Take an in depth look at Beastmastery from Scattered Shots
• Don't forget to read BigRedKitty's 3.0.2 Talent tree guide

PETS

• What is the best looking pet? David Bowers has you covered with a list of the most beautiful critter-killers available.
• Our Beast Mastery and Exotic Pet special features covered some of the specific families you may want to use: Bats, Chimaera, Core Hounds, Devilsaur, Silithid, Spiders, and Worms.
• BigRedKitty takes it a step further with videos of Hunter animals in action: Gorilla(din), Mammoth (it counts, in BRK's mind), Crocolisk, Bat, and Raptor, the Rhino, the Sporebat, Wind Serpent, and Worm, the Crab, Cat, and Serpent, and everyone's favorite screen-shaker, the Core Hound.
• Yeah, Petopia was updated
• Experimenting with pets is now a little easier, since pets level faster than in Burning Crusade

PROOF OF AWESOME

• How about a Hunter pet tanking Gruul?

Tonight's the night. May your arrow (or bullet) fly true!

15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

On a list of player names that serious WoW hobbyists should know, Phaelia definitely makes the cut. WoW Insider's Dan O'Halloran summed up why in his post last fall outlining druid blogs you should be reading: "Phaelia started Resto4Life.com back in March to educate herself about playing a better healing Druid. Turns out, she's educating the rest of us as well. Her entries delve into the many facets of a Tree Druid's gameplay: Re-evaluating Spirit, mp5 vs. +Healing and Getting More Out of Innervate are just a few of the many treasures to be found on this blog. Updated frequently with a friendly and informative tone, Resto4Life is the Big Red Kitty for Restoration druids." 15 Minutes of Fame visited with Resto4Life's creator, Phaelia of US Scarlet Crusade-A, about the many attractions of the Druid class.

15 Minutes of Fame: How did you get into WoW, Phaelia? Do you come from a gaming background?
Phaelia: I started playing WoW during the first open beta. To be honest, I was less attracted to WoW than turned off by the idea of giving over another five years of my gaming life to another game from Sony Online Entertainment. I began my MMO career as a sophomore in college, and while quitting EverQuest 1 left a void in my gaming lifestyle, I knew I didn't want to play another game from the same company. Blizzard turned out to be the breath of fresh air and fun that I was looking for!

The Scattered Shots hunter bears his or her teeth and says "RAAAWR!" to the mirror every morning in an uncouth, beastly manner -- thus affirming the beast within, which yearns for a way out to express itself.

Which talents you should get as you level up is a tricky question with many different answers, many of which can turn out just fine or absolutely horrible, depending on how you play. Today I'll be taking you along on a journey through the first 40 levels of talent spending, and explaining why I think certain talent choices are better than others.

One of the most important things to remember about talents is that, in spite of all their mathematical precision, they are open to poetic interpretation. Some talents give clearly superior advantages, while in other cases it's mostly a matter of opinion as to which one fits your play-style best. Sometimes the talents that look best on paper aren't the ones that will really help you the most when the going gets rough. Likewise, some talents are designed more for endgame use at level 70, even though they appear early on in the talent tree, while others are better for leveling up, and you may wish to drop them later on once you finish leveling.

Most of my talent choices today are going to be in the Beast Mastery tree, for instance. Some people may say that they like Marksmanship or Survival best, and certainly that's their right. But from most of the people I've talked to, the general consensus is that Beast Mastery is best for both leveling and early endgame raiding, too. While talking about these talents, I'll list your level and the number of talent points you have at each stage, so that it's easier to keep track of your talent resources.

Since patch 2.4, hunters have been having some problems. Aside from the outrage over the fact that our traps are now announced, we seem to be having issues with mana.

On the forums, hunters are not seeing much love from the non-hunter crowd, but I suppose that is to be expected. It is important to note however, that our mana efficiency is an intended attribute of our class. We are useful, not solely, but arguably primarily, because we can provide sustainable, long-term DPS. No, we don't crit like mages. In a boss fight though, we can keep going after mages short out.

Why are hunters all of a sudden having issues with mana? There are a few theories floating around, but we have yet to be graced with a blue response. Take the jump to learn more about why this might be happening.