It's-a Mingo!

No no, it's not me. Besides, I actually have mottled black and white fur, not reddish-brown. I actually visited the LA County Fair this last weekend. Pity the Jersey cows never turned around to give me a look..
*sob* Just like when I was training back in Bloodhoof!

More Thoughts on BM Builds

Ok to throw a different build idea out, here is a 51/20 BM/MM build. It is nominally the same as the 53/18 I described yesterday, except I have removed 2 points from Cobra Strike and added them to Improved Hunter's Mark.

Decent BM and MM Builds

BM-Spec Ideas:
A 53/18 BM/MM build. It's your standard 41 point TBC build but with some of the key WotLK talents added, such as:

• Aspect Mastery -Hey, 30% AP bonus is nothing to sneeze at.
• Invigoration - At 2/2 you have a 100% chance to regen 1% of mana when your pet crits. Which considering the crit chance of pets at raiding levels, could be very useful in boss battles.
• Cobra Strikes - At 3/3, there is a 60% chance to make your pet's next two attacks crit, and when those two crit attacks hit, you'll get 2% of your mana regenerated due to having 2/2 Invigoration. Hey hey!
• Separation Anxiety - At 5/5 if you maintain at least 20 yards from your pet during combat, it gets a 20% damage buff. When you're within 20 yards, there's a 10% buff for running. This is a very important talent. It's Blizzard telling hunters to stop frickin' meleeing. It seems from my highly unscientific and mod-free testing that SA is a stackable buff. SA is great for PvP situations as it gives hunters an extra 10% kick in the pants to get range back.
• Careful Aim - MM talent in the second tree. At 3/3 it increases your RAP by 100% to your total intellect. Boom.

A 51/20 BM/MM build. Here are the main changes from the 53/18:

• Removed Invigoration.
• Removed 1 point from MM talent Rapid Killing.
• Improved Hunters Mark - At 3/3 you get a 30% bonus ontop of your normal Hunter's Mark, and reduces the cost of the mark by 100%. They've removed the melee buff that your fellow party members and raiders loved. Pity.

I am not a MM-Spec hunter. Never have been. However since we're going to be able to have two talent trees that we can switch back and forth between, here's my idea for an MM-Spec:

A 17/54/ MM/BM build. It's a bit all over the place, but I think it makes sense. There are very few new WotLK talents in this build interestingly:

• Rapid Recuperation - At 3/3 reduces mana cost of all shots and abilities by yourself and your pet by 60% while using Rapid Fire. Plus, you get 3% of your mana every 2 seconds for 6 seconds each time Rapid Killing is triggered. This talent will prove itself to be quite useful for leveling and instance trash pulls. Less downtime drinking or chugging mana potions.
• Marked For Death - At 5/5 increases damage on marked targets by 5% for yourself and your pet. Also gives a 10% critical damage bonus to Aimed Shot, Steady Shot, Kill Shot and Chimera Shot. Very nice.
• Chimera Shot - A very interesting shot. Triggering it will deal deal 125% weapon damage to the target while refreshing any stings on it and triggers an effect:
• Serpent Sting - Instantly deals 40% of the damage done by your Serpent Sting.
• Viper Sting - Instantly restores mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your Viper Sting.
• Scorpid Sting - Attempts to Disarm the target for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 1 minute.

Chimera Shot matched with Improved Stings will make hunters very happy.

Well, that's all for right now. Sorry I don't have any builds for you folk, I'm trying to figure out how Survival hunter talents work.

WotLK: The Beta

I have to admit, I feel bad about not playing the beta much at all. I was so excited to get the key and go bouncing through it. Then I realized something, I was alone.

I had no friends in the beta, and the few people from Cenarion Circle I knew were all Alliance side. It was boring. I enjoyed beta testing and bug reporting the starting Death Knight zone and quests, but once that was done, I was spit back out into the world at 58 to go level through the Outlands. The grinds for quests and leveling was horrible because there was no one to socialize with. That's what made getting to 60 and then 70 tolerable.

Maybe if I was getting a stipend, say for every X number of hours I get X amount of money off my next months subscription? I'd seriously have spent more time on the beta.

So there. The game is two months from launch, and I pretty much wasted my beta key. Oh well.

11:13:08 -- We Are Not Prepared.

Well, no actually we are. Collectors Edition was also released for pre-order, bought my copy via Gamestop's online site. My friends are getting theirs at places like Target, Walmart, Best Buy, and so on day of. Me? Last time I tried to do that for TBC I was lucky to snag one of the last copies in town. What a pain. I consider the extra fees to get it shipped to me a "peace of mind" tax.

What The Hell?!

I saw this scene this morning. I am at a loss for words on how such a thing occured. Someone must know. I feel like I'm in that Lewis Black bit 'If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.'

WotLK Pet Talent Trees 1/3: Tenacious

Wrath of the Lich King Pet Talent Tree: Tenacious (spelled out to help search bots).

Possible spoilers ahead. There is no NDA for the beta so I am ok to discuss this. This is still a beta so things may change.

Hunters still only have 2 stable slots. All skills and talents for each pet is learned "naturally" as you progress and level. No more scouring the land to find and train the newest Bite or Scorpid Poison. This is great in saving time, but personally it kind of takes away a little bit of fun from the class. I'm not too concerned.

There are now three pet classes:
Ferocious (DPS) - IE cats and high damage pets
Tenacious (Tank) - IE turtles and high armor/stamina pets
Cunning (Utility) - IE spiders and mixed ability pets

I have a Warp Stalker named Gaz that falls into Tenacious, and a cat named GIR that's Ferocious. I do not have a Cunning class pet but I will be getting one soon. Each pet class has a separate five level talent tree so you cannot train a Ferocious class pet in Tenacious talents and so on.

Tenacious Tree Breakdown:
A level 70 pet will have 13 points to use in the tree, with seven more as you hit 80. If you go all the way down to the BM 51 talent point "Beast Mastery" you will be granted an additional 5 pet skill points, bringing your total up to 25 . The first tree is roughly what every other pet can get ingame right now:

Natural Armor
Great Stamina
Dash (depends on pet)
Cobra Reflexes

Once you hit the second tree, things change. There are talent spells that increase damage output and an armor/dodge buff, but the jewel of the tree for me is Blood of the Rhino, giving a 1/2% stamina buff and a 20/40% increase in healing effects.
Third tree contains Avoidance, a +growl buff, and Lionhearted (2/2); a 15/30% reduction in all fear/stun effects. shocked me when I came across this talent:

Intervene (1/1) - 40 focus; 30s cooldown; instant - Your pet runs at high speed toward a group member, intercepting the next melee or ranged attack made against them.

Tank pets have intercept. INTERCEPT. The fourth tree only has two talents:

Grace of the Mantis (2/2) Increases your pet's dodge/hit chance by 2/4%.
Great Resistance (3/3) Pet takes 3/6/9% less damage from Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow magic.

Nice, all very nice. Now we come to the fifth and final tree. Reading these talents make me very giddy:

Last Stand (1/1) - 6m cooldown; Instant -Your pet temporarily gains 30% of its maximum health for 20 sec. After the effect expires, the health is lost.
Taunt (1/1) - 3m cooldown; Instant - Your pet taunts the target to attack it for 3 sec.
Roar of Fortitude (1/1) - 100 Focus; 5m cooldown; Instant - Your pet roars, increasing the total health and Dodge chance of all party members within 20 yards by 10%. Lasts 40 sec.

The Tenacious pet tree has thrilled me to no end and has also made me start looking around my button bars to find what things I can get rid of so I can make Intervene macros.

To learn more instead of reading my ramblings, you can always check out Petopia.