Toasting New Beginnings

I'm back! Sorta. :(

I logged on to WoW on Thanksgiving evening. Maybe it was all the tryptophan coarsing through my veins. Maybe it was my boredom with American football or the Macey's Day Parade. But low an behold I logged in.

I quickly found out my account had been deactivated due to a credit card number change (oops). I reactivated my account and jumped in. Sadly First Order of Hell finally terminated my membership. I don't blame them and wish them the best. I was heart broken to learn my alt's guild folded too. That left Myaen, Deathknugget, and Udderpwnage homeless. Something had to be done.

I jumped on Bloodarrow, rode to Orgrimmar, purchased a guild charter, and galloped about the country side asking for signatures. Once complete I registered the guild, and gkicked all my founders. I proceeded to invite all our alts. So I'm now the guild leader of "Dogs of War." Cool name.

On Friday, I decided to take advantage of the faction change service. I haven't touched Darkranger since rolling horde. I figured another level 80 horde hunter would be fun. She's now a Orc, and a him. :)

I have no plans or ambitions right now. I don't want WOW to be a time sink again. No raiding guilds for me thank you. I'm going to quietly level my existing alts, and maybe start a few new ones along the way. Maybe work up one of each profession. Multiboxing? That might be fun....

So here is a quick holiday toast to a new and much more relaxing beginning. Cheers!

The weather outside is frightful

So its been snowing off and on all week. Temperatures below freezing most the time. Not exactly the best weather for cycling or most other outdoor activities.

Stuck inside, I am staring at the World of Warcraft program icon on my desktop. I'm doing everything I can from clicking on it and emersing myself in all the glory that is WOW. I even cought myself thinking about WOW while taking a shower this morning.

Hmmm

That must be it. I'm a winter wow player. When the weather outside turns cold, snowy, and generally misserable. I find myself drawn into the World of Warcraft. There isn't anything wrong with that. Some people read. Some people tinker in wood shops. Others simply watch alot of TV.

Me... I run a little cartoon elf around an imaginary world of adventure and monsters.

This might just get me to start playing again...

Now why hasn't Blizzard thought to do this? Now where did I leave my Blizzard Security Token?.

Taking a WoW Break

Been Raiding hardcore up until Ulduar. Decided my life needed a change, so I went afk for 3 months. Its been great. Got my health back under control. Speding more time on my bikes. Went on a few long deserved vacations.

What does the future hold? At this point Bloodarrow is taking a break. She's camped out in a small house in the woods with her pets. Her armor is hung, and weapons racked. Only taken out accasionally to polish them for when adventure calls.

Once I start playing again, I'll write about those adventures, realizations, and stuff in this blog. Until then have fun.

-BA

Finally got around to playing...

Last week was crazy. A big project at work started on Wednesday (prevented me from making raid start times), I got pretty sick on Friday (which killed the whole weekend), and a small shortage of raid spots (can't sign up day off and expect to get invite, doh!).

I'm pretty layed back, so I took the easy way out... I didn't play at all. Sure I logged on a few times download patch, update addons, buy glyphs and bag, make a Black Arrow PowerAuraClassic, and fix macros. I practiced my new "shot priority" style. OMG, I'm in cooldown hell right now.

Monday I felt a little better toward evening so I spent time watching the TankSpot.com Ulduar videos. These guys are the best, and I really wanted to know the fights prior to Tuesday. I highly recommend their videos for learning new encounters.

Tuesday I raided Ulduar with the guild, my first time there, and it was alot of fun. More about that later...

Secrets of Ulduar!... Patch 3.1 is out today

I have mixed feelings about this new patch. I'm excited about Ulduar, Dual-spec (i want a spirit beast), call stabled pet, and ammo stacking changes. These are great changes and will make the game, new and fun. Unfortunately as we all know Blizzard is nerfing and changing SV hunter mechanics. These means basically relearning to dps, during the addition of a major content release. UHG!

I'm not going to go over all of the hunter changes in the final patch notes. For that MMO-Champion can't be beat. Go read them here.

The easy coasting through content perfecting your ES ticks and LnL procs is over. We've got alot of work to do over the next few days. We have the following tasks to do: Learn Ulduar; fix shot macros; find best dps raid spec; build powa aura for black arrow; practice shot rotation; stalk 2 spirit beasts; raid raid and raid more.

So stock up on RedBull. Kiss your significant other fairwell for next 3 weeks. Get ready to immerse yourself in Ulduar & Patch 3.1.

Lets here from you. Take the "Patch 3.1 Hunter Poll," which can be found on the right side of this page.

Hey, kids Rhok n Roll. Rhok On!

Over the weekend I completed the Level 60 Epic Hunter Quest, for Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. Some of my fondest memories were trying to score this bow on my Nightelf Hunter, DarkRanger. She never got it, and Bloodarrow started well after Burning Crusade released. Its been a long time coming, but none the sweeter!

For those wondering about the quests and how a level 80 faired. I filmed the whole quest chain intending to provide a video guide for the level 80 hunter lucky enought to finally start this questline. Well the demons didn't stay alive long enough to really do anything. 1 or 2 explosive shots and the little guy was dead as a rock (or should I say Rhok). So no video of the demon kills will leave the BAWB film vault. Just pew pew a few times and you will be fine.

For those interested what a hunter at level 60 went through check out this great guide at Epic Hunter Quest.