Thursday, October 4, 2012

There Was Light


I was looking for some entertainment while traveling on business. I don't watch much TV or YouTube, always had been an avid PC gamer and I wanted something that lasts longer than just typical PC game where you get bored when you get to the final screen. And, honestly, sometimes you get bored well before that. MMORPG genre looked promising and I tried couple of games before joining World of Warcraft community. Primary reasons were legacy (i.e. ability to deliver high quality product year over year), large community (read - help, add-ons, additional information available), and some feedback I found online. I am not sure if any of my real life friends play it (I highly doubt it) and I really do not care.

First character I created was a Warrior, which I liked, because I do like breaking things and doing damage, it's just a stress-relief outlet for me. But I wasn't happy with the Warrior, it felt repetitive and, in some sense, confined. I did some research and second time around I chose a Hunter class. This is much better personal fit for me. I don't do PvP (Player vs Player) and I play when I can and I don't play when I can't, which means I do a lot of soloing and while I would like to get into a raid I cannot commit to any specific times with the guild. I also feel perfectly fine doing things on my own and on the other hand waiting on others aggravates me.

So the Hunter class was a much more engaging choice for me from the very beginning. In WoW hunters tame and use pets in a battle, which allows them to diversify their attacks and avoid damage, sometimes completely. It is not rare where I am the only guy in a group surviving the wipe. Leveling and soloing is much more fun, at least for me, with this class. There are couple of things that I can point as advantages over pure melee class. First, hunters have ranged shots. Much easier when your prey runs to you instead of chasing them down. Second - pets. You track them, tame them, name them. They have various special abilities and raid buffs. Sometimes I release my pet and call another one to my side just because I feel like it. Most of the times though I run with my black panther Mypka.

One of the reasons for choosing Hunter class was its ability to do some tanking with pet, basically running as a one-man raid group with pet tanking, hunter damaging and some healing abilities this tandem provides. I will probably discuss my build choices and preferences in a later post. I am far from being one of the extreme soloing guys but I had done a lot of lower-level dungeons and raid instances solo. Unfortunately a lot of raid instances in WoW have boss mechanics that prevent me from completing them. Sometimes I can go around bosses (Naxxramas), sometimes it's a dead end (Black Temple).

I like playing a hunter and at this point this is the only character I play, although I am thinking of creating a panda Rogue to be able to complete [The Insane] achievement.

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