Sometimes it is immensely glamorous and exciting to work for the Royal Opera or the Royal Ballet, or on events like the B a f tas, or the G Q awards, which occasionally happen here. Much of the time it is reasonably humdrum to work on these things, with no surprises and a pleasant level of busy activity, challenges to face down and good company to be enjoyed. today, unfortunately, it is a mixture of glamorous and very dull, watching the cream of britain's teenage ballet dancers rehearse over and over and over again.
I very much wish I was at home, killing bad guys with my hunter, who has been on a rampage this week whenever i have been at home. the idea of seven heroics in a row this time last year would have made my blood run a bit cold, but thats what i did the other night, and I have my tier nine chestpiece as a result (plus a large bag of achievements, which of course only offer you their warm glow of box ticking satisfaction). The thing which has gripped me is that my output of damage with Fear is enormous. The kind of thing that I only put out as a ret paladin when all the cooldowns are blown in my most recently acquired gear, I am putting out all the time with my bow and arrow. I spend more of the instance watching my threat and protecting the healer than I do beating on the bad guy. To have to reign it in much of the time seems counterintuitive to me now, but the only tank I found in all the pugs I ran who could comfortably handle wild threat was a paladin called Raindog. Apart from having a great name, this guy was obviously a bleeding edge 25man maintank who could quite happily have soloed Nexus let alone drag us through it. Most of the others need Misdirection, which is a shame, as I seem to be utterly rubbish at targetting for it! However, I didnt cause a wipe anywhere along the way, and if you have to reign in ferocious power for the sake of the established setup then thats what you do.
I discovered after all these heroics, thanks to a reminder from the lovely people who blog at Hutsmans Lodge, that my Hit rating was way above necessary levels, and therefore my damage could be even more substantial in the same gear! This seems to be the essence of the crazy world of hunters, the harder you look, the more insane damage you can do. I like it! 20,000 crit? no problem. I am very slightly annoyed with myself about this Hit rating problem, as I know perfectly well what my hitcap is, and what the statistic means, and therefore during my switch to SV upon dinging 80, I put talent points into "focused aim" to give me a head start of 3% hit without gear. now, 6 months later, Ive been aiming for 8% hit on gear alone, but had completely forgotten to take the talents out of focussed aim and put them in somewhere high up the SV tree for some more AP goodness. I guess thats the joy of WoW character development (not just on Hunters), the harder you look at anything or the more maths you do, the better you can be, the more you enjoy it, the more you can distinguish yourself and so on. My next challenge in this sense is learning to trap efficiently again. Its something I was very keen on whilst levelling, but this week I seem to have forgotten most of what I was doing and entirely neglected trapping in the PvP I ran. This is, of course, a cardinal sin, and when I return to the mother ship I shall be heading straight for AB with frost trap and snake trap written on the backs of my hands...
One of the main spurs for turning to the Hunter again was discovered during the rather daunting task of learning Druid PvP in the lower brackets. At 19, Druid is king. No question. From 20 to 55, Druid is varying degrees of weak, and hunters are King. I move alright, but it doesn't matter to the Hunters. Basically, I fancied some of that action myself, and was very quickly reminded that that was why I had rolled Fearwings in the first place. I will be persevering with Grimaldi, who is primarily levelling as a pug healer, in order to teach myself the finer points of healing. Things are very much moving in circles, as I levelled Noah as a healer, and did very well at it in Outland, but much of that I have forgotten, so here I am, learning again! It is also fairly clear that as everyone and their auntie has got a paladin on their roster, I fancied having the other all singing, all dancing Hybrid on my roster. Druids, the other white meat:-)