Alt Appreciation #HunterWeek Part 1: Introducing Oogleme!

We're now into the third week of Laeleiweyns Alt Appreciation. I have to admit I've been looking forward to this week ever since I saw the schedule!

As she is today, with Kitty.

During #HunterWeek I have a few aims:

• To try out BM on Oogy (again): sort out my BM spec action bars so I can actually use it and then try it out in combat.
• To level a Horde hunter. I have started this and am a member of the newly formed all hunter guild Hunting High and Low which is built up of Twitter-peeps. You can read some more about it here.

#WoWscreenshotaday Day 6

Day 6: This means a lot to me

This theme was quite tricky. I thought about the friends I've made, the amazing gifts I've received and the achievements I've earned. All things that mean a lot to me and help to make the game so special and my virtual home. However, picking one was proving hard. Then I realised there is one person that's been with me for a very long time and who doesn't always get the praise she deserves - Kitty.

To thank Kitty for her invaluable service I took her back to meet her family!

Kitty, aka Winna's Kitten, is my hunters main pet. I use her 99% of the time. She is with me throughout everything - be it questing, dungeons, LFR and even when I'm simply pottering around.

She's from Felwood which is a level 45-50 zone and I tamed her whilst I was leveling. That's a pretty long time ago and she's been a constant in my Azerothian life ever since then. As a tameable pet she really stood out and I knew that I wanter her to be mine! Her unusual skin often grabs peoples attention and I've only ever seen a few hunters with their own Kitty's. She really is a loyal friend!!

My 100th Blog!

Here it is, my 100th blog post!

My blog's been going for just under 5 months now and I think 100 blogs is pretty good going. I've fluctuated from blogging multiple times a day to once every couple depending on spare time and whats happening in-game and this has worked well for me.

I'm a little unsure about what I should include in this special post. Whilst it's not a blogiversary - which is somewhat like a birthday and a big event which I really hope I reach atleast one of - it is a similar (if smaller) milestone.

I guess I will talk a little about what blogging has done for me...

Screenshots

Over the past few day's I've taken a few screenshots that I thought I'd share with you.

On Thursday evening I managed to tame myself a Direhorn (full story here). It wasn't until I did some questing over the weekend that I accidently discovered their Reflective Armor Plating. I've recently (partially) switched back to BM-spec (which was my original spec before I changed to Survival) but now that I've got Portent I thought I'd re-do my action bars and give it a go.

Anyway, my BM-spec bars are a bit of a state. So, there I am killing some badies when I click on the Reflective Armor Plating. It looks brilliant! It's also quite a handy ability. I noticed on Wowhead that there was only a few screenshots of Direhorns and none of the plating so I submitted my own (my first screenshot submission!). It got approved *woop* and is now there for everyone to see.

Screenshot that I put on Wowhead.

Skip forward to Saturday night. I was doing my Order of the Cloud Serpent dailies when I remembered about the new Anglers NPC Salty El (of El's Extreme Anglin'). I headed up to Sri-La Village and found her. Whilst there I did some fishing in the pools and managed to get a fair few Jade Lungfish.

 

It also got quite a shock! I was happily fishing away when Krakkanon spawned right in front of me. The combination of sudden appearance and Silver Dragons "I see you" gave me quite a fright (if I'm being honest).



This is how close Krakkanon was!

Dino's REALLY like to Eat Me!

I'm sure most of you will be able to guess what this blog post's about! And just to confirm - yes, I've been to the Isle of Giants, the dino's are big and really liked eating me!

So, Patch 5.2 hit earlier this week and last night I finally got around to exploring it's contents. I was really keen to go check out the dinosaurs, get some new pets and have a good ol' mooch about. I had very little knowledge of the patch contents beyond what I'd read via other peoples blogs so it was a bit of a journey.

Random pic from the Isle of Thunder.

I took the quest that leads to the Isle of Thunder daily quest hub not realising there was no dino's there. I did a couple of dailies - the usual kill x number of so-and-so etc. I also managed to get a few new pets and boy do they look good! I got a Swamp Croaker, Thundertail Flapper and an Elder Python.

I then started making my way to the Isles of Giants. I spent the first half hour or so fighting, dying, ressing and repeating. It soon became clear that my gear wasn't good enough. Also, Gary (my tanking gorilla) was having issues and kept dying *cries*. I happened across a Troll hunter who seemed to be having similar issues and we teamed up for a bit talking via realID. My new friend switched over to one of their Alliance chars and we carried on for a good hour or so.



Me as a Direhorn courtesy of Intact Direhorn Hide.

We then happened across another hunter who was willing to take other hunters to a good spot for farming the Ancient Tome of Dinomancy. It dropped much quicker than I expected for me. We then worked on getting it for the Troll hunter but it took considerably longer to drop the second time.

Anyway, I was then able to tame a Direhorn and eventually opted for a green one. He's pretty cool looking but I still need to name him (well atleast I think it's a 'he'!). Oh, a Zandalari Footlasher also dropped for me.

New green Direhorn hunter pet and Zandalari Footlasher battle/companion pet.

 

I've Finally got a Hunter Pet from Pandaria!!!

You may have seen on Twitter last night that I've finally got myself a hunter pet from Pandaria! It's taken me several months, I know, but I've been very distracted by pet battles, reputation and mounts.

Dusty Track? I wonder what that is!?!

I was doing my Golden Lotus daily quests when I happened upon a Dusty Track. Now initially I thought something along the lines of "hmm, what's that for? I'm sure I've read about these paw prints". A few minutes later it hit me - it was the track of a trackable hunter pet! I must admit I got a little excited and stopped what I was doing to follow the track.

I followed the tracks from where I was, just north-west of Mistfall Village, right around to the western end of Portent's track (at the time I had no idea what/who I was tracking). I thought I had missed something and checked out WoW Rare Spawns post on Portent. I then got really excited - having seen that not only was I tracking Portent the Quilen but that he came in four colour skins.

Anyway, I saw that I was at the end of his path (I'd walked into a wall) so started following the tracks back around. Now I've recently been having issues with my laptop/graphics card and keep having random flickering trees that are there one second and then vanish before popping back up again. Based on this I thought that I was having issues seeing the tracks - how wrong I was!!!

The boyfriend came home so I eagerly told him I was tracking Portent and got him to read up on taming him for me. I directed the boyf to WoW Rare Spawns and it seems that I had missed some rather important information! The trackable pets are stealthed and you need to use flare gun to see them. It seems that I had been following him the whole time - explaining my issues in seeing the tracks. By this point I was at the eastern edge of his path, unstealthed and tamed him.

And here he is, my very own blue Portent!

 

I've replaced Cyril my core hound with him. I hardly ever used my core hound due to the necessity of BM-spec so felt that a simple replacement would work best. I plan to sort out my BM action bars so that I can actually play it sometime soon.

Also, I'd just thought I'd quickly recommend WoW Rare Spawns to anyone that doesn't read/use it already. Euphyley has some brilliant guides on there (just helps if you read them first).

Blog Azeroth: Collections

It's been a while since I've taken part in a shared topic but and only did this question catch my eye but I saw it before the week was over!
Noahdeer of Be MOP has posted a shared topic question on Blog Azeroth about collections:

World of Warcraft has added many different items for players to collect, whether it be collecting pets, mounts, transmog gear or knickknacks about the lore. This week’s topic asks what you do collect in the game and what is your prized item from that collection?

I collect things both in real life and in-game. It's part of being a hoarder. I also like to be thorough and so once I start something I like to finish it. I'm also stubborn which helps. In-game I collect a number of things both physical items and non-physical.

Battle Pets
This one is pretty obvious to anyone who reads my blogs (but if you're new to my blog then maybe not. Also Hey!). Even before the announcement of pet battles I collected companion pets buying them as and when I could. When pet battles was announced I worked really hard to get as many of the then available pets as I could. Since MoP I have continued collecting pets. I manage my collection on warcraftpets.com and you can view my collection here. I currently have 413 unique pets. Obviously, I still have a number of pets to collect and level. I also need to complete Raiding with Leashes.

A Long Overdue Stable Clearance

One of the things that first attracted me to playing a hunter was their ability to have and control pets. These pets (used to) have different pre-defined qualities (spec) that made them favourable for certain situations. For example, ferocity pets are for dealing damage. This has now been re-worked so that you can change your pets spec and therefore it's qualities.

Whilst hunters abilities and those of their pets have been worked on since I started playing (Feb 2012) one thing hasn't changed - the number of stable slots available. Hunter's can carry five pets with them and store up to twenty in the stable. Now, this is quite a few slots but if you're a bit of a hoarder like me it really isn't.

The three main pets I use.

I haven't tamed any new pets in Pandaria as a result of having no room for them. Despite his a number have caught my eye for example, Stompy (Petopia, Wowhead). Plus, more and more tameable pets are being uncovered in the Patch 5.2 PTR, from Direhorns and Devilsaurs to new spirit beasts.

So I've decided a stable clearance is in order. Whilst I'm not brave enough to just go and abandon them right now I will be black-listing some pets that will be the first to go as and when necessary. Below I'm going to share with you my collection of pets - their names (only those that I have regularly used are named), who they are (model, rare name etc.), any random info.