Trapzlol

I rolled my hunter halfway through TBC. I'd just started properly raiding and doing heroics on my rogue and I was actually fascinated by trapping. We had a hunter in guild at the time who was ridiculously good at it: Double trapping, Chain Traps, Kiting mobs to traps, Trapping a mob then kiting another. It was amazing to watch and so, after a Steamvaults run, I fired up the Create New Character page to make my hunter.

I levelled him very quickly. Much faster than a rogue or warrior and I actually had a lot of fun doing so. People say hunter levelling was/is boring but I really liked it. I changed my pets a lot and would go and explore Azeroth to find different, interesting looking beasts to tame.

I got to level 60 and entered Outland and this is where I got good at trapping. I dont want to toot my own horn but. Toot toot. I was pretty fuckin' good and it was great fun, much better than sapping or using the good ol' warrior CC - kill it faster than it kills you.

But now...trapping has become a joke. With a mage as a main (recently decided, no regrets) trapping feels like a polymorph but...without the sheep/pig/penguin/cat/monkey or my personal favourite, turtle. It's gone soft, the cooldown is shorter than the actual trap which means you dont have to kite it like you used to and with the new launchers, you just trap as soon as the tank tells you to.

Looking at the changes to CC, it seems blizzard wants us to use them which I'm all for but at the same time, they're just giving each class almost the same CC, it's like a little kid, seeing his older sibling with a new toy and going "I want that one." and Blizzard, is the soft-touch mother that buys it something similar the next day and it's getting pretty boring.

I mean, if you look at it, multiple classes have similar CC.

-Sap is still sap.
-Repentance is a much better version of sap, seeing as it can be re-applied.
-Polymorph is still polymorph
-Fear, when glyphed or talented or whatever the fuck it is, is a lot less unpredictable and is almost like a Warlock sheep - damage breaks it, etc.
-Hex is a shaman polymorph, on a longer CD and can take a few hits but if it doesn't get touched, it's just like sheep except, it's a frog.
-Trapping is a cold, ice-cube like version of polymorph.

Now, for some classes, the new CC's work. Hex is good, I like it actually as it fits a shaman but did they have to make it just another polymorph? It used to be an emergancy CC, with a short duration and long CD. I also dont mind Bind Elemental (and in all honesty, it should have been added since the start) for Shamans as it fits but the change to fear? I liked the idea of a warlock making things run in fear, not cower and shit it's pants waiting for you to kill Skull, Cross and whatever you want before it. The unpredictability of it made it risky to use but if you had to pull about 7 mobs, you'd use it because the risk could pay off.

But I suppose it's not just CC that's getting this done to it, a lot of spells are becoming the same across classes and it's more than likely just the evolution of a MMO.

Gone are the glory days of being good at trapping was the difference between Hunter and Huntard and for this, I /mourn.

Grinds my Gears

Do you know what really grinds my gears? Do you?!

Well, many things do but recently there's been one thing that's grinding my gears more than anything else in Warcraft...

Tanks. Not all of them, just the ones that leave a group during a pull, because it's not gone the way they liked.

This has happened so many times, as I'm usually part pugging groups during the day and there seems to be a shortage of guild tanks online then.

And the majority of the time, it's actually the tanks fault. Poor marking can lead to wipes now-a-days. Sure there's common sense but that's so common it's considered a god damned super-power.

Put your mark for roots on a caster? Well done, that's not CC'ing ANYTHING. It's actually about as much use as Anne Franks drumkit. It's still going to stand there, casting chain lightning on everyone and everything.

I've even had a sensible druid say this to the tank, who ignored the druid, pulled and then left as the healer had died from aggro'ing the mob that was rooted.

Now, at the start of every instance, I tell the tank that if he or she is going to be CC mobs, they should pull any un-CC'd mobs away, as I'm a fire mage and Living Bomb fucks shit up. I've had one tank who did this and he was from the same server as me and had a bit of sense about him. Every other tank hasn't done this, which means no Living Bomb for me and no fucking shit up. All makes Jakk a sad, sad panda.

Now, when a tank leaves mid-pull that usually means the other 4 people are scrambling for the "Leave party" button, to save themselves a repair bill because chances are, there's a fair few mobs pretty hungry for your blood now bearing down on you. This then means you either have to wait for your dungeon deserter debuff or queue again, which as a DPS takes FOR EVER. Just because you can get into a dungeon in the time it takes to say "haha, 5 second queue" doesn't mean you should drop a group at the first sign of trouble to save yourself a few gold. Take the hit, man up and stop being a little bitch...especially if the wipe was your fault.

And there, rant over.

Here's something more cheerful...

My vicious wolf-man-thing, when not ripping limbs from his enemies and snarling like a bad-ass...likes to pick flowers.

CSI: Worgen

So while everyone is frantically gearing their mains for raiding, I've been playing my alts. My Mage, Kinkz is now 85 and I've levelled my priest to 37 doing dungeons. Both are really fun and the mage is getting more playtime than Jakkru at the moment.

One character I've been levelling is my Worgen warrior, over on Terenas. I'm in a smallish guild with a fellow blogger and I have no high level characters on the server, which means no heirlooms etc.

I decided I wanted to see the new world and without heirlooms or the increased XP from the guild perks, the Worgen is a perfect chance for me to do that and so far, I've been loving it.

I've been quite confused, however, about how to get anywhere since The Shattering. I found myself in Westfall, after taking care of the "Hogger Situation" of course. Running in, I was expecting to be greated by Ol' Blancy and her owners...not this



They'd been murdered and Horatio Lane had been brought in to solve the crime. His equipped with black sunglasses and terrible one liners, which is possibly one of Blizzards most un-subtle pop-culture references to date...

But after getting to now these poor people and feeling even more sorry for Ol' Blancy, I decided I was going to get to the bottom of this. Horatio sent me to question the nearby homeless, vagabonds and drifters to see if I could get any information.


Now, I wasn't going to part with a bribe, seeing as I'm a bit cheap like that so I decided that the homeless citizens of Stormwind would be kind enough to tell me but no, for about 10 minutes all they did was call me a rich, posh bastard and attack me. Not a clever idea really, seeing as I'm a GIANT WOLF MAN with a fucking MINING PICK. I will not take kindly to being attacked and I didn't.

I did notice one thing while slaughtering the homeless. When Worgens get crit, they sound like my dog if you accidently stand on it's tail, they yelp and sounds quite pathetic. I'm a huge wolfmanthing and should roar with hatred if I get critcally hit, not tuck my tail between my legs and hide under the bloody dining room tail...

A few quests down the line and I was asked to go to and eavesdrop on some Thuggish looking characters behind a barn. Obviously a very secret meeting. I'd have to use all my cunning to hear what they're saying...

This is me eavesdropping. Notice the dance moves to disguse myself as a Wandering Westfall Body-Popper...