My commentary on our current Beta situation

This is what got me started down this path. See, I'm seeing a lot of changes being made due to PvP concerns. That's all well and good, but *I don't PvP.*

Yes, I'm missing out on a large chunk of the game. No, I don't think less of you for doing it. No, I don't even want to do a pre-made with you. Yes, talents need to be balanced for PvP, I get that. But, to me, well... stop getting your PvP in my PvE game. It's frustrating to me to see great abilities on paper, or in development, get slowly whittled down in order to balance that aspect of the game.

It's almost starting to seem that PvE is taking a back burner, like the attitude becomes "Make sure the PvP is balanced, the PvE will work itself out, they'll make it work with the tools we give them." Is that the actual thought process? Hell no, but to a guy who only cares about the PvE implications of changes, I feel a little ignored. And, from what I gather, Hunter PvP issues *still* haven't been addressed. So, where does that leave me? My PvE game isn't what we want, no point starting to PvP since we're kinda boned anyway... roll a DK?

To be fair, I say PvP, but I think the issue truly is Arena, which is a late addition to the game. So the original trees or even classes weren't designed for it. So, I get the upheaval, I cope with seemingly odd talent changes (but HATE the 41 pt Survival talent that won't be fixed until a patch after launch. Really?) and watch with interest to see if it fixes anything. Never does.

I almost wonder if, technology allowing, it would be possible to just have skills and talents function differently in Arenas and BGs. No, doesn't help world PvP, and the existance of this is what leads (I think) to the PvP creed into my PvE game. But, if so many issues can be tracked to function in Arena, not PvE, then... Occam's Razory, I know.

And what got me thinking down *that* path was leveling a druid, with the intention to go Resto. I pretty much had to grind my teeth and BG it up to get the Merciless Gladiators Healamajig. It was more or less implied I wouldn't even be healing Kara without it. And to me, who geared Rem strictly through PvE and has dealt with far too many people who have no respect for hunters (including my current guild until they saw my dps) after seeing PvP geared hunters suck it up in instances, the fact that gear that blows away most raiding gear is available to anyone willing to AFK enough AVs to get the honor (and NO, I didn't do that!) kinda makes me sick.

Now, I totally get that over the Arena seasone, the gear has to get better. There has to be incentives to do it. Totally OK with that. But, I mean... could it just... go away when you hit an instance? You could still use it for world PvP... but you want to get your raid epicz? Dammit, you'll get the gear to do it by learning your role in instances, not shooting people in EotS so you can proclaim in trade that you're a "fully epicced hunter LFG for any instance."

Of course, then there's the backlash of "Fine, but don't bring your raid gear into my BGs." My only response, I guess, would be "Can you level through PvP? No? Then shut it, and the mats for your enchants sure didn't come from PvPing either, so take those off." Actually, that argument came out better than I thought. Hmmm...

Am I ranting? Probably. This has been welling up for a while, from many sources. Having to wait for some tool to finish a BG so we can start a raid, listening to whining about respec costs to raid; hell, don't get me started on Ret pallies. Really, it's OK, Blizz, that every pally is drooling to go Ret? Really? That's balanced? Really?

So, this is blogging...

Well, after stopping myself from hijacking the comments page of by far my favorite Hunter blog, Less QQ More Pewpew, I decided it was probably time to start my own blog. I had intended on waiting until Lich King actually comes out to start, but the current situation the Hunter class, and WoW in general, seems to be in got me motivated to do something.

A little about me, I play on Baelgun, having started playing in January. I started with a warrior on the free trial, got it to 20, went out and bought the box set, rolled Remua, a Draenei Hunter, and basically never looked back. I leveled him to 70 hardly touching any other classes while I did so, and geared him up following pre-kara guides so that I would be effective the first time I got into Kara.

I'm currently in a casual raiding guild. Honestly, I'd prefer something more structured, with attendance incentives, etc. But I enjoy the people in my guild, for the most part, and they put up with me which is also a bonus. I'm not the easiest to get along with, having little patience for immaturity and stupidity, so I rub people the wrong way from time to time.

This is getting boring, and honestly more of this will come out in time. I have a number of alts, all mostly levelled for professions, to be honest. I prefer to be as self-sufficient as possible, rather than having to rely on my guild for everything. My favorite alt is my Resto Druid, Adeana. Learning another facet of raiding has helped improve how I raid greatly.

I'm gonna wrap this one up, then put some real hunter content in another posting. Why? I want 2 posts, and that crap was boring, and is there if people want to read it, and easy to ignore if they don't.