The Dark Ranger Rises

I started WoW wanting to be a WC3 dark ranger. With Lone Wolf, it's probably the closest I'll ever get.

I do miss my animal companion and try to raid as BM whenever it isn't a hindrance to the raid (here's to you, Tectus!), but Survival is supposedly better DPS, so I figured the switch between "hunter" and "ranger" deserved a new outfit.

Having had to attempt to raid as MM in the first couple of weeks in Highmaul due to the unbelievable discrepancy in DPS between MM and SV/BM (and believe me, I tried all 3 in an attempt to avoid MM - standing still for 3sec may not seem like a big deal to most people, but it is when you've played WoW for 10 years like you're standing on hot sand at the beach), I was extremely glad for the recent round of SV/BM buffs.

I mean, sure, in theory I don't particularly care whether I'm the worst or the best player, but when your mistakes wipe the raid the guilt does tend to kick in. Luckily, my performance this past week has improved a lot from the previous weeks, so I think once everybody's iLvl starts to even out, I'll be OK.

On a related note, my new guild has finally settled on a raiding pace after some rather high expectations that we would be raiding Mythic as soon as it released. Even though it hasn't been quite as fast as our raid leader had wished for, we've cleared Normal, Heroic and the first boss of Mythic already, which to me is still a pretty cracking pace.

As expected, 4 nights a week is a little trying for me - I still haven't finished questing, levelling my secondary professions, exploring all the zones, collecting all the minipets or working out how to use followers in my garrison - but I have to admit that it's a remarkably efficient way of raiding!

Crossbow of Rainbow Brite v2

I'd never thought that Blizzard could ever manage to top the eyesore of a crossbow I'd christened the Crossbow of Rainbow Brite, but this one has to come close:

Durumu's Baleful Gaze is actually a pretty appropriate name (unlike Relentless Strikes vs Rainbow Brite), although I have entertained the idea of nicknaming it Durumu's Awful Craze.

All I can say is: hooray that I already have Shattered Tortoiseshell Longbow, and even more of a hooray for Transmog :P

Valour Failure

Since my guild started our holiday raiding break (which is now looking to last until MoP, although that's another story...), I haven't been getting my usual quota of Valour Points.

Last week I'd realised that one week of points could get me over the line to the Arena bow I'd been wanting for transmog purposes, so I thought, "Great! I'll just do a quick Raid Finder Dragon Soul and be done with it".

Yeah, not so much.

Whilst RF used to be a quick and easy source for VP, I'm pretty sure that anyone and everyone - including me, really - who is actually capable of running the place has long finished farming it and is nowhere in sight.

Not to mention, the healers left at the slightest hint of a non-optimal group (stretching the queue time and leaving us with only the desperate hangers-on), making it incredibly difficult to finish the run once you wiped.

A few attempts later and I decided it was sadly much easier to run 5man heroics for VP, much to the delight of more than a few undergeared PuGs who /boggled at my ilvl 398 DPS.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, really, considering that everyone is feeling pre-expansion lethargy, but still. LFR is supposed to be easymode raiding, dammit! What happened? :(

Outfit Complete

Finally! After more than a few runs through Sunwell (much thanks to my guildies!), the Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas dropped for me and I have my complete elven ranger outfit:

Unfortunately my dark ranger outfit (which I use for PvP) needs 3 more items with extremely low drop rates, so I'm still using placeholder items (which really aren't too bad, considering).

I'll still have to run Sunwell for Thori'dal, of course, but at least I have my PvE set done! :)

Transmogrification Gallery

I love the new Transmogrification Screenshot Gallery Blizzard finally put up. As I expected, I didn't like the tier sets as much as the character outfits that people have put together - some of them are quite creative, like a dwarven miner, Stormwind guard, handyman or farmer etc.

Some of my favourites:

Male BE as Thor (the Marvel character)
Human female as Jaina (why can't we get anywhere close to Sylvanas' outfit in-game but you can pretty much replicate Jaina?)
Human female as a "Dark Man" (with flaming weapons)
NE female hunter that managed a random yellow outfit to match the Skyfire Hawk-Bow

It's a crossbow!

Finally, my crossbow actually sounds like a crossbow instead of a gun! I'm so glad Blizzard fixed the sound for this, although I suppose I'll probably be upgrading it in the near future. Oh well :P

One other little thing I've noticed that isn't specifically in the patch notes: Blizzard cleaned up the tracking list and hunter-specific tracking has its own pullout tab. It looks a tiny bit neater, which I suppose is a good thing.

Other than that, I haven't seen too much of the new Patch (Blizzard of course decided to do a rolling restart in the middle of my first new 5man dungeon run, so I haven't completed that yet), so I will probably post more stuff as it comes.

In the meantime, here's my brand new Elven Ranger look:

Not quite a Warcraft 3 pre-banshee Sylvanas, but close enough! :)

Hour of Twilight: Breaking Dawn

...Yeah, I think Blizzard missed the boat on Patch 4.3 naming. Think of how many worgen Team Jacob could have had on their side! :P

Anyway, Patch 4.3 is being applied tonight, which means I'll finally be able to free up more than 20 bag slots' worth of gear for Transmogrification. (Woo!)

I haven't quite finished my Dark Ranger outfit, but my Elven Ranger outfit is pretty well done - the only consolation prize is rather unfortunately the most important piece; Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix as a placeholder for the Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas, which I haven't managed to get yet.

Either way, I'm looking forward to my new look and also looking forward to seeing everyone else's new look - I'll definitely be spending a little more time checking everyone's gear in town now!

Ranger Phyllixia

Not bad, huh? This is now my official elven ranger outfit for Patch 4.3's Transmogrification system - I have every single piece in my bags except the bow.

I'd really like to thank Veralynn of Arygos, whoever you are - the previews of full green mail sets was a lifesaver!

My dark ranger outfit isn't quite as matching:

...and I also don't have all the pieces (the shoulders are going to be a killer), but I'm still quite happy with it just the same.

I'll also be scoping out possible transmog gear for staves and polearms, because it's the default item you see - unfortunately I've already asked for Terokk's Quill to be restored for my dark ranger set and Blizz said no... so I'll have to think of something else :(

Camouflage

No, not the spell - my outfit!

I've been trying to find something to wear when transmogrification kicks in, and I figure it's my chance to look like how I've always wanted - a dark ranger, or failing that, a regular elven ranger.

The above is the closest I can get to an elven ranger - a much better attempt than my closest try at a dark ranger, below:

I just can't seem to find a decent matching darkish set... especially the shoulders.

And this isn't even counting the fact that I may not be able to actually obtain these pieces of mail - it's just what I come up with when playing around with WoW Model Viewer.

So if anyone out there has any ideas on pieces of gear to transmogrify - I'd love to hear from you!

Flame on!

Apart from Beth'tilac - I haven't seen what being on the web is like, so can't completely rule that out - the Firelands raid hasn't impressed me visually all that much.

This week, however, the orange finally got interesting: Alysrazor is a fun and fiery fight, not only in execution but also in looks:

Not to mention, Alysrazor drops one of the cooler-looking weapons I've seen for awhile; I really wish Blizzard had kept dual-wielding 1Hs viable for hunters, not just because of the loot potential but for looks as well.

...Can you tell I've been investigating transmogrification a bit lately? :P