Daxen

Last night, instead of participating in the lagfest that was Sunwell Island, I decided to play around with my BE hunter on Ravencrest. Allow me to give you a bit of her history.

Since starting Daxe over on Anvilmar, I realized that, while I had played the Horde side before, I hadn't played the two new BC zones on the Horde side - namely, Eversong Woods and Ghostlands. I also figured out after the Purple Poxer's first meeting that we wouldn't be doing the content as a group either. Combine that with high server populations on both Baelgun and Anvilmar AND a low server population on Ravencrest, and you have the rest of the picture. Enter Daxen.

I had some specific goals when I rolled my newest hunter.

1. I wanted to experience the new Horde starting areas; all the quests, all the rewards, all the glory. /snicker.

2. I wanted a Raptor mount when I turned 40.

3. I wanted enough coin in my pocket so I didn't have to worry about it.

4. I wanted to play the hunter in the "correct" fashion, meaning I kept mobs at range or kited them to their death.

I posted earlier about Hunter Goodness on this toon; I'll expand on it here. Or not.

Starting in no particular order, I was pretty successful at learning to kite mobs. Did I jump shot? No. I strafed. Start at max range, turn sideways, fire on mob and start strafing away; if the area is congested, I learned to kite in a circle so I always had the target in my front 180. Once I got Concussive Shot, it was much easier, but the mobs still went down fairly easy without it.

I picked up skinning and mining to help with the coin issue as well as flipped a couple of items on the AH. After I completed most of the Eversong quests, I headed over to Durotar and ran through all the Orc/Troll starting area quests to grind rep for the mount and a little money.

After I finished up Durotar, I headed back to Eversong and completed the remaining quests there. I then pushed on to the Ghostlands and completed several quests, which brought me to where I stood last night.

Status at start
Level: 16
Coin: ~12 gold
Bags: all 10 slotters w/ one medium quiver
Skills: Had mining, fishing, and skinning at 50 or above and had bought the level 150 cap. First aid and cooking were around 30 or so.

Status at end
Level: 19
Coin: ~12 gold
Bags: one 10 slotter, two 14 slotters w/ one medium quiver
Skills: Had skinning above 100, First aid and cooking above 80, mining...uh - worked on, and fishing, the same.

Several observations that I can make.
1. Those two 14 slot bags were around 4 gold apiece, so, while it looks like I broke even for the night, I actually amassed around 8 gold in my endeavors. I also bought a new bow. 8~)

2. I like the way the new area (Ghostlands) send you to the other quest hubs. I suppose the Durotar quests do the same, but there seems to be more quests to find in the new area. In fact, one of my fellow Pox bloggers did a quick check for the Alliance side and found more quests for the Draenai areas, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were more.

3. I love my pig.

4. At level 18, I took on one of the level 21 elite quest mobs - not on purpose, but in a valiant effort to save a level 19 huntard. They weren't paying attention and started to get smacked around by it. So, I sent Pigglet to the rescue, slapped a mend pet, and started blasting. I got him down to half health before poor piggy died, then, it was kiting time. Luckily, I only had to kite him a bit (and used a health pot) before the other hunter finally started DPSing and sent in their kitty. We ended up killing it! Since we weren't grouped, I was the only one to get the head for the quest.

5. I have been holding onto a +2 agi/+2 sta 2H mace until I finally got around to training maces, only to find out after the trip to Thunderbluff that I can't learn maces....lol!

6. There is a rep grind in the Ghostlands!! I've only done the Draenai quests once, but I don't remember there being a non-major faction rep grind on the Ally side. The quartermaster has some decent stuff for sale at reasonable prices.

7. Quest rewards in the new areas are SO much better than in the old areas. You'd think that Blizz would even things out a bit....

What's up next? In no particular order:
1. Finish the Ghostlands. I still have a number of quests to do, including some collection quests...ew.

2. Solo/Duo RFC. At 19, I should be able to kill all of the mobs, but I'll have some trouble with managing the larger pulls. I have no freezing trap or feign death, so I would have to do some serious micromanaging of my pet, including landing Growls on each of the mobs. Assuming Pigglet can take the beating, this means I have to hold off on DPS until I'm sure she has a firm grip on aggro. Here's where I really wish I could mark targets without being in a group.

3. Buy another 14 slot bag. I can afford the 4 gold; I just need to do it. (I like easy goals!)

4. Track down and do all the Crossroads quests, even if they're low level. Troll Rep, FTW!

5. Spend some time fishing. The shores of Ratchet are a wonderful place to fish for skill level and profit, so now that I won't get eaten by the inhabitants, it's time to go fishin'!

Well, that's enough for now. I suppose Daxen is my new Secret, just don't tell her!