Introduction

This is not a blog to learn how to be a hunter. If you're looking for tutorials or answers or how-to's please check the links, especially BRK, who has taught me a lot.

Well, Claz, what am I doing here?

Well, if you like stories about noob hunters who are taking until the mid-60s to actually really learn their class, well welcome.

My first level 70 was a Nelf druid named Amantara on the Detheroc realm. But let me tell you, druids are awesome but they're a little frustrating to play, especially when you're a feral druid and people get angry at you for not being able to keep them healed when they aggro the whole instance. I didn't mind healing at all, and I even gathered a pretty respectable set of healing gear (and, despite all of the feral pride I felt and my 100% support for players to play their toon however they want, druids have to be willing to heal when called upon). But, seriously, ferals can't heal that well and you need to be with a patient group who understand that and are willing to take it easy and really watch their aggro.

Yeah. You can see where the frustration comes from, eh?

So I took a few months off, came back to Amantara and realized that I was at a dead end with her. I wasn't willing to respec because resto druids are a pain to farm with and I just don't like the attitude most people have about healers. There's a very strong tendency for people to look at healer toons as their personal walking healing pots and get very angry when you decide to heal the tank instead of the rogue. Gah. I'm getting frustrated again.

One day I decided that I wanted to join the horde. And I'm not one to do things half-way (well, I am, but in this case I wasn't) so I sharded and sold everything, dotated 1000 gold to my guild, repaid a couple people for favors that they did me, sent all the enchanting mats I had to other players as a goodbye gift and deleted Amantara.

It was the most liberating experience that I've had connected to a video game.

I've always liked hunters. My very first toon was a Dwarf hunter who is still floating around in one of the realms. I got frustrated with him, though, and at first I thought that it was because of the class (Amantara soon followed), but it was really because I was a nooblet and had no idea what I was doing or how to level or "what the hell is ranged attack power" and "why isn't my bear tearing through the mobs like that hunter's cat?".

In my new realm of Vashj (more on my frustrations with the realm later) I thought, "Why not?" and rolled an orc hunter. I was going to roll a troll, but (and this is proof that I'm not a hardcore player) it boiled down to looks. I just think that the orc hunter looks more bad-ass than the other races. And I love the background story of the horde and their struggle to find a place in the universe despite all the other races' and creatures' attempt to put them in their place. Excuse the language, but I love the horde's "fuck you" attitude.

So, Claz was born and I looked for a leveling guide. I decided early that I wanted to be a raider on a PvP server (more on my masochism later) and you just can't raid until level 70. I power-leveled Claz to 60 in about seven days played and slowed down after I hit Outlands to enjoy it. Yes, I love Outlands. I love the setting, the effort Blizzard put into the looks, the storylines, everything.

And that's the background story of Claz, the toon that I'm in love with. In a very hetero way.