Hunter of Trouble - Trouble in Zangarmarsh
As we move into week two of WoW Vault's closed beta "blog" coverage of Burning Crusade, I just wanted to remind everyone to check out the other six columnists and all the hard work they have been putting into making this site great! Also a big special thanks to Sprawl and Sprawl's Scrawl for without all of his hardwork, members of Z Guild would not even be in beta. And without further ado, here is issue 2 of Hunter of Trouble. Be sure to check back daily for additional expansion coverage from a fellow columnist, and check back weekly for another issue of this column.
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So much has happened since last week I hardly know where I should begin. I have been beaten down numerous times, electrocuted by eels, got turned into a crow, then into an owl-like creature. And we haven't even begun to talk about the many hours I was lost in the mountains then to top it all off, I was bitten by a bunch of floating jellyfishes.
After picking up the flight path in Telredor, I left Zangarmarsh to return to Hellfire Peninsula to do complete all the quests in the zone. Before I knew it, I hit level 61. I stabled my old pet and tamed a new level 61 Ravager. I won't go into details about the quests in Hellfire, as Buster in Buster's Bright Idea and Rajak in Confessions of a Arcane Grind covered all of the noteable ones. I will skip ahead now to my mid-week exploits, not to be taken literally, in Zangarmarsh.
First order of business, as promised, was to check out Fishing in the Burning Crusade! The Master Fishing book, The Art of Angling, is available from Juno Dufrain for 5 gold. He is located right in Cenarion Expedition, on the western waterfront of Umbrafen Lake. Juno has all of the lures and baubles for sale, ranging from the simple worms all the way up to the Aquadynamic Fish Attractor; two on limited supply, that give +100 to fishing for a short 5 minutes. Putting on my lucky pink fishing dress, I eagerly tossed my line into the water, ever mindful of the eels and hydras that wander close to the lake's edge. Frustrated with the large number of "the fish got away" messages, I returned to Juno to purchase both of the best baubles available. My luck improved greatly as I was rewarded with Barbed Gill Trout, then with Spotted Feltails. Several casts and catches later, I managed to catch myself a Zangarian Sporefish! I also pulled in a mote of water, and an inscribed scroll case, which when opened rewarded me with three scrolls of intellect. Skilling up seemed to progress rather slowly, even for fishing. On average, I was getting one skill point per nine fish caught. I continued to fish until I achieved a 310 skill level, then decided to call it quits for the day.
While fishing, you tend to pay a lot of attention to random chatter on General chat. I have to share in here a funny comment I saw on General chat. Someone asked what happens if you fall off the edge of the continent, to which a random player named Tiasha replied, "Your eyes pop out of your head like in Total recall". I got a good chuckle out of that. General chat is so "spammed up" with people asking directions. After spending a decent amount of time in a single area, it is easy to see how people get annoyed and tired of seeing the same questions over and over. It was nice to see a bit of humor injected into the endless "where, why, how" questions.
With plenty of food for my pet, it is time to do some questing! I ran around Cenarion Expedition to collect all the quests there, then rode over to Telredor to get the ones over there as well. Lots of collection quests are available ranging from bat eyes to mushrooms. Pack management in the Burning Crusade is going to be a royal pain. My advice to all of you is too empty out your packs down to the bare necessities for this zone as you will be toting around a ton of stuff, doubly so if you are a cook and an herbalist. From here on out it is rumored to only get worse. You will still want to continue to collect items redeemable for reputation well beyond the time it takes to complete the quests available in a particular zone due to some amazing and unique rewards.
In between questing and resuppling, I spotted Spazerjr, Spazer from Hyjal, with a serpent pet. These creatures, while currently in the game, were not tameable pre-expansion, so I stopped to get some information from him. Spazerjr's particular serpent is one of two types in Zul'Gurub. Species of tameable serpents are also available in the Sunken Temple and Wailing Caverns. He seemed really happy with his serpent and remarked at the great 'aggro' power of the serpent's unique poison-spit ability. In addition, they can learn the standard bite and growl abilities. The serpent's diet consists of meat and fish, which makes them very easy to maintain.
We all know how Blizzard's standard quests run, so I am not going to go into great detail about the quests here in Zangarmarsh either. I will however add in the little hints and tips that I learned along the way. You will get a quest called "A Warm Welcome" that asks you to collect 30 Dire Naga claws. You will also get another quest asking you to explore an area called Umbrafen Lake. Do these two quests at the same time. Ride south from Cenarion Expedition and around the eastern side of the lake until you see nagas off to your right. There will be a steam pump down there. This is what you are here to explore. You will get a quest completion message once you get close to the structure. Look at your map when you can and take notice the icon for this type of structure. Later on you will be asked to do a quest where you have disable all four of these near the four lakes Umbrafen, Marshlight, Serpent and the Lagoon in the zone. Be aware that when you disable the controls that an ornery Pump master Naga will spawn and try to kick your butt. But I promised myself to never speak of that experience again.
As you are killing and looting, you will undoubtedly run into Unidentified Plant Specimens; Save these! There is a repeatable reputation quest in Cenarion Expedition that requires a very many of these. Remember how I said there were a lot of reputation items in Zangarmarsh? Well when you kill Fen Striders (picture the enemies in War of the Worlds) and various sizes of spore bat, you will be looking to collect Fertile and Strange Spores. While Fertile Spores are used as a repeatable reputation item, Strange Spores are actually used for cooking, which I will go into more detail later. You guys are clearly still recovering from Fishing. Keep an eye out for glowing mushrooms as you are riding about. The glowing mushrooms are used in lieu of money in Sporegar, a neutral "town" in western Zangarmarsh, as well as in Cenarion Expedition. You can purchase recipes, trinkets and other items with these mushrooms. You will also get a quest to collect 10 of them but this quest is unfortunately not repeatable. I made the mistake of selling a lot of stuff early on that I later learned would be needed. The saying that goes "when in doubt, throw it out" obviously does not apply in this zone.
Zangarmarsh, as the name implies, is a marshland with a lot of bridges. More times then I'm willing to recount, this has lead to some interesting fights due to unusual pet tracking. Depending on where you were standing on a bridge, if you send your pet to attack you will not be able to tell what direction it may head. Sometimes my pet jumped right off the bridge in the middle like it should. Other times, it ran to one end or the other then down to the enemy. After observing this behavior a few times, I made sure to not be on a bridge when I went into combat. Oh and before I forget when you are being chased by horde guards because you rode too close to their town of Zabra'jin do not try to ride under the bridges even if it looks like you will fit, you wont! And you will die! And people will laugh at you!
As you are riding around doing the quest pay attention to the various types of monsters as you will at one point or another be killing everything around either to collect something or to exterminate a small number of them in a "kill 10" quest. You probably won't remember this in two months but you will get a quest to collect diaphanous wings somewhat early on, then you will also get a quest to collect venom from Fen Bleeders a little bit later. These two quests can be combined since the same enemy will drop both items. To get to a good spawn point for these critters, head to the far west of the zone. Start west of the town of Sporegar, located south of Marshlight lake and due west of Zabra'jin (that very safe Horde town). Kill a path as you move north, when you start running into ogres in Ango'rosh mount up and ride back to where you started and start over again. It took me 2 passes to complete both quests for some easy experience points.
As I was out looking for a boss monster named Blacksting is when I saw the most amazing pet! I just about killed myself trying to catch up to the guy to find out as much as I could. Fayrow had tamed himself a new creature called a Warp Stalker. I was totally in love without even knowing what the thing could do. Heck it could have came with cower only and I would have disabled that and kept it forever. It is THAT cute! According to Fayrow he tamed it in Terrokar forest at level 63. Its special ability is called warp (see the video below for a demonstration). His diet consists of fish and fruit, which was about all I got out of the guy before he rode off was MY pet. All I could think about the rest of the afternoon was that pet. Sprawl logged in later to me all excited about this pet and gung ho to level, which is unusual for me. We completed many back-to-back quests until my eyes were bleeding. I barely stopped to pick herbs, I was a woman obsessed!
Eventually the quests will lead you to the town of Sporegar (Are you noticing a mushroom theme going on here yet?). This is a reputation based town. Simplely put, as you do quests for the Spore-people, your positive faction will allow you to purchase recipes and other items in town from a vendor using those mushrooms we were speaking about earlier. One of the new recipes you will get here once you reach friendly status is for SCOOBY SNACKS! Ok, so that is not the real name of them. The correct name for the food is Sporeling Snack, which provides a buff for your pet!
I made up a batch of them and tried to get my Ravager to eat some and got the message "Your pet does not like that food". Well crud, now I was disappointed. Later on that same day I saw some people discussing the snacks on General chat. I commented that I had made some but that I had sold them to the vendor because my Ravager would not eat them. Adralyn (Brenna, Shadow council) was kind enough to message me to let me know the trick to get her Ravager to eats them. She advised me to put my pet on stay, then walk about 10 paces away. Once in place, use the "feed pet" icon and then repeatedly click on the snack, over and over. She also mentioned, "You may have to move back a bit, but eventually they will eat it." I tried her directions and it took me a bit of mouse work but I was able to feed it to him. Thank you Adralyn! Hopefully this will be fixed before release.
The next area we went to was Orebor Harborage. There is no Flight path here. You will need to head northwest into Blade's Edge follow the road up, around and through a cave until you reach the town of Sylvanaar. This flight path will be very handy to have as you are completing the quests around Orebor. The Horde have a flight path just a short jog to the east of Sylvanaar. The quests in Orebor Harborage start you on earning reputation with a new faction. This Draenei-based group is called the Kurenai. Neutral reputation was all I needed in order to interact with the NPC's to acquire quests. This was finally the last of the quests in this area. From here we were sent to Terrokar Forest and the city of Shattarath.
I had a lot of fun with Herbalism in this area. There are three areas that you will be sent to in order to complete quests. The first of these is the Dead Mire, located Due north of Cenarion Expedition. There are several types of bog creatures up here that you will have to kill to do an assortment of collection quests and "kill 10" quests. These guys drop herbs as loot; they also are 'skinnable' if you have Herbalism. When you 'skin' them, you also get various herbs, unidentified plant specimens and, sometimes, motes. You do not skill up Herbalism when skinning them, but it is an easy way to get the herbs indigenous to the area rather quickly. The other two areas are located southwest and southeast of Sporegar. There is a NPC named Watcher Leesa'oh in a small camp to the left of the road as you are heading south that will give you the quest for the southwestern area of the map. I can now sympathize with skinners when they ask that you please loot your monsters so that they can skin them. I spent quite a lot of time just running around skinning other people's kills and gathering up the herbs and plant specimens, which I turned in for faction in Cenarion Expedition (10 per turn-in). With each turn-in you receive a bag that contains more herbs, most of which are useless, edible ferns, and Sprawl several times had a quest in his that you just turn right around and turn-in to the same lady for even more reputation.
I reached level 63 upon the completion of the quests in this area. We set out to Allerian Stronghold, anchored our Hearthstones there and then immediately set out to find me a Warp stalker. It was a comedy of errors for me when I went to tame one. I went to abandon my Ravager and it would not abandon. For some reason I was getting a Titan Panel error preventing me from getting rid of it. I had to log out of the game to turn off my addons. Right when I got back in game, I spotted a Warp Stalker pretty close in my sights. I had Sprawl there to take care of "adds" that might decide to wander my way. I was ready! The first thing I discovered was when they 'warp' they disappear for a few seconds then reappeared some 20 or so yards away. This had me confused for a few minutes. I waited until a level 63 one wandered over close to me and was watching it and not looking at my hot bars; hit my button to place my ice trap and my cooking panel opened up. I had forgotten to switch back to my main bar after doing some cooking in Allerian. Getting all situated again I put down my trap and began taming thankfully all went ok and I had myself a new pet! And he was hungry! Looking through my packs I tried to feed it meat. "Your pet does not like that food". Bread, I think, I have some Alterac Valley mana biscuits; "Your pet does not like that food". Mushrooms! "Your pet does not like that food". Now I am in a panic. What am I going to feed it before it runs off? Finally I remembered that I have some whipper root tubers. Success! But I only have 12 and un-loyal pets burn through food like it's nothing at all. Off we go back to Allerian to search all the vendors, to find zero fruit. Suddenly I remembered a leather crafter in Shattarath City screaming at a fruit vendor that she had better move her fruit cart. Off to Granny Smith I went to purchase piles of fruit. I bought up 10 stacks of Skethyl berries and sent 8 of them to a secondary character to later return to me so I will have them on hand waiting in my mail box. Only after all this did I remember Fayrow telling me that Warps would also eat fish. Oops! Perhaps I'm not the master fisherwoman I thought I was...
It had been a long week. I was ready to go fishing for pet food and work on getting my fish skills up a bit more. We went back to Cenarion Expedition; I put on my lucky pink dress and tossed in my line. I was peacefully fishing and admiring my new pet when an eel swam up a bit too close, snapped his jaws and tore my dress! My pet attacked and I proceeded to beat the heck out of it with my fishing pole. Sprawl was up on the bank laughing at me as I was splashing around in the water hitting the fish. I was grumpy and tired and his laughter was not helping. I put on my armor and challenged him to a duel. His response was to not even try to fight, he began dancing. I sent in my pet and knocked him on his butt! Never mess with a woman in a pink dress who is fishing with her Warp stalker!
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Professions and Recipes
Alchemy Recipes
Telredor Alchemist Healrun located on the North balcony
• 4g - Elixir Major Frost Power (320)
• 5g - Super Mana Potion (340)
• 5g - Elixir of Major Defense (345)
Allerian stronghold trade goods Leeli Longhaggle
• 3g - Elixir of Camouflage (305)
• 3g - Sneaking Potion (315), limited supply
Shattarath City, Skreah
• 8g - Transmute Primal Might (350)
Herbs found in Zangarmarsh
• Blindweed
• Felweed
• Dreamfoil
• Golden Samsan
• Dreaming glory
• Ragviel Cooking Recipes
Master Cookbook can be purchased from Naka for 1g 80s in Cenarion Expedition.
Allerian Stronghold Leeli Longhaggle
• 3g - Golden Fish Sticks (325)
• 3g - Spicy Crawdads (350)
Supply officer Mills located in the tower
• 3g - Blackened Trout (300)
• 3g - Warp Burger (325)
Orebor Harborage Doba (cooking supplies), Requires Neutral faction with Kurenai
• 2g - Feltail delight (300)
• 2g - Blackened Trout (300)
Sporegar Mycah
• 1 glowcap - Clam Bar (300)
• 2g - Sporeling Snack (330)
Fishing Recipes
Master Fishing book can be purchased from Juno Dufrain for 5g in Cenarion Expedition.
Zangarmarsh (Umbrafen Lake)
• Barbed Gill Trout used in cooking recipe Blackened Trout
• Spotted Feltail used in cooking recipe Feltail Delight
• Zangarian Sporefish (no known use yet reputed to be used in cooking I have not found a recipe yet)
Allerian Stronghold
• Barbed Gill trout
• Spotted Feltail
• Golden Darter (Used in cooking recipe golden fish sticks)
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Tips and Tricks for this zone
• Underwater breathing potions you will need at least 2 for 2 different quests.
• When you get the quest to collect a pile of dirt, think Un'goro soil.
• You can only fish in the 'main' lakes all those puddles of water are "too shallow"
• You will die if you fall off the elevator platform or jump off the top of Telredor.
• When killing the Naga slave masters they will call for help. The 'slaves' will be tethered together killing one results in the death of the other.
• Looting the Crates of Mushrooms in the Ogre cave will spawn a mob, so do not loot if you are low on health.
• Make sure you have bandages and mana pots for the 'underwater' quests since you cannot eat or drink while swimming.
• On some of the bridges there is a pylon around this pylon is a small gap, when you are out running an ogre there is a chance you will fall into that hole. All is not lost however just be patient and he will cast an AOE type spell and blast you out of it. That is if you don't die first, or maybe you will get lucky and your FD will not fail on you.
• With the exception of the 4 lakes, you do not have to stick to roads, this zone is one of easiest I have ever been in as far as getting from point A to point B. All the water is a bit deceiving you can ride through most of it without getting dismounted because it is shallow.
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Talent Point Review: Beast Mastery
At the request of many of you wanting more of the meat and less of the fluff, I have enlisted the help of Myth (Mythril) from Archimonde server to write the technical stuff for me. Today he will introduce you to the Beast Mastery tree in the first part of a three part series focusing on Hunter Talents.
Tier 1
Improved Aspect of the Hawk- If going into Beast Mastery (BM) tree at all, I consider this to be a necessary talent. Especially when you consider that a lot of the hunter's part of the damage is going to be related to speed of shots. Since the "hunter patch" it's always been part of the "maximum raid DPS (Damage per Second) build".
Endurance Training- Not something I consider necessary for leveling/grinding. Some would take it for the health bonuses in PvP (Player Versus player). In leveling I'd prefer to put the 5 points elsewhere. IE Focused Fire and Thick Hide.
Tier 2
Focused Fire- Damage increase of hunter nice... But I think it's a necessity for the 20% bump in crit chance on Kill Command for any Beast Build.
Improved Aspect of the Monkey- Waste of points in my opinion. Reasons: If leveling... your pet will have the agro not the hunter. If PvPing it hurts you against warriors so only helps against rogues... and a BM hunter has good outs to get away from a rogue anyway. ie Intimidation/Beast within/Cheetah. I can't think of any combinations with Marksmanship or Survival where I'd want it either.
Thick Hide- Since we've put two points in Focused Fire we have 3 points to put somewhere. Thick Hide is to me the better spot to go than any of the other options in T1 or T2.
Improved Revive Pet- It's a fun talent to play with and it's always great to trap someone and revive in 4 seconds the pet they just spent a ton of time killing... BUT ultimately it has limited usefulness in PvP. And in PvE (Player versus environment) your pet shouldn't be dieing that much anyway. The best use I can think of might be in raiding since pets take such a beating... Up to the hunter to ask themselves if they have the points to spare based on how they do their build.
Tier 3
Pathfinding- Limited Usefulness. Doubt I'd ever take it. Oh sure you can think of an occasional situation where it would be handy but overall use... Minimal.
Bestial Swiftness- If you're going up the BM tree then I think this is one of those must talents. For PvE, it means it's going to get to the mobs faster. For PvP, it's going to get to your target faster. And if you're chasing someone in PvP your pet won't catch them without this talent if Dash or Dive has been used.
Unleashed Fury- A must have for BMs. It's a pet damage talent. Max it.
Tier 4
Improved Mend Pet- One point and one point only. The dispel/cure checks on each pulse of the heal. 15% is more than enough chance to cure stuff. Especially since if I'm just curing and don't need to heal the pet, I only use Mend Pet rank 1... Rank 1 works just as well on the curing/dispelling etc. I consider this a point needed for leveling... But not all that needed in the end game. Has it's uses but once done leveling.. I'd respect to get that point back and some others. If you're leveling with a Paladin or a priest or shaman or druid, might not want to bother with this since some of the things that would affect your pet they can handle. It is all a personal choice at that point.
Ferocity- No Brainer. I'd be willing to bet that every BM heavy hunter has this maxed at 5/5. 10% crit chance for pet and of course it's a pre-requisite for Frenzy.
Tier 5
Spirit Bond- Anyone who has never had the talent will tell you it's not worth it. Most people who have had it for leveling will tell you it is. (i.e. ME). I gave it a whirl on the Beta server and it definitely speeds up the grind. I recommend maxing it at 2/2 for leveling. And maybe respecing once you hit end game. (Based on your personal needs)
Intimidation- This is the 21 point talent for BM tree. It's a must if you plan on going higher in the tree. 100 yard range... 3 second stuns. High threat for PvE. Great talent.
Bestial Discipline- Focus= damage and threat. If you're a BM hunter, this is another must. Combine this with Go for the Throat (marksman tree) if you want to max out a pet's damage if the pet has Claw. For any pet without claw, this talent is sufficient.
Tier 6
Animal Handler- Worthless talent in my opinion. Mounted speed bonus doesn't stack with other things. So that renders it junk. If it did stack I'd take it to run down opposing faction players. The +hit bonus to pets I don't see as worth it.
Frenzy- Another must have for BM hunters. With fast attacking pets some hunters would only put 2-3 points in this because that was enough to keep it procced almost all the time. However there's been various pet attack speed nerfs over the last few months and in BC all pets attack speed are now normalized at 2.0. So I'd 5/5 this talent for all BM hunters.
Tier 7
Ferocious Inspiration- For me this isn't a leveling talent. This is an end game instance and raiding talent. Consider taking points out of such things as Spirit Bond and Imp Mend pet for this once you hit the end game. If you level with a party all the time, perhaps take it right away. It is your call at that point.
Bestial Wrath- 31 point talent. Must have if you're this high in the BM tree. 2 min Cooldown... 50% buff to pet damage. and need it for the Beast Within.
Catlike Reflexes- I recommend this for filler points when leveling. I think it's better than such things as Endurance or Imp. Revive. This is another area that once you hit 70 you might pull out points. Endurance, for example if you're into PvP at 70, or maybe Ferocious Inspiration.
Tier 8
Serpent's Swiftness- Once again a must have for any BM hunter going for the 41 point talent. It's just too good. Lots of damage to be done with the increase in bow speeds. Note: My 3.4 speed = 2.46 with serpents swiftness and the 15% quiver bonus. That's a base speed.. With Rapid Fire, Quick Shots proc and Troll racial Berserk, I can get that down below 1.4.
Tier 9
The Beast Within- Well this is it, probably the best 41 point talent that we have. If you went more than 5 points into the Beast Mastery tree this was probably your goal. You're unable to be affected by crowd control for 18 seconds. Can you say aspect of Cheetah to gain range? Currently no daze when this talent is invoked. This has been nerfed from a 30% damage bonus down to 10%, but still a good talent to have.
Next week Myth will be covering the Survival tree I look forward to seeing another awesome write up from him.
