Roxanne Flowers

Wow ... his forum avatar looks just like his in-game avatar ...

Not trying to slam you Raz or anything (^_~), but any video that includes the "Welcome To N00bland" intro for the first minute and a half is really only going to be of interest to someone who has never played the race before. For those of us who have played Night Elves, there's a sense of "get on with it already!" that gets prompted by watching that into (again). And the hilarious thing is, I'm one of the more patient people ... but even I have my limits (^_~).

First time I heard that was a story about a Defender in City of Heroes. They reportedly said, "I can heal many things, but I can't heal stupid." It's as true today as it was then. IRL I tell my cow-orkers that if we could just bottle and sell STUPID we would be SO FREAKING RICH. Unfortunately, there is a way to do that in Elysium Project ... we call them Gold Buyers. You can lead a man to water, but you cannot make him THINK. Go Darwin Go.

Been there. Done that. Don't need the Not So Instant Replay.

You're Doing It Wrong. We shall now recite the Holy Trinity Mantra, since some of our students apparently haven't learned it and taken it to heart yet. If the Tank dies, it's the Healer's fault. If the Healer dies, it's the Tank's fault. If the DPS dies, IT'S THEIR OWN DAMN FAULT!!

It's a sad interaction of how the game mechanics work. Because Vanish doesn't aggro wipe AND force a Drop Target in hostiles RELIABLY it won't "countermand" a NPC (such as a Pet) who has been "ordered" to attack you. So you'll disappear into Stealth, but the NPC still has cheater/perfect targeting on you and it doesn't drop just because you used Steatlh. It's one of those "glass half empty/half full" kinds of deals when what you really need is the glass to be either empty OR full, but not "both" at the same time ... and yes, that is "Blizz-like" due to lazy programming done in the first place by Blizzard. It was an issue in retail vanilla and it's an issue here, so if you want to blame anyone for the (mis)behavior, blame Blizzard, not Elysium staff.

Yes. Did you read what you were given? All signs point to "NO" or you wouldn't still be asking the same question after being handed the answer. Since clicking links is so hard for you ... http://web.archive.org/web/20070310224432/http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/families/family_bat.shtml Since clicking on links is STILL too hard for you to do ... I just (rightly) assumed that when handed Clues on a satin pillow you dropped them on the floor and kept asking the same question even after being handed the answer. Really ... we're trying to shake the "Huntard" stereotype here, not perpetuate it ad infinitum ...

The phrase "Hoist on your own petard" comes to mind for some reason ...

https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/39835-announcements-from-gm-team/?do=findComment&comment=353089 https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/40104-about-pottus-message/ Are you even trying to Search Fu?

http://web.archive.org/web/20070222054251/http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/articles/stats_attributes.shtml http://web.archive.org/web/20070222103856/http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/articles/stats_casters.shtml Point. Click. Read.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070314070032/http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/mobs/mob_bloodseekerbat.shtml As a Beast (untamed) it is Immune to crowd control abilities. That it retains such "features" after taming is considered an Exploit in PvP and against the terms of service (for what should be obvious reasons). Your Search Fu is weak.

2 Primary Professions, all of the Secondary Professions (Cooking, First Aid, Fishing). Blacksmithing and Engineering are both Primary Professions. You can have 2 Primary Professions. You can pick either Armorsmithing or Weaponsmithing as your Specialization for Blacksmithing. If you choose Weaponsmithing you have a further choice in whether to pick Axesmithing, Hammersmithing or Swordsmithing. You can pick either Gnomish Engineering or Goblin Engingeering as your Specialization for Engineering. Point. Click. Read.

I'm glad you agree.

"I have a sandwich so why should anyone else in the world be hungry?"

I see that someone's Sense Of Humor was made by Gnomish Engineers and has backfired (again?). https://forum.elysium-project.org/search/?&q=Screech As you can see, prior to the mention in this thread, there were only 10 posts made that (previously) mentioned Screech anywhere in these forums, and I provided 5 of them. Have other people mentioned Screech on occasion? Sure. They even did it before I could bring it up, so I definitely wasn't the first. In fact, you might have noticed that I didn't even claim to be the first to have ever thought of using Screech as a supporting skill for tanking. However, I do think I might have some claim on being the first person on these forums to actually RECOMMEND using Screech and provided a build strategy that could leverage it. Sure, there might be posts elsewhere on other forums (going all the way back to 2004) which go into detail about Screech and how it ought to be leveraged to best advantage, but no one has cross-posted that historical info HERE or gone to the trouble of suggesting "this is why you want Screech" as part of a complete build strategy. To your credit, Meldorain mentioned the possibility in a post (the only post they ever made) that is now over 2 months old which I would not presume a lot of people have read, let alone taken to heart (or remembered). So the way I see it, you've got two options. You can either keep sitting on your High Horse with your nose pointing skyward ... or you can consider the slim possibility that you overreacted to a bit of self-deprecating humor about not wanting everyone to jump on the bandwagon of using Screech Pets just because some n00b wrote a post that suggested it might be useful (maybe). After all, what did I say that offended you so much? Your turn.

I'm planning on using this 11/40/0 spec to carry me all the way to 60. http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#sxxzZVhtIezEo Your mileage may vary, of course.

Hey, just because I started saying that Screech Is Good for tanking assist doesn't mean that everyone needs to pile on the bandwagon... Furious Howl buffs a 15 yard PBAoE around the Wolf. Screech debuffs a melee range PBAoE around the Owl/Carrion/Bat. It's not a bug. King Bangalash is Unique. If you untrain Bangalash after you get him, you lose the Cobra Reflexes talent he comes with when tamed. It only speeds him up from a 2.00 to a 1.40 attack speed, which is hardly game breaking.

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?quest=1919

My Priest is currently Level 19.8. I'm slightly over 40 Levels away from needing to worry about 40 man raid performance and the shame of never landing a killing blow. I don't PvP ... as explained in the Disclaimers in my original post. So the PvP considerations are not something I'm factoring in, although others might be inclined if they are playing a Night Elf Priest on a PvP realm. As always, Your Mileage May Vary. Very kind of you to say so. To be scrupulously fair, it's really just something inspired by the "typical" 21/30/0 build for people who don't want to go Shadowform and aren't interested in going to 31 in Discipline, so I can't say it's a COMPLETELY original build strategy. If anything, I'm just doing a "variation on a theme" here by skewing the ... routes ... to 21 in Discipline and 25 in Holy (and 5 in Shadow, but who's counting?) so as to maximize support for the racial Starshards spell in order to get the highest possible Damage Per Mana yield from the spell ... and for THAT I'll gladly take credit in being The First™ to do that on these forums. ^_~ /cheer If I was susceptible to losing hope, I never would have considered the notion that Starshards could be anything other than useless (since so many people and Guides are convinced of that "fact"). No, if anything, I'm so inspired by what I discovered that I had to share it with the community, since what I was learning in my theorycrafting was "too good" to keep all to myself. Being able to inspire others with the discoveries that I've made ... that's just a bonus. ^_~

I'll have to take your word for it on that point, but I sincerely doubt that the build would be terribly effective in PvP against anyone who "knew" how it works and what to expect from it. On a first encounter it might result in some ... rude surprises ... simply because it inverts so many assumptions (you don't want to kite, you want to flypaper, and so on), but then after that it really would boil down to being just another melee fighter with more ranged attack options than most. Still, if the build inspires you to try something out yourself, I will consider my efforts that went into posting this well rewarded.

Looks like I forgot to mention a few cooldowns that are somewhat relevant. Raptor Strike (6 second cooldown) Mongoose Bite (5 second cooldown) Counterattack (5 second cooldown) Deterrence (5 minute cooldown) I've updated the original post to reflect this info.

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?item=7717 I figure that's probably a network to servers latency issue, where the game client desyncs "just enough" to fail to show what has actually happened on the server in a timely fashion. I see the same sort of performance out of Starshards and Arcane Missiles relatively frequently, where the "timing" of when their damage appears to tick on my screen seems to have a relatively wide latitude with a decidedly inconsistent tempo. If (decade old) memory serves ... the design for Feign Death was that it has a 95% success rate against an even level Foe and that the talent should then push that up to the spell cap of a 99% success rate. http://db.vanillagaming.org/?spell=5384 http://wow.gamepedia.com/Feign_Death Looks like I was close but off by one Level. Point being that Improved Feign Death dramatically improves your chances of successfully dropping aggro/combat against anything up to +2 Levels above you, which is an important safety margin while leveling up to 60. Once you reach Level 60, the "range band" of PvE mobs you have to face becomes a LOT more predictable (and the whole gameplay environment changes with 40 man raiding, so there you go). I can certainly see why a 96% success rate would FEEL like it's 100% though, even if it actually isn't. Yes, it's all of those things, but I think of it in a slightly different way. I think of the size of my Health pool (remaining) in terms of "margin" before emergency measures are needed. So yeah, 10% more room for error is the approach I take to it, because, let's face it ... stuff happens (thanks RNGesus!). The other way to think of it is ... yeah ... you need to refill more Health in the bar than you otherwise would if you wind up tanking for longer, but if you get all the way down into that +10% Health offered by the talent, well ... the alternative if you didn't have it would be a corpse run, which rarely takes less time than simply sitting down (while still alive) and eating. And as far as armor value for tanking being more important, I certainly agree with you on the principle of that, hence my advocacy towards picking up a Pet with Screech, which can drive down the melee attack power of mobs that can hurt you, which in turn net benefits you in a way similar to adding extra armor. "It's all connected, man..." It probably is rather widely underappreciated, mainly because it lies at the "end" of a talent tree that remarkably few Players feel is worth investing themselves into fully enough to get there. And you're right, Wyvern Sting makes for a poor fit once you're in melee combat (since it's a ranged attack), but it makes for a useful opening salvo and there are some other "utility" options and trickery you can get up to with it which aren't immediately obvious at first glance. The thing is, in order to use Wyvern Sting most effectively, you need to KNOW not only your own class and capabilities, but also those of everyone else around you (including your Pet). This means that you need to have (as a Player) a superior sense of situational awareness, which isn't exactly something the (sadly) stereotypical "Huntard" has in abundance. A lot of players will default to something that can be easily termed "Lazy Mode" where you don't need to think several moves ahead (and even if you do, the path is well worn and written up in a guide somewhere). As a result, the benefits of Wyvern Sting will often go unreported/underappreciated/unrealized, since the best way to use it is to be CLEVER with it, and that isn't something that everyone wants to take the time (and effort) to LEARN how to do. But this feels like preaching to the choir at this point, so I'll stop on this thought. I think of Wyvern Sting as being another "arrow in the quiver" to give myself OPTIONS in terms of how I want to engage with a particular pack of hostile mobs. It helps break up the cookie-cutter-ism of HOW to engage and defeat a group of Foes by increasing the matrix of possible engagement methods, tactics and positions. It offers another means to Control The Flow Of Battle so as to Choose Your Ground WISELY rather than just rushing in foolishly and suffering the consequences. It can also be used in a 1-2 combo with a variety of Traps to engage groups of Foes on your own terms, rather than on theirs, and contributes to the "break 'em up into kindling" approach to solo tanking when outnumbered. So, long story short, I'm of the opinion that spending 1 talent point on Wyvern Sting is worth the investment. ^_~ Well ... I wouldn't be too sure that innovation is NEVER unwanted. There never seems to be a shortage of people who want to keep doing things the way they always have been simply because they've been doing it that way for a long time (so, tradition) and/or because it's "easier" (and therefore less work) or what have you. The simple fact of the matter is that a melee Hunter spec is woefully under-explored simply because a lot of people will take one look at it and think "I can't use this for raiding" and just dismiss everything (out of hand) on that basis, as if the 1-60 game doesn't "matter" one bit (probably because they try to zoom past it at maximum speed and thus attach minimal value to the content and experience gained during that time). But then again, I'm the sort of Player who will look at a niche spell like Starshards and try to build an entire spec around an efficient DPM spec for Priests using a spell that only Night Elves can use. Not "because it's there" per se, but because "nobody's explored this possibility yet" and there might be something hidden in the unique configuration of factors involved that hasn't been discovered yet. In that respect, I try to look at the game ... holistically ... and search for the seams and unrealized patterns of how disparate things can be brought together to generate as yet unrealized potential and possibilities. Or you could just say that I'm a "tryhard" and leave it at that ... Really. One at a time, without letting any one character get too far out in front of the others, meaning I don't have a "main" per se, but rather a "stable" of characters. As for dedication, it's more like Selfish-Sufficiency since it means that I can cover EVERY Profession, including all three Leatherworking specializations, both Gnomish and Goblin Engineering, as well as Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing on down the line (although I'll have to pick one of the 3 Weaponsmithing specializations eventually). I've also got 2 Skinners, 1 Herbalist, 1 Alchemist, 1 Enchanter, 1 Miner and 3 Tailors, so I've got EVERYTHING covered as far as gathering and production is concerned. Everyone can craft their own gear for Bind on Pickup items. So that's 16 primary Professions spread across 8 characters. If I "need" something, I can just "assign" one of my characters to go procure it and "ship it" through the mail. I don't have to rely on the Auction House to acquire my materials (except for the absurdly low drop rate stuff). By keeping all 8 of my characters in essentially the same "band" of quests and locations, I can ensure I'm not "missing" out on any content, I can "learn" almost everything there is to know about various locations (and where the resources are to be found), and best of all I can LEARN each of the classes and "cross-polinate" that knowledge into understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each of the other classes I play AND know in detail what to expect from anyone I party up with (since I will have done it myself too). By rotating through all of my characters, who get logged out at Inns and in capital cities, I never run short of Rest XP, and by leveling them up in parallel I can ensure that I'm utilizing the most efficient balance of Supply & Demand for materials and production for and from my collective "conglomerate" of Professions without "outpacing" what I need or what I can produce. So the whole effort "load balances" rather nicely, although it doesn't advance too terribly quickly. And the basic notion of running all 3 campaigns in parallel? Faction rep. Already by Level 19-20, my characters are halfway through Honored with Darnassus and Stormwind while being one quarter of the way through Honored with Gnomeregan and Ironforge, meaning I can go anywhere and buy any service or vendor item for 10% off. Heck, just doing the starter areas (Teldrassil, Dun Morogh, Elwynn Forest) for each faction from start to finish will put you within striking distance of being Honored with the respective Faction, and they're not that difficult to do. A side effect of this effort is that it means I'm just about always fighting greens and greys and always needing to juggle which Quests to do that are either already grey or about to turn grey, and as a result I'm doing a fair bit of "circulating" between the different areas and the game just doesn't get boring. But Faction gain is something that's difficult to earn if you skipped over it early on ... so this time, I'm not skipping it ... and it's been kind of fun. One side effect benefit of being a "world traveler" like this is that it makes it a LOT easier for my Hunter to fulfill an ambition of learning ALL of the tamed Pet Skills in the entire world, from rank 1 on up, rather than just those that show up in the one campaign setting that I happen to play through. A decade ago, I just wanted to level up and because of that I missed a lot of stuff (didn't even HAVE a Gnome or a Dwarf and thus missed the entire Gnomeregan/Ironforge storyline entirely) and so this time I don't want to make the same mistake or suffer the same regret for skipping over that content. As I said in my Disclaimers, I'm playing to have FUN rather than racing as fast as possible from 1-60. The OTHER side effect of doing this is that I rarely, if ever, have cash flow problems. Once you get into the teen Levels and start earning silver for completing Quests, a lot of your cash flow issues dry up and blow away. I've got multiple character under 20 right now sitting 1g or more even as I advance their Professions, including Cooking and First Aid as quickly as I can with the resources that they all gather up, and my Rogue is my "moneybags" (of course) since she can Pickpocket and just rob everything blind with remarkably little effort and so typically has 3-4x the amount of cash on hand as anyone else I'm playing (and is therefore my "cash bank" for any large expenses, like respecs, that might come up). Which means, quite simply, I'm not exactly "starving" for resources like I would be if I was playing a single character and "rushing" them, and them alone, up to 60. Then again, I get the feeling that I'm a bit more patient than your average World of Warcraft player for whom instant gratification can't come fast enough. But then, I've always been something of an "odd duck" that way.

Well at least someone was amused ... ^_~

For combat abilities (Bite, Claw, etc.) that require a target, I like to go hunting Level 1 and 5 Critters (Rabbits, Deer, Cows, Snakes, Squirrels, you get the idea) and let my newly tamed Pet curbstomp those under controlled circumstances until my Hunter learns the Pet Skill, after which time the Pet gets abandoned.