Home
About me
Send me a message
Subscribe
SiteBlissfully Bonded with Your Spec
Yesterday Pike of Aspect of the Hare made a post that caught my attention. In “Feelin’ it: A Manifesto“, she describes one very interesting way to decide which spec to choose as a hunter. In her advice, Pike says:
Close your eyes for a moment, forget the world around you, forget your day job or your classes at school and feel that you are a hunter. What does that mean to you?
The goal, from what I can tell, is to pick the spec that suits to your perception of that class best. For example, if you envision a hunter as being intimately tied her to animal companion and benefitting from the synergy that the two share, it should make sense for you to pick Beast Mastery. If, on the other hand, you envision a hunter as wirey and agile, capable of using her knowledge of the terrain and her opponents to survive, Survival is the best of the three for you! Finally, a Marksmanship hunter would most likely be the one interested in the intricacies of being a hunter; she’s meticulous, skilled, and extremely precise.
Aside from how unusual this may sound to some people, I was actually drawn to the post because I used the same methodology in selecting my hunter’s spec years ago when I first rolled her on Feathermoon. As a roleplayer, I have very clearly defined personalities for each of my girls tumbling about in my head and their conduct in-game is heavily influenced by that perception. For example, my perky priestess Csilla is the middle child of seven. As neither the youngest nor the oldest, the brightest nor the dumbest, she didn’t get an overwhelming amount of attention in her youth; as a result, her driving goal in life is to be noticed — mainly by selfishly1 helping others as frequently as she can so that she can feel needed or important. In-game, this translated into being a healing priest, because — as she’s wont to say — them healer fellahs, they’s always needed!
My kal’dorei huntress is much of the same. Having spent her initial five centuries of life living in the forests of Ashenvale in almost total isolation, Eszti has an almost feral quality to her. While not lacking in basic social necessities, she’s always had this feeling that she doesn’t really belong well in the company of others. She’s aloof, feral, and tends to move with a coiled readiness — when she’s not moving in her traditional loping gait. Therefore, it just made sense for her to be a Beast Master, even if it was at a time when the tree was considered ill-suited for anything outside of the Battlegrounds.
Furthermore, Eszti has the habit of trying to relate normal, everyday things to her perception as, well, a creature of the wild. For example, she considers her friends and guildmates2 a natural extension of her pack. As the uncontested alpha female, she takes her repsonsbilities to her pack extremely seriously; it’s not unheard of for her to react with surprising ferocity when a member of her pack is in imminent harm. This has made her very adept at combat, especially back in those days when my friends and I used to roam around Azeroth perma-flagged.
Ask the level 60 mage who attacked Eszti, her lover, and his childhood friend while exploring the Eastern Plaguelands. The Forsaken tried to pick Mcdowl off while he was separated from the group3. When Eszti and Tanriel appeared to aid him, the cowardly mage mounted and fled. While Tanriel rushed to Mcdowl’s side to care for his injuries, Eszti took off after the mage — on foot, having switched to Aspect of the Cheetah4. She then proceeded to destroy him single-handedly, using Concussive Shot and Wing Clip to slow him enough to keep him in range while the screeching bird eviscerated him with his claws and she let loose with her arrows.
There’s a reason why her nickname is “Iron Legs” and it isn’t just because she has legs that would put Tina Turner to shame.
However, as I noted in “An Owl is an Owl,” Eszti’s relationship with her animal companion is not that of many hunters you may see in-game. She and Alatus aren’t the type to curl up together around a fire in the evenings or play games; the two are in constant in competition to see who will finally settle out on top and they frequently test the boundaries of their relationship. While Eszti may be aloof yet polite, Alatus is prone to nipping people, disobeying commands, and glaring dolefully at those around him. Despite this added dynamic, the kal’dorei and the bird work extremely well together and are boon companions.
Thanks again, miss Pike, for the insight. While I remain Beast Mastery now due to the amount of damage it does and how it suits my playstyle, it was nice to remember again those carefree and innocent days when I first was exploring the hunter class.
- And, yes, that’s selfishly, not selflessly ↩
- When she had them, bleh ↩
- He may have been picking a flower or something else very un-warlocky at the time ↩
- To make matters worse, I even had Pathfinding at the time ↩
Vix has a whole personality and in a way I wish more people were less embarrassed by the idea of role-playing, it would be more fun. (btw- vix wouldn’t need a sheltered corner of SW to run naked, she has no shame. besides- no one would look, she’s scrawny!)
