World of Warcraft: A 2016 Beginner's Guide

So everyone who goes to see Warcraft: The Beginning is getting a free copy of WoW. I don't know how many people are out there will take advantage of this deal, but I think it is safe to say we may be seeing some brand new players on our servers. This could be great for the game. It could also just reinforce gamer stereotypes, as new players are pummeled with, "Ur gear blows kill yursef noob lol"

So first, a call to WoW veterans. This is an opportunity to give a little back to the community. When the film releases, keep an eye out for folks asking questions, struggling with quests, or being abused by other players. I plan on turning trade chat on for the first time in years. Maybe even general if I can stand it long enough. With little else to do in game, I may just hang out in low level areas trying to be friendly and helpful while I play another game on my phone. Think about doing the same, even if it cuts into your Overwatch time.

And for new players, some unsolicited advice and a few affirmations:

• You have found an amazing community. Most of the people you will eventually interact with will be awesome. But like any large group of humans, we have to put up with some very vocal assholes.
• You are not bad. You are new. Regardless of whispers you may have already gotten, we know you aren't bad.
• Turn off general and trade chat. There is an awesome database called Wowhead that can help you with quests and stuff. The comments page can be particularly helpful with quests.
• If you're struggling with Wowhead, feel free to tweet me for help.
• Stay out of battlegrounds for a while. People are really mean in there. Same with Looking For Raid. Also, the official forums.
• Don't accept an invitation to a guild that nobody has chatted with you about. It's just a spam add on.
• Do try to find a guild. The right group of friends can elevate WoW from a video game to an alternative lifestyle choice. Finding the right guild is probably the most important thing you can do as a new player. My guild, Convert to Raid on the Aerie Peak server, always has room for more people.
• Leveling is pretty broken right now. Don't judge a class too harshly based on the leveling experience. It's a serious problem, but there isn't anything to be done about it until August. Don't even try to level as a healer right now.
• Every single class will change significantly at the end of August. You picked a great game, but a bad time to start it. The bright side is come September, people who have been playing for 12 years will be learning the same stuff you are. The playing field will be somewhat leveled.
• Abuse is very much against the Terms of Service. If someone is abusing you, you can report them. It's usually a ton easier to just /ignore them and go about your business.
• If you're a woman, you may want to keep that information to yourself. It's shitty and unfair, but that is unfortunately life on the Internet right now.
• Did I mention that you aren't bad and most of us are really nice?

So welcome to WoW! We are truly glad you are here. Readers, let's get all the advice I forgot in the comments.

Pro Tips for Pugging

There are a lot of reasons to pug dungeons and raids these days, and with the group finder or a site like Open Raid, it's never been easier to get an invite. But then what? It's a fact that over half the internet is made up of horrible people who will judge you. You can get kicked from a pug for no good reason these days. Fear not. The following list of tips will separate you from the average or terrible pug hunter, and if you follow them all I guarantee the shortest and smoothest pug experience of your life.

• The first thing people will see about you other than your class is your name. Show them you know hunters by borrowing the name of a famous one. I'm talking your Leggolas, Katnissss, Robnhoood types. ASCII characters and paid name change are your friends here.
• Summon your biggest, loudest pet. You want your presence known right away. I usually go for a gorilla with Thunderstomp on autocast.
• FACT: People love trains. Get yourself the Toy Train Set and begin using it as soon as you zone in.
• Ask everyone in the group if they want to pet battle. Chances are good that's why they are in there.
• People will inspect you. Stack intellect as high as possible so people will know you're smart! I pop a int potion any time I see a group member has me targeted just to be safe. An int flask goes without saying.
• People want to get pugs done fast, and you have a ton of tools to help push the group along. Make surer Aspect of the Pack is ON. I used to always turn it off when I would see "PACK OFF!" in chat, but that's just people using the command to switch their backpack for a larger bag. So keep the Aspect on regardless of what you see in chat.
• Another way to keep pushing the group forward is the clever use of knockbacks. Use Powershot on cooldown, and make sure you have Explosive Trap is glyphed. Just keep knocking mobs out of the tank's range and the group will keep chugging forward chasing them.
• Especially in 5-man dungeons, the slowest part of the experience is waiting for healers to regen mana between fights. Mana regeneration is based on threat, so if you see a healer asking for time or sitting there drinking, the polite thing to do is Misdirect as many mobs as possible onto them. Don't forget Barrage for this! I guarantee using this trick will get you out of that dungeon quickly.
• Trinkets and their procs are really unpredictable. Do NOT equip them. And get that scope off of your gun while you're at it.
• Since the beginning of WoW people have gotten jealous of legendary items. Make sure you don't have evidence of the legendary ring quest line equipped. It will just upset people.
• The one thing that every class and player in WoW struggles with is bag space. If you want to really be courteous get yourself assigned master looter and just loot everything yourself, regardless of what it is. People will love the extra bag space. I guarantee you will get whispers!
• If you're not linking Recount reports after every pull, why are you even there? How will the group know how amazing you are?
• Speaking of that, make sure you have macros or addons to let the group know EVERY TIME you cast Aspect of the Fox, Tranq Shot, Distracting Shot, Misdirect, Murder of Crows, Counter Shot, and Mend Pet.
• It shouldn't be often, but threat happens. If you do pull threat, Disengage and Feign Death immediately. You want to get as far from the tank as possible. It's called manners.
• Some bosses require the group to stack in melee range to share damage and heals. Obviously you want to be using a melee weapon when you're up close. Make a macro to quickly swap out your gun. You won't believe what that does to your damage numbers. 
• FACT: People love selfies even more than trains. Let everybody know you need some time before each boss pull to compose the perfect S.E.L.F.I.E. Take your time with this. If you need to dial your settings up to ultra and then back down again, so be it. People may grumble a little-until you ask to get get everyone's email address so you can share these amazing selfies. And if you need extra time to Tweet them out, take it!

If you follow these tips, I can basically guarantee you will be out of that dungeon or raid really fast. Share your success stories in the comments! And have an amazing April;)

Pets, Pets, Pets!

The long, LONG, sunset of an expansion is my favorite time to revisit my stable and do some pet collecting. We get announcements that may make you want to pick up a pet you don't have for the next expansion, and if you're into collecting rares your competiton will almost certainly already have what they want. Some tames might even be a bit easier now before we lose some of our abilities. If you recently boosted a hunter, you probably have quite a bit of pet collecting to do in order to get all the various buffs. If nothing else, it's something to do during a content drought. And if you want to try for the MoP challenges, you can spend waste a LOT of time looking for those damn tracks. (Side note, why make a taming challenge and then use the same skin later for a regular tame? They did it in Cata and again in MoP. Pretty silly in my opinion.) I spent some time the other night dropping some unused pets (Why did I have 5 cats in there?) and taming the serpent pictured above to grab a buff I didn't have.  I couldn't resist naming him Whitesnake.

The biggest pet news we have gotten recently is that Heroism and Battle Res will no longer be exclusive to Beast Mastery in WoD. If you never play BM or just want to cover all your bases, get yourself a Nether Ray for Hero and either a Crane or Moth for B Res. As sombody who likes to play Survival whenever possible I couldn't be happier about this change. No longer will I be pressured to go BM just for Heroism!

While it's been well documented already, a pet post would be incomplete without running down which pets will bring which buffs and debuffs in WoD. If you run in a smaller sized raid, or like me just want to have the whole hunter arsenal in your stable, you'll want to have one pet from each group. The groups right now aren't distributed very well, and this is the development process so I anticipate some changes. Note that I am including BM only exotic pets here. I'll do my best to keep the list updated.

The Pet List as of September 9, 2014 (Beta):

Buffs: Any group size bigger than 10 will almost certainly have these covered already, but weird things can happen with group composition. You'll definately be able to use them in the new 5-mans and scenarios. And if you go petless, the current thinking is you can bring one of these as an aura. See my note below about the importance of a Multistrike pet for Survival Hunters.

• Stats
• Gorilla (One of my all-time favorites. Happy he is going to be useful!)
• Dogs
• Shale Spider
• Worm
• Stamina
• Bear
• Goat
• Hook Wasp
• Silithid
• Rylak
• Spell Power
• Serpent
• Silithid
• Water Strider
• Haste
• Sporebat (Nice to see we have some choice here. Lots of sporebats lately.)
• Wasp
• Hyena
• Hook Wasp
• Rylak
• Crit
• Wolf
• Raptor
• Devilsaur
• Quilen
• Shale Spider
• Water Strider
• Mastery
• Cat
• Tallstrider
• Hydra (You'll want to wait for WoD and get this one because Hydra!) 
• Spirit Beast
• Multistrike
• Basilisk
• Chimaera
• Clefthoof (Formerly called Rhinos)
• Core Hound
• Dragonhawk
• Fox
• Wind Serpent
• Versatility
• Bird of Prey
• Boar
• Porcupine
• Ravager
• Stag
• Clefthoof
• Worm

Debuffs: Not a lot to say here since so many debuffs have been removed. Make sure you have a Mortal Wounds pet at the very least.

• Mortal Wounds
• Devilsaur
• Scorpion
• Carrion Bird
• Riverbeast (WoD pet)
• Slow Movement
• Spider
• Warp Stalker
• Silithid
• Crocolisk
• Chimaera

The most important pet buff every SV hunter will need to have is Multistrike. Multistrike will proc Lock and Load after 6.0. It is going to be imperative for SV hunters to have the highest Multistrike possible. Make sure you have a Dragonhawk, Fox, or Wind Serpent before 6.0 drops if you're going to go Survival. As of this update, Lock and Load has been reverted to an older version.

 As always Petopia is your best resource for "shopping" for cool and rare pets. I also want to mention that Raid Checklist is my favorite add-on for figuring out which buff or debuff I should bring to the group. If you raid lead or don't know every class inside and out, I highly recommend it. What pets are you collecting right now? What's your favorite pet? Mine is Karkin.

The Very Basics of Hunters

We will be getting the ability to instantly level a character to 90 sometime "soon." I thought I might throw together a super basic guide for any brand-new level 90 hunters. If you've been playing a hunter for a while, you're not going to find anything in here you (hopefully) don't already know.

Before I dive into these basics, a cautionary tale for anyone who is going to create a hunter alt just for some fun. I grew-up skiing. I LOVED to ski as a kid and I knew I would ski for the rest of my life. In college I got a snowboard just to try it out. I said more than once I would always continue to ski. I went snowboarding for the first time and absolutely loved it. There was just something about boarding that had been missing from skiing, even though I didn't know it was missing until I got a snowboard. My skis stayed in the garage for the rest of that season, but I knew I'd use them again. The following season they didn't make it out of the garage once. After five more seasons where I never even considered skiing, I sold them. It turns out I would be a snowboarder for the rest of my life. Hunters are snowboards, and other classes are skis. I enjoy the other classes. They are fun, but my hunter will always be my main and the toon I want to raid with. So be careful getting a hunter alt. There is a very good chance it will become you main. With that said, hunter basics in 60 seconds or so:

• Your pet isn't decoration. It provides a BIG portion of your damage regardless of your spec. Learn how to control it.
• Always, always, always have Aspect of the Hawk up. Always.
• Currently, all three specs are good. Try them all out and find one you like.
• Agility is king. The correct amount is more. Virtually any way you can increase your agility is something you should do. Beware of mail armor without agility on it-that's not for you.
• There is no best pet for dps. Different pets bring different buffs, however, which can help in a group setting.
• If you're going to do group content in any spec, have the Glyph of Animal Bond.
• Your weapon is really important. Use bonus rolls on bosses that drop weapons. Put a scope on any blue or better ranged weapon.
• If you know nothing about your shot priority, this add-on can help you learn it. Use the shot on the far left of the bar, and your regen shot to get focus back. Your regen shot is either Cobra or Steady Shot.
• Traps are fun. Spend a little time learning how to use them.
• Feign Death and Deterrence can and will save your bacon.
• Our class has an anthem. You can hear it here.

Now get out there and shoot stuff!