The ranged monk spec

I started a thread in the monk forums asking for ideas for how a ranged monk would work, hoping to get some discussion on the topic. My thread flopped unfortunately. But luckily I have a blog where I can discuss with myself. ;-)

Wheee, I got my legen-waitforit-dary weapon

The header speaks the truth!

A couple of weeks ago I picked up Gao-Rei, Staff of the Legendary Protector. I was hoping for two Claws of Shek'zeer, but it seems like I'm a magnet for 2handers, and that I repel 1handers. :) Tonight I finished Chapter I: Trial of the Black Prince and got myself a sweet sweet Crystallized Dread! I decided to equip it, which means if I ever should get my hands on two claws, I will have to pay 10k gold for a new gem... Worth it!

Also, last week I picked up Warglaive of Azzinoth. Will be fun to see if my weekly visits will bring me the other one before or after I finally get the blindfold. :)

/squeeeee
/bow

"Do I need something from this tier 14 Raid Finder-boss?"

Monk Transmog: Jade Serpent

Monk Transmog: Red Crane

Monk Transmog: Draenei Malorne

PVE-gear for a Raidfinding Windwalker Monk

Leveling and upgrading is what we do in World of Warcraft. We level to 90, we level our professions, reputations, Battle Pets, Achievement Points, and we level our gear.

Monk Transmog: VanCleef's Battlegear

There is a transmog gem available from questing in Jade Forest; Leather Tunic of Eminent Domain. When I quested through Pandaria I vendored all gear as I got upgrades. I assumed I would be able to buy all the looks from the implemented adventurer's vendors. This was not the case with this piece, but luckily there is another way of obtaining the look! Many gear pieces from Jade Forest are replicas of gear from Trial of the Crusader, so now I'm gonna go back to Northrend to collect VanCleef's Battlegear Lookalike Set (click link to see the whole set at Wowhead). :-) I might even try to solo it!

Replica Gear Overview

I have over 2000 Darkmoon Prize Tickets spread among my characters, so I think it's about time I start spending some. Couldn't find an easy overview over the available looks, so here goes. The look appears when hovering over the link, but to see it on draenei or other races, you should follow the link and select "View in 3D".

Four weeks in

Yesterday's post was about my experience of the first two weeks of Mists of Pandaria; the ecstatic excitement I felt, confusion about which character to play, and frustration about Lae suddenly feeling unfamiliar.

The Amazing Zen Flight

What made me fall in love with the monk in the first place was the badass moves, the Peak of Serenity, the cool sounds the badass moves made and the mobility I got with Roll. Digging deeper into the specs I really fell for Clash, Flying Serpent Kick and Xuen. <3

Two weeks in

I've been too busy playing the game to actually post this update I made 16 days ago. ;-) I'll post "Four weeks in" tomorrow.

I have been playing A LOT since Mists launched. I've been very "Look at these trees! It's so beautiful here..." for two weeks straight. I haven’t had the time or desire to make an update here, but I think it’s time to gather my thoughts a little.

My first 5,5 hours as a monk

The release was 13 hours ago, and I've slept and am ready for more. :-)

Volunteering for Altoholism

I have decided to become more altoholic in Mists of Pandaria. I was a big altoholic in BC and Wrath, but Cata has been very "hunter, hunter, hunter". While hunters still are the best of course (!!!), I don't want to limit myself too much and entirely exclude the 10 other classes like I've done this expansion. I'm looking forward to being an altoholic, although I know I have to be a bit careful to not "burn out". I can't do dailies, dungeons, scenarios and raid finder on all my characters every day every week, and I can't keep them all geared. But I'm gonna give them a bit more play. One character doesn't have to do all the dailies every single day, they can actually alternate. For example, I could do one Raid Finder each week, but let them take turns. I can find some cool transmog sets for them all, and make sure all my draenei are pretty fly. :) 

Why do we fight?

The (too) detailed leveling plan

I have mapped out a couple of things:

• How big is the XP-bar for a level 1? 400
• How much XP does a level 1 get from killing a level 1 mob? 50
• How much XP does a level 1 get from killing a level 2 mob? 52
• How much XP do the first quests grant? For a draenei, the first quest grants 40 and the second grants 80. It's not possible to complete the second one without hitting level 2.
• How much XP does a level 1 get from being summoned to Dalaran? 0

RAF complete!

Short update; my Recruit-A-Friend-project is finally complete! I get a bit focused when I have selfmade projects going on, so I'm happy to be done.

This means I have two characters at level 21, one at level 41 and one at level 80, ready to grant my monk from 1 to 80. I have heirloom helm and cloak ready, and also Cata-greens for all slots except trinkets. I'm also almost done gathering herbs to get Alchemy and Inscription up to 525.

In the next few days I'll post my (too) detailed leveling plan.

The only thing not settled yet is; do I level my monk first or second..?

11 days to go, weeeee!

/bow

I'm the One That's Cool

Have you seen The Guild? Season 6 is due to launch in October, and it's all happening at Felicia Day's Geek and Sundry-channel on YouTube.

This video was uploaded to YouTube already in April. Five months later I finally discover it. :-) The other songs coming from The Guild has been fun and all, but this one is really badass, and I love it!

Burnished Warden Staff is available!

Didn't see this anywhere else yet, so this is just a quick report that Enchanter Isian, Heirloom Vendor in Dalaran, is selling Burnished Warden Staff for 3500 Justice Points on the live servers!

This is no longer relevant for myself as I'm doing the Recruit A Friend granting, but others should be happy. :)

25 days to go!

/bow

Monk Transmog Item: Cursed Vision of Sargeras

For years roleplayers have sought a very unique headpiece from Illidan Stormrage in Black Temple; the blindfold he wore after being blinded by Sargeras. Together with the warglaives, it's become the trademark of the demon hunter. When transmogrification launched, rogues and druids everywhere celebrated; finally they could use Cursed Vision of Sargeras with their gear! And a month from now, we'll have a new class and new races that can wear leather too.

Level 80: Continue Your Training: Master Hsu

At level 80, Master Hight at the Peak of Serenity gives you the quest: Continue Your Training: Master Hsu.

Master Hsu (80)

Monk Transmog: Darkmantle Armor

One of the gear sets that made a return with Darkmoon Faire was the Darkmantle Armor set. The entire set is available for 520 Darkmoon Prize Tickets. The replica items are BOE, so the pieces can be gathered by several of your characters, or even purchased from the Auction House.

Level 70: Continue Your Training: Master Tsang

At level 70, Master Hight at the Peak of Serenity gives you the quest: Continue Your Training: Master Tsang.

Master Tsang (70)

Choosing professions for my monk

As most other people that are planning on playing a monk, I have several characters at current max level and all professions covered already. Initially my idea was to go with Herbalism and Mining because of the extra experience gained during leveling. Mining is a fair profession for a tank, and Herbalism has the heal that used together with for example Guard could prove to be fair as well. But, already before starting the monk, I can feel that she will be an important character. So perhaps I should maximise her professions to get more joy out of it? Additionally I've done the "Recruit A Friend"-thing now, so the leveling of the monk will only be from 80 to 90.

Recruit A Lae

This is me!

So, I went and did it... I recruited myself to the game and paid for 2 months worth of game time so that I could get a mount. And... It wasn't the first time either. I did the same thing 2 years ago for the rocket. I guess I should feel bad about it, but the only thing I feel bad about is not getting the Zhevra while it was still available!

A realistic look at monk leveling speed

A post not concerned with the simple life of a monk, but how to get said monk to level 90 as soon as possible when there are time constraints!

Monk Transmog: Assassination Armor

The Assassination Armor set is a dungeon set from Burning Crusade. It's not too fancy, but it's a monk we're dressing up after all. The set is popular among the rogues, but for the monks and the draenei it's a totally new look! :)

Level 60: Continue Your Training: Master Cheng

At level 60, Master Hight at the Peak of Serenity gives you the quest: Continue Your Training: Master Cheng.

Master Cheng (60)

Monk Transmog: Discovery Armor

There has never been any leatherwearers among the draenei before, so that's one more thing to be excited  for about the monk class! :) I've been eagerly browsing leather sets over at Wowhead, and although a lot of the leather gear is either too druidy or too roguey, I found some gems that will be fitting for monks!

Level 50: Continue Your Training: Master Yoon

At level 50, Master Hight at the Peak of Serenity gives you the quest: Continue Your Training: Master Yoon.

Master Yoon (50)

Level 40: Continue Your Training: Master Kistane

At level 40, Master Hight at the Peak of Serenity gives you the quest: Continue Your Training: Master Kistane.

Master Kistane (40)

Level 30: Continue Your Training: Master Woo

At level 30, Master Hight at the Peak of Serenity gives you the quest: Continue Your Training: Master Woo.

Roll down to the training grounds and find Master Woo, a female dwarf monk. Tell her that you wish to challenge her. She will then walk to the middle of the training grounds while she says "Sometimes a well timed precision strike is all you need to take down even the toughest of foes". As she stops and faces you, you can /bow to her. She will then /bow back, turn hostile, and run towards you. When defeated she says "Your Power is impressive. I admit defeat."

Master Woo (30)

Level 20: Begin Your Training: Master Cheng

Using the spell Zen Pilgrimage, which is learnable at level 20, sends your monk to Shrine of the Ox on Peak of Serenity in Kun-Lai Summit. The shrine is the monk equivalent of Moonglade and Ebon Hold. Once there, you can visit the Monk Trainer to reset your role specialisation if you wish. All spells are learned automatically in Mists of Pandaria, so there are no other reasons to visit the class trainers. In addition to monk trainers, there are profession trainers, so it might prove a handy place to visit regularly, as Zen Pilgrimage only has a 30 min cooldown. There's also repair vendors, and a vendor that sells monk gear and weapons that are rewarded for monk-specific quests. When you're done at Peak of Serenity, you can use Zen Pilgrimage: Return, which will place you where you were before you travelled there, or close.

Planning my monk

Name: Ninasol

Named after Nina Solheim, a female Tae Kwon Do athlete. Nina = ninja and sol = sun. I think it fits. :)

Siberian Tiger God NOT a Spirit Beast

I was hoping this beautiful cat that was datamined back in March would become one of the new Spirit Beasts.

I was testing at the training dummies on the beta tonight, and suddenly saw him fighting next to me. "Oh yay, it IS tameable!" I thought to myself, the split second it took before I realised it's tooltip said "SomeGuy's Guardian", and not "SomeGuy's Pet". That SomeGuy was a monk... And I have now tracked it back to a level 90 talent: "Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger". It's on a 3 min cooldown, and lasts for 45 sec.

/cry

Belt Graduation

It's almost a year since Blizzcon 2011, when we were presented to the first stories of Mists of Pandaria. It all looked great, and it was very fun to watch it all with my Virtual Pass. I'm a raider, and very dedicated to my class, so I was looking at all the quests and zones and squeeing of joy cause of all the new content! I was also very happy about my favourite game still getting new expansions. The monk was presented, and several websites featured it heavily. As an illustration they would show a bold shirtless human monk from Diablo, or a male (or eventually female) pandaren monk. I thought something in the lines of "cool that they're adding new stuff. I hope someone in my raid team will play one, cause they will probably be overpowered at start. But I don't really think this monk is for me".

Pet Utility Table (Mists of Pandaria)

52 days

Mists of Pandaria will release September 25. That is 52 days from now. If you're looking to change you main character, role, guild or server, this is a good time to do so. In those 52 days the following things will occur:

Mopping up the stable

In Mists of Pandaria hunters will have 44 different pet families to play with! All of them able to fill the role we need them to; cunning, ferocity or tenacity. But there are limitations... We can only keep 25 pets each; 20 in the stable and 5 with us. With cool new looks, buffs, families and abilities coming, it's time to clean up the stable.

Hunter of the Shattered Sun (transmog)

"... of the Shattered Sun" is a title I never got, despite being exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive for four years now. Back in the Burning Crusade I really couldn't afford spending 1000 gold for a title. And now I rarely use all the titles I've got. Even though it doesn't say much about what you have achieved (or what you're willing to pay for), it is still a very poetic and beautiful title. "Laeleiweyn of the Shattered Sun". It sounds nice. How would a hunter with that title look? Here's my suggestion:

Ode to cross realm raids

Anyone that follows me on Twitter knows that I’ve been doing some cross-realm raids lately through the amazing website that is OpenRaid. Here are my adventures so far!

Princess transmog for Euripides

Euripides is recording the Hunting Party Podcast at a princess table, which he claims is his daughter's. Here's a transmog set to go with it:

Hunter Fuel!

Wild Speculation on Legendaries in Mists

The community suffered a mini-explosion after Wowhead released some icons they had found through datamining;"Everyone is getting legendaries!!!" Now, it's datamining, so we can't really be certain about anything until there's an announcement or an implementation on the beta.

Frostsworn Bone Mail and Northrend Frozen Mail

I have 30 drafts to excellent posts, and I'm swimming over with good ideas, but I can't seem to actually produce anything. :) So here's two quick transmogs while we all wait and hope for something, or anything really:

The Quest: Rhok'delar, Lok'delar and Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina

Molten Core

Once upon a time a group of heroes and adventurers ventured into Molten Core. They had traveled there to make an end to Ragnaros the Firelord. The group fought their way through all of the bosses. They reached Majordomo Executus, and swiftly finished his guards off, making him submit and retreat to the lair of his master. He left behind the Cache of the Firelord, which contained invaluable treasures, as well as an Ancient Petrified Leaf. The group gave the leaf to the hunter of the group, as a reward for her brave and heroic efforts. (Also, she was the only hunter present.) Soon after they defeated Ragnaros as well, and Azeroth was saved once again. They all portaled to Stormwind, and every citizen participated in celebrating their victories. Allegedly enough Darkbrew Lager to fill up Thondoril River was consumed in Stormwind that night.

The Quest

Sometimes a colleague and myself joke around at work; I slap him over the face with a rubber glove. He then unsheathes his spatula (we work in a laboratory), goes into fencing position and yells: "En Garde!" I will in return draw my own spatula, and a crazy battle begins. Other times I will whine about our everyday life being a bit boring, and I'll grab the nearest object, a stapler, and announce "Behold! Stapeish, stapler of the thousand forests!" while he rolls his eyes. (Rude!)

Quel Attenborough interviews Rock Star Laeleiweyn!

WoW! Quel has interviewed me. If you want to read, please stop by his site. :)

Lae

Engineer Laeleiweyn

The Siren Call of Engineering

I remember choosing professions back when I started playing. I was set on a draenei hunter, and after consulting with Ponder I learned that draeneis had increased skill in Jewelcrafting. He advised me to choose Mining to go with it. I was entirely new to the game and was "afraid" of the Auction House, and leveling Jewelcrafting was a tedious and time-consuming hobby.

Cataclysm Bucket List

I read an inspiring post by Gavendo at Rapid Fire last night; Cataclysmic Bucket List and OpenRaid.

I've been browsing OpenRaid all afternoon, you should check it too! I registered, set up Ventrilo, and started browsing raids, so I'm hoping to soon have finished some old raid achievements. :)

Hunter UI's

I've compiled some pictures and links to Cataclysm hunter UI's. They're from hunters I'm stalking and from WoW Insider's Reader UI of the Week. Yes, another post with no real creativity from me. But finding the pictures was a lot of hard work, I promise. Phew. I'm very interested in UI's and keybindings these days, want something new for Mists of Pandaria. If you see something you like, click names for link to article or blog. :)

Edited already (23 Apr 2012), as Garwulf has updated GarUI.

Suggestion submitted: More room on ignore list

There's some new features in the in-game Customer Support; among them "Submit Suggestion" which I used for the first time today.

Why is it called Invincible if you can see it?

I apologize for the troll line in the header; I can't help appreciate the classic ones, even though I don't troll trade myself (see some of my favorites in Leveling Without Heirlooms).

We're a small group of people in my guild who would like some of the items that are obtainable from Lich King when someone acquired Shadowmourne. And some are interested in Shadowmourne too of course. So I thought I'd make an overview over how much time we would need, and we'll see if that's something we want to do.

The Neverending Key Binding Project part 1

Before I started to play World of Warcraft I hadn't played many computer games; Carmageddon, Duke Nukem Forever, Doom II, Keen Commander and some browser-games pretty much makes up the whole list. Instead I played console games (PlayStation). Because of this, key bindings didn't feel very intuitive to me when I started my hunter. I got off at a bad start, tried to improve, but still now I don't feel like it's where I want it to be. I've had posts on our guild forums, googled "pro key bindings" (hehe, not that exact phrase perhaps), and I even asked "what are your key bindings?" on a Hunting Party Podcast a long long time ago. It's a big deal to me, and I'm really hung up on it.

Hunter Gear

There was a series of blog posts several months ago regarding "do you show off your geekness?". I'm slow, so here's my post finally :)

I GOT TURTLE!

Being an achievement-hunter, or nerdpoints as Kia and Dhevon calls them, one day last week I was checking out my Achievement-tab trying to plan how I should spend my time in-game between the raids.

Spring Cleaning with ArkInventory

I've collected stuff on Lae since I started playing 4,5 years ago. It goes without saying that I need to tidy my bank up now and then, where I search up quest items on Wowhead to see if I can safely delete them, or ask myself "do I really need this?". The answer is surprisingly often "Yes. Yes, I need this item." (It's my precious.)

Archaeology and Transmogrification have given me even more things to collect. :) And with it, a major difficulty increase in inventory management. Void Storage helped a little, but it's only a drop in the ocean to be honest. So while organising myself, I thought I'd show off my little management plan:

Thoughts on Girl Gamers

I've recently read a lot of blog posts concerning sexism*, racism and other stereotypisms**; How we all subconsciously or consciously discriminate not only others, but also ourselves (!) because of gender, race, sexual orientation etc. In national and international media there are also discussions; "Can you blame yourself for getting raped if you wear sexy clothes?" and "Can you blame yourself for getting killed if you're at the wrong place, with the wrong skin colour, wearing the wrong clothes?".

White Polar Bear

I'm working on [Frostbitten] (missing 5), so I was flying through Storm Peaks, looking for Vyragosa. I noticed a blue exclamation mark on my minimap, and decided to dive down and do the daily quest for The Blue Ladies of Storm Peaks. Finished the quest, got my bag of Hyldnir Spoils, opened it, saw something with purple colour. Eyes widened, jaw dropped, did I actually just go ahead and get myself a [Reins of the White Polar Bear]?! I don't know how many times I must have done that daily back then! :)

Draenei hunter Laeleiweyn with Skoll and White Polar Bear

Mists of Pandaria Launch Predictions

What do we want? Mists of Pandaria! When do we want it? NOW!!!

I've started collecting predictions I hear or see people make for when Mists of Pandaria will launch. The price for predicting the correct date; Eternal glory!

Cataclysm Almost Mortem

Mists of Pandaria has totally taken over the news. Before I get my Beta invite and start living the panda-experience, a wrap-up of Cataclysm seems fitting. I'll give you my top 3-lists of different things, but as you will see I felt I had to cheat with the numbers here and there.

Loremaster Laeleiweyn

Loremaster Laeleiweyn. The quest that triggered the achievement was "Burnout", which isn't totally unfitting.

Yippi!

Other news: Not in beta yet.

And here's some Mists of Pandaria gear that Wowhead mined:

The bad beta-tester

As an Annual Pass-owner, I will in short time receive an invite to the MOP-beta. I’ve had an active subscription since august 2007 and signed up to the annual pass as soon as it was available, so I probably won't be the first one, but pretty early still, to get access.

The problem is that I’m not a good beta tester...

Spoiler Alert: Mists of Pandaria 2012 Press Event

All pictures and info found at

Official Mists of Pandaria website
Wowhead
WoW Insider
WoW Hunters Hall

New: Blogpost by Bashiok giving even more info that I haven't seen anywhere else yet!

Things I absolutely love

Surr's Makeover Day

Draenei hunter Surr in Merciless Gladiator's Pursuit

New collectibles please

I'm in need of something new to collect. With my 168 companion pets, 121 mounts, 12525 achievement points, 34822 honorable kills, awsome PVE- and PVP-gear I can be proud of, most of the cool archaeology items, more than enough tabards, cool transmog fashion from around the world and more titles than I bother thinking of, you might think to yourself that I've done more than enough collecting already? My stable is filled to the brim! And so are my bags, bank and void storage. But I’m telling you; I need something new that I can collect. Please. :)

Update of Hunterstalker March 2012

Update of Hunterstalker 3rd of March 2012.

I've updated achievements and kills today. Some observations on the 63 hunters I'm following:

Baby hunters

As a follow-up to the swearathon that was my last post, I decided to go the oposite direction this time and talk about the cute topic that is baby hunters.

On Hunting Party Podcast Episode 120, they got a question from Aspects: “I always hear people mentioning baby hunters or baby dwarves. Where do babies come from?”

Euripides: “Well, you see. When a mummy dwarf and a daddy dwarf love eachother very much, they do something we're not allowed to talk about and at the end there's an egg. The egg; the mummy dwarf sits on for about six months, and when it hatches there's a baby inside."

Shame of the Alliance!

Warning of very bad language, I was so fucking mad when I wrote this.

I can’t believe how arrogant some people are, and how bad morals they have!!!

The Hunter Faction

I was visiting Darkmoon Faire Island a couple of weeks ago. When I got to the Shooting Gallery, Rinling yelled at me: “Come play a game so simple that even a hunter can do it!”. What the...? Grr... I gave him a /rude. Then I took a better look at the guy. A troll. Of course. Quick search on Wowhead tells me he insults all the other classes too, not just me and mine.

Nevertheless, a train of thoughts started.

For once, I want to be part of the main team when a big bad thing happens to the world. I’m tired of helping the “holier than thou”-paladins, the tree hugging druids and the down to earth shamans all the time.

I want one quest giver, one tiny quest giver, that says “I’m sorry ClassNotHunter, this situation needs to be handled by professionals. But if you absolutely want to help, you can collect 10 mushrooms and make us some soup”.

Sixth

I read a post at WoW Insider. Which sent me on to Martha.Net. Where I found that Jaedia from Jaedia's Menagerie had tagged me! So, here I go:

The basics (from Armageddon's Coming):

• Go into your image folder
• Open the sixth sub-folder and choose the sixth image.
• Publish the image! (and a few words wouldn’t hurt, though I dare say I couln’t stop a blogger from adding a few words of their own).
• Challenge six new bloggers.
• Link to them.

One picture can say more than 1000 words

I'm having some sort of a writer's block. For every new blogpost I've written they've been bigger and longer and deeper than the last one. And that's really not the point of a blog; to feel like that much work. It's more about freely writing your current thoughts. Right now I have a good idea for something to write about, but I'm stuck with hundreds of single words scattered around, refusing to gather themselves neatly in a post. Let's hope it losens up. :)

Over the weeks the screenshots have piled up. So I think I'll just leave them here, to speak for themselves. This is Naanei, levels 1 to 80. Traveling the world, looking for new and old draenei friends. If you click on one photo you can easily see through them in a bigger format. :)

Update of Hunterstalker

I've updated achievements, kills, specs and links in Hunterstalker today. A few observations since the last update that was 3 months ago, in november:

Leveling Without Heirlooms

I'm leveling a mini hunter. :) Naanei is her name. She's draenei, she's BM and she's 70. She's on a server where I don't have any other characters; so she has no heirlooms. She's also unguilded and she only accepts quests from fellow draenei, broken, lost ones, naaru and non-living objects. No talking/walking trees! I'm pondering about adding more details about her leveling soonish. But that's another story. :)

Naanei the draenei hunter at Temple of Tel'hamat

The "increased movement speed"-speech

I'm a Guild Master of a relatively small guild that sports two raid teams. We have an application-system where people can apply to us either publicly in a forum thread or privately in a PM. No matter how the person applies, we open a forum thread in our internal hidden guild forum where the entire guild is encouraged to give their feedback, being it pure class theorycrafting or "hunches" about personality etc. There are several reasons why I'm stopping the guild from making comments publicly.

Hunter Videos

I'm adding some of my favorite hunter videos in this post. As the organiser I am, I have to have everything in one place. Please visit these incredibly creative and talented people's channels, subscribe, "like" and give them your (positive) feedback. :) HUNTER PRIDE!!!

I'm a Hunter and I Won't Miss You
by Frostheim/WarcraftHuntersUnion

Welcome to my ringtone!

Weekly Update: Come Closer

Tuesday 10th of January 2012

Companions

I spent my first Darkmoon Prize Tickets on a Darkmoon Cub and a Darkmoon Zeppelin, so I have 165 companions now. Of course I have the obligatory pet addon to show them off, but I'm afraid some of them might disappear a bit in the crowd like this. And how do I decide my Pet Battle Team?! It will be like choosing teams for elementary school cannonball all over again... ;)