I think that starting my World of Warcraft playing back in vanilla gave me a better appreciation for the little things in WoW.
And by little things, I mean dps of course.
Back in the day, we got worked up over the fabulous 7 agility enchant for our gloves. I mean, that was 14 attack power after all (well, it was back then). I even remember back when I first started paying attention to optimizing, I had a little rule for myself: I would only spend gold on an upgrade if it would get me at least one half of a dps. After all, I wasn’t made of money, and hadn’t grown as obsessed with improving my damage as I did later.
Keep in mind that a skilled hunter would put out only several hundred dps in a raid, so we had to be a little more focused on the little things. That 7 agility made a difference. And add up every top enchant for every gear slot and it was down right huge.
So I think these formative years set a different bar in my mind for what constituted an upgrade, and how I thought about dps. I still think in terms of just a few dps here or there as being something well worth pursuing (or desperately worth pursuing, as is often the case). It’s why I want to messily kill so many newer hunters, by locking them in a special little cell in hades to be used as a prophylactic by Jarjuk, the Demon Tormentor of the Seven-Barbed Phallus.
When I first heard the phrase “it’s only a 30 dps difference, so it doesn’t really matter” I threw up a little in my soul.
30 dps? Doesn’t matter? I’ve seen hunters who literally don’t use their pets because “I’m not BM, so it’s doesn’t make much difference.” Hunters who only use green quality gems because “There’s almost no difference and they’re so much cheaper.” I’ll agree that the difference between green and blue is small, but when you multiply it by every gem it’s not.
So I guess what I’m saying is that kids these days have no appreciation for dps.
Back in my day we didn’t have no fancy gems or glyphs or haste or armor pen or attack power (as a raw stat). We had agility and hit & crit percentages and that’s all we needed. If we got a 3 dps increase, that was huge. We liked it and damnit we thanked Blizz for every dps we got.
We took our epic 53dps Rhok’delar to Molten Core where we chain pulled to the tank without even the benefit of Misdirection — just relied on the tank to get the mob off us before we got one-shotted — and we did it uphill, both ways, too. You didn’t hear us complaining then.
Okay, well maybe we complained a little.
But still, kids these days have no idea how good they got it.
You crack me up.
I only started playing during TBC, and I didn’t even get to level 70 before WOTLK came out, so I’ve really only had any experience with the latest stuff. But I’ve read a lot about what the game was like when it first came out, and I firmly believe that I, currently my guild’s best DPS, would have completely failed to make any progress.
Tell us another story Grandpa Frostheim!
Now shake your cane and tell them to get off your lawn!
Did someone forget to take their Dulcolax this morning?
heh, Ive seen quite a few people like this.
I started a little while before WotLK, but personally, if i have even a small chance to get even +1 to any important stat, ill take it
as long as its not a completely ridiculous price for it
sweepin’ the deeps
Ahh the good ol’ days when you could get the hunter killed on a pull, I remember those fondly
Hey Frost you remember pulling Baron and Shazzrah into Garr’s room? Good times
At least in TBC hunters had to kite or chain trap. These days you could get buy without ever using either of those even in endgame raids.
“Let the squishy kite the zombies. He’s better at it.”
Ah, Molten Core. Where men were men, women were women, and you wiped on trash five times before getting a visual on the first boss your first time in.
I’m with you Frost. I’ve only played a hunter, and I’ve played off and on since vanilla. I miss when we were the swiss army knife class, and not just “pure DPS”.
I’ll be sure to smack the next youngster I see in an instance without a pet out, or the next Recount stats I see sent to group that don’t have my pet’s damage added in with mine.
i wish i could have been around ffor some of those old days. im sure i would have much deeper appreciate for a lot of things more than i do now.
When we were needed and usefull becaue of tranq shot on bosses, now we are just a jack of all trade but we mostly do it worse and moderate dps
*shakes off the delerium* Ahh yes the good ol days. things have changed so much, some changes good, some changes not so good. but evolution all the same. Yes players were skilled in multi taskes in vanilla, yes the quality of items were shocking compared to todays standard. but so were spears and animal hide clothing in our very own evolution.
its not that the kids today have it easier.. they have it different. im sure you will never see a neanderthal cave painting of an ipod. the point of benchmarking what players desire as an upgrade has not been lost, its just different, yet similar. a 14 dps increase over 54 dps is huge. a 30 dps increase over 800 is not so. its nice to reminisce about when pallys used to heal, warlocks ruled the dps charts, and every account had a mage. but thoes days are gone.
once again my senility has gotten me off topic, “nurse i need to go to the bathroom”.
yes, another rant from the 40yo+ sector.
may all your hits be crits.
Yori: Heck yes! I was a master at the Geddon pull — I could get Geddon all the way to the tank without needing another hunter to help, and without dying. Damn I missing pulling MC. I do miss that.
For me, playing since vanilla has also allowed me to min/max my class to the highest degree. I feel stupid for it, but I pay tons of gold for the smallest upgrade because if I don’t it will bother me the whole day.
Also, how awesome was the Hunter epic bow quest? That is one of my top ten favorite moments in game due to the sheer challenge and the skill needed to get that bow and staff. Plus i got my Blue Sinew after about 20 kills, you can now curse me to hell.
I am sure that it was easier than pulling the cat lady huh?
I too did not join until burning crusades… so i have no idea how hard it was.. but when you say Vanilla.. i get shudders down my back.. vanilla is just soo.. soo.. empty:P
i started after tbc so i never got to experience what some players refer to as vanila or the golden age of wow.. but i was just wondering.. can you still do the 60 hunter quest.. if i cant actually go back in time i want to still accomplish what the hunters back then did.. i dont want to miss out on anything that can make me better or more experienced -mal’ganis-
Pet pulling ftw and the epic bow quest which you had to solo without even a pet
I also didnt start playing till BC although i did have time to grab my Heroic epics and get a taste of raiding before WOTLK dropped. Still though I have a hard time understanding why I have to preach and prod and coax half the raiders in my guild to read a thread or a blog or google the answer to a question instead of just accepting the 2 people said this was right and only 1 said that was right so 2 is better than 1 method of decision making. I think I’m making headway though..I actually had a bear tank thank me for pounding it into his head again and again that reading was fundamental even in wow. Next up is getting them to understand why I refuse to be ok with bringing an alt with that sweet green trinket into ulduar /sigh back to work
That sweet green trinket is almost as awesome as the guy who only has pvp gear that’s doing 1800 dps in uld.
Dont let Grandpa Frostheim fool you, kids. While every story has a grain of truth in it, you gotta only look for the obvious “stretching of truth” to call shinanigans on his dwarf butt.
Take, for example, the story of what weapon he claims to have brought to MC. Its a bow. We all know that most dwarves (specifically Frostheim) dont use anything except guns. He’s said so him self!
Tell us another yarn, Grandpa.
I also remember who topped the damage charts back then… I also wrote a monte carlo burst interval modelling program to better predict gear and rotation effects on rolled ignites. They really were the goldenage. before mages got banished to that pit in hades you were talking about.
Lol, i started playing back in year dot too and totally agree with you! lol
GAH!
I never got that blue sinew, and it haunts my memories…I never made it to MC with much regularity (teehee Dulcolax joke teehee), either, but I sure could kite Drak like a pro. Those were my proudest hunter moments – when I’d get him back so far that the rest of the raid could kill his goons, then Feign, and race back to join the fun.
And that one quest in Azshara to kill those untrackable hydra-beast things. THAT was a pain!
Vanilla… I still have scarring >< I remember when the "joke" was don't bother to heal the hunters, heal the important classes.
40 man raiding was the suck but I miss being on Major Domo duty and pulling him back to the tank constantly. LOL, running the line on aggro and NOT being able to FD out was a fun challenge.
Cheers! I raise my glass to the Vanilla Hunter and salute you my brothers and sisters! Our day is not yet done, let tanks do the kiting and We'll top the damage meters!!!
Huzzah!!!
So…uh what Hunter Spec are you?
Amusing =P
I started a few months from the end of Vanilla. I believe I was level 30 or 40 when TBC was released and I remember wanting to go to the Dark Portal but my friend telling me I’ll die. One of my earliest memories and greatest Huntard moment when I was still learning is BRD. Pulling a trash mob for the tank and wiping the group and the tank raging at me for pulling them for him when it was his job. I didn’t even know what DPS was =D I just shot them with anything I liked until they fell over.
Nevermind trying to co ordinate 4 hunters all chain pulling to different tanks. Made BWL go MUCH quicker.
When it comes to DPS I still struggle to keep it up to an acceptibe level in instances and in raids. I use my Surv spec for the latter and MM for raids. My gear is 4 pieces Valorous Cryptstaler and Heroes Crypstalker Helm.
I have tred various builds and shot rotations and still I find my dps to fall lower than 1k on occasions.
Does any one reckon its because I am trying to get htrough the rotation sequence too quickly with the result of clipping shots?
ZOMG!!! I just discovered the game 8 mo. ago….now I have an 80 Huntard lvl’d with BM n jus dual spec’d Surv….when I hit 80 I was like YEEEESSSS!!!!!! Until I realized that it’s just another lvl 1…*grumble* NOW I’m being exposed to all sorts of hellish tortures…epic gear…epic gems…shot rotations…and how my world of comfy BM and my nice shiny Gondria kitty…turned into a savage realm of ‘WHAT!?!?! Hunter who does only 1500DPS?!?! zomg…” I think mebbe I’d like the ol’days =( I’m envious of y’all n’ yer gaming xp…while I can barely master my shot rotation XD
Up hill both ways too.
We all miss the old days..