Colossal Parachute, Goblin Surveyor Jr. Grade, Arathi Basin travel tips

Sitting atop one of the Twin Colossals in Feralas is Kalin Windflight. He sells a particularly interesting item for 20 twinks, especially Hunters. Colossal Parachute, costing 20 silver, is the only no requirement Slow Fall for any level, is one of the more interesting situational items.

Unfortunately, this item has some restrictions. First, in order to even get to the vendor and buy it, you must be summoned, or flown up there on a multi-person flying mount, because as of Cataclysm the teleport NPC that used to port anyone up there no longer does so. Second, the item is Bind on Pickup and Unique, so you will only have one at a time. Third, the item has a time of 20 minutes on it, so I suggest queuing for WSG at the top and buying the parachute when the queue popped.

Alternatively, there's a parachute inside chests in Gnomeregan. Sharing most of the same restrictions minus the 20 minutes duration tag and requiring level 19, these might be easier to obtain for players who are completely solo, or people who want to have 2 for a battleground (assuming they can get summoned to the peak). Thanks Karazelle from Twinkinfo, for the tip.

This item, combined with Swiftness Potion, will provide very interesting launches with the flag off of the tunnel roof on either side. Be sure to use this in clutch situations and not waste it early, just remember it will disappear when your WSG timer hits about 5 minutes. This item becomes even more interesting for hunters that can Speed off the tunnel roof, disengage and then parachute all the way past mid.

I'll have a video up soon. Oh, and there's a rare spawn there once every few hours, so be prepared to take out Diamond Head when he spawns.

If you need your Slow Fall, this is your guy.

Next up on the bag of tricks is the Goblin Surveyor Jr. Grade, which by now is a rather well known combat NPC that Horde has access to. This gal is accessible after doing the chain of quests at the Rocketway point closest to Orgrimmar, just MAKE SURE TO KEEP THE QUEST once you obtain the Surveyor's Beacon! Not that to get the quest you have to do most of the quests in the small hub where you get the quest, so don't get scared when you can't pickup the quest.

This is Horde only, so Alliance toons are unfortunately out of luck. She'll act as a pet (Hunters and Warlocks can still have their pets/minions out) and do small damage, but it will be helpful for keeping people out of stealth, and apparently she even follows enemies into stealth, as well as pushback enemy casters.

Free damage and stealth tracking!

Arathi Basin weekend is coming up, so get ready to farm some honor. And with that, here are some tips on quick mount travel from either side of BS into BS using the tiny spawned boxes. You're going to have to practice this to get from one side to the other easily without falling into the water. Even if you do fall after a box or two, it's still faster than swimming or going around. The images should be self explanatory.

 

Stay away from the voodoo,

~ Thirk

Horde numbers increasing, Reputation Satchels, Vend-O-Tron D-Luxe!

FOR THE HORDE! This weekend saw what was probably a new record for the F2P Horde of Aerie Peak. We had 40 people online at the same time for a consistent 2 hours, NOT during the fishing tournament, and when the tournament came around even more people came online. I don't think I saw the number drop below 20 until well into late night. At this point I think I can say that, if Wargame battlegrounds were working for low levels, we'd be able to run a full 15v15 Arathi Basin with Horde alone.

If only Alterac Valley was possible.

By now absolutely everyone playing Free to Play should know this, but in case they don't, here's a tip I meant to post LONG ago, but did not get around to. For every city faction you get revered with, you can buy a 16 Slot Satchel. There's a total of 6 bags that you can buy, enough to fill your bag slots and 2 in the bank as well. Alliance, however, can also get 2 more 16 slot bags, the Harpy Hide Quiver and Gnoll Skin Bandolier, from Gaelden Hammersmith, that sadly Horde cannot get.

Each city has their own version of the reputation satchel.

Ever find yourself stranded while farming, leveling professions? No durability? Forgot that damn Skinning Knife again? Well, there's no need to run back to org as of Cata, thanks to the Dungeon Finder system and Cata's overhaul of Deadmines! The Vend-O-Tron D-Luxe, added in Cataclysm to the entrance of Deadmines, is a godsend for those moments. Simply queue up for Deadmines, Enter, grab the stuff you need, repair, and leave right back where you were. No running back to the city.

The best thing to happen to Deadmines.

Mok'ra,

~ Thirk

Profession Guide: First Aid (1 - 225) SOLO

I finally decided to finish up my First Aid, and decided to go ahead and get through the gruesome farm. But it turned out a bit easier than expected (blame it on the class if you'd like), and I found an interesting area that more than just people doing First Aid might be interested in.

Linen Cloth of course is the easiest, and while leveling you should be collecting as much as you can. I suggest farming the low level areas with Humanoids. Silverpine Forst or Durotar is great for Horde and Alliance can stick to Teldrassil or Dun Murogh. This is easily the fastest part of leveling First Aid and honestly you should have it done by the time you're 20.

Wool Cloth should be farmed in Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep. Both places have tons of Humanoids with pretty good drop rates.

Now I'm sure most people have no problem with Linen and Wool, so here's the main point of this guide. Silk is normally only dropped in decent amounts off level 30 - 40 mobs, but I've found a very nice farming area with level 25 - 26 mobs. Silk Cloth drops off Saltscale Warriors at a 12% drop rate. The area they're found in has nothing but these murlocs. In addition to Silk Cloth, I've gotten a few greens and a good amount of Healing Potions. Not to mention these mobs have some of the higher drop rates for the coveted Hyacinth Macaw! There's a good chance that after a few toons leveling First Aid you just might nab yourself the parrot. In about 30 minutes I've gotten, on average, 30 Silk Cloth and 6 Healing Potions, along with 4 or 5 greens.

However, there is a catch. You're going to need to breathe underwater to effectively farm these murlocs. Do NOT attempt to farm without it, you're really wasting your time. Luckily, you can get all the mats for Elixir of Water Breathing within the area, and there's no reason you shouldn't be an Alchemist already. The Elixir lasts for an hour, not 30 minutes, since you craft it yourself. Once you're down there, just move around in circles, they're in packs of 5 - 10 and you should have no problem farming them. It took me about 3 hours total to farm ALL my Silk Cloth, from 150 - 210.

Once you can breathe underwater, you're set for a nice farming session.

For Mageweave, and your final tier bandages, I've got a small tip for Horde. Andra, a Silvermoon vendor, sells 2 Mageweave every few hours. Once you're fully geared, head over there and stock up. Unfortunately Alliance is out of luck in this aspect. Aside from that, you can get higher level help or try and farm level 39 - 42 Death Singers in EPL. Good luck, and happy farming!

Her cloth sales bring all the Horde to the yard.

Dabu,

~ Thirk

Perfecting the Hunter, Alliance Gear IS a problem, Macros, Hunter Spreadsheet!

After my venture into rolling a Shaman and gearing one up rather well, I decided that I wanted at least one twink to be fully completed. I went back and started mercilessly grinding for my Ring of Precision and Arena Grandmaster. I've yet to get any closer to my Arena Master or my ring, but I've decided I want my hunter to be completely Best in slot. Slowly starting to regret not being Blood Elf or Human...

The difference between a fully geared Human Hunter and a fully geared Troll Hunter.

While we're on the subject of races, up above are the exact calculated differences between a fully geared Alliance Hunter and a fully geared Troll Hunter. Obviously, the Human wins, and by a big margin. As far as Survival goes, considered the most viable spec, we have a gain of 1.46% Crit, 0.46% Hit (Troll being 0.38% under the cap), 9 AP, 1.85 white DPS, 2 damage and 104 HP. It's nothing to laugh at, and I'm not so sure Berserking makes up for it. 

Macros are an important part of any "Big Game" Hunter's arsenal. I recently started using 2 VERY useful macros that might help you out.

This macro will automatically use Lifeblood and Berserking when available and cast Steady Shot, which will reduce your attack speed  nicely. All "ability is not ready" errors are suppressed, so this is perfect for replacing your normal Steady Shot bind. In clutch situations (arenas), you may not want to use this, and instead choose to bind Lifeblood and Berserking seperate from Steady Shot (but together).

#showtooltip Steady Shot                             
/run sfx=GetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX");                 
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0                           
/petattack                                           
/cast Lifeblood                                      
/cast Berserking                                     
/cast Steady Shot                                    
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()                           
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX",sfx);                 

This next macro is useful for pet ability management. My mount macro also dismisses my pet, because I never know what I'm going to encounter next in battlegrounds. I have the following bound to 3 and my Bird of Prey to Shift-3 instead of adding a modifier to the macro, so I don't need to mess with my other character's binds. When I know whether I need an interrupt or disarm, I summon the required pet and then use 3 for it's ability.

#showtooltip                                         
/cast [nopet] Call Pet 1                             
/cast [pet:Bird of Prey] Snatch                      
/cast [pet:Moth] Serenity Dust                       

Lastly, I recently released my spreadsheet for hunters, which was used to calculate the differences between Alliance and Horde hunters a few paragraphs above. You can find more information and a download link over at Twink Info.

Strength,

~ Thirk

Professions, Disengage is your friend, anti-Hunter pets, and Horde sucks less

I think I've settled on my final professions after going through my permanent enchantments. I've got my Medium Armor Kits on everything, but neglected to save any. I do have tons of scrolls in case I get some new gear pieces, and I'm currently Engineering so I can craft a new scope if anything.

Mining past 75 is essentially useless for F2P twinks, so I don't bother.

As far as Secondary Professions go, First Aid can be leveled to 225, it does NOT stop at 100, despite what it says. You can continue leveling it up. Expect problems once you get past Wool because there is a large amount of annoying farming with high level help required. I'm still on Wool and won't be capped out at 225 for quite a while. They're also changed Heavy Runecloth Bandages to trainer taught so you can get those right away as well, which is nice. Oh, and Cooking is Cooking.

Farming for cloth is the biggest pain out of all this.

Whillow made this GREAT post with tips on Twink Info for baddie hunters. I'm going to mainly focus on Disengage and Scatter Shot here. Please remember that Disengage is similar to a Mage's Blink, only slightly more difficult to use and in some cases actually better. You can and absolutely should use it to catch up to enemies. I bound my disengage to S. If you still back peddle by accident I REALLY advice binding it to S, you will stop accidentally hitting S extremely quickly. I can aim my disengage mid-air 8/10 times and land where I want to. I also recently switched to an old trackball mouse and I am LOVING how much easier it is to move around in PvP.

Off the roof and straight into mid!

Scatter Shot is one of the best interrupts you can have, and is your main interrupt as a hunter. Please do not waste it to pull extra DPS unless you're sure you will not need any interrupts for the next 30 seconds.



Scorpids and Birds of Prey are both the biggest anti-hunter pets in game, with a Disarm that will make Hunters unable to do anything but desperately hug you hoping you don't absolutely destroy them in the 10 seconds they can't do anything. Rolling a Hunter to kill OP Hunters. A bit ironic, eh? I need to get me a Bird of Prey. An anti-Physical pet to compliment my anti-Caster pet.



Horde is no longer losing every WSG game ever. My ratio has soared up drastically in the past 2 or 3 days, adding about 30 games onto my tally and my ratio has gone from about 30% win to 40%. This means that the extra 30 games had to be 75% wins, so Horde is definitely improving now.

Here's to hoping the trend continues!

Thrall Hall!,

~ Thirk