The God Mother of Alt:ernative blog fame brought up something that I’ve been doing my best to ignore.
The loss of the Hunter’s melee weapon(s) with the next patch.
When I started huntering in 2006, I was over joyed that we were able to dual-wield. Since I’m somewhat of an RP snob, I didn’t want to carry anything but dual daggers. I was quickly laughed at, and I learned that there were other things to consider than just looks.
But, carrying a big old nasty sword just didn’t look right! Carrying a staff or polearm was even worse!
Doesn’t it make more sense for a woodsman, a hunter of beasts to carry something smaller? Maybe a dagger, or hatchet?
That just makes sense to me.
Since I was a loner early on, I didn’t min/max at all. I carried whatever I wanted to carry, who cares about what elite players think!
I had just gotten into running 5 mans during BC, when I had a /w invite to ShLabbs. You remember that one don’t you? If you were a hunter you certainately do. That is the place where you found the polearm that was the soup-de-jour of BC pre-raid stat-sticks. I was called in on the last two bosses, the only hunter…heck, the only class that could use it at that time…and it dropped!
Holy Crapton of Elune’s Tears!
Me, the Huntard of Record, the Master of Wipes, the King of the Greens had a Sonic Spear!!!
This is absolutely my favorite melee weapon for many reasons. It was one of the first times I was actually “asked” to run an instance. I was with people who had gotten to know me in game, and valued me as a player. It was my very first Instance-Blue item.
Here is one of the few pics (2) that I have of the Spear:
Matches My Hair!
When Wrath hit, dual wielding came back into vogue; at least for a little while. At least for a little while, the best thing a hunter could carry were two Fangs of Truth. Again, this met a dual wield need within me that hadn’t been satisfied since Vanilla WoW.
I don’t have a good picture of them. But, at least you can see they are equipped in this shot. You see, this is when my gun broke and I ended up being the Melee Huntard they talk about late at night to keep the young hunters on the straight and narrow.
So, there you have it. My two favorite weapons were the Sonic Spear and the Fang of Truth.
I will truly miss the Hunter Melee Weapons.
Z
I think they should have gone the other way, and made Survival a melee-heavy Hunter spec with only the core Hunter ranged abilities. I love the idea of a melee DPS Hunter, mixing things up shoulder to shoulder with his or her pet once the fur hits the fan, as it were.
Oh, absolutely! I did a lot of growing up on the gulf coast of TX…real close to a peninsula. There were (and still are) many feral hogs running around; and it wasn’t unusuall for some of my *coughredneckcough* friends to hunt those hogs with spears and dogs.
I KID YOU NOT!!! They really did it! They were short handled, long bladed freakin’ spears!
I can see a melee hunter spec working out. Heck, I might even try it! But, my heart tends to work it’s way toward the old fashioned D&D Ranger. I’m all about the bow, dual wielding daggers, hatchets or short-swords. Totally back up weapons, when they get to close for the bow.
Guns are just wrong… /srsnod
As a bit of a purist, I wholly concur with dual daggers. That’s just a natural for the ranger-forester-woodsman archetype. I was okay with Legacy because it was an axe. And Dwarves. Like. Axes.
I can see someone RPing a Woodsman, carrying a big honkin’ ax on his back! That would be great.
Z
Schniiiiiiiitzel.
(I hope you get that or it will come off incredbily strange…)
I’m a country boy from TX. What are the odds I’ll “get” anything?
Z
See “Hoodwinked”
Liouxpold is disappointed to know he will be retiring his axes. For many ages he was a dual-wield sword Hunter. Then again, until Illidan’s Bow dropped earlier this month he had used nothing but Crossbows. Times? They’re a changing.
Hey Zwingli,
This post reminds me that I forgot about the changes with the weapons come the next patch. Now, I gotta do some Tmog runs for some bows on my hunter and some nice daggers, wands and OH items for my ‘lock! Had a blast meeting all of you the other night and I really do appreciate the hospitality. Now, I have another comment section to troll
My best…
Btw, when I said “I have another comment section to troll” (in the comment above) I hope you know I meant your site! ha!
You are welcome to troll here any time! It was nice talking with you the other day. I look forward to it again!!!
Z