Many guilds have stopped raiding and season eight has ended. A lot of us are in a sort of doldrums. What can listless hunters do in these times? There are the standard options: run battlegrounds, join pugs, farm achievements, play alts, dominate the auction house. Here, though, I offer some suggestions that are hopefully less obvious.
A Truly Epic Bag
As you might have noticed, 4.0.1 transformed our quivers and ammo pouches into normal bags. Their new sizes are allegedly proportional to how difficult they are to obtain. It says something, then, that the Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina became a 24-slot bag. Attaining it is an adventure, requiring you to clear most of the Molten Core and (potentially) down a world boss. Getting this quiver is a fun, hunter-specific way to pass the time and it all begins with this. Incidentally, quivers appear to still show up on hunters’ backs, and so this bag is a nice bit of bling for those who care about looking like a Fancy Man of Cornwood.
Filling Your Stable
There is something to be said for the argument that it’ll be easier to level new pets at 85 when they will automatically level to 82. That isn’t a reason to not tame them now, though. Pets tamed and brought to level 77 now should automatically level to 82 when you bring them back out of your stable at 85. Consider spending some of your current downtime taming those pets that provide buffs you will want to share with your raidgroups in Cata (see a full list of pet buffs here). After all, you probably don’t want to be scrounging around for pets at 85 when you’d rather being doing the fun, new things that Cata has to offer. And the taming runs you do now don’t have to be boring. For example, if you want a corehound for heroism/bloodlust, why not explore an interesting, genuinely three-dimensional old world dungeon and tame a boss? It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that plenty of new pet skins will be added in Cata and so if you’re all about having the coolest-looking pets you might want to check out the new skins before taming pets now.
The WHU Guild
Frostheim runs a guild of hunters on Icecrown, the WHU. The guild has some events before Cataclysm and so if you’re bored it might be worth checking out.
Extreme Soloing
I like the sense of adventure that comes with extreme soloing. Unlike in standard raid comps, you cannot be confident that the fight you’re about to begin was designed to be beaten with the resources you have at hand. In fact, you know that it wasn’t. All you have is your pet and your wits instead of the crew of healers, tanks and other dps that the place was meant to be conquered by. Not only are you exploring deep, vast, lore-rich places, but you’re also challenging yourself to do things a lone adventurer was never meant to do. Of particular note for extreme soloers are the places that will disappear or change with Cata, like Zul’Gurub.
Epic Questlines
Some quests are just plain awesome and while leveling we tend to miss most of the really good ones. The Wrathgate questline is the standard example. Other fun tasks that you may have missed out on include slaughtering infernals with a Fel Reaver, rescuing a princess from an evil emperor (worthy in part because BRD is just an amazing dungeon), killing a kraken (doable at level 35!), saving troll gods, destroying giant ogre lords, and fighting against evil space aliens for the Light. Of particular significance are the epic questlines that will disappear in Cata like, as Phyllixia notes, the AQ scepter line. There are many other great questlines out there (I’ll remember more later I’m sure), and I’m sorry that my short list was biased by the faction I play (I play a dwarf).
If you have any other suggestions for non-standard things to do at the end of Wrath, please leave them in a comment below.
Euripides
jurgwena
lemli
eidotrope
pherra
femaledwarf
i think i have destroyed Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina some years ago..
is it possible to obtain again at felwood?
is it possible to get the quest chain again?
doing mc solo as hunter, isn’t the problem
Usually when a non-daily quest has been completed it can’t be completed again.
Comments on WoWhead after 4.0 seem to indicate that you can no longer get the Draconic for Dummies book drop from Onyxia, which would break the AQ scepter quest chain… unfortunately :(
Judging by other comments I’d guess that you could still successfully ask a gm for it if the drop is bugged.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=21108#comments
I have had “The Fate of the Kingdom” quest since lvl 60 but I can never get past the Grim Guzzler :(
And it generally takes me an hour to even find my way there. A couple of guildies now have the teleporter from brewfest so my hope is to get teleported in there and finally figure out how to get to the last area.
There are a few ways to get past the bar, including getting Private Rocknot drunk with beer from the barkeep and completing the love potion quest that the succubus in the bar hands out.
Also BRD is apparently getting Ulduar/ICC style teleporters in Cata, which should make getting around a bit easier.
I find that soloing the Outlands world bosses is both fun and profitable. They both drop two lvl 70 BoE epics and about 400-450 gold.
i have cleared Mc solo (patch 4.0.1)
the most tricky part was sulfuron H.
the healer sucks…
did everything with MM specc for selfheal posibility.
pet.. turtle
.. Rag.. speedkill lol
Get to know the black dragons.
While out doing Loremaster I found a knight and his squire in Searing Gorge or Burning Steppes, just north of the giant pit that covers half the zone. Talk to them.
Get to know amnesiac elves.
In Un’goro Crater at Marshall’s Refuge is a tiny guy in green. He has a long series of quests before you discover who he is, but at the very end YOU GET A BOOMERANG.
Find a friend whos never played WoW and get them to try it free for ten days. See the game new from their eyes.
I had the epic quiver quest from the ghostly ancients in Felwood and spent some time farming the blue dragons in Winterspring. The Mature Blue Dragon Sinew did not drop after about 1 hour of farming so I ticketed to see what the deal was. A GM replied that the item was removed from teh game and the quest was broken. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
Comments on Wowhead say it’s still around after 4.0.1. Random loot is random, and so I imagine your safest bet is to kill Azuregos whenever you can.
I tried to find him a few weeks ago when I first got the quest and after striking out more than a few times I checked and it looks like he’s been removed, like all the old world dragons.
I Actually just completed the quiver quest. I bought them in the auction house and from my research they still drop from the winterspring guys, and Azuregos still pops for at least another few weeks, but he’s on a like 5 day timer….
Thanks for the info. I’ll keep checking then.
It dropped for me today off a Cobalt Wyrmkin.