Scattered Shots: Grandpappy Frostheim on the end of Wrath

Scattered Shots is brought to you by Grandpappy Frostheim, who spends his evenings in an Ironforge tavern telling young hunters how much harder things were in his day, when they had to kite mobs uphill, both ways ... back when men were men, and women were men too, and pets were next to useless -- but they were also men. You can ask him questions on Google+.

OK, kids, have a seat. I've got something very important to tell you today. You've all heard me talking about what things were like back in my day, how they were so much harder back then and how you kids go on complaining without realizing how much better things are now. Well, I've got news for you: You're about to find out what it's like to be in my seat.

You see, back when The Burning Crusade came out is when us old-timers first became old-timers. We were surrounded by the BC babies who had no idea how much better things were for their class. Then a couple of years later, we had the Wrath babies, who had things better than ever and what those BC babies had. Well, those BC hunters had to grow up and start talking about back in their day.

It's your turn now.

Pretty soon, we're going to have the Cataclysm babies, the hunters who just started with the Cataclysm expansion, and when they start complaining about how hard they have it -- well, then you'll be sitting right where I am now, trying to get them to understand how much better things are. Let me tell you the kinds of things you'll be saying about about the olden days of Wrath of the Lich King.

I don't have enough stable slots!

What? You don't think you're going to hear that? I promise you that you will. And then you'll have to tell those young pups how back in your day you only had five stable slots for your pet, not no spoiled Cata kid 25 slots! Not that it mattered that much, since every hunter had to use a wolf pet, anyway.

Oh yeah, because back in your day, pets didn't provide raid buffs -- they only buffed their hunter. We just had to do a little bit of math to figure out that the wolf gave us the most DPS, and then every hunter had the exact same pet for every raid and 5-man -- unless they were happy doing less-than-optimal DPS. You didn't have a choice of pets back then, not really.

And you know all those spirit beasts you spend so long camping and felt so great when you tamed? Worse than the wolf. They didn't provide the most awesome hunter buff and a sweet little heal to boot like they do for you spoiled kids. Nope, they just had a lame and buggy special attack that provided less DPS than the trusty wolf, so those beautiful spirit beasts just sat in that five-slot stable.

My ranged weapon is too expensive to repair

Yeah, this one will get your hackles up every time you hear some Cata baby hunter complaining about how Multi-Shot causes extra durability damage to his ranged weapon and he feels persecuted for being a hunter. In your day, you'll say, you had this little thing called ammo. You literally had to carry around every single bullet or arrow that you needed to fire in your bags. And when you ran out -- and that did happen, if you weren't careful -- you couldn't shoot at all. That's it; game over, you get to melee now.

Not only did you have to carry that stuff around, filling your precious bag slots with stacks of ammo, but you had to pay for it, too. As content progressed, there was more and more expensive ammo to use. With every single shot you fired, you were launching your money at the enemy. You had the glory of being the only class in the game that had to actually pay money just to auto-attack -- and that was on top of the durability loss.

Oh yeah, and all that ammo you had to carry around? It didn't do anything cool either -- it was just a flat DPS increase, and the designers balanced the hunter class assuming you always had the best (and most expensive) ammo. So if you weren't using the best, you could expect to be behind on the meters.

I shouldn't have to reapply Serpent Sting on certain fights

Yup, they'll be complaining about Serpent Sting, too, in fights when you have to switch targets just long enough for it to drop off or when random fear effects hit at bad times and keep you from getting the refresh off in time.

Of course in your day, both BM and SV had to reapply Serpent Sting constantly, throughout the fight, every 15 seconds. Only MM was able to refresh Serpent Sting through Chimera Shot. And that Chimera Shot didn't have any kind of self-heal on it, either -- MM had no self-healing at all after all. Chimera just did its damage and refreshed the sting, and believe you hunters were grateful for that back in your day!

Now, kids get everything you didn't have, and all they do is complain about it!

Mana

I've already talked about mana, so you guys know the score with that one. Focus is a clear improvement, and you'll have plenty of horror stories to tell about how horrible mana was.

The LFG queue is too long

You can hear it now, can't you? The little Cata babies complaining about 10-minute queues when trying to LFG for the random daily. And you just know they won't be complaining idly, oh no. It'll be not just disastrous but downright insulting, and they'll seriously consider quitting the game if Blizzard doesn't do something to fix it!

Well, back in your day, there wasn't any kind of LFG tool at all. If you wanted to run an instance and didn't have guildies to go with you, your only hope was to hang out in the LFG chat channel (or possibly trade chat). Of course, that meant that you were only talking with people on your server, and the entire thing was filled with nothing but DPS begging for groups for hour after hour.

Typically, you'd go in there and announce your prowess and availability in some kind of vain hope that the the stars would align and some tank would grace you with his favor. You had better chances of winning the lottery, of getting a mage to put on some pants, than you had of actually getting a group. Usually after a half an hour or so of this begging, you'd go off and do something else for a while before trying again.

But you kept at it, because every now and then you'd actually get a slot in a group. Of course, they were just as likely then as now to be horrible groups that would wipe on the first pull, then have someone AFK, and then the tank would announce that he was out of time, sorry KTHXBAI.

That's right, you remember those days of early Wrath. Blizzard gave those kids the ultimate cross-server LFG tool and what do they do with it? Complain, complain, complain, because it's never enough.

More than anything else, that's what you're going to learn about the baby hunters in the new expansion. No matter how much Blizzard gives them, no matter how much better things get, it's still a disaster to them. It's never big enough or fast enough or high enough. No matter what it is, it's never, ever enough.

So now you tell me kiddos, when you're sitting here in my chair in your archaic tier 10 armor, what do you think this new generation of baby hunters will be complaining about that is so much better than it was in your day?

Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. Our Scattered Shots Resource Guide takes aim at everything from improving your heroic DPS, understanding the impact of skill vs. gear, and getting started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101

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