Daniel Howell

PC Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Power Auras

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Since BRK Worldwide Amalgamated switched to Survivalist with the massive Beastmaster Hunter Nerf of 2009, we've started using a new addon called Power Auras. It puts pretty pictures on our GUI when conditions the user sets are met.Although the movie covers a great deal about the addon, something we didn't mention was the fact that one can export and import codes for any aura one creates. On the continued page, you'll find the codes for all seven auras we demonstrate in the movie.

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PC Gaming By Daniel Howell

BRK's top ten weird things my WoW client is doing after 3.0.8.9506 installed

10. Blizz has given up on gold-ads and just made the Launcher scan my hard drive for credit card information, charge me $10, then I receive 5000 gold in an in-game email. 9. The Frogger gauntlet in Naxx has been moved to west-door of Ogrimmar. Alliance raids going for Thrall shall be forced to go through the front door.8. The daily quest to steal 12 puppies for the walruses has been modified. We now have to hand out 12 packages of contraception to the Wolvar.7. The hunter Beastmastery tree has a new talent, "Shutdah3llup", which adjusts all damage-meter addons so that the BM hunter's numbers are always 150DPS higher than anybody else's.6. Warlocks get a new spell, "Invite2RaidPlz" which allows any warlock to transform into an Arcane-spec'd mage for five minutes

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Entertainment

Entertainment By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Trap-Dancing

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Patch 3.0.8. has introduced a new term to many hunters: Trap Dancing. A mainstay of the en-vogue 2/18/51 Survivalist hunter, the concept is to keep your enemy engulfed in an Immolation Trap to provide 100% chance that Lock and Load will proc, after which the SV hunter will reap mondo-benefits. The trick is: how to stay in melee-range to trap while continuing to fire from range. This movie will give you the basics of how this is accomplished.

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Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Crocolisks?

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. The Oracles have some nice stuff for hunters, the least of which is a pretty trinket, the Oracle Talisman of Ablution. But there's more to the Oralces than loot and a cool hipster named Lafoo. (Don't mention Moodle to us; he's a cad and very ungentlemanly.) You are invited to download the full-sized version (82MB) of this movie here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! Nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Hunter-loot awards for 2008

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. 2008 was the first year of "no Azeroth-raiding". No Molten Core, no Blackwing Lair, just Karazhan and beyond. Then Wrath of the Lich King came and gave us, not necessarily a new universe like Burning Crusade did, but an expanded and enhanced version of that which we all already knew. And the hunter-loot flowed. Say it with a very long O. Flooooowed. By definition, Hunter-loot is just about everything in the game, except maces and plate armor. And sometimes we'll try to ninja that stuff too, just out of ignorance/spite/revenge/insanity. But no matter how you look at it, Zin'rokh the Destroyer of Worlds and Axe of the Gronn Lords aren't in this hunter-loot wheel-house discussion, if you catch what we mean. Please join us in a rundown of the best pieces of honest-to-Elune hunter-loot of 2008. The loot doesn't need to be epic or powerful to make the list, but it does have to have some Significance. What defines Significance? For our purpose, we're going to define it as: How much the gear affected our -- i.e, all hunters' -- lives. For example, very few hunters obtained the legendary bow from Sunwell, but that thing affected us all, didn't it. So let the arguing and scoffing commence; here's the BigRedKitty awards for 2008 Hunter-loot.

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Sports

Sports By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Hunter-loot awards for 2008 Part II

Rift Stalker Two-Piece Bonus. Doesn't matter which pieces of hunter Tier Five you had -- like the chest we're linking -- you never gave up two of them, or at least gritted your teeth when you put on your four-piece set bonus from Tier 6. The "15% of all damage-done is healing to your pet" bonus was so amazing, so glorious, so jaw-droppingly spectacular, that you swore you'd never give it up.

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Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Armor penetration stinks

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary."Dude, I've got two almost identical pieces of chest-armor, one has more Crit and one has more Armor Penetration. Which of these should I equip: the Gilded Ringmail Hauberk or the Razorstrike Breastplate?""Dude, you need the Armor Pen! Grab the Hauberk, the Armor Pen-chest!""Seriously, you think Arm Pen is good?'"Dude! It's so sweet! It reduces the enemy's armor so it totally ramps-up your DPS!""Sweet! I'm totally down with the Hauberk."/vendor BreastplateThis is what it sounds like, when Hunters cry.

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BigRedKitty: It's hunter-pinata time, part III

Since the primary part of BM-hunter DPS is Steady Shot, it makes sense to downgrade the RAP-bonus to see how its affected. This could be a fine tactic for one-on-one fights, allowing the hunter to quaff a healing potion or something, but this doesn't seem to address any of our critical class-issues in PvP.

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Entertainment

Entertainment By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: It's hunter-pinata time, part II

We've been doing a ton of work getting everything going, making sure BRK doesn't crash any more servers, and other logistical operations to provide you with the best playing experience possible. I'll do more to stop by and mingle in the future, I promise. "So I come bearing some interesting news.

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Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: It's hunter-pinata time!

"Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Hunter Nerf-Bat Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure lesser-class-ideology. Where each squishie may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of DPS-Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on Azeroth. We are one class, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion.""We shall prevail!" We are so totally not slapping on a pair of red short-shorts and tossing a sledgehammer through your screen; everyone knows hunters can't equip maces. /pfftAnd now, let's talk about what could be coming to hunters on the next public test realm as if we're not hopped up on Captain Crunch and a triple raspberry latte.

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PC Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Proto-Drake fever

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. We've never been this lucky, so of course we had to share it with you. Once you watch the movie and want to learn more about the mounts we discuss, click on through and we'll spill the beans.

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Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Heart of the Phoenix and Lick Your Wounds

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. You didn't really think we'd just give you a pot-stirring post today, did you?/oh behave!Ferocity pets are built for DPS, but they have two of the most powerful pet-healing spells we have: Heart of the Phoenix and Lick Your Wounds. Two big problems with our pets right now is that we have way too many pet-spells to try to cram on our pet's tiny action bar, and some of these autocasting spells will either autocast when we don't want them to, or just fail all together. To solve these issues, we can make macros to control everything. This movie will show you how to make these macros, as well as let you see these two specific pet-spells in action. You are invited to download the YouTube version (27MB) of this movie here, and the full-sized version (42MB) here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! Nobody covers raid Hunters and Hunter-pets like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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News By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: It's Thanksgiving, so we're stirring the pot

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. If we were to ever re-roll Horde, we'd be a female Troll hunter. Yes, the Trolls got their kiesters kicked by rampaging murlocs -- murlocs! -- but the ladies can be hunters, and have just enough 'oomph' in both looks and performance to make them our first choice should the Alliance ever be eliminated. What about our other options? Orcs are just too steel-plate-in-the-skull dumb for our liking. Nobody does nude better than Orcs, but who hunts in the buff? ... Wait, these are Orcs we're talking about... OK, who seriously hunts in the buff? Taurens should either be warriors or druids, period, not hunters. Tauren warriors rock our socks, but Tauren hunters? Excluding Rhino-pets, the size difference between a Tauren and his pet is just silly. If you're a Tauren hunter and don't have a Rhino, you're not bringing it like you should. A Survivalist Tauren hunter is about as wrong an idea as there can possibly be. Survivalist? How are you going to 'survive' when every member of the Alliance has targeted you, just because you take up one quarter of their screen! Nobody likes Blood Elves, not even other Horde. Are we right? Of course we are. And the Forsaken can't even be hunters; they deserve our pity more than anything else. But we're not going to re-roll, for we are a member of the best race in the game. The race that Warcraft made its cover picture, the race that introduced WoW to millions, the race that oozes -- both literally and figuratively -- charisma, competence, and warm ale: The Dwarves.

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PC Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Spirit Beast

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. There was the day we finally got Legacy. We jumped up and down, screaming in pleasure. There was the day we beat Lady Vashj for the first time, pre-nerf. In our jubilation, we totally high-fived a lamp to its destruction, and thus Mrs. BRK finally got rid of, "that hideous piece of junk".And now, both those days are eclipsed with our acquiring of a Spirit Beast pet. It's been almost twelve hours and we're still shaking. We haz Laser Kitteh! /flopfaint

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BigRedKitty: Mario Andretti Mammoth

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. One more Mammoth-movie, no hissing please.The Traveler's Tundra Mammoth is a vehicle, not a mount. The difference is that a vehicle is part of your party, like a hunter-pet. This means that he can be buffed, just like any other member of your party.Hunters have a nifty party-buff called Aspect of the Pack that grants 30% increased movement speed to the hunter and all members of the hunter's party, who are within thirty yards of the hunter. Our Mammoth is a vehicle, thus, AotP buffs our Mammoth. We did this movie to show you just how fast a 130% Mammoth is.Mammoths can accept any buff, like Water Walking! And if you have a party of five people, all on Mammoths, and member of that party is a hunter with Aspect of the Pack cooking, all five Mammoth-riders will be riding at 130%! Who needs Paladins anymore! You are invited to download the YouTube version (26MB) of this movie here, and the full-sized version (42MB) here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! Nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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News By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Down elevator mammoth

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. A Traveler's Tundra Mammoth costs 20,000 gold if one is not exalted with the Kirin Tor. What do you get for your money? Two vendors, portable repairing, the ability to take two friends for a ride, and a down elevator.A down elevator? Yes! Watch and see! You are invited to download the full-sized version (13MB) here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! Nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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TV & Movies

TV & Movies By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Covert-ops Gorilladin movie

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Bugged quests can be loads of fun, especially when hunter-pets are involved. We once captured a screenshot of Baby Rhino flying by himself, but this time we were able to make an entire movie of our pet doing stuff he really shouldn't. You are invited to download the YouTube version (26MB) of this movie here, and the full-sized version (37MB) here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! From his video guides to Karazhan For Hunter Dummies, nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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News By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: We score some really good hors d'oeuvres

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. One of the big bonuses of playing on the beta was getting to see all the behind-the scenes action. Mountains being built, oceans filling up, trees being planted, etc. We got to talk to all the NPCs in the game, too. We found out what they thought about the expansion, their leaders, and the kind of food Blizzard typical had catered during a workday.Now it's not widely known that before Blizzard sent the instance and raid bosses to their new dwellings, they had a wrap-up party. We were able to crash it, thanks to our having a friendly relationship with a few of the goblin waiters running about. So there they all were, kicking around the set, knocking back a few cold ones, telling jokes and stories. Every raid and instance boss wishing each other well and cavorting with each other rather pleasantly. One man was conspicuously absent from the pre-launch festivities: Arthas. But nobody seemed terribly concerned about it."So what's going on? Did you guys invite Arthas?" we asked.Prince Keleseth of Utgard Keep slurred, "Oh yeah, we invited him. Fat lot good it'll do though. He doesn't like to party anymore, not in the least. He's a party-pooper. Well yeah I just said it! I dare anybody here to disagree with me, too!"

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PC Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Arthas interview, part 2

Burning Legion, they have all the demons to play with. The ebony armor was showing a few scratches, the sword was a bit bent, the helmet was oozing spittle – Arthas was not a proficient sunflower shucker – and the cape had a tag sewn into the hem that said, "100% polyester blend". Burning Legion, they had to be defeated.

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Entertainment

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BigRedKitty: Arthas interview, part 3

Step one, kick some butt at the party..." "Shower first." "Step one, shower.

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BigRedKitty: An open apology to everybody

We broke everything. We plead guilty.Our Baby Tauren Army had 897 baby Taurens, peacefully hanging out and dancing. We had a fifty-five level 70s in two raids, ready to plow the way into Stormwind. Then, at the appointed hour of 6pm EST, we started for Ratchet, and the lag started. GMs started whispering people in our newly-formed guild, telling us of dire consequences if our actions didn't stop.Had we spoken directly with a GM, we imagine the conversation would've gone like this:

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BigRedKitty: For Ezra and Make a Wish

Ezra Chatterton has gone on to a better place, and we are all better for having known of him, his struggles, and the honor and dignity that he and his family displayed throughout their ordeal. Our most sincere and heartfelt love and wishes for a happier future go out to them all. May they find the peace and comfort they so richly deserve.We have received emails from his guild, telling us that he read BigRedKitty.net. He was a hunter, and we are proud to have had him among our ranks. Now we are not the best hunter in Warcraft, nor the one with the most PvP kills, nor the best gear, nor anything else that elevates us to any high standard. But we do have two things that we can use to honor the memory of one who has fallen before his time:A great big mouth and an extremely large and disturbed cult following.It is with great pride and humility that we announce an event in which you can participate. Where you can join us as we humbly, and with tremendous joy, stand and proclaim our kinship with Ezra, and the Make-a-Wish foundation which gave him so much joy.We're going to burn Stormwind to ashes.

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BigRedKitty: Mammoth

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Has your mind been on your money, and your money been on your mind? If you've mastered the art of the Auction House, if you've cornered the subtleties of capitalism, if you've bribed your grandmother to use your toon all day while you're at school or work and made her farm until her fingers bled, perhaps you have the deep pockets one needs to buy the Reins of the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth.Twenty thousand gold, foshizzle. Is it worth it? Watch the movie and decide for yourself. You are invited to download the YouTube version (35MB) of this movie here, and the full-sized version (54MB) here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! From his video guides to Karazhan For Hunter Dummies, nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Gorilladin 101

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. We are concerned. One the one hand, we've received truckloads of emails asking for help with Gorilla-pets. And we can understand that, as the Gorilladin (Gorilladin = Gorilla + Paladin AoE attack) version of this pet deviates from the standard hunter-pet model of single-target destruction. This guy is an AoE-tank and the way to properly utilize him is different than every other hunter-pet. Thunderstomp and Volley are your friends with a Gorilla, foshizzle.But on the other hand, the hunter-community has had to "endure" two of our movies about the Gorilla already, and doing another seems to be a little overboard. Can one have too much Gorilla? We really don't want a backlash.We decided to do one more Gorilladin movie, but this is the last one. We're going to try to cover, in fine detail, a successful way to train and utilize a Gorilladin for use with farming multiple mobs. We chose Talbuks because we love leather, but the methods herein work with any non-caster mob: humanoids, beast, demons, etc.The two macros we discuss in this movie are:The Simple Pet-Misdirection Macro/cast [target=your_pet's_name] MisdirectionThe Pet-Attack Macro/cast Hunter's Mark/petattackThere are many variations of these, but we're aiming for simplicity here. This is a 101 class, not graduate studies.And because we're sure someone will ask, we're using Perl Classic Unit Frames, Bartender4, ButtonFacade, Chatter, OmniCC, and FuBar3.5 addons. You are invited to download the YouTube version (95MB) of this movie here, and the full-sized version (154MB) here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! From his video guides to Karazhan For Hunter Dummies, nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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Gaming By Daniel Howell

BigRedKitty: Freezing Arrow and a new Wolf

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. At level 80, we hunters are getting a new type of trap called a Freezing Arrow. We'll show you how it works.Even better, we'll show you how it works as we hunt down, tame, and introduce you to the latest beta Wolf-skin! You are invited to download the YouTube version (36MB) of this movie here, and the full-sized version (53MB) here.As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time! From his video guides to Karazhan For Hunter Dummies, nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.

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