Now that the UI/Addons and the basic macros have been setup, it’s time to work on some questing!

I’m still trying to get over how small the starter pets are. I’m used to things shrinking when I tame them, but these guys are tiny. Plus the visual oddity of sending what amount to Plainstrider Hatchlings against adults for your very first quest is rather amusing.

Thus I have lovingly named them Pipsqueek and AnkleBiter (yes, I am aware Pipsqueak is spelled wrong) and am looking forward to a leveling in a more Hunter-esque fashion!

Level 1

Abilities: Auto Attack, Auto Shot, Arcane Shot, Call Pet, Revive Pet
Old Abilities (Moved): Raptor Strike, Track Beasts
Basic Strategy: Arcane Shot as an opener and then Auto Shot until dead

It’s annoying not to have any sort of control over the Purple Doom Chickens, they do seem to be on Defensive and refrained from gnawing on everything in range. They seem to grab aggro well enough, so not having to micro-manage them for the moment is nice.

Raptor Strike has been moved to Level 6 and Track Beasts has been moved to Level 4, neither of which is much of a loss. Arcane Shot has moved in as a starting skill, along with Call Pet and Revive Pet.

Arcane Shot

25 Focus, 40 yd range, Instant
An instant shot that causes weapon damage plus RAP*0.042+?? as arcane damage.

This is your bread and butter spell for the moment, nothing else that you have uses Focus, so if you’d rather just spam this instead of waiting for the Auto Shot to finish off the mobs, feel free. The nice thing about Dual-Boxing is that everything dies twice as fast, so running out of Focus is rarely a problem when soloing.

Call Pet will resummon your starter pet if you get separated, as long as it hasn’t died. If it has died, then Revive Pet will bring your Hatchling O’ Doom back into the game.

So far I haven’t even come close to killing off or misplacing either of the pets, so I’m not sure how useful these spells will be for the first few levels.

The QuestHelper Addon has unfortunately died a quiet death with the new patch. The good news is that the built-ins are much much better than before. Not only do you get general areas to search on the map, but now you get this nifty little mouse-over that tells you what drops you need from the mobs, plus how many each party member still needs.

Level 2

Abilities: Nothing New
Basic Strategy: Same as before

I hit Level 2 while busy farming for Plainstrider bits for the first quest. Things die twice as fast… but when you have to kill twice as many things, it’s pretty much a zero sum equation.

Level 3

Abilities: Steady Shot
Basic Strategy: Same as before

Steady Shot

40 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
A steady shot that causes weapon damage plus RAP*0.1+??. Generates 9 Focus.

Steady Shot has moved from Level 50 down to Level 3 and offers both a nice damage boost to your opener as well as a way to regain focus. Since everything is still yellow (neutral) in the starting zones, it isn’t as useful as it would have been if the mobs cared like they used to. I used this as my opener for a bit, but since it kicks Yon out of follow, I got lazy and went back to just using Arcane Shot.

The other annoying bit is that the Doom Chickens wait until the shot has been fired to start attacking. I tried an Arcane Shot, Steady Shot rotation, but the mobs were almost always dead by the time the Steady Shot fired.

Level Four

Abilities: Track Beasts
Old Abilities (Moved): Aspect of the Monkey, Serpent Sting
Basic Strategy: Same as before

Serpent Sting is now a Level 10 spell (alas) and Aspect of the Monkey no longer exists. While I will miss the damage over time aspect of Serpent Sting, Aspect of the Monkey was a melee buff and my hatred for melee is well documented.

Track Beasts does what it says on the tin and shows beasts on the minimap as yellow or red dots, something that isn’t really important until you are looking for a specific beast or are trying to avoid hostile mobs. Later down the line you can also pickup a damage bonus against mobs that match the type of tracking you have turned on, but that comes a bit later.

Since the beasts you need for newbie quests are incredibly easy to find and nothing is left that’s hostile in the starting areas… you can put off training this skill until you head out into the world.

Level Five

Abilities: Nothing new
Basic Strategy: Same as before

And that sums up Levels 1 through 5!