Ranged pwnage

Took a trip to the Swamp of Sorrows yesterday with my hunter to do the quests there. Not that much to do, but it gets you some XP and I managed to get to level 42 by just completing those quests, plus got a good amount more on the way to 43. The escort quest in that place sucks to solo, even for my hunter. If you don't clear out some of the mobs before you start the quest the guy you escort ends up aggroing 4 or 5 mobs, 2 of them are warlock types with imp minions, so that just adds to how much damage he takes, so there's no chance of taking them out before they burn him down. So I decided to clear them out ahead of time. I guess I'm a little rusty on my hunter skills, and I'm not used to having feign death, because I died a couple times when I really didn't need to. I think another problem is what I talked about last post with my lack of a good ranged weapon. Right now I'm using a gun I picked up as a quest reward, and it did well for a while, but I'm pretty sure it's way below my level now because my damage does not seem to be up to par with what level I am. Other than that I had no problem mopping up the quests in just a little over an hour before RL stuff called my attention elsewhere.

I suppose another problem with having a bunch of alts is that if you leave one alone for a while you have to relearn the class, or at least it takes a bit to remember the strategies and skill rotations you used before. So not only do you sit there for a bit trying to figure out exactly what you were doing last time you played that particular character, once you actually figure it out you and head off to do it, you have to spend more time muddling through fights before you remember how to play the class again. Of course it's not like it takes that long, you get the hang of the basics after a few fights, but you forget about all the skills you have that you don't use in the average fight.

For every class I'm sure we all have skill rotations for battle that we use in different situations, and while it obviously varies with each class, the idea tends to be the same for the most part. I have a rotation of skills I use against one mob which basically tries to conserve mana as much as possible to reduce downtime between mobs. Then I have ways of dealing with two mobs, which includes trying to dish out as much damage as possible and kill one, and hope I have enough health to kill the next otherwise I run, but pets make this much easier. I don't go up against more than two on my own usually, except with a hunter or warlock where my pet can take the damage. There are also the panic skills, the ones you use when you know you get critted on like every hit, or a patrol of mobs shows up and joins in, something that makes you think (or say out loud) "Oh crap!" For most classes this pretty much involves running away and using skills to keep yourself alive until you get out of aggro range. For rogues and hunters you have vanish and feign death, those classes have it easy. But for shamans you have stoneclaw and earthbind totems to slow down attackers plus ghost wolf for while some druids spec nature's grasp for occasions such as this and have travel form, many others have some kind of fear, like warlocks, priests, and warriors, and priests also have a bubble spell, as do the paladins, while mages have frost nova and blink. Guess I went a little overboard on that explanation, but the point is these situations are not the only ones you run into. What happens when you group with someone, fight in PVP, or maybe you have a different strategy against casters or ranged mobs, and for melee fighters it might be better to pull a mob with a ranged weapon than run up and start wailing away on it, so then you might switch it up a little.

Relearning your class might not be as straightforward as just killing a few things to remember this stuff, but it makes things fresh again if you haven't played that particular character for a while, and that's how I like to play. I like the progression of leveling and going through the quests, and even though it might not be the most efficient way of getting a character to the level cap or getting all the best gear, I don't really mind because I find each class fun in its own way so I will continue with all my alts and slowly but surely proceed through the levels with them.