This time Z & Cinder wonder whether “Blizzard nailed it on the head, or is it just leaving you cold and wanting to re-write the way your toon’s class is portrayed”. Blog challenge accepted!

I’ve always been a die hard fan of class specific lore so, my answer to the question is most definitely: “Yay, Blizzard nailed it on the head”!

Beast Mastery: Among the most gifted hunters, there are those who have from birth felt a profound bond with the creatures of the wild. These beast masters are drawn to the perilous primal world, invigorated by its dangerous and untamed nature. Primitive landscape becomes home. Ferocious predator becomes kin. Whether in the thrill of the hunt or the heat of battle, beast masters call forth a litany of vicious animals to overwhelm prey and gnaw at their enemies’ will. – Blizzard

Pet Taming

The taming of beasts is reserved to hunters only, and has always been one of the things I truly enjoyed about that class. I remember, in Draenor, the secret quest chain to tame Gara… The day that I discovered that there was such a thing for us, beast masters, I went ecstatic. Class specific lore adds so much more to your character. Sardoken and I eagerely jumped into this taming adventure to obtain the magnificent ghost wolf, Gara.

With the release of Legion, Blizzard started implementing more and more “special” tameable creatures throughout the entire game. Imagine our suprise when we heard about this awesome news!

The first to be introduced were the mechanical pets. If you’re not a Gnome or Goblin, you must acquire the engineer-crafted Mecha-Bond Imprint Matrix to begin with. Once crafted and learned, you can tame about any mechanical hunter pet available in the game. Some are quite easy to obtain like the mechanical sheep Tekton, while others remain a little bit more challenging, like the Arachnodrones found in Alcaz Island.

The new Hunter pet family added in patch 7.2: the Feathermanes. My favourites being the Wolfhawks, that’s why I’ve tamed all three of them. The possibility of taming this new pet family requires the completion of certain achievements and quests. Wowhead, as usual, has a really nice guide that you can follow blindly.

Then there is the most ultimate challenge: Fenryr, whom you can only tame by soloing Halls of Valor mythic. Yes, you’ve read that right: you have to solo a mythic. I’ve never tried it myself, but I will… soon… one day ;p

As you can see, the range of tameable pets seems to grow day by day. It’s a hunter only thing and I’m very, veeerrrryyyy happy that Blizzard has put so much effort in our taming experience.

Class Order Hall

The Class Order Hall for the hunter is the one and only “Trueshot Lodge”. There is no place better for hunters than the Lodge. I love this place… It’s beautiful and cozy with bonfires, snow, pinetrees, and it has various bows, guns, and polearms on display from the history of World of Warcraft.

Trueshot Lodge is the home base of an ancient order of hunters known as the Unseen Path. The Lodge was originally built by night elves and tauren working together on Talon Peak in Highmountain. It serves as the order hall for hunters.
Talon Peak was known by another name that has not been mentioned. The site was blessed by Ohn’ahra herself through [Talonclaw] and thus inspired the change. – WowpediA

As you can see on the map, there are three watchtowers: the southern, northern and northeast tower. Only the southern tower has survived the centuries, the other two were apparently damaged beyond repair, and were replaced by smaller towers that are, currently, seen around the Lodge.

We also have a portal to Dalaran and the flight master has a unique set of flightpaths only for hunters. Inside the Lodge, we can imbue our artifact weapon and consult our command map for missions and objectives.

The artifact researcher is named Holt Thunderhorn. He is located near a large book at the east side of the lodge. The tome starts blank, but will grow to hold the “Tales of the Hunt”.

Around the Lodge there’s the Gladiator’s Sanctum, the stables, and a hidden cave where Ogdrul is trapped in a rune circle.

I could have never imagined a more beautiful Class Order Hall than the Trueshot Lodge. I’m happy that my hunter can call this her home, but I’m also a bit sad when I think that, after this expansion, I’ll be spending less time in this beautiful place.

Class Mount

The scenario to obtain the hunter class mount was amazing! It starts with a cinematic where everyone is gathered around the fire and celebrating. Then, the scenario begins…

First, you have to go out into the night and must use your tracking skills to find four great beasts, which you have to defeat. After that, you have to put the spirits of the Wolf, Fereki, and Hawk, Vetholnir, to rest to be able to proceed to “Challenge the Wolfhawk”. Haukenulfnir, the wolfhawk, is an elite and a bit harder to defeat than the other NPCs. Once she/he is down, the final stage can begin: “Revel the Night Away” – Return to Odyn and feast the night away.

After the scenario, you return to the Trueshot Lodge, where a wolfhawk flies into the camp and chooses you!

The Feathermane mount has a different color for each spec. To get all three of them, you must unlock Concordance of the Legionfall with all three specs. I did and it was totally worth it! This is one of my most favourite mounts throughout the entire game so, once again… I can say that I’m a happy hunter 🙂

Artifact, gear, talents,…

Before Legion came out, I wasn’t very happy with the hunter changes they had announced. In fact, I was very negative. Once Legion was released, however, I rapidly became aware on how ridiculous that was. I love the changes they’ve made. Each spec is more distinct from one and other. Granted, I’ve never been a fan of Marksmanship or Survival so, needless to say that I couldn’t care less about these two specs. I’ve always played Beast Master, and I’m glad to see that everything that Blizzard has done until now, made me love my favourite class (and spec) even more.

Beast Master feels more than ever like a real master of the beasts… We have two pets, thanks to the artifact weapon, which I really love. I sincerely hope that Blizz will continue focusing on more than one pet in the next expansions. I would feel too lonely without my entire zoo around me 😉 The thing I like is that our talents are more focused on the damage done by our pets. We still have Cobra and Multi shot, traps, and some really cool utility spells/abilities like “Flare”, “Tracking”,… All in all, when it comes to the talents, I am a happy BM hunter.

Our artifact weapon, Titanstrike is pretty cool. Eventhough I may not like every appearance, there are plenty of great looking ones. Overall, I like the artifact system. It adds a lot to each class lore, which must be very refreshing for altoholics or lore nerds. If I would have more time I would love to level all classes and specs, only to see all the different stories.

Talking about stories, I loved the entire Hunter Class Hall Campaign! From the most simple quest to the night with Rexxar, the entire campaign has been a wonderful adventure. Not to mention the title “Huntmaster”, that we gain after completing In Defense of Dalaran.

Last but not least, I think that, in this expansion, the gear for the hunter has made a bit of an upgrade. I mean, look at the Hunter Class Order Hall set: Guise of the Unseen Path. Sardoken has transmogged his last gear into this set, which proves how great the hunter set in this xpac really is.

TLDR, I’m very happy that Class Fantasy took such an important place in Legion. It adds so much more depth to each of the classes, which makes me love the game even more (if that was even possible ;-)).

Another community challenge from Z & Cinder. This time the topic is about the reason behind our blogging:

“Everyone who has created a blog has done so for a reason. For all of you WoW bloggers out there, what was that reason? Why did you choose to put fingers to keys to write about a computer game? What type of posts do you like to write? Does your blog have a theme to it, or do you just wing it and write whatever you want? We’d love to know!”

So here is why we blog about WoW:

1. The main reason why we blog is because we want to keep remembrances of our adventures in World of Warcraft. We spend an incredible amount of time in Azeroth, fighting, exploring, fishing,… It would be sad not to have anything to remember those moments by. In fact, our WoW blogging started with separated blogs where we were keeping our screenshots, without text. Then, we started giving our opinions about quests and dungeons. And, finally, Navimie gave us the idea to blog together, that’s how The Brutes were born.
2. Creativity would be the second reason. Developping this blog gave me a reason to get better at CSS, I coded the entire theme of The Brutes and it was an amazing experience. That’s not all, it also gives us a place to write our stories and to work on little projects like creating funny comics or videos about challenges like the Ironman. The blog is a great motivation behind our creativity.
3. Finally, we really enjoy the blogging community. Even if the first reason behind our writing is nothing else but our own remembrances, we do enjoy our little corner of the internet. Big sites like MMO Champion and Wowhead are filled with guides and objective posts. We don’t want objectivity, give us the people’s experience, what they do in Azeroth, what they love about it, what they hate… We feel closer to the real people, those who have a job or a family or both, who have to create their own adventures based on the time they have in the game. It feels more real to us than reading about pro-gamers and how long it took them to down the last boss.

Voilà, what we wish to the WoW blogging community is to grow and to get closer to each other, each with thousands of posts to remember our goofy adventures by.

In this new community challenge, Zeirah & Cinder want to know more about our WoW music. It took us a while to write this post because we don’t really listen to anything else than the game music when we play WoW.

However, there are a few zones in the game that trigger songs in our heads.

Sardoken

Because of the quest Welcome to the Jungle, Strangelthorn Vale always makes me think about Guns’n Roses.

There was a time, long ago, when I was someone else (I swear), I enjoyed trolling Night Elves. I was playing a Dwarf and, everytime I was flying above Feralas, I was yelling insults against the wood folks. Eventually, it degenerated into a macro that would yell the lyrics of Lady Gaga “Paparazzi” eveyrtime I flew over Feralas, adding some “color” to the Night Elf roleplaying that was taking place below… It was stupid, but it made us laugh. It remains one of my favourite remembrances.

Soforah

Scholomance has always been (and still is) my favourite dungeon in the game. Everytime I go there, I have No time to cry of Cradle of Filth in my head. I have no idea why, must be because the band looks like a bunch of undead. I could imagine them holding a concert in the depths of the dungeon.

I’ve never been a big fan of jungles, in-game ones included. It’s as if I can feel the hot, damp climate trough my screen. I remember going to Sholazar Basin for the first time, the song that popped up in my head was The lion sleeps tonight of the Tokens. I don’t particularly like the song, but it became my official OST for Sholazar.

Another great project from Z & Cinder! This time, we get the opportunity to show what’s in our bags.

Sardoken

I use Arkinventory to sort my bags. It’s my all-time favourite addon, the one I couldn’t live without. You just have to define a few rules, then it sorts your bags into groups. I use the same profile for all my characters, that’s why I’ll only show you Sardoken’s bag.

Soforah

As you can see, I’m far from being as neat and tidy as Sardoken (in real life and in game ;p). I use the default bags, which are filled with whatever clutter I find and which I’m not sure whether I should keep or get rid of.

All in all, we may have a very diferent way to organize our bags, but their content is pretty much the same. Our only wish is that we would have less clutter to carry around, like the treasure maps,… Crafting materials could have a tab of their own, where they would stack infinitely (like in Guild Wars 2, I believe). And, last but not least, we should have the possibility to upgrade the backpack. Maybe will we see it in a future expansion pack.

We stumbled upon a few bloggers doing this challenge from Z & Cinder, and it got us thinking about what a day in the life of Soforah and Sardoken would be like.

Sardoken’s day

Just like everyday, I don’t wait for the sun to rise, I get up and I do my exercises: one thousand push-ups (on one hand) and 5 rounds of Orgrimmar, I don’t even break a sweat. What did you think, that I had these fabulous muscles for free, it takes a lot of work, you know?!

Then, I go to the market to buy some groceries. My awesome new tattoos don’t go unnoticed, a group of young nymphets scream when they see me, but I’m used to it and I don’t even look at them.

I get back to our home and I do the chores. I try to remain as silent as I can, I wouldn’t want to wake up Soforah who’s still dreaming (probably of me).
I know that I spoil her, my friends don’t even know how to cook or how to clean. But she deserves the best, and I think we can safely say that this is exactly what she gets.

After having prepared her breakfast, I write a little note to my pumpkin pie. I let her know that I’ll be spending the day honoring the flame at the bonfire of Suramar. My old friend Marcel, probably the holiest guy I’ve ever known, has been asked to take care of it. I’ll be back before dawn.

I then take a windrider to Meredil and meet my old buddy. Very respectfully, we share a drink and memories of the past.

At that moment, I notice a young Night Elf girl approaching silently, a bucket in her hand. She thinks that she goes unnoticed, but nothing escapes my keen eyes. I also see three Suramar guards closing in on her, but she’s so focused on not spilling the water, that she pays no attention to them.

Horde or Alliance, it doesn’t matter to me. You see, I’m made of pure hero material, I can’t let a lady get in trouble. It’s a good occasion to practice my blind shooting, so I fire a shot over my shoulder, using only my hearing, not my sight. As expected, the bullet kills all three guards at once.

I walk to to the poor thing, she’s still shaking, but I sense that it isn’t out of fear anymore. I understand what’s going on… Like so many before her, she’s falling for my natural charm. Eventhough I can’t understand her language, I know that she’s probably offering herself to me. And, just like so many before her, I respectfully decline. You see, this magnificent Orc is already taken. I could get her name though… Alunaria. Well, little elf, your name will be on the list of my broken hearts.

An hour later, guess who decides to show up. Yep, Soforah finally got out of bed. She missed the action, but I feel better knowing that she was safe.

Soforah’s day

It’s eleven in the morning, and I’ve already done so much. The shopping is done and the dinner is ready for this evening. Sardoken, as usual, is still sleeping. He snores so loud that the cuttlery on the table is moving on its own.

I’d say that I do the chores silently, but honestly nothing could wake this slumbering Orc, only the smell of his coffee. It’s nearly noon when he finally decides to show up. He drinks what he calls his morning cup of Joe, I call it a bucket. Before I realise, he’s already gone and he has left me an almost unreadable note: Marcel – Bonfire – Suramar. My man, the poet.

I’d better go there myself, you have no idea what these two are capable of. Let me describe you the famous best friend of my husband: You already knew green Orcs and brown Orcs, but you propably didn’t know about red Orcs. Well, to my knowledge, there is only one. Marcel drinks so much that he’s permanently red-faced and his nose is deformed by the thousands (millions?) of beers he drank in his life. I don’t think that I’d hurt his feelings by calling him “the local town drunk”, he’d probably take it as a compliment.

While I love my man, I also know that he is not a saint. These two together is the perfect recipe for disaster. If we would want to get rid of the Legion, we’d just have to send these two with a few bottles of beer. Few are those who could survive it. Fortunately, I’m one of them. That’s why I’m heading to Meredil.

My mount hasn’t landed yet, but I can already hear their laughter. As I approach the place where the flame is located, I almost trip over the empty bottles they’ve left behind.
Here it is, the mighty scene of Sardoken and Marcel “honoring” the flame. They can’t even stand anymore, so drunk they are. All they can do is singing songs that would violate the most sinful ears. This bonfire has to be the most unholy in the entire festival.

Not far from them, I notice a young Night Elf approaching the fire to extinguish it. She didn’t notice the three Suramar guards closing in on her. I can’t expect my two heroes to do anything. In the state that they are, they probably can’t see anything anymore.

As I start to run, I ready my bow. My arrows reach their aim almost before my wolf could take care of the hostiles. The Night Elf says something, but I don’t understand her language. However, I can see that she’s grateful. She drops her bucket as a way to say that she won’t desecrate this fire.

I pick up the bucket and spill its entire content on Sardoken, who can barely stand. I drop him on the back of my mount and bring him back home, where he falls in a deep coma, until the next day…

Look who visited us on our server this sunday morning… We first met at the Razor Hill’s inn, then we travelled through a lot of phasing and trees in the face to finally arrive in Winterspring where we had a great time dancing, chatting and taking screenshots.

Navimie even had an amazing surprise for us both. So, Navimie, if you’re reading this… Thank you for everything 😉