Hellfire Ramparts through the eyes of a Beastmaster.

Last night was Arcarius’s turn into the Ramparts. So far I’ve taken an Enhancement Shaman on healing duty, and a Protection Warrior on tanking duty, so now I was going in as a Beastermaster Hunter on DPS* duty. (*I use “DPS” lightly because I achieve half of the numbers that BRK’s dwarf, Damh, gets. I removed my damage meters last night, but I might reinstall them. I’m not one that prints them out in chat, “WOOT! LOOK AT MY LEETNESS!”, but I do think knowing my relative contribution to the efforts (healing or damage) is important.)

Did I get sidetracked or what?? Anyway, using the Looking for Group tool I was relatively quickly matched up with a Mage (pink ponytailed fire meteor throwing mage), a 60 Arms Warrior (“No shield, I’m Arms. … By the way, I don’t have a shield.”), a 64 Druid (Feral/Balance), and a 65 Paladin, of talent spec unknown.

So, I’m yanked from Zangarmarsh and wind up outside the instance. The LFG tool, and the summoning stone thing, are wonderous. So much easier going instancing with these tools. Good job, Blizzard!

The Mage is the party leader and we simply start. No marking. The first two pulls are easy, and we start into the Ramparts, and on the first or second dog packs we wipe. Ouch. All except the Arms Warrior who’s managed to reach the exit. We recover and move on. That was our last wipe.

And I started by laying freezing traps, to immobilize one of a group, but the Paladin said he wanted to AoE them so just lay a frost trap. The Paladin had a shield and that worked pretty well. The Mage had a propensity for gaining aggro, but I’d jump to that as I could, sending in my new Ravager pet (loyalty level 2, noob) to protect her, and interrupt spell casting with Intimidation.

We got into a comfortable rhythym and that worked very well. The first boss was a joke. His first healer was melted, the second was grazing on grass, and he went down. The groups were easy enough, no challenges there. The demon boss was a cakewalk. The dragon was next.

Now, the dragon has wiped every party I’ve been in so far. And while Blackhoof has seen him killed, Msaker is missing that satisfaction. But this time, with this group, he dropped like he’d taken a whippit shot. His health dropped so fast I thought I was watching lame duck poll numbers. Flawless I thought.

That was a good run. I’m pretty pleased with that.

My new ravager… The former one, which I tamed for the Gore 8 ability, and the cool looks, was a green one with purple highlights. I named him Outlandish. He reached loyalty level 4 or so. But he wasn’t all that. So I dismissed him right outside the Cenarian Expedition and tamed a new ravager. This one is all purples, with red glowing eyes. I named him, or her rather, Darkense. (It seems I may have mispelled that. It should be Darckense. Ah, well, no loyalty loved or lost there. A new one will be tamed tonight and properly named.)

Anyway, I can be pretty oblique sometimes. Anyone want to speculate why Darckense is the most chillingly perfect name for a Ravager?

I mean, I wasn’t even really going there. I was looking for a good name, of a protaganist or so, and wound up spotting and settling on this one. And the reason behind it, and she’s a Ravager, is perfect to a T. (And the source is an incredibly excellent read as well. Don’t read too much background though, cause the spoiler is a Crying Game type twist. If you’re at all into the genre it’s one of my favorites.)