WoW Profiles - Bofors at 78

Spec: Survival / BM
Profs: Mining/Engineering
Achievements: Tamed The Beast from UBRS at 76, exalted with Stormwind, Ironforge, Exodar, Gnomeregan and Darnassus, Magical Crawdad.
Pets: Core Hound ("Magma"), Hyena (“Red”), crab (“Vise”) and spider (“Slag”)
Themes: Alan Quatermain, tinker, red/orange, fire
Comments:
Years ago, having recently finished playing a 1-70 marathon session with Velocity the night elf and looking to start a new hunter, I decided this time I'd try a dwarf – I was looking forward to playing a hunter who even the youngest/shortest pet would look “large” next to!

I drew a lot of inspiration from the character of Hemet Nesingwary – the idea of a larger than life Big Game Hunter of Legend seemed to have a lot of potential; something with a vague 19th/early 20th century feel. Along those lines I named him “Bofors”, which was the name of the Swedish manufacturer of the famous “Bofors Gun” back in the WWI-WWII period.

For professions, I went with mining/engineering; being mostly a solo player, I wanted access to superior (or at least decent) firearms that didn't require quests, dungeons, PVP etc. I figured the dwarf’s extensive experience with field stripping firearms plus a somewhat eccentric nature would have produced an inclination to explore the mechanical mysteries and create contraptions that would aid him “on the hunt” or provide amusement and “lift morale at camp”.

Further in keeping with his image as a jungle explorer, I decided he should ride an elephant rather than the standard dwarven ram – by now I’d become determined to get my characters cross faction mounts, a precious source of motivation during the otherwise very bleak and repetitive old world areas (back when Bofors was leveling, you still needed to make lvl 40 just to attain regular riding skill).

So this shaped his itinerary up through level 40; I methodically went around doing every Alliance faction quest I could find, and finally by I think level 37 had reached exalted with everyone except Gnomeregan – this had made for a spectacularly dull run since most of the time it meant he was doing gray quests... but having a purple elekk mount to ride at lvl 40 was a bright spot at the end of the tunnel, and made for a nice pick-me-up when I finally "arrived" at lvl 40...

Then patch 3.0 came out; all of a sudden hunters and their pets received a sweeping upgrade, and there were new specs and pets to try, so I planned out a major revamp for Bofors; previously he'd been an uninteresting mish-mash of MM and SV, so after some thought I decided on a full survival spec, and some pets that would (hopefully) help keep enemies at range while I pounded them with explosive shot, steady, auto and whatever else I could throw at them; this looked like a setup that would capitalize on a good chunk of the new 3.0 goodies.

First off I tamed a Scarlet Hound at the Scarlet Monastery, who I named “Red” – for Bofors I wanted pet names that were simple, preferably monosyllabic. This was a gruff outdoorsman after all and not someone who'd be seen running about with a cat named "Silvermyst"! I'd always thought the red hyenas were cool looking but not enough to justify the bother of taming something that was just a stripped down wolf - but with the addition of Tendon Rip that became another story.

A crab seemed the perfect choice for a tenacity pet, with its new Pin ability combined with the innate toughness that would hopefully see it through a few applications of Misdirection - and next to a dwarf, it would still look respectably large. I took a trip to the shores of Durotar and tamed a red crab, which I named “Vise” (it was nice for once to watch a new tame grow instead of shrink).

I now had myself a tenacity and ferocity pet, and did some leveling with them – the new arrangement seemed to work pretty well, and I found myself enjoying this character once more, and before long I was high enough level to tame the last pet on my wishlist; a lava spider from Searing Gorge.

Like the scarlet hyena, the lava spider was an interesting looking beast that I hadn't quite been able to justify taming on account of its lack of special ability, and like the hyena, this creature became a much more attractive choice in 3.0, now that it had Web to tie enemies up. “Slag” proved to be a nice addition and to complete the ruddy colored theme I sent Bofors to the new barbershop to become a redhead...

By the time I made 60, I’d raised my Gnomeregan rep to exalted as well, and decided that his epic mount would be the culmination of his years as an engineer – the venerable elekk was put out to pasture (savannah?) and replaced with a clockwork ostrich, aka mechanostrider. Back then, mechanostriders could only be ridden by gnomes and dwarves, so it seemed a nice fit and helped keep things interesting as I zoomed around Outlands on my new whirring, clanking mount.

While the quest rewards in Outlands were certainly very nice (getting Hemet's Elekk Gun at lvl 65 was cool but shortly to be replaced by a Northrend green), it was the new skill 301-375 engineering recipes that really stood out for me, and I made sure to take periodic detours from my questing to farm engineering mats and keep his skills up; having engineering had pretty much always ensured I had a rifle that was at least adequate, but now I was getting access to some really nice stuff – the adamantite shell machine for one gave me a way of producing ammo whose DPS was just shy of the sort not normally available until level 75, but which I could use from level 62 thanks to engineering.

In addition there were the teleportation trinkets which let me hop back and forth more or less freely between Old World and Outland along with the occasional amusing side effect… I also got the epic chainmail goggles which he still uses a dozen levels later, and last but not least a turbo-gyrocopter.

At level 68 I moved Bofors over to Northrend; as with Outland, nice quest rewards, awesome engineering recipes – flexweave underlay lets you avoid having to keep a parachute cloak in your bags, the hand mounted pyro rocket in addition to having a cool looking effect actually does a decent amount of DPS and CD is (just) short enough to make it a factor in regular combat… but the hands down coolest item (so far!) is the Mark S Boomstick, which I’ve been using from level 73 - engineer only, and slightly better than the rep reward firearms not available until lvl 78.

Long ago I’d gotten Bofors’ fishing skill up to 229 or so before giving up on it – back then a failed attempt simply resulted in the annoying “Your Fish Got Away” message… and no chance of skillup, e.g. you either stayed in the same low level fishing area from 1-375, or else you advanced as skill permitted, with frequent, wasted casts (i.e. a lot more time spent).

Recently however Blizzard had overhauled the fishing process to A) allow at least a minimal chance of success in any area even for skill 1 and B) failed casts now result in an 18 cp junk item – but remain eligible for skillup. So I decided to give this another try; I've wanted a Magical Crawdad for some time, and thinking one would look nice alongside Bofors’ red crab, I sent him back to Terrokar Forest to try his luck at the Highland Fishing Schools.

Having found a likely looking area, I settled in expecting a long wait for my number to come up; according to wowhead, you first had to get Mr. Pinchy, which was rare to begin with, but then once received you had to hope that one of his three wishes returned the vanity pet.

On the last cast of my first Highland school, the Mr Pinchy achievement suddenly flashed on my screen (!), and slightly dumbstruck I right clicked on the icon… to find a Magical Crawdad in my inventory (!!). Feeling a bit dizzy, I happily made my way back to Northrend… while I've certainly done plenty of long (sometimes fruitless) grinds, things like this definitely restore one's faith that the odds do tend to balance themselves out... sooner or later. Nice!

This now meant I had one very cool vanity pet to go with my crab, and a couple of comparatively boring ones to go with my hyena and spider. A trip to Blackrock Spire and a bit of puttering in the workshop fixed that - now I had a color changing worg pup to accompany Red, and a smoke belching robot to accent Slag's fiery nature (and his master's engineering skill); although I don't usually put this much work into getting vanity pets, I felt Bofors could use a little spicing up to offset his lack of flashy Northrend combat pets (and as with combat pets, vanity pets look bigger next to a dwarf as well - always a plus!).

But the most noteworthy outcome of Bofors' time in the Blackrock dungeons (if not his entire career...) was his new core hound, aka The Beast. Taming this creature was quite the adventure and which will be covered in a separate post, but suffice to say I couldn't be happier to have him - and it's always nice to have at least one "trophy pet" on your hunter!