One of the more delightful things about Classic is that some key and pretty core elements of your class may go pretty much unexplained. As a result, I was left wondering why, at level 24, my kitteh still hasn't been able to learn "bite" or "claw"… or anything other than the "growl" I've taught him. After internet research, I discovered I was doing huntering wrong. This should come as no surprise to anyone, really.
What I should have been doing was taming a variety of pets, finding the ones that actually had skills (apparently I managed to get a cat that was brain damaged) and let the pet use those skills until I learned the skill and could then teach it to other pets. Ugh. Still in Duskwood, I bought a slot in the stable for a few silver so I could park ScratchFever, and went out into the world looking for animals to tame. As an aside, there's only two stable slots and the second costs five gold, so that's going to be a while.
The first animal I came across was a majestic cat. Long, lean, the color of night...and slightly lower level. Much prettier than Scratch. I terribly wanted to tame it, so I set a frost trap down and positioned myself just so and reached out my hand, beckoning. The druid wasn't having it, though, so I went off to tame wolves and spiders instead.
After taming and releasing a half dozen random animals, I started to get a little irked. None of them had skills and I was starting to wonder if I had to nurse them up to a certain loyalty level or something to expose. I went back to the internet. So, it turns out one of those optional skills I'd saved silver by not picking up was actually a bit essential for what I was trying to do. "Beast Lore", when cast on an animal, would update its tooltip to show health, armor, damage, whether it could be tamed-- and what skills it knew. DOH! Back to Stormwind.
Fast forward a bit and I'm jogging around, examining animals. I find a wolf with "bite 3" and tame it. It runs around a bit, chewing on other wolves, and I learn the skill! Hooray! I run back, pick up Scratch, teach him How to Make Holes with Teeth, and send Mr. Wolf packing. Since I was in the neighborhood, I went back to the wolves for a little grinding then happen upon a slightly larger wolf-- with 'bite 4' AND 'howl 2'. Holy crap!
I run back to Duskwood, kennel the cat, and dash back to Wolfie 2.0-- only to find him being skinned by a roving pack of murder hobos. Sigh. It takes me another 15 minutes and a couple of respawns to find his long lost brother. Turns out wolves only eat meat and fish don't count. Fortunately, my newfound friend isn't above wanton cannibalism and I was able to keep him satiated while learning his skills.
It was at this point it dawned on me: why in the hell am I learning these skills to teach the retarded cat when I can just. keep. the. wolf? The wolf isn't as loyal (yet), but is slightly higher level and a sleek black. So, "Fluffers" is now my current pet.
Then, I decided to invest in buying the next rank of fishing. I inaccurately stated I'd have to find Nat Pagle for this one-- he's Artisan level. The Expert level is from a book sold in Booty Bay. Stranglethorn would be a Corpse Run from hell and I didn't feel like swimming for half an hour, so I decided to get to Booty Bay the dumbest, most circuitous way possible: Fly to the dwarven lands, run to the Wetlands, take the ship from Menethil Harbor to Theramore, run through the Barrens, and take the boat from Ratchet. Score a bunch of flight paths and WIN!
Yeah. First time, I somehow fell off my taxi into the Burning Lands near the Elwynn Forest border. THAT was fun-- dodging level 40-something drakes then falling off a cliff trying to get back to Stormwind. The second trip attempt fared better. I arrived in Menethil JUST as the boat was leaving-- I hopped on with a split second to spare… only to realize I'd neglected to get the flight path. Sigh. So that became a not-so-quick round trip to correct before I was off on my adventure again.
It was really, REALLY nice tromping through the Barrens again as I remembered it. Lush savannah grasses, wild animals grazing and wandering, a herd of gazelles rushing past. Troll shamans dying horribly to lightning-powered rhinos. Wonderful, really, and worth the mild aggravation. Booty Bay was almost how I remembered it. The only thing missing were the dozens of skeletons; very glad I went with a non-pvp server this time.
I wound up picking up two books, one for me and one for the AH-- I figure I'll save the next guy some trouble for a minor 35% shipping and handling charge.
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