So I'm impatient. Sue me.

I just couldn't resist getting started on my new orc melee hunter. Ghorrek and pet raptor Kavath, now level 20, have a familiar feel to them, but the experience is wildly different and much, much easier the second time around.

I am not tanking as I level. I know that my best dps -- and thus, fastest leveling -- comes from letting my pet run rabid and dropping Raptor Strikes in his wake, not from unlocking Counterattack by having aggro. I know that I need to maintain a skill in Thrown weapons to keep my pet's dps optimal. Pet choice is dictated by type -- cunning, ferocity, tenacity -- rather than by species.

This phase of Project: Melee Hunter, like Gweryc's youth, is being spent on a roleplaying server. Sentinels (US), this time, if any of you would like to drop in and say hello. The always faithful Auden has joined up, this time as an undead warlock, Gehirne. (You haven't lived until you've watched a warlock handily defeat three mobs while feeding a newborn baby and not watching the screen.)

Ghorrek, like any good orc, loves a fight, the chance to test his mettle. In fact, he loves fighting so much that he looks down on anyone that fights at range, whether hunter or spellcaster. No maimed hands here, just the brash attitude of a youthful fighter.

I gave a lot of thought to professions this time around, and concluded that, on the whole, it really doesn't matter what primary profession you take. Engineering aside, they all give about 64 AP at level 80. So I decided to forget about min/maxing for once and went with Blacksmithing for the roleplaying aspect. Ghorrek will be a master axesmith, as befits a pugilistic orc.

I gave some thought to the idea that Ghorrek had been inspired by the sight of a crazy dwarf locked in melee combat with something, wolf baying at his side. In the end that seemed like too much of a stretch. The one nod to Gweryc that Ghorrek carries is a habit of flexing his hands in a way that's hard to tell if he's just restless, or if he's making sure his fingers are all still there.