I'm Not That Kind Of Hunter!

...Or, strange things players have done in my presence.

The day before yesterday, I had my bank alt, Minya, sorting through auctions when out of the blue someone asks me if I want to run Deadmines. Sure, I said, and was whisked to Moonbrook. The group consisted of Minya (23 hunter), a 17 hunter, a 18 druid, a 21 druid, and a 17 rogue. The rogue was only in it for the blade, and so was the hunter. I was just along for the ride, as were the druids. Before we settled on a full group, we had a few hiccups, but once we were all in, things fell pretty quickly, as we decided to let the pets tank. As we were rolling, and the hunter expressed that he needed that blade, I mentioned there was a better hunter drop at the end than the blade. As the rogue agreed (more so he would have no competition, I am sure), the hunter exclaimed, "I'm not that kind of hunter." To which I replied, "What kind of hunter are you?". Maybe at higher levels a hunter might decide to aim for more intellect than agility, or more attack power or hit, but the lower levels shunning an item with that much benefit seemed silly to me. Sadly, we did not get much further than Smite, as someone pulled a whole level of pirates down on our fragile heads, and heals could not keep up. The rogue said forget this and split. Then a druid disconnected. At that point, we had left a druid who professed to be new to the game (and was doing quite well), and the hunter, who had run out of arrows right before the goblin workshop. I told the druid to add me, and said I was sorry, but I had auctions to process, and I hearthed back to Stormwind.

Last night. after my cherry cheesecake was an uncomfortable memory (no, I shared, but something didn't agree with me last night), I logged in Minya again to sort through some auctions. I stood idly in the bank for a minute or so as I turned to see what the kids were doing on the Wii, and when I turned back, there was a human paladin standing back to back with Minya. I asked if he liked tall, dark, exotic women, and he replied, "YES!". I replied that I was likely too young for him, him being a 53 warrior to my lowly 24. Turns out his paladin was a leatherworker, and he wanted to help get Minya some better gear. Who am I to turn a guy down? He was very generous in gifting Minya some shoulders, boots, gloves, belt, and a cloak for later. He also crafted an armor kit for me, which I slapped right on my chest piece, since I figure I'll hold onto it for a while. We chatted, mostly one sided, as I didn't get the answer to my question, "Why did you choose leatherworking for your paladin?". But the guy was thrilled that he could help upgrade someone. It made his day. To me, that is just awesome. Here I thought I was just getting the benefit of someone hitting on a girl (he was trying to see Minya's face, because she had this fabulous hat on and it was in the way), and he was just one of those guys that really likes to help. I'm planning on sending him an anonymous donation of level appropriate leathers for him to work his leatherworking skill up, because I know he won't take any money.

People astound me with the decisions they make in this game. When given arrows, why does a hunter continue to melee? Why choose a profession that does close to nothing for your character? Why do people show up for a raid without food, potions, water, bandages, and elixirs or flasks?

The world may never know.