Big Hit Box is a collaborative effort of melee bloggers from around Azeroth. Contributions are welcome from all walks of life, though we do keep the blog focused on damage dealing that happens inside the hit box. To contribute to the discussion on BHB just drop a line to Stoney.
Rich first discovered World of Warcraft from a mention in WIRED where it was referred to as World of Warcrack, and he wondered what this MMO business was all about. While it was his first MMO it wasn't his first RPG. He bought his first many years ago as a pre-teen spending his allowance on computer games to play on his father's Epson Equity II. Even with its blazing fast 640KB RAM and generous 12 inch monochrome monitor he was hooked on RPGs.
When he picked up WoW in 2005 it turned out to be a perfect fit for his analytical play-style. His first character was Finnmaccool a NE Druid who he leveled as Balance and raided in MC as Resto. After hitting 70 on Finn and becoming frustrated by the challenges of HoT healing in early BC he decided to start Stoney.
Stoneybaby became his main in March 2007 when he joined Unorthodox. A year later as a progression raider, an avid PvPer and a guild leader he found there were not enough (or any) active Enhance Shaman blogs. Thus he created "Windfury Crits" the Enhancement Shaman blog covering PvE, PvP, and pretty much everything else relating to the wonderful world of Enhance. Stoney's main spec is Enhancement raiding, off spec is Enhancement PvP. Other talent trees are for other people. Enhance for life!
- @Stoneybaby
- Wowarmory
- Wowhead Profile: PvE
- FriendFeed: Stoneybaby
Death Knights 
Iwasonaboat is actually the DK Formerly Known as Imonaboat. Let's just call him "Boat" for now. Boat fills the role as DK DPS in Unorthodox where he has to listen to Stoney ramble and rage. He lost the primo name Imonaboat when he transfered off Muradin for all of three days. Due to some confusion at work he thought he would be working the late shift and would need to change realms in order to raid, but things quickly got squared away at work. By the time he transfered back—after only being gone for three days—his name was already taken and he had to settle for Iwasonaboat. If you have Boat's name, please give it back. In the meantime, Boat will be reporting on all things Death Knight for Big Hit Box.
Druids 
Unbearably HoT - Runyarusco (roon-yah-roo-skoh) Even in the days of vanilla WoW, Runyarusco was always a Feral Druid-with a pretty nice set of healing gear. Although she detested the greener side of Druiding, it was relatively simple to keep up and/or exceed the rest of the healing core simply by having a massive mana pool (thanks Heart of the Wild!) and down-ranking Healing Touch-that’s how she earned her raid spot. Whenever an offtank was needed on the fly or a little more DPS, she shifted into the appropriate gear and lent an eager paw. As a Restoration Druid in BC, she conquered tier 5 and 6 content, even after she transferred off of Scarlet Crusade for Doomhammer to raid with her now-fiancé and finally had the chance to switch back to being a full-time Feral-which was what she really wanted anyway.
Druid of the Moon is Jacemora's space where he blogs about all things druid, and mostly all things feral.
Paladins 
Caer Morrighan is written by raiding Retribution paladin Morrighan. It may not be the most original site in the world, but it seeks to bring together useful information about retribution paladins, raiding and World of Warcraft in a simple, easy to read style. The intention is that the information here be as extensive or as little as you could need, depending on how much time you have to read and what you are aiming to do. RL Morrighan is from the UK and is *gasp* female. Yes there are female gamers. All of them have blogs. Just check out Twisted Nether’s blog list for proof. She’s been playing WoW for several years now, and she even wrote her MA dissertation on the critical theory of gender and gaming. She often plays alongside her husband " though the deal is that whoever makes less money in game cooks and right now that means she plays more. Apart from WoW she likes cats, spreadsheets and Chinese food. She writes a lot of her blog posts on a train.
Once upon a time Gloam played as Holy but before Wrath hit he decided to make the move from healing to hitting. He's a semi-hardcore raider, a few days a week, with some Wintergrasp and other battlegrounds thrown in the mix too. When WoW was orginally released in 2004 he imported a copy from the US to his home in the UK and have been playing and enjoying ever since.
Honors Code - Honors plays a Prot Paladin on Altar of Storms and authors the blog Honors Code about his adventures. His initial contribution to BHB was an excellent 3 part article about gearing your off-set, whether as a tank collecting Ret gear or Ret collecting Prot gear.
Rogues 
One Rogue's Journey - Danny began playing WoW in January of 2008, however his history with MMOs goes much farther back. His first experience were with text-based MUDs (multi-user dungeons) eventually leading to coding for and running his own for about a year. He's traveled trough the lands of Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot and City of Villains to name a few (not to mention a few of the more obscure ones out there. There are very few MMOs he hasn't at least tried) before settling in Azeroth. When it comes to WoW he's a rogue through and through; it is the only class he has managed to play all the way to the "end" and he loves every moment of it.
What happens when you combine the logic of a programmer with the prowess of a rogue? You get Zaltu. "Rogues do it from behind" That is the old cliché is it not? Has it been around long enough to be called old? Either way, sexual innuendo aside, it is more accurate to say (assuming the very front is zero degrees) that Zaltu does it anywhere in between ninety and two-hundred and seventy degrees. Just kinda rolls off the tongue, don't ya think? Zaltu raided hard in The Burning Crusade and saw every boss through Illidan fall to his blades. He doesn't raid as hardcore but still enjoy stabbing things until they die and then kicking them for good measure.
- Twitter: Zaltu
Shamans 
Elam from Shaman on Ramen is a fatty tauren Shaman. from the guild Surreality on Black Dragonflight (US-PVP). If Elam were a real person he would enjoy long walks on the beach, blogging about his politicals ideals, and proccing windfury crits, particularly on cloth wearers. Unfortunately for Elam (and somewhat fortunately for me, as I think he’d be mad about my controlling his life for the past two years), he’s not a real person, he can’t get near a beach that isn’t infested with monsters that want to kill him and his political ideals are limited to "THRALL GOOD, VARIAN BAD, JAINA QT." (His ability to proc windfuries is cool beans, though).
- Twitter: ShamanOnRamen
Warriors 
Inactive Authors
DPS Plate - a.k.a. Daniel, a 28 year-old Construction Estimator from Houston, TX has recently hung up his swords to focus on his career. Previously in his WoW life, he played since the original Beta. He began with a Retribution Paladin, switched to a Combat Rogue and raided Molten Core through the original Naxxramas on Eldre’Thalas. A few months after The Burning Crusade launched, he took a short hiatus to get married and missed the game bad enough that he talked my wife into trying it. He rolled a human warrior to tank as she leveled and began to enjoy him immensly. They raided together, she as a Holy Priest and he as an Arms Warrior. He intends to love her forever; she’s just that awesome.
Eye for an Eye - Josh has been playing his paladin expressly and solely for the entirety of his WoW career. Originally Baelor of Runetotem-US, he has specced into all 3 trees, but always coming back to retribution as his one true love. Now Cathmor of Malfurion-US, Josh loves introducing the business end of his mace to the faces of NPC's and Horde alike. He first rolled a character in WoW in March 2006, much to the chagrin of his college GPA. Upon dinging level 60 he could be found in the depths of Molten Core, the jungles of Zul'Gurub, the dragon-infested rooms of Blackwing Lair, or even the city of Ahn'Qiraj. After stepping through the Dark Portal his paladin hacked and smashed his way through all the raid content from Karazhan up to and including Felmyst. From there, "real life" forced his retirement from the regular raiding scene. Nowadays, Cathmor finds himself in random 10-man raids and a combination of PUG heroics and Wintergrasp battles.
Shopshopshop came to World of Warcraft through a friend after swearing that he wouldn’t pay for an online game. That was in the days of vanilla WoW, late 2005. He played through that, BC and the first few months of WotLK as a Restoration Druid. He had been leveling his Death Knight alt at this point and soon realized that he enjoyed playing as DPS more than healing. Now he plays a Death Knight full-time on the Medivh server. He started Runeforge Gossip to keep writing things down, think and learn more about World of Warcraft, and hopefully entertain and inform some people along the way.
Gone Rogue - Say hi to Eskel. He's a combat rogue. His squaw plays a mage. They had a blast leveling together, two power houses made of pure DPS, cutting through content like a hot knife through I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!" They got into raiding, then the expansion came and now they’re raiding heroic Naxx once a week.
Kihara from Furiously says that the path of the fury warrior has not always been easy. But there has always been a need for people who think they have something on their minds. Whether it’s strictly relevant or not. Kihara blogs about all aspects of fury warriors. From theorycrafting, gear and spec to utility, ideas and rants. Theory is good, but doesn’t work without real world application. A spec wont make a difference unless its advantages are used. Raids don’t work with just raw DPS, it needs thought. Every little tidbit comes together to make the whole, which is why he’ll try to get around to all the aspects of fury warrioring. It may not always be easy to be fury. But Battle Stance just isn’t quite enough.
Part Time Druid - has been a player of World of Warcraft since the beta days, and plays primarily on the Whisperwind server. He has a level 70 Restoration spec Druid (Pummra) and a level 70 Beast Mastery spec Hunter (Feroz), along with a handful of alts ranging in levels from 20 to 42. Oh yeah and a Warrior too. Why Part Time Druid? Because he has a wife and family to support, so he doesn’t have as much time to devote to the game he would like. He plays roughly 6-10 hours per week, which he imagines puts him in the "casual" bracket. He does have a fairly good deal of knowledge about the game, however, and hopes he can speak for the other "part time" players out there!
