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Hunter changes in 2.4

When information began to trickle down about patch 2.4, hunters, like most classes, were groaning. Which nerf bat would we be hit with next? Fortunately, it seems that we have slipped under the radar. For now. Maybe Aspect of the Beast finally did us some good.

Let's break down the changes and see how this is going to be affecting us. With no major patches between now and Wrath, we might be living with these changes for awhile.

Bug fixes:

  1. Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues. Since no one likes animation issues, I'm filing this under "win." Not that I've ever tried to equip a thrown weapon while already shooting, mind you.

  2. Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players. To me, this sounds fair. Also, I want to be invisible. Rogues can, so why not hunters? Right? No?

  3. Hunter's Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter's Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter's Mark cast by Hunters without the talent. This used to be, but then was not. Now, it will be again. While it might rub your ego the wrong way always reading the message "a more powerful spell is already active," it is better for overall DPS this way.

  4. The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase. Personally, I find that most of my tooltips on most of my characters do not reflect the changes made by my talent points. At least one more will appear correctly, and I will try not to be sad about the others.

  5. Hunters will no longer spin around if they cast Aimed Shot or Steady Shot while facing away from their target. So this was a nice little bug we had for awhile, but let's face it; it wasn't fair. It also doesn't help the "huntard" image any when hunters are caught whining that now, we will have to learn to actually face our targets; and that's just too hard. What does this mean you ask? Do note that these are our two channeled shots, and as such, if another player sees us channeling, they need only run around us far enough to interrupt the channel. Prior to 2.4, we would have spun with the runner.

The buffs:

  1. Improved Mend Pet now has a 25/50 chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic, or Poison effect, up from 15/50%. This is good news; as much as I enjoy the way my owl looks when she is purple, green, or even glowing, I ought not to torture her for pretty pictures.

  2. Multi-Shot: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc. Now this is a lovely little safeguard that several classes are also getting. Now the inexperienced hunters will not lose as many friends, and the more seasoned hunters can find new ways to use Multi that would otherwise not have been advisable.

The meh:

  1. Track spells will now persist after death. This is not bad, so it must be good. Granted, there are many issues I would like to see addressed before I would have requested this one, but here we are. It will be especially useful in battlegrounds, as it can be a bit of a pain to have to find the tiny little button on the minimap, use a dropdown, and pick your tracking. That little button and I have issues.

At any rate, there are no true nerfs being applied to the hunter class this patch. As for buffs, more effective healing for pets is nice, and although I rarely found that the old Improved Mend Pet wasn't doing its job, it'll definitely help in PvP situations.

As for our Multi no longer breaking crowd control, while this is a buff, it is not hunter specific. Other classes with similar abilities will also stop upsetting the mages until Vent becomes unpleasant, or people begin to "disconnect."

Of course, Blizzard devs have not been the only ones hard at work. Check out BRK's preview of what addons will bring to the hunter class in 2.4.