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Breakfast Topic: The kill shot and other boss downing traditions
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. So, you and your guildies have been waiting for this moment for months. You've leveled up together and run heroics until the sound of Ozruk's voice was haunting your every dream. You took all that fancy blue gear, watched some videos and made a couple nights of attempts. Now you stand at the body of some freshly killed behemoth wondering exactly what the hell a worm was doing with a fancy pair of pants (It's because he's jealous of your legs -- classic Little Mermaid syndrome.) Congratulations! Once all the purple pieces have been passed out, though, it's time to memorialize the occasion. Guilds have long participated in the time-honored tradition of posing for screenshots after they down raid bosses for the first time. If you need further proof of this phenomena, simply do a Google image search of any current tier raid boss, and you'll be assaulted with pictures of avatars, standing together proudly. Something else you notice about these pictures, though, is that they can be -- let's face it -- kind of boring. Personally, I've seen enough boss kill screenshots to last a lifetime, so when my guild succeeds in killing something new, I don't even take one. Instead, my wife mocks up a Photoshop like the one above to commemorate each victory. It's silly, but it gives us something to look forward to as we progress. Does your guild take screenshots of first kills, or do you document the occasion in some other way? Perhaps you write an exciting RP blog entry recounting your band of heroes' legendary triumph? If you do take the tried-and-true screencap, what does your character do to shake things up? Extra points if you always pop a sandbox tiger and ride it in furbolg form!
More Power Auras tips for hunters
Huntsman's Lodge has a terrific set of tips for running Power Auras as a hunter. I'm not running this addon (yet) on my hunter, but apparently it's pretty old news -- our old friend BRK had some ideas on how to use it a while back. But HL goes even farther, and I like a lot of his ideas, like a star that lights up when Dragonhawk isn't turned on -- I'll admit I make that mistake from time to time -- and warnings for "special circumstance" spells like Lock and Load and Kill Shot. You can mix and match them all to fit your own gameplay as well, so maybe use some from HL's list and throw in one or two from BRK's old setup. And even if you're not a hunter, the addon is helpful for any class that needs a heads up on buffs and debuffs coming their way. We hunters can get all the help we need though -- HL's list is a great resource for using the addon with our class.
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Hunter changes
The notes for Patch 3.1 and news on some undocumented changes to classes and glyphs have recently become available, and there are plenty of changes in store for us hunters. You can expect some changes to all three trees (some of which are rather minor) as well as changes to how our pets and glyphs. Lets take a look at some of the information coming down the pipe and see just what effect it will have on our game play.Beast MasteryThe Beast Mastery tree is slated for just one minor change at the moment. There were hints from Ghostcrawler previously that the tree would receive buffs for Ulduar, but so far nothing major appears to have surfaced. For now, Improved Aspect of the Hawk is receiving a minor facelift in the form of a new spell effect being added to the talent.
The great hunter nerf of 2008
I quote Ghostcrawler: "Hunters of all specs, and particularly Beastmaster, are doing too much damage in PvE."At this point you can stop reading if you're a Hunter and just assume the worst. But if you want to see how you're getting nerfed to the ground, read on.The rationale behind the changes is that Blizzard has been doing a lot of internal testing, along with the beta of WotLK, and has determined the other classes have not been able to keep up with the Hunter DPS output.The list of nerfs is wide ranging. Volley nerfed by 30%. Steady Shot now gains 10% of Attack Power instead of 20%. Kindred Spirits has been nerfed by 25%. Readiness no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.The list of changes is not exhaustive. Ghostcrawler makes a point to say that these are just the ones they feel are ready for testing. He hopes to see them up on the PTR before they go live.The full 14 point list of changes after the break.
Hunter changes in beta 8962
There are a slew of new updates to Hunters in the latest beta build, but the biggest one comes to Aspect of the Viper. Blizzard has been tuning this spell for a while -- originally it gave Hunters back their ranged damage as mana (pretty overpowered), and then was tuned down to each shot giving back mana based on twice the base ranged weapon speed. Now it's still based on the base ranged speed, but they've buffed it back up to a percentage of mana -- if you have a base ranged weapon speed of 2, for example, you'll get 4% mana back for every shot that hits. Not a bad deal, and hopefully Blizzard is getting close to settling on making itso that Hunters only need to switch to AotV sometimes, instead of leaving it up all the time.Most of the other Hunter changes in 8962 are just tweaks -- Kill Shot no longer does a knockdown and got a little damage buff. Tranq shot got added utility, in that it will remove enrage and magic effects rather than just the frenzy effect that was so hard to come by. Misdirection's cooldown got dropped to 30 seconds from two minutes, which means Hunters will get more chances to dump aggro when necessary.There's one new skill which will make things pretty interesting on the trapping side -- Freezing Arrow lets you fire off an arrow that will lay down a Freezing Trap (which, by the way, now has only a chance to break on damage, instead of 100% certainty). That, combined with some quick Misdirection, could make trapping a whole new game at level 80. Unfortunately, it looks like the tradeoff for that is that we're losing Camouflage, which some Hunters already aren't happy about. But as always, all of these skill and talents are still up for grabs, so maybe we'll see Camo back in some form before it's all over.Update: Whoops, forgot to mention that AotV is still carrying that 50% damage penalty while on. That's pretty harsh, even with the mana coming back, so look for a buff on that end before 3.0.2 goes live.
Things don't look pretty for PvP Hunters in 8926
The best thing you can say about Hunters in Wrath in this Beta build is that we still have the new Disengage, at least for now. In this build, most of our new PvP tools have had much of their new functionality removed or greatly scaled back in this build.
Encrypted Text: Combat in Wrath
Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the new Rogue feature blogger, discusses the Wrath Combat expansion tree.Ahh Combat. The cornerstone of the end (and mid-) game PvE Rogue. While not perfect, the Combat tree can be hugely satisfying and bears with it none of the positional damage dealing that the other two trees require, at least in part. Getting in people's (as well as creature's) faces and crushing them is all just part of the experience of the combat spec. Many a Rogue has popped a pleasing-sigh-inducing Adrenaline Rush to burn through the last tasty bits of, well, whatever stands in its way. Although things do tend to change quickly in beta, I'm going to take a look at the five new expansion Combat tree talents. The most important question I had when looking at them, as well as all the discussion surrounding them, is "are they worth it" and "do they reflect the kinds of changes or improvements that players have been asking for." This is especially important in raid settings where Rogue vs Caster DPS and overall damage done can mean the difference between getting another invite or not. I'd like to subtitle this column: "The Expansion Combat Tree, Now in PvP Flavor!"
Scattered Shots: The dev team takes on PvP
Welcome once again to Scattered Shots, WoW Insider's spot for all things Hunter, except for the stuff Big Red Kitty covers. Daniel Whitcomb will be your host today (a day late, for which he apologizes) as David Bowers tries to shake off some extra aggro. The state of Hunters in PvP is perhaps one of the most debated subjects in WoW PvP. Some call Hunters overpowered for their dispelling Arcane Shot (which is going away in Wrath, to be sent to the non-damaging Tranquilizing Shot), while others point to their low Arena representation and the ease of using line of sight to negate most of their DPS and Abolish Poison to get rid of their main PvP utility as proof that they need buffs. Regardless, even the devs acknowledge that Hunters probably need some help in PvP, and class designer Koraa recently spoke on the subject on the Beta forums. In his post, he covered the problems he sees Hunters having, and how Blizzard will be helping with those moving forward into Wrath. Unfortunately, his solutions seem confused in and of themselves. They involve giving Hunters more melee attack power (instead of more way to break from melee so they can use their ranged weapon) and a variety of talents scattered around many trees in such a way that it will be difficult for a solid PvP build to get them all. And, as I mentioned in a post yesterday, they still aren't giving pets resilience. Other Hunters such as Megatf have done an excellent job responding to some of Koraa's points in the thread itself, but I'd like to address and respond to the post myself in this week's column, and see how they stack up to the problems Hunters face in small scale Arena PvP.
Scattered Shots: New and improved abilities
Scattered Shots: noun. 1. (Scatter Shot, singular) An ability used by Marksmanship hunters, especially to annoy other players in PvP. 2. (Scattered Shots, plural) A column at WoW Insider about anything even loosely related to hunters, except for high-level raiding and completely improper, sometimes libelous personal commentary.Hunters are getting quite a few changes in Wrath of the Lich King, but so far haven't covered them all. Today I'd like to go through the newest abilities and discuss them in greater detail.New Baseline Hunter Abilities:Nope, no Camouflage. We talked about this before, but it looks like the devs read our article, "Do hunters need Camouflage?" and decided the answer was no. So, instead we have a couple other new abilities to look forward to:Kill Shot: This is the new level 80 hunter ability, and it provides us with a bit of utility that help us to stand out and perform better in various situations:
Scattered Shots: Beastmastery in Wrath of the Lich King
Scattered Shots is for Hunters. Your host this week will be Daniel Whitcomb, who will continue his foray into the wide world of Wrath of the Lich King talents. Beastmastery has pretty much dominated the world of Hunters in Burning Crusade, with Serpent's Swiftness alone nearly singlehandedly allowing for the most efficient damaging shot rotations possible -- With a little bit of wrangling between haste and ranged weapon speed, of course. While the changes to Auto Shot clipping in Wrath will likely make shot rotations as we know them a thing of the past, Beastmastery is still looking to be a very viable tree in Wrath of the Lich King, thanks to some clever synergies and some amazing pet buffs.
Wrath Hunter Talent Analysis, Part I: Marksmanship
Hunter talents are out, and there's definitely a lot to say about them, both good and bad. While we have discussed some of the changes to the lower Survival tree, what we haven't touched on is all the new talents and the talent changes in other trees. If I was to sum it all up in one sentence, I'd say this: The 51 point talents look lackluster, but most of the rest is downright drool inducing. Marksmanship's early tiers are now full of easily obtainable goodies for any Hunter, Survival's gained even more group and raid buff utility, and Beastmastery has even more amazing pet synergy. There's a lot to cover, so we'll tackle it one tree at a time. First, we'll look at Marksmanship, which was once premiere Hunter tree, but has fallen a bit to Beastmastery in Burning Crusade. It's certainly seen some marked improvement for Wrath so far, and even if you don't plan to spec Marksmanship, you'll at least want to know about the first few tier talents, as you'll probably want to grab many of them anyway.
