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Scattered Shots: Scatter-trapping with grace and ease
Frostheim appears to be decimated, unable to write this week, over the loss of the most recent raiding gun from the patch 4.3 PTR files. As someone who PVPs to get my first raiding weapon of most patches, I can choose whichever ranged death-dealing machine I want. Of course, as a Worgen (not to mention someone who is generally the butt of many of Frostheim's jokes on our podcast), I usually choose a crossbow after buying, returning and screenshotting the gun. Today, Scattered Shots will be all about a very basic hunter PVP survival skill: scatter-trapping. All hunters of all specs can scatter-trap, and whether you're being ganked doing dailies, trying to win Baradin Hold, or doing competitive Arena, it's one of those skills that can really set you apart. Traps on their own are only useful for people you can force to cross through them. Mostly, this means melee, although you can sometimes force a ranged player to cross a trap if you're humping a pillar properly. What do we do when we want to freeze someone who isn't chasing us, though? Freezing Trap is really our most effective crowd control ability. We'll often want it to be used on someone that matters like a healer. Unfortunately, short of stepping up to a healer and dropping a trap on them, there's no way to force them to cross our path.
Scattered Shots: Improving hunter PVP
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. This week, his evil twin, Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, is covering for him while he sleeps off the after-effects of the last Hunting Party Podcast. Hunter PVP is in a bad state right now. This does not mean that you can't get Gladiator with a hunter, but it does mean you have to be way better to do it than if you were to play, say, a warlock. You also have to do it in a very small subset of viable team compositions, where your warlock alt could succeed in a large variety of team compositions. Before you burn a hole through that "add comment" button arguing with me about viability and how Arena representation isn't worth the pixels it's displayed on, remember that I'm arguing that it takes more skill to succeed in PVP as a hunter. I'm not arguing that you can't do it, and I know that Arena class representation isn't a perfect measure of class balance. The same way some specs (like BM) are underrepresented in the top 100 PVE raid parses, the highest-rated PVP players in the game tend to play classes they feel they will do best, which skews the representation farther away from some perfectly viable spec/class combos. Arena representation is, however, one quantifiable number we can look into for insight.
Scattered Shots: Hunter class feedback
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Blizzard has recently put out the call for class design feedback on the official WoW forums, with a thread for each class. Hunters have stepped up in a big way, and the hunter class thread already has over 1,500 responses at the time of this writing (Wednesday night), which is more than any other class. Go, hunters! The feedback thread is not just an open forums for people to complain but instead is a very focused set of questions looking at longer-term class design. This is not, of course, a promise to implement the will of the class (after all, game manufacturers have known for decades there's a big difference between what people want and what they will buy), but it is a clear request to at least understand the will of the class. We've talked here on Scattered Shots about many ways to improve the hunter class, from removing minimum range to touching up the talent trees of BM, MM, SV, and pet talents, to pet stances, to the problems with haste design and some just plain awesome things we should get. Regular readers have a pretty good idea what I think should be changed. So today, we're going to take a look at what the rest of the hunter population thinks about the hunter class and how they answered the class design questions. Join me after the cut for a look at the over 1,500 hunter responses to class design that the developers will be reading through.
Scattered Shots: Hunter transmogrification station
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the WoW Hunter Podcast uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. As patch 4.2 is beginning to wind down, many hunters are looking for ways to fill some of the extra in-game time, and the coming of transmogrification in patch 4.3 is the perfect thing. Now is the time to start collecting the looks that you want to transmogrify into when patch 4.3 comes. I have a full look at all the hunter armor sets on each race and where to get them, over at the WHU Transmog page. Today, we're going to take a look at the next most crucial transmogrification decision: our ranged weapon. [Update: you can find a full list of every hunter transmog resource on the web (including this one) at the WHH's hunter transmog guide. So if you're looking for custom transmog looks and databases and transmogrification addons, that's the place to go. If you want to see your awesome ranged weapon transmog options, read on!] We can actually transmogrify one ranged weapon type into another, unlike any other weapon type, so we can make our bows look (and sound) like guns or crossbows. This gives hunters a host of options for what kind of weapon look we want to be sporting. Join me after the cut for a look at some of the most distinctive ranged weapons and where to find them.
Scattered Shots: Hunter spell alerts guide
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Among the host of new things patch 4.0.1 brought us hunters -- including new talents and rotations, new pet abilities and lower DPS -- was built-in spell alerts. Power Auras became such an integral part of so many people's gameplay that Blizzard finally gave us its own non-customizable version to warn us when proc-type abilities become ready. Interestingly, this helpful addition has a lot of hunters confused. I've been getting a steady stream of emails and comments asking what certain icons mean or why they appear when they do (such as when an ability isn't ready). It seems a spell alert guide is in order. Join me after the cut for a list of all the hunter spell alerts, what they're for and why they appear when they do. If you're totally familiar with all of them, then I have included the epic hunter video above for your day's entertainment.
Scattered Shots: Hunter threat management
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Patch 4.0.1 brought a handful of changes to the way hunters experience threat. Our Misdirection was changed so that the misdirected threat fades away after 30 seconds, and tanks in general have had their threat production changed. The result is a lot of tanks learning for the first time to actually pay attention to threat production and doing less threat as a result. Hunters remain one of strongest classes in the game for threat management, and you could even argue that patch 4.0.1 has made us even better. Yet I've been getting an increasing number of emails since the patch from hunters who are experiencing threat problems. They're pull aggro from their tanks, from their pets, from small orphans in the street -- wherever they can find it, they take it. This seems like a good time for a remedial lesson in threat management, as well as a good time to discuss some of the new threat management tricks hunter have acquired. Join me after the cut, and never pull aggro again -- at least, not accidentally.
Scattered Shots: Signature hunter shots
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Each of the three hunters specs has a signature shot. This is the damaging ability that the spec is known for, its main shot that's on a cooldown that hunters can't wait to hit. It's how other classes like warlocks and mages know what kind of hunter they're dealing with, because at the bottom of our letters, they'll see, "Love, Explosive f'ing Shot in your face!" For BM, it's Kill Command; for MM, it's Chimera Shot; and for SV, it's Explosive Shot. Our signature shots recently got a nice little buff after lots of complaints that they weren't actually worth using -- and then another nice boost in the latest beta build. Despite this buff, there are still a lot of hunters refusing to use their signature abilities, preferring the admittedly easier route of just spamming Arcane Shot. Join me after the cut as we take a closer look at the signature shots and a few things that go into determining whether they're worth firing. There's a bit more to it than most forum posters are considering.
Scattered Shots: Maximizing hunter DPS in 4.0.1 heroics
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Now that we've covered our basic 4.0.1 talent builds and rotations as well as glyphs and gems, it's time to take a step away from the raids and into our heroic 5-mans. Among the swarm of emails I've been getting have been a lot of reminders that raiders are, in fact, a minority. Our heroic-running brethren are experiencing the same radical changes, but these changes affect them in very different ways. Even the hardcore raiders out there are probably spending more time in heroics than they do with their mothers (and really, is it so hard to pick up the phone once in a while?), with the sudden need to level a dozen new pets. Heroics make for fast and painless pet leveling -- you can usually get your pet up to 80 in just two to three heroics, depending on which ones you get. It's like when Mania (of Petopia) said on the Hunting Party Podcast, "I think the sexiest female model in the Horde is the male blood elf" -- so wrong, and yet so true. So join me after the cut for a rundown on maximizing your heroic DPS in a crazy, post-patch 4.0.1 world.
Scattered Shots: 4.0.1 hunter gems, glyphs and stat weights
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. On Thursday, we discussed hunter talents and rotations for 4.0.1, and today we're going to get into gems and glyphs, as well as talking a bit about stat weights. But before we get into all that, a word of caution about rotations. Many hunters have been playing around with rotations focusing on Arcane Shot only and ignoring the signature shot for the spec. I have to recommend against this. It is certainly much easier, and for some specs (like BM) may actually be a bit more DPS, but it is a bad habit to get into! Expect to see a slight boost to the damage of all hunter signature shots in the very near future that makes these shots clearly worthwhile. It is well worth your while to learn the correct rotation now rather than spending your time developing lazy habits. Be a hunter, not an elf. With that out of the way, join me after the cut for more info on how to customize your hunter to optimize raid performance in the brief window before Cataclysm hits.
Scattered Shots: 4.0.1 hunter builds and rotations
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim (of Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast) uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Patch 4.0.1 is finally here, and we're ready to rock out on live with focus. Today, we're going to get into the specifics of 4.0.1 talent builds and rotations. I'm assuming you've already read the hunter 4.0.1 prep guide, which covers gems, gear and various other specifics of the patch. And to answer yet again the question I'm continuously asked: Agility gems are your gem of choice. Before we get into the builds and rotations, though, it's worth noting a couple of interesting measurements in the live build. The hit rating conversion appears to have changed and you're now hit-capped (8 percent still) at just 246 hit rating. Guns got their DPS boosted more than bows and crossbows (expect a fix on that). Base focus regen, as closely as I can measure, appears to be 4.08 focus per second. Also, sadly, hunter DPS appears to have actually gone down with the patch -- and significantly so. This isn't an across-the-board thing, either -- other classes have had their DPS jump up. This patch has our new abilities balanced around level 85, so level 80 balance isn't a big concern; however, this is certainly bad news for people still working on progression. Sorry guys. With that out of the way, join me after the cut for talent builds for all three hunter specs.
Scattered Shots: Prepare your hunter for patch 4.0.1 launch
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. Now that patch 4.0.1 looks like it's going to be deployed on live servers any week, it's about time to look into preparing our hunters for the transition. I should stress right here that these preparations are mostly with the raiding hunter (who is actually still raiding) in mind. If you're just burning time until Cataclysm hits, you really don't need to do anything much to prepare. You will replace your gear while you level. You don't care if your gear is slightly suboptimal for level 80 raiding if you're not raiding -- that is not going to matter when you're leveling. You'll replace it when leveling, then replace it several times over at level 85. But if you're still pushing current content, knocking down bosses and topping damage meters, join me after the cut for the rundown of what to expect and what you'll need to change to keep raiding at peak performance when the patch hits.
Scattered Shots: Pet scaling and new secrets about stuff on the ground
Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. Another week, another beta build -- and a heck of a lot more testing. Since the beta process is getting further along these days, I figured it was time to sit down and start hashing out our final level 85 stat conversions and learn how our pet scaling actually works. While on the surface this sounds like a lot of work, the lack of tooltips (and the prevalence of bugged tooltips) made it a heck of a lot of work. In addition to messing with pet scaling, I've also been hitting up a lot of Tol Barad PvP and recently spent a bunch of time in the Vortex Pinnacle dungeon. It was in Vortex Pinnacle (following the rumor that a gun actually dropped somewhere in Cataclysm) that I made a shocking discovery that will change the way we think of floors forever. So join me after the cut for a look at some of beta changes, hunter pet scaling and the horrible secret of Cataclysm's floors.
