BigRedKitty: Trust me
Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.
The announcements for Hunter-changes in 3.1 was published, but it's all rubbish and lies. Don't believe it! Seriously, who are you going to trust: Blizzard or BigRedKitty?
The BRK Department of Secrets, Lies, Inane Babble, and Outrageous Shenanigans are doing the voodoo that they do so well. While Blizzard is busy filling your head with deceit and false hope, we're going to give it to you straight.
We all know that Blizz has lately just been rolling a d20 for our class's specs and talents; it's either that or they're playing quarters and winning extremely frequently. But according to our spies, things are looking up! New talent points, reworked hunter-pets, and some general developer-love are on tap for us all.
BM-nerf got ya down? Explosive Shot tweaking freaking you out? Non-consumable ammo just not hitting your sweet-spot? That's OK, we've got the prescription!
For your reading pleasure, we present the totally true, honest to Elune, no way we'd make 'em up, Hunter Changes for 3.1.
Hunters who are engineers can Track Mechanicals. While this is nice and all, what we're eventually hoping for is that hunters who are engineers can hop on their mechano-hog and enter "Silent Mode", making the vehicle and rider silent and untrackable.
Hunters who are herbalists can Track Plants, which will be wicked for tracking resto druids in battlegrounds. Still, we won't be able to actually kill them at all, but at least we'll know where they're hiding.
Hunters who are double-gatherers can Track Phat Loot, which causes all mobs to drop nothing but gold instead of worthless gray and greenie items.
Improved Pathfinding – increases the bonus to Pathfinding by 1/2/3/4/5%. 'Cause everybody spec's Pathfinding, right?! Right? What, we're the only hunter in WoW who spec'd Pathfinding? Well that can't be good...
New Survivalist talent, QQPally – allows the hunter to equip maces, both 1h and 2h. The third-to-last bastion of non-hunter loot is broken! Plate armor and shields, watch your backs, baby.
New Marksman talent, Venomous Tips – allows the hunter to envenom his bullets and arrows by using rogue-poisons on his ammo pouch and quiver. Letting hunters use Crippling Poison is just the perfect solution to most hunter-issues in arenas. Bravo!
Consciousness Swap – the new 51-point Beastmastery talent, allows the hunter and pet to exchange brains. The "hunter" becomes controlled by the game, maximizing DPS by properly implementing a predetermined shot rotation, while the player becomes the "pet", using all the pet-skills and spells as he sees fit.
Minefield – the new 41-point Survivalist talent, allows the hunter to place up to five untriggered traps, of any flavor and combination, at one time. When one trap is triggered, the hunter can immediately set another trap. (You can stop drooling now.)
Howitzer – the new 51-point Marksman talent, allows the hunter to equip the new "rocket launcher" weapons. Because of the weight of the things, the Howitzer-spec'd hunter cannot wear any armor heavier than leather.
New passive talent available to Beastmastery hunters, Spirit Beast Taming Supremacy – any person who attacks a hunter while taming a Spirit Beast is immediately killed, their account suspended for twenty-four hours, and their credit card charged $15.
And the show-stopper that's better than dual specs:
Hunter-pets get their own Character pane, allowing the hunter to equip the pet in leather gear and fist-weapons. All socket remain active, all enchants still possible. You want a tank-pet then by-Elune build yourself one! You want to make your Rhino a DPS-pet, then rock the house! Basically, we hunters will be rolling on Pet-Spec and Off-Pet-Spec leather gear until we laugh ourselves into comas. We can't wait!
We'd like to thank all the spies employed by BRK Worldwide Amalgamated for pilfering all these 100%-authentic WoW-notes. You guys totally rock.
Nobody covers raid Hunters like BRK. Looking for more Hunter goodness? Check out our non-raid Hunter column, Scattered Shots or the WoW Insider Directory of Hunter Guides.
