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Scattered Shots: Improving the hunter survival tree
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. In our ongoing series to give our feedback based on a passing comment made by World of Warcraft Lead Systems Designer Ghostcrawler, we've discussed how to improve the BM hunter tree and how to improve the MM tree. The discussion has been very interesting thus far -- particularly that BM had far more comments than MM ... more than twice as many. I'm curious to see what you guys think needs to change in SV. Of course, it's also worth noting that patch 4.2 has launched. Happily, we're all up-to-date on the minor hunter changes in the patch, including new hunter gear. You can see a full roundup of every hunter-related change here. Now, on to SV! Survival has had a heck of a ride throughout WoW. From the default PVP spec in vanilla, then dwarfed by BM throughout BC, to explode onto the raiding scene after the great BM nerf in Wrath, SV is the least recognizable spec from its vanilla roots. Let's take a look at where it is now and what we could change to improve upon it further.
Scattered Shots: Improving the hunter marksmanship tree
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. Last week we seized upon a passing comment made by World of Warcraft Lead Systems Designer Ghostcrawler to examine how to improve the BM hunter tree. There was a great deal of consensus about several elements, including ditching Intimidation as the bonus ability and replacing it with Bestial Wrath or Beast Mastery, stealing some talents from the MM tree and ditching some from the BM tree. There was also a wealth of other suggestions from the hunter community; far too many to list here. Today we move on from BM into what I think will likely be a far more contentious discussion, since MM hunters are just a more contentious lot in general. MM has had a pretty good run recently as the unmatched top DPS spec by far for the latter half of Wrath, then holding onto its position, albeit with a vastly smaller lead, in Cataclysm so far. However, upcoming nerfs in patch 4.2 promise to close the MM gap. Join me after the cut for a discussion of the marksmanship talent tree. If Ghostcrawler was reading this, what would you suggest be changed?
Scattered Shots: Patch 4.2 hunter gear
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. It's on the PTR, patch 4.2, and it's coming soon to a Cataclysm near you! And with a new tier of raid content, we have (of course!) new hunter gear (as well as some other gear so the support classes can continue their role of supporting hunters). The big hunter news in the new gear is that we finally have a raiding PVE gun: the Lava Bore Blunderbuss. This thing is a beauty. No more will we be forced to use PVP weapons simply in order to bring finely engineered instruments of death to raids. No more shall we be tempted by useless contraptions of twig and twine. Now we can all have a weapon worthy of hunters. [Update: The WoW Insider editors, who clearly do not play dwarves, inform me that this observation is insufficient for a whole column, so I'm adding some other gear notes below. Hop past the patch if you have interest in anything other than guns. Yeah, that means you, elves.]
Scattered Shots: 10 things hunters should get in patch 4.2
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. Thus far, the patch 4.2 hunter news has been pretty light. There was the odd little tweak to the BM mastery that was most likely just a tooltip update (giving us a more precise number, rather than the rounded one) and the peek at our T12 set bonus, which we've already discussed in depth. We know that Blizzard's process is to push things out onto the PTR as they are completed, rather than in any kind of priority order, to enable the most testing time possible. It is therefore my theory that Blizzard has some fantastic things planned for the hunter class that we'll be seeing in patch 4.2. Now, before you get your hopes up, this incredibly awesome list of the top 10 4.2 hunter buffs is entirely fabricated and wishful thinking. There's no indication that hunters will actually be getting these things. But we should get them. We absolutely should.
Scattered Shots: Hunter tier 12 armor first look
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. Now that Patch 4.2 is on the PTR, the dataminers are working overtime to learn what goodies lurk within the new tier of raid content. As always, datamined content is not always 100% accurate and not entirely complete -- and this is just the PTR, anyway, and everything is subject to change. As much as I love all the datamined goodness, I have a sneaking suspicion that the dataminers are actually responsible for the whole Deathwing event. Like the dwarves of Moria, they dug too deep and awoke a creature of fire and shadow. But hey, we all make little slips from time to time. What matters now is that they've found our first glimpse of the hunter tier 12 set bonuses, albeit with a lot of unknowns. Unfortunately, a lot of hunters are filling in the information gaps with guesswork and trying to compare the T11 set to the T12 set based on those assumptions. I like to go out on a limb now and again with absolute statements, so here's one now: Anyone who says that the tier 12 set is worse than the tier 11 set is just plain wrong. Why? Find out after the cut.
Scattered Shots: Optimizing your racials as a hunter
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. Not all races are created equal. Dwarves, for example, have rugged good looks, wit, and unparalleled charm, all of which are amplified by drink. Orcs, on the other hand, are green, smelly, and think that bodily functions are the height of sophisticated humor. Alas, these too are amplified by drink. But when we talk about races in WoW, we're usually talking about racials -- the bonuses each race gets and how these work in synergy with the hunter class. Racials tend not to be a big deal to casual players but are so important to progression types that even the support classes care about them. It's important to note that racials are not balanced, and never more so than in Cataclysm. Before we get into the specifics of which racials help the hunter class the most, let me stress that it's not that big of a deal for most players -- at best, something around a 1% gain to your DPS. Play the race you like best (as long as it's a dwarf). Hunters can be any race except gnomes, and as the video above shows, with enough liquor, even they can manage. But if you really want to squeeze the last ounce of raiding prowess out of your hunter, then your racials are one of the variables you'll want to optimize.
Scattered Shots: Hunters and patch 4.1
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. Patch 4.1 was a pleasant one for hunters, a relaxing change of pace from the insanity of nerfs and buffs and more nerfs of 4.0.6. The patch brought us a nice wave of quality of life improvements and a very welcome AoE buff. But in addition to everything listed in the patch notes, there have also been a couple of undocumented hunter changes. Even the undocumented changes are wee hunter improvements. Clearly, Blizzard feels bad about the (admittedly somewhat necessary) trauma we endured in the last patch, and it wants this patch to be a nice, therapeutic massage of tranquil ease for hunters. Join me after the cut as we go through the patch 4.1 hunter changes -- the official notes, as well as the undocumented things that crept in there.
Scattered Shots: Patch 4.1 hunter loot
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. Over in PTR land, where life is always just a little bit better and a little bit more unpredictable then life over on live, the patch 4.1 testing is starting to wind down. Things are shaping up and looking pretty close to how we think they'll look when the material goes live. As always, we never know exactly when the patch will hit, but all signs point to soon. So this then becomes the perfect time to start taking a look at all the new hunter loot the patch will shower on us. Since this patch is not bringing a new raid tier, the only new loot we're getting comes from the two new 5-man dungeons, the revamped Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. These dungeons will drop ilvl 353 epic loot. This means that while the loot is better than other heroics, it's still going to be worse than your raid gear. Worse yet, despite dropping a bunch of new loot on us, there still isn't another frickin' hunter bracer [Update: commenters point out that yes there is! Woo!], and there still isn't a frickin' gun. Come on, guys! If you're making new loot, please fill up our gear gaps! Nevertheless, there are plenty of other shiny new toys for us to play with. Join me after the cut for a rundown of the patch 4.1 hunter loot.
Scattered Shots: Hunter addons
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. Playing WoW means dealing with a constant incoming stream of information. Damage and healing numbers, angry floors trying to eat us, buffs and enrages to be dispelled, casts to be interrupted, angry floors trying to burn us, proc notifications and aspect dancing, angry floors trying to suck us into a twilight realm, resource management, and angry floors trying to do every other bad thing imaginable. But no matter how much information the game throws at us, it's never enough. We want more. Enter the addon. While the in-game UI is constantly improving in Blizzard's ongoing efforts to improve the hunter experience, there is some information it still doesn't provide. More often, there is important information that the game doesn't provide in an easy-to-assimilate format. Today we're going to go over some of the basic hunter addons for Cataclysm. As usual, I'm ignoring custom UIs here, since as hunters we don't really need them, and they're very personalized anyway. So join me after the cut for the must-have hunter addons.
Scattered Shots: Musings on hunter haste design
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. One of the many goals with hunters in Cataclysm was to make haste a more attractive stat and a more intuitive stat. Back in Wrath, haste was an almost comically poor stat for hunters. Just about the only thing it did for us was increase the rate of fire of our Auto Shots. While it was still a beneficial stat, it was so much worse than all the rest that hunters would bend over backward and jump through hoops to avoid dirtying themselves with it. Blizzard certainly succeeded in making haste a more attractive stat for us in Cataclysm. It did not, however, score well on making haste more intuitive. In fact, haste is far more complicated and less intuitive than ever before. At certain points, haste is very good for us; then when we get past those haste plateaus, suddenly haste is much, much worse, until we hit another plateau when it's suddenly good again. And of course, these plateaus are radically different for each spec. While I'm glad we no longer have a nearly useless stat, I do hope that Blizzard continues to tinker with haste to make it work a bit more smoothly and remove some of the unnecessary complexities. In fact, I even have an idea of where to start. Join me after the cut for Frostheim's haste design theory.
Scattered Shots: Grandpappy Frostheim on pet happiness
Scattered Shots is brought to you by Grandpappy Frostheim, who spends his evenings in an Ironforge tavern telling young hunters how much harder things were in his day, when they had to kite mobs uphill, both ways ... back when men were men, and women were men too, and pets were next to useless -- but they were also men. You can ask him questions on Google+. All right, all right, settle down. Everyone take a seat, and someone bring me my ale -- then I'll tell you a little something about what being a hunter was like in my day, back when men were men, and women were men too, and pets were next to useless but they were also men. The latest hunter news includes the removal of the pet happiness system, and by Magni's beard, I have to say the negative response I'm hearing surprises me -- and here I thought that nothing you youngsters jabber about could surprise me anymore. But you kids these days have it so good that you're actually complaining about how good you have it! Well, let me tell you a little something about what pets were like back in my day. You think you know what the pet happiness system is, but you kids have no idea.
Scattered Shots: Patch 4.1 hunter AoE changes
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. Coming fast on the heals of the chaotic hunter changes from patch 4.0.6 and the hotfixes that followed, we now have more changes to look forward to in patch 4.1. Happily, we are not seeing another overhaul of the hunter class to disturb the precious state of hunter balance we're enjoying now. Instead, we have some nice quality of life improvements -- no more pet happiness system to juggle, and when we tame a hunter pet, it will now automatically level up to our hunter level, instead of three levels below. I definitely think this last was a needed change; hunters were the only class that actually had to level up one of their key DPS abilities in this way. It's worth noting that for the moment, this only works for newly tamed pets. Your existing pets still have to be leveled the old-fashioned way. But aside from making the collection of our 25 pets easier, the other thing (so far) that we know patch 4.1 is bringing us is some attention to our AoE abilities. Join me after the cut for a look at what we're seeing on the PTR and how that affects the balance of each spec's AoE.
Scattered Shots: The right hunter spec for the job
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. Be very, very quiet, and come over here. I have something to show you -- but seriously, don't make any sudden moves, and speak softly. Any loud noise could disturb it and scare it away ... Now look at this. Isn't it just the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? That's right. All three hunter specs are now more balanced than they have ever been in the history of the World of Warcraft. For the first time in the history of the game, all three specs have something optimal to bring to endgame PvE. If you're trying to maximize and optimize your hunter for raid fights, then the best spec will change from encounter to encounter, rather than having one spec so far ahead that it performs best even on encounters that aren't within its strengths. Join me after the cut for a rundown of the precious, fragile, and possibly fleeting moment of hunter spec balance and an analysis of what kind of encounter each spec is best at.
Scattered Shots: Hotfix hunter changes speculation
Every Monday and 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. When patch 4.0.6 hit with its crazy undocumented buff to Aimed Shot (rather, buffed far, far more than was documented), we were pretty sure that Aimed Shot was going to see some kind of adjustment -- it was just too good, and it scales too well in the already high-scaling MM spec. Well, we got our adjustment, but Blizzard wasn't content just to nerf Aimed Shot downward -- oh no. As long as it was tinkering with hunters anyway, it seemed appropriate to heap wads of awesomesauce across all specs at the same time. For those who missed the hotfixes, here's what's happening to hunters: Zarhym Aimed Shot damage has been decreased to approximately 160% weapon damage (at level 80+), down from 200%. Aspect of the Hawk now provides around an additional 2000 attack power at level 85. source There's a lot to talk about here -- there are some pretty awesome implications to an additional 2,000 attack power while in Aspect of the Hawk. Join me after the cut as we get into the effects of all these changes -- what we know, what we don't know, and what we suspect.
Scattered Shots: Hunting Halfus, Valiona, and Theralion
Every Monday and 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. Last week, we covered the first two bosses of Blackwing's Descent, so this week we're going to go over the hunter strategies for the first two bosses of the Bastion of Twilight: Halfus Wyrmbreaker and Valiona and Theralion (who we fondly refer to as Theraliona). As always with these hunter guides, this is not a strategy guide for these bosses. I am assuming you are already familiar with the general boss strategy. Instead, we're just focusing on hunter-specific tips that the general guides tragically skip over. If you want to learn the basic mechanics of the fights, you can check out the Halfus Wyrmbreaker and Valiona and Theralion strategy guide over at Tankspot. Join me after the cut as we get into the hunter-specific tips and tricks for these bosses.
Scattered Shots: What other classes should know about hunters
Every Monday and 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. Today at Scattered Shots, we're going to take a break from talking about hunters to other hunters, and instead we're going to talk to you other classes out there and discuss what you should know about us. We know full well that there are bad apples in our class, just as there are in yours, but at times, the term "huntard" is used when it shouldn't be -- when the failure is due to a lack of understanding of what we can and cannot do. This is especially important information for you tanks and raid leaders out there. We know that you can't possibly keep in your mind all of the intricacies of every class; we're just talking the basics here. And as a nod of appreciation for your time in reading this, we'll refrain -- just for today -- from our good-natured mocking of other classes. If you're not a hunter, please join us after the cut for a brief rundown of what we think is important for you to know and why there might just be a reason behind what we hunters are doing, and not just huntardism. And for you hunters out there, this will hopefully provide a handy link that you can provide to other classes.
Scattered Shots: Dancing for DPS
Every Monday and 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. Arguably the greatest strength of the hunter class is our ability to DPS on the move. This has always been a strength of our class, but never so great as it is now in Cataclysm. When the support classes are scrambling for all they're worth to avoid void zones and toss their damage to the side in the eternal dance of clumping up and spreading out, we hunters steadily continue our rotations, with the ability to output nearly our full DPS while moving. From time to time after a particularly movement-heavy boss fight, you may hear other classes complaining about your ability to produce double their damage output. Just remind them that as long as they're applying their applicable raid buffs or debuffs, then they're fulfilling their role as a support class. The support and praise of the hunter should be enough for them and their little support class existence. Patch 4.0.6 changes to auto shot has removed stutter-stepping from our movement skills. Our Auto Shots now fire on the move without any help from us. But Cataclysm did introduce a new hunter movement skill: the aspect dance. Join me after the cut for a discussion of this new movement skill, when you should use it, and why you should care so much.
Scattered Shots: Hunting Magmaw and Omnotron
Every Monday and 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. By now, most hunters with the desire to raid are starting to explore the new Cataclysm raids and practice shooting bosses in the face, which means it's time for Scattered Shots to start talking about hunter-specific tips for raid bosses. We'll be starting with a couple of the easiest boss fights, Magmaw and the Omnotron Defense System. I was debating for a bit whether to include Argaloth in the first roundup, but as Dawn Moore said when we were discussing it, "Whatever. Argaloth isn't even a boss." And you know, that's kinda true. As always with these hunter guides, this is not a strategy guide for these bosses. I am assuming you are already familiar with the general boss strategy. Instead, we're just focusing on hunter-specific tips that the general guides tragically skip over. If you want to learn the basic mechanics of the fights, you can check out the Magmaw strategy guide and the Omnotron Defense System strategy guide here on WoW Insider. Join me after the cut as we get into just how the vast hunter toolbox can simplify these fights not just for you but for your whole raid -- and, as always, how to maximize your DPS!
Scattered Shots: Best-in-slot hunter gear for Cataclysm
Every Monday and 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. Loot week continues here at Scattered Shots, and in Cataclysm, all loot is hunter loot! Whether it's a brand new gun to blow the face off of dragons or a decorative mace to put over your hearth, anything purple was put in the game for hunters to claim. On Monday, we discussed hunter trinkets in depth. Today, we're going to take a broader view and look at our best loot options slot by slot. We're going to be considering everything that drops from current normal-mode raid content, as well as what we can purchase with our valor points. As always, we are not going to consider PvP options. With the massive increase in the value of agility that Cataclysm brought to us, the PvP set is shockingly attractive; however, the agility it provides is being nerfed on the PTR right now. Clearly, Blizzard doesn't want you to have to run arenas or rated battlegrounds just to build your optimal raid set (we'll see how successful they are at that). Join me after the cut as we dig into the giant pile of loot available to us and mourn the lack of any hunter gun drops in raids.
Scattered Shots: Cataclysm hunter trinkets
Every Monday and 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. It's loot week here at Scattered Shots! We've covered pre-heroic loot and we've covered pre-raid loot; now it's time to take the "pre-" out of the loot discussions and get down to the best PvE loot available to us hunters right now. Because there's just too much loot discussion to fit in only one post, we're going to be splitting things up. Today, the focus is on trinkets, those pesky loot pieces with their complicated and delightful mechanics that make them so much more interesting than another collection of stats. Trinkets in Cataclysm have grown more complicated than ever, too. Back in Wrath days, we could count on most proc trinkets having the same 45-second internal cooldown, but these days, they all seem to have different proc durations, different internal cooldown, different everythings. So join me after the cut as we delve into the wonderful world of hunter trinkets, find out why Hurricane isn't for hunters and how the very best trinket available is also the most easily attainable! On Thursday, we'll go over the broader best-in-slot gear lists for hunters. For today, it's all trinkets, all the time!
