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Scattered Shots: Why hunters are better than every other class
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. Patch 4.0.6 is looking grim for the hunter class. I'm not just talking about the original SV nerfs we discussed earlier, either. They unveiled another round of SV nerfs that disables SV's ability to AoE effectively in raids and further nerfs its single-target DPS with a butchering of Explosive Shot. [Update: this was written right after the giant SV nerf, and before the other buffs and un-nerf.] But I'm not talking about that today. I'm sure what goes live after the PTR process will not be as bad as things look from the patch notes right now. It's the PTR, things will change, there will be a bright side. So today, we will not dwell on the bad news. We will not be brought down by the nerf bat. We will not relinquish our spots on the charts or our places in the raid. Today, we will focus instead on how awesome hunters are, an awesomeness that transcends nerfs and feeble attempts at balance. An awesomeness that places our class firmly ahead of all of the support classes in the game. An awesomeness that is the hunter. Today, we will glory in great list of 50 reasons why hunters are better than every other class!
Scattered Shots: A look at patch 4.0.6 PTR hunter changes
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. The latest news from the PTR is that patch 4.0.6 has been deployed, bringing with it a bunch of anticipated changes to the hunter class. We recently talked about the likely hunter changes, and just about all of that is being tested in the new patch (though at present, it appears that some of it has been implemented incorrectly). At first glance, it certainly appears that Blizzard is being very conservative in its adjustments. SV got its gentle nerf in the form of dropping the Into the Wilderness agility bonus down from 15% to 10%. Meanwhile, MM and BM both received buffs -- but again, very gentle buffs. While they'll bring these specs closer to SV, they'll still be behind. But of course, that's what the PTR process is for -- to test out the changes and make adjustments. Join me after the cut for the full rundown of what's changing, unlisted bug fixes, and some of the odd implementations of the changes.
Scattered Shots: Survival and haste for 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, we're going to talk about one of the most difficult stats to pin down with the needles of math: haste. Nowadays, haste does all sorts of different little things for hunters, and even in our best mathematical models, its behavior is tricksy and elusive, making big leaps up and down the stat weighting seemingly on a whim. Haste is like wizards or cats: subtle, and quick to anger. Are there really all kinds of haste plateaus, where just adding 2 haste increases your DPS by large amounts? But then adding another 2 haste actually drops your DPS? Well, no, there aren't. When you see that kind of behavior on the spreadsheets, it's an artifact of the modeling process and not something that you'll actually see in game. Join me after the cut for a rundown of what haste is actually doing for you and why significant haste plateaus aren't currently attainable. Since survival is currently so far ahead of the other specs that it can actually see its backside (and a fine view that is), we'll talk about haste specifically in the scope of the SV spec.
Scattered Shots: Hunter spec and class balance
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. Last week, Ghostcrawler, WoW's lead systems designer, stepped in with a post to let the players know what Blizzard was looking at in terms of class balance. Hunters had the privilege of being the only class that had all three specs being mentioned in the post. He acknowledged that BM and MM DPS was too low and were in need of buffs. He also pointed out that SV single-target damage looked too high (along with DKs) and that AoE damage might be too high, as well. Responses from the hunter community have been pretty divided. A lot of hunters are saying no, SV is not too strong, while a lot of others agree that they are a bit too high. Still others argue that hey, someone has to be on top -- why not us? And then there's the crowd that says it's too soon to tell. But everyone agrees that BM and MM need the buffing. Today, we're going to take a look a hunter balance. We'll delve into raid parse data to see if we can find out just what Blizzard is seeing, we'll talk about hunter spec balance, and finally, we'll talk a bit about how current bugs in the game are affecting our DPS. Join me after the cut for an in-depth rundown of hunter class balance at the beginning of Cataclysm. Oh, and even if you're not a hunter, you're gonna want to see this.
Scattered Shots: Survival hunter 101
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. Survival saw its first brief moment of raiding glory early in Wrath, just after the great BM nerf dethroned BM from the top position it had held for over two years. Now again at the start of Cataclysm, SV is the frontrunner of hunter raid DPS, in the lead by quite a large margin at the moment. In addition to the highest DPS, survival also provides the best mobile DPS and the best CC. SV has long ago left behind its roots as a spec built around survivability and instead is the magical damage hunter spec, with only auto-shot, Kill Shot, and the pet contributing any physical damage at all. The SV rotation is very reactionary, rather than planned, but many players love the spec because of that reactionary feel. Join me after the cut as we dig down into the details of the SV spec in Cataclysm, from talents to glyphs to rotations to stat weights.
Scattered Shots: Moar heroics for hunters
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. We're going to take a break today from the spec 101 articles to talk a bit more about what everyone is doing right now: heroics. I know that SV 101 was next and that it's the top spec at the moment, and we will get to it. But if you can't wait, the SV raid spec is darned similar to the SV heroic spec. But I'm guessing most of you are like me and can use the break from those. I've already gone over everything you need to know about optimizing for heroics, but my email box is still flooded daily with heroic-related questions. Most of these are things I've already covered, but a good number of them are not. How much DPS should you be doing? Why is your character auto-targeting and shooting random mob packs? When will Dawn Moore be made a tamable hunter pet? Join me after the cut as we dig through the most common hunter questions I'm seeing. We'll drill home the point on things that all hunters should already know and shed some light on the more pressing conundrums of the class.
Scattered Shots: Optimizing your hunter for 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. Cataclysm has been out for nearly a week now. Hordes of hunters have proven their valor by uncovering the Twilight Cult's plot, rebuilding the World Pillar, and fetching a drunken dwarf his pants. A hero's work is never done. While many hunters are still proceeding steadily through the levels, a lot of them are now pushing their way into heroics. No more for us mindlessly AoEing our way through trash and bursting down bosses with no thought to strategy -- now it's time to pay attention to fight mechanics and dust off those rusty trapping skills. Our diligence will be rewarded with shiny blues that will help us hold our own in raids and loads of reputation via our tabards. But like my Grandpappy Frostheim used to say, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing at the top of the damage meters!" Join me after the cut as we talk about optimizing your hunter for heroics, how to spec, how to glyph, and how to look good while you do it.
Scattered Shots: Pre-raid gear for Cataclysm hunters
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. Last week we covered our pre-heroic gear lists, bringing us up to at least ilvl 329 gear. A bit of grinding, a bit of questions, a sprinkling of gold and a few good drops and we're ready to graduate from normal-mode dungeons to the new, harder-hitting Cataclysm heroics. We want to be a lot more careful about selecting our ilvl 349 gear than we were with pre-heroic gear. This is the gear that is going to enable us to start killing raid bosses, and in raiding, the small nuances of optimization really start to add up. You absolutely want to enchant and gem this gear with the best possible gems and enchants. You may also want to evaluate your own stat weights using a tool like Zeherah's DPS Analyzer combined with a hefty dose of logic and common sense. That said, the difference between gear of the same ilvl is smaller than ever, thanks to reforging. So join me after the cut for the complete list of the best gear we can get outside of raids.
Scattered Shots: Pre-heroic hunter gear in Cataclysm
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. Cataclysm is just around the corner, and it's time to put away the shiny new pets and start planning for level 85. We've already discussed optimizing our 80 to 85 leveling, so now we'll focus on our level 85 gear. To that end, we have a massive info dump for you today. We are going to start by looking at our pre-heroic gear options and save the pre-raid gear for a next Thursday. Unlike Wrath, Cataclysm heroics promise to be actually challenging. When we first step into the new heroics after reaching level 85, they'll be much harder than Wrath heroics were when we first hit 80. Heroics will absolutely be wiping groups and giggling madly while doing so, so you don't want to go into them with just whatever gear you happened to end up with when you finished leveling. In fact, the dungeon finder will have a minimum gear requirement to queue for the heroics (in the beta, it was ilvl 329), so even if you want to be an underperforming anchor to your group, the game won't let you. (Well, it will -- there's still no cure for idiocy -- but it won't let you in without at least being geared for it.) So join me after the cut for the massive list of all the gear you're going to be aiming to collect to start slaughtering heroics. This should help you plan which instances you want to run while leveling and which reputations to pursue.
Scattered Shots: Hunter changes for 4.0.3a
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. It's been coming for a long, long time: Deathwing has finally shattered old Azeroth. It was kind of a jerk move on Deathwing's part, and frankly, he's just asking to be punched in the face. Along with the visual changes and host of sparkly new pets available to tame, hunters are also seeing all those beta changes finally brought over to live with patch 4.0.3a. If my poor, overworked email box is any indication, a lot of hunters out there have not been following the constant beta changes and are confused about many of the changes -- and while our abilities are basically the same, there have been a lot of meaningful changes to the way our DPS works. Join me after the cut for a rundown of the hunters view of patch 4.0.3a, including pet changes, ability changes, and just what Blizzard means by our shots being normalized.
Scattered Shots: Pets for leveling from 80 to 85
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 talked about the optimum hunter spec for leveling 80 to 85 in Cataclysm. But no discussion of hunter optimization is entirely complete without also talking about those beloved boon companions that join us in leaving a swath of death and destruction in our wakes. As always, hunters got the soloing and leveling gig easy. It is not hard for us to level, and it doesn't require crazy optimization. You can absolutely use whatever pet you want to to level. If you love your pink tallstrider with all your heart and can't bear to be parted from him, then that's fine. It won't hurt you that much. Though, in the words of BRK, "I would do anything for love, but I won't sporebat ... no, I won't sporebat." Join me after the cut as we look at leveling pets, pet specs for leveling, and what kind of pet roster you want to have on hand for those 5-mans.
Scattered Shots: Hunter tier 11 set
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. Cataclysm is still several weeks away, and for most of us, raid content is yet more weeks beyond that. But it's never too soon to start drooling over new gear, and what's more deserving of our drool than our very first raid set of Cataclysm? The hunter tier 11 Lightning-Charged set gets us off to a killer start in Cataclysm with very nice and useful set bonuses right out of the gate. Of course, the set looks like you're wearing a skinned murloc, but whether that's a bad thing or a moment of sublime joy depends on your personal taste and history with murlocs. Personally, I'm happy to be wearing their hollowed-out head. Glrgl-murfl this, ya bastards. Join me after a cut for an in-depth look at the new hunter set, including exactly how all the set bonuses work and some preliminary numbers of the set bonus DPS contributions to each spec.
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.
