hunter-talents
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Cataclysm: Stat and system changes for hunters
Blizzard has given us a bit more information about Cataclysm stats and exactly how they'll be changing. Reading between the lines it seems clear that the intent of the announcement was to keep the hunter community well-informed, and they then went ahead and tossed in some info about other classes while they were at it. But I think it's pretty clear they were talking to us. Here's the relevant scoop for hunters: Stamina: We'll have a lot more -- much closer to the plate amount. This will be true across the board for non-plate classes. Intellect: We won't get it on gear anymore. Since, you know, we won't be using mana. Attack Power: No longer on gear for "most items." AP will still be a part of the game, and we'll probably still have talents like Trueshot Aura that boost our AP, it's just not a number that we'll be seeing on our gear. Existing gear will have its AP converted into agility and stamina. Resilience: This stat will finally become a pure PvP stat and will only work against players, and won't reduce crit chance. Armor: The difference in armor between mail and plate will be smaller. Gem Color: It's not certain, but hit rating gems are probably going to become blue gems, implying that hit/agility will be purple. Haste: Will let us recover focus faster. Mastery: We didn't get a whole lot of new information on this new stat, other than "...will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique." Agility: Will likely now give us 2 attack power and probably a slightly lower crit chance boost than it does now. Armor Penetration: Going away entirely from gear. It'll still be in the game as talents, but not a stat that we have to pay attention to for our gear lists. Anything that currently has ArP on it will have that ArP converted into haste and crit. Keep in mind that haste is probably going to be more appealing to us when this change happens too. Join me after the cut as we contemplate what some of these changes may mean for us hunters.
Scattered Shots: Dreaming of awesome ammo
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. Currently hunter ammo is nothing more than an extension of our ranged weapon DPS. Perhaps our Stakethrower does 222.7 DPS in raw damage. Well, our Shatter Rounds just boost that by 91.5 DPS. So it's as if our gun was actually doing 314.2 DPS. It's certainly easy to understand, but it's just so... boring. Really, they could just boost the DPS of our ranged weapons and it'd be the same thing. But ever since Blizzard first told us they'd be removing consumable ammo we hunters have been dreaming of how awesome our ammo could be. It might burst into flame on impact, or cut through armor, or heal us, or heck, for all we know it would serve as a mount so we could fire gnomish rogues into the face of bosses! Join me after the cut for a discussion of the state of hunter ammo, and some speculation on just how awesome it could become.
Scattered Shots: Hunter trinkets
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. Trinkets fill a very special slot in our gear selection. Rather than just a collection of stats, trinkets are the one gear slot we can pretty much count on doing something special, be it crazy procs or on-use abilities. Of course because they aren't just piles of stats, trying to compare one trinket to another can sometimes be difficult. Worse yet, they are some of the most difficult slots to fill, and we don't want to waste our time (or DKP) with a subpar trinket. In the past we've looked at the ICC hunter loot, and more ICC hunter loot. Today we're going to look beyond just ICC and examine all of the top hunter trinket choices, from Greatness to Deathbringer's WIll. Furthermore, I'm going to go out on a limb and rank all the trinkets from best to worst for each hunter spec. So join me after the cut to see if that limb can hold up against some solid dwarven weight.
Scattered Shots: Hunting the Crimson Halls
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. The Crimson Halls of Icecrown Citadel contains the kind of horrors that the Plagueworks could only hint at. The Crimson Halls is where all the emo vampire RPing blood elves went to die... and then came back! True story, and a complete tangent: a friend of mine, in her 30s, mother of two, recently admitted to me that her shameful, guilty pleasure is reading the Twilight books (which, I gather, are like Anne Rice 90210 for teenagers). She says the books are awful and everything you'd fear, but she can't stop reading them. Then she saw a Twilight movie was horrified to see -- to really see with her own eyes -- that these hunky guys of literary lust were like 17 years old. Sure, they were in the books too, but apparently when reading she had unconsciously changed them to a more age-appropriate hunky mental image and suddenly felt very creepy seeing these kids on the screen. It's one vast landscape of pain, being old. Join me after the cut as we veer back on topic and take a look at the hunter tips and tricks for the Crimson Halls, from Blood Princes to Blood Queens, including how we can take a break from kiting and become tanks!
Scattered Shots: Extreme soloing
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. We hunters are basically an entire party unto ourselves. Our pet is the tank, we're the DPS, and we can split the healing duties between hunter and pet. By focusing on the right talents and gear and glyphs, hunters and pets can be a formidable soloing team, taking on content that was never meant to be done alone. We can solo our way from Molten Core straight through to even Lich King 5-mans. Soloing content meant for groups or raids comes from the same impulse behind climbing a mountain: we do it because it's there. We do it for the challenge, the excitement, for the glory for the hunter class. And if that isn't enough for you, there's also the allure of legendary items like Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, or rare mount drops like the Swift Zulian Tiger, Midnight, and the Swift White Hawkstrider. Join me after the cut as we take a look at exactly how you can topple Molen Core to Violet Hold on your own, how you can heal your pet for thousands of heals per second, and become the envy of your guild mates. There's nothing quite as satisfying as polishing off Ragnaros and hearing your friends bemoan how horribly broken you are.
Scattered Shots: Can Beast Mastery raid?
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. Beast Mastery is the beloved hunter spec with the strongest and most protective of followers. While a BM hunter was a rare thing to find back in vanilla, BM saw a terrific boost throughout Burning Crusade and the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King. For years BM enjoyed the incredibly rare status of being an excellent spec -- if not the best spec -- for soloing, leveling, pvp, and raiding. Then starting in early Wrath, the BM hunters cowered beneath the shadow of the nerf bat. But even after getting repeatedly beaten like a red-headed gnome, squashed into a wee pet-shaped crater, you still don't have to look far to find a BM hunter defending their viability in raids. Today we're going to take a hard look at the BM spec. We're going to dismiss the rhetoric of the PUG masses who say "If yer BM yer a noob" and take a look at exactly where BM really is in raid viability. Join me after the cut as we take a look at the numbers and the philosophy behind the BM raider.
Scattered Shots: Grandpappy Frostheim on death knights
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 up hill, both ways. All I hear from kids these days is whining about death knights. Whining about how bad they are at tanking in their PUGs or how they can't even do 2k DPS. You hunters these days should be grateful for death knights. You don't know how good you got it, 'cause you have no sense of history! Let me tell you, back in my day we didn't have death knights. If we saw an undead servant of the Lich King walking around, we shot it on sight. In those days a bullet to the skull was redemption, not the sissy politically correct version you got now. We had redemption piled taller than your head over in the Plaguelands, I can tell you that. So take a seat, put away your new-fangled dungeon finders and take a break from your crazy barber shop haircuts and let Grandpappy Frostheim tell you how things were back in my day, and why you should be thankful for those death knights.
Scattered Shots: Skill vs. gear
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. The skill vs. gear debate comes up fairly often, whether it's people cursing Gearscore or cursing Recount or cursing their teammates from the Dungeon Finder. And it's not even a debate: across the board everyone agrees that skill is greater than gear. Good DPS comes from skill and that skill far outweighs the impact of gear. Gevlon's guild brought this into the spotlight in October of last year when they did Ulduar in all blues -- including Yogg-Saron. But here's the thing: every time someone is out-DPSed by the same class the response seems always to be, "Yeah, but he has better gear." I've never seen anyone say, "Yeah, he must be a better player than me." I mean, not once, not ever. The reason is that in our heart of hearts, we all assume that we're skilled players. So today we're going to take a look at exactly how much our gear contributes to our DPS, and compare that to raid buffs. We're going to define what we mean by skill, as opposed to mere competence. Join me after the cut for a mix of hard numbers and philosophy and arm yourself for the next skill vs. gear debate that pops up.
Pimp My Profile: Marksmanship hunter Fizzlebow
Welcome to Pimp My Profile, the column in which the WoW.com staff turns zeroes into heroes. Don't think you're performing where you should be? Not sure how your class/spec is supposed to be gearing up? E-mail us with your Armory link, and you might be next to receive our help! I would like to submit my character for the re-release of Pimp My Profile. I have a hunter named Fizzlebow, he's profiled for both Marksman and Beast Mastery, though I mostly play Marksman because I have more shots to choose from. I play 3-5 times a week, usually after work. I try to get in Heroic dungeon on the nights I do play, hopefully I can get two done a night. I usually group with my wife, another married couple, and one of their friends. I would be interested in any advice that I can receive towards my character to improve DPS. Depending on the heroic, I usually get somewhere between 1800 - 2300 DPS, and it feels like I should be getting more than that. Thanks for any info you and WoW.com can give, keep up the good work! - Fizzlebow Thank you for writing to Pimp My Profile Fizzlebow! You appear to be both deeply insightful as well as uncommonly good looking -- which is especially remarkable in your case since you don't have the rugged dwarven good looks to boost you. Marksman is indeed an excellent build to use in heroics, and I do believe if we roll up our sleeves we can jump your heroic DPS up considerably. We'd like to see you consistently doing over 3,000 DPS in any given heroic. Best of all with higher DPS your runs will be faster than ever and I daresay your wife will be looking at you with new eyes and suggesting ways to spend that extra time!
Scattered Shots: Beast Mastery 101
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. When you're looking at stepping into the hunter class for the first time there are three key concepts to keep in mind: guns are finely crafted machines of death while bows are primitive contraptions better suited to butterfly-humpin' hippies; dwarves are solidly-built, better looking, and better able to handle the sweet nectar of life (alcohol) than other races; and finally beast mastery is the ideal entry point into the hunter class. No spec is as widely useful and easy to learn and master as BM. Today we're going to walk step-by-step through everything you need to know to get started on your BM hunter. Don't worry, they're baby steps. Even the aforementioned butterfly-humpin' night elves will be able to understand.
Scattered Shots: Hunting the Plagueworks in ICC
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. It is well known that hideous undead monstrosities concocted by the deranged minions of the Lich King make for excellent target practice. Having rained death throughout the ICC Lower Spire and gathered up all of our rightful hunter loot, our next stop on the way to the Lich King is the Plagueworks. We are given more trash to shower us with Ashen Verdict rep, including the much sought-after Precious's Ribbon (clearly hunter loot) before stepping into the chamber of the grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous undead of yore. Join me after the cut as we take a look at the hunter tips for defeating the bosses of the Plagueworks. As always, we're going to assume that you're familiar with the boss strategies and will be looking at hunter-specific tips.
Scattered Shots: The misunderstood hunter abilities
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. We hunters are a misunderstood class in so many ways. Other classes don't understand how our bond with our pets reaches beyond logic and min-maxing. They don't understand that though our class is insanely easy to solo and level with, we are one of the most difficult ranged DPS classes to play well in raids. They don't understand that we're just, well, cooler than them. But we're not here today to discuss the mental failings of other classes. We are here to discuss some of the hunter abilities most commonly misunderstood by hunters themselves. Sometimes the problem is the convoluted WoW tooltips that seem deliberately designed to confuse readers. Sometimes our abilities have interesting mechanics that aren't reflected in the tooltips at all, and of course sometimes people just plain misread abilities. Join me after the cut as we take a look at the three abilities most commonly misunderstood by hunters and explain how they really work. Not a week goes by that I don't get at least one email or comment about every one of these abilities.
Scattered Shots: Hunting the ICC Lower Spire
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. ICC Lower Spire offers four separate opportunities for hunters to shine like the radiant beacons of death we are. In addition to the normal assortment of target switching and void zone dancing in boss fights, we even have an encounter that has many raid leaders on their knees and begging for more hunters! So step with me beyond the cut and through the doors of Icecrown Citadel for a look at how to optimize your hunter performance on the first four speed bumps in the path to the Lich King.
Scattered Shots: Hunting heroics and PUGs
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. We all know how painful PUGs can be. The DPSer doing less damage than you could do naked; the retadins and mages that open up immediately and pull aggro on everything; the tanks that still degroup the instant you land in Oculus or can't hold aggro on anything and ignore the mob eating the healer's face off; and of course the foolish healers that don't prioritize healing your pet above all else. We talk a lot about optimizing our hunters for raids, and we're going to continue to do so. However a lot of hunters don't have raid access and are taking advantage of the new Dungeon Finder to run heroics until their feet are bloody and their gun barrels melt. So today we're going to take some time to talk about the facets of doing good heroic DPS, and about being a good heroic group member in general. So join me after the cut as we take a look at how your shot rotations change in heroics, examine mana conservation, and generally discuss how to be a good group member.
Scattered Shots: It's all hunter loot in ICC, part 1
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. Okay, maybe it's not all hunter loot -- certainly there are some useless plate pieces and decorative maces in there -- but our ICC loot shopping list is delightful and vast, and even impacts the balance of hunter specs. This is the end game loot folks. The last major raid instance with the coolest and shiniest and bestest toys we're gonna get (and some bows). In fact, there's just so darned much hunter loot delight that it won't all fit into one post! So join me after the cut as we start to plan our ICC loot lists with a look at our itemization, tier 10 armor, Emblem of Frost options, and craftable loot.
Scattered Shots: Picking the right hunter loot, part 2
Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, where real players are hunters and everyone else is just an avatar. I'm Eddie Carrington, aka Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge and THL Podcast. Each week we discuss ways to help improve your hunter. Welcome back to part 2 of our "Picking the right hunter loot" guide. Where each week we take a look at raid loot from WoTLK and help you understand what makes something hunter loot versus loot hunters can use. Here's what we talked about before: Part 1 – We reviewed what item stats make up hunter gear. Also, we explained why every hunter needs to stack hit and strive for the hit cap. We also explained how agility, attack power, critical strike, and armor penetration work with each of the three hunter specs. This week we're going to start exploring the hunter loot that drops in Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader. I'm sure we'll have some spirited debate over the merits of each item. And, I'm pretty sure we'll see druids mangling their keyboards and rogues will throw in a cheap shot or two over our ability to equip almost anything. In an effort keep the carnage at a minimum let's try to keep a few things in mind. We're only reviewing raid loot and how each item affects your hunter and favorite raiding pet's performance. Which means, we're not going to talk about where else to go and get geared. Nor are we going to debate what is and is not considered "Best in Slot" or not. And if you're looking for PvP alternatives? I promise, we'll tackle all of those later on in a different guide. Now if you're wondering why we're not talking about what's over on the PTR for patch 3.3. We'll make sure and cover all of Icecrown when it's released. Then head on back to the other Northrend raids and finish up where we left off. With that said, let's walk through the swirly portal and head into Trial of the Crusader and it's heroic sibling Trial of the Grand Crusader.
Scattered Shots: Picking the right hunter loot, part 1
Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, the weekly hunter class column. This week we begin our series "Picking the right hunter loot." Where we will review what truly makes something qualify as hunter loot, and not just loot hunters can use. We'll also review the drops off of each major raids starting with Naxxrammas and ending with the PTR Patch 3.3 raid, Ice Crown. So join me, Eddie Carrington, aka Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge, as we explore what loot we should put on our watch lists. Things on the patch 3.3 PTR are getting closer and closer to wrapping up, so I thought it might be a good idea to review hunter stats and how they help you select the right gear for you. In the past we have talked about how to use iLevel to do a gear check. Also, we've talked about how to use the different hunter tools and resources out there to select an upgrade for your hunter. What we really haven't talked about was what makes up good hunter gear, and in each of the different raids in Wrath of The Lich King makes up some good hunter gear. And a recent comment on the Damage Dealing forum from Ghostcrawler got me thinking that it might be a good idea to make sure to first review how stats impact our gear choices, and how they impact both our and our pet's raid performance. Just like the hunter leveling guide, I'd like to set a few discussion guidelines.
Scattered Shots: So you want to be a hunter - Levels 71-80
Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, the weekly World of Warcraft Hunter class column. This week we wrap up our "So you want to be a hunter" leveling series as we look at Levels 71-80 and see what makes up the best class in the game. So join me, Eddie Carrington, Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge blog and podcast, as we explore what's in store for us hunters. Hey gang! Welcome to the last installment of the "So you want to be a hunter" leveling series. It's been a long and windy path through grassy plains, sweltering tropics, and fractured planets to finally end up in the frozen wastes of Northrend as we prepare to face the Lich King and hope to get a flying horse when PTR Patch 3.3 is dropped. As we do every week, we'll review the skills you'll learn. Suggest talent builds for both you and your pet. And help you with finding some solid gear choices by recommending some of the Northrend 5-man instances to run through. And what trek through new territory and levels would be complete without identifying rare tamable beasts along the way? If you've missed a previous edition, I've outlined below what we have covered in the 7 previous installations of this leveling series.
Scattered Shots: So you want to be a hunter, Part 7 Levels 61-70
Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, the weekly World of Warcraft Hunter class column. This week we continue our "So you want to be a hunter" leveling series as we look at Levels 60-70 and see why I really feel they're the best class in the game. So join me, Eddie Carrington, Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge blog and podcast, as we explore what's in store for us hunters. Maybe one day hunters being able to tame duids as their very own pet. Wouldn't that be awesome? I want to thank Dwarffinator and Lissana of Restokin.com for making this picture and sending it in for me to use. This is part six of our, now eight part "So you want to be a hunter" leveling guide series. In what was originally to be our final guide, we will now instead cover 10 levels, 60-70, with levels 71 through 80 coming next week. Part of this change is in response to your feedback wanting a bit more information on the skills. As we do in each, this week we'll review what skills you learn, suggest talent builds for both you and your pet as you level, we'll highlight some suggested dungeon quests that match your current level. We've 6 previous installations in this series. Here's what we've talked about so far. Part 1: We reviewed racials and their impact on the hunter class. Reviewed each of the current races and what the benefits were of each racial. Part 2: We quickly talked about the first nine levels. We also went on to talk about each of the three hunter talent trees and their basic play style. Part 3: Last week we discussed what happened from levels 10 through 20. We also went over the quests to learn how to tame your first pet. Part 4: We covered some of the covered attacks, buffs and spells. We also began looking at how to teach your pet new skills by applying pet talents. Part 5: We covered levels 21 through 40. We ended up with you getting your epic riding mount and you now can wear mail. From now on completing quests and gaining levels will be much faster. Part 6: Is where we started to see that we were learning more new ranks than new spells as we leveled from 41 to 60. We ended our time in Outlands with our first flying mount. That's where we've been. But where are we heading? This week we'll be levels 60 to 70. We'll wrap up Outlands, head out to Northrend. Next week we'll wrap it up by reaching level 80. Then we'll focus on gearing up join everyone having fun storming the castle to tackle the Sindragosa, the Lich King and his Scourge minions and anything else Blizzard can through our way as part of Patch 3.3.
Scattered Shots: So you want to be a hunter - Part 6 Levels 41-60
Welcome back to the Scattered Shots, the weekly Hunter class column. This week we continue the "So you want to be a hunter" leveling series.So join me, Eddie Carrington, Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge, as we explore what's in store for us hunters as we go through 20 levels of information, starting at 41 and ending at 60.. This is part six in our seven part leveling guide series. As we do in each, this week we'll review what skills you learn, suggest talent builds for both you and your pet, highlight some quests and instances that might be of interest, as well as show you which rare pets are tamable for your level. As every week we'll recap what we have covered up to now. Part 1: We reviewed racials and their impact on the hunter class. Reviewed each of the current races and what the benefits were of each racial. Part 2: We quickly talked about the first nine levels. We also went on to talk about each of the three hunter talent trees and their basic play style. Part 3: Last week we discussed what happened from levels 10 through 20. We also went over the quests to learn how to tame your first pet. Part 4: We covered some of the covered attacks, buffs and spells. We also began looking at how to teach your pet new skills by applying pet talents. Part 5: We covered levels 21 through 40. We ended up with you getting your epic riding mount and you now can wear mail. From now on completing quests and gaining levels will be much faster. Now that we know where we have been, let's focus on where we are going. This week we'll be covering 20 levels as we work our way from level 41 though 60. We'll also take our first tentative steps off Azeroth as we head into Outlands.
