hunter-talents
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Scattered Shots: New beta build for happy hunters
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. We got a new Cataclysm beta build filled with delightful hunter treats, and that was promptly followed up with some blue posts with more good hunter news. From the hunter point of view, this beta build seemed mostly aimed at refining focus and focus regen -- basically getting our focus into a better spot. For the first time in beta we are able anticipate hunter movement DPS being back to a good place. I shall manfully refrain from saying I told you so to everyone who cried that the world was ending. Our ability to shoot on the move was too drastically low, and Blizzard recognized and is fixing it. In practice, I should note, most of these new changes are bugged. The result is we can't actually do a lot of testing on what the new rotations feel like in the beta, but I'm certainly very positive on how they'll work out. Heck, MM and SV rotations already had a similar instant to steady ratio as they do on live. With these changes, we'll be using a lot more instants (BM is still bugged and can't be tested well). Join me after the cut for the list of all important hunter changes in the latest Cataclysm beta build, our blue post on raid buffs, and the latest measure of our new base focus regen rate!
Scattered Shots: How to tell your friend he's a huntard
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. The term "huntard" stretches all the way back to vanilla, when all the gold farmers were hunters (and actually farmed). While usage of the term has died down a bit due to widespread educational programming, it still exists, and we now know more about the huntard than ever before. Sometimes these bad players are just teenagers with parasitic worms burrowing through their brains, driving them slowly mad; other times, they're hillbillies destabilized from imbibing massive quantities of impure corn liquor and generations of profoundly unbiblical procreation. But more often than not, the classic huntard behaviors aren't directly related to mental acuity. Modern medical science now knows that huntardism is a disease, often infecting newer players who just honestly doesn't know any better. They're trying their best. All too often, they're newer players who got some crazy and foolish advice (usually from other classes) and, not knowing any better, have done their best to follow it. But here is hope. Recent studies show that 90% of huntardism is, in fact, curable. Join me after the cut as we take a look at how to identify the warning signs that a friend might be a huntard and how to break the news.
Scattered Shots: Hunter beta leveling through Mt. Hyjal
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. Today we're going to go on a journey, not of distance and miles, but a journey of the mind. Today I shall take you with me on a stream of consciousness trip through the Cataclysm beta. You will vicariously experience the first moments of the beta and leveling through Mount Hyjal. This, dear friends, is even better than a beta invite itself. Partially, yes, because you will get to skip over the grueling slogging through bugged quests, the endless searching for new pets to tame, the constant World Server Down messages -- all this, you'll experience in just a handful of words rather than living the hours of pain. Seriously, though, as you're reading, just imagine getting booted out every hour or so (sometimes a dozen times in an hour) and seeing World Server Down when you try to log back in. Oh, and this post contains spoilers. But, you know, it says Cataclysm beta in the title. When you see that, just always assume that there are spoilers, OK? OK.
Scattered Shots: Cataclysm beta hunter video sneek peek
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. Today, rather than telling you all about what's happening for hunters in the Cataclysm beta, I'm going to show you. This video goes through a handful of the hunter changes, including the tracking update, new pet skins, the new stable master and the improved pet stay command. Before anyone asks, the beta currently has a level cap of level 83 and Camouflage cannot be learned until level 85. It's still very early in the beta, and we have a way to wait before we can see how that one works out. Scattered Shots is the WoW.com column dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. See the Scattered Shots Resource Guide for a full listing of vital and entertaining hunter guides, including how to improve your heroic DPS, understand the impact of skill vs. gear, get started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101 and even solo bosses with some extreme soloing.
Cataclysm Beta: Hunter talent overhaul
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. As promised, Blizzard has completed a massive overhaul of the talent system in the Cataclysm beta. It's a change of biblical proportions: only 31 points to the bottom of the trees, no more Mortal Shots, no more Hawk Eye, Explosive Shot for free at level 10, dogs and cats living together ... mass hysteria! A lot of what we're seeing right now looks a little bit crude. We have vastly different numbers of talents in different trees as well as some truly odd choices of what talents remain and which ones were removed. Suffice it to say (as we always say), this is just the beta; this is a first implementation of the new talent system, and expect many changes moving forward. Join me after the cut for a complete look at what the talent system overhaul is currently doing for hunters in the beta.
Scattered Shots: Cataclysm beta hunter update
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. The Cataclysm beta is in full swing and with hunters looking like the most changed class in Cataclysm, the new hunter info is coming fast and furious. We are continuously pelted with more and more information, not just from the beta but of what's going to be coming next and changing next but isn't yet implemented. It's hard to keep track. Just when you think they're going to zig, they zag, and when you think they're going to zag, they do zag, just to throw you off for the next zig. And the rumor mill is going at five times the speed of the actual information, filled with the typical predictions of doom and horror and dozens of reports from people in the beta, all conflicting. Join me as we take a look at what's currently going on for hunters in the beta. Specifically, we'll be discussing focus and focus regen, MM shot rotation with focus, venoms and the latest blue news on what the next round of updates may look like.
Scattered Shots: Cataclysm beta info on BM and hunter pets
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. On Thursday we talked about some of the biggest hunter news in the Cataclysm beta, from Aspect of the Fox to the new Chimer/ Widow Venom combo. But of course that was only the tip of the of the deadly hunter iceberg. Today we're going to focus on the news about our better halves, our lifelong companions and platonic life partners: our pets. It would be inappropriate of us to claim the title of most-changed class in Cataclysm without some major changes to our pets, and that's just what we're getting. Some of this was expected from blue posts in the months after our class preview, some of it was promised to us years ago, and some of it is entirely unexpected and wonderful. Across the board, however, I think you'll agree that it's good news for our pets in Cataclysm. Join me after the cut to learn all about it. Since no discussion of pets is complete without the true pet hunter, BM, we'll be taking a look at the BM talent changes and how they interact with the pet changes to make Cataclysm the most exciting time to be a BM hunter in the history of WoW.
Scattered Shots: Cataclysm beta hunter info
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. Okay, take a deep breath. The NDA has been lifted and we're about to take a look at what's been going on with the hunter class behind closed doors. Those of us who have been desperately keeping our mouths shut until we were vibrating with the secret knowledge we possess can finally climb to the rooftops and start shouting about the awesomeness contained within. Because those hunter class previews we had earlier in the year? That was nothing. Nothing I tell you compared to the sweet, sweet huntery goodness lurking behind the closed beta doors. Join me after the cut as we begin to scrape the surface of some of the awesomesauce hidden in the Cataclysm beta. I think you'll join me in agreeing that it's been worth the wait. Hold tight to your seat, folks; this is a killer ride.
Scattered Shots: Pet tanking
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. As hunters, we spend a lot of our down time engaged in awesomeness. On long weekends, we strip down and roll around in awesomesauce; we drink it and bathe in it it and steep ourselves in the awesome until we reek of it, until we radiate awesome so strongly that it even starts to rub off on those around us. Pet tanking is yet another example of this principle in action. Grandpappy Frostheim always used to say, "If you want a job done right, do it yourself. But if you're getting a good drunk on and good enough is good enough, send your pet to do it." With the right pet, the right talents, a bit of gear and a pinch of forethought, our pets can make surprisingly formidable tanks. Our pets can easily tank, for example, any dungeon and any heroic in the game. We can even tank raid bosses. And I'm not talking about just the easy stuff in Naxx, either. We can tank a goodly number of ICC bosses including, as you can see in the video above, Sindragosa (and we don't even need another tank to help out in Sindragosa phase 3, either). So join me after the cut and learn how!
Scattered Shots: Hunter loot in Ruby Sanctum
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. Patch 3.3.5 is live, and it won't be long now before the Ruby Sanctum opens, giving us yet another dragon to kill and another chest overflowing with nothing but hunter loot. Like a good hunter, I've been poking through the Ruby Sanctum loot lists and doing some paper napkin math to decide exactly what drops I'm going to want to keep safely out of the hands of dirty rogues. Now, the loot lists we have access to may not be complete. I want to stress this. I really, really hope they're not, because, all joking aside, the hunter loot selection is grim as all heck. I'm seeing three hunter drops from 25-man, which is fine. But in 10-man I'm only seeing one hunter drop, and it's probably not going to be used by any hunter -- basically no hunter loot in the 10-man version. On the bright side, awesome new trinket! Join me after the cut as we take a look at what kind of worthwhile loot (i.e. hunter loot) Ruby Sanctum has to offer.
Scattered Shots: Grandpappy Frostheim on traps
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 through the snow, uphill, both ways. Young hunters these days got no appreciation for their traps. One of the signature abilities in the hunter toolbox, thematically appropriate, and stronger and easier to use than any time in WoW history, but they may as well not exist 'cause you kids can't be arsed to use 'em. Mob charging at you? Hunters these days just Feign Death (that is, if they don't try to melee it) then watch the mob make a beeline for the healer. Once it's safely carving pretty patterns into the healer's face, the hunter goes back to volleying the pack. Bah! Kids these days! Let me tell you something, back in my day our traps sucked. They were horribly limited and difficult to use by your pampered standards, but by the Titans we used 'em and used 'em well! So sit down, listen closely, and maybe you'll learn something about your class. You see, back in my day ...
Scattered Shots: Stacking cooldowns and procs
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. As hunters, our main job in a raid or a dungeon run is to do as much eyebrow-searing DPS as we can, and do it without pulling aggro or standing in void zones. This is the primary difference between hunters and healers -- healers don't worry about any of these things. One of the secrets of end-game hunter DPS is to stack our cooldowns together, and to time those cooldowns with trinket procs. Over the course of a boss fight, this stacking can yield very real DPS gains. While every hunter spec benefits from this stacking, marksman benefits the most, being able to use our big cooldown, Rapid Fire, four times in a typical four- to five-minute fight. The key here is to stack abilities that combine multiplicatively, rather than additively. One of the interesting benefits of the DPS gain of stacking cooldowns is that you could actually do more DPS than spreadsheets would indicate. Spreadsheets use averaging of all abilities over the course of a fight, rather than assuming that you're combining them intelligently. Join me after the cut as we take a look at how it works, when you should stack and when you should not.
Scattered Shots: Pistols for hunters?
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. The idea of hunters dual-wielding pistols has been around since the beginning of WoW. The reason it keeps coming up is because it's frickin' awesome. It was even recently addressed by Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) himself in the Developer Twitter Chat back in January. Specifically, he said: Ghostcrawler The pistol idea for hunters gets suggested a lot. It could either be an alternate to the gun / bow / crosssbow or something they use for short-range attacks. source I should stress here that Blizzard has never said that they are going to do this, and they have never even said that they're considering it. However, we certainly know that they are aware of the idea. I started thinking about this again when BRK brought it up as a guest on the Hunting Party Podcast a couple weeks ago, and my half-formed ideas on how pistols could fix some problems with the hunter class grew into fully formed ideas. Join me after the cut as we take a look at why I think this is more than just something cool, but also a much-needed change for the hunter class.
Scattered Shots: Will Cataclysm lower our global cooldown?
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. We recently got an exciting tidbit of hunter news from Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) about potential chances in Cataclysm. You may have missed it, since it was buried in the warrior forums, of all places: Ghostcrawler - Lead Systems Designer Lowering the GCD is as close to anything on the never list. We will possibly do it for hunters, but that is because their resource system is going to prevent them from ever spamming multiple buttons at once (in the same way rogues have a lower GCD). Even with rage normalization there are going to be times when a warrior is at 100 rage and can unload with multiple attacks at once. The GCD is there for a reason, partially for game balance and partially to keep the server - client communication from getting gummed up. source Why hello there, tasty one-second global cooldown of scrumtiousness! This is of course not definite, not a promise and just something they are considering. But considering it they are, and if you were to put on your Frostheim Goggles and look into the future, you too would predict that a one-second hunter GCD will indeed come to pass. So what exactly might this (possible) change mean? Let's do some speculating after the cut.
Scattered Shots: Transitioning to hunter PvP
Welcome to Scattered Shots! Filling in for Frostheim for this post is Basil Berntsen, also of outdps and the Hunting Party podcast. Hunter PvP is fun. It's a lot of fun. It's also something you can jump into any time, compared to raiding where you have to be in a guild that is managing to continue running content. A lot of people are getting into it for the first time but are having trouble getting started. Start with the gear The average hunter with a bit of PvE experience and gear will queue up for a random battleground and get mulched. Hunters are almost as squishy as mages, and until you get some resilience, you're going to die a lot. The best thing you can do while you're in this state is to use your cooldowns to extend your death, stick with healers and do as much damage as you can before you croak. Hunter damage is insanely high -- the phrase "it goes to 11" doesn't begin to cover it. The problem is that if you can die to a single warlock DoT, you won't be able to apply this pressure for long.
Scattered Shots: Hunting the Lich King
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. Arthas Menethil, the Lich King, the ultimate boss of Wrath, is now within your sights. I don't care that Ruby Sanctum is coming out; the Lich King is it. He's been haunting you ever since you stepped foot in Northrend, popping up here and there to check on your progress, being amused by you, threatening you, chasing you down long hallways. Now after clawing your way up Icecrown Citadel, you finally stand before the Frozen Throne and Arthas himself. It all comes down to this. It's going to be a bad day for one of you. The Lich King is the most complex and demanding fight in ICC. It requires a moderately high DPS throughput, with lots of target switching and burst DPS, situational awareness and unforgiving positioning requirements. With a 15-minute enrage timer, this fight has it all. Join me after the cut as we take a look at the hunter-specific roles within the Lich King encounter. As always, we are assuming you have an understanding of the encounter mechanics, and we are focusing on tricks and tips for hunters. If you are unfamiliar with the encounter, please check out the WoW.com Lich King tutorial video.
Scattered Shots: Damage meters are awesome
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. I love damage meters and raid parses and any other source of data that can help you evaluate and analyze your performance. I strongly believe that any hunter who is interested in doing the best he can should absolutely run a damage meter. Whether you prefer Recount or Skada or something I've never heard of is up to you, but you want to use damage meters just like you want to use any tool that can help you improve your performance. Alas, damage meters have gotten a bad name, and it is now very in vogue to hate the damage meters and the people who run them. For today, we're going to set fashion aside and ignore what's popular to talk a bit about why damage meters are so awesome and why you should absolutely use them. We'll also look into exactly why it's important to do as much DPS as we can.
Scattered Shots: Pure awesome
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. Hunters are quite simply the greatest class in WoW. We have pure awesome running through our veins, fueling our every action, our every shot, driving even our smoldering good looks to new levels. For breakfast every morning, we eat a giant stack of awesome cakes topped off with a heaping helping of awesomesauce. It's not just that we're capable of doing so much, such godlike feats, as it is that we are able to do them with such style. Whether it's careening across the field of battle with a perfectly executed jump-disengage, jump-shot kiting mobs and bosses, chain trapping or even the awesome moment of getting dropped off the Lich King's platform by a valkyr but spinning around in midair and disengaging back to safety on the platform, everything we do is done with flair. It's like we were designed to look good doing everything that we do, to incite the abject awe of onlookers. Today we're going to set aside discussion of the minutiae of optimization and the endless slog through progression or the heroic grind. Instead we're going to rekindle that sense of pure joy that the hunter class brings to us. We're going to suggest that you embrace that joy, that spark of pure awesome, that makes the hunter the greatest class in WoW. Join me after the cut for a few suggestions of pure hunter awesome.
Scattered Shots: What spec should I use?
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. I get a lot of emails, and this is awesome. I love to hear from all you guys. While there are disappointingly few offers of sultry Blizzcon trysts or suggestive photos, there are lots and lots of hunter questions. Some of these I answer with lengthy explanations, some with only a few words and some with just a link to a guide that already answers the question. But I have a little tally running in my mind that pings with every type of question. Once enough emails come in on a topic, I figure it's time to write about it. Today's topic is a perennial favorite that I really should have covered long, long ago: What spec should I use? This question is usually accompanied by a description of the hunter's gear, and often an explanation of where the hunter's DPS currently is and where he or she thinks it should be. So join me after the cut as we tackle the question of what spec you should be, and what factors go into the decision. With any luck, putting this one to bed will make room in my inbox for more pressing emails so I can start scheduling my Blizzcon downtime.
Scattered Shots: Five secrets for not being a terrible hunter
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. I've been spending some time leveling an alt lately, and because I despise questing and most of the solo game, I've been leveling entirely through the dungeon finder. One of the truly startling results of this (other than how disturbingly fast leveling is these days) is getting a fresh look at how people behave in these dungeon finder groups. In a word, they behave badly. More disturbing however is that the worst offenders seem to be the hunters. You can imagine my mortification when, after years of defending the hunter name as unfairly sullied by farmers and pre-DKs, I see group after group where the hunter is pulling aggro, setting his pet on aggressive and pulling everything, and then yelling at the tank and healer on those rare occasions when he doesn't just Feign Death and watch us all die to his shenanigans. It got to the point where I dreaded seeing a hunter join the party. I like to think these are growing pains of hunters just learning the ropes -- hunters that are in fact ret pally alts, I secretly hope -- and that by the time they reach 80, they'll have figured out some of the basics of how the game works. But I think we all know that we have our bad eggs at the level cap as well. So today we're going to cover five basic rules of how not to be a terrible hunter in groups. Following these rules won't make you great, but they'll keep you from being called a huntard. I'm going to be a bit more stern than usual here, because this is the hunter good name we're talking about, but be assured that it comes from a place of love. Tough love, to be sure, but love nonetheless.
