Hunters
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Meet Gweryc, the melee hunter
Yes, I imagine that some readers in the audience cringed the moment they saw "melee" and "hunter" in the same sentence. However, Gweryc, who recently hit level 70, has clearly managed it -- and apparently enjoyed himself doing it, so who are we to criticize? And if you doubt his melee abilities, just take a glance at his weapon skills: Bows: 1/350 Crossbows: 1/350 Guns: 6/350 Yep -- these are the ranged weapon skills of a level 70 hunter. A level 70 hunter very dedicated to going against the grain. Of his character and playstyle, Gweryc says:It's a challenge playing this way, it really is. And that's exactly what I love about it. This way of playing isn't for everybody! That's okay! Some people enjoy raiding, some enjoy crafting or fishing, some like PvP. To each their own. For my part, I'll keep on looking for ways to do things just a little different, to make it work, and to have fun with it as I go.Anyone else out there going against the grain -- and loving it?
Adventures in Azeroth: Collecting unique pets
Welcome to another episode of Adventures in Azeroth, where I document my misadventures as a new Hunter on a new server. (Want to check up on my progress? You're welcome to join me and a whole group of readers in the It Came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh!) But this week I'm not really talking about playing (I haven't leveled much since the last episode of Adventures in Azeroth) -- instead, I'm talking about the crazy lure of hard to find Hunter pets, and my new-found pokemon-esque desire to catch-em-all.However, practical concerns have limited my collecting. After all, one pet is quite enough work to keep leveled on its own -- much less if I had a pair. But, after noticing that every last Blood Elf hunter with an Eversong Woods cat identical to my pet Mittens, I decided I had to do something about it. I didn't want to be just-another-Blood-Elf-Hunter -- I wanted to be... well... unique! So I went searching for a new pet, one that every run-of-the-mill Hunter wouldn't have.
Adventures in Azeroth: Introducing Cat
Last time we talked about my adventures as a newbie hunter running around Zangarmarsh with my pals in WoW Insider's It came from the Blog guild, I was a newly minted level ten trying to figure out what pet to tame. And knowing little of what I was doing, I asked for your advice on what I ought to tame. From the image above and the title of the post, I'm pretty sure you can guess what the results are, but I'll break it down for you anyway. Out of a total of 762 votes, cat won out with a total of 198 votes. However, boar was very close behind with 190 votes. And in third place, the noble owl, with 82 votes. (If you want to see the full results, check here.)So, as you can see, I went out and tamed a cat in Eversong Woods -- and I have to say, it's a completely different game after getting a pet! With a pet doing the tanking, I didn't have problems with monsters rushing up into melee range, where I can't use my bow, and beating on me. (Really, I'm hopeless once something gets into melee range!) And if something does get into melee range? I can just call my faithful cat in to pull it away. Oh yes, it seemed like the game was going to be eeaassssy sailing from here out. But of course nothing's ever easy...
Adventures in Azeroth: Introducing Lizzie
Despite how much I love World of Warcraft, I've got to say that leveling through the same zones over and over gets old after a while if you're an alt-a-holic like myself. So, when faced with the prospect of starting a new character on a new realm, I decided to try a different approach: I picked up a copy of Joana's 1-70 Horde Leveling Guide. For those of you unfamiliar with Joana's guide, it walks you through the fastest way to level up in World of Warcraft with a combination of grinding and questing. Joana's time of 4 days and 20 hours /played to level 60 sounded good to me, so I decided to give it a go, and when we all created new characters on Zangarmarsh to play together in It came from the Blog, I created a blood elf Hunter (though I have little experience playing Hunters, they seem to be best equipped for this speed leveling game) with plans on following Joana's guide and seeing how quickly I could get to level 60.After leveling my new hunter, Lizzie, up to level 11, I've pretty much decided I'm not going to be breaking any major records -- though I may beat some personal bests. Interested in hearing about Lizzie's newbie Adventures in Azeroth? Keep reading!
BigRedKitty: Proper hunter deportment
Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Deportment: d?-pôrt'm??nt, noun. A manner of personal conduct; behavior. Why is it so important that we conduct ourselves in a manner in which the other classes don't have to? Because a lot of people think we hunters are expendable, that's why. We have a bad reputation and much of it fairly earned. In order to build up your Hunter Karma you'll need to work extra-hard at not being a PITA.There is a saying in the business community. Everybody who has a bad experience with your product will raise a ruckus and complain, but only one out of ten people who like your product will ever say anything to anybody. Negative press gets attention, folks, and hunters have a boat-load of it."Hunters break my sheep.""Hunters break my saps.""Hunters break my shackles.""Hunters always cry for pet heals.""Hunters grab aggro and then kite or melee the mob I'm supposed to be tanking.""Hunters think all loot is Huntard-Loot."So what can we do about this avalanche of negativity? How can we combat the Huntard Stereotype? What can you do personally to raise the awareness of proper hunter behavior? Get In, Sit Down, Shut Up, and Hang On. That's what.
An overview of 2.1 Hunter pet changes
Just in time for the impending release of 2.1 on the live realms. Petopia has created a page with everything hunters need to know about pet changes in the new patch.We already reported about a few of the new pets to be found, including a cool purple tallstrider, but there's at least one more out there called the Skettis Kaliri, probably found in the Arrakoa capital, a new quest area. In addition, there's those two new pet skills, Avoidance (which should help with DPS pets in raids and instances), and Cobra Reflexes, which increases attack speed at the cost of damage per attack. In tests, Petopia says it does increase DPS overall, but it remains to be seen how it will work on the live realms. Both skills should be trainable at the pet trainer (although that may be only for the test realm, again not sure).If you're a hunter (or just want to know what you might be facing in the high level battlegrounds-- I would hate to get beat up by a purple dodo), Petopia's page is definitely worth a look before the patch drops as a great overall view of what's happening in petland.
Phat Loot Phriday: Glaive of the Pit
So I was thinking about what to do for Phat Loot this week, and it occurred to me that we've never done a Polearm. The reason is probably because most polearms suck (they tend to be faster than most 2hands, and what you really want with a 2hander is high damage and slow speed), but if you really want a polearm, this one's not bad. I kind of wanted to do Vendorstrike, because I think it's a cool idea, but I know none of you hardcore guys would let me get away with calling it "phat."Name: Glaive of the PitType: Epic Two-Hand PolearmDamage / Speed: 330-497 / 3.70 (111.6 DPS)Abilities: Three red sockets, with a socket bonus of +4 crit rating Chance on hit: steals 238 to 262 life from enemy (although the word on this proc is that it doesn't happen that often) It's a polearm, so chances are no one will really want it (hey, at least I got to post that picture, right?). If you're a Mortal Strike warrior who doesn't yet have an epic weapon (which isn't very likely, considering where this comes from), or you just really, really, really want to wield a polearm sometimes, it might be the phat loot for you. Just throw some gems in it, and then wait a bit, because something better will come along pretty quickly. How to Get It: Then again, there's lots of item tweaking going on, so maybe things will change-- who knows? Anyway, this is a drop from Magtheridon, one of the first 25 man raids in Outland. If you've ever run the Blood Furnace, and looked down through the grate after you've killed the final boss, you'll see Mag (he's also the voice yelling throughout the instance). Mag, of course, is a Pit Lord, hence the name.Drop him and hope for about an 8% chance, and this baby will drop. And hey, think about it this way-- if you really want it, you'll probably get it. Because no one else does.Getting Rid of It: I feel so bad for polearms now. I guess The Eye of Nerub isn't so bad for hunters at 60, but I can't seem to find a really amazing polearm. I guess the arena polearm isn't too bad. Anyway, the Glaive will give you 14g 58s and 33c from vendors, and will disenchant into a Void Crystal.
PTR Notes: Pets aplenty
The good people over at Petopia have posted a lot of new info about pets seen on the PTR for 2.1. First, there's been four new pets found so far-- a new Blackwind Warp Chaser, a Ravager from Hellfire Peninsula, the Sky Shadows in Deadwind Pass (that scared the heck out of you even before the expansion was released), and this amazing purple tallstrider called a Dodostrider (that last one has hunters buzzing).One pet will be made untamable-- apparently there are issues with the Death Ravager that gets spawned in a quest in the lowbie Draenei area, Azuremyst Isle, and so hunters won't be able to tame him any more. Also, Petopia has PTR info on two new trainable pet abilities, Avoidance and Cobra Reflexes. Avoidance has two ranks and reduces the damage done to pets by AoE (this is aimed directly at endgame PvE pet viability), and Cobra Reflexes has one rank and increases attack speed at a cost to damage done.As usual, all this info is still subject to change. But it's great that Blizzard is getting more and more pets (and pet abilities) in the mix. Here's hoping the trend continues.
Forum post of the day: Hunters! Make your own mount!
Blizzard MVP Palehoof has come up with a pretty awesome idea in the Suggestions Forum: she suggests that hunters be able to tame their own mounts. Unlike paladins and warlocks, hunters would have to pay for their riding skill -- but after that, they'd be able to get unusual mounts. They could use Beast Lore to locate a creature that would be appropriate in size, shape and temperament (and not every member of every species would work!) and then use "Tame Mount" to turn it into a normal, inventory-based mount. She suggests that quests could unlock later levels of Tame Mount, so hunters could get epic mounts, flying mounts, etc. Also, rare reputation mounts like Wintersabers and Nether Rays could simply be untamable. I'm not a hunter, but I love this idea. Anything that allows players to make their characters individuals is fine by me. Just looking at Petopia, I can think of more than a few trainable hunter pets that would make great mounts. I'd love to see a troll go riding by on an albino crocodile, a tauren wandering past on a giant gorilla, or a night elf mounted atop a garish pink flamingo. In fact, I would like to see it mandatory that female night elf hunters be mounted atop garish pink flamingoes, but that's more of a personal prejudice. And no, Hordelings, you can't use gnomes as mounts. Stop asking. If I could pick my own mount, I'd probably try to tame the big dude pictured above. His name's Zarakh, and he's a spider boss found in one of the lowbie Draenei zones. Can you get any more menacing than that? What would you use as a mount if you could?
Forum post of the day: Pet demands
Wow, who knew Hunters were so unhappy with their pet situation? Zolberserker, of H-Eitrigg-US, has made an exceedingly long list of improvements he wants for Hunter pets, to be included in what he terms a "pet patch." These aren't mostly new demands, nor does he pretend them to be so, but it is a nice compilation of ideas. Some of the ones that caught my eye: Pet armor, giving pets simple proc bonuses or whatnot, preferably appearing on the pet. Saddles to make some pets mountable. I'm heavily against this, for obvious reasons (there's already too many free mounts in the game, Hunters already get a movement speed increase). Foods that give bonuses to pets (the Sporeling Snack is one such that is already in the game). Rare pets, including some doing non-physical damage. "All beasts and beast like pets should be tameable." Most of these, I'm sorry to say, seem a bit off to me. Pets are already quite powerful enough in PvP and solo PvE, and none of these address the problem of pets in group PvE. Although come to think of, the pet armor idea could be adapted to help them in group PvE: have pet armor give them a large amount of damage reduction (via straight armor, or dodge, or whatever), at the cost of reducing their movement speed. This would keep the armor from being overpowered in PvP, although it might make the pets a bit too good of off-tanks in groups. What do you guys think, those of you with more Hunter experience? What do pets need? Are pets really broken enough that a full "pet patch" is warranted?
More dev feedback for Hunters
Yay! That same old Hunter feedback thread in the European forums has been hit up again with some developer love. Before I get into it, I'd like to warn you that almost all the responses are either "the Devs see what you mean, but have no idea when/how/if it'll be fixed" or "the Devs see what you mean, but it's working as intended." This week they focused mostly on pet concerns, which is what they skipped last week. Here's a summary of the more interesting responses: Pet survivabilty: "Quite possible" that this might improve, but devs have to avoid making pets overpowered in PvP. Encounters un-pet-friendly: We see what you mean, and might improve in the future. Certain stats (e.g. crit, hit rating) don't help your pet, making gear with them less attractive: This is intended, but might change in the future. It's impossible to tell who out of multiple targets resists your FD: Devs agree, and would like to see it ifixed; no ETA. Pet kills don't count for player kills (for Rapid Killing, for instance) even when the player has tagged the mob: Fixed for 2.1. Growl scales by RAP, often giving MM Hunters better Growl threat than BM Hunters: Devs agree, but "no information available regarding what they will do to address this concern." Hunters' role endgame: DPS class, with utility as a bonus. "Hunters compare quite well to other DPS classes, but possibly a bit low, however this is something that is being looked at. Things will get adjusted here and there where required." People going through ammo too fast: Devs agree, considering what to do about it. It's good that the devs are being more responsive than usual about this, but it's a little frustrating to have so few concrete details. Vaneras's full post after the cut.
Dev feedback on Hunter concerns
There's been a thread floating around the EU Hunter forums for a while listing some concerns Hunters have with their class (gear, talents, and pets), and today it finally got some answers. I love it when the Devs actually respond to things. Below is the post by Vaneras, copied in full for the work crew; unfortunately, there are no responses on the subject of pets (which tend to drop like flies in some high end instances). But first, or if you don't want to slog through the CM-ese, a summary: Hunters wanted to know if Hunter-specific items with ranged AP (as opposed to universal AP) were in the works. Devs say no, but maybe in the future. Hunters thought gear was too Marksman-centric. Devs think the itemization is OK, but they may adjust talents, like Lightning Reflexes, to work better with items. Hunters say the Survival tree is lacking. Devs agree, and will probably make changes to that tree, but "you should not expect any full class revamp or full talent reviews." Hunters say the MM tree is pretty good. Devs agree. I think not making items with just RAP is probably fine; I don't see why there should have to be items any one class has an exclusive claim over. And of course the Survival tree is lacking, so it's good to hear it's being looked at. However, this stance of "no more class reviews" worries me...what if there's something really wrong with a class? Something that a series of tweaks and adjustments can't fix? I don't think Hunters are there yet, I'm just saying. At any rate, here's Vaneras:Hi everybody :-) Good news... We have received some feedback from the developers today, which means that we now have a few answers for some of the concerns & questions posted in this thread. Here we go: Q u o t e:1. Itemization, Agility, (Ranged) Attack Power and Crit a) With hunters no longer being so focused on Agility heavy gear, is there any plan of introducing more items with Ranged Attack Power instead of only Attack Power to make certain items more geared towards hunters? For example an item with +x Attack Power, +y Ranged Attack Power [+other stats]. There are currently no plans for adding more hunter specific items with focus on ranged attack power, but this is a good idea that could prove useful in the future.
New skills for Hunter pets incoming
A poster in the Hunters forum asked whether Hunters would, any time soon, be able to learn skills from beasts without taming them, or if not, if we could get more stable slots. Nethaera replied to let us know that new skills for Hunter pets are in the works, slated for the "next large patch" (she declined to give a patch number, but I'm thinking 2.1). Here's the pertinent information from her postings in that thread. The summary is that we will be getting new skills that are "trainable and transferable between pets," and autoattack/autoshot will be able to be toggled in the interface options.
Adventures in Beta: Fun with Misdirection
Most classes have at least one spell or talent that, while not the most effective damage dealer, is extremely fun to mess around with. How many priests have mind controlled people into lava? How many mages have set up portals to Darnassus and announced that it was going to Ironforge? How many rogues have accidentally pulled half of UBRS through uncautious pickpocketing? Well, there are three very interesting spells in the Burning Crusade with great potential for abuse: Misdirection, Spellsteal and Seed Of Corruption. According to the official Burning Crusade site, Misdirection is an insant-cast level 70 hunter spell that has this effect: "Threat caused by your next 3 attacks is redirected to the target raid member. Caster and target can only be affected by one Misdirection spell at a time. Effect lasts 30 sec." The spell has a two-minute cooldown.
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Adventures in Beta: Hunter pets are not cuddly
I was wandering, lost, through an orc encampment in Hellfire Citadel the other day when I came upon a nice hunter who offered to show me where the quest mob was. We grouped up, and I meleed while she stayed back and shot the mob. After it was dead I turned around, directly into the face of ... this THING. This horrible, horrible thing. It turns out the THING is called a Warp Stalker, and it is a kind of baby dragon that istameable around level 63. Warp Stalkers have the new ability "Warp," which lets them teleport right to an enemy and gives them a 50 percent chance to miss its next attack. Pretty handy! And after a while, the warp stalker began to look kind of cute. At least compared to some of the other offerings in BC. Petopia, the ultimate hunter pet site, has a whole section on the new pet families available for taming in Burning Crusade. These include:
