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Scattered Shots: The right hunter spec for the job
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Be very, very quiet, and come over here. I have something to show you -- but seriously, don't make any sudden moves, and speak softly. Any loud noise could disturb it and scare it away ... Now look at this. Isn't it just the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? That's right. All three hunter specs are now more balanced than they have ever been in the history of the World of Warcraft. For the first time in the history of the game, all three specs have something optimal to bring to endgame PvE. If you're trying to maximize and optimize your hunter for raid fights, then the best spec will change from encounter to encounter, rather than having one spec so far ahead that it performs best even on encounters that aren't within its strengths. Join me after the cut for a rundown of the precious, fragile, and possibly fleeting moment of hunter spec balance and an analysis of what kind of encounter each spec is best at.
Scattered Shots: Hotfix hunter changes speculation
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. When patch 4.0.6 hit with its crazy undocumented buff to Aimed Shot (rather, buffed far, far more than was documented), we were pretty sure that Aimed Shot was going to see some kind of adjustment -- it was just too good, and it scales too well in the already high-scaling MM spec. Well, we got our adjustment, but Blizzard wasn't content just to nerf Aimed Shot downward -- oh no. As long as it was tinkering with hunters anyway, it seemed appropriate to heap wads of awesomesauce across all specs at the same time. For those who missed the hotfixes, here's what's happening to hunters: Zarhym Aimed Shot damage has been decreased to approximately 160% weapon damage (at level 80+), down from 200%. Aspect of the Hawk now provides around an additional 2000 attack power at level 85. source There's a lot to talk about here -- there are some pretty awesome implications to an additional 2,000 attack power while in Aspect of the Hawk. Join me after the cut as we get into the effects of all these changes -- what we know, what we don't know, and what we suspect.
Scattered Shots: Hunting Halfus, Valiona, and Theralion
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Last week, we covered the first two bosses of Blackwing's Descent, so this week we're going to go over the hunter strategies for the first two bosses of the Bastion of Twilight: Halfus Wyrmbreaker and Valiona and Theralion (who we fondly refer to as Theraliona). As always with these hunter guides, this is not a strategy guide for these bosses. I am assuming you are already familiar with the general boss strategy. Instead, we're just focusing on hunter-specific tips that the general guides tragically skip over. If you want to learn the basic mechanics of the fights, you can check out the Halfus Wyrmbreaker and Valiona and Theralion strategy guide over at Tankspot. Join me after the cut as we get into the hunter-specific tips and tricks for these bosses.
Scattered Shots: What other classes should know about hunters
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Today at Scattered Shots, we're going to take a break from talking about hunters to other hunters, and instead we're going to talk to you other classes out there and discuss what you should know about us. We know full well that there are bad apples in our class, just as there are in yours, but at times, the term "huntard" is used when it shouldn't be -- when the failure is due to a lack of understanding of what we can and cannot do. This is especially important information for you tanks and raid leaders out there. We know that you can't possibly keep in your mind all of the intricacies of every class; we're just talking the basics here. And as a nod of appreciation for your time in reading this, we'll refrain -- just for today -- from our good-natured mocking of other classes. If you're not a hunter, please join us after the cut for a brief rundown of what we think is important for you to know and why there might just be a reason behind what we hunters are doing, and not just huntardism. And for you hunters out there, this will hopefully provide a handy link that you can provide to other classes.
Scattered Shots: Dancing for DPS
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Arguably the greatest strength of the hunter class is our ability to DPS on the move. This has always been a strength of our class, but never so great as it is now in Cataclysm. When the support classes are scrambling for all they're worth to avoid void zones and toss their damage to the side in the eternal dance of clumping up and spreading out, we hunters steadily continue our rotations, with the ability to output nearly our full DPS while moving. From time to time after a particularly movement-heavy boss fight, you may hear other classes complaining about your ability to produce double their damage output. Just remind them that as long as they're applying their applicable raid buffs or debuffs, then they're fulfilling their role as a support class. The support and praise of the hunter should be enough for them and their little support class existence. Patch 4.0.6 changes to auto shot has removed stutter-stepping from our movement skills. Our Auto Shots now fire on the move without any help from us. But Cataclysm did introduce a new hunter movement skill: the aspect dance. Join me after the cut for a discussion of this new movement skill, when you should use it, and why you should care so much.
Scattered Shots: Hunting Magmaw and Omnotron
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. By now, most hunters with the desire to raid are starting to explore the new Cataclysm raids and practice shooting bosses in the face, which means it's time for Scattered Shots to start talking about hunter-specific tips for raid bosses. We'll be starting with a couple of the easiest boss fights, Magmaw and the Omnotron Defense System. I was debating for a bit whether to include Argaloth in the first roundup, but as Dawn Moore said when we were discussing it, "Whatever. Argaloth isn't even a boss." And you know, that's kinda true. As always with these hunter guides, this is not a strategy guide for these bosses. I am assuming you are already familiar with the general boss strategy. Instead, we're just focusing on hunter-specific tips that the general guides tragically skip over. If you want to learn the basic mechanics of the fights, you can check out the Magmaw strategy guide and the Omnotron Defense System strategy guide here on WoW Insider. Join me after the cut as we get into just how the vast hunter toolbox can simplify these fights not just for you but for your whole raid -- and, as always, how to maximize your DPS!
Scattered Shots: Best-in-slot hunter gear for Cataclysm
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Loot week continues here at Scattered Shots, and in Cataclysm, all loot is hunter loot! Whether it's a brand new gun to blow the face off of dragons or a decorative mace to put over your hearth, anything purple was put in the game for hunters to claim. On Monday, we discussed hunter trinkets in depth. Today, we're going to take a broader view and look at our best loot options slot by slot. We're going to be considering everything that drops from current normal-mode raid content, as well as what we can purchase with our valor points. As always, we are not going to consider PvP options. With the massive increase in the value of agility that Cataclysm brought to us, the PvP set is shockingly attractive; however, the agility it provides is being nerfed on the PTR right now. Clearly, Blizzard doesn't want you to have to run arenas or rated battlegrounds just to build your optimal raid set (we'll see how successful they are at that). Join me after the cut as we dig into the giant pile of loot available to us and mourn the lack of any hunter gun drops in raids.
Scattered Shots: Cataclysm hunter trinkets
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. It's loot week here at Scattered Shots! We've covered pre-heroic loot and we've covered pre-raid loot; now it's time to take the "pre-" out of the loot discussions and get down to the best PvE loot available to us hunters right now. Because there's just too much loot discussion to fit in only one post, we're going to be splitting things up. Today, the focus is on trinkets, those pesky loot pieces with their complicated and delightful mechanics that make them so much more interesting than another collection of stats. Trinkets in Cataclysm have grown more complicated than ever, too. Back in Wrath days, we could count on most proc trinkets having the same 45-second internal cooldown, but these days, they all seem to have different proc durations, different internal cooldown, different everythings. So join me after the cut as we delve into the wonderful world of hunter trinkets, find out why Hurricane isn't for hunters and how the very best trinket available is also the most easily attainable! On Thursday, we'll go over the broader best-in-slot gear lists for hunters. For today, it's all trinkets, all the time!
Scattered Shots: Hunter enchants
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. While we hunters are normally a well-grounded class that doesn't hold with them demon summoners and the other freaks who mess with the arcane energies of the universe, we've been known to make an occasional exception. We'll take warlock cookies, and we'll accept the dangers of enchanting when it makes our gear even more badass. Walking around without enchants on your gear is like being naked, only without the sense of freedom. While it's certainly true that the difference of any given enchant is a relatively minor thing compared to our overall DPS, the difference of all of our enchants is a major improvement to our DPS. Join me after the cut for a slot-by-slot breakdown of which Cataclysm enchants to use for your hunter and where to get them.
Scattered Shots: Understanding the PTR process
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 patch 4.0.6 PTR process has been a volatile one for us hunters. We went from gentle nerfs and buffs to OMG HORROR nerfs and WHEE BUFFAGE buffs, then had those scaled back a bit. And I have to tell you, I don't think the ride is over yet. Any time Blizzard announces changes, there's always a very reactionary response, and I suppose that's just part of the game. But lately I've been getting more and more emails and comments from hunters complaining about how the PTR is run or clearly not understanding the purpose of the PTR. Why does Blizzard release clearly buggy abilities? How can the designers not see that this is OP/useless now? Don't they even play the game? Well, I'm going to suggest that these are not problems with the PTR or the designers but instead a problem with expectations. Join me after the cut for some clarity on the PTR process and why hunters have had such a crazy ride recently.
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: Hunter year in review and predictions for next year
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. At the end of December 2009, I took over the Scattered Shots column from the esteemed Brigwyn at what was then WoW.com. Now one year and over 230 thousand words later ... a lot has happened with the hunter class. It has been a year of massive changes, first with the non-stop information flow coming out of the beta (and alpha before that), then seeing those changes implemented in 4.0.1, and then, of course, the launch of a new expansion. Hunters changed their core resource mechanics, gave up the antiquated idea of consumable ammo, and shuffled around which spec was on top. You could try to argue that another class has seen as much change as the hunter class has in the last year, but you'd be arguing that in the wrong place. We're hunters here -- as if the beauteous radiance of the crowd didn't alert you -- and we don't waste our valuable discussion space talking about support classes. But of course, one year ago there weren't any big changes happening. We were blissfully ignorant of the coming storm and all eagerly awaiting the unlocking of The Plagueworks hall of Icecrown Citadel -- and oooh, Festergut looked hard! Join me after the cut for a look at the year in review for hunters, as well as my predictions for the coming year.
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: Marksman 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. The marksman spec has had a tumultuous history, starting off the game in vanilla as the raiding spec, back when our specs were split into a raid spec, a solo spec, and a PvP spec. Then MM fell into obscurity for the entirety of The Burning Crusade and the first part of Wrath, before exponential stat scaling launched it back on top for the latter end of Wrath of the Lich King. Cataclysm is starting with SV clearly on top of the DPS charts and without the non-linear armor pen scaling stat to let it gain ground. However, with specializations and mastery in the game (along with promises of using those to tune and tweak DPS), MM devotees can hope for quick adjustments to bring their spec back in line with SV. Where BM hunters claim that the pet is what defines a hunter, the MM hunter takes the stance that it's our ranged weapon the defines us. The MM hunter is the ranged physical DPS class, and damned if they don't look good doing it! Join me after the cut for the breakdown of optimal MM hunter talents, rotation, glyphs, gems, and stat weights for raiding.
Scattered Shots: Beast mastery 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. Over and above everything else, hunters are known as the pet class. No one loves their pets the way hunters do, no one has the pet selection that we do, and no one's pets bring as much to the raid as our pets do. Other classes have tried to emulate the bond between hunter and pet, starting with the warlocks -- who, between their goth makeup and Twilight posters, have completely failed to grasp the true meaning of a lifelong companion. Mages, death knights, shaman -- they've all tried to be more like us hunters, and they have all failed. Of all hunter specs, beast mastery hunters are closest to their pets, and in Cataclysm, they even rely on their pet to deliver the signature shot of their rotation. They are rewarded for this trust with an even wider selection of pets and raid buffs, making them irresistible to the opposite sex -- or indeed, any sex. Join me after the cut for another massive collection of hunter information as we take a look at the Cataclysm BM hunter and cover the BM raid spec, glyphs, rotation, gems, and stats.
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.
