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Scattered Shots: Pre-raid gear for Cataclysm hunters
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Last week we covered our pre-heroic gear lists, bringing us up to at least ilvl 329 gear. A bit of grinding, a bit of questions, a sprinkling of gold and a few good drops and we're ready to graduate from normal-mode dungeons to the new, harder-hitting Cataclysm heroics. We want to be a lot more careful about selecting our ilvl 349 gear than we were with pre-heroic gear. This is the gear that is going to enable us to start killing raid bosses, and in raiding, the small nuances of optimization really start to add up. You absolutely want to enchant and gem this gear with the best possible gems and enchants. You may also want to evaluate your own stat weights using a tool like Zeherah's DPS Analyzer combined with a hefty dose of logic and common sense. That said, the difference between gear of the same ilvl is smaller than ever, thanks to reforging. So join me after the cut for the complete list of the best gear we can get outside of raids.
Scattered Shots: Leveling a Cataclysm hunter, part 1
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. It's common knowledge that hunters are not just the best-looking players in WoW, but they are also the best class in the game. In the words of Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer), "Hunters are just awesome." Thus, it comes as no surprise that Cataclysm is bringing with it a host of new hunters, taking advantage of the new class combos (everyone but gnomes can be hunters now) to start a brand, spanking new hunter from level 1. We've already covered leveling your hunter from 80 to 85 for those of you already at the level cap, so today we're going to talk about that haul from level 1 on up. Ah, the joys of the fresh young hunter -- I remember them well! Taming your very first pet that will stay with you for the rest of your days. The moment you first truly understand that nothing in the game should ever hit you. The funny falls and failures of first learning to kite. I am almost envious of all you new hunters out there, getting to explore the greatest class for the first time. Join me after the cut for the rundown of what you need to know to grow into the good-looking, radiant beacon of death that you deserve to be.
Scattered Shots: Pre-heroic hunter gear in Cataclysm
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Cataclysm is just around the corner, and it's time to put away the shiny new pets and start planning for level 85. We've already discussed optimizing our 80 to 85 leveling, so now we'll focus on our level 85 gear. To that end, we have a massive info dump for you today. We are going to start by looking at our pre-heroic gear options and save the pre-raid gear for a next Thursday. Unlike Wrath, Cataclysm heroics promise to be actually challenging. When we first step into the new heroics after reaching level 85, they'll be much harder than Wrath heroics were when we first hit 80. Heroics will absolutely be wiping groups and giggling madly while doing so, so you don't want to go into them with just whatever gear you happened to end up with when you finished leveling. In fact, the dungeon finder will have a minimum gear requirement to queue for the heroics (in the beta, it was ilvl 329), so even if you want to be an underperforming anchor to your group, the game won't let you. (Well, it will -- there's still no cure for idiocy -- but it won't let you in without at least being geared for it.) So join me after the cut for the massive list of all the gear you're going to be aiming to collect to start slaughtering heroics. This should help you plan which instances you want to run while leveling and which reputations to pursue.
Scattered Shots: Grandpappy Frostheim on the end of Wrath
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 uphill, both ways ... back when men were men, and women were men too, and pets were next to useless -- but they were also men. You can ask him questions on Google+. OK, kids, have a seat. I've got something very important to tell you today. You've all heard me talking about what things were like back in my day, how they were so much harder back then and how you kids go on complaining without realizing how much better things are now. Well, I've got news for you: You're about to find out what it's like to be in my seat. You see, back when The Burning Crusade came out is when us old-timers first became old-timers. We were surrounded by the BC babies who had no idea how much better things were for their class. Then a couple of years later, we had the Wrath babies, who had things better than ever and what those BC babies had. Well, those BC hunters had to grow up and start talking about back in their day. It's your turn now. Pretty soon, we're going to have the Cataclysm babies, the hunters who just started with the Cataclysm expansion, and when they start complaining about how hard they have it -- well, then you'll be sitting right where I am now, trying to get them to understand how much better things are. Let me tell you the kinds of things you'll be saying about about the olden days of Wrath of the Lich King.
Scattered Shots: Hunter changes for 4.0.3a
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. It's been coming for a long, long time: Deathwing has finally shattered old Azeroth. It was kind of a jerk move on Deathwing's part, and frankly, he's just asking to be punched in the face. Along with the visual changes and host of sparkly new pets available to tame, hunters are also seeing all those beta changes finally brought over to live with patch 4.0.3a. If my poor, overworked email box is any indication, a lot of hunters out there have not been following the constant beta changes and are confused about many of the changes -- and while our abilities are basically the same, there have been a lot of meaningful changes to the way our DPS works. Join me after the cut for a rundown of the hunters view of patch 4.0.3a, including pet changes, ability changes, and just what Blizzard means by our shots being normalized.
Scattered Shots: Pets for leveling from 80 to 85
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. On Thursday, we talked about the optimum hunter spec for leveling 80 to 85 in Cataclysm. But no discussion of hunter optimization is entirely complete without also talking about those beloved boon companions that join us in leaving a swath of death and destruction in our wakes. As always, hunters got the soloing and leveling gig easy. It is not hard for us to level, and it doesn't require crazy optimization. You can absolutely use whatever pet you want to to level. If you love your pink tallstrider with all your heart and can't bear to be parted from him, then that's fine. It won't hurt you that much. Though, in the words of BRK, "I would do anything for love, but I won't sporebat ... no, I won't sporebat." Join me after the cut as we look at leveling pets, pet specs for leveling, and what kind of pet roster you want to have on hand for those 5-mans.
Scattered Shots: Leveling your hunter from 80 to 85
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. The Twilight Cult is on the move, the elementals are invading, and it's only a matter of time until the elven lands start burning while the dwarves giggle from their mountain strongholds. Cataclysm is coming. It's time to start looking forward and planning our leveling experience. I want to stress as strongly as possible right at the outset that hunters are very easy to level. With our trusty pets at our sides, we're an unstoppable tanking/DPS/healer combo. Every hunter spec can level through solo content very easily. That said, we're going to be focusing on the absolute most efficient way of leveling from 80 to 85. Join me after the cut as we dig into the talent spec, glyphs, pets, and what you need to know about gear to optimize your Cataclysm leveling.
Scattered Shots: Grandpappy Frostheim on Ghostcrawler
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 uphill, both ways ... back when men were men, and women were men too, and pets were next to useless -- but they were also men. You can ask him questions on Google+. All right, sit down lassies -- aye, and you lads, too -- and get yerself something warm to drink. Or maybe do that the other way around. It's time you had some more learning about what life was like back in my day. I've been hearing a lot of talk about Ghostcrawler lately. For those who don't know who Ghostcrawler is -- or the big GC, as we call him -- he's the man behind every blue post that you care about. He's one of nine grand masters in a secret cabal of masterminds exerting global influence over developed populations in an attempt to uncover ancient artifacts that could lead to the apotheosis of mankind. But for his day job, he's the lead systems designer for WoW; it's kind of like being God, but without the good press. Now back in my day, we didn't have any Ghostcrawler. Oh sure, we knew in a vague sort of way that there was someone behind the curtain, pulling the strings, dishing out the nerfs and continually striving to make us hunters so darned good-looking; that much was obvious. But for us, it was just a vague faceless form, shadowy and ominous. We didn't have any GC chatting us up with blue posts, explaining the process and cracking jokes. You hunters today, you don't know how good you got it. Let me tell you exactly what patches used to be like, back in my day.
Scattered Shots: Hunter tier 11 set
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Cataclysm is still several weeks away, and for most of us, raid content is yet more weeks beyond that. But it's never too soon to start drooling over new gear, and what's more deserving of our drool than our very first raid set of Cataclysm? The hunter tier 11 Lightning-Charged set gets us off to a killer start in Cataclysm with very nice and useful set bonuses right out of the gate. Of course, the set looks like you're wearing a skinned murloc, but whether that's a bad thing or a moment of sublime joy depends on your personal taste and history with murlocs. Personally, I'm happy to be wearing their hollowed-out head. Glrgl-murfl this, ya bastards. Join me after a cut for an in-depth look at the new hunter set, including exactly how all the set bonuses work and some preliminary numbers of the set bonus DPS contributions to each spec.
Scattered Shots: Reforging ranged weapons?
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. Here at Scattered Shots, Inc., I sometimes talk about the latest hunter news, sometimes make guides for specific areas of gameplay, sometimes discuss philosophy and sometimes just have a good time. But every now and then, I like to spout off on what I think would be a totally awesome idea to improve the hunter experience. My track record on this is not terribly good. From pet collars to pistols, I don't think any of my brilliance has been implemented. But there's always next time -- and next time may just be this time. I think we should be able to reforge our bows into guns, our guns into crossbows, and every variation thereof. Keep all the stats identical, but just let us flip a switch and change the ranged weapon type. Don't like the sound of guns? No problem! Want to actually make use of your racial bonus? Now you can! Join me after the cut for some discussion of why it's needed, and how I'd implement it if I were named Lord High Tyrant and Awesomeness Master of WoW Design.
Scattered Shots: Hunter spell alerts guide
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. Among the host of new things patch 4.0.1 brought us hunters -- including new talents and rotations, new pet abilities and lower DPS -- was built-in spell alerts. Power Auras became such an integral part of so many people's gameplay that Blizzard finally gave us its own non-customizable version to warn us when proc-type abilities become ready. Interestingly, this helpful addition has a lot of hunters confused. I've been getting a steady stream of emails and comments asking what certain icons mean or why they appear when they do (such as when an ability isn't ready). It seems a spell alert guide is in order. Join me after the cut for a list of all the hunter spell alerts, what they're for and why they appear when they do. If you're totally familiar with all of them, then I have included the epic hunter video above for your day's entertainment.
Scattered Shots: Hunter threat management
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. Patch 4.0.1 brought a handful of changes to the way hunters experience threat. Our Misdirection was changed so that the misdirected threat fades away after 30 seconds, and tanks in general have had their threat production changed. The result is a lot of tanks learning for the first time to actually pay attention to threat production and doing less threat as a result. Hunters remain one of strongest classes in the game for threat management, and you could even argue that patch 4.0.1 has made us even better. Yet I've been getting an increasing number of emails since the patch from hunters who are experiencing threat problems. They're pull aggro from their tanks, from their pets, from small orphans in the street -- wherever they can find it, they take it. This seems like a good time for a remedial lesson in threat management, as well as a good time to discuss some of the new threat management tricks hunter have acquired. Join me after the cut, and never pull aggro again -- at least, not accidentally.
Scattered Shots: Signature hunter shots
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. Each of the three hunters specs has a signature shot. This is the damaging ability that the spec is known for, its main shot that's on a cooldown that hunters can't wait to hit. It's how other classes like warlocks and mages know what kind of hunter they're dealing with, because at the bottom of our letters, they'll see, "Love, Explosive f'ing Shot in your face!" For BM, it's Kill Command; for MM, it's Chimera Shot; and for SV, it's Explosive Shot. Our signature shots recently got a nice little buff after lots of complaints that they weren't actually worth using -- and then another nice boost in the latest beta build. Despite this buff, there are still a lot of hunters refusing to use their signature abilities, preferring the admittedly easier route of just spamming Arcane Shot. Join me after the cut as we take a closer look at the signature shots and a few things that go into determining whether they're worth firing. There's a bit more to it than most forum posters are considering.
Scattered Shots: Hunter information from BlizzCon 2010
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. Every year, Blizzard holds the ridiculously massive BlizzCon to celebrate the hunter class in WoW, as well as provide some information about the various support classes that are in the game to enhance the hunter experience. I have returned from BlizzCon 2010 in one piece, loaded down with new hunter information and a renewed joy for the hunter class. I have to say that meeting all the people was almost more fun than all the panels and information. I got to meet Aron Eisenberg, Felicia Day and cast members from The Guild, Michele Morrow, Chris Metzen, Ghostcrawler, Oxhorn, Cranius, Legs and approximately a thousand of you guys. And everywhere I went I got to talk about hunters, discuss with you guys your opinions of patch 4.0.1 and hunter changes. My sincere thanks to all of the readers who hunted me down during the con -- meeting and chatting with you was probably the highlight of the convention. It was awesomesauce. But we're not here today to talk about how awesome you guys are. We're here to talk about what we learned at BlizzCon about hunters. So join me after the cut for a look at the class Q&A as well as some tantalizing other tidbits of hunter information gathered during the con.
Scattered Shots: Maximizing hunter DPS in 4.0.1 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. Now that we've covered our basic 4.0.1 talent builds and rotations as well as glyphs and gems, it's time to take a step away from the raids and into our heroic 5-mans. Among the swarm of emails I've been getting have been a lot of reminders that raiders are, in fact, a minority. Our heroic-running brethren are experiencing the same radical changes, but these changes affect them in very different ways. Even the hardcore raiders out there are probably spending more time in heroics than they do with their mothers (and really, is it so hard to pick up the phone once in a while?), with the sudden need to level a dozen new pets. Heroics make for fast and painless pet leveling -- you can usually get your pet up to 80 in just two to three heroics, depending on which ones you get. It's like when Mania (of Petopia) said on the Hunting Party Podcast, "I think the sexiest female model in the Horde is the male blood elf" -- so wrong, and yet so true. So join me after the cut for a rundown on maximizing your heroic DPS in a crazy, post-patch 4.0.1 world.
Scattered Shots: 4.0.1 hunter gems, glyphs and stat weights
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. On Thursday, we discussed hunter talents and rotations for 4.0.1, and today we're going to get into gems and glyphs, as well as talking a bit about stat weights. But before we get into all that, a word of caution about rotations. Many hunters have been playing around with rotations focusing on Arcane Shot only and ignoring the signature shot for the spec. I have to recommend against this. It is certainly much easier, and for some specs (like BM) may actually be a bit more DPS, but it is a bad habit to get into! Expect to see a slight boost to the damage of all hunter signature shots in the very near future that makes these shots clearly worthwhile. It is well worth your while to learn the correct rotation now rather than spending your time developing lazy habits. Be a hunter, not an elf. With that out of the way, join me after the cut for more info on how to customize your hunter to optimize raid performance in the brief window before Cataclysm hits.
Scattered Shots: 4.0.1 hunter builds and rotations
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim (of Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast) uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Patch 4.0.1 is finally here, and we're ready to rock out on live with focus. Today, we're going to get into the specifics of 4.0.1 talent builds and rotations. I'm assuming you've already read the hunter 4.0.1 prep guide, which covers gems, gear and various other specifics of the patch. And to answer yet again the question I'm continuously asked: Agility gems are your gem of choice. Before we get into the builds and rotations, though, it's worth noting a couple of interesting measurements in the live build. The hit rating conversion appears to have changed and you're now hit-capped (8 percent still) at just 246 hit rating. Guns got their DPS boosted more than bows and crossbows (expect a fix on that). Base focus regen, as closely as I can measure, appears to be 4.08 focus per second. Also, sadly, hunter DPS appears to have actually gone down with the patch -- and significantly so. This isn't an across-the-board thing, either -- other classes have had their DPS jump up. This patch has our new abilities balanced around level 85, so level 80 balance isn't a big concern; however, this is certainly bad news for people still working on progression. Sorry guys. With that out of the way, join me after the cut for talent builds for all three hunter specs.
Scattered Shots: Prepare your hunter for patch 4.0.1 launch
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. Now that patch 4.0.1 looks like it's going to be deployed on live servers any week, it's about time to look into preparing our hunters for the transition. I should stress right here that these preparations are mostly with the raiding hunter (who is actually still raiding) in mind. If you're just burning time until Cataclysm hits, you really don't need to do anything much to prepare. You will replace your gear while you level. You don't care if your gear is slightly suboptimal for level 80 raiding if you're not raiding -- that is not going to matter when you're leveling. You'll replace it when leveling, then replace it several times over at level 85. But if you're still pushing current content, knocking down bosses and topping damage meters, join me after the cut for the rundown of what to expect and what you'll need to change to keep raiding at peak performance when the patch hits.
Scattered Shots: BM not the premier spec for Cataclysm 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. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim. Like an elf telling you about his most favoritest butterfly, the Cataclysm beta goes on and on. But unlike elf stories, the beta feels like it's getting somewhere. We're now seeing fewer major class changes and more and more tweaking to shot damage -- something that was nearly entirely absent in the early days of beta. While shot damage, spec DPS and stat weights may still be up in the air, we've now got pet scaling nailed down, and our talents seem mostly fixed (though surely they've got to do something about Counterattack eventually). It's time for us to turn our attention to extreme soloing in Cataclysm. The first shocking thing that leaps out at us is the fundamental fact that it appears that BM will not be the extreme soloing spec of choice in Cataclysm. In fact, BM may well be the worst extreme soloing spec. Join me after the cut for the shocking changes to pushing your hunter to the limits and beyond.
Scattered Shots: Pet scaling and new secrets about stuff on the ground
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. Another week, another beta build -- and a heck of a lot more testing. Since the beta process is getting further along these days, I figured it was time to sit down and start hashing out our final level 85 stat conversions and learn how our pet scaling actually works. While on the surface this sounds like a lot of work, the lack of tooltips (and the prevalence of bugged tooltips) made it a heck of a lot of work. In addition to messing with pet scaling, I've also been hitting up a lot of Tol Barad PvP and recently spent a bunch of time in the Vortex Pinnacle dungeon. It was in Vortex Pinnacle (following the rumor that a gun actually dropped somewhere in Cataclysm) that I made a shocking discovery that will change the way we think of floors forever. So join me after the cut for a look at some of beta changes, hunter pet scaling and the horrible secret of Cataclysm's floors.
