WoD Hunter news and discussion thread

[Kattii 40]

Today Celestalon tweeted this little nugget:

Celestalon ‏@Celestalon  3h

Birthday presents for Hunters! Currently planning to replace Flaming Shots, return Rapid Fire to Marksmanship, and add Bear Trap to Survival

 

No further details were given, guess we will have to wait for official word from Blizzard.

 

He did go on to say Focusing Shot (a lvl 100 talent) would have significant impact on rotations, and have a high skill cap. Basically an ability with a long cast time but high reward.

[Fortyz 2]

Very excited for this. This will be very cool. Lets just hope the DMG is good and not like snake trap...

[Orthios 271]

Today Celestalon tweeted this little nugget:

Celestalon ‏@Celestalon  3h

Birthday presents for Hunters! Currently planning to replace Flaming Shots, return Rapid Fire to Marksmanship, and add Bear Trap to Survival

 

No further details were given, guess we will have to wait for official word from Blizzard.

 

He did go on to say Focusing Shot (a lvl 100 talent) would have significant impact on rotations, and have a high skill cap. Basically an ability with a long cast time but high reward.

Cool. Flaming shots didn't seem to amount to much (~0.8% increase with current numbers). Rapid fire is a great part of MM, as it also regens a fair amour of focus which involves a bit of strategy on when to use it. Bear trap sounds interesting...... Maybe a high damage trap? Snare/root/slow? Both?

I will agree that focusing shot will add a fair amount of complexity to a hunter's rotation, and I look forward to seeing what the final talents are.

[Brya 3]

Focusing shots will most likely do something like triple steadyshots damage and double cobras making it worth using damage wise. The skill cap and real value will come from the timing for the passive focus regen so that you can burn your focus effectively without capping. I believe focusing shots will be the goto ability for single target in the long run and probably the best dps choice for marksmanships high focus gameplay. 

 

I really hope they re-implement Rapid recuperation with rapid fire for marksmanship though. Right now it makes rapid fire feel alot more valuable because your focus feels alot better while throwing out 7-10 aimed shots in that small window. 

 

If Bear trap is anything like the one they tried implementing in wrath it would be like an actual bear trap that holds a toon in place and puts a nasty bleed on them. It can also be that you get charged by a dozen bears when you set it off which would be epic.

 

I really hope that if they scrap flaming arrows that they make the visual become a glyph, we're the only class with no real cosmetic spell effects which sucks. 

 

It's awesome to finally hear some news on our class though, they were quiet for a little too long ></.

[Kattii 40]

I havent heard about it multiplying damage. He was mostly responding to someone QQing about the long cast time. I think it's going to hit hard and refund back a lot of focus. 

 

I just hope bear trap is more damage focused as opposed to cc focused. Oh and I want it to spawn cuddly bears XD Just kidding

[Brya 3]

who said it multiplied damage o.O?

[Orthios 271]

You did:

 

Focusing shots will most likely do something like triple steadyshots damage and double cobras making it worth using damage wise. 

I do hope that it does more than 100% weapon damage though, as that isn't really a lot.  But then, neither steady or cobra shot deal very much to begin with.....

[Brya 3]

I was just inferring it would definitely do more damage if it has to compete with versatility and whatever replaces flame arrows for our attention ><.

It'll do more than 100% I believe, but it'll still be limited by arcane shots damage at level 100. Focus is always the purpose of these shots and the damage is there to mainly give some flavour instead of having hunters sitting there channeling a focus generating spell(which is funny when I try to imagine hunters channeling). The lower damage does also let us have the kinda crazy burst of the 1mil kill commands, chimera and aimed shots in 575+ gear >.>'

[Brya 3]

Some more good news, thankfully we'll still be able to kite now in the world of stupid tank threat generation.

 

Watcher ‏@WatcherDev  May 3

@Pengalor This conversation was 3 weeks old, from when the notes had just gone up... We're leaning towards restoring Distracting Shot.

[SparkSovereign 61]

 

Some more good news, thankfully we'll still be able to kite now in the world of stupid tank threat generation.

 

Watcher ‏@WatcherDev  May 3

@Pengalor This conversation was 3 weeks old, from when the notes had just gone up... We're leaning towards restoring Distracting Shot.

 

Speaking as a part-time tank, my raid's "mechanics guy", and a novice hunter, I really hope the recent Garrosh hotfix eventually extends to all tank healing such that they only have meaningful threat on things they actually attack.  Extra important in AoE situations where you can't have dps-tank-hybrids use proper taunts on adds, I'm not overly fond of the "Holy Paladin using Righteous Fury" solution (and neither are they).

 

Would also be nice to have kiting be a reasonable strategy in something below the top tier of difficulty, too.  It's fun!

[Hybrys 199]

I LOVE that they're restoring Distracting Shot.  That was the one major change that I was really unhappy about, for any of the ability pruning.

[Brya 3]

Hey everyone I decided to pin Katti's thread and use it as the centerpiece for discussion of the upcoming change to our class. If you find anything interesting bring it here.

 

Now for some news:

 

Celestalon replied to a tweet I sent him Confirming that Focusing shots will Trigger piercing shots for Marksmanship making its value increase even more for the spec.

 

Another tweet from today that has 2 more points is this:

 

"Focusing Shot will trigger Master Marksman. Master's Call and Spirit Bond will not work without a pet."

 

Master Marksman working with focusing shots makes sense. Only concern is will the proc rate be higher than steadyshot with how little we will use focusing shot comparitively?

 

As to the Pet skills not working with lone wolf, I'm Divided. I understand the reasoning from the logical point of view that the abilities themselves just cant work without a pet (Pet frees you from cc/ Symbiotic relationship heals you both), I also get that this helps to balance the ability because it is supposed to be an option and not a necessity, but honestly this kinda blows. I'm always going to be a pro-pet hunter and never liked the idea of not using one but this feels really limiting for those who the petless hunter appealed to.

 

In PvE Master's call is one of our best tools and I've been more fond of spirit bond over Iron hawk most of the time. I couldn't see myself not having access to these tools and playing comfortably (I'm just imagining siegecrafter without SB and it makes me cringe).

 

For PvP, it is a slap in the face because it means that there are really only two options for Hunters and one roots us in place restricting our greatest asset, mobility.

We still have yet to see the 3rd talent replacing flaming shots( it will most likely make an appearance in the next alpha build that will be arriving soon) so we cant be sure of how effective it would be to use yet. We will have to wait and see.

 

*Also would need to see how badly we need these abilities with the whole CC disarmament stuff going on, 

 

Opinions? 

[Orthios 271]

I'm also divided on how lone wolf interacts with spirit bond and masters call. Spirit bond has been a default for me for a long time now, simply because it heals for a fair amount over the course of a fight. Masters call I never really use much, but that might be the difference in raiding flex (and hopefully normals over the summer) and raiding heroics. Logically it does make sense that they wouldn't work however. Still patiently awaiting the third talent though, as it could be a game changer, and I hope it will be.

[Hybrys 199]

I've never really been a fan of Spirit Bond.  I guess with higher stamina levels, it makes more of a difference, but I always felt like the damage reduction was more valuable, just because it's a prevention instead of heal after mechanic.  I'd be very curious to see what an entire night's Spirit Bond ticks were versus an entire night's damage taken.

 

Master's Call is something really useful, but I can't really think of any good situations of it's use in this tier.  Maybe Brewmaster barrels on Spoils?  And Thunderclap on the first town on Galakras?  I may be missing something here, though.  I wouldn't miss it, really.

[Brya 3]

My problem with iron hawk is that you are completely relying on your healer to keep you alive. I've recently had some healer derping where its like "lets forget to heal the guy doing the jobs" and the only thing keeping me up was spirit bond with glyphed chimera. 

 

In general though, iron hawk is better for most fights, this is partially due to the nature of how healing works in MoP. With all the burst damage that goes out where iron hawk can remove like 80-100k from a hit, a ~10k heal every 2 seconds really gets sidelined. With the healing systems being returned to triage next expansion and burst hits not being the norm anymore, Spirit bond actually gets a ridiculous buff by iron hawk not having as much damage to reduce as often.

 

As to masters call, it has had plenty of uses in Siege it's just shaman's and druid's roar can be better utilized. examples are: Rooks brew, Tclap on galakras, Tar on Juggernaught, Malkorok ooze(stops slow not cast effect), and Spoils brewmasters. I believe Paragons has it's uses as well but I have yet to deal with them on heroic yet. The other value comes with its use as a tool to move your pet up to 40 yards in the room since the pet actually runs to the assigned target, its extremely valuable for pet control because of this <- Yes not valid since lonewolf wont need to do this but still valuable in context of current uses.

 

My apologies if my use of grammar is below par at the moment, I'll edit this reply in the morning, I hope my spirit bond point makes sense. I think it does <,<'

[Kattii 40]

I don't recall a mechanic on Paragons where masters call would have a use. I do use it on H Garrosh for times when I get mind controlled and one of my guildies accidentally slows me. This is bad news for someone on the bait team like me.

The fact that spirit bond won't trigger with the lone wolf talent really updates me. For instance take Heroic Seigecrafter. Pets are still buggy no matter what spec you run and since hunters run every belt we are never in range of a healer. The aoe damage and laser fire can make it hard to keep yourself alive. I use a combination of deterrence, glyphed Spirit Bond, health stones, and random offhealing from ww monks. This is one example where a lone wolf, spirit bond combo would be amazing.

[SparkSovereign 61]

I'm really looking forward to how Lone Wolf works out.  I made my hunter after reading that talent during blizzcon because the loner sniper theme appealed to me; I'm also glad that most of the stuff you lose with it is personal rather than raid, so you'll never have your raid leader yelling at you saying "you can't take that talent because we need spell haste" etc.  (Unrelated, it's been kinda fun to experiment with Marksmanship right now since the overwhelming majority of internet advice is "don't" or a halfhearted "guide" written with minimal (if any) experimental verification.  Very nostalgic to figure it out experimentally.)

 

Re: Spirit Bond: On the PvE end, self-healing is really, really nice to have.  I didn't value it too highly on my shaman until I tried playing a Mage and found myself constantly thinking "man I wish I could heal myself".  (Now I'm the guy who abuses clearcasting like there's no tomorrow.)  In any fight where you are threatened, at all, by throughput or irregular raid damage, having a constant small heal doesn't mean the healers will consciously not bother to heal you, but rather when they start slipping and don't heal you you're not entirely screwed.  Brya has a great point here about how often healers forget to heal the "mechanics guy", even if you spend most of your time in range.  It's not always the right solution; in Garrosh-style "raid damage is high or zero" fights it's pretty terrible, but for stuff like Norushen it's incredible.  Situational and partly taste-based, like a good talent row should be.

 

I don't PvP much, but I can understand why it's probably okay for Lone Wolf to miss out on some of the utility.  Burst is generally more valuable in PvP than equivalent throughput, and given the Draenor Perks, Marksman w/ Lone Wolf will probably make it very taxing to maintain health at either >80% or <35%.  Making a healer decide between accepting a smaller buffer between "safe for the moment" and "extreme risk of death" or overtaxing their mana is something that sounds, at least on paper, like a reasonable tradeoff for some utility.  Survival in WoD is going to lack both effects that make that design so effective for Marksman, so I'm not sure how it's going to work out for them in PvP, but on the other hand Lone Wolf seems to have massively appealed to Marksmanship players and seen equally passionate opposition from diehard Survival or BM players (unsurprising given the spec themes).

 

tl;dr I think it's probably going to work out, but I really can't wait to get my hands on it to try it.

[Orthios 271]

I've never really been a fan of Spirit Bond.  I guess with higher stamina levels, it makes more of a difference, but I always felt like the damage reduction was more valuable, just because it's a prevention instead of heal after mechanic.  I'd be very curious to see what an entire night's Spirit Bond ticks were versus an entire night's damage taken.

So, i ran flex 1 earlier (with one wipe on Sha), and using spirit bond healed me for a total of 10.08 mil, with 6.19% overhealing, for an effective 9.46 mil healing done.  Total damage taken throughout 67.57 mil, the reduction from iron hawk would be 6.76 mil.  Ofc, damage taken will be higher on higher difficulties, which reduces the relative value of SB compared to iron hawk.

 

Edit: here's the log for the run.

Edited May 11, 2014 by Orthios