[Hunters] Changes with 2.1.0

Elsia · 04/13/07, 4:16 AM

Well it's official, PTR are out and we get a number of changes that will change a few things.

Coarse grain:

PVE:

Buffs:
*) Survival tree damage buff, and utility buff.
*) Pet survivability buff passively and actively.
*) Possible pet damage buff
*) Scaling increase of damager over longer fights.

Fixes:
*) Arcane shot downranking fix
*) Readiness works for misdirection
*) Kill command trigger fixes.

PVP:

Nerfs:
*) Flare
*) Entrapment

Fixes:
*) Frost trap destealthing

Some surprises:

*) I expected steady shot to be added to the list of rapid killing relevant attacks.

I think for most of us the pve relevant changes are most interesting.

*) Survival Tree Impact:

It'll be interesting to see if a survival build is now competitive. To main factors here are that there is a flat 4% increase to survival PVE builds and that expose weakness can be expected to be up all the time (30% crit rate at 7 second proc length with easily 4 shots in that timespan). Survival utility for a raid group has hence also drastically increased as it's now pretty close to a permanent buff.

I'd love to see some good testing of this on the PTR.

*) Pet survival impact

Already a year back I wanted mend pet to be a hot. This change means that hunters no longer lose DPS when the pet needs healing. The main impact is mana consumption. It also means that the healing can no longer be disrupted by spurious damage. The exact healing levels and nature is yet to be seen.

Same for avoidance. It'll be interesting to see the levels of avoidance pets get and if they are raid AoE damage viable.

*) Raid damage scaling

Exact nature of this scaling should be interesting. Does the scaling reset if the HM needs to be reapplied? Probably. Details of this to measure out on the PTR definitely interesting (and certainly Dr. Boomable).

I think overall this does look like it addresses 3 core concerns in PVE raiding for hunters. DPS lacking in survival. Utility not competitive with other classes. Damage not scaling in raiding and pet survivability.

Fugazor · 04/13/07, 4:42 AM

About mend pet it is step in right direction, however if they want to make it useful in raid they should make it mana free and put cooldown instead to avoid abuse.

BM got buffed with KC and mend pet change (along with melee aoe of doom changes in 2.1) but often problems still are in encounters (like 30 sec pet stones at Gruul for example). I hope they will think about pets when tuning, fixing and making new encounters...

Survival seems to be actually viable apart from master tactican proc is crap still (its better to take imp. hawk probably still).

About HM after you make it better with shots you cannot reapply it ("more powerful spell..."). The change it self is great, +330AP after 30 shots so even single hunter can max it out in around 30-40 sec, too bad melee part does not scale tho

And still no changes to Tier4, I really hope they change it later at PTR (uber shit hunter set bonuses + lack of AGI).

Also I would love to see addition to Imp. Hawk talent that it would affect Viper in some way so when I use Viper I would not loose 5 talent points, and also Animal Handler should be buffed to +4/8% hit plus mount speed changed to something useful (+skill for pets?).

Trullsengar · 04/13/07, 4:43 AM

Kill Command being removed from the GCD is going to be a nice boost for all hunters, not just BM though BM will get the most benefit.

Lactose · 04/13/07, 4:47 AM

Mana batteries still needed, though, it seems.
I'm also confused about this part:
"Ferocious Inspiration": This ability will now trigger "Kill Command" correctly.
What am I missing?

gimpynerd · 04/13/07, 4:52 AM

Originally Posted by Lactose

Mana batteries still needed, though, it seems.
I'm also confused about this part:
"Ferocious Inspiration": This ability will now trigger "Kill Command" correctly.
What am I missing?

It should be: "Kill Command": This ability will now trigger "Ferocious Inspiration" correctly.

This patch looks to further cement Beast Mastery as the highest dps spec. Can't say that I'm not pleased.

vroom · 04/13/07, 4:55 AM

Before if you used kill command and it crit it wouldnt trigger FI. The wording is just wrong ^^

Lactose · 04/13/07, 5:00 AM

The triggering changes to Kill Command is also interesting, due to developer feedback previously being:

Originally Posted by Lactose

Currenly, Kill Command triggers the global cooldown, and has other grievances, making its use seem more limiting than it should be, at least for non-Beastmastery Hunters. It also seems to be counted as a player attack for most things, not a pet attack (not triggering Frenzy, etc). Bugged?

Originally Posted by Vaneras

This is working as intended as it is the player sending a “kill command” to the pet. The developers do agree that the ability tends to feel more like it should be a pet ability though, so they can understand the nature of this complaint.

Kinda fun to see they basically changed everything I mentioned :P

Elsia · 04/13/07, 5:06 AM

I plan to do Dr. Boom testing on the Survival tree later tonight. I'm wondering if that tree is now viable, because it is our mana-friendly tree. Certainly the 3-fold increase to EW up-time is huge.

Mikari · 04/13/07, 5:07 AM

Rank 8 mend pet is a 2375 heal and costs 300 mana, pretty nice buff.

Elsia · 04/13/07, 5:15 AM

More hunter relevant points not from the hunter section:

Druids
- "Cyclone": This ability will no longer work on hunters with "The
Beast Within" active or hunter pets with "Bestial Wrath" active.

Rogues
- "Deadly Throw": This ability will now damage hunters and their pets
when they are affected by "The Beast Within" or "Bestial Wrath".

User Interface
- Hunter Pets now display their spell damage bonus on the pet pane. The actual effect will nearly always be less than the bonus listed as it depends on the bonus coefficient of the spell the pet is using.
- Hunters now have a UI option "Auto Attack/Auto Shot" that if turned off means that the hunter will not automatically switch between ranged attack and melee attack difficulty when the range changes.

Pets
Abilities and items that are triggered when you kill a target are also now triggered when your pet kills a target.
Fixed the amount of happiness lost when you dismiss a Nether Ray pet.
Warlock and Hunter pets will now be automatically dismissed when you summon a mount. These pets will return on dismount. This does not affect pet happiness for Hunters.
Warlock and Hunter pets will now be automatically dismissed when you untalent.

Most of these are cosmetic or bug fixes. Killing blow fix is nice. Was fun when we failed baron runs way back when due to pets getting those off-chance blows. Nice to see the autoshot/melee toggle available now. Goodbye AntiSwitch addon :P

Fugazor · 04/13/07, 5:54 AM

Anyone have more details about new pet skills? Cost, duration, effect?

Lactose · 04/13/07, 6:20 AM

Avoidance (Rank 2) -- 25 training points
Reduces the damage your pet takes from area of effect attacks by an additional 50%.

Rank 1 costs 15 training points, guessing 25%.

Slightly puzzled by the wording there... "additional"... might be stacking with rank 1?

Greenpiggy · 04/13/07, 6:22 AM

If avoidance is the same as the warlock one, its 50% to avoid all AOE

Looking here would seem to suggest the same:
http://www.thottbot.net/?s=avoidance

Farstrider · 04/13/07, 6:30 AM

Avoidance is nice, the Kill Command is very tasty and in line with what I said way back when I was testing it in Beta. Before this change there was scarcely any point in using it.

I didn't see a comment about the change to Hunter's Mark which is also very nice, gives us a real reason to take improved HM and that should be a better place for those few filler points than improved Arcane Shot. In fact, to be honest, I think it'll probably be a better use of points than efficiency, given that we can still chain chug mana pots.

"Hunter's Mark": This ability now becomes stronger each time the target is struck by a ranged attack. 110 AP increasing by 11 each time the target is struck up to a maximum of 440.

In other news, I think my hunter just became my main again!

Lactose · 04/13/07, 6:33 AM

The change to Hunter's Mark (scaling when hit) only affects the Ranged Attack Power bonus (bonus from Improved Hunter's Mark is constant regardless of +RAP), as far as I've read.
Confirmation on this?