WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion - Page 102

Ghostyman · 09/12/08, 12:39 AM

On hit rating and T7:

While I agree that the T7 set is seriously lacking hit rating, let us not forget this new gem: Enchant Weapon - Accuracy - Spell - World of Warcraft. If this lives to see release, it would go a ways toward enabling us to actually land some of *many* more Autos that we will be shooting as a result of this haste saturation. Who knows, maybe this enchant, in conjunction with Biznick's (or some other crafted scope that will provide hit that will hopefully exist), we may be able to achieve some ~35-40% of the rating necessary to be hit capped just with weapon enchants. Wouldn't that be simply marvelous?

Moreover, if this enchant sees the light of day, let us hope it has a big brother for 2H weapons as well.

dannii · 09/12/08, 2:39 AM

My take on AotV (PvE / Raiding perspective):

1. Hunters are a pure damage class and aim to do as much damage as possible
2. Hunters require mana to "cast" most shots
3. AotV is a hunter's most powerful source of mana regen (>gear, >other talents etc)

AotV currently penalises DPS to regenerate mana. It does so by removing some RAP through the changing of aspect from Hawk to Viper + it reduces damage by 50%. Mana regen procs off specials (which cost mana).

My suggestion would be to retune AotV to the previous beta incarnation with man regen coming from damage done. This prompts hunters to strive for more damage and therefore reduce downtime. The coefficients or mana regen amounts could be scaled to prevent this being OP as it previously was. This would allow all specs to start on a level playing field based on their damage output rather than weapon speed.

Problems would arise from scaling. However, hunters "in quest greens" are not likely to be spending much time in boss fights (ie 2-3 min 5 man boss fights if TBC is anything to go by). Scaling could be created to ramp up the regen ability as a hunter progresses in the game (and therefore gear) to reward hunters for performance rather than penalising them.

The current AotV is a complex mechanic which seems to have holes all over the place. Reverting to a simpler mechanic, tuned for fairness, seems an obvious conclusion.

PSGarak · 09/12/08, 2:48 AM

You're getting it wrong. The entire point of the change is that blizzard wants players to start paying attention to their mana bar and stop ignoring every statistics that doesn't directly contribute to bigger (or more numerous) numbers. Having the mana regen mechanic be damage-based is directly counter to this goal.

dannii · 09/12/08, 3:20 AM

With pet management, dps, movement and rotations don't hunters have enough skill based aspects to their class without micro managing mana? Mana management sure, but "un-fun" micro seems excessive.

Chul · 09/12/08, 4:18 AM

Koraa on..

Kill Shot:

It will not cause the knockback effect any longer. It's now balanced to be around 2X the damage of steady shot.

Misdirection:

Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds

Kaejin · 09/12/08, 4:33 AM

Does Kill Shot still have the cooldown, then? Guess we might shoot off a few when bosses are at low health after all.

Melkunie · 09/12/08, 5:12 AM

At least Kill shot is now usable soloing without actualy losing time.

The misdirection change is a step in the right direction but i would still like some more changes to the talent. Its ok for boss pulls but during combat we have enough gcd skills as of it is. Maybe give it some boost as well like reduced damage on the Mded target or extra damage to compete with the rogue version.

Shandara · 09/12/08, 5:48 AM

Originally Posted by Xardion

Numbers from beta:

1288 live armor penetration = 185armor penetration rating
6.92 live armor penetration = 1 armor penetration rating

20armor penetration rating = 1.3% armor reduction at level 80
So that is 1% armor reduction ~ 15.38rating (or 106.43 live armor penetration)

The conversion rate is apparently exactly 7 (I used about 30 items on Wowhead as a comparison). So 7 'ignore armor' in Live is 1 ArP Rating in Beta.

As for the amount of rating needed for 1%, I couldn't match up 15,38 with any known ratings (like crit rating) as a closest match so I'll go with 15,38 for the moment.

One question though, does it work before or after debuffs are applied (my guess is after). That shouldn't be too hard to check.

zxixa · 09/12/08, 6:35 AM

i know there are some real basic problems with the new set of nerfs being applied to hunters in the last few days.

but i would like to say on the whole i am looking forward to it, i am a PvE only raiding hunter and have beed "stuck" as a BM spec since outlands, dont get me wrong i like BM spec its nice allround.

i am looking forward to haveing 3 totally differnt specc that are competitive together so i not longer have only 1 path to follow if i am to compete in the DPS output in raids.

this leads me to my question, i have trolled a bit and cant seem to find a topic although i am only human.....

what would be the pet of choice to a marksmanship hunter for pure PvE insatnces and raiding in WolK? and also would it be the same for a survival build hunter also.

once again i apologise if this has been answered someware else and thanks for your time.

Kaejin · 09/12/08, 6:42 AM

Wolves are a pretty solid choice now, since the AP boost lasts an enitre ten seconds instead of being used up on the next attack. They're also Ferocity which is probably the easiest to manage during raids because of Bloodthirsty and Imp Cower.

Raptors are also good as far as pure pet DPS goes, but they won't buff the party like Wolves do.

zxixa · 09/12/08, 6:45 AM

yes exactly what i thought, i wish i taimed a ghost wolf now before they took them out.... but i got a lvl64 wolf from nagrand last night and going to lvl him up before patch 3.0 comes out and i think he will be my choice of pet seeing as i will be MM build in expansion.

thanks for the quick reply.

any other info is greatly recieved.

Snipêr - executus EU

Roywyn · 09/12/08, 6:56 AM

Originally Posted by Shandara

The conversion rate is apparently exactly 7 (I used about 30 items on Wowhead as a comparison). So 7 'ignore armor' in Live is 1 ArP Rating in Beta.

As for the amount of rating needed for 1%, I couldn't match up 15,38 with any known ratings (like crit rating) as a closest match so I'll go with 15,38 for the moment.

15.769 rating is needed for 1% physical haste, spell haste, physical hit, expertise.
Maybe the 15.38 is off due to rounding in the character screen?

Vetinari · 09/12/08, 7:02 AM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

You're getting it wrong. The entire point of the change is that blizzard wants players to start paying attention to their mana bar and stop ignoring every statistics that doesn't directly contribute to bigger (or more numerous) numbers. Having the mana regen mechanic be damage-based is directly counter to this goal.

Originally Posted by Blizzard

Thanks. Our intent was not really to reduce it's power, but make it equally powerful for the guy in green gear vs the guy in epics. We'll do some more tuning on it

This makes is pretty clear, that blizzard wants mana to be a non-issue most of the time for hunters, given that the previous incarnation of AoTV allowed full regen of the mana bar in less than 10 seconds.

At any rate, mana management is an extraordinarily lame mechanic for dps, because it pretty much results in certain classes getting the shaft. Not to mention the bitching that results when "why does the rogue do more dps, and can do it non stop too, but I not only do less, but go oom in three minutes too!", or "why do I not only do less dps than the warlock, but also run out of mana if i don't spam potions, gems AND have a shadow priest"

Korlash · 09/12/08, 7:03 AM

At the moment the raptor is considered the highest dps non-exotic and the devilsaur the highest dps pet but in general ferocity pets are fairly close together dps wise. A cunning pets 'roar of recovery' ability might be usefull for marks where you lack any practical mana related talents. Unfortunately the talent is a bit meh as it only returns 20% of your mana at the cost of having a lower damage pet. Ferocity pets will also be easier to keep up against pet unfriendly bosses thanks to bloodthirsty. If you're bringing a pet to fill a debuff slot then its a different story.

Pet specials numbers have been adjusted recently so which pet is best dps could change.

Schniepel · 09/12/08, 7:15 AM

Is Furious Howl an exception to the rule that AP buffs don't stack anymore? If not the I would imagine the skill ist pretty useless in most raid setups.

Xoran · 09/12/08, 7:52 AM

And does the buff from multiple wolfs stack?

KraxisSingular · 09/12/08, 9:20 AM

Originally Posted by Kaejin

Wolves are a pretty solid choice now, since the AP boost lasts an enitre ten seconds instead of being used up on the next attack. They're also Ferocity which is probably the easiest to manage during raids because of Bloodthirsty and Imp Cower.

Raptors are also good as far as pure pet DPS goes, but they won't buff the party like Wolves do.

Since the Raptor relies on a crit on it's relatively long CD ability to give it the DPS boost (for Surv and MM the pets don't crit that much), I personally believe that Wolves will be best for non-exotics. Possibly even for BM Hunters, depends on the numbers from the Devilsaur. Pure DPS from the Wolf will be much less, but buffing the Hunter and the party, and near constantly (constantly for BM), that is pure win.

Aym · 09/12/08, 9:41 AM

Originally Posted by Catalept

Yes, but even if Explosive Shot did 100% more (single-target) damage than Steady, one cooldown-free ES every 30 seconds would only mean a 5% increase in damage from specials. Even if specials accounted for 40% of our DPS, that'd still mean a 3-point talent would give a 2% increase in damage.

I think it's obvious that the primary intent of the talent is to give traps a little more kick, with the 'proc on sting' effect just an attempt to make it useful on boss fights. Hopefully the tuning gods will come up with an elegant solution... I like the concept... it'd be a shame for it to end up another footnote talent.

I dont understand - what do you mean with "if"?. Explosive shot does do more damage than steady shot, by far.

Rank 4 steady shot is weapon + ammo damage + [RAP * 0.2 + 280]
Explosive shot is [RAP * 0.2 + 345] * 3, at the very least. With my 2500 selfbuffed level 70 AP, explosive shot will do 2535 noncrit damage to the target, and 633,75 damage to anyone near it, counting the main hit and the charges afterwards. Steady shot will only do 780 + unmodified weapon damage + ammo damage, and is even diminished by armor.

Unless ofcourse you mean that you can only use ES each 6 seconds, and that you will use steady shot a lot more than ES, then you might be right. But comparing just steady to explosive will give explosive shot a massive lead.

--

Wolves seem to be a good choice for non-BM hunters, but my worry, as others have expressed, is that the AP increase wont be effective in a raid situation.

--

On a completely different note, where does EW stack now? Is it still a debuff on the boss, or has it been moved to the hunters buff list?

Spiry · 09/12/08, 9:45 AM

It's a hunter self buff now, appearing in the buff list, next to aspects etc.

Steelfleece · 09/12/08, 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by Kaejin

Wolves are a pretty solid choice now, since the AP boost lasts an enitre ten seconds instead of being used up on the next attack. They're also Ferocity which is probably the easiest to manage during raids because of Bloodthirsty and Imp Cower.

Raptors are also good as far as pure pet DPS goes, but they won't buff the party like Wolves do.

Right now, unfortunately, the wolf AP buff functions as Furious Howl does on live, only applying to the first attack. Hopefully this isn't intended, as the tooltip does not suggest this (it says Lasts 10 seconds). I have reported it, but we need to make sure Blizzard is aware of this error.

Aym · 09/12/08, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by Steelfleece

Right now, unfortunately, the wolf AP buff functions as Furious Howl does on live, only applying to the first attack. Hopefully this isn't intended, as the tooltip does not suggest this (it says Lasts 10 seconds). I have reported it, but we need to make sure Blizzard is aware of this error.

It could be that it is intented to be just that, and that the buff is available for 10 seconds. One hit and its used, just like now.

Aerynlore · 09/12/08, 12:03 PM

While we are on the topic of pets, what is going to need to be the "standard herd" of pets that hunters will need to keep to be able to swap out for buffs/debuffs that are substitutes for other class?
Wasp for "minor" Armor Reduction
Worm for "major" Armor Reduction
Carrion Bird for Demoralizing Shout/Roar

Are there any other stable slots that are going to have more-or-less required pets? In essence, it seems that Blizz giveth (two stable slots) and Blizz taketh away (two "required" pets). Are there any others I'm missing?

Edit - Some questions for testing (because I'm sure our Beta Testers are bored out of their minds right now):
Is the Tallstrider's Dust Cloud usable on Bosses?
Does Core Hound's Lava Breath stack with Curse of Tongues (I would assume not)?
Does Bird of Prey's Snatch cause diminishing returns in PvP with Disarm (I would assume it does)?

Steelfleece · 09/12/08, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by Aym

It could be that it is intented to be just that, and that the buff is available for 10 seconds. One hit and its used, just like now.

If that's the case, then it's A. pretty useless and B. the tooltip is incorrect.

Also, as I understand it, it's currently granting melee attack power only according to the character page. That is second-hand information however, I'm unable to test it myself at the moment.

mako · 09/12/08, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by Aerynlore

While we are on the topic of pets, what is going to need to be the "standard herd" of pets that hunters will need to keep to be able to swap out for buffs/debuffs that are substitutes for other class?
Wasp for "minor" Armor Reduction
Worm for "major" Armor Reduction

Are there any other stable slots that are going to have more-or-less required pets? In essence, it seems that Blizz giveth (two stable slots) and Blizz taketh away (two "required" pets). Are there any others I'm missing?

The "requirement" of both armor pen pets should be a non-issue since it really is case-specific. In 5 mans, missing either debuff isn't significant, and in 25 mans you will be hard pressed to not have a rogue or warrior and a single druid of any spec.

For 10 mans, you may find benefit in having one, but should your raid runs caster heavy, the rdps increase may be trivial because it effects only you and one other, at which point a real pet could provide more rdps.

Personally, i will never have a worm to fill the major armor reduction role as it's just too rare an occurrence to be raid without a rogue or a warrior. The minor one might have more value, however, but I would hardly call it mandatory to have one.