WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion - Page 23

Sean · 07/24/08, 3:59 AM

On Loyalty - your pet won't leave you at all now. Loyalty is *completely* gone (except for the new uber l33t talent of the same name). You do not have to worry about that one bit.

Also a Ferocity pet with the Loyalty talent is pretty much full happiness *all* the time. Even right after ressing with Phoenix it comes back green. Though if it dies and doesn't res with Phoenix and you have to self res, it does come back yellow... but it regens happiness so fast that it's pretty much instantly back to green if you sick it on something. There's really no reason to ever even feed a Ferocity pet unless you let it get killed a few times in a row, have it get down to red, and want it back to full before the next thing you sick it on.

Korlash · 07/24/08, 4:29 AM

Originally Posted by Shandara

It's slightly disturbing they keep hammering on the fact the the extra 'power' will come mostly from the extra pet talent points associated with BMT.

I also find it a little disturbing. If it is the case the pet talent trees are going to need a major rework since at the moment in the ferocity tree you dont need the extra 5 points. 16 points is enough to get the two top tier damage skills in that tree. Talents are for improving your character (and pets in the hunters case) not for colourful tabards and non-combat pets. It's nice to have a unique looking pet but if I want to expect a spot in a raid I can't be gimping my damage with a shrunken devilsaur for a pet just cause it looks cool. I do like the idea of encouraging the use of different pets but making a 51 pt talent about vanity without some serious gain is rather dissapointing.

How about a hunter only faction with a small selection of 'vanity' pets and you can only take one, once you're exalted, kind of like netherwing mounts. They can just look different but function the same as any other pet in the family they belong to. Then the beast mastery talent can be reworked into something a little more usefull.

Thanks to all the guys on the beta keeping us informed, it's nice to know whats happening and how things are working.

Tyranna · 07/24/08, 5:18 AM

However, with the addition of that BM mana talent and the Hunting Party talent to go along side TotH, things are looking pretty good. Marks gets left out, but because it's a PvP tree I dont see a problem with it.

It might just be a pipe dream, but I still yearn for the days of old where I could raid as Marks without worrying about how much I was hurting my raid. That's the reason I brought up mana issues originally, as Marks is traditionally the highest mana hog of all three specs. Unfortunately, with the lack of any real mana return or any serious mana discounts, my dreams of whacking Arthas with big ass numbers is slowly dying.

Also, BM is shaping up to be a pretty effective PvP tree. Along with the various roots/snares/etc from pets, you're getting two talented snare breaks, as well as a cooldown reduction on both Intimidate and Beastial Wrath through Longevity. On top of that, the damage reduction through AotM from Aspect Mastery I can see as being situationally useful to relieve some burst.

Soulbeast · 07/24/08, 6:01 AM

As far as mana, we will be much more mana effective then in TBC, even if we didnt get invigoration. i read somewhere on this thread JoW ticks could tick for 450...and this effect procs almost every other shot. now assume you have been attacking 6 seconds. (auto shot-s shot-auto-ss-auto-ss-auto-ss). in that time you have just consumed 1120 mana. however, due to 3 JoW procs, you just gained ~1350 mana. on top of the fact that we just gained mana overall, thats not even taking into account buffs where sure to have,(mana spring/tide, and wisdom).

now. add in invigoration. in that 6 seconds you will most likely crit once, restoring 6% base mana back to you via cobra strikes.

what ppl dont understand is that yes, mana cost has dramatically increased on SS, however, the huge buffs to JoW and other mana regen abilities/talents outweighs this, and thus we will be more mana efficient imo.

Soulbeast · 07/24/08, 6:22 AM

Also, to really get a feel for how JoW has been buffed:

TBC:
SS-110 mana, 99 if talented
JoW-70 mana a proc

Wotlk

SS-280 mana, 252 if talented(thought i wont be speccing far enough to get efficiency)
JoW-450 a porc

See? the in tbc ss used more mana then jow could proc for, resulting a net mana loss.
in wotlk jow ticks for a butt load more, resulting in a net mana gain.

Korlash · 07/24/08, 6:35 AM

Originally Posted by Soulbeast

what ppl dont understand is that yes, mana cost has dramatically increased on SS, however, the huge buffs to JoW and other mana regen abilities/talents outweighs this, and thus we will be more mana efficient imo.

Yes other classes will be generating loads of mana for us but I don't like the idea of being reliant on those classes in order for us to dps. I don't want to lose my raid spot cause the Pally cant make it tonight. And this situation is even worse in 10 mans. I want to bring good dps to a raid. If another class is there that generates mana for me that should boost my dps, not be a requirement to dps.

We are jumping the gun though as we don't know what our mana pools are going to look like and what sort of numbers we can expect from the mana returning talents.

Vegelus · 07/24/08, 6:43 AM

Originally Posted by Intermission

I dont know about your server, but on our server mana pots are 2g each and haste potions are 7g each. I chain chug haste potions while our healers chug mana potions. If you're trying to draw comparisons to consumable usage with hunters vs other classes, I can do that:
- 80g ammo a night vs ~3g(?) reagents a night
- 7g chain chug potions vs 2g chain chug potions
- Agi Elixir for SV (~90g a stack), or Demonslaying Elixir for BM (hundreds of g a stack) per attempt, vs a flask per 2 hours from a Mark of Illidari (or Bloodberry Elixir + Healing Power(?) Elixir)
- Quest oil (2g/5) vs +healing oil, which would be more expensive
- Agi scroll vs nothing
You wont get sympathy from me, and you'll cop some flak if you're inferring that hunters sit their without using potions whereas healers do not.

The exception to haste-chugging is Muru where there is no JoW on the adds, so we use mana potions until P2. Or if our ret paladin is away and our holy paladins feel like playing shit, then we have to replace haste potions for mana potions. However even when using mana potions because JoW is missing, you're still oom most of the time:

6 min fight (Brutallus)

0:30, mana potion used, back to 95% mana
1:30, oom.
1:30 to 2:30, oom for 1 minute
2:30 mana potion, back to 30% mana
3:00, oom
3:00 -> 4:30, oom for 1 minute and 30 seconds
4:30, mana potion, back to 30% mana
5:00, oom
5:00 -> 6 minutes (end of fight), oom for 1 minute.

oom for 3 minutes and 30 seconds out of a total 6 minutes, where"oom" means not being able to complete a regular shot cycle, and only shooting a steady every now and then between Viper ticks.

Very rough values, but you can see how much of a failure no JoW is, mana pot or not. Luckily it looks like Blizzard have seen this issue, and given us Hunting Party + TotH, and the BM equivalent to help make us more self reliant.

And another thing Tongaro - did you ever asked your healers, how many mana pots they are using? I did, several times. Half amount I'm using every raid. We almost never get a JoW (no retri), and typical group setup is hunters+feral or hunters+feral+leftovers, so without chugging mana pots I'd never get to the end of fight. That's a lot worse than other classes have.

Soulbeast · 07/24/08, 6:46 AM

invigoration is enough by itself. every time we crit we get 6% mana via C strikes. i could very well see us gaining 30% of our base mana due to invigoration by it self over the course of a minute. thats only 5 crits. even without JoW and eveything else, even with a 10K mana ppl i dont see my self going OOM for a while with this. thats not even including the pet critting by itself, ill assume thats another 10% mana by itself.

KraxisSingular · 07/24/08, 7:18 AM

Originally Posted by Soulbeast

invigoration is enough by itself. every time we crit we get 6% mana via C strikes. i could very well see us gaining 30% of our base mana due to invigoration by it self over the course of a minute. thats only 5 crits. even without JoW and eveything else, even with a 10K mana ppl i dont see my self going OOM for a while with this. thats not even including the pet critting by itself, ill assume thats another 10% mana by itself.

Well, I don't remember who it was (a few pages back), but someone testing destinctly said it wasn't enough by a longshot. It was nice and all, but far from enough. And that was in soloplay. Obviously with no oils, pots and elixirs he would be generating mana a lot less himself, but then we are back to chaining mana pots.

And Vegelus is right. Often we only have a Retri pally, no holy (they have all go and said "screw this I'm going to play something fun") and no Prot (we have two Prots and both are at best unreliable raiders due to RL), and you can imagine the screams last time I asked him to get JoW. Let's just say it didn't happen, and looking at the numbers I agree he shouldn't do JoW.

JoW is buffed, nice. But with the higher costs that means nothing more than certain classes appear to be more tied into other certain classes making a show. That is against Blizzard's stated wish that all classes should be viable raiders. We would then only be viable raiders in certain circumstances. Not enough. Downranking might be a solution, but I wonder when any downranking nerfs will show up. At rank 1? Perhaps even at rank 2? If that happens you can be sure that it makes no sense to downrank. I would love to hear from the testers if they see any downranking nerfs to Steady Rank 1.

Korlash · 07/24/08, 7:25 AM

With a 10k mana pool each time one of our pets specials crit we get 2% mana back which is about 200 mana.
Max rank SS will cost 280 and if we cast those at the ideal speed of 1,5s thats about 187 mana per second.
Being realistic our pets won't generate enough mana for us to dps indefinetly. So for us to dps hard but not go oom too quickly our pet would need to regen say 100 mana per second. Meaning our pet would need to have a special crit once every 2 seconds. So that leaves about 87 mana per second leaving the system without any return giving us about 2 minutes of straight dpsing without pots with a 10k mana pool.

Admitedly I'm looking at these numbers and thinking its not so bad. With higher rank mana potions and mana oils the situation should be about the same as it is now. With cobra strikes our pets should be able to manage a decent crit rate on specials.

Note: This napkin maths is done using numbers sucked out of my thumb and if people would like to do a more accurate calc, go wild, I'd actually appreaciate it.

Soulbeast · 07/24/08, 7:38 AM

one thing i didnt take into consideration and just thought about now is it wont just be steady, we have to worry about KC as well. thats even more mana gone.

Chul · 07/24/08, 7:39 AM

I think we should forgo any more talk about mana consumption until we get more actual information.

Have Blizzard implemented anything in the combat log that gives us more information as to why our FD was resisted?

Ideally, I'd like to see the outcome of each resist check in the combat log, so threat meters like Omen can update our threat appropriately. There are some encounters where FD resists a lot more, and I'd like to know if that is because it is checking against a lot more mobs or we're just unlucky with the RNG. I remember the totem bug in Karazhan, where it could pull mobs from below; I often wonder whether something like that may occur in certain areas which increases the overall failure rate.

Gokey · 07/24/08, 7:45 AM

Read back a few pages. BM Hunters are NOT going to have mana issues. You don't need a ret paladin.

Edit: Here, I'll make it easier: WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion

KraxisSingular · 07/24/08, 8:24 AM

Originally Posted by Gokey

Read back a few pages. BM Hunters are NOT going to have mana issues. You don't need a ret paladin.

Edit: Here, I'll make it easier: WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion

Well, two testers are slightly differing here.

WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion
WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion

And Sean has even commented that Cobra Strikes have a complete uptime. Nice but not *that* nice as he says.

Besides you assume we will have Hunting Party at all times and that we will have Blessing of Wisdom. Yes, in a perfect rather progressionminded guild (hardcore might not fit the bill, but it is close) then yes. But you can't always be certain to have three pallies along, nor a Surv and if you do be certain he gets in your group. We know how Mages are manahogs and demands SPs, what is going to keep them from demanding the Surv if not enough SPs are available? And they will win with the usual argument "if you go OOM oyu have your pet and autoshot, we have wand".

Stop playing with perfect setups they only apply to the most advanced guilds. I think it ia arrogant to believe every guild has access to rather perfect setups. And the game should be enjoyable even for those of us who are now starting downing the first bosses in BT and MH.

Vegelus · 07/24/08, 9:31 AM

And yet another pet question. With all those changes - is Blizzard removing differences between casters and normal pets? Should be normalised for sure, but seeing how Blizz was normalising our pets in past I curious if they forgot about something again.

Ruind · 07/24/08, 10:20 AM

Ill add to that list and make it 3 people, I didnt get to play too much before I had to switch over and raid. Killing things for a few quests i was seeing 137 mana ticks and watching my mana bar continue to drop. It may help a little but we are still going to be dependant on mana spring, a spriest, or chain chugging fel mana unless there is some other sort of mana regen we are going to get from group synergy.

Fendryl · 07/24/08, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Sean

Also a Ferocity pet with the Loyalty talent is pretty much full happiness *all* the time. Even right after ressing with Phoenix it comes back green. Though if it dies and doesn't res with Phoenix and you have to self res, it does come back yellow... but it regens happiness so fast that it's pretty much instantly back to green if you sick it on something. There's really no reason to ever even feed a Ferocity pet unless you let it get killed a few times in a row, have it get down to red, and want it back to full before the next thing you sick it on.

I'd really like to see this applied to the other two trees somehow. Tenacity pets getting some type of talent that awards them happiness as they're healed, and Cunning pets, well 'something' along the same lines. It'd really be valuable across the board if all pets had a way of restoring happiness while in combat.

mako · 07/24/08, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by KraxisSingular

Well, two testers are slightly differing here.

WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion
WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion

And Sean has even commented that Cobra Strikes have a complete uptime. Nice but not *that* nice as he says.

Besides you assume we will have Hunting Party at all times and that we will have Blessing of Wisdom. Yes, in a perfect rather progressionminded guild (hardcore might not fit the bill, but it is close) then yes. But you can't always be certain to have three pallies along, nor a Surv and if you do be certain he gets in your group. We know how Mages are manahogs and demands SPs, what is going to keep them from demanding the Surv if not enough SPs are available? And they will win with the usual argument "if you go OOM oyu have your pet and autoshot, we have wand".

Stop playing with perfect setups they only apply to the most advanced guilds. I think it ia arrogant to believe every guild has access to rather perfect setups. And the game should be enjoyable even for those of us who are now starting downing the first bosses in BT and MH.

Something you don't seem to understand about mages is that they're incredibly selfish. Their entire goal is to not mana pot, not mana gem, and not evocate in order to dps on a level comparable to warlocks in a far less stacked group. They have a large amount of ways to self-sustain themselves, but they do lose dps evocating or using mana consumables over dps ones (flame caps and destro pots). So a mage argument about having an sv hunter is really no more valid than the rogues. They just want more dps.

And as for your silly claim about perfect setups that only apply to "the most advanced guilds", I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Perhaps your raid group is in the minority where it can't even have mild class balance (~2 of each class, whatever spec, accessible), but it is completely reasonable to expect a mild level of buffs, which include at least one form of mana regen (be it a shadow priest, ret paladin, or sv hunter). Many of us have different ideas on the ideal setup, but what's clear is that you only really need one class's mana return to be fully functional in a raid.

Kigale · 07/24/08, 11:44 AM

Don't judge Invigorate on solo play alone, the mana back will scale with raid buffs, AI + MotW + Kings will increase the mana pool and as a result the amount Invigorate restores.

Also, not only is JoW getting a buff in terms of mana returned, it is getting several other buffs. JotC has been removed, the 3% crit from talents applies to JoW now. Also, JoW causes damage when cast. Holy Paladins get a haste buff when they cast a Judgment, this will always be JoW if there isn't a Ret. So JoW will always be up as long as their is 1 paladin. Having 1 paladin is not too much for Blizzard to expect and balance around.

Arcazua · 07/24/08, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by mako

And as for your silly claim about perfect setups that only apply to "the most advanced guilds", I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Perhaps your raid group is in the minority where it can't even have mild class balance (~2 of each class, whatever spec, accessible), but it is completely reasonable to expect a mild level of buffs, which include at least one form of mana regen (be it a shadow priest, ret paladin, or sv hunter). Many of us have different ideas on the ideal setup, but what's clear is that you only really need one class's mana return to be fully functional in a raid.

I assume you're not counting present-day survival hunters. Besides, how strong IS hunting party? On the order of a shadow priest or JoW, or more like mana spring totem?

That said, there's ideal group setups and there's mostly ideal. I believe it's reasonable to have a mostly ideal setup. But I can also tell you that hunters are the least synergized class (except maybe warlock) in my guild's raids. Rogues get their own little group. Casters do as well. And there's a tank group. One group is healers. And the fifth group is team leftover. As the survival hunter, I'm also very prone to being shoved wherever there's room because Expose does it's work from any group. So while I'd love to have Grace of Air, Leader of the Pack, Ferocious Inspiration, or some kind of mana regen effect in my group, the truth is I'm lucky to get 2/4...not because my group doesn't care about synergies or have a reasonable balance between classes, but ironically because they do.

Ruind · 07/24/08, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Kigale

Don't judge Invigorate on solo play alone, the mana back will scale with raid buffs, AI + MotW + Kings will increase the mana pool and as a result the amount Invigorate restores.

Also, not only is JoW getting a buff in terms of mana returned, it is getting several other buffs. JotC has been removed, the 3% crit from talents applies to JoW now. Also, JoW causes damage when cast. Holy Paladins get a haste buff when they cast a Judgment, this will always be JoW if there isn't a Ret. So JoW will always be up as long as their is 1 paladin. Having 1 paladin is not too much for Blizzard to expect and balance around.

This is true, but all we can do now is speculate based on things that we have already seen. I know the raid content will be different, but how diffferent? I think of the damage that is being dished out end game now, I dont see holy pallys dropping healing to run in range burning mana and 2 GCDs to keep wisdom up (one to que up, one to judge). Even with the judgement range increased I dont see holy pallys wasting GCDs that often(for 10% haste if speced into it), or always being that close to the encounter. They are stand in the back and heal the MT healers, not up in the boss's face combat healers.

Gokey · 07/24/08, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Arcazua

I assume you're not counting present-day survival hunters. Besides, how strong IS hunting party? On the order of a shadow priest or JoW, or more like mana spring totem?

Hunting Party is about 83 mp5 per person, assuming a 10k mana pool. It's no shadow priest or JoW, but it's a nice addition to an already amazing raid spec.

Originally Posted by Ruind

I dont see holy pallys dropping healing to run in range burning mana and 2 GCDs to keep wisdom up (one to que up, one to judge). Even with the judgement range increased I dont see holy pallys wasting GCDs that often(for 10% haste if speced into it)

In the holy tree, there is a new a talent that increases the range of judgements to 30 yards. Also, I'm pretty sure Judgements aren't on the GCD.

Ruind · 07/24/08, 12:47 PM

My bad was reading it as a 10 yard increase, when its 20. Your right on judgements too, it would be 1 GCD to que up Seal of Wisdom... Much more manageable. New Wisdom is 91 MP5(50 more than the current), im not seeing anything beyond the current 50 MP5 mana spring (20 mana per 2). Going to try to get some testing done on Invigoration tonight if I get time to try to give it an avg MP5 this will obviously change with level increase and pet buffs. It just still doesnt seem like we will be able to pop offensive potions opposed to mana potions as previously suggested.

Redzin · 07/24/08, 12:50 PM