WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion

Neruse · 07/18/08, 6:26 AM

As changes are frequent and oft-times undocumented in beta patches, combined with a lack of time to keep this thing constantly up-to-date, I'll make this short and sweet.

For the latest beta talent build:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/

A decent rundown of changes:

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King: Beta - Wowhead

Also, keep the thread civil, even when beta changes go through that are completely illogical or just plain bad. Remember that the current build is way different from the first build and the final build will likely be a different beast altogether from the current.

Shandara · 07/18/08, 6:37 AM

It's quite surprising they've shuffled a few previously higher tier talents to lower tiers.

Namely Careful Aim and Mortal Shots (and changed the requirements). With the addtion of Improved Tracking that probably means these talents will be near-compulsory for all talent specs.

A lot still depends on how the higher tier activated abilities actually work though. Especially the Beastmaster 51-point talent. What exactly will 'exotic' pets be and will you retain them if you respec? Will you take Invigoration or Cobra Strikes? After playing with the calculator a bit I can't take them both unless I skip 3 points in either the MM or SV tree.

New BM spec? Assuming our mana problems will be as much a non-problem as they are now.

I guess in the lower tier it'd be a choice between Imp. Revive Pet, Master's Call and Imp. Mend Pet to fill out the points to get to the higher tiers. Spirit Bond and Catlike reflexes didn't get any changes so the rest of the tree is pretty straightforward.

Nakari · 07/18/08, 6:38 AM

New non talented abilities known so far (from various sources):

* Camouflage: (Level 68, 5 min cooldown) You Camouflage, causing you to blend in with your surroundings. Instantly removes all physical and spell debuffs, and you fade into an improved invisibility state. Camouflage will break after you deal damage. Lasts until cancelled.

* Heart of the Phoenix: When your pet dies, it miraculously returns to life with 10% health. Cannot occur more than once per 10 minutes.

Bear Trap (updated)
Level 75
100 Mana
Instant cast
30 sec cooldown
Place a bear trap that locks onto the first enemy that approaches, rooting them and causing [RAP * 0.1 + 1575] Bleed damage over 10 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Trap will exist for 1 min. Only one trap can be active at a time.

Kill Shot (updated)
Level 80
475 Mana
5 - 45 yd range (wtf?)
Instant cast
6 sec cooldown
You attempt to finish the wounded target off, firing a long range attack dealing weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.15 + 325]. Causes an additional 745 to 825 bonus damage against targets at or under 20% health.

Zaroua · 07/18/08, 6:38 AM

I think the single most interesting and puzzling thing about the new Hunter changes will be the Beast Mastery talent. Will the "exotic" pets creature multiple, new and unique types of pets, or just use a single "exotic" category for anything you will be able to tame with the talent?

Also, Chimera Shot + Scorpid Sting on bosses would almost require Marksmen Hunters if encounters are balanced around *and* if it affects bosses.

Edit: Point of No Escape's wording makes it sound as if a Survival Hunter spamming Bear Traps and buffing the raid/group with Expose Weakness and Hunting Party (with Master Tactician, would putting 5 points in it be worth it in 25 mans?) would be an important role to fill.

Krypt · 07/18/08, 6:43 AM

Im extremly glad to see mortal shots dropped to tier 2. This coupled with improved tracking, is a heavy and reachable dps boost of any spec.

Im extremly intrested in what is ment by "exotic pets" with the 51 point talent. Finally we may be able to tame some dragons! The other intresting point of the late BM tree is the relationship between cobra strikes and invigoration. So after a Crit we regen 3% mana, which could be extremly usefull, considering the last rank of steady will be 220 mana.

Edit: A couple of questions answered above.

Shandara · 07/18/08, 6:54 AM

Originally Posted by Zaroua

Also, Chimera Shot + Scorpid Sting on bosses would almost require Marksmen Hunters if encounters are balanced around *and* if it affects bosses.

Edit: Point of No Escape's wording makes it sound as if a Survival Hunter spamming Bear Traps and buffing the raid/group with Expose Weakness and Hunting Party (with Master Tactician, would putting 5 points in it be worth it in 25 mans?) would be an important role to fill.

I can not think but that bosses are immune to this effect. It's such a massive reduction in damage output and with multiple hunters it'd be easily sustainable in a rotation. It's almost as bad as a tranq shot rotation was.

Point of no Return sounds more a PvP ability to me, effectively reducing the effect of resilience by half while doing what we usually do in arenas (i.e. kite melee). If it works on bosses it would be quite an asset though, although a bit awkward to do (reminiscent of running to Illidan to drop a slow trap before the shadows spawn...)

It seems to me that apart from our single high dps tree (BM it looks to be) they're making the other trees very attractive to have at the same time. I can't see raids bringing 3 hunters (one of each spec) to each raid though, especially with death knights coming into play now. Although we are supposed to have 2 specs to switch between now (I haven't seen any information on the implementation of that yet).

Nakari · 07/18/08, 7:02 AM

The BM tree seems to have some nice synergies, especially between Cobra Strikes and Invigoration. Basically, when your Steady Shot crits, your pet has a 60% chance to restore 6% of your mana with it's next three specials.

I'm a bit disapointed with Aspect Mastery though, it seems a bit week for a tier 10 talent (even with current itemization, the new Careful Aim will grant you more AP for less invested talent points).

Shandara · 07/18/08, 7:14 AM

Originally Posted by Nakari

The BM tree seems to have some nice synergies, especially between Cobra Strikes and Invigoration. Basically, when your Steady Shot crits, your pet has a 60% chance to restore 6% of your mana with it's next three specials.

I'm a bit disapointed with Aspect Mastery though, it seems a bit week for a tier 10 talent (even with current itemization, the new Careful Aim will grant you more AP for less invested talent points).

Your shots (Steady, Arcane and Kill) have a 60% chance to make your pet crit on its next 3 special attacks and _every_ crit your pet does with a special attack will give you 2% mana. No doubt both talents will have an internal cooldown, but given that we pretty much crit every few seconds it'd have a ridiculously high uptime without any internal cooldowns.

It's a question what exactly qualifies as a pet 'special' ability though. My assumption is any ability that costs focus, but will Kill Command work as well? (even though the hunter casts it).

If you compare Kill Shot and Arcane Shot, they have similar scaling, but the damage bonus against sub-20% targets clearly pulls it ahead (as it should). It does have a potential for very big crits though, since we get such a huge damage bonus on crits (even more with the new MM talents).

Nakari · 07/18/08, 7:21 AM

Originally Posted by Shandara

Your shots (Steady, Arcane and Kill) have a 60% chance to make your pet crit on its next 3 special attacks and _every_ crit your pet does with a special attack will give you 2% mana. No doubt both talents will have an internal cooldown, but given that we pretty much crit every few seconds it'd have a ridiculously high uptime without any internal cooldowns.

It's a question what exactly qualifies as a pet 'special' ability though. My assumption is any ability that costs focus, but will Kill Command work as well? (even though the hunter casts it).

Yeah, my wording was a bit off (not a native speaker and all that...), I basically meant to say what you wrote

I updated my post above with new information about Kill Shot and Bear Trap from wowhead's WotLK page, and holy shit, take a look at Kill Shot

Oh, and Wyvern Sting now does 2460 damage after the sleep effect expires, and Serpent Sting is also massively upgraded (to 1210 + 10% RAP at max rank), as well as Viper Sting (3092 mana drained)... seems they really want us to use our stings more.

khel · 07/18/08, 7:39 AM

Does anyone know if Trueshot Aura will affect the entire raid within range?

Chul · 07/18/08, 7:48 AM

Any word on the new pet talent trees?

Thorongil · 07/18/08, 7:49 AM

Originally Posted by Shandara

It's a question what exactly qualifies as a pet 'special' ability though. My assumption is any ability that costs focus, but will Kill Command work as well? (even though the hunter casts it).

Since KC also has been triggering FI for some time now I think it can be safely assumed that it counts as a special attack of the pet itself.

Conscience · 07/18/08, 7:55 AM

Chimera Shot consuming SS (so working as a DPS ability) seeming a bit weak to anyone else?
Even when you assume a really high damage output of 2k by your SS, that Chimera Shot is just 800 dmg, less than your arcane will be at that gear level I think, not even taking the other shots into consideration.

edit: Any information on Explosive Shot scaling available?

Houjit · 07/18/08, 7:58 AM

Originally Posted by khel

Does anyone know if Trueshot Aura will affect the entire raid within range?

The talent calculator still shows TSA as party-only, which seems to fit with the general assumption that MM spec is the PvP focused tree (especially with the new Hunter's Mark dispell resistance). Chimera Shot is interesting - the longer you leave your sting on before you fire Chimera Shot the more benefit you get, but the greater the chance that someone will dispell it.

At first glance on the new talents, it still looks like most hunters will spec BM and you'll have a Survival hunter to keep up Expose Weakness. The Hunting Party talent deep in the Survival tree means you can put the Surv hunter in any party.

Negative · 07/18/08, 8:24 AM

Here's my BM build:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Depending on what the highest rank of Hawk is and what your int is sitting at, it might be better to drop Imp Aspects and go 3 in Careful Aim and 2 points elsewhere (Improved Tracking looks interesting...). If the 41 point talent lets use train Devilsaurs and other dinos from Un'Goro finally, I'm speccing BM. Otherwise, I might just go Surv.