Worry

I made a quick list of the new pet skills.

Pet Skills:
Bite
Charge;Cat, Hyena, Raptor, Tallstrider and Wolf

Crab
Bat
Bear
Boar
Bird
Crocolisk
Gorilla
Hyena
Nether Ray
Owl
Raptor
Ravager
Spider
Tallstrider

 

Sumie

On the PvP end of things:

- Camouflage is going to be the biggest single buff to hunters in arenas. The main thing we lacked was a way to escape being focused, besides feign death.

- 60% resistance on Deterrence, combined with a lower cooldown, will prove very useful. I wouldn't be surprised if every PvP build contained at least 11 points in Survival for this ability.

BM

- Hasn't really changed from the BW wonders they've always been in PvP. Will still be useful in burst setups but that's it. Unless of course some of the exotic pets include ones that reportedly can "earth shock" or disarm.


Marks

- I don't see many hunters going as far down as Chimera Shot, stopping only at 44 points to get Silencing Shot and Wild Quiver. I'd guess most arena MM hunters will take 44 in Marks, 7 or 11 in BM, and the rest in Survival.

Survival

- Kind of disappointed that Counterattack has still yet to be improved.
- Wyvern Sting now a 1 minute cooldown.
- With the addition of Camouflage and a beefed up Deterrence, it's worthwhile now to go deep survival all the way to Readiness. Explosive Shot sounds useless for PvP.


All in all, I like the changes and new skills, but disappointed in the 51-pt talents.

 

Kigale

I like the changes. They seem to really be moving dps away from 1 or 2 button mashing. There will be much more skill and awareness involved. Good hunters will be separated from great hunters based on how well they adapt to procs and their ability to maintain ability uptimes.

 

wolfteak

IMO, Chimera shot is going to be a great improvement in terms of mana burning in arenas, so i would really include it.

About the trees in general, im curious about the last talent in BM, and as a MM lover as i am, i would really like to see MM a viable spec for raiding, but lets see...

 

Ravenfire

Your making it weaker then it actually is. Not that i think it is all that strong, but it IS better then what you've stated.

It deals 30% weapon damage in addition to the effect from the sting. (Scatter shot and Silencing shot do 50% so that give you a rough estimate on damage). I'd agree that going from 2.4k to 2.8k means it is still weak for using it on Serpent stings.

I would however like to point out one hugh potential use on viper stings... Viper sting, as currently worded, DRAINS mana. Chimera Shot BURNS 30% of Viper stings total mana drained. I would be really interested if this means that it deals 30% weapon damage + mana burn damage (either 600ish if it is like the preist's mana burn converson of 0.5 damage per mana burned or it could be 1200ish if it is a straight 1:1 damage/mana burned conversion). If so this would make it a rather large pvp tool imo. 4.2k mana gone, a reasonable amount of damage delt to go with it, all for a couple GCD's and no mana cost.

Edit: since both Scatter shot and Silencing shot can crit I would assume Chimera shot could as well. This of course would make it very interesting to see how it (Chimera shot) critting would interact with the mana burn (if it deals damage). Anyone know if a Priest's mana burn can crit and if it does what happens?

 

Dafeaz

With Autoshot and Steady Shot being uncoupled, is it conceivable that Kill Shot will be added into standard rotations?

Or will seperate macros for bosses under 20% be implemented? Hmm...

Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe.

Maybe.

I've yet to meet one who can outsmart bullet.

 

Cheeky

I don't think there will be any shot macros (as they are commonly used today) going forward. You may bind Kill Command to your shots, but not multiple shots to one button.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Dafeaz

No shot macros? That will be a big change.

I like it

But yeah. Will Kill Shot be weaved into BM rotations from what we can tell?

Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe.

Maybe.

I've yet to meet one who can outsmart bullet.

 

Ralnar

The question I have about Chimera shot is about timing.

It consumes the current sting, and does X% of the stings damage. But no where in that description does it mention "Damage remaining" so in theory you could with good timing.

Viper 3 of 4 ticks + Chimera (30% of sting)
2319 mana + 1031 mana = 3350 total mana removed

Roughly 8% more mana removed if you wait to land Chimera between the last two ticks of viper.

Serpent 4 of 5 ticks + Chimera (40% of sting )
968 dmg + 484 dmg = 1452 dmg

Roughly 20% more dmg out of the sting by waiting until after tick 4 to land Chimera

(RAP % not included on serpent, imp stings not included on either, net % gain by waiting would be constant)

I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that this would work like swiftmend/conflagrate where the requirement is to have an effect up to "consume" regardless of how much time is left on it.

 

Xeno

Where's the source for camouflage?

 

Maax

Reposting from WotLK thread, enjoy:

Pet Skills: Pet Skills - Spells - World of Warcraft (change the pet family on top to see other families)

Generic Pet Skills: (presumably from talents)
Bullheaded
Call of the Wild
Carrion Feeder
Dying Bite (NYI)
Heart of the Phoenix
Intervene
Last Stand
Lick Your Wounds
Rabid
Roar of Fortitude
Roar of Recovery
Wolverine Bite

Family Specific Skills:
Bat: Sonic Blast
Bear: Swipe
Boar: Gore (don't have charge anymore)
Carrion Bird: Demoralizing Screech (also Swoop which appears to be a new avian form of charge)
Cat: Keep the old Prowl and also get Charge
Crab: Pin and also get Dash
Crocolisk: Bad Attitude (wow)
Dragonhawk: Fire Breath still
Gorilla: Thunderstomp still, but bite is replaced with Smack also get Dash
Hyena: Tendon Rip also get Charge
Nether Ray: Nether Shock
Owl: Snatch
Raptor: Savage Rend
Ravager: Ravage and Gore is gone
Scorpid: Scorpid Poison still
Serpent: Poison Spit still
Spider: Web and Dash
Tallstrider: Dust Cloud and Charge
Turtle: Shell Shield still
Warp Stalker: Warp
Wind Serpent: Lightning Breath
Wolf: Furious Howl still and Charge

Devs: Our nerfs will block out the sun!
Druids: Then we will tank in the shade.

 

Suspiria

I'm not very happy... I cant see any real change or very helpful skill for hunter's raiding or PvP.
Nerf in Surefooted for avoid too many hunter's resist, a BM last point very useless and a MM talent tree all based about "+1/2/3/4/5%"... this is what we wait for wotlk? Not for me, sure.
And my last hope, Camoflage, is always out any talent tree or trainer skill... Ty Blizzard for an another Lock/Rogue/Druid's century.

 

Disargeria

Pet spec/abilities will play a very important part in raids.

Call of the Wild
100 Focus
Instant 5 min cooldown
Your pet roars, increasing the melee and ranged attack power of all party members within 20 yards by 5%. Lasts 20 sec.

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

Rabid
60 Focus
Instant 10 sec cooldown
Your pet goes into a killing frenzy, increasing attack power by 5%. Successful attacks have a 50% chance to increase attack power by an additional 5%. This effect will stack up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec.

Roar of Fortitude
100 Focus
Instant 5 min cooldown
Your pet roars, increasing the total health and Dodge chance of all party members within 20 yards by 10%. Lasts 40 sec.

Roar of Recovery
30 Focus 30 yd range
Instant 6 min cooldown
Your pet's inspiring roar restores 40% of your total mana over 8 sec.

 

rothomp3

Also worth noting... pets gain talent points every four levels, not every level. So if the 51 point Beast Mastery talent is interpreted as granting five extra pet talent points, that's equivalent to a level 100 pet at level 80 in terms of pet skills.

Also, as far as I'm concerned, the minimum number of points in Marks has gone down from 20 to 13, not 10. 3/3 Careful Aim, in my opinion, is 100% required for all Hunters. It lets you use actual "Hunter gear" instead of Rogue leather with no loss of DPS stats.

 

Sean

Yeah, there shouldn't be any need for macros outside of binding KC in. I played around with it for a bit - Auto Shot definitely shoots while Steady Shot is "casting" now. So there's no worrying about any Auto Shot interrupting at all anymore (there was also a note of it not being delayed by instants).

 

Neruse

BM:

Master's Call is good pvp utility, but is it affected by dispel resist talents?
Cobra Strikes has excellent synergy with Invigoration, especially if the mana gain has no cooldown.
Aspect Mastery seems fairly good (the ap bonus from hawk is 150), and assuming one isn't stunned or incapacitated, switching to monkey to help negate a burst is good.
Longevity has potential, but it depends on how good the pet special abilities are.

PvE build like so.

Marks:

Wild Quiver is about 2% dps increase for 3 points.
Imp SS is about 1.5-2% dps increase for 3 points.
Piercing Shots, if assuming a 50% armor increase over SW bosses, seems to be solid.
Imp/Barrage are still poor dps investments.
Presumably Rapid Recuperation is bugged; if it caps at 60% reduced mana, it's hard to justify the points. If it really caps at 100% returned, it has good synergy with Rapid Killing.
Marked for Death is good, possibly about a 7-8% dps increase.
Chimera Shot is a mana hog and really only useful in pvp. Even so, the mana return from viper is only a net benefit if one has Imp Stings.

A PvE build likely would go something like this.

SV:

Improved Tracking is an excellent change, though there still exist some undefined mob types.
Improved Feign Death is more burst negation.
Deterrence would be quite handy against PMR teams.
Master Tactician is now a strong dps talent; somwhere around 7-8% average crit,
Potent Venom is complete and utter fail. Wyvern is not used for the damage and serpent sting only has a justifiable use for sticking on low hp players that may attempt to run.
Point of No Escape has potential, but for so deep into the survival tree it will likely end up a trash talent.
Sniper Training is about a 2% increase before 30%, but substantially better below.
Hunting Party seems pretty good, and with survival crit rates, one might not even have to go 5/5 to get a good return out of it. Assuming a hunter has 15k mana raidbuffed(guesstimate, obviously) this is about 187 mp/5 for himself.

Potential PvE build here.

 

Disargeria

Do you think it'll be worth it to drop the cooldown reductions? I'm leaning towards a build like this.

 

Worry

I cannot find it on Wowhead.However it is on Hunter - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information

If someone in the beta would confirm it.

 

KergeKacsa

Longevity is worth the 3 points, just because of the TBW CD-reduction in my opinion. In addition there will be other special skills, so it would be great. Better than AM (Aspect Mastery), which will give more dodge (who cares? ), more mana (which will be an even smaller problem I hope), or 75AP at lvl70, 150AP at lvlv80.

In raids I dont think Masters call will have a real advantage, so I would drop it, same with spirit bond, but I would get Bestial discipline. (More skills from Focus, will need more focus.)
I would leave 1 pt on AM, because without it I cannot get BM.

And I would steal one point from Imp. Tracking, which would go to Rapid killing (with 1 point from BM-tree), because - 2min CD on RF is more dmg than 1% dmg, plus we could get a little more burst damage if needed.

(It's just my opinion, not facts. )

Edit: So, I would use the same build as Disargeria linked.

 

Garf

A few points that immediately pop to my mind:

*I'm surprised nobody mentioned Focused Aim yet. That seems HUGE for raid DPS. With the trend towards heavy raid damage, avoiding push back on steady shot might well be the new mandatory talent for all specs.

*Camouflage - has been mentioned in leaks before, but doesn't show up in any of the new beta information. The exact mechanics (can you move? Drink/eat?) would be nice to know if it's actually still in.

*Aspect mastery seems utterly uselss, or at least overpriced for pve. Mana won't be an issue for sure with invigoration, and a 10% bonus doesn't seem all that big (this is not "an additional 10% of your intellect" like T6 bonus, by current wording), and the AotH bonus of 50% - that will likely be something like 250AP. Master Marksman provides much more without the aspect required to be up, and even Careful Aim does - for 3 points instead of five.

*That said, Careful Aim seems big. Even now, 300 int are pretty common. That's 100 AP per talent paint in current gear situations and would thus beat Master Marksman for any situation with total AP below 5000, which likely will be the case at very least until much later in raids. Of course, int might not scale as high for hunters - we'll have to see.

*The concussive barrage buff makes no sense whatsoever to me. If you use volley, you'll be in an aoe situation, and thus most likely not doing a steady shot rotation (which could benefit from the daze effect).

*Rapid Recuperation - that seems rather underwhelming. Even with Rapid Killing, uptime of rapidfire will be 15/180 at very most, thus this will have an overall effectiveness of 1/12*20% per talent point, which is less than efficiency. which still is much lower in the tree. Is the intent to allow a cheap Aimed Shot opener (after Rapid Killing triggered) when soloing? Or for pvp?

*Piercing Shots - assuming 10k armor, this would be 200/400/600 ArP equivalent. Since that scales rather well, might be worth it for raids. But that's speculation for now (even moreso than the rest of this).

*Wild Quiver - burst oriented 6% damage add (10% chance to add 60%) to auto shot for 3 talent points. Seems to be a tiny bit worse than RWS currently?

*Improved steady - unless "aim shot" is something different than "Aimed Shot", this doesn't seem great at first glance; this is assuming that kill shot will be an ability used exclusively at low health.

*Marked for Death looks rather solid; the improved child of RWS and MS.

*Chimera shot, I agree with the previous sentiments; looks underwhelming with the exception of using it with viper in pvp or if the scorpid mechanics work on bosses, which in turn would seem immensely overpowered.

*Improved tracking - yay!

*Deterrance spell damage reduction seems like a nice bonus

*Imp FD is weird - might have uses in pve for burst raid damage fights, or to survive a wipe while FDing on boss fights, but both seem extremely situational

*Potent venom - unless serpent sting improves a lot damage-wise, this seems rather useless. The wyvern sting damage seems to not be important in most situations where it does get used.

*Point of No Escape - bosses will be immune to the traps and thus to this effect, I'd imagine. But could still be nice for aoe trash in raids with frost trap. And 5v5 arenas?

*Sniper training looks nice for raids. The 30% mark for kill shot seems to conflict with its damage bonus at 20% - does that mean kill shot will be a likely useful part of rotations before the target is at low health?

*Hunting party - err, yeah, mana battery 2.0, indeed. But also rage and energy and runic power; this could be a rather huge thing, I think. Just the mana aspect alone; assume a mana pool of 10k, which will most likely be a rather low estimate, and a proc every 10 seconds (cooldown plus some time for a crit), that'd be 100mp5 to all party members. Not as big as JoW (for hunters), but a big buff by current standards nontheless.


Overall - certainly a lot of interesting things in there! Can't wait to hear more details.

 

Neruse

Aye, there's a good chance it'll be worth pulling points from Aspect Mastery for Longevity. Hopefully pets scale well enough.

Taking another look at Kill Shot:

Level 80
475 Mana
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.

Extrapolating from the gain from 60 to 70 high-end, raid buffed hunters, I'm going to assume 5000 RAP, 1750 average weapon damage.

1750 + [5000 * 0.15 + 325] = 2825, 3570-3650 under 20% (non-crit).

Damage gained is significant, at the price of increased mana use. If hunter regen is strong enough it may be possible to weave KS in pre-20%.

 

Hink

The synergy between Invigoration and Cobra Strikes looks great, assuming there are no hidden cooldowns. On the other hand, Roar of Recovery is another decent way to get mana back. These new talents along with the fact we can start wearing less leather (considering Careful Aim now being reachable) got me thinking we're gonna have less mana issues than in TBC.

I remember I ran OOM on progress encounters quite often when I started out raiding, even while chain potting. The Alchemy trinket made things look much better, but with the WotLK changes I assume Engineering will be my profession of choice again (next to leatherworking).

 

Disargeria

Don't forget, we're losing out on Efficiency. It's a bit up there in the Marks tree.

 

Ralnar

4m rapid fire vs 3m rapid

How much of a gain is it to have rapid fire line up with every other set of 2m cool downs? Right now its:

0 minute - BW/RapidFire/BloodFury(or trinkets)
2 minute - BW/BloodFury(or trinkets)
3 minute - Rapid Fire
4 minute - BW/BloodFury(or trinkets)
6 minute - BW/RapidFire/BloodFury(or trinkets)

That lonely rapid fire in the middle is still nice, but since it doesn't line up with other powers, it doesn't have as much "umph" as the ones at 0 and 6 minute marks.

Rapid fire = 40% haste for 15 seconds that's roughly 3~9 shots depending on shot cycle and weapon speed, it would be worth some mathamagics to actually see how that compares to 1% dmg but my wild speculation is they are probably very comparable. (And being a lazy player the timing of the powers lining would tip the scales to the 1% dmg for me)

 

Disargeria

You can also shave up to 30% off of Bestial Wrath's cooldown. I'd like to see the math thrown in there, too.