Khilas

I find it interesting that they have not added any type of current ability synergy.

For Example:
Hunter casts misdirect on target. Hunter feign deaths. Targets agro is reduced by a certain %, or reduced to zero. This consumes all 3 MD charges.

 

orinaccio

I like that idea - although being able to selectively wipe aggro on various raid members might undermine Blizzard's intent to have some classes utilize care in their threat management as part of their skill set. It would add another raid utility at a level that is comparable to Misdirection's when it first came out.

My idea would have been to throw in an Improved Silencing Shot talent that provides both interrupt and mana regeneration/mana return components to the existing Silencing Shot spell.

I would also discard Chimera Shot - I tried it out extensively last night and I just don't see this as being a talented ability. Perhaps a sub-70 trainable ability but even then its mana cost, as well as its limited benefit, doesnt justify its placement anywhere on any of the talent trees.

I'll be testing out MM build throughout the beta as it appears we will have no shortage of BM and Surv beta testers, but I confess my knowledge and mathematical analytical abilities are not at the level of many of the posters here, and may not do the MM tree much justice. I can only go with empirical and add-on assisted collection of data

 

Gleithan

If Blizzard doesn't like downranking, they should just flat-out not allow it and design classes/encounters in such a way as to not make it necessary. As it is, Warriors and Rogues (I think) already can't downrank (since their abilities never go up in cost it is a moot point, but still). So they have the ability for higher ranked spells to completely replace lower ranked spells in the spellbook.

The way the game is now, a non-theorycrafting healer suffers in comparison to one who downranks. Since new ranks of spells automatically replace old ranks on the actionbar, a reasonable person probably thinks "I should use the more powerful one now" and never opens their spellbook again. It isn't as bad as it used to be when Heal was a more useful spell than Greater Heal, but it still is an obscure game mechanic that shouldn't be necessary. Healing (and DPSing) can be made difficult enough without requiring downranking.

 

Chul

Let's look at the difference in mana costs between level 70 and level 80:

See a pattern here? I imagine mana pools increasing by ~50% with the gear reset, which would cover most ability ranks. Hunters have increased by ~2.5x. Steady Shot will now be fired faster, bringing its net mana cost to >3x (nearly 4x if you consider BM can't get Efficiency any more).

All those ways we get mana back in raids (JoW, Mana totem etc) also pertains to other casters, and yet hunters, with a smaller mana pool, has the highest increase in mana.

Now what about 5mans? Are we going to have all those lovely mana returning abilities? What about out solo?

All that needs to happen is to reduce the mana cost of our abilities to be in line with other classes (~ 50% increase):

* Not strictly a +50%, but I think a 130-140 mana cost would be balanced.

 

Chul

Wowhead as updated its pet talent calculator for WotLK.

EDIT:
Looks a little buggy, as some of the later talents still assume 5 talents per tier.
However, an administrator posted:
So what is going on?

 

Kelidor

Interesting. The last tier talents now require 20 points to learn. This means a Beastmaster with BMT can only get 1 of those 3 last tier talents, and other specs simply cannot get abilities such as Roar of Recovery ( +40% mana ).

 

Catalept

So Beast Mastery is now a 20-in-1 talent that unlocks the top tier abilities of all pet trees? That does seem to increase its appeal somewhat

 

Sean

... I'm going to assume that the administrator is just wrong and is only going by the tooltips. The tooltips do say that, but they're bugged. Beta hasn't been patched, but I'll go check it out myself to confirm.

 

Terp

The talents in game are probably bugged. Heart of the Phoenix shows up as req 15 points and Intervene as 10. I mean it's feasible they want that, but it doesn't really make sense. The fact that all abilities are in line with player's tier requirements is too much of a coincidence.

 

Sean

Yep, I just tested it out to confirm - nothing has been changed.

The tooltips are bugged, and the 3 points required per tier is intended. The person on Wowhead is wrong.

 

Arcazua

I don't consider it "trivially easy" to farm potions. Especially when everyone's doing the same thing, either for themselves, or for profit. I find it utterly impossible to acquire Terocone, for example, due to the limited places it grows, which means I tend to save agi potions for when I think it will actually make a difference rather than "eating them like candy," which is the tactic many hunters take regarding consumables. To keep up with those kind of costs, I'd need to do dailies at least once per night that I raid. I don't have the time or patience to spend 4 days each week doing crappy daily chores. And that's all they are -- chores to earn your allowance. I'm not 10. This is just a personal stance, but I wish that daily quests were never created (or at least put on Quel'danas) because all they do is inflate the economy to the point that you either have to add additional time to your week just to do daily quests, or literally watch the money you do have depreciate in value.

I could rant on this topic for much much longer, as Aethien indicated (and has seen me do on other boards,) but in the interest of not derailing the thread I'll leave it at that. The point is that consumables are too important right now, and I don't think we should be as reliant on them. In fact, I don't think we should be reliant at all. I think they should be a small boost now and then when they seem worthwhile. As soon as you're using multiple fel mana potions in every single fight, they aren't a small boost any more. And this is why I think it's important for us to identify what's best theoretically, and what's best in practicality. If you don't like what I consider to be practical, stick to the theoretical, but c'mon...can you honestly say that it's efficient to use steady 3?

To this day, I still use Multi Shot rank 1. I get the free attack for 90 mana, and don't spend a premium for the "bonus" damage. Like the argument I'm making about Steady Shot, it's simply not economical to fire a higher ranked Multi Shot unless DPS is more important than *anything* at all, including your mana pool. (Back in the BWL days, I would switch to max multi when it was important, but that was during the days of a different rotation, when Multi was much more important.)

However, arcane does suffer penalties. Firing rank 1 arcane shot for 3/4 of the effect would be nutty.

No. Many hunters have lamented this since the ability went in. Wyvern Sting is a last-ditch or short-term CC, not a means of holding something until someone else can get to it.



And I'm grateful to know that the wowhead staff is wrong this time. I would not like having to spec BMT just to make a cunning pet actually worth anything at all.

 

Tyranna

Maybe my wording was a little harsh. Let me rephrase. Blizzard discourages downranking. The proof of this is in the severe coefficient penalty you recieve the further you downrank. However, I don't think Blizzard wants to outright remove downranking. There are plenty of occassions where downranking, even with the coefficient penalty is preferred for healers in certain situations.

I just don't see downranking as the answer to Hunters' mana problems as other dps mana classes almost never downrank.

 

Sean

By the way, if someone could write up a post on the new Hunter Mana costs being too high and comparisons ect, I will gladly post it on the Beta boards. Mods are responding to quite a bit of stuff there and it's pretty worthwhile to post.

Like wise any other issues if you write something up I'll post it. You can pm me with them if you don't feel like posting them here as well.

 

orinaccio

Agree with Sean and I will lend my support on the beta boards as well.

I'd love to see our mana issues being addressed with some persuasive data.

 

KraxisSingular

Oh I see a pattern alright. I'm quite certain this is a result of Blizzard stacking a lot more Int on our gear and giving us the easy and cheap Careful Aim. However, all this does is in effect force the use of a talent that shouldn't be required as our AP should come from Agi and AP, not Int. Careful Aim should (and I still hope it will) be a nice extra boost, not a requirement because of odd itemization.

Looking at the Shamans' shocks it appears they took take a beating in costs too. More than double up. This might be from the same result that their Int will go up with the new gear (and they too get a 100% Int ---> AP).

 

• Intermission

Thats nice if all fights lasted less than 2 minutes.

I cant see a higher max mana pool helping us when we currently run oom in 45 seconds. We may run oom in 1:30 now, but we still need some sort of mana equilibrium, ie, JoW.

 

Gokey

Blue Post on Pet feeding in combat from beta boards:

tl;dr version: you will never be able to feed your pet in combat.

 

TheWicked22

I'm aware it's impossible to test right now, but could the existance of this spell be proof that abilities that proc off of auto shot (IAotH, Concussive Barrage, etc.) won't proc on Wild Quiver procs? (sorry for the over-use of "proc", I couldn't figure out a better way to phrase what I'm trying to say.)

 

Kelidor

I believe so. As I said in one of my last posts, the Wild Quiver talent does not shoot an additional auto shot, but simply a ''Wild Quiver Shot''. Since IAotH procs off Auto Shots only, I can't see how Wild Quiver can affect it.

 

Sean

Technically the Imp Hawk tooltip reads "normal" shots - I'm guessing that if the Wild Quiver Auto Shot showed up as White Damage then it could maybe proc it, but it'll probably show up as a Yellow.

 

Kigale

I'm curious, do we have any evidence of a mana shortage or are you all just speculating based on increased mana costs? Listing increased costs for some spells for some classes isn't really telling the entire story. Holy light and Flash of Light are going up by ~2.3x. Lightning Bolt is also going up by 2.3x. Until there are solid tests done in a raid environment with most common buffs we can't get too worked up. As for 5 mans and solo play, Aspect of the Viper has been buffed in 2 consecutive content patches, probably because Blizzard thinks we should use it.

 

Arcazua

But loyalty levels are gone, right? What does it take for a pet to run away from you? At least before, there was the safety cushion of losing a loyalty level on your beloved pet. Now if you revive a pet during battle and it dies, you're maybe borderline at risk of outright losing it. (BTW, does Heart of the Phoenix still count as a death for Happiness' sake?)

Other dps mana classes don't have outside components to their damage beyond their abilities. We have an auto-attack and pet damage output. Until only a half to two-thirds of caster classes' damage comes from their activated abilities, you're talking apples to oranges.


Think of it this way:
Frostbolt does ~650 damage for 345 mana.
Fireball does ~900 for 465 mana.

I don't know much about mage talents, but let's say, hypothetically, that with frost talents...
1) frost bolt deals 850 dmg vs. fireball's 900
2) you get a mana reduction in the cost of frost bolt, so it's closer to 3 DPM.
3) both spells have the same cast time and scale at the same rate, meaning with your gear, they both do X more damage (and DPS) beyond the basic tooltip.

I realize that's all fictitious, but as a frost mage under those circumstances, would you chain Frostbolt or Fireball? That's the sort of situation we face with steady3 vs steady1. We can burn our mana a lot faster for a little more damage, or we can hang in for the longer haul. And as near as I can tell, as an outside spectator to the beta, the difference looks pretty egregious. I'm not looking forward to upranking steady shot, even for 100 DPS, because if I burn out halfway through the fight, my specials DPS jumps from +100 to nearly -100%. I'll even pull a Chicken Little for a second and theorize that maybe even with everything that you can possibly do for your mana regen -- potions, ideal group set-up, etc., that you still might go oom. Then is it a good idea?

The sky is probably not falling. But I think it's naive to assume that we'll automatically be able to find some way to afford the extra mana consumption. Until we know more, I want to at least entertain the possibility. Especially if other classes' mana costs are increasing by 50% and our's is significantly more than that.

At this point, I personally am speculating. And I certainly cannot say we *will* have mana issues, but I'm gonna take my chances in saying that we will because I currently have mana issues if I don't go all-out for mana regen. Even with TotH and Efficiency, I still need mana potions if I'm not in a mana-returning group of some kind. Increase my mana consumption, and not my mana pool proportionately, and I'm willing to take the over/under on it. I do agree with you that we should not get "worked up" over it...we just shouldn't ignore it, either.

BTW, as much as I don't have a problem using AotV in a pinch, the typical response to using Viper is that it's not Hawk, and therefore it lowers our damage output. Aspect of the Hawk is the de facto standard. I've talked to hunters who outright laugh at me when I even suggest Viper is an ability worth using during raids. Viper's going to need some kind of serious buff and it has to be made very obvious that we need it before it's going to become (socially) acceptable.

 

• Intermission

My comment was just pure speculation.

No matter what our max mana will be relative to our skill costs, it's quite irrelevant for raiding. I hope Blizzard also realise this, and I'm pretty sure they would/already have.

Currently, hunters mana use is quite simple in raids. JoW up = near infinite mana, can use haste potions. JoW down = near zero mana, OOM in 45 seconds. While I agree that a mana equilibrium based upon raid buffs/debuffs is needed, it will be a challenge to keep it balanced for 10/25 mans. If they base our mana cost on ~90% JoW uptime, then 10 mans without a paladin may be quite screwed.

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.

 

Tongaro

I am sorry but the argument that we have to chain mana pots in raids and we shouldn't isn't valid argument at all. The reason being every other mana using class has to do the same thing in raids to keep there mana up and provide there full set of abilities to raid for all of the boss fight. Yeah locks can get by not but it hurts there DPS from listening to the locks in my guild mana pots provide them a bigger DPS boost then destro pots do since it saves them having to tap as much. I'm sure your healers use max mana pots and buff potions in raids and if they didn't you would probably wipe constantly because they weren't. So it is really a disservice to your raid and guild mates not to do the same as DPS class. While yes it does look like our mana consumption is going up and might need some looking into the argument that we shouldn't have to use mana pots or other consumables to compete in raids is totally invalid until other classes don't either. If they made it so you didn't need these things in raids they would have to take them totally out of the game cause otherwise people would just use them anyways and trivialize content. Just look back to early BC when everything was tuned around max consumables and led to the elixir nerf and retuning of bosses to be an equal challenge to a lesser buffed raid.

 

• 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.