I just answered and posted about Explosive Shot mechanics on the very same page that you posted this:

To confirm - Explosive Shot does not trigger Thrill of the Hunt nor Hunting Party at all. The initial hit Critting on the primary target does not trigger it, subsequent crits do not trigger it, not a single possible crit of Explosive Shot on any mob will currently trigger those two effects.

Likewise, it does not proc Expose Weakness either.

The reason for this is that none of its damage is an actual "shot". It applies a DoT that immediately ticks and then ticks twice more. That's all Explosive Shot is - a DoT. That's also why it only eats one charge of Misdirection - it only transfers the aggro of applying the DoT on the target, much like with Serpent Sting.

There's absolutely nothing to indicate that Explosive Shot isnt't supposed to trigger TotH, HP and EW. The tooltip on TotH states that you'll regain mana from critical Shots, as does Hunting Party - Explosive Shot. It doesn't really matter if it's technically a dot, it's a shot ability (because it shares cooldown with our other "Shots"). Expose Weakness doesn't even mention shot, it just says "ranged criticals".

And another thing that speaks for this being a bug is the fact that Arcane Shot can proc it all, and they share cooldown, as said before. They are both regarded as "shots". As a SV hunters who's primary role is to keep up EW and proc Hunting Party, it seems very counter-intuitive to switch a shot that can proc those abilities, with one that can't, especially considering it's the 51-point in the tree of those abilities.

Another thing that speaks for it is the fact that it would enable us to apply Expose Weakness to AOE packs, and that could be very very nice considering the amount of new melee-aoe abilities - Arms Warrior, Combat Rogue and Ret Paladin 51-pointers, as well as a new basic-Rogue ability, and the new Volley as well.

All in all, I'm quite sure it's supposed to proc at least Expose Weakness and Hunting Party, and perhaps one proc on TotH (or it could potentially work as a mass-mana regen in aoe packs with TotH, though I doubt that).


Edit: And btw, at the moment the crit rate of Explosive Shot is based on our spell crit rating, not our ranged crit rate, another thing that implies it being bugged.

Edit 2: Damn, too slow, Sean replied before I posted my edit.

I'm not saying it shouldn't, I'm just saying why it doesn't. It's a completely different damage mechanic than all of our other "Shots". It doesn't even hit and do damage immediately - it applies a dot, then the dot immediately ticks, then ticks twice more. It's pretty clear how it works and what it does when you go and test it yourself.

Also, the crit rate on it is pretty terrible. I think it's working off our Spell Crit, but I'm not entirely sure on that.

If it was a full dot, wouldn't it be unable to crit at all? Maybe it's working off fireball mechanics?

Speaking of Spell Crit... Has anyone checked to see which crit % (Spell or ranged) Volley uses?

Side Note: I asked a guildie (T6, 5/6 sunwell) mage what his Blizzard does per second. His answer was in the 430's which makes our volley VERY comperable AoE with the new scaling and base damage it does.

Edit: On the topic of Explosive shot (and Volley), hunters seem to have 2 unique (currently in beta) mechanics going on. A DoT that can crit per tick (Explosive shot), and the only channeled AoE that can crit per tick/wave (Volley). As i don't play most classes I am not 100% sure I am right on this (but I don't think im wrong).

Of course it's wishful thinking, that's kind of the definition of a "suggestion." People said the same thing about shaman CC, and Ice Block, and improved sap, and innervate ... and look what happened there. People haven't been focusing on the complete lack of trained defenses ever since Camo was datamined and people thought we'd actually see it. Now THAT was some wishful thinking.

Anyway, all it does is cement Marks as the "pvp spec" if for no other reason than it is the only spec that can afford to get Deterrence and Scatter Shot without giving up on the ability to get a 51 point talent. The best a BM spec could do is 49/11/11, and even that would skimp on key talents. Not being able to pvp as BM isn't the end of the world per se, as we've been doing it for several seasons now, but it does raise some eyebrows over the upper tiers of the BM tree.

First, it makes Aspect Mastery doubly underwhelming. The most promising application of the talent is the reduced damage taken in Aspect of the Monkey, as the improvements to Hawk and Viper don't amount to very much. With 11 points required in Marks and Surv for Aimed and Deterrence respectively, it's not possible to max out on the talent whose only purpose seems to be for PvP in the first place. The extra 2% doesn't outweigh the loss of Deterrence or Aimed Shot for PvP utility, and that's just assuming the bare minimum 11 points required to get to Aimed Shot. Limiting yourself to 11 Marks means you lose at least 3 points in lethal shots and skip concussive, or you gamble against crit rating and skip lethal entirely for Improved Concussive and Focused Aim. Either way, you can forget about Careful Aim and Go For the Throat, and a BM build without Go for the Throat borders on sacrilege.

We also would need an answer to the "exotic pets" question. If there's a PvE exotic pet that is remotely as OP as the Raptor and people get it, then when they respec Marks to go PvP, there's the question of whether they have to go out and find a new exotic again. It's not like a warlock who specs out of felguard, since they just get the spell back and all its training as soon as they respec. Unless all exotic pets are max level only to begin with, then hunters are going to have to relevel a pet up to 5 levels whenever they respec unless there's an auto-stabling feature that saves the pet that the hunter cannot use. Then of course there's the issue of what happens if you spec out of Exotics and want to stay that way -- if the pet is auto stabled and unsummonable, how will you get rid of it without a wasteful spec back into Beast Mastery, only to dismiss the pet and then respec?

Explosive Shot isn't a dot, it's an aura, as the Wowhead details demonstrate. This is, so far as I know, new to player spells, so the interaction of crit rates with this form of damage is new territory. We've seen the basic mechanics before, however, such as this version of Overload, used by some of the robots in Karazhan. In particular, this is why the threat generation on ES is funky. As Omen-watchers well know, Overload's damage is recorded as "friendly fire". If my understanding of ES is correct in this context, it should only provide threat for the initial act of applying the aura debuff. The actual damage is likely friendly fire from the mob to itself (and its friends).

Beta testers: If you ES and do nothing else, does the damage tag the mob to you? Is that answer different for mobs in the AE other than what you shot?

EDIT: I suspect this is also the reason why Volley behaves very differently from Blizzard. On their face, they are similar spells, but the spell-detail implementation is totally dissimilar.

Another quick question regarding Explosive shot that i haven't seen addressed yet. Can 2 Explosive Shots be applied to the same target by 2 hunters at the same time? Basically is it like Serpent Sting where its 1 per hunter(no limit to the number on the target) or is it like Scorpid/Viper where its 1 per target (capped at 1 on the target at a time).

Edit: Or, for that matter, can a hunter using Readiness (a prereq for the ability) get 2 Explosive shots up at once on the same target? GCDs would be an issue with this of course but potentially easier to test then finding and coordinating with a second Surv hunter.

I'm not exactly sure how to test the tagging thing (since I don't really have anyone else on to test with right now). I went and rounded up a few mobs with Eyes of the Beast with my pet with proximity aggro and let them beat on it with all its abilities turned off and on passive while I killed the pack with just the Explosive Shot AE and only targeting one mob out of it - I was able to loot every corpse.

That got me looking: Rain of Fire (warlock) and Hurricane (druid) both appear to have the same general mechanics as Volley. I'll have to test whether or not Hurricane can crit with my druid (live, not beta) but I don't have a lock to test RoF with.

That's what I don't understand.. They've addressed so many of our issues yet they refuse give us trainable defense abilities. We've been asking for trainable Scatter Shot for years now. I just don't get it. I feel like they don't listen to us at all sometimes.

Some of the big things that have plagued our class that were/going to be fixed are:
- Mana problems in PvP (fixed many patches ago)
- Mana problems as BM in PvE (fixed in wotlk)
- Pet diversity (potentially fixed in wotlk)

Things that still need to be addressed:
- Marks as a viable raid spec (still not addressed)
- Limited Stable slots
- Some trainable defense/escape mechanism

If you've ever played a hunter in PvP, you know how extremely frustrating it is when you're running a comp that has you as a potential focus target (be it 3v3 or 5v5). There are things you can do to slow the process down. But at best, you're only delaying the inevitable. Camo seemed like a perfect answer to that problem. Yet, they decided not to give it to us and we're back at square one. Nothing has changed really. We're going to be a great PvE class and we're once again going to be in the bottom percentile of arena classes unless something changes.

If rogues can get their TBC 41 point talent as a trainable (Cloak) which has become a staple of rogue defense today, there is absolutely no reason we should not get scatter shot, deterrence, or camo.

Has anyone done any testing in regards to FD? With the new combined hit mechanics does that mean that FD will now have a lower chance to fail since the hit we get on our gear will now also count as spell hit?

Okay, I just tested Explosive Shot with another person to be sure - its AE aura effect onto other mobs *does* tag them to you.

I havn't done any scientific testing, but I havn't had Feign resist yet (and I've been FDing a LOT thanks to the bug where Cower activates itself independently...).

Sean if you wanted to test if more than one explosive shot debuff can be on a target at once just send a whisper to Bynnara. I'd be more than happy to help with that when I get home around 11:00 pm EST.

One small possible problem with that - I'm on the PVP server. Which one are you on?

Exactly. And just to hammer the point, rogues had riposte changed to an attack activated after a parry that does 150% weapon damage and slows attack speed by 20% for 30 seconds. When they lamented the loss of the disarm, here's what they were told:

As near as I can tell, rogues weren't asking for riposte to be made trainable nor on-demand, and they got both. And I'm not going to start on the other changes that seemed not only designed to combat whatever difficulties they have with us now, but which also render the brand new abilities we get ineffective.

Could anybody in the beta test the crab's unique skill?

Here it is: "Pins the target in place, and squeezes for x damage over 6 sec."

The way it reads to me is that it will root the target in place for 6 seconds, doing x damage (depending on rank) over those 6 seconds. Wowhead even lists a (de)buff (here) resulting from it: "Pinned in place. 6 seconds remaining".

Considering it's on a 20 second cooldown, is that not a little bit powerful? Or am I just interpreting the skill incorrectly?

There's a video of it in action, seems to be as you think.

CrabTalentPin.wmv - FileFront.com

Yep. And I vote for Deterrence at the very least, given that it's an actual defense mechanism against multiple sources of focus fire. Scatter Shot is fine and all, but it doesn't help keep you from getting killed. But considering the fact that over time, MULTIPLE talented abilities have become trainable for other classes (rogues have had at least three: Improved Sap, Cloak of Shadows, and now, Riposte/Dismantle), it's not out of the question for more than one to head our way. MM has plenty of talents to go around even if Aimed or Scatter Shot became trainable, and the same is true of Deterrence. And we're playing catch up as far as these things go.

Having a BASE defensive ability makes talents more versatile in that they can be improvements instead of the only routes to success. "Setup" (free combo points when you dodge) works as a lower-tier rogue talent because of a naturally high dodge rate plus the fact that every rogue can boost it with Evasion. It's good synergy. We don't even really have that kind of synergy, except with deterrence and counterattack, and with both of them being talented in the same tree it creates bloat. You need 21 points in SV to take advantage of that synergy (Mongoose Bite doesn't count since it barely does anything. A new rank of this that added an effect is overdue).

That last part brings me to a final point -- would it kill them to jazz up old abilities at higher ranks? Like how at 61 Garrote gets a silence. Adding something to Mongoose Bite to where I actually cared about using it would be peachy.

You're very correct. I look at Hunters clamoring for survivability talents to become innate class timers the same way I looked at Rogues demanding Cloak be a trainable skill, or Arena Mages begging for trained Ice Block: "There must be a valid reason for it, on some level." Sure, you get your fair share of b.net kids complaining about this or that randomly, but I think we can all agree that Blizzard is pretty good at tuning that crap out at this point.

There are many parallels between our begging for a survivability timer and the whole Cloak of Shadows debate, and the only real difference being that we're Hunters. A lot of people seem to have an inordinate amount of hatred for the class as a whole; I'm not exactly sure why, but I won't concern myself with that. Regardless, any suggestion along the lines of throwing Hunters a bone in this regard tends to degenerate into a state even b.net would be ashamed of, and in record time.

You're right, though. It's about time we stood up and started asking for some form of parity with other classes. This class needs basic survivability timer(s), and Blizzard has been at worst ignoring, at best reluctant to recognize, that fact thus far. So if there's going to be change, it has to be through us. I have been submitting suggestions and surveys through the Blizzard beta feedback tool in WoW since I first logged in, and I don't plan to stop until the beta is over.

I just hope they don't think I'm a completely insane nerd. (I'm only half-crazy, dammit.)

Please guys, when listing stuff that went from talents to trained, don't include Cloak of Shadows. It was never intended to be a talent, but Blizzard had a lot of trouble getting Shadowstep to work at the time, and they couldn't very well let Sublety have no 41 pointer. It was always intended to be a trained skill. Of course that doesn't make it any less powerful.