KraxisSingular

Indeed, and I also mentioned Bloodbath. 4 times the damage against Enraged targets.

I don't like the prospects of that. Currently TBW is what keeps me slightly competitive against any Warrior worth his salt. With Bloodbath he would only need to get close to give me a massive debuff (if it is going to work agianst BW/TBW). The level 60 version gives around 500 damage (2000 damage at 60 is nothing to sneeze at), so far it is unknown if it is affected by AP, but I assume it will be.If we take Arcane Shot to be a fair representation of the advance on damage, then the lvl 80 version will be around 2.5 times more powerful, that's 5000 damage on Enraged targets for a cheap trained spamable ability. And add in Trauma that adds 30% damage to bleeds on crits and we are talking 6500 damage. It looks to be directly stupid to engage TBW if there is a Warrior and it will work against that.
Now some might comment that we do in fact not know if it will affect us, but until we know it is just as reasonable to assume it will as it won't.

Yes speccing MM will help of course. But that doesn't make it any less silly that our deep talents are suddenly rendered practically damaging to us if there are Warriors. And Bloodbath doesn't even need to be targeted, it is an AoE like TC. I don't mind that BM shouldn't be the main PvP tree, that is ok, let the PvP tree get the utility for PVP. But at least don't make my spec defining abilities problematic like this. There are PvP servers, and they have raiders too. Don't take away the main tool the tree has. I don't know if there are other abilities than perhaps Berserk that can be damaging to have, while really supposed to be a benefit.

Feral Druids are in the same boat of course. Even worse since their's is 5 mins. Though the tooltip for it doesn't state Enrage. So it might in fact be safe from both Bloodbath and Tranq. Time will tell on that one though.

 

WarTotem

Well specificly I tried looking for the part where both the ability and the tooltip say "Enraged"
I used a decent amount of common sense though. except for zerk rage, which I haven't seen any test about just yet, almost all enrage/frenzy mechanics have the intention of boosting dmg/attack rate without any cost. Bloodrage, Deathwish & Rampage all have requirements or costs attached to them. Berserker Rage is something in between as it is only an indirect dmg buff, so awaiting tests on that.

As for the magic buffs go, I kind of included abilities with indirect triggers or procs as well. I'll edit my postto better wording.
Complete list:
Druid: Nature's Swiftness idd
Mage: Ice Barrier
Paladin: Divine Illumination
Priest: Power Infusion and Inner Focus.
Shaman: Eye of the Storm, Elemental Focus, Elemental Mastery, NS, Mana Tide Totem and Ancestral Fortitude. can't remember what the 7th was, possibly Healing Way because it's a pain to lose
Warlock: Fel Domination.

I didn't include PoM (or AP) since I have found most Mages in my bracket (1500-1700, don't blame me, I'm Surv!!) to be Frost and those that indeed spec it, will consume it as fast as they can. Although felpuppies still beat instant cast macros

Personally I think they did another bandaid fix to Arcane shot dispel/dmg combo (although I still think that Mages need a 6s cooldown on spellsteal). Right now I see the most use for Tranq as either dispel with an anti-BM hunter bonus for PvP and a possible insane raid-utility tool for all bosses with hard enrages in PvE. Although one might assume Blizzard will change boss enrages to Berserk effects once they figure that one out :P


@Sapa:
Stings to pet commands could be a nice day, although they should make it physical imo, as your shots have a way faster travel time then pets. But I disagree on the usefulness of pets in raids. We'll just have to see how it goes, but atm they're surely to be nice DPS bonuses in raids.

PS: You might wonna refrain from cutting up quotes, admins tend to dislike that.

Edit: @Kraxis:
Berserk is a berserk ability as far as we know, so Druids are not effected by it (tell me if you have proof otherwise)
And your math about Bloodbath is wrong. The 4x damage only counts for the bleed effect, so that would be 250dmg + 1000 over 15 seconds. So that would become ~3000 & ~4000 on those numbers of yours, assuming that the Warrior can actually land the ability within 3 seconds of you popping BW (and get a white crit in before the first tick). It's indeed nothing to be sneezed at though, but then again, the entire Hunter WLK change seems to be made by devs that know Hunters from playing against them in PvP rather then play the char itself.

 

Sapa

It means that:

41/20/0, 20/41/0 and 7/20/33 and 0/20/41 all will with proper gear and same raid buffs/debufs do same dps if they all use pet in same manner on most of fights. And that's about 3000 dps max on Brutalus for instance. And how much of pet management is that? Send pet. 1 click or Crtl+Y for me. From here on its just consumable usage timing and shot rotation with mind on few CDs available. (rapid/tbw/readiness) Actually SV does ~100ish dps less than MM or BM but more than compensates with ~280AP EW.

Maybe that Turtle thing gave you impression that I keep pet next to me witch is not the case, I'm used to manage pet since I played allot with BM even pre-TBC when pets were instagibed by almost anything. There is probably few hunters that went on Twin Emperors as BM and didn't make fools from themselves based from dps meters(before naxx and so before wotlk talents).

EDIT:
Pets will be less of annoyance to casters now. Source:Wryxian -> build 8770

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...jerks/Sapa.png

 

Serpent's Choice

I read this to be referring to the state on Live, not Beta. If that is what was intended, then claims that 20/41/0 can output ~3000 dps against Brutallus in the current environment should probably include a link to a supporting WWS, as such claims are in opposition to the general consensus of this community on several grounds. If this refers to Beta, well ... that probably needs equivalent evidence. Pet jousting and consumables use does not make all specs become equal (or produce 3000 dps), and WotLK seems exceedingly unlikely to change that.

 

Equalizer

Yeah I'm really not seeing how a pet with 20% more haste does the same damage as a MM or especially Survival pet.

 

Blacksen

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Hunter -> Talent Calculator


Honestly seems to be what I think will be an overpowered build, assuming that auto-shots stay as a main form of DPS:
Agility:
- 15% Agility from Lightning Reflexes
- 2% More Agility from Combat Experience
Raw Damage:
- 5% More Damage from Ranged Weapon Specialization
- 5% More Damage from Improved Tracking
Armor Penetration:
- 6% Armor Penetration from Piercing Shots
Hit:
- 3% Hit from Surefooted
Ranged Attack Power:
- +Attack Power from Trueshot Aura and Careful Aim
- 10% Ranged Attack Power from Master Marksman
- 4% More Attack Power from Survival Instincts
Crit:
- 3% Chance to Crit from Killer Instinct
- 5% Chance to Crit from Lethal Shots.

Total:
17% more agility, 10% more damage, 6% armor pen, 3% hit, 14% attack power, a bit of raw attack power, and 8% crit.

 

TrevvyTrev

Seems a lot of the abilities you listed don't even meet the criteria you set. We know Tranq will work on Hunger for Blood because the designers told us, but that doesn't say enrage in both the ability and the tooltip. You have the druid bear form enrage listed as something that will be dispelled, but that doesn't increase attack rate/damage, and even still, it has a cost. Plus, there are things that don't count for what their tooltip implies. For example, Tranq Shot clearly works on frenzies, even right now on Live. Heck, right now it ONLY works on frenzies. The BM pet talent is called "Frenzy," the buff it gives is called "Frenzy," and it is an attack speed increase, yet despite all that, Tranq Shot doesn't dispel it. It's possible that could change in the xpac (anything could) but the designers have given no indication that they were going to change the current definition of a "dispellable frenzy," just that they were adding new ones (owlkin), and adding enrages (whatever those are) and magic effects to the things that Tranq removes. The only way to get real answers is to use it on different things on beta.

As for the magic effects, I addressed why indirect triggers and procs shouldn't be included, because they can be reapplied right after you put them up, which means they aren't "long CD" abilities. That goes for some of the other abilities too, like ice barrier (30 sec. CD). The argument has never been that talents shouldn't be dispellable, nor even that 41+ talents shouldn't be (like earth shield). The argument is that it's a little too painful for abilities that both cost 41+ points AND have long CDs to be dispelled by trainable abilities with short cooldowns. Plus, it's worth noting that almost all of the classes with dispellable magic talents have talents that give them dispel resistance, among other things. Not so for hunters.

It just seems crazy that Scare Beast was never made instant because it was deemed to impact feral druids too much (one spec, mind you), and that was a 30 sec CD ability that they could resist, be warded against by a priest/shaman, or trinket out of. And there's no CD on being a cat or bear. But on the other hand, it's supposed to be okay for hunters to have a 15 CD ability that cannot be trinketed or otherwise protected against by one spec ... and that spec is another hunter spec??

 

Suspiria

Spec 51/51/51?

Btw, anyone know what's happen with the 20% extra crit chance for KC from FF? There will be a change for that talent or leave it with a simply "damage increase while your pet is active"?

 

Sapa

I'm not talking about pet alone. Hunter+Pet. It's clear that BM pet does 2x dps of SV one.

Sorry if I failed to explain this. (It's 24h here and I'm still at work... debugging... ZzzZzz)

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...jerks/Sapa.png

 

Catalept

The ability of hunters to push out ridiculous DPS when given chain-heroisms, for instance, is largely because our DPS is not threat-capped, and about 2/3rds of our DPS (auto shot and pet) isn't even GCD capped... therefore we scale extremely well with haste (buffs). However, IMO, discussions about 'max DPS in ideal circumstances' is somewhat spurious. One of Blizzard's central design-philosophies in WLK seems to be to reduce the gap between 'stacked' raids and 'cobbled-together' ones...

I believe you may be arguing across-purposes, though. I don't think many people would object to the idea of being a serious threat in melee range... but so far, Blizzard's execution has been lacklustre. If done correctly, making it a risky proposition to get in a hunter's face is fine. However, Blizzard has to make things a little more coherent than they are at the moment. After all the tuning, if our best bet is still to spam Imp Wing Clip and hope for a proc, then all those buffs are just so much window dressing.

 

WarTotem

Hunger For Blood talent tooltip:
As for Frenzy, last time I tried it (somewhere around 2.1 patch I think), it did dispel Frenzy, but the problem being it's back on so fast it's completely useless to remove. Regardless, if you ever Tranq a Hunter pet, it's not to remove any Frenzies, so that doesn't seem to be a big problem.
I did include talents that did not fall under the cooldown rule just because I didn't want to make a 5 page essay over how exactly to consider usefulness of talents. For example, Ice Barrier is only 30s CD, but is the only resistance against pushback atm. A mage trying to cast polymorph with a pet on his ass will find this ability worth as much as BW at that moment really.

But you are right about the testing part, I'll change the list to reflect the lack of WLK test data/confirmations.

Scare Beast also worked against Ghost Wolf, which was pretty unfair since Shamans had no way to counter it and already lacked enough anti-CC. The problem in this case being the strongest and (generally considered) weakest Arena healers both having a beast transform spell. You can see the major dilemma here between instant or cast time. But hey, atleast it got a shorter cast AND improved range compared to earlier.

And you are wrong in the way that BM is weak against other specs, it is weaker against other hunters. Like I said before, if it's BM vs BM, the best player will get the most out of BW. IF it's BM vs MM, well if that fact alone severly gimps BM in Arena, it is enough of an indication of how bad the Hunter design is, as if the designer gets his knowledge from PvPing against Hunters rather then with a Hunter char itself. (**cough** certain dev with PvP Warrior **cough**)
"Positive" side-note: You can only dispel either pet or hunter. so either you save someone from a big red pet, or from a big red hunter, but never both.

I think we both said what we can about this now, let's wait and see how exactly it will work out first.

 

Steelfleece

I should note that Enrages and Frenzies now have a specific label on the buff, where it would say "Magic" or "Disease" or whatever kind the buff was. I confirmed this with several warrior abilities, including Death Wish.

Last I checked, The Beast Within at least was not labled an "Enrage" in this manner, though I may have not have checked Bestial Wrath.

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

• Playered

How things will stand in WoTLK regarding these effects in a PvE mannerism, nailing some clarification from the class devs on the player based abilities of similar names would be useful though.

Bloodbath et all vs reduced tank damage will be interesting to watch pan out at least.

 

KraxisSingular

Technically the Warrior just needs to crit 15 seconds ahead of application of Bloodbath. It doesn't appear to be a one shot buff to a bleed but more like a damage aura like Focused Fire. And Bloodbath is itself spamable, so I woudln't think it would be too hard to use.
The likely situation is the Hunter popping BW as fast a possible to get some value out of it before it dies. Warrior quickly applies Bloodbath to pet and Intercepts Hunter and applies Bloodbath there too. Then the Warrior can return to kill the now quickly depleting pet. Should end up as a mug 'o hurt for the Hunter involved. Seems rather impossibly easy.

But maybe TBW isn't an enrage, which is nice I guess. But that still leaves our pet even easier to focus down, especially in light of the devs stated intentions. Clearly pets are not wanted in PvP.

 

zápdos

Hi, i'm not really that much of a poster but i read the forums a lot.

Anyway i was lucky enough to get an invite to the beta and have been messing around with it as much as i can.

After doing a lot of testing with a healer friend a thought it'd be cool to post some stuff up as much first post

Firstly i'm just saying that i havn't noticed if anyone has already said anything im putting here, so i apologize in advance if im repeating stuff thats already done.

**ALL OF THESE WERE TESTED AT LEVEL 71, SO THEY WILL OBVIOUSLY NOT BE FINAL - gear is mostly BT/MH/Badge gear**

Rather than a load of statistics i'll put what i can into explanation, since it gives a better idea of whats happening.

Firstly, please note that i'm using steady shot rank 2, and even though it's mana is doubled, the increase in damage was significant and the mana return was plenty to keep me going for the minute i tested. Also, steady shot NO LONGER CLIPS AUTOSHOT, so the rotation was naturally very different. In addition, I tried to keep all rotation legit (ie not using any exploits like the 12k crit with serpant sting).

/////
BM
/////

Average 1.5k dps (Single target)
Average 1.7k dps (Dr Boom with multishot when it's ready)

The DPS spec continues to prove its name. The damage that can be done by a pet (in this case a ravager [cunning]) continues to play a large percentage of the damage done. I tesed it with a cat/raptor elite from netherstorm but the ravager continues to out dps. The speed increase is significant, however now that steadyshot no longer clips autos, the advantage BM had over SV/MM is not as significant. The 10% increases damage by ferocity is what makes their class of pet really viable, but not enough to put cunning to shame.

More talking about the hunter side of things rather than the pet, their are a few things that will really make BM even more used - namely the masters call for PvP, which will hopefully give hunters a high demand. When used with a macro to target self it can really save lives. PvE wise there isnt that much advantage of new abilities. Think of it as the Pet has been improved, and the hunter has stayed the same.

/////
MM
/////

Average 1.4k (Single target)
Average 1.8k (Dr Boom with multishot when it's ready)
MM in my opinion continues to be the BM rival in PvP. Back with more damage, bigger crits and a nicer feel to the spec - i can see more people starting to turn to MM for low end instances. Wild quiver procs far more often than i'd expected, and gives a nice DPS boost when it does. Although i still can't see it being used at level 80 in raids, their is no advantage to the raid other than trueshot aura, and even then its not that great compared to expose weakness.

The advantage of MM will likely increase at level 80, i can't say for sure, but the single target DPS could out dps BM with the right execution, especially with marked for death and a high crit chance.

/////
SV
/////

Auto > Explosive shot > Steady x 2[autoshots wave in themselves] Explosive shot > Steady x 2 etc etc etc

Average 2.1k (Single target)
Average 4.3k (Dr Boom, This could have been improved by replacing one steady with a multishot, but thats just a brief idea of what you can do with it)

SV, my favourite spec with ease in WOTLK. The DPS potential is just great, especially the + 30yards bonus. There's little to say about the spec, its perfect in every way. I've done all 3 new low level instances in SV, BM and MM. And SV tops out the charts, gives a great return via hunting party and feels great. Having readiness is always a plus for boss fights, and even better so for WOTLK, seeing as explosive shot is so vital, especially in azgul, so having a spare FD is always handy.

I can easily say it will be the new Raid spec - not only finally having another class to give mana returns to the raid, but also returning rage, energy and runic power will be wanted by all raids. In addition, if you have say 3 hunters, that's a huge return. Healers already have no problem keeping healing going forever, but now tanks especially will have no problem holding aggro.

-----------

I can see how biased this looks towards SV. But im a BM hunter in BC, i've used SV a few times and didnt like the personal dps, but loved the aspects of the spec. Now they've given them one of the best moves. An AOE dot that crits so often, has a short CD and is easy to weave in.


If you've got any questions, feel free to ask me hope this helps your apetites

 

KraxisSingular

Too bad that the effects that benefits us are generally much closer to the target than Sniper Training allows us. For instance, the DK talent Abomination's Might (10% AP to all, including Ranged this time) is only 20 yards (yay Blizz, way to go). However you twist that, it means that you have to get closer, until possibly the target is below 30%. And totems are far from certain to being able ot reach you. 30 yards on them means you can get it and still benefit from Sniper Training, but your mobility is severely depleted as you will be standing on the edge (you have to be right behind the Shaman). Moving means the loss of one or the other.

And the numbers you put forth clearly indicate that Survival will se a nerf, prolly to Explosive Shot, my favourite new skill.

 

Trogdor

This isn't as much of an issue as you might think. Taking benefit of all buffs requires a little bit of communication and finesse. The DK is not going to stand directly on a boss. They're going to be in melee range of the boss's hitbox, and slight position adjustments can compensate for the 20yd range.

If there is a request made upon group/raid member that would benefit the bottom-line success of the group/raid, and if that person refuses to try.. they're quite unlikely to keep their position for very long. Any raid member that isn't on board to work towards the best possibility of success in combination with the rest of the players doesn't deserve their spot if some other class wants to step up to the plate and deliver 100%.

As it is now, not every single combination is possible in every single boss encounter. I expect the same of WotLK. There will be times when buffs overlap and benefit, and there will be other times where it's either difficult or not practical, given the nature of the encounter. That's the way it is.

Lamenting losses before everything is set in stone, especially without equal consideration for positive possibilities, is called laziness. Not trying to be judgmental, but there is more than enough sentiment floating around and it does nothing to focus on the success possibilities, which is far more important.

 

TrevvyTrev

Just a couple of quick things, since I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying a bit. Regarding Hunger for Blood, you seemed to say that you chose abilities that used "enrage" in *both* the ability and the tooltip, not *either* the ability or the tooltip. Hunger for Blood uses the word enrage in the tooltip, but not anywhere else. Plus, it was one of the examples given to us when the designers explained the pending changes, so we don't actually have to do any detective work on that one. I'm really only saying that the pattern isn't consistent enough to be a valuable predictor as to any of the other abilities that Blizzard didn't mention by name.

As for scare beast and ghost wolf, if Blizzard didn't want shamans to be susceptible to beast-related abilities in ghost wolf form, then they didn't have to make them beasts. That would have solved the problem pretty easily without nerfing scare beast's usefulness against actual beasts. Anyway, when I said that feral druids were the reason for the reverted scare beast change, that's because that's what the blues said:

Source: Vaneras on the EU official forums

So a change got reverted not because it was too powerful against a multiple classes, or even one class. It got reverted because it was too powerful against ONE spec of one class. That is how I feel about Tranquilizing Shot *if* it worked on Bestial Wrath. It is an ability that all hunters get (like instant scare beast was) that is overly powerful against a particular spec -- in this case, BM hunters. If Blizzard is willing to reconsider a change because of a disparate impact on a druid spec, then it can do the same for proposed changes that would unduly burden a hunter spec too. That's all I was getting at.

But of course, none of that detracts from my original point (which I think we see eye to eye on), which is that none of this is worth getting worked up over until we can actually test what gets dispelled and what doesn't.

 

Steelfleece

As of current, neither Bestial Wrath nor The Beast Within are enrages or frenzies, so I presume they cannot be removed with Tranquilizing Shot.

For example,

Death Wish: Death Wish - Thottbot: World of Warcraft (Dispel Type: Enrage)
Warrior Enrage: Enrage - Thottbot: World of Warcraft (Dispel Type: Enrage)
Demonic Empowerment: Demonic Empowerment - Thottbot: World of Warcraft (Dispel Type: Enrage)

Bestial Wrath: Bestial Wrath - Thottbot: World of Warcraft (Dispel Type: None)
The Beast Within: The Beast Within - Thottbot: World of Warcraft (Dispel Type: None)

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Chul

Another blue post on focus costs:

Having our high cost abilities use no focus, and only managed via cooldowns is an excellent change.

 

Varelse

Agreed. It's a nice idea to implement more micro management, but there's not really any logical or feasable method for us to quickly and actively switch off autocast abilities. Managing the cooldowns effectively will be quite enough.

One thing that might help with the new influx of buttons and abilities we have would be to add more options to the pet bar itself. For example, I don't often use the Aggressive pet stance, or defensive for that matter. Having them in the pet spellbook, and thus removable from the pet bar would free up additional space for the new longer cooldown specials. Pet Attack can and passive can be macro-ed, leaving stay and follow on the bars.

Failing that, a larger pet bar.

But as some have already said, an Aspect Bar in the default UI would free up to seven buttons. That and more options with the pet bar would be simple and easy fixes that take baby steps in the right direction.

 

Terp

After some mind-bogglingly obnoxious arena matches yesterday I must say I am all aboard the GCD lowering bandwagon. Scatter into freeze trap taking 3.5 seconds is simply ridiculous considering how quick response both shift into charge and dropping grounding is. The truth is I wouldn't have even thought of gcd being an issue if it hadn't been brought up in here. Yet the issue is frustratingly explicit once you see it.

 

KnThrak

Isn't it only Rogues which have a reduced GCD of 1 second, and as of 2.4.2 Shammies but only on their totems?
Everyone else is based on a 1.5s GCD, right?

SQUEAK.
-- (The Death of Rats, Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

 

sjogren

Cat form druids have 1s gcd too, and casters get the option of lowering theirs with spell haste.

 

WarTotem

@Playered:
Can you give me a link to that blue post please? [E]Nvm, found it already: Daeno's Enrage/Frenzy/Berserk post


Thank you for that link Steelfleece. I'm used to Wowhead, which doesn't have an Enrage Dispel class atm. I'll keep an eye on the upcoming Frenzy/Enrage changes on Tranq Shot and update my post a few pages back accordingly. I just hope that if they remove Frenzy they atleast give us a shorter CD. That and make tooltips more clear about which type of effect you get.

Trev, Shamans, Feral Druids, both of them are severly weaker in Arena then Restokin Druids, point stands, but according to the Thottbot data Steelfleece linked BW should not be dispellable anyway.

I'll put a post on later tonight about the usefulness of the 6% dmg part of Sniper Training vs getting 'melee' buffs.


[E] Beta tester question: Does anyone know if the 2-hit limit on caster pushback also works for Aimed/Steady Shot? And maybe verify Volley & Mend Pet, although I belief they are currently classed as spells.