I kinda see them adding a passive bonus thing that will sit in our spell book for the 15% haste and it will change on level.. so the level 1's don't get the 15% of the start. Why do you ask? Well because while I haven't seen anyone say or notice.. the ammo change doesn't affect just hunters. While yes, hunters will by far get the most out of this change, other classes can use ranged weapons too and I'm sure 99% of them never had a quiver before so it'd be a bit unfair for them to get 15% ranged attack speed now.
Our most appealing 3.1 change most likely won't be a DPS increase and also affects others classes.
Edit - unless they make cheapo ammo that's available for all classes and then good "purple" ammo for hunter's with a 15% haste on it.
I kinda see them adding a passive bonus thing that will sit in our spell book for the 15% haste and it will change on level.. so the level 1's don't get the 15% of the start. Why do you ask? Well because while I haven't seen anyone say or notice.. the ammo change doesn't affect just hunters. While yes, hunters will by far get the most out of this change, other classes can use ranged weapons too and I'm sure 99% of them never had a quiver before so it'd be a bit unfair for them to get 15% ranged attack speed now.
Our most appealing 3.1 change most likely won't be a DPS increase and also affects others classes.
Edit - unless they make cheapo ammo that's available for all classes and then good "purple" ammo for hunter's with a 15% haste on it.
I'm fairly certain a warrior shooting a bow 15% faster isn't game breaking.
according to mmo-champ, they'll nerf the over-nerf to bm by giving back the old kindred spirits and serpent's swiftness, with the explosive shot nerf and new beast mastery, it seems bm's dps will get close to survival's.
And here are the 3.0.9 changes (unconfirmed but soon to be live), right from MMO champion:
Hunter (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
Pets
Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
Guess they do want to bring a lil' bit more equality among the specs.
Reports are it went from *0.18 to *0.14; or from 18% to 14%
I believe it was brought down to 14%, down from 16%. The 18% they had it at on the PTR was too powerful, causing Blizzard to tweak it down to 16% for the patch 3.0.8 release.
I am guessing that our Ammo slot in our paper doll will change to a quiver/ammo pouch slot. We'll have items like our current quivers that are not bags, but items that we can equip similar to relics, idols, and librams. The stats will be a combination to the 15% haste and the DPS of the top arrows/bullets at that level.
I'm curious to find out what actually will happen to the ammunition stacks we already have once the patch is live. Will they just be vendor trash? Will they increase the value of existing arrows to a few gold per stack to make up for all the gold we've spent over the years on arrows? Unlikely.
I am guessing that our Ammo slot in our paper doll will change to a quiver/ammo pouch slot. We'll have items like our current quivers that are not bags, but items that we can equip similar to relics, idols, and librams. The stats will be a combination to the 15% haste and the DPS of the top arrows/bullets at that level.
Lets just hope the drop rate for the best "ammo" isn't as awful as some of the other range slot items for other classes. That oblit sigil never seems to drop for our DKs.
I am guessing that our Ammo slot in our paper doll will change to a quiver/ammo pouch slot. We'll have items like our current quivers that are not bags, but items that we can equip similar to relics, idols, and librams. The stats will be a combination to the 15% haste and the DPS of the top arrows/bullets at that level.
I would think the change will be somewhere along these lines. However, I wouldn't put it past Blizz to also expand upon ammo selection to include more granular buffs/stats for each new 'neverending stack'. I.E. they'd add ammo that would have specific magic school bonuses (Fire, Frost, Arcane, etc.) and/or other effects. The net result - we may not need a dedicated quiver for ammo anymore, but you might wind up carrying 10 different 'types' of ammo based on what effects you wanted to apply with it in different scenarios. Think of ammo as 'runes' or 'gems' for your ranged weapon.
Not only would you start to have different haste/DPS effects from different types of ammo, but different effective DPS and stats depeding on boss battles or buffs you're targets have. Ultimately - this could actually make theorycrafting for hunters much more demanding than it already is vs. just be a way for Blizz to free up a bag slot for us.
Personally, I think that could be a cool addition to the class, but most would probably think it much more effort than it's worth.
It isn't but there's no reason to give other classes something that belonged to hunters now just because they are changing the mechanics.
Quiver haste has changed somewhat since Vanilla. It used to represent a gradual increase in DPS, culminating in (moderately) hard to get 15% quivers. However, it stays at 15% all the way from level 60 to level 80, so it seems clear that Blizzard has no intention of delivering any more hunter DPS upgrades via faster quivers. Moreover, now that clipping is history, there's no need to fine-tune our weapon speed, so a variety of hasted ammo isn't needed.
It wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard gave us a passive trainable +15% haste ability at level 20 or so, and left it at that. Certainly, having x different ammo types all with "+15% haste" on them seems redundant.
Quiver haste has changed somewhat since Vanilla. It used to represent a gradual increase in DPS, culminating in (moderately) hard to get 15% quivers. However, it stays at 15% all the way from level 60 to level 80, so it seems clear that Blizzard has no intention of delivering any more hunter DPS upgrades via faster quivers. Moreover, now that clipping is history, there's no need to fine-tune our weapon speed, so a variety of hasted ammo isn't needed.
It wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard gave us a passive trainable +15% haste ability at level 20 or so, and left it at that. Certainly, having x different ammo types all with "+15% haste" on them seems redundant.
Well with the current ammo mechanics they also can't increase the haste on quivers, because:
a. it would increase ammo consumption even further than the already obscene levels - going from ~5 arrows per 10s at 60 to ~10 per 10s at 70 to probably slightly more than 10 at 80 as BM already means carrying too many arrows to be comfortable
b. (less important) it'd increase the value of every old and new item a hunter can wear, likely pushing stat balancing between classes further out of whack
Assuming the new ammo doesn't have some consumable nature to it (e.g. durability like thrown weapons), they can ignore a. and provide increased passive haste, but b. is still a concern.
As ranged weapons already have a durability component (who hasn't had to repair after volleying trash all night), putting a durability component on the new ammo as well feels like double-dipping.
I am really interested in seeing how these changes come about. Curious about what exactly they are going to do with quivers. I was thinking maybe, since we only need one arrow/bullet of any given type now, that quivers, (and their recipes for leatherworkers) might be changed into some kind of "arrow enchant". It would be pretty crappy, though not unheard of, for them to remove them completely, or just make them totally useless, for the people who grinded rep to get those recipes. I know a couple people who went for certain reps first just for those.
I also hope they add some new rep, or at least level 80 ammo for 3.1 - Since LK released the best we could get was engineered, which was a first. If they had made a vendor version even remotely close we would not have had to farm every raid, so at least that will be going away.
As ranged weapons already have a durability component (who hasn't had to repair after volleying trash all night), putting a durability component on the new ammo as well feels like double-dipping.
It wouldn't be durability though (doesn't get lost on death), it's cost of ammunition (only gets used when shots are fired).
All depends on how literally blizzard means "getting rid of consumable ammunition."
Not all the ammo changes will make 3.1, but we will still lose the quivers.
In our 3.1.0 class updates post, we had announced plans to remove consumable ammunition from the game upon the release of the next major content patch. Our original plans were to change ammunition so that hunters would no longer need to utilize bag space, while adding some new functionality that would continue to make ammunition a compelling element of gameplay. Unfortunately, this intended change will not be completely ready in time for patch 3.1.0.
We still fully intend to move forward with this change when the additional functionality becomes available, and for 3.1.0 we still intend to remove the need for pouches/quivers by greatly increasing the stack sizes on arrows and bullets, and the haste bonus from the bags will be preserved in another fashion. We’ll be sure to inform our players with further updates once they become available.
While our ammo will still be less of a hassle in terms of bag space it seems we will not be getting the additional utility that we were all hoping for. Correct me if I am wrong but didn't GC say that the ammo changes would affect our DPS hence why they would have to balance us once again for 3.1?
I think this also leads to 3.1 being closer then we may have thought.
Last edited by tarus : 02/10/09 at 12:33 PM.
Reason: Post contained same information as post above
•Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
A very much long awaited change to hunter consumables. Considering what they have done with BOA items being able to level with your alts, I think we might see a similar mechanic with ammunition and it's damage/haste, i.e., ammo that grows with your level or gear level.
•A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
The great unknown right now. Just what will these talents be and how will they boost BM dps. I am hoping that Blizzard has finally listened and will give 51pt Beast Mastery hunters a OVERALL pet dps boost instead of just exotics to make it a more worthwhile commitment to being a BM hunter as well as the additional talent tiers.
•Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
No comment.
•Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
I am wondering how this would stack with other bleed effects and of course with a cat using the now diminished Rake effect. I am thinking DoTs upon DoTs would not be a bad thing for a MM hunter specifically when buffed with Mangle.
•Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
I am hoping that this is the beginning of the end for the abortion I consider "Trap Dancing".
•We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.