A new Warlords of Draenor alpha build just went up and MMO-C has begun the datamining. We have some tantalizing new hunter changes including the replacement for Flaming Shots in the level 100 talent tier. Here’s a summary of what’s new or changed:
General
- Distracting Shot is back! It was removed previously as part of ability pruning but it seems Blizzard has listened to the feedback. We like our Distracting Shot. 🙂
- Misdirection now redirects threat for 8 seconds, down from 60 minutes. They decided to ditch the 1 hour MD for something else, which we don’t know of yet (it’s not in this build).
- A lot of spells have had their damage reduced (for example, Multi-Shot went from 60% to 30% weapon damage), but this is nothing to be alarmed over. It’s all part of the tuning process.
Level 100 Talents
- Exotic Munitions
- Allows you to modify your ranged weapon to use exotic munitions. Only one exotic munition can be active at one time.
- Incendiary Ammo: Arms your ranged weapon with exotic ammunition that lasts for 60 min. Each autoshot deals 20% additional weapon damage as Fire to all enemies within 8 yards of the initial target.
- Poisoned Ammo: Arms your ranged weapon with exotic ammunition that lasts for 60 min. Each autoshot deals (200% of attack power) additional Nature damage over 16 sec. When this effect is refreshed, the remaining damage will be added to the new effect.
- Frozen Ammo: Arms your ranged weapon with exotic ammunition that lasts for 60 min. Each autoshot deals 40% additional weapon damage as Frost and reduces the target’s movement speed by 50% for 8 sec.
- Allows you to modify your ranged weapon to use exotic munitions. Only one exotic munition can be active at one time.
A little more interesting than the old Flaming Shots, but the same kind of idea — a passive talent which modifies Auto Shot. What could really make this talent cool is if we can swap them on the fly, almost like they were aspects. It appears this is something the designers are still debating.
@Garfurion Undecided. If so, it’ll likely be a 3sec cast or something. Should be something you’re making a significant commitment to.
— Celestalon (@Celestalon) May 22, 2014
Marksmanship
- Rapid Fire is back as a marksmanship-only cooldown.
- As a bonus, Careful Aim now works during Rapid Fire, regardless of the target’s health. That’s a pretty awesome cooldown now.
Survival
- Bear Trap is a new trap for survival spec only. Celestalon previously referred to it as a DPS cooldown. It does quite a bit of damage right now — 1000% of your AP. The 4 min cooldown is effectively reduced to about 2 minutes with Enhanced Traps.
- Place a bear trap that immobilizes the first enemy that approaches for 8 sec and deals (1000% of attack power) bleed damage over 20 sec. Damage from other sources may break the immobilization effect. Trap will exist for 60 sec. Hunter – Survival Spec. Instant. 4 min cooldown.
One of the most burning questions here is whether or not the cooldown starts when you drop the trap or when it activates. If it’s when you drop the trap, I can see progression guilds doing a 60 sec pull timer for the hunters so they can potentially squeeze an extra Bear Trap into the fight.
New Pet Models
Hook Wasps are the new exotic pet family. They bring haste, stamina, and slow fall buffs. They look pretty vicious!
And these would be the new Ravagers from Draenor.
You can click each of those images to see even more colors (images courtesy of MMO-Champion).
As a bonus, check out these crazy boots, Simplyswift Treads. It’s like a Diablo 3 item in WoW. If this seems too good to be true, it’s because they are a temporary item only usable in the PvP zone, Ashran, kind of like this flying staff is only usable there. The boots will probably work something like this.
So, what do you guys think of the new talent? I’ll reserve final judgement til I know exactly how it functions, but it does sound promising. I’m impressed with how awesome Rapid Fire is going to be now that it activates Careful Aim. Extra haste and virtually guaranteed Aimed Shot crits? Yes please.
Really looking forward to the new Exotic Munitions talent, looks similar to some of the current Paladin Seals. I am probably going to abuse that talent to death in Challenge Modes.
Almost couldn’t believe it when I saw Distracting Shot listed as new ability on MMO-C. I’m really happy to get it back.
I hope we’ll be able to switch between Exotic Munitions in combat. If we can’t, the talent looses a lot of appeal. Now all we need is Healing Ammo, Armor Piercing Ammo, Silencing Ammo, ….
Rapid Fire looks very interesting with the Careful Aim change.
Bear Trap looks like a fire-and-forget DPS cooldown. Hopefully it looks better in practice than it does on paper.
i hope the ammos will have some nice animation/glowing/whatever effect aswell!
not sure i understood the Bear Trap “as dps cooldown” at boss fights, its’ a bleeding effect i’ll apply through the trap, right? i always hated to be forced to shoot traps at bosses, and bleeding sounds SO mm to me .. but oh well. i guess more DoTs is a good thing
Bear Trap seems pretty meh. What kind of crazy damage must it do to be worth a 4 minute CD? Particularly if we compare it to Marksman’s new Rapid Fire. The CD on Rapid Fire will probably go up. No more of this one minute stuff we have right now.
The Ammo talent is interesting. I am left with many questions. Which of the ammo is the best flat DPS? Can the poison one spread through Multi-shot? Does the fire AoE hit the main target? Obviously, what is the cost for changing? Too prohibitive and it’s not worth it. Too light and it’s Aspect twisting. Anyway, more intriguing than the old Flaming Shots!
The Wasp and Ravaged models are fantastic! I want that black ravager!
In general Incendiary Ammo should be best for AoE, Poison Ammo should be best for single target, Frozen Ammo will be used in PvP. I think we can expect Frozen Ammo to do less damage than Poison Ammo.
Looking at the new level 100 talents and I’m really excited for this. It reminds me of the original talents they had planned during the MoP beta. As far as the trap CD for Survival…hmm…it doesn’t seem all that great to me, especially since it seems that our traps aren’t responsive at times, or it a boss moves around a lot and ignores the trap. It would be a waste of a dps boost and four minutes.
Marksmanship is looking quite interesting for WoD though. Perhaps I’ll go MM/BM during this expansion. But of course it all boils down to once its live and all the nice theorycrafters determine which specs will be ideal for raiding 🙂
As far as the new models, they are looking really good! I can’t wait to tame some of these new beauties.
Although not quite what he had in mind, it looks like Frostheim got his ammo wish. I really like the new talent. Not so sure about the Hookwasps though. They kind of look like the wasps we have now only with more spikes. I was expecting a spiny dragonfly.
Getting more and more worried about the survival spec.
MM gets a nice 40% haste boost and survival heritate of a skill shot which will be hazardous in movement fight..
Frozen Ammo sounds way over powered for PvP. A perpetual ranged slow that doesn’t use the GCD or even a key press is gonna bring complaints from the other classes. The damage types of the other two seem redundant for Survival, but that isn’t really a big deal.
That said, first level 100 talent I’m excited about!
the ammo seems like a really cool idea, i hope they go with the idea of switching then in combat even with that 3sec cd it at least makes it more useful this way.
I bet Blizz will regret these ridiculous Ashran-only items pretty quickly. I can already hear the litany of complains.