WoD Beta 18764: Hunter number tuning, round 2

Updated with a Thrill of the Hunt change coming in a future build (bottom of post).

Not much to report regarding hunters in this build, just some small number tuning and a few other tidbits.

• Arcane Shot (BM/SV) now deals 100% weapon damage (down from 114%)
• Aimed Shot (MM) now deals 350% weapon damage (down from 385%)
• Explosive Shot (SV) now deals 42% attack power damage per tick (down from 46%)
• Serpent Sting (SV) now deals 175% attack power damage over 15 sec (down from 225%)
• Cobra Strikes (BM) now has a 20% chance per Arcane Shot to grant 1 charge of Cobra Strikes, causing your pet’s next basic attack to crit (Old: 15% chance to grant 2 charges)
• Enhanced Basic Attacks (BM perk) now has a 15% chance to reset the basic attack cooldown and make the next one free (down from 20%)

While it is nerfs across the board, something to keep in mind when it comes to beta number tuning…

PSA: Reminder… It’s very hard to have perspective of where your spec’s performance compares to others on beta. You may be overpowered…

— Celestalon (@Celestalon) August 21, 2014

…and not realize it. So please don’t be upset by nerfs (or buffs). The goal is equal performance for everyone. Nerfs are not a bad thing. — Celestalon (@Celestalon) August 21, 2014

The basic attack nerfs don’t surprise me. Basic attacks are doing a lot of damage right now (percent wise), especially with that perk and Adaptation. They might be trying to reduce the overall percentage of passive pet damage. There is no compensation in hunter DPS, but they’re probably trying to bring all classes down to a certain level.

Still no news about mechanic changes, but at least we got Celestalon to play Marksmanship in today’s “Play with the Blues” event on beta. There was a straw poll for what spec he should play, and MM won by a landslide. Elemental Shaman was in second place (but like 400+ votes behind). I think a lot of us are (foolishly) hoping he’ll have some kind of revelation and say “hmm, you’re right, MM is missing something.” 😉

Other huntery stuff

• Disengage now has a “whoosh!” sound effect. Makes sense. It is one of the best abilities in all of WoW after all.
• Tier 17 has been named Rylakstalker.
• BM 2-piece T17: Kill Command has a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of Bestial Wrath. The number has been removed from the tooltip. RPPM perhaps?
• No new pet stuff that I can see yet.

Will update the post if I catch anything else.

Update: Thrill of the Hunt changes coming

Thrill of the Hunt is being changed to scale the proc chance based on the focus spent.

@NeoflameTheSexy @Artemishowl …feel of it. Proc chance is changing to [0.6*FocusSpent] %. Also fixed to work on ExS.

— Celestalon (@Celestalon) August 22, 2014

Right now, Thrill of the Hunt has a 20% chance to proc. With these upcoming changes, it would look like this:

• Aimed Shot = 30%
• Multi-Shot and Kill Command = 24%
• Chimaera Shot = 21%
• Arcane Shot = 18%
• Explosive Shot and Glaive Toss = 9%

This is a good change in my opinion. It balances out the talent nicely. The only question is, does it calculate off the base cost or the modified cost? If it’s the modified cost, then Marksmanship Multi-Shots would have a 0% chance to proc while both Bombardment and Thrill of the Hunt are up. If that’s the case, Bombardment needs a buff to compensate for that since right now MM relies on spamming to do any meaningful AoE. That spamming is only achieved through streaks of free Multi-Shots.

This should be in a future build. It’ll be interesting to test out.

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