All posts by bendak

Hunter News, Opinion

More number tuning for hunters, and it seems pretty reasonable

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Blizzard just posted some new class tuning hotfixes which should go live soon. Even though most of this is nerfs, I have to say these are reasonable changes based on where we stood after the last round of buffs we received. Combined with the changes to other classes, we were doing quite well at level 100 (at least Beast Mastery and Marksmanship).

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

• Adaptation now increases Combat Experience’s damage increase to 70% (down from 85%).
• Chimaera Shot’s damage has been reduced by 13%.
• Focusing Shot now has a 2.5 second cast time (down from 3 seconds), and its damage has been increased by 25%.
• Kill Command’s damage has been increased by 20%.

I can’t help but feel like these Focusing Shot changes are Blizzard’s somewhat desperate attempt to get people to actually take the talent. I’m sure there’s some hunters out there chomping at the bit for it. However, the problem for me (and many other hunters) is that it’s just not worth the hassle. It can definitely do competitive DPS with the other level 100 talents, but it comes with a severe handicap. These changes certainly help, but it’s still not something I’m really interested in. The extra damage is miniscule in the grand scheme of things, although the faster cast time is nice. For me, Focusing Shot looked really good on paper, but in practice it just flunked out.

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the Week: Druids in Travel Form

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Blizzard finally gave into our demands and made druids tameable. The catch is you can only tame them in their travel form. So if you were hoping for a kitty or bear druid, you’re out of luck (for now). A druid in travel form is part of the Stag family once tamed and brings the versatility raid buff with Grace.

Druids are not exotic, so no need to worry about that. The trick is just catching one in travel form who won’t notice your Tame Beast channeling. AFK druids work best. I wouldn’t recommend taming one of your friends or guildies, since you may lose them as a friend once they can no longer control their druid.

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Hunting Party Podcast

Hunting Party Podcast Episode 203: Meet Dillypoo

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This week the HPP interviews a high-rated PvP hunter, Dillypoo. You may have seen him playing one of his hunters recently at the World of Warcraft North America Regionals arena tournament in New York. He discusses his history as a PvP hunter, how hunters are looking for PvP in Warlords, and even gives some tips for getting started in PvP. After the interview we get into the latest round of hunter hotfix buffs and answer listener questions.

I unfortunately had to miss this week’s episode, but that’s one of the benefits of having a large number of hosts. Even if some of us are busy, the show can still go on!

If you want more from Dillypoo, you can follow him on Twitter and Twitch.tv.

The show is broadcast live on Twitch TV every second Sunday at 10:00 am ET (14:00 GMT). In addition to the live show you can find it at,

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Hunter Guides

Managing Sniper Training with WeakAuras

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It’s unfortunate that Sniper Training doesn’t have some sort of built-in graphic or spell alert. Out of every hunter proc or passive, Sniper Training probably needs something like that the most. If it were up to me, I’d have it display something like a circular aura around the player’s feet that changed color based on its status (active, recharging, or expiring). Alas, we have nothing besides the tiny buff icon up in your list of buffs.

I’ve developed a bad habit of jumping and strafing as I DPS.  My Sniper Training uptime would be atrocious without some sort of addon to help me out.  Good uptime will be key to maximizing DPS. Perhaps one day I’ll get better at it and won’t need such prominent WeakAuras, but it is not this day.

There are several addons that can help you manage Sniper Training, the 3 most popular are probably WeakAuras 2, NeedToKnow, and TellMeWhen. I’m a fan of WeakAuras and use it for all my other stuff, so that’s what I’m going to focus on here.

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Hunter Transmog

Hunter Transmog: Stormbreaker

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Here we have another reader-submitted transmog, this one from Michael. He didn’t name it, so I did. Seemed like it was based around the chest piece, so I thought it was a fitting name. This may be a slightly challenging transmog set to complete because many of these pieces are quest rewards (though it looks like some of them can be obtained from alternate sources). Here’s what he had to say:

I wanted to share this set because I love the blue feather shoulders and chest so much, and there are not many blue sets for hunters out there. Notes: The hands and legs may be impossible for some to get because they are gotten off of a quest.

I’ve put this set together in a Wowhead item comparison so you can quickly view it on other races in 3D (click the little triangle above the item icons).

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Hunter News

[Hunter Buffs] They should have sent a poet…

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I present to you, the great hunter buffing of 2014:

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

General

  • Arcane Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Cobra Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Explosive Trap’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Kill Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Multi-Shot’s damage has been increased by 30%.
  • Steady Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Marksmanship

  • Aimed Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Chimaera Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Survival

  • Black Arrow’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Explosive Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Serpent Sting’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Hunter Pets

  • Hunter Pets now inherit 60% of the Hunter’s Attack Power (up from 33%).

Talents

  • A Murder of Crows’ damage has been increased by 80%.
  • Barrage’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Dire Beast’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Exotic Munitions’ damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Focusing Shot’s damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Glaive Toss’ damage has been increased by 15%.
  • Powershot’s damage has been increased by 15%.

Can I get a ‘hell yeah’? It’s also worth noting the overpowered specs from other classes also received nerfs. This will hopefully bring everyone closer together.

The bad news? Requires realm restarts to take effect. Can we get someone to trip on the power cord or something? Please? Or do we really have to wait until Tuesday? 😛

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Hunter Pets

Pet of the Week: Spirit of Atha

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Hail Hydra! That seems to be the hunter mantra of the week. Everywhere I go, I see hunters sporting their newly tamed hydras. Arguably one of the coolest is Spirit of Atha, the ghost hydra.

This isn’t the first time I’ve tamed this elusive beast. I was one of those who tamed it back in Wrath of the Lich King when there was a bug that allowed hunters to tame it as a crocolisk pet. In my infinite wisdom, I abandoned it and regretted it ever since. It was only available for a short time before it was fixed. In my defense, we could only own 5 total pets back then. For a while it remained a crocolisk until Blizzard made a new hydra family just for this one pet in Cataclysm. That version of the hydra family had a crit buff, today’s Hydras have a mastery buff.

The Spirit of Atha is found in Sholazar Basin. It doesn’t exist naturally in the world, the only way to get it is to summon it via a quest.

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Hunter News, Opinion

Celestalon: “Hunters are just at the top of our list right now”

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Good news! And no, my awesome matching talbuk mount and pet combos have nothing to do with it.

We’ve been complaining about our numbers for a while, but most of our evidence was based on simulations, which the devs were quick to dismiss. Now that we have actual logs to back it up, it’s becoming clear that hunters (at least BM and SV specs) are a teensy bit on the weak side right now.

Survival actually received some hotfix buffs on patch day: 12% to Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, and Serpent Sting, but it still wasn’t enough.  Even Marksmanship — our top spec right now — is up to 50% behind the currently overpowered classes. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect perfect balance in a prepatch like this when most of the balance design is focused on level 100. However, the results for hunters at level 100 are mirroring the level 90 results, just not as dramatically. 

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Hunter News, Hunter Pets

Patch 6.0.2: Hunter guides, gems, new pets and buffs, and Survival hotfixes

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It’s patch day! That means it’s time to TAME ALL THE PETS. This is probably how things will play out for me upon logging in today:

  • Get my 3 extra Challenge Mode mounts from my mailbox, which will put me to exactly 200 mounts and give me the achievement! Woot!
  • Add all my toys to the Toy Box, fill up the new Void Storage tab, add reagents to reagent bank, and just clean up bags and bank in general. I’m going to be freeing up well over 150 bag slots.
  • Set up addons, action bars, etc. and change my gems (more on that below)
  • Tame Chimaeron!
  • Do the Blasted Lands quests for the launch event and get the title and pet (as seen in the image above from PTR).
  • Moar pets!

Hot off the press we also have some Survival hotfixes. Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, and Serpent Sting all had a 12% damage buff. It should help Survival a little bit, which according to sims was the lowest DPS spec in the game for 6.0, and I’m not just talking about hunters. We’ll see how accurate those sims were as we get to test things more. Survival likes multistrike, but the only way you’ll be able to get some in 6.0 is from the raid buff (one of your pets), which gives you 5%. Plus you can get a little more from Haromm’s Talisman.

Hunter guide for 6.0

My Patch 6.0 / Warlords of Draenor hunter guide was published on Wowhead today.  It’s geared mostly towards new or recently returned players, but I think most hunters will see value in it. It covers all the bases in a concise manner, including transitioning to 6.0 at level 90. Go check it out!

The WHU also posted their 6.0 hunter guide last night which you should also check out. So much hunter love.

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Hunting Party Podcast

Hunting Party Podcast Episode 202: Sim City

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This week we talk about the upcoming patch 6.0.2, the current state of hunters in the beta, talents, and answer some listener questions.

The show is broadcast live on Twitch TV every other Sunday at 10 a.m. ET (14:00 GMT). In addition to the live show you can find it at:

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