Category Archives: Hunter News

Hunter Guides, Hunter News, Opinion

Patch 6.1: Hunter specs compared [Updated]

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I originally did these simulations for my own amusement, but I thought I’d share them with you guys. Again, like most sims I post on this site they are done with whatever gear I’m wearing at the time (ilvl 672). Whenever you see “official” comparisons between specs on the actual Simulation Craft page, or on some other sites and guides, these are almost always done with best-in-slot gear. That’s all fine and dandy, but I don’t have anywhere close to BiS so I don’t really care about those sims. I’d rather see how things look in my own gear. Keep this in mind as you read this, and always remember your results will be slightly different.

The first thing I did was compare the DPS differences between live servers and the 6.1 PTR. I went through all the talent permutations and found the highest simulated talents and used those, so each spec was represented as best as possible. I also swapped gems and enchants for each spec (mastery for BM, crit for MM, and multistrike for SV).

Simulated DPS never tells you the whole story, but I think it’s a good tool for seeing what the impact is from buffs or nerfs. Instead of using screenshots from Simulation Craft, I’m testing out some fancy HTML5 charts. Mousing over (or tapping) each bar should give the actual DPS numbers.

New Post: More information about Beast Mastery in 6.1.

Changelog:

Update Feb 19: Numbers updated again to reflect changes in simulation craft. The pet summoned by BM T17 4-piece does more damage. Also, survival pets inherit multistrike damage bonuses. Both of these changes are now reflected.

Update Feb 15: These numbers are now updated with the latest MM and BM buffs from the patch notes (from Feb 13): Focus Fire now grants 8% attack power per stack, Chimaera Shot damage increased by 30.4%, and Sniper Training effectiveness increased by 25%.

Continue reading Patch 6.1: Hunter specs compared [Updated] →

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Hunter News

Patch 6.1: Stampede makes a come back

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If you’ve been following the patch 6.1 news, I’m sure you saw the change to Stampede: It now lasts 40 seconds, up from 20 seconds. A Murder of Crows was so good that they needed to literally double it to make it competitive. From my initial testing, it seems they were successful.

However, there was a possibly unintended side effect because of an interesting relationship between Stampede and Lone Wolf. Whenever you have your standard pet out and use Stampede, it calls the remaining 4 pets. However, when you’re using Lone Wolf it calls out all 5 pets. One would think it should only be calling out 4 pets so that the talent has the same value regardless of your chosen level 100 talent, but this is not the case for marksmanship and survival. I’d like to think this is a bug or an oversight, but who knows for sure? It’s been around for a while, so maybe it is intended. I don’t understand why. Also see the bottom of this post for an important note on another Lone Wolf/Stampede bug.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the Stampede buff’s effect on all 3 specs.

Continue reading Patch 6.1: Stampede makes a come back →

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Hunter News

Hunter changes in patch 6.1: Talent buffs and more

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Blizzard finally put out the official 6.1 notes and we got some buffs in the talent department. Check these out.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
Talent Balance

Developer Commentary: A primary focus for class changes in Patch 6.1 is improving overall talent balance. Not every talent needs to be useful in every situation; and in fact it’s often better if they have strengths and weaknesses. But we do try to have each talent be useful in some situations, and make them close enough in value that if you really enjoy the gameplay of a talent you don’t feel like you’re dragging your group down by using it.

For these changes we focused primarily on tuning (tweaking numbers), and nearly all changes are buffs to underperforming talents. The goal is to reach more variety of viable builds, without bringing down the existing popular choices.

  • Barrage damage has been increased by 21%.
  • Exhilaration now instantly heals for 30% of max health (up from 22%).
  • Glaive Toss damage has been increased by 25%.
  • Powershot damage has been increased by 62%.
  • Stampede now lasts 40 seconds (up from 20 seconds).

Here is the main thing I take away from this: Blizzard desperately wants us to use Powershot.  😆  If it’s as good as it sounds, Powershot may become the new single target DPS talent of choice because it’s not like it was that far behind before this. This is all good news though, because in some cases (like with Survival) there was almost no benefit from using a level 90 talent for single target damage. This will obviously change now, and Barrage just got 21% more awesome for AoE if that was even possible.

The more shocking one is that Stampede now lasts for 40 seconds (whoa!). Yes, A Murder of Crows was that good to justify this. I feel like this could push Stampede to be the best on many single target fights, especially when the cooldowns line up nicely with fight duration (i.e. Stampede would kill it on a 6 minute fight). AMoC still has the benefit of being able to reset the cooldown if used smartly on multi-target fights. I love the sound of it as a BM hunter, so I’m hoping it’s as good as it sounds and that there’s no strings attached (like reduced damage on the Stampede pets).

The Exhilaration buff was desperately needed. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.

None of these changes except the Barrage buff appear to be live on the PTR yet so I can’t test much. I’m sure Simulation Craft will be updated within the next day or two and then I can start playing around with that at least.

I’m still holding out hope for a Kill Command buff to give a small kick to BM single target DPS.

Continue reading Hunter changes in patch 6.1: Talent buffs and more →

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Hunter News, Opinion

Mastery and Haste Buffs: What does it mean for BM?

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Beast Mastery remains as my favorite spec. It might not pull off the single target numbers of Survival, but it’s pretty darn close. It also has Beast Cleave, the most badass AoE in the game (especially with that new claw effect it received in 6.0). And most importantly, I just enjoy playing it more than the other specs. Recently there were a couple of hotfix buffs to stats which gave a decent little bump to Beast Mastery, though not as big as I was hoping.

  • Mastery: Master of Beasts’ effects have been increased by 12.5%.
  • The Haste stat is now 11.1% more effective. For example, characters at level 100 now receive a 1% increase per 90 Haste (up from 1% per 100 Haste).

Combined, these buffs only result in a 2-3% overall damage increase for BM (perhaps slightly more for AoE damage).

Prior to this, Multistrike was (barely) the best performing stat for BM in single target, but now it is Mastery. The question is, should you bother swapping your enchants from Multistrike to Mastery?

Continue reading Mastery and Haste Buffs: What does it mean for BM? →

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Hunter News

Patch 6.1 PTR: Tooltipageddon

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There’s not a whole lot of hunter news for patch 6.1 thus far. All of the spell changes you may have seen on a site like Wowhead or MMO-Champion are simply tooltip updates from 2 months worth of hotfixes. There might be some in there that are actual changes, but if they are then it is minor. I’ve totally lost track of them all at this point. We won’t know for sure until Blizzard puts out actual patch notes.

The one actual hunter change is the increase in range for pet battle resurrection spells: Dust of Life (Moth), Eternal Guardian (Quilen), Gift of Chi-Ji (Crane). They have all been buffed to 40 yard range, up from 20 yards. This will make hunter battle resurrections a heck of a lot more reliable from now on. You can thank Artemishowl (WHU) for this one. She pleaded with the devs at BlizzCon to make it happen.

Here’s a few other bits that stood out to me from the datamining. As of now the servers aren’t up so I can’t check any of this for myself.

Continue reading Patch 6.1 PTR: Tooltipageddon →

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Hunter Guides, Hunter News, Opinion

Hunter stats, or why multistrike is your new best friend [Updated]

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Jan 14: This article has received some updates due to hotfixes. Updates are in red.

Multistrike is good. Really good. You should probably enchant all of your gear and gem with nothing but multistrike for the time being. The one exception would be if you exclusively play Marksmanship. In that case, I’d probably still stick with crit — at least until your buffed crit is above 40%. After 40% (43% technically) its value starts to diminish because the extra crit is wasted during Careful Aim.

Anyway, back to multistrike. Even if one of your specs is MM, I’d still enchant with multistrike if you equally play another spec along with it because multistrike is no slouch for MM either.  For Beast Mastery, it’s not light years above the other stats. However, it’s usually at the top, or at least tied for the top (will vary slightly based on your gear). Update 1/14: With the recent hotfix to the value of BM Mastery, the Mastery stat is now the top stat for BM. However, Multistrike is still good and not too far behind. As someone who plays both BM and SV, I won’t be switching my enchants away from Multistrike at this time. Multistrike’s true value is unleashed with Survival. With my gear currently, 1 point of multistrike has nearly the same value as 3 points of haste. Wait… what?

Continue reading Hunter stats, or why multistrike is your new best friend [Updated] →

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Hunter News, Opinion

Focus Pocus: A closer look at Focus Fire, Steady Focus, and Focusing Shot

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Have you been enjoying the hunter spec equality we have now? I sure am. With more people playing BM and SV again, I thought it warranted a closer look at a couple of the less popular talents.

Focus Fire, aka RNG Fire

The recent buff to Improved Focus Fire (5% per stack instead of 2%) has put a great deal more importance on the  Focus Fire ability. Every basic attack has a 40% chance to add a stack of Frenzy. I’ve never paid much attention to stack generation before this, but now my eye is on it constantly, and I’ve discovered just how RNG-dependent BM DPS can be now.

Sometimes my stack generation will be so high that I’ll have generated 5 stacks before my current Focus Fire buff has even expired. It feels fantastic when this happens. Other times, I’ve had my Frenzy stuck at a single stack for an entire 30 seconds.  Ouch.

This RNG got me thinking about the Steady Focus talent. Delirium had done some testing in beta which discovered it also increased pet focus regeneration, but it still seemed like an inferior talent to the guaranteed damage of Dire Beast.

Continue reading Focus Pocus: A closer look at Focus Fire, Steady Focus, and Focusing Shot →

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Hunter News, Opinion

All 3 hunter specs now close in DPS, play what you want

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Updated: These simulations and some of this information is now outdated after we’ve received more hotfixes in the weeks since this was posted. The overall point of the article still stands, but you should know the following:

  • Survival has the highest single target DPS potential (especially with Focusing Shot, but also Lone Wolf in many cases). Its AoE is also very strong.
  • Marksmanship remains strong single target, but has weak AoE.
  • Beast Mastery has the weakest single target (just a smidge below MM), but it’s AoE is very good.
  • Specs are within 5-10% of each other for single target DPS (varies depending on your gear).
  • Updated simulations for patch 6.1

Original post follows.

A post I made a little over a week ago about spec inequality and bad attitudes towards players who choose not to play the “best” spec ended up generating a lot of discussion in the community. At the time, marksmanship was simply doing more single target damage. I argued it wasn’t such a gap that you should feel guilty for playing something else, but some people have a hard time just saying “no” to extra damage.

Well, we don’t have to worry about this stuff anymore. The specs are now relatively balanced after a couple of rounds of hotfixes. Here is the gist of what was changed:

  • Aimed Shot and Kill Shot damage was nerfed by 10%
  • Serpent Sting damage was buffed by 60%
  • Focus Fire now grants 25% bonus attack power when used at 5 stacks (up from 10%) via the Draenor perk

These changes were enough to get the specs so close together that I feel comfortable in saying you can play anything you want, even in a competitive/progression group. Let’s take a look at each spec’s strengths.

Continue reading All 3 hunter specs now close in DPS, play what you want →

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Hunter News, Off Topic, Opinion

Ready for Highmaul

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I’ve been keeping busy enough in game that I almost forgot that World of Warcraft has this thing called raiding. Also, is it just me or does it seem a lot longer than 2.5 weeks since launch? Feels like at least a month for me. At any rate, I am ready to jump into normal mode Highmaul, hopefully tonight if enough guildies are ready for it. I’m “only” ilvl 636, but that is being brought down quite a bit by the fact that I still have my legendary cloak equipped and a 615 trinket. I also have not been running challenge modes, so the rest of my gear is either crafted or 630 stuff.

I do actually have some nice pieces. Most notably is my gun, Shrediron’s Shredder of the Savage. I’ll be upgrading that to stage 3 (ilvl 660) today which is going to be a huge weight off my shoulders. Why? Because traditionally I have terrible luck with ranged weapon drops. I know everyone says this, but I truly mean it. I spent the entirety of Throne of Thunder with a 516 heroic scenario weapon. I killed Lei Shen with a heroic scenario weapon. I went into Siege of Orgrimmar with a heroic scenario weapon. My raid never sees ranged weapon drops. It never saw one in Siege until a year after the fact, and the only reason I got one before that was because of bonus rolls.

So no, crafting this gun was not a waste of money. It lets me enjoy myself without worrying when I’m going to finally get a half decent weapon. I achieved this by having 3 toons cranking out Gearspring Parts. My main crafted the gun and the first upgrade, and an alt is crafting the second upgrade. The third alt had been churning out Didi’s Delicate Assemblies so I could reroll the gun to “of the Savage” (multistrike+crit). Now that third alt will be relegated to making my Wormhole Centrifuge, Blingtron 5000, and other fun engineering stuff.

Continue reading Ready for Highmaul →

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Hunter Guides, Hunter News

Hell, it’s about time

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Warlords is (attempting) to launch in the EU as I write this, and I’m getting ready to go to sleep soon. Why would a grown man go to bed at 8 p.m. you ask? Simple. So he can wake up at around 2:30 a.m. and play a video game for a crapload of time.

Before I go, I wanted to give a quick recap of some helpful info:

Time to force myself to sleep at this unnatural hour. See you in Draenor!

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