There’s a new spirit beast to tame in patch 7.1.5! Lightning Paw is the first spirit beast fox and he has a unique lightning effect not seen on any other beasts. It’s hard to see this in screenshots, so check out the short video clip embedded below. Somehow, we all missed him on the PTR (too busy bickering over class mechanics I think), but someone discovered him by chance and posted in the Wowhead comments earlier today.
Continue reading How to tame Lightning Paw
Right after BlizzCon, Jeremy “Muffinus” Feasel tweeted that there were hints “somewhere on the internet” about a new Hunter pet family revealed at BlizzCon. Many Hunters, including myself, looked for this hint but couldn’t find anything. I was pretty sure I had watched all of the BlizzCon interviews and read most of the articles, but I was wrong. Cernunnos over at Petopia finally found it. It was buried away in a video interview done by BlizzPro that hasn’t had many views up until now.
Continue reading New Hunter pet family teased at BlizzCon (Gryphons and winged beasts)
We’ve gotten a few exciting Hunter tidbits at BlizzCon 2016 so far. Ion Hazzikostas revealed a boatload of new content coming in patches 7.1.5 and 7.2. Hunter stuff aside, there is an insane amount of stuff coming in these patches. I don’t even know where to start, but Wowhead has a good summary. Patch 7.1.5 is coming very soon (on the PTR right after BlizzCon) and promises some big class changes. The only specific Hunter change that was confirmed was a pretty big one…
Continue reading Hunters at BlizzCon 2016: Traps coming back for Beast Mastery & Marksmanship
In patch 7.1, Alcaz Island in Dustwallow Marsh has turned into some kind of crazy robot island filled with deadly security bots, turrets, land mines, plus all of the evil gnomes who seemingly put them there. The place is a literal death trap. It begins with getting knocked off your flying mount with anti-aircraft fire as you approach the island, meaning you can only traverse this place on foot. The robots are easy enough to deal with (well, the non-elites anyway), but the turrets and hidden landmines will kill you in seconds.
Hidden deeper on the island are 4 new Mechanical Hunter pets. Remember that you’ll either need to be a gnome or goblin to tame these. If you’re not, you can get a Mecha-Bond Imprint Matrix from an Engineer or the AH:
In addition, there are new Hunter items that can drop from the robots on the island:
Continue reading New Mechanical Hunter Pets on Alcaz Island in Patch 7.1
Despite my absence from this blog (and Twitter, etc.) I want you to know I’m still around. I’m still playing WoW when I get the time and I’m still raiding. My absence from the community is hard to explain without getting too personal. It boils down to some heavy stuff happening IRL and not having the time (or desire) to do any of this right now. It started as a world-turned-upside-down kind of thing that now maybe isn’t quite as bad as originally feared. A rough road ahead. So I’m sorry to say, but right now there’s no energy for this stuff. WoW is still a happy distraction that I wouldn’t give up though.
I’m still enjoying Legion quite a bit, still loyally playing BM spec for everything, and still doing quite well in any content I tackle. Now that I finally have all 3 golden traits I am much less motivated to grind out the Artifact Power. I used to not leave a scrap of it on the table, but now I’ll quite happily let some of those world quests expire. Grinding hard for Titan’s Thunder felt worthwhile, but grinding hard to get an extra 0.2% DPS a couple of days earlier than I would have (if I didn’t grind) isn’t very appealing at this point.
Continue reading Don’t worry, I’m still Huntering
Alright, I knew Survival would be the unpopular Hunter spec going into Legion, but I didn’t think the disparity would be quite this severe. After a week of Emerald Nightmare, the numbers are in and it’s not pretty for Survival. As I write this, there are ~48,000 Hunter parses in Heroic Emerald Nightmare on Warcraft Logs thus far. Only ~660 of those are from Survival Hunters, along with ~36,000 Marksmanship and ~11,000 Beast Mastery. Those Survival numbers are pretty appalling.
First of all, yes, not all guilds upload their combat logs (or even keep any) but I think in the first week the vast majority of them doing Heroic content will be doing so, and these numbers should be fairly representative of what’s going on. When you add anecdotal evidence about seemingly never seeing Survival Hunters in the wild, it becomes pretty clear: Hardly anyone seems to be playing Survival.
Continue reading Hunter spec disparity in Emerald Nightmare
That went by fast. I started by leveling to 110 in essentially “one sitting” which was exhausting but fun. Everything since then has been a blur of world quests and dungeon runs. Oh, and profession quests. Endless. Ceaseless. Profession quests. I’m still on that new expansion high so I’m not ready to say anything definitive yet (I seem to remember enjoying Warlords for the first week), but I think Legion has the potential to be my favorite expansion, or at least second favorite. If Hunters were in a better state, it would probably already have the title.
Continue reading The first 10 days of Legion
Reaching wave 30 on Endless mode in Proving Grounds to get “the Proven Assailant” title has always been a bit of a pain in the ass, but that has changed for Hunters in patch 7.0. I’d go as far to say as it’s now been kind of trivialized for Marksmanship. You still need to pay attention, but it’s way easier than it used to be.
Marksmanship is absolutely ridiculous for spread AoE damage if you take the right talents, and it’s just as good for single target to boot. These are the main talents you care about:
Sidewinders allows you to mark many things at once, and Patient Sniper adds a huge damage buff without having to build up 3 stacks (takes too long for these 1 minute waves). Combine that with Barrage when Marked Shot isn’t available and you have a deadly combination for Proving Grounds. Here is a good build to start with.
Continue reading Now is the time to get your Proving Grounds title
Patch 7.0 is upon us and Hunters are… well, kind of different. The reaction I’ve seen to the new Hunter specs has been mixed to say the least. It’s probably more shocking if you didn’t put in any serious play time on the beta or PTR. These are new specs, and it’s pretty much a new class. So take a deep breath and give it at least a week. 😛
I’m not saying negative reactions are unwarranted because I had many of them myself. The difference is I’ve had about 6 months to adjust! Accepting these changes didn’t happen overnight for me. Don’t think I’m totally happy with everything either — far from it — but I also realize that at this point nothing serious is going to change. So I’m done with complaining about changes and giving feedback. It’s time to move forward.
If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend trying out all 3 specs. If you want an easy low-stress place to do that, just do some Timewalking dungeons. It will give you some perspective on where the whole class stands. Maybe you’ve always been a BM Hunter, but you’ll try Survival and love it? Who knows?
Personally, I’ve warmed up to the new BM. It’s not perfect, but I have fun playing it. And it’s even better (IMO) once you get Hati and are able to have two custom pets. Marksmanship feels kind of disjointed to me unless I am using the Sidewinders talent. Survival is mostly a curiosity. I’ve never been a fan of melee combat in WoW, but Harpooning around with your pet is pretty damn fun.
Continue reading What are you playing?
Hunters can regain some of the functionality of old glyphs by heading out to Sholazar Basin and visiting Mardan Thunderhoof at the Nesingwary Base Camp. Originally I thought these items were only available in the class hall, but it turns out I was wrong!
Here is what this vendor sells. All four items cost 50 gold each.
Update 7/23: Additionally, you can pick up the Fireworks Instruction Manual from Bryan Landers in Dalaran (both old and new Dalarans) to teach you Fireworks.
As for glyphs, we are lacking them in the pre-patch (only Lesser Proportion is available) so you’ll have to wait until Legion. I previously covered the new glyphs here.
