Tag Archives: Legion

Hunter News

Legion Alpha: Preliminary list of Hunter talents

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Datamining has been happening for the past day or so, but it’s not until now that we get to the juicy stuff: spell data. It’s great that Wowhead got it all up so fast, but it’s a huge data dump and not fully contextualized yet. I attempted to filter out the weird and questionable data, and I think I managed to interpret what is a talent and what’s not, but I could definitely be wrong on some of them. Update: Was right about most of it. List is more complete now via Wowhead database.

We’ll talk more about the baseline spec stuff in the future, but I will mention a few interesting things I noticed for each spec before I list the talents. You can read about the non-talent stuff in my previous post.

Hopefully this organized list makes it easier to take in all the talent changes from a better perspective. It really helped me see the bigger picture. Keep in mind a few talents are missing — either I missed them in the wall of text, or they aren’t there yet.

A disclaimer:

For all we know, some of this stuff is already gone. So feel free to get excited, as long as you go in realizing this fact. If something turns out not to be true, you can’t say Blizz took it away because it was never there in the first place!

Update 11/21: Added new Aspect of the Cheetah/Turtle spells.
Update 11/22: Added the few missing ones now that Wowhead database is live. Happy to say I was right about 95% of this stuff before knowing for sure 😀

Continue reading Legion Alpha: Preliminary list of Hunter talents →

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Hunter News

Gnome Hunters are coming!

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We can officially say that every race can now play as the best class in the game. Alex Afrasiabi announced the news on Twitter today: Gnome Hunters are coming in Legion!

This is something Hunters have been campaigning for ever since Blizzard started expanding class/race combinations back in Cataclysm. I know I never missed an opportunity to poke the developers about it. I’m also not surprised that Muffinus (the developer behind Gara and all Hunter pet things recently) was internally pushing for it to happen. He tweeted the following pics out after the announcement. Continue reading Gnome Hunters are coming! →

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Hunter News, Opinion

Legion Hunter Preview: First impressions and feedback

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Remember during Warlords of Draenor’s development when Blizzard was talking  about “spec differentiation?” It almost became a buzz phrase. They sort of delivered, but not in a way that mattered much. At their core, the 3 Hunter specs were still the same. We had a Focus generator, a Focus dump, and a signature ability. The “differentiation” was Marksmanship having a cast time on its Focus dump (and having to stand still) and Survival having DoTs, while Beast Mastery remained relatively untouched.

Well, I think it might be for real now. I can’t say for sure until I get my hands on the beta, but from what I can tell the specs sound almost completely different — not just the core mechanics but their fantasy as well (that’s this expansion’s buzz word, by the way).

You can read the post for yourself here. Blizzard shares their basic philosophy for each spec and shows us some of their core abilities. It’s enough to go on for a first round of feedback (plus it’s the first real Hunter news in months), so let’s get started.

Note I also have some quotes in here from one of the Senior Game Designers, Andrew Chambers. He was kind enough to answer some Hunter questions in a reddit thread. Remember these are candid comments, and nothing is set in stone.

Continue reading Legion Hunter Preview: First impressions and feedback →

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Hunter News

Hunter news from day 2 of BlizzCon 2015

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For the most part, Blizzard focused on broader topics rather than specific class information. That doesn’t mean we didn’t learn nothing about Hunters though! I’ve picked up this information from various sources over the course of today. Just a reminder that a lot of this isn’t confirmed and can change.

The Hunter Class Hall

  • We got further confirmation that it is located in Highmountain (a new zone in Legion).
  • Again, referred to as a “hunting lodge” so you can guess what kind of environment it will be.
  • Classes get unique bonuses from their class halls. The Hunter bonus is an exclusive (and presumably faster) flight path network in the Broken Isles. We fly around on eagles.  This should be a sweet bonus before we get flying later in the expansion.
  • We have this bonus because of a special relationship the Hunters have with the eagles of Highmountain.
  • The “hearthstone” to send us back to our class hall is an eagle that swoops down and picks us up. We can then use the same eagle to instantly return to our original location (just like Death Gate).

Continue reading Hunter news from day 2 of BlizzCon 2015 →

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Hunter News

A new look at the Hunter Artifact Weapons in Legion

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The lore behind the Hunter artifacts was recently revealed by Blizzard. Marksmanship gets a bow/crossbow, Beast Mastery a gun, and Survival a spear. If you don’t like the looks of these weapons, keep in mind that you can transmog them even though they’re artifacts. However, you cannot transmog into another spec’s artifact.

Here is how they envision the three Hunter specs in Legion along with their weapons:

Originally Posted by Blizzard

  • Beast Master Hunters are uniquely bonded with the beasts they hunt, blurring the lines between predator and prey. To offset the dangers they face in the wild, they wield the rifle Titanstrike, a techno-magical engineering marvel, perfect for staying on target.
  • Marksmanship Hunters are at their best killing from afar. Having a trustworthy weapon in hand is vital, and no finer bow exists than Thas’dora, Legacy of the Windrunners.
  • Survival Hunters are masters of enduring in the wild, using traps and snares to bleed their enemies. With the Ancient-touched Talonclaw, Spear of the Wild Gods in hand, they can finish their foes with one final thrust.

Continue reading A new look at the Hunter Artifact Weapons in Legion →

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Opinion

BlizzCon 2015 Hype and Predictions

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Current Hype Level: 10/10

I’m pretty excited for BlizzCon (even though I’m not going in person), especially with the little movie teaser from yesterday. The footage looked amazing if you ask me. We’ve seen so little of it and already I can pick out many little details they got right. The guns look like Warcraft guns. The orcs look like Warcraft orcs. Stormwind looks incredible. They even have freakin’ Harvest Golems (look in the field above). Are you kidding me?

I’m hoping in the final movie we see some genuine Hunter action as these guys with the big pistols don’t really look like Hunters. The orc with his wolf buddy sure does, though.

Here’s the teaser again for good measure.

Continue reading BlizzCon 2015 Hype and Predictions →

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Hunter News, Opinion

Patch 6.2.3: Hey, something to write about!

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Hey, Hunters! Yeah I am still here. Just fresh out of stuff to talk about in this downtime and complete lack of news… until today! Patch 6.2.3 was announced today and it adds quite a bit for a minor patch. Here’s some quick thoughts on the main features:

Valor points returning

Valor is coming back purely for item upgrades. It looks like you can do two upgrades of 5 ilvl per item, for a total of 10. This isn’t something I am going to grind at all. I know I’ll get some incidentally from doing stuff and I’ll use those on my weapon, then a trinket (won’t bother using it on Mirror of the Blademaster since the on use doesn’t scale with ilvl), then the highest ilvl/stat budget pieces from there.

I don’t like that you can’t get the points from doing regular raids. I mean, I get that they want to give people a reason to do dungeons again, but it seems weird. Especially since LFR is going to reward some too. They mentioned some kind of bonus event. This may be a new event, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it just replaced the Apexis event. Apexis is almost entirely irrelevant with this patch with better Mythic Dungeon rewards, and the fact that Baleful tokens can proc ilvl 695 without using an empowered fragment.

I get why they’re doing this, but it is not an incentive to me. I’ll be happy to upgrade my 720 gun to 730 and call it a day from there basically. I would probably grind these if I were still raiding regularly, of course. That’s the benefit of taking a break from raiding. No more worrying about that ilvl number.

Continue reading Patch 6.2.3: Hey, something to write about! →

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Hunter News

New bits of Legion info, and going casual

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It sure has been slow on the news front ever since the Legion announcement, eh? Blizzard wasn’t kidding when they said they’d be more tight-lipped about things this time around (can’t say I blame them after Warlords). We did get a few new tidbits of info today, and when I say “tidbits” I really mean that. This is all sourced from a live-tweeting of an unofficial WoW panel at Dragoncon.

It’s a bit of a silly way to disseminate information like this IMO, though I won’t complain about getting some new info. Here’s a rundown of the cool stuff. Keep in mind this is all obtained from secondhand tweets and can’t be taken as a promise or official information.

Continue reading New bits of Legion info, and going casual →

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Opinion

Legion: Thoughts on Artifacts and the Hunter class hall [Updated]

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One of the things I’m most excited about in Legion is the focus on class identity. The fact that every spec gets some lore surrounding their artifact weapon is pretty cool to me. I don’t expect them to be ground-breaking quest lines (since they have to do 36 of them), but the very fact that each spec gets a little something unique means a lot. It puts a lot more weight behind your choice of spec, and sort of commits you to that choice. I think fewer people will be inclined to switch to “flavor of the month” specs if they’ve identified themselves as another spec already.

However, it does put a little more responsibility on Blizzard’s end to make sure classes with more than 1 DPS spec are relatively balanced. I think it’s important that every time a new patch or hotfix drops you don’t feel forced to abandon your artifact journey because of numbers.

Continue reading Legion: Thoughts on Artifacts and the Hunter class hall [Updated] →

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Hunting Party Podcast

Hunting Party Podcast #223: Legion

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This week we discuss Legion, the newly announced expansion for World of Warcraft. We talk about melee Hunters, petless Hunters, and good old big red Hunters. We also talk about the new Artifact weapons, the in-game Hunter’s Hall, and much more.

The Hunting Party Podcast also turned six this week. We’d like to thank all of the listeners for your support these past six years. We do this because of you.

The show is broadcast live on Twitch TV every second Sunday at 1:30 pm ET (17:30 GMT). The next episode is scheduled for Sunday, August 23. In addition to the live show, you can find it at:

Continue reading Hunting Party Podcast #223: Legion →

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