Tag Archives: Rapid Fire

Hunter updates from the official Warlords alpha patch notes

Blizzard just updated the Warlords of Draenor alpha patch notes. We already learned about most of this yesterday from the datamining, but the notes explain how they want each spec to have their own unique DPS cooldown. They also confirmed that Bear Trap will be affected by the Enhanced Traps for a roughly 2 minute cooldown. Also note that Rapid Fire’s base cooldown is also 2 minutes now. Bestial Wrath still has a 1 min cooldown.

I found it odd the notes made no mention of the new Exotic Munitions talent. Maybe just an oversight.

In the raid utility section, they also mention that hunters will be getting a new raid utility ability soon. Absolutely no idea what this is going to be.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)
Each Hunter specialization received a revision to the burst-damage-cooldowns they have access to. All specializations now have one burst-damage-cooldown available baseline, and can add to that through talent choices.

Beast Mastery Hunters retain Bestial Wrath. Rapid Fire is a good fit for Marksmanship, and we improved it. For Survival, we wanted to both increase the prominence of their traps, and give them a new damage cooldown. So, a new trap called Bear Trap has been created to fit that role. Note that Bear Trap’s base cooldown can be reduced by other passive abilities and perks, such that it has roughly a 2 minute-cooldown afterwards.

Bear Trap is a new ability for Survival Hunters. Bear Trap places a trap with duration of 1 minute that immobilizes the first enemy that triggers it for 8 seconds and deals heavy bleed damage over 20 seconds. Damage from other sources may break the immobilization effect. The ability has a 4 minute cooldown.

Careful Aim now also provides its effect against all targets when Rapid Fire is active.


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Alpha Update: New level 100 hunter talent and more

A new Warlords of Draenor alpha build just went up and MMO-C has begun the datamining. We have some tantalizing new hunter changes including the replacement for Flaming Shots in the level 100 talent tier. Here’s a summary of what’s new or changed:

General
  • Distracting Shot is back! It was removed previously as part of ability pruning but it seems Blizzard has listened to the feedback. We like our Distracting Shot. 🙂
  • Misdirection now redirects threat for 8 seconds, down from 60 minutes. They decided to ditch the 1 hour MD for something else, which we don’t know of yet (it’s not in this build).
  • A lot of spells have had their damage reduced (for example, Multi-Shot went from 60% to 30% weapon damage), but this is nothing to be alarmed over. It’s all part of the tuning process.

Continue reading Alpha Update: New level 100 hunter talent and more

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Rapid Fire is back, Flaming Shots is gone, and Bear Trap is coming!

Leave it to Blizzard to release some new info mere minutes after I make a post about abilities I’m going to miss (one of them being Rapid Fire).

  • Rapid Fire returning as marksmanship only is great. It makes the most sense for a spec that will be hardcasting most of their shots. Lots of hunters were suggesting this and it seems like Blizzard listened. It didn’t feel good to have a spec with zero active cooldown abilities.
  • Bear Trap was first seen in the Wrath of the Lich King beta but it never made it to live servers. It rooted the target and caused a bleed. Not sure if it will be the same here or something completely new. Here is an old video from the beta showing it.  One of its secondary effects better be the ability to trap feral druids! Seriously though, let’s hope it’s a survival-only cooldown. With the CC reductions, I have trouble believing they plan on adding another CC spell, even if it is only for one spec. It would also be pretty redundant with Entrapment.
  • Flaming Shots was boring for a level 100 talent, and only seemed suited to one spec, so this is good news.

Can’t wait to hear about Bear Trap and the Flaming Shots replacement. HUNTER NEWS! So exciting. I’ll be updating all the relevant WoD posts with this info.

Continue reading Rapid Fire is back, Flaming Shots is gone, and Bear Trap is coming!

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3 Hunter abilities I’ll miss (and 3 I won’t miss) in Warlords

Hunters are losing a dozen or so abilities in Warlords of Draenor. Depending on what hunter you ask, you’ll get a different answer to this question. I understand the reasoning behind most of these decisions, but there’s just some abilities I’m really going to miss.

Abilities I’ll miss
1. Distracting Shot

I’ll admit this is not a button I used on a regular basis, but the number of awesome plays I’ve pulled off thanks to Distracting Shot will make me miss its utility. It could be as simple as saving a healer in a dungeon, or it could be something like taunting a Warshaman who got too close to General Nazgrim during the final burn, or preventing a Minion of Y’Shaarj from exploding inside a pack of other minions.

The Glyph of Distracting Shot let you do pretty interesting things as well, like positioning your pet far away so you could ping-pong a difficult enemy back and forth, avoiding a lot of damage.

Distracting Shot will be missed, but I’ll get over it.

Continue reading 3 Hunter abilities I’ll miss (and 3 I won’t miss) in Warlords

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A closer look at marksmanship hunters in Warlords

Update 8/22: This article is still mostly accurate but is slightly depreciated. It will give you a good overview of the overall changes but you may want to view more recent posts under the Marksmanship tag for more info and recent opinions.

If you missed it earlier, Blizzard released the first version of patch notes for the Warlords of Draenor alpha. I’ve summed up all the relevant hunter info in this post if you want to catch up.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be looking at some of the individual changes in separate posts such as this one — my opinions on them, and what I think they mean for hunters.  Previously, I discussed the survival changes, and today I’m going to look at marksmanship. A new focus dump, farther attack range, and potentially “fixed” AoE? Say it ain’t so.

Continue reading A closer look at marksmanship hunters in Warlords

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