Beta Talent Builds, Just Say No
When the blues speak, we should all listen.
Greetings.
I have some good news, and some bad news. First, the bad news. Unfortunately we won’t be able to do the Aspect of the Viper change I discussed yesterday (passive instead of requiring you to attack the target) at this time because of technical limitations and its potential to shake up our current balance goals. However, we will evaluate it as an option for a future patch.
Now, the good news.
- Aimed Shot – This shot will now be instant cast, its damage/effect/cooldown will remain unchanged.
- Scatter shot – This will now be an 11-point Survival talent.
- Readiness – This will now be the 21-point Marksmanship talent.
- Trap Mastery – This will now be the 41-point Survival talent. Granted, not very sexy for a 41-pointer but we’ll do some changes there in a future patch (after WOLK ships).
- Surefooted is swapping places with T.N.T. (so Surefooted is now in tier 2)These changes will be live in an upcoming beta build.
OK, see? The hunter class is going to be totally mixed up. Anything and everything people have said, including us, is kaput and moot.
Aimed Shot insta-cast? Scatter in SV? Surefooted moving to tier-2?
This dumps our entire theories of talent speccing into a complete higgelty-piggelty, that’s what this does. It’s a catastrophe!
…
Hmm.
Perhaps “catastrophe” isn’t the right word.
Imagine, if you will, you live in an old house in New England with luxurious carpeting in the master bedroom. Then, your son walks in with a dead skunk and plays floor-hockey with it.
The carpeting, of course, has to go.
You pull up the carpeting and find 100-year-old wooden floors made from ship timbers that have been perfectly preserved. They gleam in the sun and feel buttery soft on your bare feet. And natch, they instantly increase the value of your house by 15%.
Is that a catastrophe? No, it’s not. But the real key to your reaction is: do you like hardwood?
We’ll find out if we like our new flooring once that patch arrives.
But was there anything in 8982 that we can play with now? You bet!
Developer: “OK, I think I’ve just about gotten the BM tree done…”
Forum Blue: “That Separation Anxiety talent sucks! It stinks! Fix it!”
D: “It’s as good as I can get it…”
FB: “IT! SUCKS!”
D: “FINE! I’ll just delete the whole {bleeping} thing! HERE! Here’s Kindred Spirits! Take it and leave me alone!”
FB: “ooooo… Kindred Spirits…”
D: “Stupid blues… Where’s my Dinty Moore? HEY!”
Speaking as a hunter of some repute, both ill and otherwise, we can easily say that Kindred Spirits is a eye widening upgrade. And it actually works! Our tanking-bear is sporting 225DPS on-tooltip, whereas he was in the 180s.
And If the dumb world-server would stay up, we could see what a real DPS pet looks like.
So anywho, just what is it like as a BM hunter with a Tenacity pet in WotLK? Kinda like this:
Northrend Server: “Hey BRK! Here’s a 74 elite with 135k health coming right attcha! BUWAHAHA!!”
BRK: “Hey Northrend, here’s a BM hunter with a bear-tank and a two-piece Tier 5 bonus.”
Northrend Server: “Awwww… you’re no fun.”
/splat goes the elite
BRK: “Well you’d better bring it harder than that. That elite may have lots of health, but that’s irrelevant with the +50% healing bonus, 2/2 Spirit Bond, and two-piece Tier 5 bonus we’re packin’. Bear has 13k health with Last Stand, mitigates 60% of all physical damage, and our Mend Pet, Rank 9 ticks for 1190, foshizzle.”
Northrend Server: “I’ll get you yet, my pretty! And your massive, sweltering, awe-inspiring, fear-inducing, tanks-like-a-beyotch bear, too!”
(Oh, and not for nothing, Mrs BRK’s cat, a real-life cat, who is really BRK’s cat because she hates everybody but BRK, loves being hand-fed Doritos, but only by BRK. This both pleases and angers Mrs BRK. But she is a redhead and her love/resentment is thus easily explained.)
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wow…scattershot in survival? thats just…weird. i really dont understand the purpose of aimed shot going instant cast. how does an instant cast justify that much possible damage PLUS a mortal strike debuff? i mean think about it. its an AIMED shot. the name of the spell aLONE suggests its not an instant-type ability.
its not just with hunters. other classes are experiencing serious changes…and with less than two months before the expansion even ships. i think blizz is really scrambling here…
Doritos, huh? Our psycho-kitty (He literally has 26 toes.) prefers plain Lay’s potato chips. I suppose your kitty’s palate is more refined.
But she is a redhead and her love/resentment is thus easily explained.
And easily turned into kill/death/murder you walk a thin line Mr. BRK.
I want pics of BRK’s kitty with doritos.
Becareful feeding kats dorito’s. The high amounts of salt can cause the kats kidneys to go into failure. I’ve lost one kat that way before the vet told me it was a big no no.
Aimed change = bone thrown to the horrible Arena representation.
Btw, the damage is going down to slightly above Multi to compensate. Just hope the mana goes down too.
I have this sensation like there are 3 different people working on the Hunter class, none of whom know about each other, and none of whom use version control.
This isn’t purely a bad thing – after all, Hunter DPS in raids is OFF-THE-CHARTS right now on beta, but it does have its downsides…. like total uncertainty about the future of the class and a growing desire to switch mains to my Mage, Paladin, Warrior, or Priest come Wrath.
Looks like they just fired scatter shot into all our talents and see where they landed.
Maybe we just need to see what actually gets served up on WotLK Graduation Day.
/sigh
Ummm… ‘Aimed’ shot is now an instant? Does this make sense to ANYBODY? ‘Steady’ shot which presumably implies that you can keep firing it steadily (i.e. no need to aim since you are already locked in) is 2 seconds (?).
Calling them shot A, and shot B would actually be LESS confusing.
Thank You Kindly.
Dear BRK,
Just wondering, would you mind doing a few pet tank experiments without the T5 set bonus. I doubt I will ever earn two pieces of the T5 set, and it would be a great help to see how a tanking pet may perform for me. Thanks in advance for all you do for hunters.
“But she is a redhead and her love/resentment is thus easily explained.”
Been dating a redhead for a couple of years, truer words have never been spoken.
Outside of the bizzare name assignments, most everything I’ve read views the Aimed shot changes as a purely PVP-based modification. Or rather, the change was made for PVP. It’s a huge upgrade to a hunter’s burst damage ability in Arenas. Beforehand, the 3-second cast time made it completely useless in arena – now it’s burst and applies the Healing debuff.
What’s more interesting is the PVE implications – do you work this into a shot rotation, is the Damage per mana worth the expenditure, etc. No one really knows, and given that it’s not in this build, we won’t know for a while.
Actually, I think I read that it might not be in Wrath on Nov. 13th, but would be added later. Which would mean we’re griping abuot it, and getting a lot of flak from other classes, with no real testing conducted.
Also, anyone feel that the totally cool Survival builds have been totally gutted?
The changes across the three trees are pretty amazing tho. Surfooted at tier 2! Wow – suddenly, a 51/12/8 build with Aimed shot and Surefooted and one point in GftT looks pretty sexy at lvl 80. And that would make up for the lack of hit on a lot of T7 gear.
ALso, it’s interesting that blizz scrapped separation anxiety, which I think was largely a PVP talent in the BM tree – apparently BM just isn’t going to fly for Arenas, again.
Actually everything makes sense:
-Aim shot being instant means 2 things: we CAN now keep a debuff on someone in Arena (try that with the casting time, huh), and also have another instant shot to do some damage while we are moving (constantly in Arena). So they changed one thing and fixed two issues simultaneously. What pains me is the fact that they had to *pretend* that dmg/cd/stuff is not going to change vs the original version, yet they come the next morning and say “we will tone it down a bit”.
-Scatter Shot being moved to 11-pt SV makes our lives less miserable. We always wanted it to be trainable, because x/21/x specs was just too painful. Well, I guess x/x/11 isn’t exactly “trainable”, but is less painful, and as close as it can get…
-Readiness in 21-pt MM. Doesn’t really make that much sense, but doesn’t make or break the game either. Sure, it was a useful raiding tool (2xFD, 2xMD, 2xRapid), but if they give SVs a 1-2% more DPS overall they easily cover the loss. In the MM tree (which atm is the most reliable Arena spec) it is going to be more useful. Rogue free? 2xTrap. Need to burn down someone? 2xBurst… Nice…
-Trap Mastery going to be the 41-pt SV. Whoooaaa… WTF? Isn’t there REALLY not time to tweak that? We have to wait “for a future patch (after WotLK ships)”??? Seriously, get your lazy @sses and work if you want my money. The forums are full of nice ideas…
-AotV not going to be fixed. :S. Seriously. Due to “technical limitations”. And you are kidding whom exactly? Are your keyboards broken? Does it require new hardware to make it passive? Simply put, you are lazy AND you have a concrete imbalancing goal plan. And this will break it too soon.
I mean think about it. If they are going to have a perfectly balanced game, all we can expect every patch is new content. If they leave those 2 broken (and I bet they will unless we react hard and fast), then in 3.1.0 we will be happy if they get fixed, no matter if the new content is only a magical cat wandering outside Dalaran. And Blizzard knows is.
Cheers and keep up the good work
Shh… BRK!!!
Don’t tell them you LIKE something they’ve done!!! The devs will hear you!!!
But if you insist on blathering to the world, try this suggestion to Beast Mastery 51-point talent:
———–
Since the extra point was taken away, it left this 51 talent just a bit meh, with 50/x/x builds being suggested a lot, so, how about this for an addition for Beast Mastery:
• Allows hunter to dismiss his current pet and then summon another one from his stable from anyplace without needing to visit a stable master.
This would give a nice perk for this talent, which would be in line with what a “Beast Master” should be anyway.
———-
If you like it, please post to the beta forums…
@WB
they left the abilities from SA there, they just removed that terrible distance mechanic.
What do I do in Northrend if I don’t have 2 pieces of tier 5?
it just doesnt make sense that a spell called aimed shot is instant. the only way it WOULD make sense to me is to add a talent in MM called improved aimed shot, reducing the casting time by 50/100%.
it would also make more sense to give hunters a new sting that provides a healing debuff via nature, similar to rogue wounding poison.
well, of all the changes Blizz does, hunters seem to have a lot more useful and still balanced ideas. but meh…
they could make Trap Mastery grant us the ability to shoot our traps (like Freezing Arrow), making it better and probably worth the 41-pt in SV. This will free up the 80-lvl skill for something more useful… a AotB (rank2) for example (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5963298004)
anyways, I don’t think Blizz will give us the chance :S
Spirit Bond just became a must for like ALL hunters. Who gives a crap about that 2% every 10 seconds crap (Now if it was every 2 seconds or such, that would be better) But a 10% boost to healing on both you AND your pet?
Not only does this make Tanking pets all that much better (I’m seriously wanting a Gorilla now with all the buff’s he’s gotten) but this also makes the lives of our healers in raids in such so much more easier when they can cast a lower heal on us and watch us heal for just as much as one of their higher and more manacostly spells.
I don’t care WHAT spec you are, With the armor, Dps, and NOW the healing bonus you get, putting 21 points into BM is a must.
I have a wee hunter on the PTR, and got a bear, yes, the mouth is now MOSTLY closed, when he is standing still, and this is good enough for me, and at level 10 he already swipes. WOOT!!!
I would like to add my request for some BRK testing WITHOUT the healy-pet T5 set bonus please. Show us regular folks how well the tanking pets hold up.
My main hunter on the Beta hit 70!! Such progression!
It’s good to see you’ve realized the power of tenacity pets, they truly rock don’t they?
/envy t5 bonus
Lets hope they bring back that bonus on level 80 gear, it will be magical!
“Dear BRK,
Just wondering, would you mind doing a few pet tank experiments without the T5 set bonus. I doubt I will ever earn two pieces of the T5 set, and it would be a great help to see how a tanking pet may perform for me. Thanks in advance for all you do for hunters.”
Thank you, Aydyn, I’ve been hoping for the same thing. I too doubt that I will ever see two pieces of T5, and as much as I love reading BRK (and I do…a lot), it does frustrate me when a lot of his stuff about pets tanking and such appear to rely on the T5 bonus so heavily. I would love to know how I am going to be able to do with my plain ol’ normal Mend Pet.
Go go 51/8/21 with a point to spare spec! They’ll change something before release, but it has me smiling big right now.
Whup. I meant to say my main hunter hit 71…
/sigh
@silverline
Healers will never downrank their spells come 3.0. If they do, they’re just being stupid. All ranks of a spell below max rank now cost MORE mana than the max rank spell (from what I’ve been able to determine)
[...] Big Red Kitty says – Beta Talent Builds, Just Say No – “OK, see? The hunter class is going to be totally mixed up. Anything and everything people [...]
The question I have about Aimed Shot is does it still reset the auto-shot timer? If it does, this change was definitely meant to cater to the PvP crowd. (It does help with our burst damage but it still does nothing to alleviate the other problems the class has, i.e. mana regen and being completely at the mercy of LoS)
I do like how surefooted is being moved up to tier two on the survival tree along with scattershot, but I agree with the ones that feel it should be a trainable ability as we are the only class (excepting priests I think) that doesn’t have a trainable interrupt/stun ability.
I have no problems with Aimed being instant..
Give warriors and rogues a 2.5cast time on Mortal Strike and Wound Poison, see how it changes them.. or move our MS debuff to a shot with 6sec cooldown.. Arcane?
I could live with that
@the people who have a “problem” with it lore-wise/reality-wise:
They always could just rename Aimed to something else.
Maybe “HAHAHAHEALNOWHAHA Shot” ?
Again, I could live with that
^_^
In other news:
Kindred Spirits looks ok but I want to test it first..
A more accessible Scatter is what a lot of hunters have been begging for
No one’s really cared about the 41point SV talent for a long time (Sorry Guy) =/
And Surefooted in Tier 2 is just gravy
All in all, I approve
Rename it to Paris’ Arrow.
Looks like it’s time to pick up my horde hunter again. Things are looking on the up! Love what you are doing here, thanks for keeping us in the loop.
Michelle Madison
co-host Outsiders Podcasts
http://www.videogameoutsiders.com
http://www.warcraftoutsiders.com
http://www.pophangover.com
BRK,
A while ago you did a piece called “How to Build a BM Hunter ( AKA Here’s Your Talent Points And Where You Can Stick Them… )” and behold, a lot of people love it…
Can you provide the same detailed breakdown of pet talent choices, you feel would best benefit a BM or MM hunter in the coming expansion?
Now, myself, I have had a wolf ( Blitzer ) and bear ( Essentials ) since day One, but would LOVE to see how you have your bear specced…
/peer at beta changes
/pensively stroke beard
/dismissively wave hand
Feh! My plans proceed apace…
More seriously, statements like these: “we won’t be able to do the Aspect of the Viper change I discussed yesterday (passive instead of requiring you to attack the target) at this time because of technical limitations and its potential to shake up our current balance goals. However, we will evaluate it as an option for a future patch.”
And
“Granted, not very sexy for a 41-pointer but we’ll do some changes there in a future patch (after WOLK ships).”
seem to imply that Blizz is really married to 11/13 as a hard release date, FWIW.
About the Aimed Shot instant-cast change:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10043234156&pageNo=2&sid=2000#30
I think we all knew it was coming.
THIS calls for a BRK emergency pod cast!
Scatter shot is in Survival Now?!?! Dammit Blizzard! You always have to ruin the fun of Marksman hunters dont you!!
please ask your vet about scott’s advice (posted above) regarding your kitty’s salt intake and kidney failure. i recently lost my kitty of 18 years to kidney failure, and i have not heard about this salt angle until now. losing her was truly horrible, and i don’t want you to go through such a thing.
: (
Dude! We know you have 2 pieces of T5. Enough already. If I had a dime for every time you mentioned it, I’d already have a couple of bucks! It’s a big deal at 70, sure, but on the beta? Big deal. Get over your old gear and discuss new stuff.
As for scatter shot and readiness swapping places? Crap. Pure and utter crap. I’ve gone without scatter shot for almost 2 years. 1.5 as BM and .5 as Survival which I am currently. I want readiness not scatter shot. Scatter shot, though fun, has no raid utility whatsoever. Readiness does. Give it back.
please tell me Mrs BRk’s kitteh is not called hobbes as well
Readiness just looks really odd in the MM tree. And an instant Aimed? Call it Rupture Shot or whatever, something appropriate for the debuff it does.
Trap Mastery at 41? Sheesh
Ya know, it might prove to be that nice hardwood floor at release time, but right now it just looks awfully late in the game to be messing with talent trees like this, with the PTR already up and all that jazz … does anyone know if they’ll deploy these changes there too?
I’d love to test some.
Some other things too, like how my Heroic Presence (draenei +hit party buff) doesn’t cover kitty if I’m at max range (41 yards) and how she sometimes moves a mile from where she engages a target in a sort of dance that’s probably caused by the pet-wants-to-be-behind-target logic. Great fun in crowded areas.
Oh, and me three, four, five whatever on the tank testing without 2-piece T5
IMHO Blizz are trying to do the impossible.
You have, basically, 2 separate games here. PVE and PVP.
I don’t do PVP. I like to raid and run instances and just generally live in the game world.
Why should I have to put up with stuff that is intended just to make sure my Hunter isn’t too overpowered in PVP?
They should have totally revamped the talent system instead of farting around trying to make things fit.
2 trees, something like 100 points in each. One for PVE, one for PVP. In either tree you can make some talents have pre-requisite talents just like now.
Oh, and while you’re at it, have a damn CONFIRM button on the talents, like there is on the socketing dialog. Set talents, examine them for goofiness, all good? CONFIRM. Not good, swap things around a bit.
I demand a picture of [Ms] BRK’s cat.
@readiness not getting love currently in SV
there is 1 reason why hardly any raiding SV hunters have readiness right now.
Master Tactician
Once you get out of kara in SV gear, you have a ton of crit already. A very lackluster proc on MT was not worth the 5 points. so essentially readiness became a 6 point talent. and while amazing, it’s not worth 6 talent points.
Would a 50/21 point build not make sense then? Readiness would give you two bestial wraths in a row…id really enjoy that… would be useful for some team builds in arena too…….meh i like readiness coming to MM
Since I arena as MM it would be very much enjoyed in there