Friday, June 19, 2009

Patch 3.2 Initial Changes

Hunter

  • Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
  • Deterrence now has a new visual spell effect.
  • The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
  • Traps now have separate 30 second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.
  • Talents
    • Beast Mastery
      • Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.
    • Survival
      • Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.
      • Lock and Load: Now has a 22 second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.
    • Pets
      • Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the Hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
      •       

Alright, the first major change is the trap change.  Hunters can now lay 3 different types of traps, fire, frost or nature, and can have them out all at the same time, one from each type.
   
It is difficult to imagine what this will do for Hunters in PvP, as Snake Trap and Explosive or Immolation Trap are just not that good.  So using a precious GCD on a fire or nature trap would be unwise unless stuck in melee.  For leveling, this change is awesome!  My Hunter is going to be an aoe king.
  
The Catlike Reflexes buff is interesting.  I have a feeling it will be a worthless change as a Hunter in PvE or PvP would have to take out points in a worthwhile talent to put them into the now okay talent of Catlike Reflexes.  Basically, the Hunter would have to give up a damaging talent to pick up Catlike Reflexes, and it would be a wash (most likely Catlike Reflexes will still be crappier than most any other damaging talent).
 
The Roar of Sacrifice change is another big one.  Allowing the Hunter to use it on anyone again is great, and changing it to immunity from crits is very interesting.  The major problem is lengthening the cooldown from 30 seconds to 2 mins.  That really only allows us to use it about once per a fight in PvP.
 
Overall, I'm very disappointed with 3.2 changes (especially the one where 2v2 can no longer be used to pick up current season gear).  Resilience is getting a major buff which will make double DPS teams even more non-existent.  I have a feeling the Resilience change is here to stay, but maybe not the 2v2 change, since that would be destroying 80-90% of their Arena base.
     

4 comments:

David said...

I'm reserving my frustration on the 2v2 change right now. I only like 2v2, I do not WANT to 3v3. Now, to get the best gear, I am forced to?

It's a shame. And will probably be the last straw for me in this game.

Unknown said...

'The Roar of Sacrifice change is another big one. Allowing the Hunter to use it on anyone again is great'

hi, noob here, when and why would a hunter want to use RoS on someone else? Just wondering...

David said...

In PvP, mainly arena. If anyone on your team is being targeted, besides yourself, you can help them out (or you can use RoS on yourself if you are being targeted).

Basically, the new RoS will be able to help teammates again, which makes you a more valuable teammate in PvP.

Anonymous said...

That pretty much sucks about the 1.5 min increase in RoS....