Analysis of the Hunter 3.3 Changes

  
Patch 3.3 comes out tomorrow.


Hunter 3.3 Changes:

• Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  
• Deterrence: Now also increases the chance for ranged attacks to miss the hunter by 100% while under its effect.
  
• Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
  
• Talents
  
  
  
  • Beast Mastery
    
    
    • Intimidation: If the hunter’s pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet’s next swing or attack.
      
    
    
    
    

MLG Anaheim: Go CheckSix!

  
MLG Anaheim takes place this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Starting times are 6:30 PM PST on Friday, 9:30 AM PST on Saturday and 9:30 AM PST on Sunday.  Watch it live at http://www.mmo-champion.com/.

The only Hunter in attendance is Twixz with CheckSix Gaming (formerly known as eMg).  Checksix will be running the BeastCleave comp, BM Hunter, Enhancement Shaman and a Paladin.

I am hoping for some good matches and a 2nd MLG 1st place finish for CheckSix.  It is very pleasing to have a Hunter in tournaments for a change (and actually doing well).  Here is Twixz's MLG armory page for the tournament.


There has been a big lack of content to talk about this summer as the game has had no major changes in awhile.  I am starting to get extremely frustrated that the talked about 3.3 changes involving pet scaling have not shown up yet in 3.3 notes (this makes me think they are postponing it until Cataclysm).  When Cataclysm begins to draw near hopefully there will be some interesting changes to take note of.
  

Patch 3.3 Hunter Changes

Oct. 16th Changes


Hunter

• Pet Leveling: Hunter pets now need only 5% of the experience a player needs to level, down from 10%.

The most annoying part about being a Hunter might just be fixed with this.  I like the idea of still having to level a pet (up to five levels), but the time it took was way too much.  This should help out a ton.


 

Oct. 13th Changes
  
Pets

• Culling the Herd: When your pet's Claw, Bite, or Smack ability deals a critical strike, you and your pet deal 1/2% increased damage for 10 sec.

WoW Racial Poll

  
The question was: Which race will your hunter be after Cataclysm is released and race changes are made available?  

Poll Results:
965 Votes

Worgen  -  254 Votes (26%)
Night elf  - 113 Votes (11%)

Updated Gold Guide

  
Updated my very old gold guide.

Currently have 74k in gold.

Hope I can help other people not have to farm or do dailies.

Short post, off to softball.

   

Patch 3.2.2 Hunter Changes

Some big changes to the Beast Mastery tree are coming up quickly, as the 3.2.2 patch is nearing its release.  Here are the changes:
 

Hunter

• Talents
  
  
  • Beast Mastery
    
    
    • The Beast Within: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds. In addition, hunters with this talent will do 10% additional damage at all times.
    • Bestial Wrath: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds.
    • The Beast Within - Now reduces the mana cost of spells by 50% for 10 sec. (Was 20%)
    
    

WoW Account Hacked

My WoW account was hacked over the weekend.  Below is the process of events.

I received an email while at work that my account had been compromised and frozen.  They gave me 3 basic steps before I could unfreeze the account: secure my email address, secure my computer and secure my wow account.  After securing everything I messaged them in the afternoon/evening on Friday.

On Saturday my account was unfrozen but my characters were missing gear, gold and they were on different servers.  I had to talk to a GM about the situation to continue the process (took about three hours of waiting to finally talk to the GM).  The GM then got a Character Specialist in on the situation and that specialist went to work on resetting my account before the compromise.

eMg Wins MLG Dallas with Beast Cleave

   
Finally, Twixz the Hunter Hero has won a tournament.  I've been rooting for a Hunter team to take a 3v3 tournament for the last 2 years, and today my wish has been fulfilled.  For a complete match by match write up of MLG Dallas I highly suggest you visit World of Ming.

Twixz became known when his team Get Money Get Payce qualified for Blizzcon Regionals.  That team featured the lineup of Death Knight / Hunter / Paladin.  With 3.2 their lineup shifted from Death Knight to Enhancement Shaman.

Beast Cleave is the new term for the comp BM Hunter / Enhancement Shaman / Holy Paladin.  I expect to see a lot of Beast Cleave comps at the start of Arena Season 7 on Tuesday.

Twixz was using a Corehound for most of the tournament, but on the last day switched to a Worm.  The Worm proved to be most effective against the Plate Cleave and PHD team (x6stence).

3v3 BM Hunter Build: 44/16/11

I played some 3v3 games to prepare for the next season, and tried out a few different builds. 

At first I tried a regular Full BM with Aimed Shot build.  I had good burst but our team didn't have the CC to pressure the other teams.  The next build I tried was a Marksman PvP build and was frustrated with how much CC came my way (which made it difficult to damage & CC others at effective times). 

The final build I tried was BM with Aimed and Scatter Shot.  In the beginning of matches I was able to CC perfectly under the affects of Bestial Wrath (Scatter / Trap).  Not only could I CC effectively but I could also burst when their healer was in that CC.  This is what the build looks like:

BM / Aimed / Scatter (44/16/11)

 

 

  

Most likely this is the build I will use in 3v3 next season.  With it I end up using a Wasp to help in killing off Rogue teams.  With 3/5 Frenzy and no Cobra Strikes a Cunning pet is really out of the question, Ferocity is needed for the extra crit chance.

   

Hunter PvE DPS 3.2

With the sample builds taken from Shandara's Spreadsheet, with current best gear, in patch 3.2, it is clear that in theory, Marks is the best PvE DPS followed by Survival which is followed by Beast Mastery.

Marks    (7/57/7)   -   9289 DPS
Survival  (0/15/56)   -   8884 DPS
BM    (54/12/5)    -    8604 DPS

That is about a 7% difference between the lowly BM Hunter and the mighty Marksman Hunter.  I would prefer if BM was within 5% of the top spec, be it Survival or Marks.  BM may have the easiest rotation, but on pet unfriendly fights, it has the most to lose by far.
 
  
Talent DPS has changed most significantly (in patch 3.2) with Animal Handler.  It used to provide 27 DPS per point (54 total).  Now it provides 130 DPS per point (260 total).  Just in that talent change BM Hunters gained 206 DPS (in my gear, spec, etc. on my BM page).

The Wild Hunt pet talent change increased a BM Hunters DPS by 137, but it also increases Marks and Survival pet DPS.

The expertise change for pets (Ranged Hit now gives Expertise for Hunter pets), is another area where our pets gained a bit of damage.
  
 
All in all, this is how my PvE pages total DPS has changed since 3.2 (again, with my gear, spec, etc.).

BM went from 6211 DPS before 3.2, to 6783 after 3.2.  +572 DPS
Marks went from 6613 DPS before 3.2, to 6789 after 3.2.  +176 DPS
Survival went from 6769 DPS before 3.2., to 6677 after 3.2.  -92 DPS

Notice: My talent trees are not perfected for theoretical top DPS, as I usually forgo a couple of DPS talent points for Hawk Eye, as I tend to find that it adds unmeasurable DPS and longevity to my life in raids.

I'm not sure why my Survival build with my gear lost DPS from 3.2, but BM definitely gained the most since 3.2.  In better gear, especially a better ranged weapon, Marksmanship would pull further ahead, like it does on the samples, as it scales better than BM (as does Survival).

My recommendation is to try out BM again if you have Naxx 25 / Ulduar 10 gear or less (it should be about equal to Marks DPS).  But you might want to have a secondary spec as Survival or Marks in case you come across a pet unfriendly fight.  If you have an Ulduar 25 or better weapon, your probably better off with Marks in PvE.
   

First thoughts on patch 3.2

 
Here are some of my initial findings and thoughts on Patch 3.2 as a Hunter.

Being able to lay 3 traps at one time is actually pretty nice whenever I have time to setup before a fight.  However, I found it was very difficult finding a great keybind system that worked well when in the middle of a fight.  With a suggestion from a friend I decided to use a castsequence macro for my traps and I have found it much easier to lay 3 traps, especially in combat.
  
/castsequence Frost Trap, Snake Trap, Explosive Trap
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

This is the macro that I now use which I can spam and get my traps down easily with one button, while still prioritizing Frost Trap then Snake Trap and finally Explosive Trap.

 
360 Deterrence is a godsend, I never have to worry about facing the target while using Deterrence and can run around psychotically while laying traps to my hearts content.
 
I haven't been able to test the Roar of Sacrifice change much but I'm hearing some abilities / spells seem to be able to crit through it, which seems stupid.

Pets now receive 40% of the Hunter's resilience, but I haven't noticed my pets lasting extra long under fire, they are still super fragile when focused.

The pets I currently use in PvP are my trusty Ferocity Wasp and my lovely Cunning Chimaera.  I highly recommend owning both pets if you love PvP'ing with your Hunter.
  
Also, if you have are leveling a lowbie Hunter like me because you can't get enough of Hunters, then make sure you pick up the new Heirloom chests available.
    

Patch 3.2 Arrives

Hunters

• Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
• Deterrence: This ability now allows the hunter to parry spells and attacks from behind as well as in front. 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.
• Frost Trap: Will no longer "fizzle" on targets immune to snare effects, however Lock and Load will not succeed when using Frost Trap if the target is immune to snare effects.
• Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.
• 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 is now 1 minute, up from 30 seconds.

  
  

One major change in 3.2 for Hunters is being able to lay 3 different types of traps (3 separate 30 second cooldowns).  I have not tried it in PvP on the test realms so I will have to play with it a bit on live to see if being able to lay more traps helps in PvP.

The 2 other major changes for Hunters in 3.2 is 360 deterrence, which is a godsend for PvP, and the new Roar of Sacrifice which I'm still undecided about.

There hasn't been much of a change as far as DPS goes for any tree, so I'm not sure if I am going to update the guides to Survival, Marks and BM.
    
Now that 3.2 has hit I should be playing my alt Hunter a bit more and PvP'ing a bit more with my main Hunter.  It's been a nice break off and it is nice to be back, I just hope there will be enough interesting things to post about in the future...

No new posts until 3.2

I'm currently taking a nice break from WoW and will probably not post until 3.2 patch comes around.

I would like to update the BM, Marks and Survival pages if the DPS of talents changes significantly come 3.2.  And I might be playing a bit more of WoW come 3.2 which would lead me to post a bit more.

But for the next month or two, don't expect new posts (I might make a few posts about the upcoming 3.2 changes as they are announced).

I've been playing Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 mods (Tower D and DOTA) during this break from WoW.  It's funny that Blizzard seems to make all the games that have immense replay value.
  

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.
     

BM PvP Build 53 / 0 / 18

Last week I tried a 53/0/18 BM PvP build with my Rogue partner in 2's.

53 / 0 / 18

  
  
I have a mixed reaction to this build.
   
Notes:
I would only try this build if your partner has a 50% healing debuff.  Since my partner is a Rogue I can get away with not having Aimed Shot and using Multi-Shot in its place.

Positives:
Much better control with Scatter Shot.  I can always trap a target after a Scatter Shot, which allows 3 huge forms of CC on one target (Sap, Scatter / Trap, Blind).
 
I have a little bit more survivability with a few survival talents that I pick up along the way to Scatter Shot.
   
I also go down to Lock and Load since I'm that far into the Survival Tree.  This allows me to make up some burst that I have lost by not going into the Marks Tree.
 
Negatives:
No ranged 50% healing debuff that is pretty easy to keep up.  My rogue cannot always stay on a target.
  
Missing a lot of amazing talents in the beginning of the Marks Tree that reduces overall damage and burst potential.
 
   
If your team needs a little bit more control and you like playing as a BM Hunter this might be the build for you. 
  
We went 50/50 with me as this build at around 2150 rating.  We lost to a few teams we would have normally beat as I didn't quite have the burst to score a quick kill, and we won against a couple of teams that we would usually lose to because we could chain CC.
      

BM Hunter Team Wins 2nd Place at MLG Columbus

  
After venting my frustration to my Rogue friend Siphter about how there are so many rogues and never any hunters at a WoW tournament, EmG shows up at MLG Columbus.

EmG's lineup was Payce on Holy Paladin, Flexx on Unholy / Frost Death Knight and Twixz on BM Hunter.

EmG only lost 3 rounds in the whole tournament and they were all to SK Gaming's RMP (who took 1st place).

I was extremely excited to see a BM Hunter in tournament play.  And the great thing about it was that Twixz was a longtime Hunter so he knew when to switch pets against certain teams.  I loved watching him pull out the Chimaera against the Rogue double healer setup.
  

Hunter DPS 3.1.3

 
Hunters are recieving two more buffs since the Ranged Weapon hotfix.  Hunter's Mark is going from 300 to 500 and the talent Master Marksman is now also affecting Aimed and Chimera Shot (mana wise).

These changes will cause each tree to gain a somewhat different amount of DPS:

Marksmanship:  +196 DPS
Survival:  +148 DPS
Beast Mastery:  +79 DPS
  
These changes have minimal affect on PvP since Hunter's Mark is usually instantly dispelled and costs mana and a GCD; however, the mana changes should help Marksmanship slightly in PvP.
  
It is unfortunate that the Beast Mastery tree continues to fall further behind since Hunter's Mark does not help out a pets damage at all.  Unless blizzard decides to buff the Beast Mastery tree in some way, I see even less BM Hunters in the future (not that I see many in the present).
  
Here is the update in DPS for each Hunter Tree come 3.1.3 (25 man raid, with my gear and talents as mentioned in each Tree page on this site):

Survival:  +6769
Marksmanship:  +6613
Beast Mastery:  +6211
  
Marksmanship and Survival are neck and neck, while BM is left behind, especially since if a BM Hunter loses their pet, their DPS plummets.
  

Hunter Buffs Incoming

  
Hunters dps is too low according to the developers.  Today they are implementing a +30 dps increase to all bows, crossbows and guns that are of an item level of 226 or higher.  This should translate to a hunter damage increase of a few percent.
 
This is not the only buff that Hunters are going to get.  Another buff is planned in a few weeks time.

Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17223144541&sid=1


  
WoW Reports updated for Week 4, and Hunters are still struggling.  Hope they plan to buff Hunters in PvP as that seems to be more out of balance than PvE DPS problems.

I am very interested to hear what the next buff will be in a few weeks time...
   

Hunter / Rogue 2152

Siphter and I climbed almost 200 points this week, as last week we were below 2k.

Siphter specced back to a Shadowstep / Hemo build and we did a lot better at finishing our targets.  The mobility that Siphter has with Shadowstep allows him to instantly move into the fight from a safe distance so that he is not pulled out of stealth with aoe effects.

I have switched from using a Wasp to now using my Chimaera.  Roar of Sacrifice helps me live quite a bit longer.  The Froststorm Breath is a great slow and helps keep our target slowed all the time.  I do miss 9% extra pet crit and Heart of the Phoenix that Ferocity pets have (mostly that crit that my pet doesn't have).

Above 2k, we won 6 games in a row, 4 away from getting flawless victor; would have been pretty cool if we could have gotten that.

We faced a double rogue team that instantly killed Siphter.  But I was able to kill both the Rogues even though they were able to get away with a vanish (love BM w/ a Chimaera).

Our queues were a bit better this week, as we faced off vs Rogue teams half the games (and won about 90% of them).

We still have trouble with most Ret Paladin and Holy Paladin teams. 

I am confident we can get to 2200, but with Tier 2 weapons at 2350, that is our new long term goal.  Getting to 2350 is going to be amazingly difficult as Hunter / Rogue, but if we get some lucky queues, it is in the realm of possibility.
  
My favorite BM PvP macro:

/petattack
/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Kill Command
/cast Blood Fury(Racial)
/cast Call of the Wild
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast [target=player] Roar of Sacrifice
/cast Intimidation
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
  

Slow Going

Things have been slow on the WoW front these past two weeks.

In PvE news, my guild has not been able to get a 25 man Ulduar raid going since the patch, and the future doesn't look good.  10 man Ulduar is okay, but the enjoyment wears off quickly when there aren't many gear upgrades.

In PvP news, the Tier 2 Weapons have been moved to 2350 rating requirement from 2200.  As Hunter / Rogue we had a shot at getting to 2200 (we were at 2150 earlier this week), but 2350 is out of our league.

I really hope blizzard decides to do a minor overhaul on the Hunter class in PvP.  Being okay in 5v5, bad in 3v3 and terrible in 2v2 is not fun when 90% of people only play 2v2 (yes, I'm part of that demographic).
 
Blizzard should give Beast Mastery Hunters another shot or ability in their arsenal as they are downright boring to play in PvE and need some major utility in PvP.

It would be easiest to replace the BM 51 point with this new shot/ability (the functionality of the increased pet talents could go to Animal Handler, and the ability to train Exotic pets could also go there or stay as part of the new 51 point talent).

My vision for the new 51 point BM talent (Arcane Spit):
Hunter commands pet to Arcane Spit for 1500 Arcane damage on target (25 yard range) and also gives the hunter a buff that allows their next Arcane Shot to silence for 2 seconds (buff lasts 30 seconds).

The cooldown on Arcane Spit would be around 10 seconds.  The ability would cost mana, but would have no energy cost for the pet.  The ability would be on the Global Cooldown.

This would give PvE BM Hunters a bit more DPS, around 186 or so more DPS.  This would also give PvP BM Hunters more utility with a short silence that could be used on every other Arcane Shot (about every 12 seconds).