New Hunter Changes. (Bonus: Good news on Lock n' Load!)

[Niix 169]

Here are the most recent changes to hunters:

 

Pic creds @ Fortyz.

 

 

As well as some things about Survival hunters! 

 

 

 

I just wrote about 2 paragraphs and accidentally reloaded the page.. /sadface

 

So forgive my laziness in typing a lot.

 

Going to quickly go over the three abilities as well as the changes to LnL.

 

Barrage: 60 focus, 20 second cooldown. This seems like it's way more situational, and actually requires some preparation to cast. Nobody really sits at or above 60 focus as SV unless Murder of Crows is coming off CD. Will definitely change the way we play with this talent. I'm curious to see how well this will serve as a cleave spell. The damage seems very high and the 20 second cooldown is a welcomed change. Seems they've very well compensated for the 100% increase in focus cost. I like it.

 

Fervor: This is the change that surprised me the most. I never thought I would see Steady Focus on any spec other than Marksmanship. I'm really curious to see how noticeable this effect is on the other two specs. As I rarely notice it when playing Marks, if I ever do. Not much to say here, very cut and dry.

 

Murder of Crows: This one I'm most happy about. They realized that no hunter was able to effectively utilize a 1 minute cooldown Murder in any fight ever. If the boss was under 20% it would most likely die in 1 minute anyways. This change is quite welcome and will definitely increase hunter's ability to target switch more effectively. Playing Lone Wolf and using Murder, we will lose hardly any damage switching to another target. This is a very very good change and I'm excited to see how well people can make use of this spell once WoD hits. 

 

So the last change I'm going to discuss makes me the happiest of them all. Lock n' Load was reverted back to the way it is on live! I'm glad Blizzard listened to feedback, and realized that the spec felt very very clunky and un-natural with Lock n' Load not resetting the cooldown of Explosive Shot. It encouraged us to pool our main spell but doing this was actually a damage LOSS, and not a gain. I messed with it a lot and tried many different methods, and nothing felt very natural. I'm glad to see they've reverted the changes back and hopefully Survival will be a bit better. THEY JUST NEED TO GIVE US A COOLDOWN.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Niix

[Sargerik 5]

As a BM hunter I find myself talenting into DB rather than Fervor or TOTH , as im getting some pet dmg from the DB's as well as a fair amount of focus return, that being said will the Steady focus work out better as it's a constant 50% focus gain ( will it regen focus to our pets as well ? ) which would probably lead to being less focus starved with a much higher uptime if it's a passive effect BUT if it still has it's 30 cd I cant see it being better than DB and with the nerf to TOTH to 20% down from 30% I just cant see any BM hunter taking it ..

 

AMOC having it's duration cut down by 50% to 1minute will be interesting for me to see how it plays out , I mean having AMOC  available every 2 bestial wraths seems it will be fun if not add more burst but I'm just not sure if it will play out better than blink strikes as I've stated earlier that if steady focus is passive with the constant 50% focus regen and again assuming it also returns focus to our pets  it should synergize well for constant dps rather than the  burst AMOC should give

[Orthios 271]

As a BM hunter I find myself talenting into DB rather than Fervor or TOTH , as im getting some pet dmg from the DB's as well as a fair amount of focus return, that being said will the Steady focus work out better as it's a constant 50% focus gain ( will it regen focus to our pets as well ? ) which would probably lead to being less focus starved with a much higher uptime if it's a passive effect BUT if it still has it's 30 cd I cant see it being better than DB and with the nerf to TOTH to 20% down from 30% I just cant see any BM hunter taking it ..

Yes Steady Focus will be a passive effect.  If you've ever played MM, then it will feel fairly similar to how it does now, but you're more pressed to refresh it sooner.  If you talent it, all you do is double cast Steady/Cobra Shot and you get the buff for 10 sec.  Double Casting SS/CS again with the buff up refreshes it.  Whether or not the focus regen bonus affects your pet as well will determine it's final value for BM hunters, otherwise DB is the go to talent for that tier.  

 

AMOC having it's duration cut down by 50% to 1minute will be interesting for me to see how it plays out , I mean having AMOC  available every 2 bestial wraths seems it will be fun if not add more burst but I'm just not sure if it will play out better than blink strikes as I've stated earlier that if steady focus is passive with the constant 50% focus regen and again assuming it also returns focus to our pets  it should synergize well for constant dps rather than the  burst AMOC should give

Cooldown: 2 min > 1 min.  Duration: 30s > 15s.  Focus cost: 60 > 30.

It will always be up for BW (which would further cut its cost to 15 focus).  Blink Strikes does synergize very well with BM already however, and the implementation of Adaptation (which all sane BM hunters will choose) further increases this synergy.  All in all, we're waiting on number tuning to see how each ones stacks up against the other.

[Sargerik 5]

I've read in the BM hunter guide done by RogerBrown that if we chose blink strikes to take fervor for the synergy ( I took DB) I haven't taken it or even tried it , as it seems more micro watching as far as watching your focus bar just curious what you think.

I played MM all of WOTLK and most of Cata b4 I got burnt out around firelands and just went to playing alts and stop raiding or really caring about doing so , so I have a vague memory on how SF worked but if a double CS/SS is giving us a 50% focus regen and assuming it gives our pet the same thing ( I don't remember if it did the same for our pets b4 ) it would mean far more arcane shots as far as dumping focus we'd be swimming it if I'm understanding it correctly again like you stated it's value will be determined if it does effect our pets regen

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sargerik

[Sargerik 5]

BTW how do I quote you in my post for whatever reason I'm having issues doing so ,which makes it a little more of a pain in the ass to respond to specific points

[Orthios 271]

BTW how do I quote you in my post for whatever reason I'm having issues doing so ,which makes it a little more of a pain in the ass to respond to specific points

This button right here:

You can quote multiple people in the same response, and you can "edit" what you quote so that you are responding to a particular point or section, as I did.  

[Sargerik 5]

that's what I've tried to do but some reason it wont take the quote

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sargerik

[Niix 169]

We have to wait for numbers before we decide anything. If Blizzard is very good about tuning with our talents. The active ones will outweigh the passives. Even in the case of adaptation. I would be surprised if they managed to make lv 100 talents a choice for BM however because of how strong Adaptation is.

 

I am curious to see whether or not they tune Steady Focus like an active or a passive, because it's effects are not very passive at all. It changes how you play entirely. Having to double cast a Cobra Shot is very strange in the world of SV right now with how many procs give us free shots.

[Fortyz 2]

So there was another ToTH change and MMO-C did not post this with the recent changes, but WoWhead found it:

 

 

I find this very worrisome....

 

Excluding the fact that 6% chance is EXTREMELY low... it would only have that 6% chance after using 10 focus...so 0% chance to proc off LnL procs as they are free...wont proc off cobra shot... only time it can roll that 6% chance is when you AS, MS, BA, or GT/Barrage, or Crows. 

 

No word yet on whether if using something that costs lets say 30 focus, will give you 3 rolls each with 6% chance, or 1 18% chance roll, or just 1 6% chance to roll. I Tweeted Sparkle dragon asking but no word.  

[Fortyz 2]

Edited August 28, 2014 by Fortyz

[Sargerik 5]

from the eyes of the beast post

•Thrill of the Hunt now has a 6% chance to trigger for every 10 focus spent. (Old: 20% flat chance). Here is what the proc chance works out to (assuming it counts all focus and not just 10% increments): •Aimed Shot: 30%

•Arcane Shot: 18%

•Multi-Shot: 24%

•Kill Command: 24%

•Chimaera Shot: 21%

•Explosive Shot: 9%

•Glaive Toss: 9%

•Barrage: 36%

[Niix 169]

They forgot Black Arrow. Which is the same as Chimaera Shot, at 21% chance to proc. 

 

I actually kind of like this change, it still gives us a good chance of chaining multiple Multi-Shots together while we spam that, and it reduces the clunky-ness of having excess focus while having endless Thrill and LnL procs. I think this will smooth out gameplay a little bit more, and I feel a nerf was a little necessary in the long run to bring this talent more in line with the other two. Because currently, Thrill vastly outperforms the other two choices. 

 

I think Thrill is still going to be the best talent in this tree for AoE fights for SV. Simply because of how it works with Multi-Shot. Dire Beast or Steady Focus could actually pull ahead on Single target.

 

All in all, I actually like the change because it gives us a little bit more choice in the talents. Good work on Blizzard's part.