BC Hunter Talents Released

[WimpySmurf]

They're out.

Hunter Talents

EDIT: removed the www. from the url since it stopped working for me but Marn's worked and didn't include www.

[NiteFox]

Finally!

*Reads*

That said, I'm hardly experienced with WoW, but there's some good stuff here to me.

My only worry is that I'll constantly be using Misdirection on the party Blood Elf squishie. While laughing.

[Kevin]

There out.

Hunter Talents

Bad link for anyone else?

[bonemage]

Bad link for anyone else?

Works for me.

[Monkey]

Bad link for anyone else?

Si.

The link from the blue post just goes to the general burning crusade talents and spells page. Editing the URL (replacing 'warrior' with 'hunter') does no better. Clearly the whole thing was a hoax created by Blizzard to distract hunters while Blizzard deletes them from the game. At last, the hunters' greatest fear has finally come to pass! MUWHAHAHAHA!

[Kevin]

Works for me.

Damn I get 404 File not found errors.... I would really like to see this stuff.

[Kevin]

Bad link for anyone else?

Well

http://worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc...er/talents.html

and

http://worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc...ter/spells.html

Worked but the link in Wimpy's post doesn't. Very odd

[lemekim]

Bad link for anyone else?

Works for me as well.

The Beast Within looks like extremely good talent, probably to make up for somewhat lackluster remainder of the tree. 30% damage increase for you and your pet (actually pet gets 50% increase, which is not trivial amount with the new buffed pets), while being unsnarable/unstunnable/unfearable/etc? On a 2 minute cooldown?! Ouch.

Edit: Misdirection (the level 70 spells) will also finally make hunters a clear choice for pulling.

[Mirajj]

What I'm looking at for talent direction.

Mirajj's Likely Spec

Some early/quick thoughts on the new spells:
Aspect of the Viper: This will replace AotHawk on boss fights.

Kill Command: Looks ok for a BM hunter, I guess.

Snake Trap: Pop culture pandering ftw.

Misdirection: This will establish hunters as THE pullers period, now. And help a lot on Aggro sensitive bosses. As you can only have one up at a time, a rotation (similar to a tranq one) could keep a lot of extra aggro on the MT.

[Monkey]

Finally!

*Reads*

That said, I'm hardly experienced with WoW, but there's some good stuff here to me.

My only worry is that I'll constantly be using Misdirection on the party Blood Elf squishie. While laughing.

It's working now for me.

Although I'm sure hunters will be exciting about the various "pwn fase" abilities, I think that Misdirection is the coolest new ability. It solves the n00b hunter problem: In groups with my warrior, hunters often feel compelled by some dark force to pull with Aimed Shot followed by Concussive shot so they can DPS more before the mob gets close enough* to tank. Now the tank can just ask for misdirection!

But that's not why this is the coolest new skill for hunters. It's the coolest because it's really a buff to non-warrior tanks. Give misdirection to a protection paladin or bear druid and pull with 3 high aggro abilities; now the tank has a solid lead on threat, even without high DPS abilities.


*The hunters in question would also only feign if the mob actually hit them.
Before you ask: Yes, Magtheridon has a lots of n00b hunters.

[nobbie]

BC Closed Beta starts this Wednesday after the weekly maintenance, methinks:)

[lemekim]

BC Closed Beta starts this Wednesday after the weekly maintenance, methinks:)

Why wednesday? I know that European servers have the maintenance day on Wednesday, but the US servers have it on Tuesday... And who knows when maintenance is on the Alpha servers.

[vor_lord]

But that's not why this is the coolest new skill for hunters. It's the coolest because it's really a buff to non-warrior tanks. Give misdirection to a protection paladin or bear druid and pull with 3 high aggro abilities; now the tank has a solid lead on threat, even without high DPS abilities.

It is just too bad that the target you cast it on has to be in your party/raid. There would be some very funny training exploits...

[Warlock]

But that's not why this is the coolest new skill for hunters. It's the coolest because it's really a buff to non-warrior tanks. Give misdirection to a protection paladin or bear druid and pull with 3 high aggro abilities; now the tank has a solid lead on threat, even without high DPS abilities.

It's most useful for Paladins (ranged threat!) but useful for tanks in general - Misdirection and Volley will provide the tank with initial AOE threat on a large pull. I'm sure plenty of other uses will be found - sending one loose mob back to the tank without the tank having to chase it down, a raid misdirection rotation to accelerate a tank's threat growth, etc. It looks like threat will be a lot easier to manage in the expansion. That'll allow more fights with unusual threat rules.

[Kevin]

That'll allow more fights with unusual threat rules.

I'm already seeing encounters that will require a paladin to use Righteous Defense or the hunter to use misdirection.

Heck I could see both of those already having a use in Razorgore phase 1 if you use a kiting strat. Lego spawns, hunter sends it to his kiting warrior. Lego gets on priest, paladin that is kiting as well does righteous defense to get the mobs on him.


I keep hoping for encounters that ask a tank to tank multiple mobs in a raid (like you get in 5 mans), I see some of the warrior talent changes as helping this out too. I've said it before part of the reason a warrior may want that 9 rage sunder even though they have devestate to keep the stack up is because they want to sunder other mobs they need to hold and that they'll be doing it in an environment that isn't as rage rich as some of the stuff is now.

But you can easily have a warrior that has to deal with holding something in a spot and you want other stuff that spawns on that warrior but he can't move to get it. The hunters can now "bring it" to them. The paladins who both sides now have, can fill is the support off tanks since you won't have as many warriors to protect the rest of the raid with the new talent (as can druids). Heck if you are outdoors you might want the druids rooting those mobs to give the hunter time to transfer it.

It means you can do new stuff with encounter design and give more classes more jobs. Which of course was one of the reasons both sides got shaman and paladins because both sides have the same tools now to deal with them all.

But I'm also hoping they keep some flexibility in how you can deal with it. That is why I mentioned that paladins might suddenly be the best choice to do some offtanking with that new talent, but it's something a druid or warrior could still do as well type of deal.

It's got me excited. :)

[Lissa]

From looking over the trees, it appears that Survival is now the raid friendly tree with the advent of Expose Weakness. Survival Hunters were already getting close to 600 Agi buffed and with the increase in gear coming in tBC, a Survival Hunter is going to have the highest critical chance of any of the Hunter specs out there.

Doing a quick build, I was able to maximize Agi with a Survival/Markman build. This means that an unbuffed Hunter with top end gear seen at level 70 will probably be hitting 520 Agi and with the inclusion of Grace of Air (presently 77 Agi), Blessing of Kings (+10% all stats), Mark of the Wild (presently 12 Agi), Elixir of the Mongoose (25 Agi and +2% crit, presently) you would be looking at a Hunter with upwards of 720 Agi!!!:o This means that the base crit chance for a Hunter fully raid buffed would be around 21.8% on Agi alone, 29.8 just including Talents, 31.8 including the effects from Mongoose, and probably a further 8 to 9% effective from blue level 70 gear giving the Hunter a 40% chance of crit meaning 1 in 8 shots will proc Expose Weakness raiding overall raid AP by 180 for physical DPS. Simply put, the Survival Hunter is the new Raid build for maximizing physical raid DPS.

[lfd]

you would be looking at a Hunter with upwards of 720 Agi!!!:o This means that the base crit chance for a Hunter fully raid buffed would be around 21.8% on Agi alone, 29.8 just including Talents, 31.8 including the effects from Mongoose, and probably a further 8 to 9% effective from blue level 70 gear giving the Hunter a 40% chance of crit

...which is one of the reasons they're changing to crit rating rather than crit percent. ;-)

[Lissa]

...which is one of the reasons they're changing to crit rating rather than crit percent. ;-)

Except that you still will get an effective crit rating that will never decay due to base stats. Your crit rating will scale no matter what level you are based on your Agi, this means that with a conservative buff of 720 Agi, you're going to be looking at over 20% effective crit just from base stat Agi. Likewise, talent based crit will also scale with you as well. Only the crit rating from items (items that had +% crit) will not scale with you meaning you have to upgrade it to get more and more crit rating. But base crit rating from base stat and base talents will scale and a Hunter with the spec I listed is looking at almost 30% effective crit without considering the crit rating coming from items and consumables.

[lfd]

Your crit rating will scale no matter what level you are based on your Agi

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. While it may be true, it's also been said that actual amount of +crit% that crit rating gives you goes down as your level goes up. So it does scale, but in a way counter to your apparent argument, unless you're saying that hunters still gain enough agility per level up to effectively increase their crit% despite the scale.

But base crit rating from base stat and base talents will scale and a Hunter with the spec I listed is looking at almost 30% effective crit without considering the crit rating coming from items and consumables.

And then you have to factor in the target's resilience rating, and any points they have in the talents that are popping up that reduce your chance to be critically hit. And all the additional +stamina on items. The sky isn't falling in just yet.

[Lissa]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. While it may be true, it's also been said that actual amount of +crit% that crit rating gives you goes down as your level goes up. So it does scale, but in a way counter to your apparent argument, unless you're saying that hunters still gain enough agility per level up to effectively increase their crit% despite the scale.

No, what I mean is that both the talent based crits and the crit base off of Agi will continue to give the same effective critical rating. 8% crit from Talents will stay 8% crit be it level 60 or level 70 otherwise it totally breaks those talents and makes them waisted points in effect. Likewise, as you scale upward in level you Agi will scale upward as well. You should end up with a little more crit through base Agi than you would have at lower levels with equivalent levels of gear (lv 60 gear on a level 60 will be less effective crit than a lv 70 in level 70 gear). Overall, not counting degredation of crit rating due to gear level vs. Mob level, ie, being in lower level gear compared to your level and mob level, you should have a significant increase in critical rating at lv 70 vs. lv 60.

And then you have to factor in the target's resilience rating, and any points they have in the talents that are popping up that reduce your chance to be critically hit. And all the additional +stamina on items. The sky isn't falling in just yet.

If present mobs are any indication of the kinds of resists and the like you would see, most mobs and bosses would have little to no resilience unless Blizzard wants to make a specific crit resistant. Resilience will be more for PvP than PvE in the end. The big effect of crit, and thus Expose Weakness, will be in the PvE arena and not so much in PvP (PvE will likely have little in the way of resilience while PvP will have a great deal of resilience).