Beta Build 8885
As I type this, the Wrath of the Lich King beta realms are down and being updated with a new beta build: 3.0.2.8885. And I am busy downloading all 458MB of the client patch. As usual, I will be live-blogging this build as I check it out, although I may have to stop early.
[edit] And now I’m done! Feel free to read my adventures at your leisure. [/edit]
Although the realms are still down, we are already hearing something about the contents of this patch. MMO Champion has updated their character talent calculators, for instance, and I noticed that Improved Hunter’s Mark no longer mentions melee attack power at all, as implied by Blizzard’s post on stacking effects yesterday.
I’m sure there are lots of other important hunter talent changes in there — I am expecting this new build to finish up the hunter changes that didn’t quite make it into the last build, and add a whole bunch of new changes to boot — but I haven’t finished looking through them yet.
On the pet front, WotLK Wiki is saying that Rhinos now have a Stampede skill. I’ll have confirmation and details on that as soon as the realms are up. Speaking of which, my client download just finished!
*cough* It really helps if I hit ‘Publish’ rather than ‘Save’ when I’m ready to, you know, Publish.
Well the realms seem to be up, but not exactly speedy and I’m getting some really interesting console error spew about missing textures. (And it’s a bad idea to hearthstone when you are half a mile above Zul’Drak, by the way.)
My stabled rhino does indeed now have a family skill:
Stampede (Rank 5): Your rhino slams nearby enemies within 10 yards, causing 47 to 63 damage and knocking them back 15 yards. (Melee Range, Instant, 1 min cooldown)
A knockback! I know a lot of hunters were hoping for that one.
And HEY! My level 71 carrion bird became level 72 when I pulled him out of the stable. It looks like stabled pets now do a level check when you pull them out. (He showed as level 71 in the stable intreface.) I had heard that this might be in this build, but it seems to be true. Nice!
Speaking of rhinos, the Tenacity pet talent tree has changed as expected. Charge has replaced Dash in the first tier of talents for Tenacity pets. It also remains in the third tier of Ferocity talents. The descriptions and details of the two locations appear to be identical. I don’t see any other changes to the pet talent trees.
Likewise I’m not seeing many changes in pet skills, although I’ve only looked at 13 of them so far. But Furious Howl is back to boosting attack power instead of damage. It also lists a flat add (+148 AP) but since it only has one rank I assume that that is actually a calculated value.
The map for Crystalsong Forest has changed rather a lot, but unfortunately while flying out of Dalaran I passed into Icecrown (which still isn’t open) and ended up in Warsong Hold. I’ll have to go back and see if there are any creatures there yet. But hey, look like I can finally use my flying mount in Borean Tundra! That’s good news.
Okay, time for a break. I should be back in about an hour or two to finish looking over the skills and check the zones for new pets. In the meantime, if you see anything cool please let me know!
I’m back! So on to Crystalsong! This zone now has named areas that can be discovered, but I still don’t see any NPCs about, and certainly no beasts. That’s a pity. I really hope it gets some wildlife soon.
I also learned that it is not a good idea to take a flying shortcut over Wintergrasp right now. As soon as I entered the Wintergrasp Combat Zone I dismounted and fell — onto an unclimbable slope above cliffs of death.I as lucky to be able to slide partially down the slope and across the zone boundary so I could remount, but according to the poor Horde stuck in the zone, once you are inside the ring of mountains you have to win to get out.
Storm Peaks is apparently still closed as well, so it looks like I have no new beasts to find and tame tonight. So much for that!
So I think I’ll call it a night. I’ll finish up retesting pet skills, but it looks like most of the changes in this build are hunter-related instead of pet-related. Well, except for Stampede, and the Furious Howl range and effect, and stabled pets auto-leveling …
89 Comments
*laughs* Thank you, Mania. Hope your feeling okay, by the way.
And oh well, now I am free to take improved stings over improved hunters mark.
Doing somewhat better, Palladiamors, thanks.
New viper? “The hunter takes on the aspect of the viper, instantly regenerating mana equal to 100% of the damage done by any ranged attack or ability, but reduces your total damage done by 50%. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.”
Interesting. I must say I prefer this to the old aspect. And now at lvl 20? Very nice.
Damn, you beat me Mania! I was gonna post the Rhino ability on the message boards! lol
I just saw on a few sites that Beast Mastery only gives 4 pet talent points instead of 5. I wonder why they made that change.
I just grabbed these from Wrath Wiki. These are the new Hunter glyphs. I noticed that one of them- Glyph of Bestial Speed- could be a huge asset to the Cat fans out there.
Glyph of Bestial Speed – Increases the speed of your pet by $s1% while using Eyes of the Beast.
Glyph of Scare Beast – Gives your Scare Beast spell a $57902s1% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage.
Glyph of Feign Death – Reduces the cooldown of your Feign Death spell by ${$57903s1/-1000}.
Glyph of the Pack – Increases the range of your Aspect of the Pack ability by $57904s1 yards.
Glyph of Mend Pet – Your Mend Pet spell increases your pet’s happiness slightly.
Glyph of Revive Pet – Gives your Revive Pet spell a $57866s1% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage.
Shinryu-
(and sorry for the double post)
Right now, the official talent calculators still read five points. There may be a typo in the game information, or they haven’t fully updated the talent calculators like they said they have.
Sei, I went to check the official talent calculators, they still show Aspert Mastery giving 10% mana for Viper, Trap Mastery not showing what it does, and so on. Guess they didn’t update them at all. Ah well, it’s still worth 16 levels of talent points for the pets.
Shinryu, definately. I have a feeling that it might be drawn down in order to make it a bit less alluring to the players who don’t want to have an exotic pet, but would love to have five extra talent points :)
It’s still worth having just for four extra points.
Four would suck, that would put me one point away from some of the incredible talent builds I’ve done for pets. Bugger.
Bleh. I always farm with Viper on and never run out of mana. Now it’ll be constant switching. Great for raiding though, and the Aspect Mastery talent reduces the penalty to 40%.
Don’t particularly care for that change from 5 points to 4 though.
BRK has a video up of the new Rhino skill in action.
That’s bull crap about aspect of the viper and even though Trap Mastery isn’t implemented its what I thought it would be and I’m happy about that.
I think wolves furious howl now increases AP by 5% to the raid within fourty yards.
Hey Mania, was wondering if you could help me out here as a reader, and post the time (and timezone) of when you take your breaks?
thanks
The Viper change is awesome from what I’ve been reading. It’s like they just gave us the mage’s Evocation, though we need to do damage to get mana back. A lot better than letting it tick passively for a long period of time as now we can get mana back way faster.
I have a question.. I watched BRK’s video and it looks like they fixed the “SUPERSIZE RHINO” into the “Shrink’s when tamed” Rhino. He still looks big but not the size of a city bus? Is this so Mania? I hope so but it’s hard to tell with a dwarf hunter, as… I’ve never played one. If they have shrunk them down it should be easy for somone who’s PLAYING in beta to tell though.
Polar bear cubs still seem to be tamable. At least, I still have mine and Beast Lore on it says that.
Wild Quiver went back to [NYI] while that tag was removed from Improved Steady Shot. Here’s to hoping Rapid Recuperation actually works now, as well.
Glad the rhino has a knock back thing! I was thinking it should. lol
And awww, they “nerfed” Beast Mastery down to 4 Pet Points? Beast Mastery did not need a “nerf”! That bites. :-(
Draketh: I should have thought to mention the time; I apologize. I’ll try to make sure to do that next time. I’m back now, though.
PepsiJedi: I *think* my rhino is somewhat smaller than he was, but he’s still as tall as my orc and rather longer. I still had to make him Stay outside so I could actually see the vendors, for instance.
About the viper change… my ~kara geared BM hunter, when wotlk goes live, will regen at over 280 mana/sec with just a steady spam, without including procs/HM. (with aspect mastery) This means that my mana pool will completely recharge in ~22 sec, not taking in to account recovery from pet special crits. I’d say that’s damn good. Yes, it is 22 sec of 60% damage, but that’s an extreme.
what i want to know are the “demon” wolves still tamable? those are still my faves of all the new ones
Looks like Camouflage is coming:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336457028&sid=2000
I think Prowl will definitely have to be changed now.
Gibz – 22s? Bear in mind that multi and volley are ranged damage :)
Interesting. Here is to hoping they get a form of rake or pounce over prowl now. That is under the consideration that camo goes live in that form.
Sorry, I am kinda super pissed at the moment, they broke my beacon of light for my paladin….. now I’ll be going down retri to sheathe of light just to get an effin’ HoT like effect. Not pleased with Blizzard and their ‘good ideas’ at the moment.
If that’s the new viper…they just doomed the hunter class! It decreases all damage done by 50% that makes the skill useless. Please Blizz go back to the old Viper!
I…can’t…believe, ugh. I-
….
Um…I can’t believe we actually got Camouflage. Do you realize what this means? Hunter’s will officially be OP again…just like the good ole’ days. However, it also depends on the Cooldown of Camouflage, if it’s fairly short (i.e. less than 1 minute) then we will be a real force in PvP…very scarey when a Rogue jumps you…now, imagine getting jumped from 41 yards away…I just got one thing to say to that: “Bring me my brown pants”
Palla-
Reading over it, this may actually be a very strong talent. I know, it means loosing an HoT, but at the same time, it means having a real ability to heal groups. What I also noticed is that you could really do some insane things with this given two Healadins. You know, like pop this on the MT and the OT from different Paladins and heal the opposite target causing almost insane amounts of healing. In most group situations it can come down to healing the group for a little and the MT for a lot, you can now chain heal Flash of Light around the group and get the MT every single time. I can see the potential for this. It’s just going to be a matter of the application.
As for Prowl, I agree and think that Pounce would be the better choice. I could see it being a replacement for Charge that could do other odd ball things too.
I can’t believe some ppl still don’t realize how great this aspect of the viper change is. It allows you to stay in AotH 90% of the time and just quickly pop over to viper when we are low on mana for a full mana bar. It much better than how it is right now, this basically makes our mana bar seem more like a energy bar.
@gohan11: Indeed, this one change to viper effectively nullified all of our mana issues. The only issue atm is if its only the hunters damage that is counted and not the pets also, this would make it less effective for BM builds. Also it made the talent Invigoration useless to take, but im hoping we will see some changes to it in future builds.
Not to happy about the change from 5 to 4 extra skill points for the pet tho, it seems like such a random change.
Also in regards to viper, they have gives us a second ability to control our threat with the damage reduction. Lets say you getting to close to the tank threatwise, you pop FD, but lo and behold it got resisted. What you normally do here is to either stop dps altogether or just auto shot. But now you can instead pop viper and continue to dps while your mana regens and when its done your tank should have built enough threat for you switch back to hawk.
Also some fights are backloaded when it comes to the ammount of damage to output, this gives us the ability to time when to regen mana for those phases. You really need to think about this as a supercharged evocation.
Palladiamors – wait, you’re pissed that Blizz made it so you can keep 2 tanks up? Heh.
Ketari: That is with just a Steady spam. Since I’m not in beta, I have not had the chance to see how some of the changes will affect shot rotations, so I just based it off what I currently do. Certainly, with a different rotation, and/or the use of multi to its full effect, this rate could be higher.
Now, what I want to know, is does Serpent Sting get counted, and is its damage reduced while in viper? Or will it still tick at full strength, and return mana? Or is it not counted at all if cast before viper?
Hmm. Are stabled pets tied to the *hunter’s* level, or to that “five levels below” taming cap? In either case, huzzah! I can tame the pets I want as I find them, not once I hit 80. ^-^
Stampede looks interesting… Might go for a rhino tanker, but I kinda’ hope they add more models in for it if I do (or even include pre-existing rhino-esque ones) – not really that wild about the single one currently in. For that matter, Tenacity pets as a whole seem to mostly be the models I’m not that interested in. Kind of annoying, especially given the current semi-overlap between warp and charge.
And on an unrelated note… “Acid Breath: Description changed from ‘Spews acid at enemies in front of you.’ to ‘Spews acid at enemies in front of you for 1330 to 1470 damage and 855 to 945 every 2 for [DURATION] seconds.’ ” listed in the “Hunter Pets” section of the Hunter changes listed on WotLK Wiki. I can’t seem to find a pet family with that ability, and the closest match on WoWhead I could find isn’t tied to any mobs atm (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=56524). >->
Given we’re actually getting camouflage, I do hope Prowl gets revised–since it’s pretty much redundant now. :x
Ansawa,
I really am hoping too. As a cat owner for closing in on twenty years now, I can tell you that cat’s don’t sneek up and then attack. Most cats, including many great cats, leap at their prey to catch them off guard.
I want a pounce ability. That might make me rethink getting a cat for a pet.
hey look at petopia the little baby polar bears are now tamable never noticed that. Im so getting one
We lost internet last night soon after I wrapped up this post or I would have been back on the comments before now. Bloody storms. (We actually lost cable entirely, which was odd.)
Anyway.
Veyska: The stabled pets seem to level if they have slipped more than 5 levels below the hunter’s current level, and they only level up to the 5-levels-below mark. The two examples I’ve seen for myself so far were a level 71 that became 72 (and I am 77), and a 72 that became 73 for a level 78 hunter. The pets displayed as their old level in the stable, but when pulled out silently went up to their new level. (No leveling effect on them.)
Acid Spit (on worms) hasn’t changed in-game that I can see. I’m not sure what Acid Breath might be.
@Mania:
Regarding Crystalsong Forest: Blizzard might have some special wildlife here in the works that has adapted to the environment like .. spectral tigers? ^^
any news on the Silithids? are Silithid Wasps now tamable too? and with the size nerf…my yellow silithid my 60 hunter tamed on beta stayed pretty big…if i went and tamed the rare lvl 35 one…would he be BIGGER than my lvl 60 because he had more lvls? or do exotic pets have a size cap, that when tamed, they stay at the size for ever? or would that be bigger than my already huge silithid?
Go and Tame that beautiful albino eagle, when you’re a 78 Mania! :-D lol
*Sighs* I wish there was info from.. anyone in the Beta… :-P.
Sadly, I seriously doubt that Spectral Tigers will ever be tamable. Blizzard seems to never use the same models as the TCG rewards in any other aspect of the game, leading me to believe that is part of their deal with Upper Deck or some such. Upper Deck doesn’t want the rewards from their cards accessible by any other method (excluding the ogre suit, which came way before the TCG cards), so that more people buy the boosters. This is the same reason Softknuckles are un-tamable, most likely. Though I won’t lie and say I know every aspect of the business dealings between Blizzard and Upper Deck; this is just my hypothesis.
And so far, the new Aspect of the Viper is amazing; especially so with the Rapid Recuperation talent to reduce mana of abilities during Rapid Fire (if only the regen on the talent worked). It’s like an Evocation, but you’re doing damage during it.
And yet you don’t go and check Azeroth to see if Ancient Core Hounds are tameable?!
:(
It can’t overheal, Sei, and it only lasts for a minute. Not to mention for PvP its one of those things that screams “Dispell me or lock me down!” Right now its also rather borked. The way to FIX the old spell would have been to give it an initial wave of healing, something that healed for so much, give that the ability to critical and only have illumination effect the main target, and THEN have it apply an HoT to all surronding targets, or even just the main target. Not this 35% of base mana junk. *Takes a deep breath* Sorry. I’ve always prided myself on always going down holy, but this fifty one point talent isn’t worth it. I’ll be going down in retri to pick up sheathe of light, as long as they don’t break that as well.
I don’t think I’d be quite so angry, but restoration shaman already have a talent remarkably similar to the new sheathe of light. It is on critical, I’ll admit that, but on critical it immediately heals the target with the lowest health for 60% of the initial amount healed. Its automatic, intelligent targetting to pick the target in the most need, its FREE, and it runs off of critical, a holy paladins best friend. And we get this….. this…. thing!!! *points angrily*
*coughs* So uh, camouflage! Good stuff, eh?
Oh, and for the shaman talent, its ten points cheaper then our beacon of light.
@ Palla
I actually prefer the new beacon to the old, big time, Im not in BETA though so I only know what I read.
I play both pally and shammie (and a bunch of other classes :P), although my Pallies mainly retri I tried holy a couple of times (…most boring healer ever), I think Beacon Of Light can really help with the multi target healing issue.
35% of base mana is not alot for a geared holy pally anyways.
And on camoflage… PLEASE NO!
I HATE TO PLAY AND TO MEET ROGUES!
DONT MAKE ME HATE MY HUNTER AS WELL =(
NO TO CAMO!
then again I like prowling druids…BUT THATS ANOTHER STORY!
Palla-
*whistles lowly* I was just looking over it. You could actually do something crazy here as a Healadin and be almost over powered. You could go deep enough into Ret to get Sheath of Light, AND go deep enough into Holy to get Divine Illumination and do a lot of healing that way. It’s an interesting set up.
Something else is bothering me about this change. It doesn’t seem to be in any of the official documentation (like they haven’t changed the talent calculator!) Ghostcrawler also mentioned that there were a few Developers who wanted to try a few new things before making them official. Let them know that this is an issue and have them change it back. HOWEVER, I would love to see an HoT. There is a possibility that they decided to change things and make an HoT be a trainable spell and it isn’t implemented yet.
@Verun:
Well, I didn’t exactly mean the spectral tiger (mount) from the TCG as wildlife for Crystalsong Forest, but wildlife with the same type of (semi-)transparent textures ^^
The experimental Beacon of Light mechanic actually looks pretty fun to me – the big problem paladins have had for a long time is that they have to spend a GCD to heal anyone, which is a GCD where the tank isn’t getting healed. With the new beacon mechanic, a 51-point holy paladin can either raid heal, with all those heals also landing on the MT, or else do a full single-target healing job on the MT and the OT at the same time. It gives the paladin some much-needed flexibility while avoiding merely giving them a cheap knock-off of Chain Heal, Circle of Healing or Flourish. Regarding duration and mana cost, those are numbers they can easily fiddle with to get the level of effectiveness they want. (For PvP, they’re obviously going to have to give some consideration to how easy it is to dispel the buff from the Beacon target)
Back on the hunter topic – BM is definitely only giving 4 extra talent points at the moment. It also looks like Rogues and Hunters are going to be sharing threat redirection duties, since the new level 75 rogue ability “Tricks of the Trade” appears to be based on the same underlying concept as Misdirection.
I’ve never had a problem healing TWO targets, thats part of my issue with it. I can easily bouncing between raid healing and single target healing on my paladin. Its not hard. Its BEYOND two targets that screws paladins. Hell, I’ll go so far as to say I can do three as long as its not a constant barrage against all three targets. Its not hard. Its just a redone mechanic that makes me angry. Really, the only real upside I can see to this is you can get double the effect off of flash of light or holy light by casting beacon on the main tank. In essence it will allow us to double our healing numbers, but it still just FEELS funny. It doesn’t fit, and it isn’t what we really needed. And honestly, I’ll take a cheap knock off of another heal spell if it’ll give me the tools I need. Beacon just ain’t it.
As for camouflage, I think that ones a wait and see. I don’t harbor any hope that we’ll be able to aimed shot while stealthed. I also don’t really know how I feel about it. It almost feels like its tacked on for fun, and not to be serious. Promises to be…. interesting for BGs, when every rogue, hunter, and druid are stealthed.
bounce* Dang it, not bouncing.
How is boar’s family skill “gore” working now? If it only benefits from “charge” once in the begining of fight, it’s somewhat weak.
If let me make the change, I would propose this:
Gore: Boar gores the enemy for X damage. If the enemy is slowed (on frost trap, tendon rip, or any slow effect) or dazed (concussion shot or any daze effect), gore will do double damage. If the enemy is imbobilized (imobilization 1 sec of charge effect, frozen by freezing trap…) or stunned, gore will do triple damage.
The Beta isn’t fair.. 3.0.2 or whatever needs to go on the Public Test Realms already.. There needs to be alot more players sayings stuff about Tameables.. Alot more people need to be able to get into it…
I guess most of you are *NOT* playing PvP instead all the time just PvE.
That’s the reason you aren’t crying about the Aspect of the Viper change.
Believe me, in PvP situations, it’s very crucial to get out as much damage as possible in a short time, not only 50% of your whole damage. The old AotV doesn’t decrease the damage, instead there was only a missing boost from the AotH.
So please, that’s ridiculous what some of you is that writing, it’s NOT amazing for PvP players, it’s a real mess and I fear that’s a big nerf compared to the situation before for PvP players.
The old AotV DOES decrease your damage, because you can’t get hawk AP while it is up (which means missing out on at least 450 AP with the level 80 version of Hawk plus the new Aspect Mastery talent).
The bit you are missing though that makes this a fairly major buff for all areas of the game is that even under non-optimal conditions, a hunter can use the new AotV to refill their mana pool in a matter of seconds before switching back to Hawk and putting out full damage again.
I think the following post sums it up pretty well (linking the quoted version because of the identity of the poster, and the part of the quote that he emphasised):
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336626607&sid=2000&pageNo=2#31
I pray that the Viper change goes live. Oh, how I pray it does. It’s a pure and glorious gift to raid/instance… and anyone that says it sucks in PVP has obviously never found themselves trying to gain mana back /fast/ in a battleground. Sure, your personal deepeez goes down for a few seconds, but better that than vanishing completely because you’re dead because you ran out of mana!
As for the drop in 51-BM… All I can think of is that someone said ‘whoa, someone’s sure figured out how to min/max their pet on 5 points! We better defuse that’ and nerfed it by one so they couldn’t make some magic combo. As for what that combo is…who knows, I dun have a beta key. XD
And… my two cents… charge > dash, especially for a tank pet. Does anyone know how this interacts with Warp though? (Are warpstalkers tenacity? I don’t even know for sure…) Would the stalker warp and then charge?
Palla-
With this, even if it lasts just a minute (though it should last longer and I still can’t find any data on it like what is the cool down on it!), this means you can easily heal the main tank AND heal four or five or six people and keep the main tank up. I can see it having a lot more of an application than a group HoT that you all have to stack up next to the guy to get. You get two heals for the literal cost of one.
Palla, part of the problem is that, in most situations where Palladins aren’t overgeared, it is a constant barage of damage against two, three and sometimes four players. I had forgotten how hard it could be to heal groups when there’s a lack of CC simply because my gear was so high now that most of those situations were easy. I then healed with my Shaman, and those situations were easier with her than even my uber-geared Paladin because of the types of heals that she has. I mean, she has a flash heal that can heal for a lot, a longer heal that she can heal for a real huge amount, and a chain heal which, I’ve been known to spam going back and forth between the two getting hit the most. However, I cannot comment beyond the ‘it MAY be a great mechanic (please note the may)’ until I have a chance to test it out.
I know you say it ‘feels’ wrong. I’m not sure what you mean by that.
As for Camoflage, has anyone noticed that Hunters are becoming more and more Scout/Ranger like?
So, any new pets found in this release?
Hey, guess what!
This is a Hunter blog! Mind not derailing it every third post with a giant paragraph about Pally healing?
C’mon, people, update with new pets already! Anyone. Pictures and/or comments already. Geez.
Nayana-
We do it all the time. We all discuss things other than Hunters here. We discuss mostly hunter stuff, but we do go off topic quite often. I was trying to allay Palla’s conserns about the changes to Paladins. However, I might ask you to note that the discussion about changes to Hunters is still going on and nothing’s been derailed.
In fact, this is NOT a Hunter blog. It is a HUNTER PET blog. And, yet, we discuss Hunter issues all the time.
Kristy, Darknez- There do not appear to be any new pets from the information that I’ve gleaned through. There is a new Hunter Pet ability that’s shown up, but not on any of the pets yet. It may be something for their next patch. They stated that this particular build was going to focus mostly on Rogues.
To Sei: Yes. Thank you. Yeah, I’ve seen/heard that possible Hunter Pet ability thing before. It sounds really nice. And UGH, Rogues. Yuck. I hate Rogues.
Kristy-
I use to have a rogue until around lvl 63. At that point, she kind of imploded. I hated to, but I ended up deleting her since I had hit a point where I wasn’t going to play her again.
The new ability looks nice. I wonder if it is either old data (something not fully removed) or linked to a new pet.
Ghostcrawler said something in the Paladin forums about them doing things in cycles. Last big patch was Hunters, next was Rogues, next might be Paladins. They’re still working on it.
I’m 100% positive Aspect of Viper will either go back to how it was, or get buffed. I think Blizzard should be smart enough to realize how stupid that aspect change is.
Then again, they nerfed the heck out of paladins and forbearance…
Forgot to mention this:
New aspect of viper completely kills your dmg so you can regen mana(which means not as much mana return, and u have to factor in the mana cost of abilities to begin with)…old aspect allowed us to dps WHILE regaining mana. Slower, but it didn’t kill dps all that much.
Beast Mastery change was stupid. I was already of the opinion Exotic Pets and +5 skill points was not up to par with the others. Its showy, looks cool, and certainly is nice to have, but in the end Exotic Pets don’t have the power or usefulness a 51 point talent should have.
To Sei: Yeah, I know. All classes deserve their “special” patch(es).
Old viper: maxed out at 35% of level and 55% of intellect – around 190 mp5 for a level 70 hunter with 300 intellect.
New viper: 2.5x hunter DPS as mp5. That works to something like 5000+ mp5 for a T6 raiding hunter, and 3500 or so for a T4 raiding hunter.
The old version of viper isn’t even in the contest because the rate of mana regeneration is so much better with the new version – 50% damage for 5-10 seconds (and probably up to double that or so in PvP or a high movement raid encounter), then straight back to Hawk for the +AP and possibly the chance of a Quick Shots proc (depending on spec). Repeat ad infinitum.
As the poster Megatf said, it is a change that if it goes live will put hunters squarely in the infinite resource physical DPS category.
Oops, “as the poster Megatf *quoted* said”
Yeah… given what my Lv70 hunter is capable of dishing out as DPS… if the new Viper returned dps-as-mana at full strength it’d take me exactly two autoshots to refresh my mana pool from like zero. And that’s saying I didn’t crit.
Being able to fire once, and get 75% of your mana back is OP. Seriously. No, the new Viper is just fine. Also, I like the idea of it as a low-impact threat dump, it saves me mashing Feign every time I get close to the tank.
I’m still not convinced that the “new” AotV is really a good bargain. I was farming with AotV constantly making 100% damage (and not 50%) but never run out of mana.
And, what many doesn’t know: A hunter is NOT a caster only, so I am not completely doomed if I have no mana. With AotH for sure I will do additional damage, but not 150% (I guess it influences total damage value just for 10-20%), and I am playing BM and not Marksman.
And it was very comfortable just staying with one aspect instead of changing nervous between two aspects all the time – playing without a macro will not work then.
If I do not make 100% damage for 5-10 Secs in Pvp, I am DEAD. So it’s a big nerf and I will hate this change for sure.
it boggles my mind that some hunters are complaining about having to switch aspects while grinding. the new aotv is so much better than the old.not only are mana costs lowered,it took me a lot longer to go oom, i popped the new aotv and was full on ONE mob! i was getting over 1000 mana back per shot! (crit)while still damaging my target.so in less than 8 seconds i went from 0 mana to 8k mana,
It’s clear that BM is dying.
I must say, it seems rather disheartening to see abilities getting mashed by the nerf hammer because Blizz added too much someplace else.
The viper change would be gerat for raiding, but is going to hurt a bit for solo as it was a good way to manage threat since pet aggro was reduced once again on live.
I have to say I’m seeing less reason to stay BM since Blizz is trimming us on every side. We can’t use much haste gear, scaling is limited, and with the steady scaling back of our exotics, they will soon be nothing more than different skins.
The only saving grace is that the switch to MM will be relatively easy, since MM pets can have basically all the same stats and utility of a BM pet with the nerf to the BM 51-point and to the exotics. (That 51 pointer is going to be one of the worst by the time Blizz is done. A 51 point talent that basically provides a cosmetic change, or at best some situational pets. We’ll be down to 2 or 3 points before they are done, and the devilsaurs will be nerfed).
If ther’es a lesson in all of this, pray that your spec doesnt look good at the beginning of beta, becuase it will be nerfed to second class if it does. Just asj the broken ret pallies. Blizz couldn’t fix the scaling so they made judgements useless…
So, I hate to say it, but I see BM as being a vanity spec when Blizz is done, a spec that won’t be in raids anymore. A MM with a pet with a few less points, but all the scaling from haste that MM provides will likely be just as good.
@Tabmow: It’s not the switching that’s the problem, it’s that AOV was a good aggro control tool
I do not intend that this is going to sound snarky, but it’s going to.
Ok, when you guys say ‘I need maximum damage in PvP and can’t have my damage reduced by half or I’m dead’ Do you mean PvP Battlegrounds? PvP Arena? PvP Raids on Cities? or PvP Servers? Somehow the ‘OMG this is horrible’ arguement falls apart if you don’t explain how it impacts each.
When it was mentioned that Aspect of the Viper was used to manage threat generation, but now it is not, I felt like asking ‘okay, you do realize that dropping your damage rate by half for long enough to build up mana was going to drop your aggro generation?’ And when it was mentioned that ‘Aggro has been dropped again in Live’, do you mean the current build in Beta or do you mean the current build in what I’ve always though of as Live- that is 2.4.3?
As for the dropping of a single point from the 51 BM talent, I’m not sure that’s a huge loss. Four extra points is still four extra points. I don’t see how loosing one is going to break this talent as it still means that even a normal pet is pretty strong. As for the abilities in the exotic pets, a lot of those are better than the average pet’s abilities, and would be worth the talent. Since it does not look like any of those have had more than minor adjustments (Froststorm Breath was the most major one, and that’s because the co-efficients on a skill that does two types of damage at once were screwed up for a long time), those skills are still pretty good when taken into account with the extra four talent points. It really means being able to get two of the top tier skills rather than one. In fact, the removal of that single point really just isn’t important since it isn’t enough to really do anything.
I don’t see how the changes to Aspect of the Viper is going to impact Arena all that much. You’re going to drop your max DPS by half for a handful of shots rather than dropping your DPS down by 2/3rds for the durration of the old Aspect of the Viper. If anything, what this is doing is mitigating your DPS downtime AND helping to reduce aggro while doing so.
I am sorry that this is a bit snarky, but it is hard to judge if something is broken if a lot more of the specifics are there.
As Ghostcrawler has said on the Beta Hunter forums:
Ugh. Beast Mastery is not “dying”. Exotic pets are special. Exotic pets are not getting “major nerfs”. Duh. And they better not so-called from you “nerf” Devilsaurs.
@ Seidouyumi
I’ve noticed that agrro got worse again after one of the recent “hot fixes”, so yes in live. I need to run in Viper just to avoid pulling aggro.
@Kristy I surely hope they don’t, but the fact remains that we will be dependent more on our pets for dps, and they keep scaling them back. Meanwhile, MM is getting better and better scaling.
And I still think that a MM specced at 70 for the 51-pointer is going to be doing more damage than a BM specced for the 51 pointer.
They will probably tune the DPS of all the hunter specs to be comparable, since there isn’t going to be a major difference in the degree of utility provided (damage scaling in BM, AP scaling in MM, mana restoration in SV).
With the BM exotics, I’m actually seeing a bit of trend towards having the family abilities actually be outright better than the corresponding non-exotic abilities despite what the devs said earlier in the beta. Currently, Worm Acid Spit is outright better than Wasp Sting, Rhino Stampede is better than Gorilla Thunderstomp, Chimaera Froststorm Breath is better than Windserpent Lightning Breath, Devilsaur Monstrous Bite is better than Raptor Savage Rend, Silithid Venom Web is better than Spider Web. With more of the benefit of the talent moving to the family abilities, there is less of a need for additional pet talent points.
I’m actually quite OK with that apparent change in philosophy, as with the current setup of the Ferocity tree, the extra pet talent points don’t provide any additional pet DPS.
Fearstalker-
I’m going to have to assume now that you mean 2.4.3 and not 3.0.whatever. Yeah, growl’s pretty much messed up in the game. We’ve been told that those issues should be fixed in Wrath. That’s what Ghostcrawler keeps telling us.
And, you missed the point I made in my post. If you don’t tell us which build/version you’re working from, we cannot address any specific point you make. I do NOT know if you are in Beta, or if you’re just talking about the information coming out of Beta.
i just now started downloading mania, so i gotta kill 2 hours…but nice on aspect of the viper, seems like us hunters wont be needing water anymore
Fear Stalker: …O-kay. “they keep scaling them back” eh? Prove it. Going by what? The Chimera alone? *1* single pet? No, I do not think they are “scaling them back”. Exotic pets are good in doing their DpS.
I can verify the change to stabling your low level pets. I am in beta, and had a lvl 41 tallstrider in the stables. She showed as lvl 41 in the interface, but when I pulled her out of the stables she changed to lvl 65. I am lvl 70.
The so called nerf on chimeras was explained in a blue post. The only reason they were doing so much damage was because of a typo in the tables. The increased cooldowns on pet talents was due to reduced focus costs so that the skills can be used for more than just an opening move. Having charge instead of dash for the tenacity tree is just following established practice from boars. I have yet to see an actual nerf to pets other than the reduced points from beast mastery which still gives 16 levels worth of extra points.
well if you think practical turtles and crocolisks can charge (they can bairly dash) and warpstalkers would render it completly useless because of blink – blink=30yard instent teleport there and 50% dodge chance for first attack’ charge=30yard huge speed boost and 25% more damage
Im pretty shure 50% dodge chance for a tankign pet is better then 25% damage and since ther eboth 30 yards and blink is faster charge has no purpus with it the only animals charge is good for and pracitly good for is boars and rhinos (its good for the rest but you cant really see a gorilla going that fast can you?)
I can’t see human encased it full plate going that fast either, but it doesn’t stop warriors :)
An instant burst of speed through sheer strength is far more believable for most of the tenacity pets than a sustained sprint, and for many of them it is backed up by real world behaviour (gorillas, crocs, boars, bears, rhinos).
Wow, typo central… “I can’t see a human encased in full plate…”
@ lianardo
Warp Stalker’s move is called Warp, and yes it does have a 30 yard range. However, Charge’s range is 25 max to 8 min yards. Warp also has a 15 seconds cooldown, while Charge has a 25 seconds cooldown.
Right now the problem is that both moves are way too similar, thus the Warp Stalkers ends up in a weird state of having two moves that do the same basic thing. Blizzard could give back Dash to them only instead of Charge, or put Warp in place of Charge and give them a new family skill.
And then we still have the Prowl problem with Cats. Doesn’t do anything for long battles, and with Camo at 80 it pretty much becomes worthless. While I do think Cats should be less used by hunters (there’s WAY too many of them around, especially King B.), but I do think they deserve a better family skill, one that they can use in combat.
I can’t wait till my gorilla has Charge and a good focus dump, those are the two things seriously missing from him right now.
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