PTR3.0/Beta Build 8962

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As close readers of the blog may have surmised, I feel asleep last night while waiting for build 8962 to make it’s way to the PTR and Beta realms. And now I’m out of time — I need to check out and get to my plane for the long trip home! (My husband is frowning and tapping his foot at me as I type.)

But thanks to the amazing community here, there is already a lot of information on hunter pet changes available. If you are jonesing for details, check out the comment thread from the last post as well as the News & Rumors forum of Mania’s Forums. And feel free to post your own discoveries or questions in either of those spots or in this comment thread.

Unfortunately I won’t be home until late tonight (Eastern US time), but in the meantime I trust you folks to sort everything out for me. :> And maybe by then we’ll know what this new exotic is!

(Okay, okay, dear! I’ll be there in two seconds. Sheesh!) Gotta go!

87 thoughts on “PTR3.0/Beta Build 8962”

  2. Interesting, according to Wowhead there is a new Hunter pet family called “Spirit Beast” who’s special ability seems to be “Spirit Strike” which sounds like the druid moonfire spell. But so far there’s no screenshots or even where to find them yet.

    Also, there’s a new level 80 Hunter shot called “Freezing Arrow” that shoots and freezes a target for 20 seconds with a 30 second cooldown!

  4. Right now Goof we are waiting to find out if it shares a cd with traps which if it does would hurt a lot & make it not as effective as it could be.

    There were also a lot of hunter nerfs lastnight as well. Some improvements but overall mostly nerfs. At least it wasn’t just us, as most of the classes felt the nerf bat.

  5. Beast Mastery
    Skills

    Aspect of the Viper mana regeneration buffed. Each ranged attack regenerates a percentage of maximum mana equal to twice your base ranged weapon speed. (Previously only regened your base ranged weapon speed)

    Marksmanship
    Skills

    Steady Shot mana cost increased from 4% of base mana to 5%, damage reduced. (Check Skill List for Details)
    Kill Shot no longer knocks you down. Damage Increased to 205% weapon damage plus [ 40% of RAP + 820 ] (Old – 200% weapon damage plus [ 30% of RAP + 400 ]). Can only be used on targets under 20% health. (Check Skill List for Details)
    Kill Shot (Rank 2) 205% weapon damage plus [ 40% of RAP + 1000 ] and (Rank 3) 205% weapon damage plus [ 40% of RAP + 1200 ] have been added to the game.
    Tranquiliziing Shot attempts to remove 1 Enrage and 1 Magic effect from an enemy target. (Previously removed 1 frenzy effect as well)

    Talents

    Wild Quiver (Tier 9) now gives you a 4/7/10% chance to shoot an additional shot when doing damage with your auto shot, dealing 50% Nature damage. Wild Quiver consumes no ammo. (Previously 60% nature damage)
    Master Marksman (Tier 8 ) changed to increase your critical strike chance by 1/2/3/4/5%, and increases your total ranged haste by 1/2/3/4/5%. (Previously increased ranged AP by 2/4/6/8/10%)
    Combat Experience (Tier 6) Increases your total Agility and Intellect by 2/4%. (Previously 3/6%)
    Mortal Shots (Tier 2) now only affects ranged abilities.

    Survival
    Skills

    Misdirection cooldown reduced to 30 sec. (Previously 2 mins)
    Freezing Trap now has a chance to break on damage. (Previously broke 100% of the time on damage)
    *New Skill* Freezing Arrow (Level 80) – Fire a freezing arrow that places a Freezing Trap at the target location, freezing the first enemy that approaches, preventing all action for up to 20 sec. Any damage caused will break the ice. Trap will exist for . Only one trap can be active at a time. (3% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown)

    Talents

    Explosive shot (Tier 11) damage reduced. (Check Skill List for Details)
    Hunting Party (Tier 10) mana regen reduced to 0.25% of max mana. (Previously 0.5%)
    Sniper Training now increases the critical strike chance of your Kill Shot ability by 15%. (Old – No health requirement)
    Surefooted (Tier 4) reduces movement impairing effect durations by 10/20/30% (Previously 16/25/50%)
    Lock and Load (Tier 4) now affects your next 2 Arcane or Explosive shots. (Previously 1)
    Trap Mastery is now implemented.

    Survival Instincts (Tier 2) changed to – Reduces all damage taken by 2/4% and increases the critical strike chance of your Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, and Explosive Shot by 2/4%. (Previously reduced all damage taken by 2/4% and increased ap by 2/4%)

    Glyphs

    Glyph of Aspect of the Viper – Increases the amount of mana gained from attacks while Aspect of the Viper is active by 10%. (Old – You regenerate mana from Aspect of the Viper as if you had 15% less mana in your current mana pool.)

    A list of the changes that I could find, courtesy of MMO-champion.

  6. They’re still dialing the stuff in, the game will be different after Wrath, so don’t be like all ‘zomg nerffff!’ IMO.

    If they are genuinely nerfs it’s because people were like ‘Yay 3k dps on training dummies!! Wootzorz!’.

  8. more exotics eh? sounds interesting. if it makes it off the drawing board and into the game, wed have even more reason to love being BM =P. Also, when you get home mania, try to relax a bit. lord knows that youv’e earned it.

  9. Looks like Spiders Bite was changed, I believe without looking it was after the three points a 30% critical damage bonus increase. In PTR it was changed to a +9% crit incrase.

  11. Not sure what this spirit beast is, but its family special is “arcane” damage. Sounds like blizzard read my post about having all the damage types except for Arcane and holy. . .

    As far as this freezing arrow thing. . . well lets just say I’m underwhelmed.
    If it doesn’t share a CD with our regular traps, then it could come in handy as a back up trap (in the case of a resist). Or to “pick off” a “runner” or a mob that is headed for a healer. (but in most cases of trying to hit a moving mob, any bit of lag and you’d miss and waste it anyway) If it shares the CD with traps, then it is simply a fancy redundancy.

    Still holding out hope for “camo” to actually make it to the game. I see far more use for it in both PvP and PvE. With MD on the tank, “Camo” would alow us to become even better masters at the “long-distance/around-a-corner” pull. A mage is more reliable CC with Sheep. A mage is more instant burst damage.
    So what good is a hunter? Master of the pull. Even before we had MD, The hunter could make the pull, run around the corner to the waiting party, where the mage would sheep(if needed), Hunter FD, and the tank grab the remaining one(s). And we wear mail (not squishy cloth) to allow us to take a hit or two on the way. This is the hunter’s strength . . . not “hur, hur, yup, I kill stuff”
    Camo would get us one step closer to make that “impossible” pull.

  12. Mattias: Nice spot. Yeah I think youre onto something. Its a new cat model at least, so it would make sense since the spirit beast has prowl and an ‘arcane’ version of ravage or was it rake? I was never too good with cat abilities :)

    Its certainly a cool looking kitty.

  13. I think this freezing arrow is alot better than some people are giving it credit for. Rogues are going to be able to disarm traps from 20 yards last I heard (60foot arms, ridiculous IMO). There is no way they are gonna be able to disarm an arrow. Hey rogue! Disarm this! /freezingarrow

  15. Hmmm i jsut found out somthing interesting on WoWhead take a look a this http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?pet=46 (if its not linkable just type in that address) It says here that SPIRIT (yes spirit) beast are now tamable that would include ghost wolfs and ghost cats stuff like that! Pretty cool eh? Now i couldnt get a screenshot though.

  17. Hey i found out some awesome news if you go to wowhead.com and look a Ferocity pets they’ve got a new one! Its call “spirit beast” like ghost wolves and ghost cats! i think its pretty cool they know prowl (the move cats have) and they have there own family move too! Heres there move-

    Spirit Strike Rank 6
    20 Focus 30 yd range
    Instant 10 sec cooldown

    Burns the enemy for 43 to 57 Arcane damage and then an additional 43 to 57 after 10 sec

  18. I pray that we get a variant of that kitty. I think it makes sense since they re-modeled the worg/wolf model. Us cat lovers really deserve a re-modeled cat model.. I’d be sooooo happy.

    I am almost a die-hard BM fan but I was thinking that the exotics were slightly unimpressive.. my crit chance and other things lowered on the ptr and I was.. *gasp* going to go marks. BUT if we get an awesome kitty with the 51 talent.. I will never ever leave BM.

  20. i think Harkoa wouldnt be tameable…prolly a boss, like the “Faceless One” which is Hakkar, really…its probably just for the boss, like the ZG Hakkar skin, the wind serpent with claws and stuff, it dosent show up anywhere else

  22. Oh I do hope they use that model for tameable versions. It looks so much better than the existing cats (with maybe the exception of the ‘mount’ cats, but they dont have a large choice of skins alas – read: 2).

  25. ok yeah, you eat your icecream featherkitty but this is for talk for Wotlk pets not icecream so talk about your icecream to your dog or something.

  27. Ok maybe I just now noticed, but when did Kill Command change? Suddenly its “Increase the damage done by your pets special ability by 60%. Each special attack done by the pet reduces the damage bonus by 60%.”

    Ok has that been like that for awhile and I’ve honestly never noticed? I’m fairly certain that’s not the live version, and I really think that sucks. My wolf keeps easily stacking that 3 times thus completely negating the Kill Command in just a few seconds.

  32. i was testing to see if the mage hunters previously tagged as wolves terned to spirit beast… i was wrong.

    wonder what they are but im guessing there seethrough and hard to target right

  33. Mania, can you please do a plea for the plight of windserpents :(

    LB does less dmg than a pets melee now. Please, someone must speak up for the poor dears. :(

    I love my Obsidian and dont want to have to see him stabled away for eternity just cause he can’t perform up to par.

    For the love of the feathered snakes out there, pleezzzs. *smiles*

  35. i was thinking please mania or BRK see if this would work as a new model for tallstriders. a pheonix’s outside skin fire + and a darkish blue tallstrider skin but the fire being light bluish like when fire gets really hot

  36. Kilraq, Ivanator, chill, please. Mania just got back from a long tiring trip and needs a bit of time to rest. And Kilraq, let met personally assure you that in having a ten second DPS family trait, wind serpents are doing just fine for themselves.

    *Chuckles* Lord almighty, no one knows what this thing is. Might be a mob in an instance we haven’t seen yet, or it might be a mob added in the last build to a new area. Or hell, they could have not added a new mob for it at all!

  38. What’s with all the sudden link spamming?

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the “spirit beast” family is currently no more than a placeholder in the data files, with no members in the live patch at all. It may or may not see the light of play by release, but I wouldn’t place too much importance on current tameability data… if they DO go ahead with it, there’s every chance currently in-game-but-untameable creatures could be moved to it in the next patch or so.

  39. I’m glad they FINALLY upped pet Health. Geez. Brought out my 70 white lion this morning. Think they upped his health like 2K. Not an “Epic improvement”. I’m really glad cats are special (even a Blizzard official stated that). As they should be! Devilsaurs swim funny. They actually use those tiny forearms of theirs. And I’m really curious about Exotic Spirit Beasts. Thank God for Wow Head. Players need to find it already! lol

  40. Palladiamors, is it necessary to condescend to them?

    In any case, it appears that these are found in Zul’Drak, some “spirit forms” are found for windserpent, bear, and cat there… and they’re tameable. Can’t confirm, beta crashes my computer now.

  41. What part of that was condescending, Nyx? I told them to chill out a bit. Mania is obvious very strained and exhausted in her post, and I just ask that people no overburden her at the moment.

  43. Oh, but BRK, on the other hand, is fair game. Feel free to overburden him until your heart is content. Preferably before he sends the assault monkies after me.

  46. Since when do we care what Blizzard thinks?
    They answered before when Chimaeras werent tamable and their Froststrom breath skill was data mined. Ghostcrawler replyed and directed hunters to the only tamable chimaera a that time, so why shouldnt we ask?

  47. Strange that noone noticed big nerf on Roar of Sacrifice
    Was
    [Apply Aura]: Shield on party or raid member up to 50% pet hp.

    Is now :(
    Your pet absorbs damage from a party or raid member, transfering 30% damage taken to the pet. Lasts 12 sec.

    It was one of best ability i ever saw for pet, now its only interesting option…

  48. I saw that, Astek, it sucked. It worked like a power word shield for half of the pets hit points before, now its a flat out damage reduction. Like having a double power soul link, only for twelve seconds.

  49. Some one on Wowinsider is claiming that a cat from ZD is infact the spirit beast. I know that Harkoa is a boss, but there are some trash mobs that should be like her. Can anyone confirm it?

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