PTR 3.1 Initial Patch Notes
After a week-long saga of soon, the US Public Test Realms for Patch 3.1 (widely known as Ulduar) appear to be coming online. Or at least that’s what Blizzard says.
While I am still downloading, MMO Champion has been kind enough to post the PTR 3.1 patch notes. (The official PTR patch note page doesn’t seem to have been updated yet.)
Keep in mind that pach notes for PTR realms change — a lot! — so these are by no means the final notes for Patch 3.1. Nevertheless, they are an interesting read. I’ve snipped the huntery bits (and some other neat stuff) below for your delectation.
General
- All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water.
- Ulduar is now available for limited testing. Please visit the Public Test Realms for more details.
- Players at maximum level will now be able to visit their trainer to pay a one-time fee and access the dual talent spec feature.
- A new Gear Manager feature has been added. Players will now be able to save gear sets for easy gear switching.
Classes: General
- Hysteria, Tricks of the Trade, Enrage, Wrecking Crew, Death Wish, Arcane Power, Owlkin Frenzy, Beast Within, Avenging Wrath and Hysteria damage bonuses no longer stack together.
Hunter
- Frost Trap: If the target who triggers Frost Trap is immune to its effect, the Frost Trap area effect will no longer be triggered.
- Talents: Beast Mastery
- Improved Aspect of the Hawk now has a new spell effect.
- Improved Wing Clip: This talent has been removed.
- Talents: Marksmanship
- Piercing Shots re-designed: Your critical Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of the damage dealt over 8 sec.
- Ranged Weapon Specialization: Points reduced from 5 to 3, 1/3/5%.
- Wild Quiver: Chance increased to 4/8/12%, up from 4/7/10%. Damage increased from 50% of an auto shot, to 80%.
- Talents: Survival
- Hunting Party: This talent has been reduced to 3-points, and now increases your total Agility by an additional 1/2/3%.
- Lock and Load re-designed: You now have a 33/66/100% chance when you trap a target with Freezing Trap, Freezing Arrow or Frost Trap and a 2/4/6% chance when you deal periodic damage with your Immolation Trap or Black Arrow to cause your next 2 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo. This now has a new spell effect and sound.
- New Talent: Trap Launcher: When activated, your next Trap will be launched instantly at the enemy target. 1 minute cooldown.
- T.N.T. re-designed: Increases the damage done by your Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap and Immolation Trap by 2/4/6%, and gives your Explosive Shot a 33/66/100% chance to refresh the duration of your Immolation Trap effect on the target.
- Trap Mastery: This talent has been moved up to tier-2, up from tier-9.
- Wyvern Sting duration increased from 12 sec to 30 sec. PvP duration reduced from 10 sec to 6 sec.
- Pets
- Roar of Sacrifice can be used on the hunter only.
- Stampede (rhino) only affects 1 target, but adds a 25% bleed damage debuff (that does not stack with Mangle etc.) in addition to its knockback.
Clearly there’s a lot missing from these notes, including all that juicy info about remote stables and ammo going away … but I’m sure we’ll get that eventually.
Oh, and while you’re thinking about it, check out these fascinating beast models that Congafury noticed on MMO Champion …
[edit #1] Also check out Wowhead’s lovely annotated patch notes!
[edit #2] I am still unable to log into the PTR, but as Congafury noted in the comments, MMO Champion is now listing some interesting undocumented changes that they’ve arrived at by comparing the old and new client data. (Not a foolproof method, but pretty fun for discussion when you can’t log in!)
This includes, for hunters:
- *New Skill* Call Stabled Pet – A pet of your choice busts out of its stable and joins you no matter where you are, replacing your current pet. Cannot be used in combat. Instant. 30 min cooldown. Requires Level 80.
- *New Talent* Black Arrow (Tier 9) – Fires a Black Arrow at the target, increasing all damage done by you to the target by 6% and dealing [ 10% of RAP + 785 ] Shadow damage over 15 sec. Costs 6% base mana. 5-35 yard range. Instant Cast. 30 sec cooldown.
… and a whole bunch more.
83 Comments
Survival Awesomeness
1) Black Arrow
Requires 40 points in Survival Talents
6% of Base Mana, 5-35 yard range
Instant Cast, 30s cooldown
Fires a Black Arrow at the target, increasing all damage done by you to the target by 6% and dealing [RAP * .1 + 2765] Shadow Damage over 15 seconds.
2) Trap Throwing.
3) Immolation Trap now refreshable using Explosive Shot.
4) Hunting Party (only 3 points now) also gives +3% total Agility.
/win
Improved Wing Clip removed from…Beast Mastery? Not only is the talent in the Survival tree, it’s also a horrible choice -.- Knowing Blizz, this is probabably one of the changes that’ll be permanent, considering they already made a new talent.
Some of us actually level as Survival and use Improved Wing Clip… A LOT
Meh I’m probably going to get flamed at, but I’m feeling a little hurt here
Hey, Skosiris! Thanks for dropping by, and thanks for the details on Black Arrow. It was only after I posted that I went back and said, “Wait! What? Black Arrow?!”
Some good things some bad things
I’m still wondering about what happens though if a hunter is a BM and switches, do the exotics disappear or do they just stay locked in the stables? Plus those new tigers in Ulduar, they look great! I wonder if they will put them as spirit beasts?
And since my timezone allows me staying up while most of you are asleep i’m checking MMO-champion from time to time^^ more on hunter changes!
Beast Mastery
Skills
*New Skill* Call Stabled Pet – A pet of your choice busts out of its stable and joins you no matter where you are, replacing your current pet. Cannot be used in combat. Instant. 30 min cooldown. Requires Level 80.
Marksmanship
Skills
Kill Shot no longer has a minimum range. It can now be used in melee range.
Talents
Wild Quiver (Tier 9) now increases your chance to shoot an additional shot when doing damage with your auto shot, dealing 80% Nature damage, by 4/8/12%. (Previously it dealt 50% nature damage and had a 4/7/10% chance.)
Piercing Shots (Tier 7) Your critical Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of the damage dealt over 8 sec. (Previously triggered 2/4/6% armor ignore).
Ranged Weapon Specialization (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent, increasing damage with ranged weapons by 1/3/5%. (Previously a 5 point talent increasing damage by 1/2/3/4/5%)
Survival
Skills
Disengage cooldown increased to 30 secs. (Previously was 25 secs)
Talents
Hunting Party (Tier 10) is now a 3 point talent, increasing agility by 1/2/3% and your Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot and Steady Shot critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to grant up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of the maximum mana per second. Lasts for 15 sec.
Trap Mastery moved from Tier 9 to Tier 2 and is now a 3 point talent. Increases the duration of Frost and Freezing trap by 10/20/30%, Periodic damage of Immolation and Explosive trap by 10/20/30%, and number of snakes summoned by Snake Trap by 30%. (Previously was just 1 point)
*New Talent* Black Arrow (Tier 9) – Fires a Black Arrow at the target, increasing all damage done by you to the target by 6% and dealing [ 10% of RAP + 785 ] Shadow damage over 15 sec. Costs 6% base mana. 5-35 yard range. Instant Cast. 30 sec cooldown.
Sniper Training (Tier 9) has been changed to increase the critical strike chance of your Kill Shot ability by 5/10/15%, and while standing still for 6 sec., you gain Sniper Training increasing the damage done by your Steady Shot, Aimed Shot, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot by 2/4/6% Lasts 15 sec. (Previously increased damage and critical strike chance based on your range to the target)
Wyvern Sting (Tier 7) now lasts 30 sec on the target. (Previously lasted 12 sec)
T.N.T. (Tier 4) now increases the damage done by your Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap and Immolation Trap by 2%. (Previously increased critical strike chance of explosive shot and and gave it a chance to stun the target)
Lock and Load (Tier 4) now has a 33/66/100% chance to proc off Freezing Shot, Freezing Trap, and Frost Trap, and a 3/7/10% chance to proc off the periodic damage of Immolation Trap and Black Arrow. (Previously worked on all traps and included serpent sting)
Improved Wing Clip has been removed from the game.
Ps Yay at new kill shot^^ muahaha
Anyone managed to check out what the promised ‘final tier’ in the pet talent trees are yet though? And how many points does your pet need to access them? I’m kinda hoping you need 16 points to get to the final tier – making it worthwhile to actually get Beast Mastery.
I’m still not able to get past ‘Retrieving character list’ on the PTR, so I haven’t seen anything more than the notes yet. I did add some info about the additional undocumented stuff to the post — thanks Congafury! — and I’ll be keeping an eye on the realms until I have to go to bed here in a bit.
As for what happens to exotics when you switch specs, I think your pet despawns anyway when you respec and your exotics get locked in the stable. One of the reasons why they’ve introduced calling any pet from the stable from anywhere was to cover BM hunters who switched so they could get another pet out instead. So, don’t go and get 5 exotic pets and then switch – cos you’re stuck!
while i dont care for the removal of tnt stun i am curious as to the trap launcher
Why are they trying to push people at Survival so much… I hate that they are trying to drive people away from BM… :( *all sad now*…
Surprise surprise. They’re all cats.
And, as of these patch notes, it looks like they don’t want pets having any sort of group utility anymore.
This sucks, just about everything here is for everyone at the top end… very little if anything at all for those who have nor made lvl 80. Thanks Blizzard, I guess our monthly fee means nothing.
Nps^^ i’ll try to get into the PTR today and check the *casual* content..
/sigh…My poor Rhino…first they ruin his tanking ability,then they ruin his stampede…funnest move any pet had,imo…
But hooray for Call Stabled Pet! That looks like an awesomesauce+1000 talent right there!
@Jaeger: It does,huh? Too bad for them,I’ll always,ALWAYS,be BM.
Sorry for the double post here…
@Eyran: I 100% agree,there should have been something for the lower levels…but I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizz had something in their back pocket..the PTR changes so fast,you never know. I’d love something for my baby hunter.
But you have to realize,as I did a long time ago,your monthly fee is a very small drop in an 11,000,000 sized bucket.
Kitairra
WELL I SURE DON’T MISS ADONIS NOW LOLOLOL….
But I was going to tame one permanently on my orc… but now why bother? At all? Atm it now as a far inferior attack, and it’s useless in pvp now too. Sure one target goes flying and obtains bleed damage, but when I was using a Rhino it would send packs of alliance flying and that made it worth while…
and..
‘Roar of Sacrifice can be used on the hunter only’
OH WOW GEE, this is really usefull now! Why bring along a tank pet on a run at all! Save the healer? Oops sorry, can only use on myself! Use on myself in pvp? Again, useless, sure it gives me a few seconds more survivability, but it was more usefull to the people carrying the flag in WSG; because there’s usually a healer. And what am I going to pop it in an instance? Nope- yes I do get crapheads that won’t heal me for being BM, but ran Nexus and the resto didn’t let any of us die- except a couple of moments when things got hairy but that was when kitty drood got a bit to overzelous.
So .. my tank pet Erebus, a unobtainable Hydralisk, now is worthless? Alright not worthless but now I’m going to have to retalent him, again?
GOOD JOB BLIZZ EPIC GRATS.
/sarcasm.
Anyways.
‘Talents: Beast Mastery
Improved Aspect of the Hawk now has a new spell effect.
Improved Wing Clip: This talent has been removed.’
Well someone was drunk when they made the talent notes, not only was IMP WC in the SURVIVAL TREE, but before Wrath hit I too had imp WC, it was sometimes the ONLY thing that saved me. Or had me laughing as I died and a rogue got ganked from behind.
And wtf does imp AotH need a new spell effect? I mean does it matter? Is it game breaking? Where’s new pewpew? Where’s some better talents I can go for? Anything? SV gets a new shot, whoopie, MM gets better changes it seems, whoopie, what about BM?
Oh lulz u haz exotix and 4 pet talenz and all that lololol…
Yeah and can’t do squat when pet is ded.
Gief Heart of the Phoenix with no CD. Or shorter CD.
Also, Palla was right, wtf is it with hunters not getting PET glyphs. Even if it’d be to much to make ‘racial’ glyphs like for Ghoul/VW/Imp/Felgaurd/Felpup/Succubus, it could be toned down to Ferocity, Tenacity and Cunning.
Cause I just got the +40/40% for Ghouls on my DK and wow it’s scaling better at lv 63 than my pets do at 70…
._.
sigh. I don’t think Blizz is going to fix the hunter class really- and it just feels they’re trying to usher people away from BM. Yes I like Big Red Pet, but I would also like a new shot or two- nothing like MM/SV’s ofc, but something that gives me more of a choice than AS/SS/AS spam
/Agree with Kitairra – I don’t have a rhino, but the AoE knockback was unique and a pretty fun-looking spell; pity about the nerf.
I wonder if the changes to the rhino (taking away his AOE) are signs of things to come?…
What I hope and dream for:
Extra Tier of Pet Talents for Beast Master Hunters:
1 Point talents and can only be accessed by Beast Master Hunter Talent
Tenacity:
AOE Taunt – Your pet Taunts all targets within a 10 yard radius causing a moderate amount of threat. 10 Sec cooldown.
Ferocity:
Carnage – Your pet becomes unleashed and does an additional 10% Damage to its target for 15secs. 1 Min cooldown.
Cunning:
Doppleganger – Your pet creates a clone of itself behind its target copying your pets normal attacks for 15 seconds. The Doppleganger takes no damage and causes a large amount of threat to its target. 5min cooldown.
Boo to no more Rhino Bowling!
And look some possible new spectral pets – that are all cats ofc. /sigh
Some of the hunter based stuff looks fun tho, but Surv def seems to be spec of the moment with Blizz, mind it did prob need the most work.
Well this is…..disappointing.
I’m disappointed with the rhino, too. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new cat models were tamable but all level 81 or something like the purple mine spiders in Naxx (at least that’s the way they were listed here a few days ago :P ).
I thought I read somewhere else that wing clip was gonna be changed into the old “improved wing clip” functionality, so maybe that’s why they’re taking the talent away? If so, there’s no nerf there. If not, I’m disappointed.
Well, I like the changes with survival, espically the new shot, but I must defend BM….even though i’ve been survival for quite a while now, i’ve been BM 95% of my hunters time, and it just seems blizz is giving hunters no other choice but leave BM or just fail, so i’m hoping this new pet tier that hasn’t been touched on yet is a good advantage for BM, or the class is in for more balance disaster
Aw… No more rhino bowling. Its single target, and not AoE.
/sad
I couldn’t get my characters over either however it let me roll a DK so I did that to get an idea of the new features. One thing specifically for pets is in the Sound menu.
Enable Pet Sounds
Toggles pet aggro and idle sounds on and off.
Also it’s nothing to do with Hunters or Pets but… Noblegarden is significantly buffed according to the new achievements for it! :D
The new changes are up on thottbot.
http://thottbot.com/test/changes/uncat/new#A::A:4
What I’m guessing are the new top tier talents are
Shark Attack
Your pet does an additional 4/8% damage with all attacks.
Silverback
Your pet’s Growl also heals it for 1/2% of its total health.
Wild Hunt
Increases the contribution your pets get from your stamina by 20/40% and attack power by 20/40%
I like the idea of being able to mute my hydralisk “Argument”.
the annoying neverending stomping was my main reason to replace my corehound too.
as for the rest of the changes… I am happy for SV hunters. its a breath of fresh air in their tree and definitly improving the tree conceptually.
but as a BM I feel the pressure to switch specs harder then ever.
I like the whole concept of BM – more equal grounds between the two halfs of the class- the hunter and the pet- but I lost some heavy dps on my char from last nerf and it hurts my game and my ability to do my share in a group. sad. and it doesnt look like bliz are stopping any time soon.
swimming mounts is nice. I wonder when we will get shark mounts. (or pets for that matter- I have my eyes on the sewer shark).
we shall see.
This is just me ranting for a moment, but…..what part of ‘survival is currently the best of the three trees’ came off sounding to Blizzard like ‘we should be survival’?
buff survival* for my double.
Mostly I like – the MM talents look good, trim down RWS to free up points for piercing shots – now an attractive option for PVE, hooray. Major stuff happening with SV, and the spec will take some relearning but overall looks good. I wonder if anyone’s heard anything about the new BM pet talent tier?
Dual spec – looks like they’re going to ignore all the player requests for a lowered cap on this and offer it only to level 80s – in other words, instead of using it to make grouping more feasible at levels 30-79, they instead squandered the opportunity in favor of offering it as one more feather in the cap for level 80s – WTG Blizz, WTG.
Losing improved WC doesn’t affect me much as I almost never need it in PVE, but I could see how it could be a bigger deal for hunters who like to PVP…
Loss of rhino AOE definitely hits me where I live though – and replacing it with a DoT is kind of a joke; maybe if they’d dropped the CD to 30 secs but as far as I can see it remains at 1m in 3.1… too long to wait on something that now affects only 1 target. If I want a good tenacity pet for single target fights I’ll take a turtle or a boar over that, thanks.
The Rhino change is strange. It basically means that the one and ONLY pet you should even think about now for tanking is the Gorilla.
I think for BM, the Make-or-Break issue is going to be the new Pet talent tier. If they can come up with some good talents then I’ll be happy for my Survivalist Cousins to get the goodies for the main talent trees. If they don’t, then, well, I’ll be upset and have to have a long hard look at whether I should respec myself.
I have no idea what to make of these patch notes. Remember that they are only notes mined from the PTR and while it is true that Blizz likes to take bad ideas live before really thinking about them, we still have to “wait and see” how things turn out.
I really like the idea of the extra pet tier reachable only by BM hunters as that would make our 51 pt talent slightly less lame for those of us not interested in the exotic pets.
As far as rhinos go, I think an interesting idea would be to keep the knockback as an AOE but only apply the bleed effect to the target. So there would be a reason to use it on single targets AND groups…. That sounds pretty exotic to me!
Lastly, I am echoing the collective sigh about the new models being cats… enough already.
UPDATE #3 (4:40 AM PST): Big update coming soon. For now here’s this smaller one.
* New Hunter Pet Talents
o Shark Attack (2 ranks) – Your pet does an additional 4/8% damage with all attacks.
o Silverback (2 ranks) – Your pet’s Growl also heals it for 1/2% of its total health.
o Wild Hunt (2 ranks) – Increases the contribution your pets get from your Stamina by 20/40% and attack power by 20/40%.
Taken from World of Raids — it was way far down on the page, nestled in.
Seeing as this is technically a *pet* forum, I figured you’d like to know. <3
Thank you, Raaxis. That is appreciated.
‘ Wild Hunt (2 ranks) – Increases the contribution your pets get from your Stamina by 20/40% and attack power by 20/40%.’
._. I’d had rather glyphed for it and, while ty Raaxis for posting it, what is Blizzard smoking? Ok nice, growl is probably a .. nice talent- ignore the fact it’d be stupid to take it for a DPS pet so it’s most likely in the Tenacity tree, but again wtf, healing isn’t the problem Ere has, it’s AGGRO HOLDING; my friends can heal him just fine with the like 50% increase to healing he can have with talents.
Gief AoE taunt plz.
‘Shark Attack (2 ranks) – Your pet does an additional 4/8% damage with all attacks’ So basically they’re ‘reversing’ the nerf to BM talents with this; basically compared to how pre nerf talents were, Pet can do a whopping 3% extra damage! .. sorry just not impressed :/
Ryai is not pleased.
Ryai wants to use nerf bat on blizzard D:
Double post: I would also love it if they made HotP and a few other abilities not where you’re forced to have to talent or not recive the effects, because there’s very little you can get without spending talents on worthless things. I mean sure I wouldn’t mind to have imp Growl, but on a instance/raid pet? My pet doesn’t use growl, it uses cower. But to have my ohcrap button I am forced to talent in imp growl. While I don’t mind Rabid being attached to Avoidance, it’s again, a bit limiting.
I hope they fix the tiers a bit more and not just throw in more talents that are a bit laughable :/
excuse me for my bitterness over Blizzard.
Thanks for update Raaxis … Extremely disappointed if that is the sum of the benefits to BM… they are shockingly bad!… I think im gonna go cry for a while…
Sigh, well those are, yep, disappointing. Looks like I’m gonna be moving to Survival. To be honest, I don’t actually use any of my exotic pets anyway – just find them too ‘intrusive’ so prefer just my cat, for raiding/groups and bear for solo/questing so the only main things I’ll have to get used to not having is the improved mend pet to get rid of any debuffs on the pet, and BW.
I posted the new pet tier info on the forums also, Mania.
Just went to look at the new “spirit beast” pets through the link listed above, and all I cn say is….. boy, am I disappointed. Looks like like Blizz wants to push everybody towards SV spec. And if you do decide to stay BM specced, looks like they are pushing for cats to be your dps pet. Now, in real life, I don;t like cats, so on the game, I won’t wanna use cats. but it looks like anything other than cats for dps is gonna be weaker. On a side note, make the hydralisk and the crocoslime spirit beasts already. They were spirits when we tamed them, they should be spirits after we tamed them.
As for the rest of the patch notes…. as soon as the realsm are up for play, i am switching to SV. They are the more powerful spec right now, and they look to be getting better with the next patch. So,i am off respec.
Unless they do something drastically good in the next few weeks of testing,i can see a ton of players switchig over. I pretty much swore that i would always be BM, but Blizz is making it way to hard to compete witht he others trees. Wake up Blizz.
Finally,I don;t see anything o here to help Hunters where we need the most help: PvP. And with the rhino nerf, what little BM did have is going away. Some nice stuff for MM and SV, but once again, nothing for BM. I’ll be watching, and if BM does get some much needed help, i may go back, but at this rate, I wouldn;t bet on it.
@Dweezil/40:
Funny, I love cats IRL but also have almost no desire to play them in wow – I do have a ghost saber on one of my hunters but that’s it. I think their overwhelming popularity in-game is just a little off-putting for me (that, and anytime I see a tiger model it makes me think of that awful yawn/slobber sound the frost saber makes every few seconds – like nails on chalkboard for me).
The new pet talents are awesome
Shark Attack
Pet does an extra 8% damage on all attacks (2/2; 1 is 4%)
Wild Hunt
Increases the contribution your pet receives from your stamina by 40% and attack power by 40% (2/2, 1 is 20%)
Yum. Just yuuuuum
I’ve got to say that so far, I feel shafted. I know that Blizzard has stated, time and again, that a lot will change as they go. But as a first showing, this is pretty poor on the overall. A two point pet talent ((Where pet talents are scarce anyway)) when Death knights have a one glyph variant that doesn’t force you to take a pre-requisite, an 8% damage increase ((Uh, whoo?)), a 1% heal on growl that you won’t be able to get until close to end game anyway, and lord almighty grace of the mantis for poor cunning pets.
Marksman gets a minor buff or two and a little less clutter. Survival…..*twitches* Gets launchable traps, a ‘shot’ that shares a cooldown with traps but does more damage then immolation trap, the ability to refresh immolation traps duration ((Launch immolation trap, then use explosive shot to keep it going, use black arrow after the cooldown is up or vice versa, for the 6% damage increase from black arrow)) and hunting party now increases agility by 1/2/3% as well as having the whole replenishment thing going on. Not to mention that Lock’n'load can now proc off of the ticks from immolation trap ((which can be LAUNCHED and kept up indefinitely, keep in mind!)) as well as black arrows ticks, as WELL as still retaining the 100% chance from freezing trap, freezing arrow, and frost trap.
Oh, and we get a glyph to make the serpents summoned by serpent trap take 90% less damage from AoEs. Because, you know, we still use that trap at eighty.
Who….the !@#$ fell asleep at the wheel in Blizzard HQ? (( I haven’t even touched on my other characters and specs yet. I don’t want to. I saw what they did and didn’t do to my holy paladin, and it made me sick. Won’t take it out on poor Manias blog.)) People were already pitching a fit about Survival, and now they buff them? I’m not even really ticked about that. Beast master got…..call beast. And we STILL got jack for pet glyphs. We did get glyph of raptor strike, but it isn’t like anyone uses that in melee anyway if they can help it. Maybe a reason to use it now?
If I am going to forgo adding to my pets survivability/damage at easier to reach tiers for things higher in the trees, then they had darn well better be worth it. The 20/40% stat increase is nice, but everything else so far has been total junk. And like I said, death knights get something like that as a GLYPH. One glyph. I am just…..so ticked right now.
OMFG again buffing damn survival, theyre way too hig in dps, im bm and the fact tha i have to use a devilsaur for 2 man raids when i have a spirit beast is annoying.
why they realisd and promised that bm was now lil low and would add a new tier of pet skill for bm. with this damn info im about to reroll survival despite i hate tha build.
why because i rolled hunter for the pets!
will be apprehensively dreading the new patches, as always…
I suppose many folks will like some of the SV changes, but playing a min/max stamina SV huntard for a few yeas now, I’m not too thrilled with the changes. I never really liked the idea of fighting really far away from my pet and mob, so the trap launcher doesn’t seem useful to me. Though I can see it’s use in raids and pvp, I understand the need of when not to run up to a mob/pvp melee. Respecing post change will prolly make me move to more of a hybrid spec (would be nice to pick up readiness like I wanted to last year before it was chucked over to marks,) and it would be nice to move away from relying on the luck of crits. Either way, I really don’t need any more shots please. My keyboard is completely full, and I’m resorting to shift-keys for more commands and macros, all actionbars full and pretty soon I’m going to have to break down and add-on for more bar space. I don’t want to be forced into shot rotations over shot priority either, which with the changes to SV is going to be happening. But again, moving away from reliance on crits would be nice.
Honest to goodness, I don’t get the changes to LnL this time round. last time, yeah, but this time, why on earth would you want it off of crowd control skills and not dps ones? Hopefully this is one of those testing out bad ideas first and hearing the feedback.
I could see the use of improved wing clip for BM specs since it’s a nice low tier root chance for BM oh crap moments (even though I never needed it in SV spec,) so it’ll be sad to see if it’s a complete nerf/removal…
And yeah. more cats. ugg. Always liked dogs dogs better IRL. Would’ve like to have seen a wolf or just something not a cat as a spirit beast… Since I’m planning/gearing for that as a duel spec choice… Too bad about the rhinos.
And I’d like to add, sorry to the BM folks, they do sound kinda shafted so far. Hopefully some useful good improvements will head their way in a healthy duration of this PTR (and hoping that they don’t just stop mid testing and throw a buggy patch live like last time.
Thanks for keeping the updates coming while I was asleep, everyone. :> I’ll do a round-up post soon if only to get myself back in the flow of things. You know, even when I had typed it out last night it hadn’t really registered that rhinos were losing their AoE?
Unfortunately my first order of business this morning is finding out why Petopia is down. *sigh*
Yup, AoE stampede is gone, its still just a ten yard toss, it still has a minute cooldown, and now it….adds a bleed DoT. …..whooo? I always thought the cooldown came from the AoE toss.
I like some of the proposed choices they might make for survival. I think BM is exceptional as it is, some of the changes proposed probably are probably a step backwards. Holding aggro still seems like a problem. PvP still seems like a problem. I think it’s great that suvival offers some help for PvP but what about for MM and BM specs? moving the trap mastery up is going to do it? I really feel like there needs to be a standard plain jane, hunter that can do PvP Raid/Dungeon and DPS. And then talent trees that improve and build upon those gameplays. Currently it’s still a lot of hunters who solo and that’s it or pvp (perhaps) and that’s it or raid/dungeon spec and that’s it. :-( Trying to funnel players towards one tree or another isn’t really helping the matter. Just further cementing the difficulties. SV is going to be a lot better perhaps, BM has got (and now lost) a few improvements, MM got a few minor tweaks. Maybe by the time plate techtonics pulls California and the pacific coast away from North America, and Antartica crashes into India forming some new himalayas Hunters will be more ironed out and be somewhat balanced and functional hunters. … maybe. ish. :-s lol. guess every class thinks that though.
question; was the rhino bowling that overpowered? I mean, I never seen anyone use a rhino in BGs, and I thought about it for kiting in arena, but again, I’ve never played BM… It sounded more like a deterrent/escape than a tactic…
Saranette: It was HILARIOUS Rhino bolwing before I switched out Rhino for Sithilid and Sithilid for Core Hound and might have to switch MC hound out for a cat and go sv and I don’t want to ._. and I’m just conflicted…
But no it wasn’t OP it was nothing worse than a Death Grip or HoT and both have MUCH shorter CD’s than the Rhino’s bowling. It was also useful in pvp to knock people away and also I had it stand over the FC in one WSG.
I just can’t understand why several people all a sudden attacked my rhino.. and then go flying…
But now with RoS being made Hunter only, this nerf happening and all that goody crap… tenacity pets will be useless in BG really, Rhino and a few others were doable, and could be deadly if played right. But now they’ll be annoyances like Gorillas I take pleasure in kiting away from the hunters on my DK.
It’s like a warlock in plate. Catered to by Blizzard and I smash my face and get 200k dmg.
Edit: Btw I would love to have one of those cat models, granted it’s not ‘flashy’ or ‘exotic’ but it is a big change to all the other cats, and most people would probably abandon them after taming anyways for something else.
That and hopefully Blizz still does something right, I still remember, was it GC? who said they could be implimenting more pet familes.
Tho granted, I want HYDRAS. The orange ones in Azshara are lovely <3 and the red and purple and white and black… just not outlands.
Outland Hydras are on acid.
Off to check if Qirot is tamable…
Curious. I just tried to go over to Petopia and I get a “this site has been suspended” page instead.
im surprised SV got another buff. Didn’t GC say SV was doing too much dmg already? Heh, I say just wait til 3.1.2, we’ll see some nerf bats on SV…
well, im bm marks spec (55/16) 4.1k ap just with dhawk on and i have a friend wich is survival with around same ap (and a shitload of agi) and while i barely reach 2700 dps with devilsaur he gets to 3k and sometimes even more than 3.5k hes an awesome hunter but have crappier gear than me, so now you telling me il keep doing 2700 while he will do 4000? ppft il fucking reroll surv
Roar of Sacrifice was buggy anyway, and given they made Call of the Wild hunter-only, I’m hardly surprised at this change.
I like the removal of the random stun procs from TNT. A lot of people were bitter that still existed, when stuns were getting stripped left and right from the classes who had them long before hunters did.
And no, these aren’t Survival “buffs”. Survival was stuck with a crappy, broken 41-point talent, which people appear to have overlooked in their frenzy to label Black Arrow a buff. Marks is being streamlined and having some of their talents buffed, and BM is … apparently right where Blizzard feels it should be, while they’re working on the other two trees. And it looks like Survival IS getting a covert nerfbat, between the removal of the TNT stun proc, the reduction of things LnL will proc off of, the change to Sniper Training that encourages Surv hunters to stand still (thus penalizing them on kiting/running fights), …
Yeah, overall, I’m not seeing Surv getting buffs poured on them here. They’re just getting some love to make up for the fact their talent tree was, in fact, a sodden mess at the end of Wrath’s development.
And given I haven’t seen the next tier of pet talents that are supposedly going to make Beast Mastery worth the investment, I can’t comment on whether or not Surv will continue to be “top DPS” (which I find laughable anyway).
Ansawa: This stopped being fixing when they nerfbatted BM and buffed SV, then buffed it again. It’s not gone from ridiculous to just, beyond that. I don’t mind if BM is really useless in pvp now, but to be beyond sub-par?
Even when I get buffed to 3.9k rap, and even when my pet is buffed with BoK and BoM as I am, I still struggle to get to 2k dps, I doubt I even come close to reaching it half the time.
I mean good god didn’t you read the notes? Just from that little tidbit, we see SV is getting another shot, and changes, MM is getting buffed, even a proc shot possibility.
And what does BM have instore for it!
‘Improved Wing Clip: This talent has been removed’
If things keep going hairy like this I think unfortunately, my warlock and dk will be my main because no matter what specc I roll, I facesmash and win most of the time.
And also there’s a difference between ‘love’ and ‘roll this specc or have **** dps’, didn’t blizzard say OH ITS THE CLASS NOT THE TREE! Well seems to me BLIZZARD ONLY WANTS PEOPLE BRINGING SV?
Why? Oh DPS and MANA REFUNDING! And what does BM gief a group? … +3% dmg increase. Goody. Everyone will love that more! ._. I mean wtf use is BM now, it’s akward to solo pve crap, my poor Hydralisk has no AoE threat generator, and misdirect doesn’t work with volley so can’t do that. AkA 3 shots and misdirect is gone, so three targets hit- eat Hydra, the rest come for meeeeee. And now I’m being punished more for my tree, this is just going to make more people go roll surv! at me.
/sigh
Why can’t BM get something cool- like an ability to call a second pet like ench shammies can call forth ghost/spirit wolves. Or something like that. Anything.
edit: it’s now gone*
Ryai, I have less AP than you and I do 3k DPS standing still. In mixed blues and purples.
I would suggest looking at your own rotations, rather than railing at Blizzard being “unfair”. Survival was in terrible shape at the end of WotLK and they’ve only just now fixed that.
And this is STILL overlooking the supposed big treat for BM in this patch–the new tier of pet talents.
You know, ever since I heard talk about SV being able to use multiple traps out at once as it’s top skill, I was all for it. Made sense for a the utility tree standpoint. Now I’m hearing talk that BMs should be able to call a secondary pet, either 2 out at once at all times, or just a second to aid you for like 20 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown or something. I’d go BM in a heartbeat for that.
But now, instead we’re getting trap launchers? Wait, wasn’t that essentially the point of stings? Are we just chucking giant metal bear traps at things now? What were they smoking on that one?
So very very upset at the changes to the pet tiers that have been suggested…
Just to refresh the info from this thread:
Shark Attack
Your pet does an additional 4/8% damage with all attacks.
Silverback
Your pet’s Growl also heals it for 1/2% of its total health.
Wild Hunt
Increases the contribution your pets get from your stamina by 20/40% and attack power by 20/40%
Now im sorry but that is just down-right awful… With all the extras being added to SV wtf were they thinking when came up with these?
Ok first:
Shark Attack : Ok perhaps for a ferocity pet in BM this is ok, but should be 1 point talent and 10% increase – Not two points (we barely have enough points even with our 4 extra as it is!)… This would mean having to drop lower dps increasing talents – just to get the dps increasing talents?!!!
Secondly:
Silverback: Growl heals for 1/2% of total health, I’m sorry but this should be put straight into Guard Dog… otherwise again you would have to pass up on more important lower tier talents!… ffs like!…
Finally:
Wild Hunt: Ok this one does help out, but again its 2 points and means dumping something lower in the tree…
Give us a 1 point talent for AOE Threat generation for tenacity, give us a 1 point talent for increased DPS for ferocity, and give us a 1 point talent to increase Cunnings usefulness…
Otherwise at the moment the only spec to have is SV… aswell as that now the ONLY viable multiple target tanking pet is Gorilla (bear yes but targets need to be infront, croc must be attacked, rhino just died), dps – cat is as good as an exotic!?… wtf why! (sorry i hate cats) please fix that!… and cunning has very select purposes.
Sorry for my ranting… I just needed to clear my chest…
I was thinking about those cats. Since they are found in the Ulduar raid they will most likely be level 81s, and therefore untameable at the current level, just like the purple spiders in Naxxramas.
I’ve got nothing to say on the other hunter changes other than it’s apparent that Blizzard wants all the hunters to be survivals, with the occasional marks splashed in for color given the massive amount of changes to survival, the few for marks and the polished turd that BM is getting currently.
Jaeger:
I’m not quite sure how you figure that if you have a ferocity pet that you can’t get all the DPS talents in the lower tiers. I managed to grab every dps increasing talent just fine, the only one I couldn’t grab was Charge, and I still managed to max out all ranks of the dps increasing talents. I had to give up Heart of the Phoenix, Boar’s Speed, Charge, and Lick Your Wounds total for my ferocity pet to achieve all that dps. So I’m not saying you have to like them, but saying you have to give up lower tier dps for upper tier dps is incorrect.
Just keep in mind guys, this is going to be one long PTR. Things are bound to change, who knows, there maybe something else in store for Hunters.
Hey Rikaku,
Apologies, I made that statement on the assumption that Lick Your Wounds and Heart of Phoenix was pretty much a mandatory talent for Ferocity.
They are a huge sacrifice to make for 8% dps to be honest… and if you do take them then what do you drop?.. Spiked Collar 1/3?…
So thats 11% increase total (3% from 1/3 SC and 8% 2/2 SA).
So your technically only gaining 2% over Spiked Collar 3/3 with Shark Attack 2/2.
Its pretty much the same for the other trees though.. if you want the new talents you have to make a huge sacrifice on the talents you would normally spec in currently. Im just not sure if its worth it to be honest…
And is you did spec as you said – straight DPS with no healing/resurrect then whats then what is the overall difference in DPS…
What i mean is… Your pet with Lick Your Wounds and Heart of Phoenix has roughly 2-3 times the life expectancy of your straight dps spec’d pet does because of full self heal and res. Surely that 3xLife Duration of Xdps is greater than 1xLife Duration of X+8%dps? If you get me?
Alright;
‘I would suggest looking at your own rotations,’
Basically Arcane Shot/Serpent Sting/Auto/Steady, rinse and repeat. Oh wait… that’s what most hunters do isn’t it? Oh wait…..
Basically it seems I’ll have to >glyphjoygood< reason to specc BM …. to an extent.
Damnit forgot the brackets/code thing again. Arg i’m an idiot.
Alright;
‘I would suggest looking at your own rotations,’
Basically Arcane Shot/Serpent Sting/Auto/Steady, rinse and repeat. Oh wait… that’s what most hunters do isn’t it? Oh wait…..
Basically it seems I’ll have to glyph for more efficiency. Joy. Spend 50g for crap glyphs or wait for my friend to be able to make them…
‘Survival was in terrible shape at the end of WotLK and they’ve only just now fixed that’
So this makes it alright for BM to be in horrible shape? And what specc are you anyways? If you’re BM and pulling this off, fine then maybe you have a valid point, But if you’re SV…
‘And this is STILL overlooking the supposed big treat for BM in this patch–the new tier of pet talents’
And did you even LOOK at what we’re getting!? IMPROVED GROWL- what’s this for? Solo? PFFFFT. DPS and Tenacity already GET an improved growl! One lets them regen health and happiness, one adds threat and happiness! And this heals 1/2% health, that’s all! Yipeee.
And as the rest; one only brings pets up to PRE nerfbat status with a +3 percent boost. >joygood< reason to specc BM …. to an extent.
And as the rest; one only brings pets up to PRE nerfbat status with a +3 percent boost. joy. The SECOND is something my DK was able to GLYPH FOR. I would GLADLY give up my imp Rapid Fire Glyph for what my DK got!
But you’re saying it’s ok to waste talent points on useless talents because oh it’s a good thing and BM is fine as is? No, no it’s not. At lv 80 there is a big, big imbalance between the trees. I am NOT against SV being fixed, I am against it now being like what was said vanilla wow days; SPECC THIS OR GO HOME. Does anyone really want to have to ‘specc SV or have crap’? This is the same s- crap I’ve seen for Balance Druids, Retrilols, and several other speccs. No one likes being blacklisted, but oh if one tree is fixed, it’s alright when we get mediocre buffs?
Oh wait I forgot Killshot in my rotation- WHICH IS BUGGED BTW :D if I am standing ‘to close’ or ‘to far away’ I have to do the good old ohcraprange dance! Seriously I’ve been far enough away to auto shoot and crap away- yet I have to either back up, or scoot closer, to fire a shot off.
And @ Rikaku; you have a point but this sacrifices as it’s been said, survivability and utility when the need arises for it. I know I shouldn’t expect to be able to switch from pvp to instance dps pewpew cat/devilsaur without having to re-talent or something, but they’ve bloated the trees too much, especially with three usesless talents such as this. IMO the 20/40 would have been better as a Glyph, or ONE point talent, if it’s SO high and ONLY obtainable with Exotic mastery or whatever- then it’s NOT overpowered and doesn’t crunch your talent points to much. Same goes for the +dps, if it was ONE POINT needed, as again it could easily be made where you HAVE to have the BM 51 talent to get, then it’s not going to be obtainable to MM and SV, therefor it would be a good reason to specc BM …. to an extent.
Jaegar & Ryai:
Yes, they are IMMENSE sacrifices to make, I don’t deny that. I was just pointing out that if you wanted straight DPS, then you don’t have to sacrifice. So I’m not defending it by any means, I’m just saying to correct the facts =)
The best solution I can offer is saying see how your raid goes? I know my pets don’t die often cept from usually some DoT after the fight. But fights like Heigan the Unclean will be a pain.
Now lets think about the OTHER ramifications of having such an ability though. If you forgo Heart of the Phoenix, you essentially have to re-pick up Spirit Bond (if you already don’t have it) AND improved Revive Pet. That’s 2-4 talents on YOUR part that now you must sacrifice dps (since these talents would otherwise probably be in the marks tree somewhere) for pet viability.
And this BS Silverback talent annoys me. Honestly, a BM’s pet is going to hold aggro (it should, cause if its not, then something’s wrong simply put), especially a Tenacity pet. But this BS talent is ridiculous. If anything, the only people to actually need this skill is the SV and MM hunters whose pets do not hasve the super-durability of a BM; yet this skill is BM only.
So, what should be done? In my opinion, bring back that 1 talent point they took away from the Beast Mastery tree. If we have 5 talents we can achieve Heart of the Phoenix and the new talents without sacrificing pet’s versatility for extra dps to make up the spread that BM lacks behind in comparison to the other specs.
No prob Rikaku.. I should have been clearer in the first place.
I totally agree with your Tenacity Silverback Issue… With Blood of the Rhino and IMP, and Spirit Bond its relatively easy to keep you pet alive, Last Stand is my last ditch “panic button” should i see my pet suffuring and then just unload everything to see off the mob and mend pet…
But i would love to see an AOE Taunt (im sorry i keep repeating myself over and over on that point but if i have a tanking tenacity pet then i want it to hold aggro on multiples if necessary.. not always of course so it should be ‘toggle-able’)
I have yet to see anyone using “Taunt” in its current state.. I hate it.. and why now should i be forced to waste a point on it to get the healing talent…
I really dont want to spec SV – i love BM and will probably stay BM but i also dont want to be bottom of tables
ah sorry Rikaku.. just a little snippy. And yeah I agree, bringing back that 1 pet talent would be good, tho still doesn’t fix the broken and bloated tree syndrom.
‘I have yet to see anyone using “Taunt” in its current state.. I hate it.. and why now should i be forced to waste a point on it to get the healing talent… ‘
Actually Jaeger, your memory seems a bit rusty, if I remember right, imp Growl is the pre-request to taunt. And yeah I’ve not used it ever either, I’ve picked up Last Stand and RoS, but not gonna have RoS anymore since it’s not gonna be useful anymore.
‘If you forgo Heart of the Phoenix, you essentially have to re-pick up Spirit Bond (if you already don’t have it) AND improved Revive Pet. That’s 2-4 talents on YOUR part that now you must sacrifice dps (since these talents would otherwise probably be in the marks tree somewhere) for pet viability.’
I haven’t, I have imp mend pet, rez pet and HotP cause I’ve had runs go hairy on me in ways that are not fun. Like a UK run, healer pulled aggro, died, then tank died and it was just me and the other dps and we dps our brains out, I had to have my SB offtank a mob to give me and the warlock a chance to survive, blowing intimidate and then HotP when it died, then had to trap/kite/rez pet, pet died as I healed myself with a bandage and I was the only one to survive >.>
… aha the irony, Survive/SV.. probably just me then
As for the nw pet talents…. if thy are at the bottom of the tree, there will be no problem getting 2 of them maxed. I didn;t have the 4 extra points frm Beast mastery, and I had every dps booster the tree had to offer. I have Rabid and Call oF The Wild already specced. So, if I got 4 points from BM, I would be able to spend the 4 points in any combination on the new skills. you just gotta sk yourself, “If ia m looking to bosst DPS, do i really need this?”. If you can’t get 4 points worth of the new stuff from the BM spec, you are speccing your dps pet wrong.
Dweezil:
Getting 2/2 in each of the new talents ferocity spec isn’t the trouble, it’s what you must sacrifice to achieve 2/2 in those 2 talents that’s sparked the debate.
Ryai:
We’re all snippy, trust me, I’m a raging ball of angry right now. Now, personally, if I take heart of the phoenix, I don’t take Imp. Revive pet as well (now I do take Spirit Bond and Imp Mend pet all the time). My pet never dies 2x in a 10 min period unless we wipe on Heigan or something drastic like that. What I’m merely pointing out is, is that my case is the same case for alot of BM hunters. Many hunters don’t see the point in taking both Imp Rev Pet when we have insta-rez. Of course, this isnt the situation for everyone, but keep in mind I was speaking on general terms.
As far as tenacity talents go, I find them all pretty lackluster. I don’t take any of the last tier tenacity talents (they just seem so pointless to me if they’re for a group buff and I never use a tenacity pet in a group). Taunt I have taken, and it’s pretty lame that it’s manual cast. Taunt would be great if it worked alot like Voidwalker’s AoE taunt (in that whenever a new mob aggro’d suddenly, Taunt would automatically go off as an AoE threat ability).
Rikaku,
Still don;t see what you are giving up. I personally have everything I need fr dps. I don;t take any of the other stuff. I very seldom have to revive pet and I don;t take the other stuff. Guess it just depends on who you are grouping with. Anyway, I personally don’t see the new talents being any kind of a fix, but I giess I am gonn ahve to wait to see what else Bliz has in mind. If t is anything like the last couple patches,i am sure I will be disappointed.
PS
I did it. I specced to SV. Not something I wanted to do, but it was somethig I felt that i had to do.
Dweezil:
I would explain, but I covered it pretty thoroughly above (or so I felt XD), plus I’m short on time here (aaah classes! Midterms = death) so I shant lol In any case, I feel you. I don’t see these talents as any sort of fix either. I wanted to test the numbers from current to PTR, but with the PTR client crashing every 30 secs, it’s impossible (stable server yes plz!)
And I feel you. I haven’t been anything but BM for well, since alpha of WoW and even I’m feeling like I’m boxed into a corner. Looks like I’ll be hitting that Hunter trainer soon too =/
NOOOOO!!!!! My poor gorilla is losing Thunderstomp! It’s one of the many undocumented changes over on mmo-champion atm. The ‘rilla was simply l33t for farming and grinding. The new skill is showing as:
Pummel – Pummel the target, interrupting spellcasting and preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec. (20 Focus, 5 yd range, Instant, 10 sec cooldown)
Truly a sad, sad day :(
Double post sorry,
Thunderstomp is now a pet talent available to any Tenacity pet. Now your bears, crocs or ESPECIALLY CRABS can join in the AE tanking fun.
w00t!
YES FINALLY!
But am I the only one finding it funny a tenacity pet got a PvP talent in its place?
*Prays to the heavens the AOE for ALL Tenacity is true…*
…
*Prays a little more*
Welcome back Turkle and EarthwormJim!
Mania’s Arcania » PTR 3.1 Patch Notes Updated - February 27th, 2009 @ 6:56 pm UTC
[...] at the hunter stuff. Note that these are the complete notes, so they will include things from the previous version of the patch notes [...]
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