Public Test Realm testing for Patch 3.1 continues with a new build — build 9722 — today. I don’t see any new patch notes from Blizzard, but as usual MMO Champion has mined the client data for changes. They found a short list of hunter changes including:
Marksmanship
- Hunter’s Mark now lasts 5 min. (Up from 2 min)
Survival
- Black Arrow shares a cooldown with Trap spells.
- Entrapment now prevent target from moving 2/3/4sec. (Down from 2/4/6sec)
- Trap Mastery now increases the number of snakes summoned by Snake Trap by 3/6/9. (Down from 30/60/90, typo)
I’m not able to get online yet, and even if I could I’ve mostly been concentrating on the Argent Tournament. So please let me know if you hear about any other fascinating changes!
Just keep nerfing us blizzard…
Palladia has hada couple, so this’ll be short. Entrampent is a nerf, sure, but not a big one. Black Arrow was always meant to share a cooldown with traps. The snakes summoned from the trap was a typo previously, and it should not summon the correct number.
Patch isn’t really getting any better from iteration to iteration though.
should now* And whoo for only one typo!
Yeah, but now = not is one of the most insidious of typos … *grin*
I donno what to think of this. At least no notable nerfs, which I’ve come to expect from these updates. I’ll have to check the full notes to see how the game as a whole has been affected.
On a side note, does anyone know if the ‘Vargul Blighthound’ has had it’s walking animation fixed on the PTR? I just tamed it on my hunter and would like to know if it’s gonna drive me nuts for long… (yes I know I should’ve hit the level to be able to tame them sooner)
Yarr lass, it does seem to twist me words around in yon post, innit? Be ye assured that my meanin’ was fer the better. Previous notes on the subject at hand twere follied, as it twere, an said skill ain’t mispoken any longer. The trap what summons the forked tongued beasties no only summons a total o’ nine additional numbers o’ the devilish buggers.
In translation, the trap never summoned an additional ninety snakes, that was a typo.
Arrr, the damnable now got me again! no only* twas supposed to be now only, yarrr!
Mania,
Are you and other hunters on the PTR raising hell about what I have understood to be a major flaw with dual spec… that we “loose” our pets if we use dual-spec to switch in and out of BM with exotic pets? They simply cannot say that we have to have a 30 minute respec timer (through the remote stable) when every other class in the game get unlimited 100% respecs (since they can carry all their gear with them).
I’ve still no idea on my front either, the typhoon fiddle is laughable and we’ll STILL die like crazy. And aww poor snakes, they may be buggy but the little buggers amused me a lot :<
It seems like they really do not know what they are doing judging from this. I can live with the Entrapment nerf, never had room for that since I am mainly BM with a dash of MM…. some of the “nerfs” with SV was expected…. but c’mon, no actual fixes to some glaring bugs thus far? Snake traps never seemed to work right anymore no matter what spec since they started the precursor patches for Wrath….. other than Volley and Fire/flame trap, the snakes have been part of our AOE damage when it comes to 3 to 5 and whatever number pull mobs….. sometimes they attack one target and ignore the rest… so sad.
And Palla, Ye Olde Pirate English is hilarious!
BUT
NINTEY SNAKES.
IT WOULD MAKE THE TRAP USEFUL!!!!
….
maybe.
And oh my god played AV on my paladin and like owned a lv 60 dorf hunter. Took no joy in chasing down the dorf and just.. so easily owning him, but I had to protect the healers that he was targeting :/
be so glad to get 30 marks and those av quests, ding 54/55 and drag Aria to WS/EPL for moar halp fun.
Back on topic- couldn’t they have added moar for hunters this build? And I also understand the nerf to entrapment, 6 seconds is slightly over powered…
BUT WHY NOT NERF ROGUE AND WARR IMPARMENTS D:
Forgive me for saying this as an off topic…… but it’s also starting to dawn on me that Dual Spec is some sort of glorified/over-hyped response to some things they are too lazy to address/fix for some classes – the hunters being one of them. Sure its VERY useful to those that can actually benefit from it like the Tankers/Healers/Hybrids that are very essential to the Tanking/Healing roles that most people are looking for in grouping……. but just because its there, we still shouldn’t be forced to become boxed in terms of spec for that alone. Lindalas asked a very good question in regards to dual spec when it comes to a BM hunter that has an exotic pet with him/her and the “Call Stabled Pet” is still on cooldown.
just out of curiosity what happens to exotic pets if u forget to stable it before switching in game at the moment(i lvled my hunter with survival,and don’t really like most exotic pets).But yeah they need to get rid of stable CD’cause there’s no CD with stable masters,so why should this be any different.oh and one more thing rhino’s seem pretty cool at the moment is it worth the effort to get one now(that there ability is getting nerfed)
With this latest build we get a number count with our full arrow stacks.
Before today a 1000 stack of arrows would just have a “*” where the four digit number should be, but now we get an actual four digit arrow count.
Anskar: When you respecc/switch out with dual specc, the pet disappears. If it was Exotic prior- you are unable to use /call pet and all that.
Basically meaning you’re gimped.
yes ryai, but luckily u get to keep it… that’d suck if it ran away after doing that… lol
Why the Hunter’s Mark increase from 2 mins to 5 mins? I have never, ever cared that I had to refresh HM. Is this Blizz’s idea of helping us?
well to me, it is a little bit more useful, i dont have to waste mana on refreshing it anymore… but i think blizzard made this change so that not all of patch 3.1 looked like a big nerf to hunters
What 100 mana is suddenly a waste every 2 minutes? and if you’re MM or have it talented even if not MM the mana cost is reduced to 0 pretty much. They did the same to drood’s faire fire or whatever it is, outside of pvp it’s five minutes for a duration yet for pvp it’s still the same what 40ish sec duration? [which proves Blizzard CAN switch talents for pvp and pve use .. hm :/] But tbh it’s not something I think they did to make it seem ‘oh it’s not a nerf patch!’
But tbh it’s not a fix patch either.
And at anyrate I only use HM on bosses and usually the bosses are dead before the mark wears off, or the boss is just about dead and it’d be a waste [instances I mean].
Being a raiding hunter I know that your Hunters Mark buff often drops down the list of buffs on a boss so its difficult to always see it is still on the target. Its a minor thing but it is handy to know it will be there all the fight.
Ryai… haha i dont pay attention well to hunters mark… just put it up every 3-4 shot rotations… this also means i dont pay attention to the mana it costs… =D
So, it seems we need to use Black Arrow on our Rotation instead Serpent Sting to trigger LNL… but if BA shares cooldown with the traps then I don’t see it useful since on raids or instances CC is almost a need even emergency CC… To put it simple:
We are attaking a mob on an instance, OMG an add was pulled!! The Tank asks me to CC the add with a Freezing Trap… But I cannot use the trap because it is still on Cooldown since I used BA… The the tank get annoyed… (Well that is if there’s any other Hunter or a CC class on the Group)
About Entrapment and Trap Mastery, well I never spent a single point on those talents they aren’t that useful (Better spend the points to get Aimed XD)
The HM duration increase is great, I always use it on eve single mob I want to kill and is sometimes annoying to refresh it
And yes, I have the same doubt, If I dual spec for BM/SV what I’m supposed to do if I switch from BM to SV and I had a Exotic at my side along the Remote Stable on cooldown, I will be petless… and have to travel to a stable master…
Blizz needs to fix that on my point of view.
Korzak: I think the 5min HM’s supposed to go with how a lot of bosses in Ulduar are going to take A LOT longer to kill… One achievement my friend pointed out to me was, “Kill blablabla (forgot his name lol) within 12mins”. If 12 mins is an achievement, how long would he NORMALLY take?! D:
Also, I heard the last boss in there is a 30min fight… x.x
I use Hunter’s Mark on every boss I fight, unless I’m the only hunter and we’re fighting multiple mobs Then I’m volleying. I don’t consider HM a waste at all. Though I find the change unnessecary. I can only think of 1 boss where I have to recast HM, and that’s Sarth +3drakes.
Question; in Vanilla or TBC WoW, how long did raid bosses take, let along the entire endgame raids. I remember stories of Dire Maul taking a good day to do. That I get, but I kinda find the idea of making boss fights hard by making them last 30+ minutes of just standing there shooting at a floating guy….I don’t get why raiders subject themselves to that. I mean I get the hitting walls wiping and trying again, but I mean, standing there chipping at a guy for excessive periods of time and then wiping sounds about as fun as repainting a bedroom wall, only to have someone step on the tray and get paint all over the one leaky tarp…
Course I’m just exaggerating. They won’t make fights that consist of standing there for an hour or more of doing piratically nothing…
I hope?
Well tbh now that I’ve re-found the C’thun pewpew vids…
Anyways going by AQ- a 30 minute boss fight, while oh crap is … not that bad tbh.. cause mean the twins in AQ40? Tried to do it in 25man who were nearly all lv 80. All of them were … well idiots.
We were at it for about 15 minutes and the first time we wiped, the raid leader decided to only partly explain what the hell you have to do. Then the third wipe he explained. But then no one healed the tanks and I HAD TO GET AGGRO OF THE MELEE TWIN AND KITE HIM BACK TO THE RIGHT SPOT.
I was just all AAAAH I AM GOING TO DIE I AM GOING TO DIE SOMEONE SAVE ME SOMEONE SAVE M- You are Dead.
So probably it is not going to be 30 minutes of just standing there pewpewing I bet.
@Mania:
The Emperor Cobras in the Sholazar Basin have a new, more attractive skin.
Saranette:
Do you mean the raids or just the boss fights? I know the raids used to take about 2 days on average to fully complete. However, Ol’ Ragnaros, Nefarian, and Onyxia used to be about 8 minute long fight on average. I think some bosses took alot longer too not because of the actual fight but because of the ridiculous encounter (I don’t remember the guy’s name, but that first boss in Blackwing Lair; the one you had to kill all the orcs while tank kited the boss around) took quite awhile.
Bosses now are drastically shorter fights than Vanilla WoW. Even TBC’s fights were much shorter. Most of the bosses in TBC we downed within 1-2 casts of Hunter’s Mark, so about 2-4 mins on average. I think the longest fight we had would be between Illidan or Kael’thas (not the Magister’s Terrace encounter).
AQ still remains to be utterly ridiculous. I never did AQ when I was in Vanilla WoW, but a few of my friends who did reported the (boss) fights being 25-30min on average. Even the trash pulls would take quite awhile since those anubis things inherit their fallen-comrades abilities.
Ugh, unfortunately, I can’t get onto the PTR, so I haven’t really seen what’s been going on. But it seems like BA having the same cd is a good thing. Honestly, besides Gluth in Naxx, there is no need at all for Hunter CC, so it’s no big deal if BA is on the same cd. That being said, it’s gonna be more annoying in instances, for Hunters just starting out at 80. So it’s basically based on where the raiding Hunter is at progression-wise, it’s a toos-up. And the nerf to Entrapment isn’t that amazing at all to ME, since I’m not a PvPer. ;P But it is a big deal for the PvP Hunter. HM buff is amazing! I love seeing that, I hate having to weave it into my rotation, lol.
nobbie: It looks to me like the old serpent skin with that weird black shininess overlay that lots of objects have right now. I’ll keep an eye on it, though. Thanks!
Thanks, Guntitan! I can’t promise I’ll get a response up but I’ll try my best. (And I added you to the blogroll also.)
What the … ?! How did the responses get out of order?
Ahha! Guntitan posted in the future. Clever!
Hey Mania. I tagged you in my blog. I like aiming big.
he is a ninja… simple and plain…
A ninja from the future!
@It looks to me like the old serpent skin with that weird black shininess overlay that lots of objects have right now. I’ll keep an eye on it, though. Thanks!
Yup, that’s probably it. It looks quite nice from certain angles, though :)
Can there be an SS of this overlay? The PTR is bugging for me and won’t download the patches :/
*stabs*
The sheen sounds pretty cool.
I really miss Serpents. I had tons of fun grinding mid 20s with a WC one, duel firing poison shots. I just can’t find much use for them these days though, but boy are they beautiful!
Especially after taming a bonespider, and clearing the quest that changes the instance of the area. I thought there’d be some hanging round always, but I can’t find any at all! Kinda nasty trick, makes me wonder if they’re to be the next unnameable.
(also something real aggravating – I will throw up beast lore on the Cleansing Song crocs, and they still have a diet of meat and fish! They didn’t actually fix anything with the mobs, they just lazily flagged them as “cannot be tamed”!)
Can you post a SS of the cobra skin change, nobbie?
I’ll try to get a screenshot up. Don’t get your hopes up about it staying though. They fixed the “dark sheen” once before already, so i imagine it’s not going to stay. It’s also affecting mounts such as the Warlock’s Dreadsteed and Swift Horses (SW mounts), their armor is unusually dark. So I’ll get a screenshot up soon here.
So here’s a screenshot of the dark sheen affect. It’s clearly a bug as the serpent looks rather funky now. XD I think I have the photobucket on public so you should be able to view the other 2 screenshots. In any case here’s the best screenshot I got.
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq1/Selantis/WoWScrnShot_032509_072630.jpg
http://wow.gamona.de/wp-content/gallery/wotlk-ptr-310/ptr_310_emperor_cobra_01.jpg
Sure, here you go – the build 9722 Emperor Cobra:)
There was a change to the worm’s ability: acid spit
It matches the sunder armor change and now only takes two applications.
I believe this will make worms the best choice for non-tank application of armor reduction, since there is no added threat from acid spit, and it does not consume a players global cooldowns that would be better spent on dps. I think ill have to pick up a worm!
Thanks for the screenshots, nobbie & Rikaku! (I love the name ‘Kaiserkobra’, btw — I wonder if I can name a serpent that on the US worlds .. And Rikaku, when did you start a blog?)
ihlos: I saw your post on that yesterday but didn’t have time to comment yet. How very interesting!
I don’t particularly like the shininess of the model, but if they make it dark without the shine I’ll be all over it. I LOVE dark pets. :)
Mania:
It’s no prob =) People kept askin for one so I stopped by before my final to snag a pic. I’ve had a blog (I dare say it’s a blog since I’m not a good writer by any means XD) since about October sometime (I have a terrible memory but I know the first ish blog was back after Blizzcon). I keep meaning to be more frequent with updates, but I always get distracted with classes lately. At least this is spring break coming, so I’ll be able to do some stuff with it (like some serious updates I’ve been meaning to do!)
I finally just got tired of WoW today. It was with a heavy heart that I logged onto each of my characters, and told them goodbye. Maybe I’ll start playing again later. Maybe this is just one of my haitus’s, where I stop playing for half a year before my drive is rekindled. Or maybe I am just tired of it. Four years is a very long time to play a game, after all, and I’ve managed to get myself into a lot of heartbreak with people in game.
I am still going to pay attention to Petopia. I have friends here, and I am definitely not going to leave those. But as I logged onto each of my characters, I realized that my friends lists, all nearly full, had been dark for a very long time. I have friends here, on this blog, but not there, in game. It takes away so much of the fun factor.
Here is to hoping that some time down the line, I have a change of heart, and try it again.
Palladiamors: Sometimes we all need a change. Sometimes a short break, sometimes a long one, sometimes … a complete break. We understand.
Ihlos-
I actually believe for armor reductin as DPS the best bet will still be the Wasp b/c they are Ferocity and that tree has almost all the DPS talents…
I don’t see Black Arrow being very useful in PvP either. My traps are my best escape mechanism and firing off a Black Arrow at some Pally that just gets ignored is a waste of a trap.
I swear, Blizzard works overtime to see just how screwed up they can make hunters.
@ Palladiamors :
sorry to hear that… I understand how you feel and hope your time away from WoW will be kinder on your heart.
I do hope you will not stop commenting here because of this.
I anjoy and learn alot from the discussions you participate in :)
-wit