So we’ve got some patch 3.1 stuff up on the PTR, giving us our first real look at what’s coming for hunters! As always, keep in mind that the PTR stuff changes often, and many of these new toys may change, or may never even see the light of day.
General
Bunch of new glyphs, the most exciting one for SV hunters is the Explosive Shot glyph (finally!) that increases the Explosive Shot crit chance by 4%. Also a Kill Shot glyph that lowers the cooldown by 6 seconds, which is pretty attractive.
We also get a new skill, Call Stabled Pet, which summons a pet from your stable to replace your current pet (30 minute cooldown). This skill basically exists for dual-speccing in and out of BM spec.
BM Hunters
No news for BM hunters yet. I am sure it’s coming and just isn’t live yet, so just hold on a bit longer!
MM Hunters
Wild Quiver has been improved for a 2% increased proc chance and 30% more damage. We have yet to decide if this actually makes the talent worthwhile, which it currently is not.
Piercing Shots has been reworked to add a bleed dot instead of the armor piercing. The new bleed component really makes it a lot more attractive (adds 30% of the shot damage for chimera, steady, and aimed as a bleed dot over 8 sec). The real question here may be whether or not they stack.
Ranged Weapon Specialization: same talent, but only three points instead of 5 for the same effect. Awesomesauce!
SV Hunters
Okay survivalists, hang on. This ride is going to be a bit crazy!
Hunting Party changed so that it’s only 3 talent points (because who used more than two points in it ever anyway?) and it now grants 1/2/3% agility in addition to the mana regen! Sweet!
T.N.T. now increases the damage of your explosive shot by 2%, instead of the crit chance. We’re thinking this ends up being a slight nerf. But we’ll probably still take it.
Here’s the big crazy surprise:
*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.
This new dot is, in every definable way, awesomesauce. Not only that, but they’re changing a bunch of other SV talents to combo with Black Arrow. For example, your Lock & Load no longer procs off Serpent Sting, but procs off of Black Arrow ticks instead. It’s instant, and it’s awesome. The only sad thing is that the cooldown is 30 sec for a 15 sec ability. That will mean it is in effect nerfing Lock & Load, which will only have half the opportunity to proc. Expect to see a glyph in the future that lowers the cooldown by 6 seconds.
And finally, the previously announced nerf to Sniper Training: now increases the crit chance of your Kill Command, and increases the damage of your Steady Shot, Aimed Shot, and Black Arrow by up to 6% only when you’ve been standing still for at least 6 seconds. So only sporadically useful in raids, and useless in pvp.
But overall, it’s looking like a nice set of buffs for both MM and SV specs – with no BM news yet. We were kind of expecting to see a more major reworking of hunter abilities so that they would scale with gear and buffs better (this is a problem already at top tiers of gear, and much feared in Ulduar). We were also thinking they might have done another wee tiny nerf to explosive shot — not expecting the sweet Black Arrow buff, which more than makes up for the Sniper Training nerf!
holy awesomeness!!! that is aMACEing!!! i can’t wait to not only top the charts but make the light at the end of the tunnel dissapear… _/insert evil laugh\_
I know it is early in the PTR for this patch, but did they really need to work on SV? BM was the spec that got hurt most recently, as far as I can make out. That being said, I don’t wish any nerfage on SV; I just want some parity amongst the specs.
No news on the proposed Ammo changes?
As Frostheim mentioned this is very premature….some of it is speculation……I believe blizzard has promissed us parity among the specs so lets hope that this will happen……I was BM until 3.08 and like many I switched to SV……I would like to switch back to BM mainly because I love my corehound….
My talent Sniper Training says:
Increases the damage done by your Steady Shot, Aimed Shot and Explosive Shots by 6% if you are 30 yards or further from your target, and increases the critical strike chance of your Kill Shot ability by 15%.
Doesnt have anything to do if you stand still for 6 sec?
Bloodstyle: yup, their changing it so it’s no longer range-based, but instead based on standing still. Thus: nerf. We can only hope it doesn’t go through.
You forgot to mention a couple of things:
1- Trap Throwing
2- Immolation Trap refreshable using Explosive Shot
3- Immolation Trap and Black Arrow will now proc LnL, 6% chance per tick.
This means we get more DPS not only from keeping an Immolation Trap on the target all the time, but also from Black Arrow. Also, we get a guaranteed LnL proc from the thrown Immolation trap, and then two 6% proc chance from each Immo Trap and Black Arrow tick.
That’s some nice DPS boost.
Actually Skosiris Trap Laucher was Taken off the patch notes for 3.1. When I first saw it i leapt off my seat but soon thereafter I transferred my character to the PTR and it looks like they took it out. It’s still in Development so hopefully they will add it back.
Aww.
In the latest build (9626) It also seems that they removed the bonus on TNT that made Explosive Shot refresh the Immolation Trap effect on your target.
Interestingly, it also appears that Black Arrow shares the same cooldown as traps.
Guess the only DPS boost will be from Black Arrow.
Trap Laucher is back on the PTR!
was downloading the patch for the PTR this morining and there it was!
And what u say about that?
Explosive Shot: Base damage lowered by 10%. Attack power scaling reduced by 12.5%.