View all WoW Cataclysm hunter information Here.
Now that focus is finally live on the Cataclysm beta, we are going to maintain a list of the focus cost for various hunter shots and abilities here. As changes are made in the Cataclysm beta, this list will be updated to reflect the most recent version.
Updated:9/4/10
- Cobra Shot: 0 focus - 2 sec cast – no cooldown – generates 9 focus
- Steady Shot: 0 focus - 2 sec cast – no cooldown – generates 9 focus
- Arcane Shot: 25 focus – no cooldown
- Multi-Shot: 40 focus – no cooldown – now instant shot
- Aimed Shot: 50 focus – no cooldown – now 3.5 sec cast
- Chimera Shot: 50 focus – 10 sec cooldown
- Silencing Shot: 0 focus – 20 sec cooldown
- Explosive Shot: 50 focus – 6 sec cooldown
- Kill Shot: 0 focus – 10 sec cooldown
- Distracting Shot: 0 focus – 8 sec cooldown
- Concussive Shot: 0 focus – no cooldown
- Tranq Shot: 35 focus – no cooldown
- Hunter’s Mark: no focus – no cooldown
- Serpent Sting: 25 focus – no cooldown
- Venoms: 30 focus – no cooldown
- Aspects: 0 focus – 1 sec cooldown
- Traps: 0 focus – 30 sec cooldown
- Trap Launcher: 30 focus – no cooldown
- Mend Pet: 0 focus – instant
- Kill Command: 40 focus – 6 second cooldown
- Misdirection: 0 focus – 30 sec cooldown
- Deterrence: 0 focus – 2 min cooldown
- Disengage: 0 focus – 25 sec cooldown
- Feign Death: 0 focus – 30 sec cooldown
Some Thoughts on Hunter Focus and Cooldowns
So most of this is going as I predicted back when we first heard about focus. Chimera and Explosive are keeping their cooldowns, but our standard shots have them going away — including arcane shot and multi-shot with no cooldown. It’s particularly fascinating to see that multi-shot is now an instant cast!
Over the course of the beta many of our abilities have had their focus cost removed. The vast majority of our reactive/defensive abilities now cost no focus and are just cooldown-limited, including disengage, deterrence, concussive shot, etc. The big exception to this is tranq shot, which Blizzard is pretty adamant on keeping a focus cost on. The main reason for this is pvp, where tranq is an offensive ability rather than a reactive ability to dispell boss enrages. So if we need to tranq in a fight, we’ll have to keep a padding of 35 focus available. And in fairness, this is exactly what rogues have to do right now in fights where they have to kick to interrupt.
I can see our dps will drop significantly when scaling with other classes. Mana was never a problem. If you were going oom often, the problem is with the player. Unlike a mana based pool, we now will be sacrificing our big shots for much weaker ones quite often. Then they will tweak our focus costs until it operates with our “priority/rotation”, so it pretty much gives us an unlimited focus regen pool much like mana is today. Our class should not use focus or mana. They are systems that are absurd for our class imo. The cooldowns are the only thing that prevent us from firing off shots anyway right now, so why not just eliminate the rest and give us cooldowns to limit our chimera/explosive shots. In all honesty, the cooldowns are our only inhibitor at this point. Anyway, im not surprised blizz kept our horrible melee and did nothing to improve it. I will also be surprised if they even give us more than 2 or 3 new pet “species/families” in cata. Bought by Activision…spend less $$$ in design….charge more $$$ per month. Winning business model/ fail entertainment value. Pesimistic, yes; but really it is the truth if u look at it objectively. I just would hate to see a game i enjoy be destroyed.
When you say Traps: 0 focus – 30 sec cooldown, are the traps still on seperate cooldowns or have they regressed to one shared cooldown as it was in the old days.
Don’t Cobra and Steady shots only generate focus while in Hawk but not in Fox etc?
Mend Pet is the same as it was, can be used on the move, where you where told that, maybe in alpha it was like that, but in the current beta it’s not.
Cobra and Steady on their own give a base of 1 focus. If your in Hawk, your cobra and steady give you 9 focus over 1.
Traps, work the same as they do now, you can use one of each kind. You can even use them like you would volley now, no longer do you really have to run in to a mob and Deterrence out.
Also Serpent Sting doesn’t say mana it says focus now as of today. It cost 45 focus.
Kill Command cost 30 focus with a 6 sec cooldown.
I’m disappointed with what they’ve done so far. Has anyone ever found a use for Aspect of the wild? They took out Aspect of the Beast which I used in PVP, was great for BM in PVP.
@Shadowolz , you wouldn’t use Aspect of the Beast anyway, as you’d be in Aspect of the Fox all the time.
In BG’s perha[s a bit less, but Arena is pretty much constant running. For our hunters this was bad already causing hunters not to be the top spec (= understatement) in Arena. Now we can autoshot on the run, which is HUGE.
For PvE, Fox is ok’ish, as many good hunters already stutter-walk. But in Arena it is impossible to do that.
In BG’s it depends on the type of BG and quality of teammates. If you can stand still behind ranks and nuke, you’d be in Hawk as else you have no focus to nuke. If you are running, you’d be in Fox.
So I don’t think you’ll be missing Beast.
And @Silveran,
Yes, in Fox no focus regen. Alse we’ll be in Fox all the time.
eres a question I have not seen an answer to yet , how much focus will we have, since I have not played as a rogue I do not know how that focus pool is maintained
I was talking more about the fact that Beast makes you and your pet untrackable to other hunters and players who use the tracking food buffs.
Been working like crazy and trying to keep up with all the Cat stuff, but did i miss volley? Did we hear anything about that and a focus cost? Maybe I just missed it
I really really really hate this stupid hunter changes and that focus crap. I’m not at all excited, I’m very worried. Why the hunter? Why not the warlock? Or change the mage. Make a focus based paladin. What the hell is wrong with you?
Looks like hunters will need to stack haste in cata like no joke the faster the steady/cobra shots are the more focus u can get to blast people down but u will have to get ur haste just right so that u will time it perfectly for ur big cooldown such as Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot… There will have to be alot of calculateing to get the perfect rotaion and hopefully blizz puts some haste in cata gear…
BRK just did a video and SS only regens 1 focus as of now
For PVE, Focus probably will be ok despite all the initial bugs, such as the base Focus regeneration rate being about 3 per sec. instead of the advertised 6 per sec. By comparison, Rogue base regeneration is 10 Energy per sec. Some MM hunters have reported they can one shot any mob with the new Aimed Shot and talent to guarantee an Aimed Shot crit.on targets above 90% health.
The problem will be PVP where hunters currently pay a price for moving a lot in that they can’t use Steady Shot and use fewer Auto Shots. Lower Focus regeneration on the move will be a double penalty. Even with Aspect of the Fox, Focus Focus regeneration and dps will be much lower than for a hunter in Hawk standing still and using lots of Steady Shots and Aimed Shots.
It seems Chimera Shot no longer gets a damage bonus from Serpent Sting. If so, it hardly seems like a 51-point talent at just 125% weapon damage unless there are some really good Chimera Shot glyphs. The 15% heal from a Venom/Chimera combo can be good if a hunter needs healing, but many times they don’t and would prefer more damage from Chimera instead.
It might make sense to retain the extra damage of Serpent/Chimera combo if the hunter has no Venom applied.
@bonoes SS generates 1 focus if you aren’t in hawk. In aspect of the hawk it is generating 9 focus per cast.
How are hunter supposed to do any PVP when all the regen shots are 1.5 cast? We don’t ever stand and shoot!
wishful thinking, black arrow is not mentioned here like volley (which i suspect to be a 40-60 focus shot, ouch) but this trap = 0 focus makes me hope black arrow will be considered a trap as it is all ready on the same cool down and having to spend focus on both black arrow and serpant sting DoT shots will leave barely enough for an explosive shot.
instant multi shot and no intellect seem to be the only silver linning to an SV hunter (aspect of the fox is more of a ‘meh’ in PvE)
I keep seeing CS and SS have a 1.5sec cast and then other sites its a 2sec cast… on the ptr its 2sec anyone know what one its going to be???