Oooooooooookay, the Cataclysm talent overhaul is now up on the beta, and it’s… kinda crazy. As a reminder for everyone, here’s what they’re doing:
Talent trees now only go 31 points deep, and you have only 41 talent points at level 85. Tons of talents have been removed, and very, very few talents are more than 3 ranks. Furthermore, when you get to level 10, you must choose your talent tree. Thereafter you can only spend points in that tree until you reach the bottom of the tree (which you can at level 70) — only then can you cross over to pop a couple of points in other trees.
But, when you choose your tree, you will get a special ability from your tree, for free. Blizzard said this would let them make signature abilities available at level 10, to really give you a feel for the flavor of each tree.
Talent Tree Primary Skills (the free ones you get at level 10)
Hunter – Marksmanship
A master archer or sharpshooter who excels in bringing down enemies from afar.
- Aimed Shot
- Marksmanship Hunter (+ ranged hit, pushback reduction)
Hunter – Survival
A rugged tracker who favors using animal venom, explosives and traps as deadly weapons.
- Explosive Shot
- Survival Hunter (+ ranged hit, pushback reduction)
Hunter – Beast Mastery
A master of the wild who can tame a wide variety of beasts to assist him/her in combat.
- Intimidation
- Beastmastery Hunter (+ranged hit, pushback reduction)
So… I got only 1 out of 3 for my predictions (explosive shot). But I really do think that chimera should be the MM signature “primary skill” rather than aimed. Though aimed will certainly make MM leveling a lot easier (currently in beta it’s aimed shot – BAM DEAD! Every time.)
So every hunter is going to get bonus hit chance and reduction of pushback for free, starting at level 10. In theory this amount probably won’t scale with level — if it’s a percentage it should probably be the same regardless of level.
BM I think is getting the short straw with Intimidation. No question but that it’s a very useful leveling skill, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not a super cool talent. MM gets aimed, which is a big opener, but not a part of their rotation… at all. At least until you get Master Marksman deep in the MM tree. SV wins big time with explosive shot, which remains totally awesome. With Lock & Load up high in the tree, this is doubly awesome for SV.
What’s most interesting to me about this is that Aimed Shot is now exclusively a MM ability. No other tree even has a chance of getting access to this, which suddenly gives MM a very desirable if somewhat situational pvp ability.
The Talent Trees
They look so wrong! So tiny! So few talents!!!
See them for yourself Here.
My first thought on looking over the trees was “OMG this is a huge nerf unless they ramp up some of our baseline dps.” I mean, there are dps talents just gone entirely. Others have their ranks reduced and end up with less effect. It’s very possible, however, that they’ve increased the base damage of our shots or something to compensate. It’s also possible that they’re fine with lowering our dps a bit (which is, by the way, much higher that in wrath, same level and same gear).
There are also plenty of situations where there isn’t immediately a “right” answer on where to spend talent points. Unfortunately this is not the ideal situation of:
“Oh god, these are both so awesome and I can only get one! Which do I choose? Which do I choose?!?!”
Instead it’s:
“Eh, these are both kinda meh and situational, I guess that one’s as good as any other.”
I wish we had gone the former route, especially since you’ll only get talent points every other level. It would be nice if every talent point got you something twice as exciting (or at least just as exciting) as they do now.
It looks like for most trees you will easily be able to get everything truly good in your tree, and the real decision is going to be which other tree you go into — do you go 2 tiers into one, or just 1 tier into both others?
Overall I need some time to putter around at the target dummies before I can say whether the changes are actually good or bad or neutral in game. Certainly in concept I like the change. I’m a tad nervous about the execution — especially since they lowered the ranks of Effeciency, which all specs could get to lower the focus cost of our shots — now lowering by a max of 6 focus instead of 10. I mean, cutting our focus conservation is not a change that seemed needed, and I suspect that was an accidental byproduct.
Once I have a chance you play around more thoroughly, I’ll let you know what I find!
“A rugged tracker who favors using animal venom, explosives and traps as deadly weapons.” i love SV so much
I know things will change but I am still looking forward to your findings.
OMG ! Where is “Scatter Shot” in SV ?? oO They remove it ?! :/
Messed around with the link to make a tanking build, and I quickly ran into the “meh, any choice here is kinda lame” problem with the last few points. I can see how the same could easily be true of dps builds.
Given the amount of stamina on items seen so far, would it be worth it for a MM hunter to put 5 points in Improved Tracking and 3 points in Hunter vs. Wild with only a point or 2 in the BM tree? The first two tiers of the BM tree looks kind of bleh from a MM perspective.
As BM or MM I’d find it hard to go past the first 7 points in SV.
As MM or SV I’d find it hard to go past the BM talent One with Nature
As BM we may not need any of the MM focus reduction talents.
As SV we will probably look at maxing efficeincy and 1 point into Go for the Throat
BM: Rhumba looks pretty cool, but I’d only max it out if I don’t need the focus talents from MM, but looks like it will have a few interchangable talents.
MM: Seems to be put between a rock and a hard place with sub par talents that need to be filled in to advance deeper into the tree. Seems like there will be a predominant build that all MM run with.
SV: Looks ok; there is a choke point where we will be forced into a utility talent to advance. There are maybe 3 talent points that can be messed around with. I predict a predominant 3-4-34 type build. It would be hard to justify Expose Weakness, unless we are stacking so much haste that steadies are on a 1 second cast so you could squeeze them in between Explosives. If thats the case you probably wouldn’t need efficiency (3-1-37)
Well those are my initial thoughts, can’t wait to try it out in the Beta, I just need to download it now
Should have looked at Expose weakness harder, 3 steadies fully maxed out to grant a different effect depending on type or class. I like SV much more suddenly.
Has anyone noticed some of the talents in SV? Point of no return is still there, useless as always, counterattack is there, which is odd since they are trying to get hunters OUT of melee, and sniper training all of a sudden doesnt work on black arrow or explosive, but it does work on aimed, which is MM only.
My ideas to make these trees work better:
BM:
- switch Bestial Wrath with Intimidation, much better sig ability, but save beast within so it isnt OP
- Make ruhmba only work with cobra, then they make BM ‘only use cobra’ like they want to
MM:
- split up the 3rd tier PvP talents, switch some with lower abilitys please!
SV:
- Replace Counterattack with Scatter shot
- Replace Point of no return with Master Tactician (we need the crit proc back)
- Put sniper training back to boosting ES and BA
-put the 6% damage boost back on BA
(on a side note, i also think that BA and ES should be switched, since SV is looking more about the DoTs i think it makes more sense but thats just me, not that important)
Wow.com’s stuff is glitchy. It’s not displaying the correct level with the talent points. The levels need to go up by 2 for every talent point spent.
With a first look at the new trees, i again see BM getting a shaft on the Dps, yes there are some cool abilites there, but c’mon MM gets aimed shot and SV gets explosive shot!!, we get stuck with Intimidation. That right there just about kills BM for having a chance to compete with SV and MM for top DPS.
I did like the “mirrored Blades” talent in the SV tree, talk a bout a true PvP talent, but at the cost of losing Scatter shot, it is too high a price. The fact that they still have Counter Attack in the SV tree baffles me, i thought they were going to do away with “useless melee abilities” putting a Scatter shot in it’s place seems like a much more ideal fit. Hunting party seems like a good talent, but seeing as we no longer benefit from Replen. it is wasted at the bottom of the tree, Expose weakness could be one of those awesome talents but only time will tell.
There a quite a few talents in the MM tree that i do not see as being raid viable. Look at “careful aim” a full 3 point gets you a 60% increase on you aimed shot’s ability to crit, but that is only when the mob is at 90% health or higher. “Dazzled prey” is another one getting a 5-10% increase on steady shot, arcane shot, and chimera shot is great, BUT the target has to be DAZED, which is not possible on a boss in any raid that i know of. “resistance is futile” is the last one, Firstly I must say i LOVE The name of this talent, but seeing what it does, makes me wonder is Kill command really going to be that great?
Of all the trees for hunters i see BM making the most sense “one with nature” is awesome at the top of the tree, but “pathfinding” are they serious?!? moving faster is really that big of a deal when it doesn’t even stack with your mount? “Frenzy” and “focus fire” seem like they could work just great together. “Fervor” is a good talent plan and simple anything that pumps 50 focus back into your pool can’t be wrong. Lastly “Rhumba” looks like it could be a neat talent but not sure on that would like to see it work and what kinda a dps output it can give ya.
So yeah not sure how this will all work out Blizz gave us hunters a lot to take in and, i am sure that a lot will change over the next few months till that actual release date. For now i will say, they are heading in the right direction.
I was recently told by a friend in the beta that Scatter shot is baseline now, if anyone can confirm that would be great, but they still need to take out Counterattack, make a new ability to replace it, not that hard. How about a on use boost to DoTs or even a defensive abilty since SV should be more about surviving, anything but a melee attack
This was in the patch notes, “The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.’
Anyone else hate this?
The talent trees look fine. I feel like there is less options within a tree. It’s absolutely unnecessary to put more than 31 points into a tree except for MM. You have to put 32 points in MM. I think readiness needs to switch with resistance is futile because I don’t grab TSA and resistance is futile is worthless. What I’m saying is that everything in the bottom three levels of the MM tree need to be picked up if your MM, but that forces you to spend 32 points in that tree compared to the 31 needed in BM and SV.
this new Talent rewamp sucks so fucking much its incredible. I know the philosophy in what blizzard are trying, but fucking hell… put all your talent points in 1 three and you’re good to go.. you can’t go wrong really.. EVERY SINGLE Talent point feels fucking idiotic, it doesn’t feel like a real good or bad choice, because it doesn’t matter where you put your points, because you’re going to get them all anyways! you can’t see the difference of a good, or bad hunter anymore.
@Mascaron
Please Read Counterattack and Point of No Return, then tell me the trees look fine.
I think MM will be awesome. Running around and spamming aimed shots and multi-shots while on aspect of the fox will be awesome! Lies, I’ll probably stand still and spam steadies until I go crazy with all the haste I’ll get. lol
Hi,
I’m really looking forward to the upcoming talent changes!
It’s pretty early in de Beta and a lot can and will change (hopefully), but I must say that I’m pretty disappointed seeing this first impression, although I -was- excited when they first brought the news about this big change.
I agree that the primary skill for BM is very disappointing and also not logical. According to Blizzard, hunters are primary -Ranged Physical Damage Dealers- so why give BMers a CC-ability as unique skill? It’s not that we…uhh…BM (yeh, I really -realy- want to be a -raiding- BMer again
) don’t have unique damage abilities.
@Kharzag, I agree with you, although the difference between good or bad hunters is not beeing effected by this change. Nowadays the “bad” hunters copy-paste talentbuilds, so It’s all the same.
Blizzard wrote: “…with each talent being more integral and exciting than they have been in the past.” I don’t feel that yet.
@Frostheim
““OMG this is a huge nerf unless they ramp up some of our baseline dps.” I mean, there are dps talents just gone entirely” – I think you totally missed the innate Range damage % increase that each tree has?
Otherwise i think the trees are far from being finished.
1) BM and SV have FAR more talents than any other tree which means you will have to spend almost all point in one tree, especially in SV case
2) BM and SV have have only 7 talents in tier 1 – with Imp Tracking and Bestial Discipline being totally unfitting to new schema of talents with max 3 ranks.
MM
- If Aimed shot doesnt get fixed and will trim auto-shot and autoshot will not be cast during Aimed Shot (that possibly and often can lead to 6 secs without autoshot…), then Careful Aim is a waste for raider
- that leaves raider with 0 possible talent chioces (skipping Rapid killing and Careful Aim) in first 3(!!!) tiers. You would have to take both 2 ranks of Dazzled Prey and Concussive Barrage to get to tier 4, which are only useful an adds (possibly not all adds)
– also I think these two talents shouldnt be in one tier but Conc. Barrage should be pre-requisite of Dazzled Prey
-Resistance Is Futile is TOTALLY broken, a) why should it buff signature ability of another tree? why should this be prereq. for Marked for Death?
- Mention of Bestial Wrath on Readiness is redundant. You wont be able to get both BW and readiness
- Chimera shot: Did you notice “You deal 190(!!!)% of weapon damage? WOW!!!! Is that a typo?
SV:
- Imp tracking is dull talent. And it has 5 ranks…
- Imp Serpent Sting: will it “proc” with every Chimera shot that refreshes Serpent? If yes, it is fantastic. If not than it would affect 1GCD in entire bossfight
- Hunter vs. Wild is OP. It is OP. OP!!!! Elementiom Poleaxe (lvl 85 crafted epic) has 512 STAM. That gives extra 150 AP just from on item…
- Lock n Load: the split of this talent into LnL and TNT is wierd. but ok.
- Sniper Training buffing Aimed Shot that you will not be able to get?
-Why, and i mean WHY????? is WYyvern Sting prereq of Black arrow – BTW, black Arrow is becomming a pretty sick DoT? SV is going to use Serpent Sting almost exclusively but he needs to get another sting to get ability that influences his rotation so heavily?
- 5 Steady shots in a row to get Expose Weakness for 20 secs? So you will have to hold off your Explosive shots to get an effect that is so vaguely described? This is weird if you compare it to BM and MM that have their “Steady/Cobra proc talent” requiring 2 steadies/cobras in a row
BM
- way too many point in this tree
- Ferocious Inspiration should have only 1 rank to be in line with blue post that said that talents that are raid buff will have only 1 rank.
- The Beast Within – I kind of think that BW should remain prereq of this talent. Otherwise you can get this without having BW which is, you know… useless
And I forgot to mention Hunting party that grant mana regen. How does it fit into hunter not using mana philosophy? Shouldnt it rather buff power regen? (energy, focus, runic power, rage…)?
And Also: MM it is weird that MM, that should be centered about dealing some physical damage, needs to take pet buffing talents in tier 1 and tier 2 just to be able to get PvP talents in tier 3 to be able to get to tier 4… One of those pet talents, Sic´em is not too useful for MM either because he wont be using 2 (3) of four shots that buff pet damage. That is lame for mandatory talent(s)
So, what happens after level 70, if you respec? Are you still restricted to putting 31 points into one tree before you can spend points in the other two trees or can you now put points wherever you want?
Ok, maybe I missed something, but on the MMO Champions beta talent preview, I’m NOT seeing explosive shot.
@Dharion
You missed something. Explosive shot is now an ability, that every SV gets at lvl 10. Unlike Chimera shot for MM that have to wait to lvl 70 to get it. Instead MM gets Aimed shot – which is kind of more useful for levelling, anyway.
looking over the MM tree, I see a lot of interesting abilities, but like you said, nothing that makes me really feel excited about where I am spending points. I ended up with a 1/32/8, but I don’t know if Hunter v Wild is worth putting points into with it being a lower percentage of your stam (though we have a ton more stam in cata…)
And explosive shot at 10!!!! wowsers! SV gets some uber love, but making their signature shot no longer talented makes their 31 point talent feel somewhat lacklustre. Though I suppose since SV is the trap/poison/dot spec, it makes sense.
Can someone explain why a focused based class is providing mana replenishment in the Survival tree?
-SK
What happened to the idea of talent spec diversity? I thought one of the goals for Cataclysm was to make it hard for people to choose where to spend their points meaning less cookie cutter builds. Have they totally reversed their position on this? Looking at these trees, it looks like there will be on build per spec with very little changes difference between toons with the same spec.
I’ve had a good look through some of the lesser classes talent trees; its the same thing all over the place. I think fire mages are worse off than MM with the number of talents they are forced to put into pvp/situationally useful talents. A great one is haste being buffed if you have fire dots afflicting 3 targets, yup thats really usefull in a boss fight. Arcane is forced to take talents that buff SP after interupting spell casts, stunning targets after polymorph breaks, reducing damage taken and cast time of invisibilty or improved blink to reach their 31 talent point kicker.
I reckon there will be QQ across the board; and Blizz will counter with yes they are not usefull all of the time, but they are fun and great for the time there are adds that can be dazed, or enough mobs to drop 3 living bombs. I guess Blizz really don’t want every talent to be a dps increase, like they said they want us to take the cool situational talents so they are just giving us what used to be their competition for free. It may take some getting used too, but in the end I think it will be for the best.
Just think of the “Jiderstep” when looking at the Cata talent trees and the creativity with game mechanics that it took to come up with that, thats the kind of freedom Blizz are trying to allow us to have.
BM still looks like the best spec to level with…..but explosive shot at level 10 is so damn tempting.
How long do the Rhumba snakes stick around and do they stack? (Does anyone else think that talent should be called Adder Adder?) If a BM rotation (guesswork) goes cobra – cobra – kill command – *cobra – cobra – arcane shot – *cobra – cobra – kill command – *cobra – cobra – arcane shot, then every starred cobra shot will proc Rhumba. (Yes, I know I’m leaving out Serpent Sting; this is for a point.) After twice through the rotation, Rhumba has procced 3 times, making each(?) enemy attack deal it 45% cobra damage. 4 times through – > 90% = free almost-cobra shot every time the enemy attacks? On boss fights, will this end up being BM’s largest source of damage? Toward the end of the fight, every time the boss takes a swipe at the tank, he hits himself for 300% of our cobra shot? For free? While we’re still shooting and Sparky’s chewing on his head?
* I note that the one talent I singled out as a model for requiring interesting choices without adding damage (hawk eye) has been removed. That’ll teach me.
* Hunter vs. Wild looks mandatory for every hunter, to me.
* Is anyone at all going to take sic’em?
* Is there a rotation which uses chimera and multi (and steady) such the dazed can be maintained, say 6 seconds out of ten?
*With entrapment, that’s 12 seconds of immobility. Is that immobility broken by damage (presumably not, otherwise snake trap isn’t very useful)?
* Combine entrapment with concussive barrage?
* Even with two pet talents in the marksman tree, I don’t see taking any talents there as a BM. (Possibly go for the throat if it beats improved serpent sting).
* RIP Serpent’s Swiftness.
Blizzard said that they wanted each choice to be fun and interesting, and a real choice. We got maybe a handful of new talents. Lost a lot of talents, and had many talents reduced in power. I don’t see any real increases in power, and few awesome but situational talents (see above). Back to the drawing board, I say, and this time start by erasing the whole thing, and starting from scratch.
“making each(?) enemy attack”
This is not how I read it. I thought each snake would attack only once (and then die). Otherwise a five minute boss fight is more like 2250% of our cobra shot in damage for every time they attack. Can’t see Blizzard doing that. Also are the snakes susceptible to boss AOEs? If so, they probably die before even doing damage once.
p.s. “or foe”? WTF?
Has anyone seen in ANY talent tree, a single talent which justifies Blizzards contention that they have to require us to go to 31 (by the way is that any 31 points or specifically the 31st talent?) before putting any points in another tree?
Everyone keeps talking about how Hunting Party still gives a mana regen but what I see everyone missing is the fact that now ANY damage by cobra or steady shot will trigger it, not just criticals. That is pretty much just free mana for every other class now even with only one point in it
Anyone else noticed that the arrow requirement from “Resistance is Futile” to “Marked for Death” has now been removed on the talent tree? Did MMO accidentally apply this originally? As it makes more sense now “Marked for Death” has no requirement.
@deepfried
I don’t think careful aim is a total waste. It makes for some very strong opening shots with aimed shot. My only real concern is that it sounds like blizz is wanting to do away with misdirection and tricks of the trade, so I would be worried about opening up with an aimed shot and just ripping the mob right out of the tanks hands.
If they decide to keep MD though, that would give a tank a very solid threat lead right off the bat. Mixed with their whole decaying threat mechanic they have been talking about, I think it would work. Hunters could shore up early threat which is where it is the most difficult for tanks (at least for bears it is, I personally only have one tank toon, my bear) without worry of giving tanks enough of a lead that they can go make lunch without fear of losing the mob.
As for Hunter v Wild, I don’t think that is going to be nearly as OP as it looks. Sure in Wrath mindset, 150 AP is like 2-3% of your attack power, but I imagine our AP numbers are going to skyrocket in cata. I bet we see 4k agility and well over 10k AP either going into or gearing from the first raid tier gear, meaning that 150 AP from the polearm is not nearly as significant as it looks now.
In the end I think Hunter v WIld will end up being roughly the same benefit as it is now, or maybe even slightly lower. It all depends on just how much more stam we will be seeing all around.
OM(F)G … they removed Hawk Eye. I know, most hunters sneeze at that, but for me this was The Best Talent since vanilla. Now it is gone … ;-(
For the rest I agree with Frost, the situation that you have to take filler talents isn’t gone. Now some of these filler talents could be considerred being the ‘fun’ talents that Blizzard touted about so often, but it just feels as if they just reduced the talents …
For me, teh rate at which Blizzard is changing everything is worring me. It seems that – regardless of my stand – Blizzard themselves are not happy the way it is. This also means the time to allow for stabilisation and balancing becomes shorter and shorter. I predict imbalces everywhere at launch.
That could mean any thing from one spec being overpowered, to others sucking in PvP or not scaling as well with gear. But the game being so complex and the massive amount of generic changes on top of the gigantic hunter changes make it impossible to balance in just a few months of beta I fear.
In theory this change seems great. It is not much “fun” putting points into mortal shots because you don’t really get anything tangible. Its just passive damage increase. In order to make the talent trees more “fun” Blizzard claimed they would remove such talents and provide “cool situation” abilities that you would have to choose between. I’m not sure how they think they have accomplished this goal.
The trees are still full of passive damage increases like careful aim, bombardment, marked for death, and go for the throat. (I’m using MM as an example) The new “cool situational” talents are posthaste (mandatory), resistance is futile, and termination. Gee what a “fun” choice.
Situational is a kind way to refer to resistance is futile. Am I missing something or does MMO-Champion have that talent wrong? I thought it gave us a chance for our steadies to crit, not kill command. 3 talent points seems like a steep price for a 12% chance to make our pet crit…not to mention kill command costs 50 focus. That has to be a typo.
We’re not going to be choosing between “cool situational” talents, we are gong to be choosing between sinking points into useless abilities for more mastery bonus or speccing into another tree to grab their passive damage bonuses. That choice will be based on math. How is that more fun than what we had? It certainly won’t cut down on “cookie cutter” builds. In fact, having far fewer talents will probably homogenize the talents to a greater extent then when we had more choices.
“Depth” does not equal fun when you have to figure out which lame talent is the least lame. Also, depth is not the right word for what they have created. The right word is indecision or apathy. What ever happened to making us feel epic? Having 83 unique talents to pick from was epic. This talent tree is pitiful. Flash games have talent trees with more depth.
@Deepfriedegg, after reading your comments, I can pretty much only conclude this is just a first attempt. They needed to go from 76 to 41 talents and did just that. Now the cleaning up and finishing comes. And perhaps (again – would be 3rd time in WoW history) we hunters get the short end of the stick in terms of priority.
So I’d (and deeply hope) expect major changes teh following weeks.
I completely agree with Frostheim here. Originally, I thought the trees were going to have some obvious talents, but then you have some extra points to spend on “cool” talents. Right now it seems as though I have to waste talents just to get down the tree. I was expecting a 31 point talent tree where 20 or so points were pretty obvious dps/solo/pvp increases (this they have). However I was hoping that those other 10 talent points would be put on fun skills. Right now those extra 10 points seem to be put to waste on talents that have a small effect that I use rarely (resistance is futile in MM tree???). This “wasted talent” problem was most prevalent in the MM tree, a little in SV, but BM seemed pretty good.
A way to fix this is to add more ranks of the talents. In MM to get Chimera, you take all but three or four talents. However this goes back to the min/max that Blizzard does not want (neither do I).
The best way to fix this problem is to change the talents themselves. However, there is a fine line between extremely situational (wasted) and cool talents. Some examples of cool, but not wasted talents: Hawk Eye, Entrapment, Expose Weakness, Posthaste, Silencing Shot, Pathfinding, Rhumba (if it wasn’t a big DPS increase). I would want to make the decision between these talents. They are fun to have, but don’t change your Dps/Solo or PvP ability that much. However, I do not want to choose between Dazzled Prey and Resistance is futile while making an MM spec.
Other observations: Marksman seems by far the best PvP spec. With no more scatter in SV, and the multi-shot/chimera 4 second daze, MM takes the cake.
Hunter Vs. Wild looks interesting and like the single biggest possible DPS boost being you can get 30% of your stamina as attack power. It looks as if they are giving away Stamina like candy on Halloween so we will have tons of stamina. Makes having that talent required for all specs no matter what.
Have you seen the rogue combat specialization? +25 energy regeneration.. i mean.. i dunno.
6 vs 10 base regeneration and they still get extra for free.
I just dont get it, they already got plenty of talents such as relentless strikes/combat potency/overkill/focussed attacks that dont require them to think at all with lower attack costs and faster regen. Yet they get the energy talents and we get.. hit chance.. uh?
@ Hawkeye
I don’t put any talent points in those, because they’re worthless. Which is why I said that it’s unnecessary to put more than 31 points into a tree. I said the trees were fine because I could usually find enough talents in a tree to spend 31 points in it. But like Kharzag said, there are a lot less choices within the trees which takes a lot of thought and skill out of picking the right talents.
@ Jindrax
Aimed shot has a cast bar now.
From a beastmaster at heart ( who raids as a marksman) …………..INTIMIDATION ??? wtf ??
@ Terel
O.o Holy crap you’re right. Where’s Scatter Shot? GAAAH! I had a few PVP tactics using that shot !
@ Dis
This was my thought as well. I thought they were getting _away_ from cookie-cutter builds. Now they are more cookie-cutter than ever, which I find really disappointing.
I do get the feeling that the trees are going to get a LOT of tweaking, this is just the 1st pass after all. I hope focus gets more tweaking as well. I like playing a rogue or a druid the least out of all the classes. The more I read about focus, the more it sounds like those two classes, which doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies. But again, withholding judgment until I actually play the thing.
I thought the same exact thing Omogon of Lethon
@ omogon
Being in that same boat with you (Beastmaster hunter at heart, who raids as MM)
You hit the nail on the Head!!!! only note i see is that blizz only want BM to be the “leveling spec”
which i thought they were trying to do Away with, what happened to making all three trees equal.
@Corwyn
The point us that they want to be able to give you the #1 “defining” talent from each tree at level 10. Under the old system this would mean aimed, explosive, and intimidate would all be in the first tier of their respective trees. Then everyone would have all three at level 13 and that would just be ridiculous.
The tree lockout makes it so they can give you a powerful ability right away and prevent you from taking 1 point in SV to get explosive and then putting the rest into BM to get an awesome pet, for example.
er… not sure if I’ve misread or what – so – many of the old 5 point talents are down to 3/4 point talents but max out at the same level as the old talents with 3/4 points in them, rather than going to the same level as 5 points used to get you.
examples: Bestial discipline was 5 points to 30% now maxes 4 points to 24%
Frenzy was 5 points to 5% now maxes 3 points to 3%
Efficiency was 5 points to 10 focus now maxes 3 points to 6 focus.
Does this mean our talents are rubbish now, or have they just not updated the tooltips properly? Should we be getting 30%, 5% and 10 focus (and all the rest)?
For those that care, Scatter Shot is now “trainable” to everyone. *phew*
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/737275-Scatter-Shot-and-Hawk-Eye
@mascaron
Your right in the sense that there are good builds in the new trees with the 31 points, but they said they were trying to ditch useless talents, and out of every class i play i havent found any more useless than those 2, but they kept them, wtf?
“Then everyone would have all three at level 13 and that would just be ridiculous. ”
You can’t do that. You only get the “defining” talent for one tree. That isn’t a reason to restrict us to one tree for the first 31points.
“prevent you from taking 1 point in SV to get explosive and then putting the rest into BM to get an awesome pet, for example.”
Aside from the fact that intimidation is pretty lackluster, this shouldn’t be a win anyway. The “defining” talent should be interweaved with the talents. Is a survival hunter better with a strong pet, or with survival talents?
Really my question is, Blizzard said they NEEDED to make this restriction, in order to put cool talents in the tree reachable ONLY by those who spec into it at level 10. Where are those cool talents?
hypothetical: get rid of Bestial wrath, put in a new talent: Pack leader. the hunter summons 1/2 pets from the stable to fight by his/her side(in addition to his/her pet in use)for 15 sec, during this time pet damage is increased by 20%.
instant cast . cost 60 focus, CD 5 min. this of course would be the Beastmastery tree.
Now that would be “defining” talent would it not?
I totally agree on Corwyn. You should be able to go 1sv/rest bm if you wanted, and its the talents that should shaft it for you.
Trough talents such as the hunters talent towards aimed shot – +60% crit when above 90% hp. Such things make you want to spec deeper towards your specialization as it basicly means a guaranteed crit on your opening shot – huge everywhere except bossfights. In turn, that makes the raidleader go ‘hunter is on all adds’ because with MD that means the tank will be golden as far as threat from healers go giving him plenty of time to figure things out.
Imagine Imp steady shot, but triggering for 30sec after each aimed so you want to keep using it in bossfights and spec at least 8 pts deep. Take Dazzled prey and make it go Aimed prey ‘Increases blabla for 10 sec on targets hit by Aimed Shot’. Resistance is futile proc makes aimed shot instant and off the GCD but hit for 25% (still imba, just weave it in like silencing). Master Marksman now triggers from aimed and benefits Chimera and Posthaste still has disengage speed boost but also makes haste affect Aimed Shot cast time including the 15% passive that hunters have on all ranged weapons.
Then there should be a few more, like a tier1 talent that says giving focus rather then costing focus (intimidation), it being allowed to used on the move (aimed) or getting its aoe effect (partially) back (explosive). Or using your shot lowers CD on a few 2-min timers.
That way, regardless of being forced into 31pts you will want to go for those insane talents that boost your specific shot. The 31pter you will want because it in turn benefits from your shot and is just amazing to boot. Such talents should keep you into your spec as an invisible barrier instead and make sure you want to use that skill you get on level10… not some hardcoded wall that leaves you with 0 choice.
Brezzlin, that would be great, then they could make BW the level 10 ability, however the difficutly of directing 2 pets,plus the UI changes for that, pretty much gaurentee no 2nd pet abilities
This just feels too “tight,” and by that I mean I can’t really have fun tricking out my spec because I have almost all my points to get to the end of the tree before picking any other cool ones. I think that you should be able to pick your overall specialty and get the desired bonus, but be able to play around with the other trees. Maybe make it to where you have to fill in 5 of one tier on your main and then be allowed to use points on the same tier on the other? I wanted to like this, I really did, but I don’t anymore.
It looks to me like there are WAY too many talents that are situational. I understand blizz wants us to think about our rotation instead of just mashing whatever isn’t on cooldown, but this is just crazy. BM looks pretty good IMO, SV needs some work, and MM just downright needs to be thrown out. I’m glad this is still Beta, I think BM could use a talent that gives a specific buff/ability to each class of pet, kind of like improved stings used to do a different thing for each sting. That would encourage different pet types, and add some crazy flavor to BM.
Hawkeye, yeah your probably right, but enhance shammies get 2 spirit wolves, why couldn’t that app. be applied to the ability? and in theory it wouldn’t be but for 15-20 sec, and the extra pet or 2 could be limited to only a basic attack, there for it wouldn’t needed to be added to the pet bar or any action bar for that matter. I know it can be done, but alas i am dreaming… oh well i thought it sounded really cool when i came up with it. Still would be if implemented in game, and who knows the beta is going to get a lot of changes before the final launch date, I can be hope full, even if it is a lost cause. <<< those are the best ones to root for anyways =)
That would indeed be a defining ability brezzlin. Everyone would hvae one more thing to be jealous of hunters for.
Nah! make it the level 85 ability…only better. Beast Pack…summons 6 random pets from your stable to fight for you for 40 seconds. 10 min cooldown. Something to rival DK’s AotD. BM gets a talent to summon an additional 3 pets from the exotic pet family.
Then BM can get Bestial Wrath/Kill Command as their signature at lvl 10.
*Fades off day dreaming…
Been playing with the trees a bit. I really hate that there are so many must-have talents that you cant go for fun or utility. It seems blizz needs to allow 51 talent points (like at level60 vanilla where the trees were this size) or needs to tone down the required part.
BM: hunter vs wild and go for the throat – 0 room for fun/utility/spend where-ever.
MM: 1st tier BM and 1st tier SV are mandatory with possible tier 2 Hunter vs Wild. Only choice is wether you got 2/3 hunter vs wild and 3/3 one with nature or vice versa.
SV: again predetermined trough efficiency (cause it needs more focus to fire traps for L&L), one with nature and frenzy vs go for the throat.
Its all fixed for dps instead of giving room for something fun, interesting, rotation changing or utility.
Trap mastery, entrapment, expose weakness, dazzled prey , spirit bond, pathfinding, efficiency, envenomation, resistance is futile, kindred spirits. Those talents should be on tier 1 and tier 2. Making you want to use trap launcher in your rotation even without L&L, dumping all focus and hitting that 5-streak steady, using concussion shot in your rotation, making levelling easier, changing your focus management/rotation or giving a nice proc under certain conditions.
They dont directly affect dps but highly affect the way you play. That would make the other trees interesting instead of mandatory/pre-determined. If you hate spamming steady you wont get expose weakness f.ex. Make the choice player based on what game style or which skills you like, not you-have-to-cause-its-dps-related based.
When I first saw the announcement I had mixed feelings, Blizz said that they would make the trees so that talents would not feel like: “OMG New level…. Meh only a few more %.”
That is still better than: “OMG New level…. oh wait nothing new yet -.-.” and then when we finally do get to the new level its only another sort-of okay ability that we are getting.
I’m going to miss the good old days where any hunter could use Aimed Shot, % damage felt good at the end game, and (most importantly) we had to WORK for our signature ability and feel happy when we finally got it (you’ve all felt that thrill I’m sure).
Ghostcrawler said:
“Marks and Survival generally won’t use Cobra Shot in PvE — mobs don’t change their armor. BM will use Cobra Shot in PvP and PvE.”
Anyone see what I am missing that is going to make this true? Analysis at Elitist Jerks says Survival wants Cobra for PVE. And I can’t find any reason to use it as Beast Master when I can have Improved Steady Shot instead. 32% Haste? Sure, that is where Beast Masters are supposed to be.
Out of curiosity why is every one investing points into bm as marks hunters. One with nature is terrible, and more focus for your pets Is going to be a very small gain in damage for marks. Compared with hunter vs wild which is going to net you a thousand ap plus at 85 it just seems like a bad idea to spend 3 talent points to gain a little over a hundred ap.
I love playing SV but am kinda disappointed as to how many mediocre choices we are forced to make with this small of a talent tree. In two separate places it came down to “well, I guess this one sucks less then the other does. Considering the idea is to make each choice an exciting one, Blizz probably could have reworked the tree a little bit more.
And keeping Counterattack? Are you being super cereal? Thought we weren’t supposed to be a melee class…
@ Grimgold: We are all taking One with Nature because the 5% attack power bonus in hawk and 2% focus regain bonus in fox PER POINT is looking pretty darn good. I’m taking One with Nature for ME, not for my pet. I don’t tend to have crazy high stam whereas I do usually have crazy high agi. Seems like a better use of 3 points as opposed to 8 points for the full benefit of Hunter vs Wild.
was dreaming last night and thought of a new name for that “wish we could have ability”.
STAMPEDE!!!!! lol makes perfect sense now, lol
@factoid – You realize that the 5% attack power is based on the bonus attack power from aspect of the hawk, which is 334 at level 85. 5% of 334 is 16.7 ap, or less ap than you’d get from some BC era gems. As for the regen in Fox, it’s a very small amount of focus, like an extra arcane shot every minute or so. Avoid this talent, and if your in the Beta bug it every time you log on because it’s probably the worst talent in all of Cata.
@corwyn – I imagine they are pinning there hope on master marksman keeping MM hunters using steady for the extra aimed shots. Expose weakness in the survival tree should serve the same purpose, at least if the various benefits don’t suck. I’m still not sold, but it’s just a matter of turning some dials to get steady to be the energy builder of choice for Marks and SV.
well i did some adding a bit ago , and now i don’t feel so shafted being a hunter as i did earlier. I say this cause we are only one of three classes that has a talent tree that has 21 options in it, the other 2 being a warriors fury spec and a druid’s feral combat spec. every other class does not have that 21′st option but we do as BM hunter’s SV is a close second with 20 choices and MM gets screwed with only 19. < part of the reason i believe we have to take the Boring talents to fill out are trees. WE are not used to having such limited choices when it comes to a talent tree selection. But if you think we got the shaft just remember that in all we are the only and i mean ONLY class that has a total of 60 talents to choose from. yeah that is right Hunter's actually have the MOST choices,hhm kinda weird huh? and just for anyone interested out there druid's and Locks get a total of 55 choices with shammies at 56, you that means that 2 of the 3 druid trees only have 17 talents( and i thought we were getting bent over) Locks and shammies don't fair much better. So if this new talent system has got you down. Just Think at least i am not a DRUID!!! lol
@Brezzlin, I don’t care that much on the amount of talents, but the quality. As it is now, we have many talents that are close to uselesws. They are not fun, they are filler talents.
Most of teh other classes really have their garbage talents removed. We seem to get a lot of new garbage talents.
But as stated earlier, it is so bad now, this must be just filler work. They probably just kicked out talents. The real tweaking will – no ‘must’ – now come. I hope at least they’ll reaslly revise the whole thing and also include new talents and bring some of the older. I mean, some of the new talents are just garbage they way their are now. Now I hope, they are not going to keep those just because they are new. E.g. I prefer Hawk Eye any time over Resistance is Futile. Or at least change it.
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