Hunter Cataclysm Beta Info
I will try to link every bit of hunter related Cataclysm info from this page, so you have one central point from which you can easily find all the WHU (and beyond) Cataclysm beta hunter info. Most of the articles will include an updated date, so you know when the last time I’ve checked over and verified the info is. They will be updated with new Cataclysm beta builds, so you’ll always be able to find the current information in the same spot.
Note that some of these articles will link to Cataclysm beta analysis that I’ve written up on WoW.com. This is only a handful of the more “guide” type Cataclysm beta articles here on the WHU. Click to view all WHU Cataclysm posts.
- Wowhead beta hunter talent calculator
- What is Mastery/Specialization and How it Works — an explanation of the new mastery and specialization system, the mastery stat, and a rundown of the hunter mastery and specializations.
- Focus Cost of Shots – a complete listing of the focus cost for each hunter shot and ability in Cataclysm, as well as the new cooldowns of the shots and abilities.
- Cataclysm Beta hunter skills and talents – a complete look at all beta hunter info from new abilities, to changed abilities, to new and changed talents for each hunter tree, as well as the focus cost and cooldowns of all our abilities. This article written for the 7/1/10 build.
- Wrath to Cataclysm Gear Conversions – some of our stats are going away — like armor pen and attack power. This explains what’s going to happen to those stats that are on our gear now.
- Level 1 Hunter Pets List – list of what pets level 1 hunters of each race will automatically start out with.
- Beast Mastery Rotation in Cataclysm – over at WoW.com, I take an in-depth look at the current beta BM pve rotation.
- Marksman Rotation in Cataclysm – over at WoW.com, I take an in-depth look at the current beta MM pve rotation.
- Survival Rotation in Cataclysm – over at WoW.com, I take an in-depth look at the current beta SV pve rotation.
Frostheim Beta Reports
- Frostheim Beta Report 1: Focus Regen and MM
- Frostheim Beta Report 2
- Frostheim Beta Report 3: Deeper Testing
Cataclysm Beta Videos
- BM videos
- MM videos
- SV videos
- Pet videos
- General Hunter Videos
Ok ok I said the leak was total crap. Let it be know that I was wrong. After reading everything so far it doesn’t sound as bad as I initially quoted. Hunter changes look like fun…
Bring it on!
Still I wish there was a woodcrafting profession
I pulled this off WoW.com’s blog of the second class discussion panel.
3:07PM A: That’s a nice perk for Hunters, that’s kind of a cool idea. (!)
3:06PM Q: Several different racial and profession capabiliies – like engineer only mounts. Maybe Hunters could tame a mount?
I am just curious. If they remove ArP, will they also adjust the stats on our gear that we currently have or will obtain that contain ArP to something useful to us?
Member
I wouldnt plan on running arp gear when the patch hits. Most likely the arp will be removed or replaced with something, like haste or maybe crit, but i wouldnt expect it to last you long in the expansion. You might want to get used to regular hunter gear.
Personally, I’m not looking forward to relearning my whole class. I dont know what its looking like for the other classes, but the hunter changes are practically rewriting everything we know about them, except (as Frost mentioned) agility, which is going back to how it was in vanilla. The WHU will certainly have its work cut out for them.
Admin
When they remove ArP and AP from gear, they will replace it with other stats to try to make the gear equivalent. This is what they did when they switched most of our agility to AP back in 2.0.
I remember reading a panel that said buffs will carry over to your pet, so say you get kings, your pet will also get kings, Im not sure this was for hunter but it was for Warlock so I would assume that it whould applay for hunters. Can someone confirm this?
Contributor
Buffs already transfer somewhat to our pet. Only certain stats transfer from master to pet, and only in certain percentages. But yes, our pet already gets a slight AP and stamina increase when we receive Kings.
This should help for stat conversions to pets:
http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2008/12/hunter-stat-conversion-guide-level-80/
Contributor
Oh damn. You meant they’ll actually get the Kings buff, didn’t you? My bad. In that case, I have no clue. Sorry.
Member
hmm no mana
(((( oh well i guess hunters have been finding how to play there class since WoW came out. when the cataclysm strikes we will all be huntards again. i hope we can pull together and figure it all out again 
Member
oh can anyone help me with the “ammo will become an item – not a consumable”?
i realy dont see a differance between them
@ Gilanor Jenkins,
Main difference is an item doesn’t get used up. You either have it, or you dont – like all your other gear. So what this really boils down to is no more having to stock up on ammo, no more worrying about running out of ammo & we wont be shooting our hard earned gold away.
m_b.
Any idea what the “Path of the Titans” will do for us hunters? And what will happen to our current Talent trees?
Quote:Still I wish there was a woodcrafting profession
Not woodcrafting but Bowyers
Also I love focus
So will the gems and item enchants we have be transferred from AP to AGI?
Found it, from MMO champion, its for Patch 3.3 to boot!
“Classes – Pets
In Patch 3.3, pets will scale of all of your stats and allow buffs from raid encounters to affect them.
In Patch 3.3, there will be changes to make sure that pets can’t be hit by AOEs from bosses but others (PvP) will be able to affect them.
Pets classes might get a “move to this location” command for their pet, long cooldown abilities that let your pet teleport to you to get out of trouble. This would be good feature since developers can’t make pet AI as smart as a player.”
Admin
Yup, I’m aware of the much promised pet change inc, and very excited by them. However, since that will be patch 3.3 and not cataclysm, I didn’t put it up on the Cataclysm page.
Member
Yes more imput on “Path of the Tittans” please. Ironically the Fall season of my guild has been titled “Fall of The Tittans” lol, we plan to to after all the bosses or “Tittans” , up to Uldar by Thanksgiving.
I’m not too pleased with the mana/focus changed. Obviously I’m drawing conclusions at this moment but a 6/second regen with a shot cost of 30 or 60 seems like alot of downtime between major shots. I know steady will increase it to 12/second I have some questions about that as well.
1) Will steady cost any focus to fire. If not this seems like a spam button to keep focus regenerating and so we’re back to spamming SS. TBC turn around anyone?
2) With a 3-6 second break between all major shots are the damage going to be increased to keep Hunter DPS comparable to other classes. It seems with a break of 3-6s between each shot, where at the moment we can spam shots as long as they’re off cooldown and we have mana, there seems to be alot more time between shots. Time is not something we normally have to wait.
We use our priority shots if they’re off CD, if they’re on CD we use steady/auto until they’re off but we usually have 2-3 major shots coming off CD so theres not alot of time between. As a MM Hunter I can fit in 2-3 steady shots before my next shot. We certainly don’t sit around for 6 seconds spamming steady before firing 1 shot then waiting another 3 seconds for the next. This seems like a significant loss of DPS.
Yes I saw the haste but I know its going to be stacking quite high before you see any major focus regen increase. I don’t know why Mana was such an issue and why it needs to be changed. I’ve managed with mana for 3 years, it wasn’t a bad system. We never actually ran out of it with Viper.
Focus kills my bllood elf and its huge mana pool, it just makes trolls the best hunters in the game
Hunter mana gone is a good thing IMO. I assume shot rotations will be fairly similar to what we have now…a few shots then steady to fill CD downtime. More shots are not going to have any CD. Raid environments, where sustained damage is necessary, will have us using a standard rotation to balance focus. As for pvp, if we start off with a full focus bar, could we burn all of our shots on the GCD for some great burst? Our drain team strats might not work…if we have no mana pool, will we have viper string?
Simplifying stats on gear is good, too. With reforging coming into play and the extra stam on gear…we’ll be seeing some really high numbers on gear. I can’t wait for this major haul on the game.
I read Malania’s piece, and I totally agree with it. I am still a little confused about the cooldown limitation, and I don’t see the solution in replacing mana by focus. This was stated in last month’s Q&A: Hunters perpective:
Now for hunters specifically, we think the class is just too cooldown limited, which creates problems with haste.
How is focus the solution for the cooldown limitation? Could anyone explain? Thank you in advance.
I do NOT like the loss of mana
:(:(
Tinson, how do you figure shot rotations will be similar to the way they are now? With 100 Focus and shots being in the 50-60 Focus per range, we’re looking at weaving in Steadies every 2nd to 3rd shot, so we’ll be using lesser shots when much better ones are available.
I believe Malania’s observations to be more correct, it will be a significant loss of dps.
I for one am extremely worried about what effects this will have on our actual gameplay. It’s taking a beautiful thing and turning it into a… well… a ranged rogue. I’m not sure I like that prospect at all, especially if they plan on using a combo system similar to other focus/energy classes. I do agree with Malania as well, it’s looking to be a huge loss to sustained dps, even if they buff the base damage of the shots. I pull over 7k on a regular basis in 25 mans with proper buffs and my arpen capped, and I really don’t want to see those numbers fall.
Will we be able to use thisle tea for energy like rogues for some mad burst damage
I for one thing am dreading the coming of Cataclysm. I dont know what most people are thinking of when they say that losing mana is a good thing, that managing mana was an issue. So you are saying that managing Focus won’t be an issue? If we have an even smaller amount of Focus and a much larger request of it to use a minimal amount of shots, then Focus would be a nightmare to those Hunters which say managing mana was impossible. I am quite content with the mana system you jsut need to be responsible with it, and you will be alright. But Focus is just suicidal if no substantial changes to our DPS or haste is applied.
I may be wrong but that is my rational, if anyone else has related info that will ease my hatred of Cataclysm please respond.
there is something i have not clear yet, if all those stats will go to agility, what is going to happen to the enchants and gems we have in our gear that gives like AP, crit chance, etc, they will dissapear and we’ll have to re-gem-enchant everything again?….or is blizzard planning to fix everyone’s gear enchants and gems and convert their stats into pure agil so we dont feel like we lost our time atm?
From Ghostcrawler:
“Anyone capable of using a two-handed axe can use Shadowmourne.
The stat allocation may not benefit hunters or shamans as much as warriors, DKs or paladins. ”
Looks like no legendary for us.
YES !!! Mana is gone…haha. Also the ammo thing, if I got it right, we won’t have to worry on how much ammo we have left. Mana and ammo gone, 2 less worries. That will make us more classy, not members of the mana freaks club.
Member
I’m torn on the mana/focus issue. On the one hand, yeah it makes sense for hunters to use energy since they aren’t a “caster” class, and the CDO in me likes the “order” that comes with that. But focus is going to take some time to learn how to use, and none of us has any idea what kind of dps changes we’ll see once it’s implemented.
The only positive thing I can see out of this so far is that maybe the huntards will give up trying to figure it out, switch to their alts, and leave only the hunters behind to show what our class is made of, haha.
Muhn….. plzz read closer to what i posted earlier…… shows why i totally disagree with you on the mana issue. But if you have any otherinformation that i may be missing or if i dont quite understand something which, may change my mind, plzzz anyone explain, because i still believe Focus is a huge mistake if no radical changes to our DPS is implemented.
Srry, for vocab and grammar.
Hm…for a hunter and the ammo issue, its pretty much very like a shaman-totem relic. Allows the use of all the totems without taking bag slots and increasing dps of our weapons by that much.
Admin
Just as a note to several comments: don’t worry about the change to energy dropping our dps. Blizzard isn’t just going to flat convert over without also analyzing how it affect our damage and adjusting to compensate. Heck, just about *everything* is going to need some level of adjustment in the expansion.
If our dps ends up low, I’m sure it’ll be buffed quickly. Just like if it’s high it’ll be nerfed
I am HATEING the new focus. i have played all the different systems(ex. rage energy manadon’t forget runes plus runic power) and my favorite two are the mana as my first pic and runic power plus runes as second. focus/energy was my most hated. i like being able to do my moves with out hesitation and doing damage imediatly into a fight. atleast with rage you have it around full once it gets there. i am going to quit wow if they keep the focus change after the first patch of cataclysm.
i had fun fellow hunters but i don’t want to see my main get merged with a rouge(which i don’t like game play what so ever XP)
besides on a side note i am fairly slow. i belive that hunters are a great first charactor for playing wow. if they make this change they will definatly lose there appel to the class.
. can anyone approve if this is a rumor or the real deal?
another topic i don’t like this “path” rumor that has been going around. i love my talents
Admin
The Path of the Titans is something Blizzard has said they will be introducing in the expansion. It is NOT going to replace talents — it’s something else in addition to talents that will allow you to further customize your character after you hit max level.
Blizzard is still developing it, but they’ve said right now they’re planning on having your path be based on your talent trees and some of the things in your talent trees like +1% to crit will go to the path instead. Those talents will then be replaced with new ones that are more interesting and unique (new spells, proc abilities, different kinds of boosts, etc).
This is purely speculation but; I think the idea behind the move to focus instead of mana, is that focus is essentially a percentage system whilst mana is like an energy battery. If shots always cost 20 focus, and you always have 100 focus irrelevant of level then focus becomes like a % system where really what your saying is shot X requires 20% of your available energy. The problem with mana is its like a battery that goes up and up with level/gear. I think blizzard are struggling to scale it as levels increase for hunters so at Lvl 80 in epics, we have so much mana there isn’t much resource management going on, so to limit us they have had to use cool downs.
I have a few thoughts that make me apprehensive about focus. For one thing, will we have 100 focus like the pets? With the shot costs and regen they are talking about, it would almost make sense to have several hundred or even several thousand focus. Will there be an out of combat focus regen (since you can’t use stead shot out of combat) or is this forcing us to take a 17 second (100 focus at 6fps) break between every single fight. Because that doesn’t sound fun at all.
Next, since focus is essentially another name for energy (which rogues use) will we also see combo points introduced? That’s basically how it works for rogues, and its the only way I can imagine those shot costs working for hunters. So focus is only actually part of our energy since the use of focus opens up combo points which themselves can be spent on other abilities without costing more focus. This is such a complex idea and so different from the current hunter mechanics I don’t know if I’d really want to sit down and relearn the class on such a fundamental level. You could call it a hunter but really it would be an entirely new class.
Then finally, in beta vanilla WoW when hunters used focus, they had to be standing still for it to regenerate. Now we know blizzard aren’t too happy with us excessively kiting players around in PvP so is this forcing us to stay in one place most of the time sort of like an extreme version of sniper training.
I found out they are usuing haste to increace the rate at which we regan focus(from the blizzard convention) so then won’t it be posible to get focus so rediculously high regen that we won’t need 2 be like annoying rouges. like if chemera takes 30 focus al we need 2 do to get extreme dps is of course apply hunter mark and serpent sting but then spam chemeria shot. to do this we need to find out how much haste we need to regen the 30 focus before the GCD refreshes am i right?
I believe the 6 fps default, and 12 fps while casting steady shot are probably roughly the endgame rates not the base rates, or if they are the base rates, i doubt haste will improve them beyond maybe ~15 default, ~25 steady shot. If they gave hunters the ability to regen focus faster than the GCD could consume it then why even give us energy at all? Its also possible that the GCD for hunters will go down to 1 second as that is what rogues have, although I suspect it wont as it wouldn’t really benefit hunters in the way it does melee.
tis all very confusing,i feel like ive just got the hang of things as they are and my brain is fried lol,love my hunter though,and this just seems like they are making a new class,thers a very small margin for error on how they manage this and if they get it wrong it will be very wrong,if they get it right…well we still have a fulltime job on our hands and tbh while every1 else is having a ball lvling to 85 and so on,we’ll all be staring at the drawing board…
Yeah Padluck.. I read that about Shadowmourne as well. That comment alone pretty much guarantees we won’t be getting it since there are more than enough DKs to whine about it.
One good thing about the mana/focus thing is that we probably can’t be silenced anymore. And another bonus for us is that we will scale much better with gear and probably end up like rogues and warriors in terms of scaling with the content. Anyway, its hard to say just how they will solve things, as it really is a complete revamp of the class. Lookin’ forward to it
(hope i don’t choose the gimped path :O)
“Its also possible that the GCD for hunters will go down to 1 second as that is what rogues have, although I suspect it wont as it wouldn’t really benefit hunters in the way it does melee.”
I think the designers finally decided we were ranged melee, and not casters.
I love my mana though. D:
Hello all;) IMO it’s bit early to talk how all those changes will affect us. As I can picture it ATM more or less WoW is pretty well ballanced and, as Frost mentioned, Blizz will keep it this way no matter what. And for the focus… Idk… May b we’ll get new passive talent point in any tree and it buff our focus regen somehow, who knows? Let’s hope for more detaled explanation of What they will do to us.
P.S. Sry for grammar and thx a lot for a wonderfull place like this blog
This expansion is all about helping the dumbasses.
I agree lol (srry but how i see it that’s the only explanation)
I think having focus instead of mana is stupid. Will Aspect of the Viper still be there, will there still be viper sting, will Chimaera shot regenerate focus who know but all i know is that they screwed it sideways by having focus.
Thanks =)
Also when Steady Shot is casted will it give you a buff for 5 secs that gives you the 12/s which will give you 60 focus over 5 seconds respectively. I think that is a good idea considering i thought of it in about 10 mins reading this forum
Thanks again =)
OMG ! No more ammo issues !! No more mana problem !! I love you blizz ! And..the best of all : A legendary weapon which is specifically for us hunters (who cares having only one foe on a legendary weapon while on Thori’dal rogues and warrs had an unfair ability to roll for ^^)
If we change to Focus, won’t that exclude us from any benefit of Replenishment? That part stinks. And the 6foc/sec rate is incredibly too low unless they lower the costs of shots. (50 focus for a shot? ouch. That means you’ll wait (50/6) 8.3 seconds to cast it again. That is longer than our current big shot CDs, AND we wont have focus to spam otehr shots while waiting like we can now.
Also, will there be mail without int for us? Or will we be converting to leather rogue gear? (what about little hunters, will any old gear be changed, or will only new,ie 80+, gear be converted?)
I mine saronite and cobalt and pick up crystallized water from fishing, mining and killing elementals. I know several engineers. Basically, I get my mammoth cutters for free……and I worked hard for my dragonscale 28slot ammo pouch ( which never goes below half full )….I don’t like the idea of the best ammo being some sort of boss drop.
As for focus vs mana…I just don’t know…..I have a low level feral druid who is always out of focus
I agree about the ammo thing, I don’t raid much, my eng friend makes my ammo for me, and as it is I can’t sell any of the ammo bags that I made, now they are gonna be completly worthless. So theres another crap item I can make with Leatherworking, and I really don’t want to have to go on some big raid to get ammo item I need, damn warrior probably need it and beat my roll anyways lol.
Ammo bags have been pretty much useless for quite a while. No speed bonus, stack size increased from 200 to 1k. Jeepers, I just have half a 20 slot bag full and have 10 bag spaces, too. 10k bullets get me through a full Ulduar clear with some left over.
And as far as the ammo conversion to an item is concerned: Hooray, I don’t need to shoot gold away anymore.
A) Blizz haven’t decided will it be boss / random drop items or engineering, so we’ll worry about that when it comes.
B) If you don’t raid much, well, what do you want the last bit of dps for? For questing and your ordinary instances as it stands now, you can happily run around with vendor ammo if you so wish.
Not sure what to think of the whole complete overhaul of the game system, but I suspect it’s going to be affecting all classes to some extent. It’s gonna be back to the drawing board for a while I guess for all of us.
These changes make me nervous but I have to believe the end result will be balanced.
Conceptually I really like the idea of focus over mana. If you imagine it a bit, a hunter is more similar to a rogue than a caster. It just makes sense and I suspect the end result will be a hunter with high burst potential (just like a rogue but at range). On one hand this will preven hunters from artificially buffing up there shot potential (not may ways to buff up focus for a rogue). On the other, this will give us consistant DPS over time (although in bursts imo).
I cold on the ammo change. Having no quantities to manage is nice, but this is essentially a totem/relic for hunters now. If the best ammo “item” is only a RAID boss drop then that is disappointing indeed. I took engineering on my dwarf hunter specifically to make my own ammo (and guns for that matter). I do mostly PvP and not much PvE beyond the occasional heroic 5-man (grinding out a 4 hr raid doesn’t float my boat nor does it fit into any human’s schedule if they have a family with children). If they kill the engineer’s ability to make high-end ammo, then hopefully they provide honor equivalents to the raid drops. Otherwise the game becomes more “elitist” than it already is.
Just my 2-cents.
I’m gonna change class if they really will remove mana from hunters…
What is this Path of the Tittans I didn’t see anything about it could someone clarify?
soo what will happen to aspect of the viper?..
Contributor
We can only assume it will be replaced with Aspect of the Awesome.
aspect of the awesome?
Foucs is a great idea, solving all the mana burning problems, but hunters are focused all on timing, and it looks like thats really going to get screwed up.
and a better explanation of what will happen to aspect of the viper would be nice.
I will definately change class, the whole idea of having mana makes us better than rogues and warriors. My example, You see a mob coming at you with say, 5k hp, normally, i decent hunter can pop arcane/aimed/ explosive/ chimera and deal that nice big hit maybe a crit, to finish of the mob and save the wipe. Now with focus will we have to click rapidly on abilites so we can use a big shot? even if the GCD is 1 second the time it takes to shoot a decent damage shot maybe be 2 seconds, 1 to power up and 1 to actually shoot it. Or will it be a drain bar? id prefer this over the combo/ build up style, randomly shooting a big shot and killing a critter for 5k+ is fun, buffing for lots first seems a huge waste, especially on trash, by the time you build up the mob is dead.
Personally i never have mana isssues, i can use it all up in 1.5 mins, using every ability then can viper and restore it back in around 30 seconds. Seems like a huge waste of DPS to have to build to a point or drain and rapidly click lower shots rather than wait for a poweful shot. Kill shot, for instance, you can wait 1 seccond to fire the huge damage, or have to click still just to fire a shot.
I think i will move over to a lock, mana makes us different and we do gain extremely huge amounts of intellect with gear, i really see no problem with it.
Redoing talents will be annoying and still be sorting it whilst others are 85. Damn you blizz to be honest.(BTW ammo is so cheap its unbeliveable, would u rather collect shards or reagents? didnt think so.)
Peace out.
Isn’t it way too early to be threatening a class change for something we haven’t even seen yet?
I for one like the idea of a unique Focus mechanic. There’s really nothing so different about using Steady Shot to build up your Focus than using Viper to rebuild your mana, and I thnk we can all imagine the kind of complex (=fun and interesting) rotations that are going to be open to us when one of our attacks acts as a fuel for the big hits.
Not only that but surely there will be opportunities cool opportunities for fluffy and his master to share and/or feed each-other Focus when needed (pet as Focus battery?).
I like the Hunter rotation (I happen to be Survival at the moment), but I’m really looking forward to a new learning curve, new abilities, new gear, and a whole new era of theory-crafting on my favourite Hunter sites. WoW is suddenly going to seem very fresh again.
The Change From Mana To Focus:
Now, we know blizzard isn’t 100% fullproof on any changes they make to the game so I don’t see how this will be any different. I can see problems for many months after Cata. comes out with issues of gaining focus and (if it happens) pet to master focus gain. Completely revamping a class is a big step and (although I enjoy Hunter) this may turn me off of playing one as for all the problems that will, in all likelyhood, come along with it. Leaving Hunters as they are is just fine by me and many others and to revamp this class with tweeks to b made (foreseeablely) every tuesday downtime, Hunters won’t be at the top of their game for months to come after the release.
I have a question regarding Focus and hunter talents Go for the Throat and Bestial Discipline. Will the two talents transfer to the hunters as well as the pets? If they do then i think focus will be a better system than mana as i know i have a high crit rateing
We’re going to lose a lot of out mobility. I love being able to insta-cast shots on movement-heavy fights without having to worry that I’ll fall behind and take unnecessary damage. With focus, we may well end up not being able to DPS through those fights because we can’t stop long enough to cast steady. Also, the awesomeness that is the new Misdirect. will be somewhat lessened if we’re only able to get off 1-2 shots in our allotted 4 sec.
In theory, Blizz could use FD as a way to generate focus more quickly. I mean, how much focus/energy does one expend while lying on the floor?
I don’t get it…Why all the wining about getting focus instead of mana?
And of course Aspect of the Wiper will be taken away or give us another kind of buff then it does now. Maybe a haste buff or something like that.
Don’t take it to seriously…it’s just a game…and I think it should be fun and give a challenge. Changes is good…Makes us use the few braincells we have left after raiding day and night for 3 years
If you indeed have to stand still to regen focus, then the benefit of having instant-cast shots for the times you absolutely need to run (Ick’s mines, Legion Flames, Void Zones, Sarth’s Flame Waves, etc.) is completely and utterly negated. Your focus pool drains and then you’re down to stopping for auto-shots. I like standing still when I can for the Sniper Training buff, but if I can’t continue DPS on the run when I have to, I will be a very unhappy camper – it’s the main advantage we have in group composition. Why take a hunter when you can take more rogues (who often out-DPS me with same-level gear and way simpler rotation)? Rogue DPS suffers when bosses need kited, and ours doesn’t, period. We will lose our main niche – are we just Tranq shooters after that? Sad.
The first toon i rolled was a tauren hunter. i had a bear pet becuase they could eat everything and i didn’t know that elite pets were the way to go. manageing my shots so i could keep my mana up wasn’t too bad as i always rocked some spirit gear to improve regen while i waited to cast aimed shot, plus it let my bear get more aggro. things got a little crazy when they realesed WSG now everyone was saying agi and stam were the way to go so i dropped my spirit peices for awhile and rolled with those stats then shammy’s got a talent that let them spec into 2 handed weapons. anyone remeber how broken that was lol. but hunter shots stayed manageable with their cost to damage ratios and we moved on . then this mp5 stat showed up on more and more epics and i thought cool that will let me use more shots in a smaller amount of time. then it happened thease elves crawled out of their stupid broken little land and joined the horde but worst was that i was toold that my now survival build was obsolete. u’ll never top the dps meters with that dude go BM or go home. i heard that mm did ok in the bgs so i went back but low and behold my wonderful aimed shot was now a instant cast
plus i burned my my mana bar so fast i spent more time drinking then dpsing then i had this cool aspect of the nerfed damage but extra mana. never realy felt like my old hunter before the elfs came but i tried to persevere. then we finally got a chance to swing at the lich king and suddenly survival was good again. but the issues were still there i never could keep my mana up and in the heat of battle i would find my self still in the aspect of evocation and have to switch. so i decided i would go troll and macro beserk and rapid fire together for when i would run out of man in the first min of fights. it helped but was still fustrated so i said to hell with hunter and rolled mage. but i heard a voice and that voice said focus, could it be true a energy type that would force players to make better choices when casting, would i finaly be able to get of th mana junky list. will my old favorite finaly be more about finesse than who can burn and regen their bar first. oh yeah screw ap bring back the monkey gear
my problem is the class was never meant to have the retarded large battery bar. blizz has slapped band-aid after band-aid on the class to balance it when there was no problem with the original design. and even back then it felt more like playing a rogue at range becuase u wanted to count to 5 between the burst of shot to gain back ur mana for the next round. anyway focus will cuase hunters to have more dicipline with their shots and i garuntee u that everyone will know the difference between the guy who spams chimera shot or explosive and the ones that know there rotaions and how to time them with their focus regen.
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The changes look to be an interesting change, something to look forward to at least. However, I’m still a little confused that almost every type of weapon in the game a profession can make with the exception of a Bow and Crossbow. Why is that and why won’t they give Engineers, Blacksmiths, or some profession the ability to make those weapons? I’ve always wondered why there wasn’t a wood crafting and gathering profession as well. The original strategy Warcraft games utilize wood and every other type of gathering skill. Just a personal question is all.
Has anybody heard anything new regarding bows/ammo sources? I was thinking to finally level all my alts professions (most of them sit at L60 now). One of them has gnomish engineering (arrows, don’t like guns and my hunter is not a dwarf…) but I started engineering mainly for the arrows, and now they’ll be an item. Maybe I just jump boat to alchemy, I think I had alchemy on that toon before.
I think the change to focus will be the end to all but the, pardon the pun, most focused hunters. I believe that you will see a dramatic drop in the amount of hunters you see being played once Cat hits.
Personally I think it is a huge mistake, I have spent way to long learning my toon and how to use him to have to redo that just because they think we shouldn’t use mana.
To all of those that say that it is hard enuf to manage mana as it is then you are obviously using your toon wrong (excluding MM.) There is no reason that you should run low on mana outside of the harder fights in ICC
Someone said that Blizzard had balanced the classes. I beg to differ. I have never seen such an imbalance as the healer classes. In pvp I have watched paladins beat the crap out of 5 people because they could bubble, heal, then come out fighting. The healer classes, when it comes to pvp, must be nerfed. In PVE they are fine but PVP healers need a serious nerf.
will hunter dps increace
They talk about taking off cooldowns for abilities, does that mean that the new hunter shot rotation would be (for MM)
Hunter’s Mark
Serpent Sting
Chimera Shot(whenever you have enough focus)
Just doesn’t seem right -_-
@magebreaker
anyway focus will cuase hunters to have more dicipline with their shots and i garuntee u that everyone will know the difference between the guy who spams chimera shot or explosive and the ones that know there rotaions and how to time them with their focus regen
I think that there are going to be hunters spamming Chimera Shot or explosive shot due to the damage each shot does, (implying that in Catyclysm those shots still do the most damage) To fix this i think that they should give all the shots a special ability, (aimed shot increases damage done by next *insert Shot name here* by X%, with a cool down of course but does little to no damage)
hmmm… don’t know what i typed at the end… with a cooldown of X hmmm i am puzzled =(
but you get what i mean ;P, i hope…
I’m not very thrilled about the switch to Focus actually. I only recently hit 80 on my hunter (first 80) and am still trying to master it. By the time I get everything perfected the Cataclysm will hit and I’ll be back to square one.
Wouldn’t it be funny, though, if Focus worked exactly like mana, they just changed the name and the color of the bar? I know that’s not the case, just wishful thinking on my part.
Why do they have to take away mana?
Really, it will change the whole game for hunters.
AND I DON’T LIKE BEING A HUNTARD!
ahem…
Well, anyways. I wish they could leave that alone.
Member
i agree with Leeeeeeene! i enjoy mana and hate seeing the word huntard…. anyways i would love if hunters could tame mounts, another idea, hunters being able to tame critters as companions?
I am… wary of the change to Focus. My main (and really, only) issue is that, if it works like rogue/cat energy, it will likely completely change the Hunter playstyle. With mana, I don’t have to worry about how much of my resource is left so much. Toss up Viper Sting where I can, and I’m usually good to go. (Or a well timed Aspect of the “Why’s my DPS so low” if there’s nothing to use Viper Sting on) Managing mana is simple enough that it lets me focus on my cooldown whack-a-mole game. Sure, for some people, this is a great failing for the hunter class. However, for some of us, we’re not merely used to it, we LIKE it. Managing what abilities I used based on cooldowns, environmental situations, and availability is simply the gameplay style I prefer.
The rogue/cat playstyle, though, is an entirely different beast. It focuses on managing your energy. So, rather than using something every single time the global cooldown is up, you have to first see if you have enough energy to use something. Then decide whether you want to go for your ROFLPWN l337 attack that will completely drain you of energy, or wait a moment longer to refresh your buffs/debuffs before the fall off.
There’s nothing wrong with either playstyle. Certainly both have their fans. However, I don’t like the idea of being potentially forced into a playstyle I don’t really like on a character I have put years of work into. I’m not going to make any rash decisions now, (I’m certainly not abandoning my main THAT easily) and you can bet I will spend quite a bit of time with the focus system once it’s released. However, I can’t help but fear the possibility that, if this turns Hunters into ranged rogues, I will not be able to get used to focus to the point where I still enjoy playing the class. I suppose only time will tell how this turns out…
Aren’t we supposed to look forward to a new expansion? lol, not dread it?
I don’t understand what is the point of this change is.
Not judging it just yet, but why hunters? Why change the way we play the class?
we certainly aren’t over powered. I haven’t heard of any hardcore consortium of people complaining about the mana concept and demanding it be changed.
I don’t want to look at focus.
Haste:
Haste will increase energy/focus/rage gain instead of increasing actual attack speed. Nothing else is known.
Steady shot:
Likely to give focus (f.ex. 6/second to 12/second) with or without focus cost, thus ‘forcing’ to use it in a rotation in order to maximize dps.
MM mastery:
Will grant (amongst others) some improvement to focus generation.
Then there’s still changes to glyphs, whatever lowerst mana now will get changed. Also the entire titan’s path stuff may provide some sort of benefit. Its known to provide both offensive and defensive boosts, so also providing rage/energy/focus isnt unthinkable.
So there’s way to many variable’s to say anything. Maybe we wont notice anything but it’ll just be an excuse to get rid of the ‘endless mana’ because that blue bar is virtually useless nowadays.
Member
There are a few running themes here that I have decided to comment on.
The Comment “We don’t want to be ‘Ranged Rogues’” In many ways the Hunter is a Ranged Rogue who has been using Mana for some unknown reason for the last five years. The similarities between the Classes are many fold except for that we use Mana. I would like to coin the phrase “The Melee Hunter”
In PvP the attack plan is similar . . . stay hidden then jump your target bringing the pain.
Rogues are the Melee Hunter – Hunters are just much cooler.
Secondly, the Idea that Blizz will introduce Focus to hunters, brake the class causing it to do half the damage of other DPSer and then leave it that way.
Yes there are abilities that will not work with focus. I imagine them working very hard to make this work – without destroying the balance – first time.
Finally, (and this is just for me) Stop posting the sentence “If they do this I will stop being a Hunter”. They ARE going to do this! They do not have a guy down there counting every time somebody posts that in a forum with the intention that if they count to 5000 times we will drop the change. If you can not stand the idea of using focus drop being a Hunter NOW. As a community we do not want you. Show some tenacity. As a class we have been drastically changes more time then the other classes put together. We will come through this and bring the noise as we always have. You are playing the coolest class IN THE WORLD (of WarCraft) act like it.
Wait and see.
There will be many, many changes to make this work and in the end of it all we will have a resource mechanic that makes sense for a class that causes physical damage and very rarely casts any kind of spell.
Tinderlock
A lot of posts I read about mana/focus changes are yes I like can’t wait or oh no we all be huntards again. Personally, it is a change that will happen, so instead of QQing about it, I anticapte the change. It is going to happen; I will take all this worry about failing and turn it into finding the nitch of my class. I’m going to find the balance between shots/focus, make sure all the other hunter skills I have aren’t affected by the change. movement management, muliple stings, hit rating, gemming enviromental awareness, remembering my keybinds! This new focus is just something we have to deal with. Let’s not be huntards with the new changes. The core hunter playstyle shouldn’t change too much. Frost keep on pumping out those articles!
I <3 them!
=)
The whole mana/focus thing is 2 sided, im trilled it probally will solve mana probs in 10 man raids when you just got less buffs and not always a retri paladin.
But in the other side im disapointed cause why not give us a similar mana regen effect like retri’s have why change to focus when it could be solved with a simple buff.
The whole armor pen changing to or haste or crit gonna be fun for the hardcapped MM hunters or they end up with 1400 haste or around 90% crit.
But indeed lets not be huntards and accept it, it gonna happen anyway.
i have spent weeks day and hours makeing giadalcain the best hunter i know how., i its time consumeing expensive and lest of all fun spending hours just crunching number to get that last little bit out of gear spec and timing. i raid progression and have been for a long time…i love to see content, there hasent been a change one that i have not been able to adapt to and master. honestly i find this focus thing a bit lacking, but a welcome change. one reason and one only, running viper mode is fail, not every mob/boss has mana, and as a arm pen mm hunter that has to move alot in raids, traping, kiteing etc etc. i already juggle my pet, traps, misdirects to who ever, and fd, not to top it off still able to pull 6k on a moving dps fight, not shabby not great, but during the corse of all this about 60-105 seconds into a fight i am out of mana in a 10man, 25man i never worry about man. so if this will keep me from haveing to manage just one or two more things and i can focus on that ” HUNTARD you are standing in fire” moment and never step in that crap again i will be greatful!
and if they totaly break us like they have a few times well thats ok cause they can alway hot fix it in a day or two…so bring on the challange cause the last one i had was attemtping the traitor king in heroic mode! failed but still got tribute to mad skill wooot!
All I got to say, is with all this qq’ing from half of you, I hope this change does make you switch classes. If your afraid of the changes, afraid you’ll have to work at it again to be on top, I say your a poor excuse for a hunter. The challenge and mystique of whats to come, along with the possibilities and new theorycrafting involved, is what makes me love hunters in the first place. We are the most adaptive class imo, and adding to our complexity is a welcome change. I would love to see all the “whiners” and “complainers” find a new class to hang out with. My god, they haven’t even dropped the xp and people are creating all these made up stories about how it will be and the spending time qq’ing in forums about it. Just man up and take what comes at you. If your actually a GOOD hunter then this will just be a way to hone your skills further. The only people who should see this as threatening or as a reason to re-roll or qqquit playing and the idiots and losers who know they are not actually competent but rather rely on everyone else to figure it out for them first. Bunch of damn babies.
Member
I just want to see more stable slots, I think asking for 10 slots isn’t too much. That isn’t going to say having every pet in the game. Sure I can see alot of hunters using that to fill up those spirit beasts. Which is fine, they would do that anyways with 5, but then they have no slot for a tanking pet, pvp pet or any other rare/hard to get/limited pet nor the wolf if they just so happen to raid. I would like to a 4th pet family as well and add more pets with different skins at different levels and more rare pets.
Been a hunter for roughly 5 months now. I am in a progressive raiding guild. In ICC and working hard everynight. I have heard TONS about the switch from Agi (surv) to ArP (MM). It seems like the Epic hunter are stacked ArP & MM. The better hunters in my realm are still Agi & surv. I typically pull 4750-5500 DPS in ICC Boss fights. I wasnt to badly increase my DPS to the 7500-9000 that I hear some hunters are getting. Should I do a blanket switch to ALL ArP (16 gems) or ALL Agility or WHAT – please help. USA Realm. Sithrogue – Rivendare…
Sith, do some research on this very website you’re asking on, and dont ask questions like that on an upcoming expansion thread. Don’t be a huntard. Please.
Im actually more upset about all of the stat changes that they are making. It seems like it is just dumbing WoW down much more so than before. This is a problem not just for hunters and ArPen and AP, but also casters with SP and MP5. I dont really like how the stats are being simplified-by the next expansion (if there is one) i wouldnt be surprised if they only had the 5 base stats lol.
So I have two comments.
One is the ammo item rather than ammo as a consumable. I don’t know how many people have thought of this, but it will mean that us hunters have one extra bag available.
My second comment is this.
Playing as my rogue I’ve noticed that due to having to wait for energy to go back up, you can’t do anything “special.” With the change to hunters and us becoming part of that energy mix, will our dps drop due to having to wait for energy to go back up? Personally I kind of like mana even though you have to drink to get it back up. With mana you can just continue to dish out attacks like no other, and I’m just wondering if this will be the same with energy or not.
Sorry if I’m bringing old posts up by the way.
Sith, dude, not to be mean but if you’re topping out at 5.5k dps in ICC, you’re getting carried man. I typically pull about 8k+ dps in stationary fights (Festergut) and 7.5k’ish in the mobile ones (Rotface).
Go here to answer your question tho: http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2009/07/hunter-armor-pen-vs-agility/
Ok, I see many many people overreacting and reading things that aren’t there.
It’ll be focus just like your pet has and no combopoints/finishers. Some shots will cost focus and your basic shot (Steady usually) will generate it. It’ll simply become a matter of balancing, kinda like runic power. You don’t wanna overcap it, but you don’t want it to be too low either.
And for everyone asking if dps is gonna go up: yes ofcourse, since you’ll go on to level 85. But blizzard will always just keep balancing classes and specs, a nerf here a buff there. So that damage over all classes is (more or less) equal.
As for AotViper, the logical change would be that it increases your focus regen.
Just keep in mind that there’s not much final yet, only THAT it’s gonna change, not which shot will cost what amount of focus or regen rates. There will be lots of testing in alpha & betas, to tweak it to be just as good as anything else. And after Cataclysm starts there will be more tweaks again cos there will be more data, until everything’s balanced out.
There’s no need for seeing doom in the distance…
I am very torn on the mana and ammo idea, i for one don’t see the focus idea as the way to go. i just have grown fond of mana and it has been the system since the game came out. About the ammo tho. I for one HATE this idea, it takes out the immersion from the game, As hunters we don’t just create the ammo out of no where, i like buying ammo i like how i run out every so often (as annoying as it may be in raids fights etc) but it adds immersion it makes you feel like you are the hunter you are playing. Also, if your going to remove ammo Please add maybe a collar idea for a pet? i would just love to see some customisation of our faithful compainions. This Expainsion will probably be bad for RP’s……
I’m not ultra worried about the switch to focus and am totally siked about the lack of ammo. i am curious about the recipes for food being more adapted to the health/focus concept. i try to always have buff related foods and feasts on me but if we don’t need mana half the foods i would use are only half helpful… just a thought
blizzard is gonna fuck this up royally… i can’t imagine being limited to a regenerating focus bar
when im pvp’ing, and some rogue is on my ass. i spamming 10 different abilities within a few seconds… give them all a huge focus cost, and pvp hunters will be FUCKED… blizzard never considered pvp when they balance… ever ever ever… why would you change an entire class after 5 years in the making? Maybe if they did it right once before i would trust them… but they have failed many, many times at giving hunters pvp buffs.
blizzard has never really fixed hunter pvp needs, and this is only gonna make it worse… and that’s why i quit over a year ago
I recently soloed Molten Core, and started collecting the Giantstalker gear set(Tier 2?) It was all hunter-specific gear with spirit on it! I didn’t start playing WoW until after BC came out, so this confused me…it wasn’t so much that hunters used to have spirit, it was the fact that Blizz never updated the old gear to make it viable for hunters at that level to use. I understand ArP will be replaced with other stats, but will they make raid gear for leveling hunters useful? Don’t forget about the little people, Blizz!
Member
I’m kind of unsure about cataclysm. My biggest worry is this transition from mana to focus by hunters. I don’t want hunters to become the type of class that rogues are. I have nothing against rogues personally, I just think hunters are unique and should remain this way. I bet someone has already done this in this thread, but could someone explain WHY exactly they are switching this? Please and a beforehand Thank You.
They need to put BM hunter back the way the use to be pre Wotlk IMO
A lot of retards and terrible english speaking people on this post damn! One thing is certain, all the pubbies that suck, can’t play, and cry will just re-roll/quit and well have a better player base of hunter out there. I myself wouldnt mind having a bit more complexity added in, it will make us better and a more elite community, like Druids.
Member
Well, to be honest. I’ve played a hunter since I started 3-4 years ago. First thing I will say is anyone who has mana issues doesn’t know the class from the get go. If you’ve gotten the boss down to a critical point and you’re out of mana, then YOU screwed up and didn’t think ahead just trying to stay on top of the dps meters.
Example: Lady Deathwhisper. After every other set of adds, I flip over to viper while dpsing the mana shield to regenerate mana and then back when adds spawn. Then as the mana shield is about to drop, I flip over real quick to get my mana close to max as once the shield comes down, I can burn her and still have around 20%-ish. That is the key to being an effective hunter.
If you can’t manage that, you’re really going to struggle in a focus-based system. I, as well, don’t like the idea of needing to absolutely be in end-game raiding for the best ammo, and have to roll against a warrior or possibly a rogue and some ninja giving it to his friend even though it doesn’t benefit his class as much as mine. And will they standardize ammo, How bad would it suck to see bullets drop instead of arrows? If they go engineering based, then I’m all for it.
I, for one, am NOT pleased about having to completely re-learn the class as I’m trying to lvl to 85. Unless I devote a lot of time to it, other classes will surpass ours to lvl cap and start on heroics before we get there.
To be honest, I’ve already had to change my main to a shaman to heal in order to get in raids as it’s easier to find dps…but I’m still able to work on him as he was my main for a long, long time and people know I know how to handle my hunter with less gear. But I think with this focus-based, it might be time to shelve him completely until I have nothing better to do than to relearn how to play him. The biggest revamp they should have considered….averaging out all the pets so you don’t see every top-teir hunter running around with a wolf.
I personally think that no mana is fine, with the all mighty frost we will be on our feet and topping the charts in no time
if we dont ever buy Cat will every remain the same?
No, the changes will happen whether or not you buy Cataclysm. Buying Cataclysm just allows you to level above 80, roll a Goblin or Worgen, and visit the new regions & instances (may be necessary for the new Race/Class combinations, too, but I’m not sure).
wowhead has a better talent calculator for cataclysm up at http://cata.wowhead.com/talent
Member
Any info on what the new Expose weakness is gonna do?
To the dude that said we won’t have to worry about ammo anymore? If you’re not carrying enough ammo on you at all times that you basically don’t have to think about it more than a passing “Lemme fill my quiver/ammo pouch.” then you’re playing wrong.
so whats up with survival hunters in Cata i love playing SURV hunter
I agree with Deathbingr i am not thrilled about the hunter changes.. I have played my hunter since the begining and i too am not thrilled about learning how to play my main all over again. But as with anything i am sure we will get use to it.