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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWWI '08 Panel: Hunters
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jun 28th 2008 at 11:30AM
The first WoW panel has come and gone at the Worldwide Invitational. It was focused on class abilities in WoTLK, and there was some absolutely juicy stuff, especially for Hunters. As the proud player of a 70 Hunter, I'm feeling amazingly awesome about my class right now. Two of the biggest, most universal Hunter complaints have not only been answered, but answered in a way that I think a lot of Hunter players are going to be incredibly excited about.
Steady Shot Clipping
First up, it looks like Shot Rotations as we know them will soon become a thing of the past, or at least be incredibly simplified, as Steady Shots will no longer clip Auto Shots. This is actually an issue that has gained some blue post love in the past, but it's nice to see it so directly confronted and dealt with.
There may still be a shot rotation of a type for fitting in Arcane Shot and various stings, but it looks like Hunter DPS will no longer be a complicated dance of weapon speed, haste rating, macros, and server latency. That in itself is amazing news.
Pet Talent Trees and Uniqueness
One of the other major complaints of Hunters is the lack of pet diversity. It is generally expected that if you are min-maxing, you will go for a Cat, Ravager, or Scorpid and nothing else, because they are the only pet families that have the right combination of ability and DPS to get their jobs done. Some pet classes, like Sporebats, languished due to a complete lack of useful family skills.
That will be changing in WoTLK, as the pet skill system is being done away with for a pet talent system. Every pet family will have a set of talent trees, similar to player characters: A Utility tree, a Tank tree, and a DPS tree, which will contain unique abilities for each family.
It's definitely an ambitious undertaking, especially since they will apparently add new pet families in WoTLK, but if they can pull it off, hopefully we'll see a lot more unique and offbeat pets again. A lot will depend, of course, if the system of certain pet families having base bonuses to DPS, armor, or health remains. If it does, some pets will probably still have an edge even with talents and be widely used. Still, the talent system at least means you can customize your pets very extensively, which should allow for differing play styles and preferences when using pets for Hunters.
There's also the question of just how effective the tanking trees is. I can't imagine Hunter pets tanking in raids, if only because raid encounters will likely require reaction and real time tactics that a pet couldn't handle well. However, if the Tank tree means a pet can tank in normal 5-mans, it could make Hunters more desirable for groups and help the tank shortage that Blizzard acknowledged in the panel when talking about Death Knights. In addition, if the tanking tree allows for meaningful HP and damage avoidance boosts, it could help pets survive longer in groups and raids even when not tanking.
Final Thoughts
If Blizzard pulls off these changes, I can say with certainty that it will be an awesome time to be a Hunter. Hunter DPS will no longer be at the mercy of server latency, and our pets will feel more like a solid part of the class by being more versatile and survivable. It's really comforting to know that Blizzard has been listening to our concerns on these issues. Hopefully, as WoTLK draws closer, or maybe even before WWI ends, we'll hear if they heard us on PvP and pet stable slots as well.
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Events, News items, Expansions, Talents, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King, Worldwide Invitational
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Christian Jun 28th 2008 12:29PM
Timing steady shot can't be that hard, I do it with slam all the time. It's all the 10 year olds that rolled hunters because they thought the pets were sooo cool that can't out dps the warrior tanks because of steady shot.
Saryel Jun 28th 2008 12:43PM
Hunter shot rotations are nothing like shield slam. With hunters you're talking about a series of skills that take 1.5 seconds to cast and there's fractions of a second in between, if you time it wrong you hurt your dps. it isn't just about juggling cooldowns and such. If you hit your next steady shot too quickly you lose an autoshot which accounts for a good portion of your damage, hit it too slowly and you loose damage too because of the lag time.
superfrank Jun 29th 2008 9:40PM
slam != shield slam.
you've just described slam almost exactly.
Coldbear Jun 28th 2008 12:37PM
Hunter pets tanking in 5-mans is just the kind of pipe-dreaming "my class, my spec, cater to memememememe make my playstyle more like GODMODE and come on, Blizzard, make it more convenient for me" attitude that just sickens me about alot of WoW players. Did you even take one second to consider what your dreams would do to class balance?
There's plenty of pet variety already. But hey, keep crying I guess. Let's make the Hunter class even simpler than it already is - so you'll have an even more bloated and unskilled Hunter population.
Taking away complexity in playing the class at the endgame is not the way to go. Getting rid of complex macros yes, but getting rid of timing and "skill"-based dps increases will just make the class bland and help bridge the gap between the true HUNTARDS and the skilled players.
Things must be complex enough to hold interest, and must be difficult enough for skilled and dedicated players to shine. If you don't agree, then there's always BGs for you. Leave me my difficult and challenging Heroics, and my complex weaving and shot-rotating for MQSRD
doyesac Jun 28th 2008 4:02PM
you forgot to put:
/pointless, offtopic rant off
...at the end of your post.
Coldbear Jun 28th 2008 12:38PM
And yes, part of that skill lies in proper preparation to prevent ***-poor performance.
Zayd Jun 28th 2008 12:39PM
Whats the betting the top talent in the utility tree will be some sort of Soul Link rip off.
Elric Jun 28th 2008 1:43PM
@Saryel
Slam and Shield Slam are two different things. Slam does the same thing your steady shot does. it will clip our autoattack. And when you're swinging once every 3.6 secs, and you mistime your slam, that's a lost hit that means a big hit to your DPS.
So if Blizz is gonna make it easier for the hunters(yay, just what we need them to do, dumb the game down more), they should also do the same thing to Slam for a warrior.
Shenzhe Jun 29th 2008 2:03AM
Not to detract from what you're trying to say, but hunter shot timings are a little more closely matched. Our top end weapons generally have a 2.9-3.1 attack speed, and we also have the 15% haste effect of our ammo pouch/quiver, and whatever on our gear. After all that is done, we don't only have to get our cast off before our next attack, we have to stop .5 seconds before our next auto shot would fire off because that's the cast time on the auto shot.
Takamuri Jun 28th 2008 1:46PM
Well,my idea on the tanking tree is that the pet will be a viable offtank in situations. Heroics, probably. Raids? Yet to be seen. Some mobs don't hit as hard as others, and those might be mobs that a pet can easily off tank in raids.
Keylogger Jun 28th 2008 2:16PM
I could be way off here, but I took the pet trees idea to mean that each pet would only have one tree, and which tree it was depended on the pet (i.e. turtles have tank tree, cats have DPS tree).
Babe Jun 28th 2008 2:58PM
I want Blizzard to:
FIX THE ANIMATION OF THROWING A TRAP WHILE MOVING!!!!!!!
My eyes bleed every time I lay a trap while moving and my hunter knee-slide on the ground.
The improvements are great, yes, but a little eye candy issues would be greatly apreciated.
Please, bloggers from wowinsider, debate a little about the eye candy that would be great to have.
(...my druid sure wants a new haircut, but i want to be able to shut the mouth of the bear too... and all the like)
STereo Jun 28th 2008 3:55PM
I hope they address the more major problems of the class, like being helpless in pvp, and useless in arena. Cute pets are nice but being unable to compete kills all the fun
muhahahaha! Jun 28th 2008 6:25PM
I don't disagree
superfrank Jun 29th 2008 9:42PM
hunters are imba in world pvp / bgs
doyesac Jun 28th 2008 4:10PM
Here's my take. The Pet Talent Trees may just fix the most persistent problem Hunter have with their pets: the need to find and tame pets in the wild to learn new skills.
The process of finding and taming wild pets requires hunters to leave an open stable slot, meaning that -- until you hit the level cap and know all the pet skills you need -- hunters can only have two different pets while leveling. Since hunters can only have two pets, they generally only go for DPS pets.
I'd love there to be situations where certain dungeons, certain boss fights or whatever would dictate different pet families: "we are running a bear tank so could you bring your pet with the Attack Power buff?" or "We have a Pally tank against caster mobs, could you bring your AoE Silence pet?"
Tat would bring a whole NEW level of complexity and utility to the hunter class. (and THAT is my response to Coldbear's pointless blathering about huntards.)
Ametrine Jun 28th 2008 4:40PM
Finally, a chance to see hunters with something instead of the exact same cat, ravager, and scorpid.
Maybe we'll get to see some pets with some variety and uniqueness, like maybe a spider or crab or hyena...
Elyx Jun 28th 2008 6:53PM
while i have no problems with the idea of pets having talent trees, I think its a little overbalanced to give them enough flexibility and power in these trees to actually allow them to take the place of another toon.
Offtank? possible, but should be extremely limited, perhaps to normal instances, but surely not heroics or raids at all. Seriously, giving a high dps class the ability to tank, while at the same time putting out high dps and your screaming OP. many tanks classes pay a heavy price to tank (the reduction of overall dps and soloability) and have to respec to do what yoru thinking you shodul be able to do by swapping pets? I certainly hope you guys can see how that would seriously throw things otu of whack.
While i dont mind the idea of using pets as a form of CC, that woudl still leave a huge gap in skills compared with other classes. your pet would, in effect, become CC, and with your trap you now have 2 CC abilities that are infinitly spammable (within reason of course). Hmm...spanks of OP to me (and yes, i do understand the limitations of traps and placement, got a hunter myself, tho shes an alt)
I think the idea is great, but i feel that ultimately in order to preserver the general balance of the game the trees will most likely be replacements for the skills, allowing flexibility in choice more then increased buffs.
Elyx Jun 28th 2008 6:57PM
Oh yeah, and i apologize for the spelling errors above ;P (still looking for the edit button)...Oh ya, also to add, i am aware that they are giving tank classes the ability to dps more...but this doesn't validate the idea of giving a DPS class the ability to tank. I seriously doubt ANY prot warrior would be able to substitute for a dps class, even with the new talents coming in, and if we could, im sure hunters and rogues and shamans and mages and all the other DPS classes would be up in arms...same issue here, just the reverse of it.
fangless Jun 29th 2008 11:01AM
"It is generally expected that if you are min-maxing, you will go for a Cat, Ravager, or Scorpid and nothing else"
Who uses Cats for min-maxing ?
Ravager and Wind Serpent are your options. Serpent being more useful for high end raiding where you'll feed more GFtT procs into it.
Unless you're talking about min-maxing for Kara...
/rolleyes