Scattered Shots: The patch 4.0.1 hunter -- what you should know
by Brian Wood 
Sep 16th 2010 at 9:00AM
Patch 4.0.1 is now on the PTR. This means that everyone can charge to the PTR and try the new hunter changes. You won't be able to level or see the changed Azeroth or new content, but you can try out focus, the new talent trees, pet abilities and our stat changes. I thought this would be an excellent time to recap some hunter Cataclysm info and talk a bit about what you should and should not be worrying about in the beta.
In all honesty, this is somewhat a matter of pre-emptive self-defense. Through long experience and the ancient yet time-honored art of beer foam reading, I know -- know, deep in that instinctive part of my brain that is designed to save me from fire and bears -- that I'm about to be flooded with emails about how this spec is doing more damage than that spec and "OMG X spec is OP WTF!?"
So join me after the cut for a recap of some key hunter concepts in Cataclysm, as well as a rundown of what you should not be paying any attention to at this stage of the PTR.
Ignore DPS ... seriously
Balancing of DPS has not yet been done. Do not worry about DPS.
We still have major changes happening every beta build, and we need to wait for all of those big changes before we worry about tweaking of numbers. Now maybe the fact that we're now going on the PTR means the major changes are being given their final stress test and we'll soon see the start of DPS tweaking. I hope so, but I can tell you that the DPS tweaking has not yet been done.
Just last beta build, all hunter shots were radically changed to reduce ranged weapon scaling, which screwed up the damage of most of our shots. This build, Blizzard tweaked the damage of a ton of those shots and put in major changes to other shots (like Chimera).
Right now, we want to focus on things like shot rotations. We can talk about the damage our shots do in the scope of our rotations -- like how Chimera Shot's damage is so low we may not want to use it in our rotations. That's clearly wrong and needs adjusting. But we don't want to talk about the damage of our shots in terms of overall or comparative DPS. We don't want to say, "Chimera Shot needs to do more damage because MM DPS is too low."
For reference, right now on the beta, BM is the highest DPS spec, with awesome Kill Command damage. MM is lowest, with pathetic Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot damage, as well as a weaker mastery. SV is in the middle, though possibly with more mastery, they'd be a match for BM. But none of that matters. DPS tweaking hasn't happened, and it will happen.
So please, don't worry about the DPS of each spec yet or our DPS compared to other classes. Just don't worry about DPS. Instead, go out and get used to focus and the new rotation for each spec. Play around with the new pets!
Hunter recap: Specialization and mastery
The mastery system has changed several times since it was first implemented, and our hunter bonuses have continued to change, right up to the latest beta build. Here's the current version, which is looking pretty fixed now, though Blizzard may tweak the numbers when it gets around to balancing DPS.
Before you spend your first talent point, you will have to choose the talent tree to specialize in. Thereafter, you can only spend talent points in that tree, until you've spent 31 talent points. You get a talent point at every other level above 10. When you choose your tree, you will get a bonus ability, a specialization bonus and a mastery ability. Mastery only comes into play at level 78 when you train in the mastery skill. Thereafter, you will also have access to gear with mastery as a stat that increases only the mastery bonus (not the specialization).
Beast Mastery
- Bonus ability: Intimidation
- Specialization: Animal Handler -- attack power increased 25%
- Mastery: Master of Beasts -- increase the damage done by your pets by 20% plus 1.5% per point of mastrey
- Bonus ability: Aimed Shot
- Specialization: Artisan Quiver -- increases auto-shot damage by 15%
- Mastery: Wild Quiver -- 16% chance for ranged attacks to fire a 50% damage auto-shot. Chance to proc increased by 2% per point of mastery
- Bonus ability: Explosive Shot
- Specialization: Into the Wilderness -- increases agility by 15%
- Mastery: Essence of the Viper -- increases elemental damage by 20% plus 1.5% per point of mastery
Our new resource mechanic is focus. The base focus regen rate is around 4.16 focus/second. After a lot of moving around, this number has not changed for a lot of builds now, and it seems that Blizzard is pretty happy with this rate. In addition to our base focus regen, we can increase our focus in the following ways:
- Using the zero-cost Steady Shot or Cobra Shot in any aspect will restore 9 focus.
- Haste will increase our base focus regen.
- Haste also indirectly increases our focus regen by reducing the 2-second base cast time of Steady Shot and Cobra Shot (and the base cast time is 2 seconds).
- There are some talents that increase focus regen, or give us extra focus on crits.
Additionally, we never want to be at full focus during our standard rotation. If our focus is full, we are wasting our resource -- we keep regenning focus, but it can't go fuller than full, so we lose any new focus coming in. We could have used that focus for more damaging shots! Arcane Shot is supposed to be our focus dump, the shot that we use to bleed off excess focus because it does more damage than our Steady Shot or Cobra Shot.
Go out and play
Head over to the PTR and start checking out the new hunter changes for yourself! Experiment with Multi-Shot as our new AoE. See what it's like to have your Misdirection threat fade away into the ether after 30 seconds. Enjoy Scatter Shot as a baseline ability available to all specs.
Play with it all, learn as much as you can and point out things that seem to be bugged or poorly designed. But for the time being, just for a little while longer, completely ignore the DPS results. They are going to be changing, so just be patient.
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. See the Scattered Shots Resource Guide for a full listing of vital and entertaining hunter guides, including how to improve your heroic DPS, understand the impact of skill vs. gear, and getting started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101.
Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Leetarrows Sep 16th 2010 9:17AM
The phrase "ignore DPS results" is very counter-intuitive, but I'll try ... :)
Powatodapeople Sep 16th 2010 1:21PM
umm.. we can't practice running and shooting in aspect of the fox. it's trained after level 80 and we are still capped in the ptr. sorry! I wanna try it really badly too
youthculture Sep 16th 2010 9:18AM
Oh man. I didn't even notice the changes in Misdirect until now. Not sure I like that one.
HHUK Sep 16th 2010 9:29AM
In my opinion having it fade away after 30 seconds is a little harsh, it would make sense for it to decay over 30 seconds so there's no sudden drop in the aggro table.
Jesse Felt Sep 16th 2010 9:38AM
It's not just a change to misdirect, it's a change to threat in general. Pretty much Blizz didn't want tanks to be able to build such a huge threat lead that they could get up and go stroll around the park without losing threat (hello PP, Princes, Sindy, etc...) so they are modifying threat to "fade away" slowly. This means that a tank has to keep paying attention to omen and has to keep pumping out the threat and can't just get lazy.
As someone with a dps (hunter) and a tank (bear) I think this is not really going to affect dps as much as it affects tanks. We hunters have the best threat management in the game right now, so we'll be fine. The class I am worried about (as a tank) is warlocks.
Fletch Sep 16th 2010 9:46AM
Yes, this could make misdirection potentially lethal. I'm not even sure it will be a good idea to use it anymore except for maybe certain gimmicky situations
Jesse Felt Sep 16th 2010 9:55AM
It's not going to make MD lethal, it just means that you might have to pay a little more attention to the threat meter now. Unlike wrath where we can pretty much unload everything we have and not worry about it (unless the tank is a tool) we might actually have to start paying attention to our threat again.
Here's your scenario.... Opening shots, you MD to assist the tank getting initial aggro. Once the MD effect fades you continue DPSing until just before the MD threat drops off of the tank, then FD. Problem solved. It'll only be "lethal" if 1) you're a bad hunter and 2) your tank is a bad tank.
Docseuzz Sep 16th 2010 9:59AM
Remember, that it's not designed for you to suddenly regain the threat you shoved to the tank, it's just that the threat system is much more of a 'what have you done to me lately?' system, where if you think of it as the mob only tracks what's happened in the last 30 seconds (as an example). Now, at 31 seconds, the tank will lose the threat you gave them on your first shot post MD, so that could be problematic. MD/Tricks will now not be about huge openers to give the tank a huge padding they can ignore, but more of a steady stream of threat that really does what it's supposed to do - keep the healers and dps from pulling off the tank at the start of the fight. DPS used to have to manage their aggro - they just don't do it anymore. I think with this and CC making a comeback, DPS players that came onboard at Wrath are in for some hard lessons....
Fletch Sep 16th 2010 10:06AM
Well, I'm not so much thinking about me - I've got FD to wipe my threat. It's all the other poor sods who have gone all out matching their threat to the misdirected assisted threat of the tank that I feel bad for
Fletch Sep 16th 2010 10:17AM
...though thinking about it, over the course of 30s, MD probably only typically makes up for a few tenths of a percent of tank threat so it probably won't make a massive difference
Grovinofdarkhour Sep 16th 2010 10:29AM
Wait - by "Fade away into the ether", you only mean that the misdirected threat drops off the tank, right? (As opposed to it dropping off the tank and RETURNING to the hunter...)
If it just drops off, no biggie. If it comes back to us, I hope they keep the MD and FD cooldowns equal, because we're going to be using them in pairs, or not at all.
Therosh Sep 16th 2010 10:32AM
The problem that most of us are having with this new and "improved" Misdirect is how we use it, especially in a raiding environment. When the buff scaled up to 30% in ICC, dps threat went off the charts. Plain and simple, most tanks cannot keep up with ANY dps class in live raiding when it comes to TPS. MD gives us a tool that isn't just for blowing a salvo at the beginning, Hunters in ICC are forced to use it every time it's up simply to keep the tank threat up high enough that a boss doesn't turn around and smite them. Not only does it keep Hunters from dying, it can help nudge tanks to the top for fights like Heroic Deathwhisper, as well as boosting tank threat when your guild's DK has no way of dumping threat.
In the PTR, the threat mechanic hasn't changed enough that tanks no longer need MD. In fact, if the changes were to go live, say, tomorrow, I would suggest that raiding would be nigh impossible. Not due only to the MD change, but because tanks are having a difficult time building threat with how the build currently stands.
There is a point where threat management is important. For most of ICC, it was not there. When ICC was in its mid-life tanks DID have the luxury of padding themselves with threat and afk'ing. Now, at the end of ICC, threat management has come back with a vengeance, and in Cataclysm it will be even more important. One of our best (and most unique) tools to accomplish consistent and reliable management has been radically changed to become nearly-useless.
-Therosh, Medivh (US)
Natsumi Sep 16th 2010 10:36AM
The way around that is misdirect on a temporary tank and before misdirect wears off the tank taunts. In fights where you need to switch tanks Misdirect is actually amazing. You MD to the current tank, build him a bunch of threat, the other tank taunts and gets all that glorious threat, the first tank LOSES the threat you gave him making it easier on the second tank. Rinse and Repeat. MD loses it's effectiveness on single tank fights and in instances/Heroics unless you plan to use your pet as the OT at the beginning of the fight.
I say, stop complaining that we can't use abilities exactly as we have been for years and think about what we can do with them the way they are. People cried foul at the removal of Volley, but that worked out just fine didn't it. Now people are crying about MD, it's fine, quit crying, learn how it can be used now.
Meatwadz Sep 16th 2010 11:43AM
"Plain and simple, most tanks cannot keep up with ANY dps class in live raiding when it comes to TPS."
My 5.3k GS Dual-Weilding Frost DK Tank sustains 20k tps, peaking near 30k in ICC with the 30% buff. We don't raid with a hunter or a rogue.
If you have threat problems on live, you're doing it wrong.
Meatwadz Sep 16th 2010 11:53AM
Considering most damage dealing classes have passive threat-reduction baked into their build or class, your dps would have to be sustaining 25k+ dps (per person) in order to strip aggro from a decent tank.
The dps in my group ranges from 8k-15k and I end every boss fight with well over twice the threat of the top dps. If it wasn't for taunt rotations, I could very well get up and make a sammich.
TL:DR - Tanks won't have threat problems because hunters and rogues are not, and never will be a required element of a 10 or 25 man raiding. MD is handy but not required.. don't freak out.
Gryph Sep 16th 2010 1:23PM
@ Meatwadz
If you are ending the fight with double the threat than anyone else I really wonder what classes you are raiding with. In our raids we do good dps (over 10k) and our tank pumps threat to keep aggro away but it isn't near double as the dps. As a SV Hunter, I can FD when the tank is at 1mil and still after a minute or two be over him needing to FD again. Our rogue who doesn't like Vanishing to drop aggro usually is at 99-104% of the tanks threat (you pull aggro at 130%). I have yet to see any tank who I don't need to FD atleast twice with.
whybag03 Sep 16th 2010 7:31PM
Excepting the fact that rogues don't pull at 130%, you are correct, WE pull at 130%.
Jesse Felt Sep 16th 2010 3:39PM
"If you have threat problems on live, you're doing it wrong."
Werd. If anything, beating tanks has gotten harder with the 30% buff since tanks get the buff as well and are doing more damage. Couple that with so many fights in ICC that basically make threat a joke. For instance, Saurfang. By the time that fight is coming to a close the other tank and I will be roughly 40% above the next closest threat. Even on a straight tank n spank like festergut threat isn't a problem. Hell, the last festergut I tanked on my bear I had to almost stop attacking all together in order to not pull off the other tank.
Threat in wrath is NOT a problem. Tanks getting up to go make a sammich is...
Ganglati Sep 16th 2010 6:00PM
don't forget about Vengeance people. things may be hinky now (the blues keep saying they're worried about balancing around 85, not 80, and there hasn't been a numbers pass yet, probably including threat numbers), but come 85, MD will be crucial in a tank keeping aggro in the beginning while Vengeance builds up, at which point tanks should be doing just slightly less damage than their dps, instead of 1/2-1/5 of the damage like they do now. Thirty seconds of MD should be plenty of time for that to occur.
Snuzzle Sep 16th 2010 8:44PM
@Gryph actually for melee it's 110%, it's only 130% if you're more than 5 yards away.
If you're more than doubling DPS threat, I'm just going to assume you're a DK tank as their threat is still a bit op (which move is that, Icy Touch?)