Scattered Shots: Hunting Mists of Pandaria talents
by Brian Wood 
Dec 8th 2011 at 7:00PM
Patch 4.3 has been out for over a week now, and that means that it's so old news. It's time for us to finally look forward to patch 5.0 and the Mists of Pandaria hunter talent preview that we first got a look at during BlizzCon.
The new talent system strips down the talent selections to a mere six talent choices. Every 15 levels, you are presented with three possible hunter talents, and you can choose only one of them. Then 15 levels later, you choose one of a different three talents, and so on -- only unlike many talents now, these talents aren't meaningless.
Now, the last time we talked about this MoP stuff, the comments got a bit heated. To assist you today, I have included the above video. If you're about to say anything stated in that video, you are about to become one of those people and are better off calling your mom instead. She hasn't heard from you in too long anyway. She worries.
The new system rocks
There are a lot of different opinions on the new talent system, and everyone's opinion is valid. Unless of course you think the new system is worse than we have now, in which case you're clearly wrong and probably play a rogue.
The goal of the new system is to get rid of a bunch of the old, boring talents and to move the must-have talents into spec abilities that you automatically get as you level in your spec of choice. In this, I think the new system is wildly successful. Most of all the goal was to provide meaningful choices, and on that count it's a bit hit and miss but certainly no worse than we have now.
Some people feel that making only six talent decisions is too few. There's some merit to that point of view; however, keep in mind that right now we make fewer choices than that. Despite having many more talent points right now, we have very few talent decisions. Almost all our talents have a "right" choice -- which is really no choice at all.
I also strongly disagree with the notion that this is where skill comes into play. If you can spend five minutes searching online for the cookie-cutter best talent build, then that's not skill. Skill is your ability to execute your rotation optimally in game, be aware of your surroundings, and make the right decisions about what ability to use at the right time when in the chaos of battle. If your claim to skill is knowing the best talents or gems, then you're probably not as good as you think you are.
Let's take a good look at the new talents and see how well Blizzard did at making meaningful choices. Keep in mind that all of the numbers (damage, duration, cooldowns) are subject to lots and lots of change.
Level 15 talents
- Frozen Arrows Your arrows and ammunition are chilled with frost, causing your Auto Shot to have a 30% chance to reduce the target's movement speed by 30% for 10 seconds.
- Arcane Arrows Your arrows and ammunition are infused with arcane magic, causing your Auto Shot to have a 50% chance to restore 5 focus when it deals damage.
- Venom Tipped Arrows Your arrows and ammunition are mixed with serpent venom, causing a stacking poison damage over time effect on the target, dealing nature damage. Stacks up to five times.
It seems pretty clear that for this tier we will not actually have much of a choice. Once we know the damage of Venom Tipped Arrows, we're going to do the math and see whether that or Arcane Arrows is best for each spec, and that will be the correct call for most fights. We may have the occasional fight where we change it up (because we want the slow effect for adds, or because it's bad to have DoTs up, for example), but this first tier is going to have a right answer. It is possible that this will be an interesting decision for PvP, however, depending on the state of hunter PvP in MoP.
On the other hand, these talents are all pretty darn cool.
Level 30 talents
- Silencing Shot 20-second cooldown; a shot that silences the target and interrupts spellcasting for 3 seconds.
- Wyvern Sting 1-minute cooldown; a stinging shot that puts the target to sleep for 30 seconds. Any damage will cancel the effect. When the target wakes up, the sting causes 2,190 nature damage over 6 seconds. Only one sting per hunter can be active on the target at a time.
- Intimidation 1-minute cooldown; command your pet to intimidate the target, causing a high amount of threat and stunning the target for 3 seconds. Lasts 15 seconds.
Level 45 talents
- Posthaste Your movement speed is increased by 60% for 4 seconds after you use Disengage.
- Evasiveness Increases your chance to dodge attacks and resist spells by 100% for 3 seconds when you use Disengage.
- Exhilaration When you Disengage, you are instantly healed for 15% of your total health when you successfully land.
I can imagine in MoP that the signature silhouette of the hunter in a raid is a kind of jumping bean, bouncing back and forth with Disengage all the time, whether we need to or not.
Level 60 talents
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera Whenever you are hit by a melee attack, the cooldown of your Disengage is instantly reduced by 4 seconds. Whenever you are hit by a ranged attack or spell, the cooldown of your Deterrence is instantly reduced by 8 seconds. These effects have a 2-second cooldown.
- Aspect of the Iron Hawk Your Aspect of the Hawk now also reduces all direct damage taken by 15%.
- Spirit Bond While your pet is active, you and your pet will regenerate 2% of total health every 5 seconds.
Level 75 talents
- Fervor 2-minute cooldown; instantly restores 50 focus to you and your pet.
- Readiness 3-minute cooldown; when activated, this ability immediately finishes the cooldown on all Hunter abilities.
- Thrill of the Hunt You have a 15% chance when you fire a shot that costs focus to instantly regain 100% of the focus cost of the shot.
This is assuming that the right balance is struck, of course, because the possibilities of Readiness are massive, particularly that it will now be available to all specs. This means big red pet Readiness combo is back, as is using Readiness in combination with any other talent. More on that in a bit.
Level 90 talents
- Flash Freeze Your Freezing Trap no longer has a cooldown, but only one target can be afflicted by it at a time.
- Black Ice Increases the movement speed reduction of your Ice Trap by an additional 10% and when you move through your Ice Trap you gain 50% movement speed for 4 seconds.
- Transmorph Trap 30-second cooldown; place a nature trap laced with a special toxin that will transmorph the next enemy into a beast, reducing their movement speed by 60% and causing them to be unable to use any of their normal abilities.
When I was at BlizzCon, I got a chance to ask Ghostcrawler about an interesting situation with the new talents: "So can you Freezing Trap one target, then Wyvern Sting another, then Transmorph Trap another, and Scatter Shot a fourth? And then hit Readiness and do it all again to another four?" Ghostcrawler paused a moment and said that they may have to look at that. So no promises that the massive CC combo will make it through alpha and beta testing -- but even without the Readiness combo, that's a heck of a lot of hunter CC on demand!
So what do you guys think of the new talent options (ignoring the numbers for a moment). Assuming they were worked to be more balanced, do you think the choices are more meaningful than what we're making now? How would you change the tier options to make them more of a decision?
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. From leveling your hunter and choosing the best patch 4.2 gear to learning the DPS value of skill, we've got you covered. If you're stuck in one of the nine support classes, why not move up to the big league and play a hunter?
Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Dashifen Dec 8th 2011 1:42PM
I wonder what precedent this sets for 6.0? A new talent every 15 levels works well for zero through 90, but what if we only see 5 more levels in 6.0? Do we not get a talent? Do they just give us one at 95 because it's the end and, if so, what happens at 7.0? Could we see 15 levels for 6.0?
Where's Chromie when you need him ....
Shepherd57 Dec 8th 2011 2:05PM
If Blizzard decides to stay with the same talent system in 6.0 and if they give us a seventh teir they will more than likely just give your talent points at different levels. so in 6.0 we can level to 95. 95-11=84 and 84/7 equals a new talent every 12 levels starting at 11 we get one tier of talents every twelve levels. We wouldn't get cool abilities at the classic levels of 60,70,80, and 85 but the break down would be something like: 11, 23, 35, 47, 59, 71, 83, and 95.
RedMosquito Dec 8th 2011 11:29PM
There's also the possibility - and I think it's pretty likely - that Blizzard will add one, maybe two more talent choices with the next expansion. So instead of getting 6, you get 7 or 8.
Until we know how many levels we have and how many talent choices we have, I think it's a little pointless to speculate. They'll simply divide it again to whatever fits the new paradigm.
Drakkenfyre Dec 9th 2011 8:32AM
Chromie has been stated as a female by Blizzard in the official magazine.
I would hope that they would build expandability into the system for the next expansion, but honestly, I expect a full talent system rebuild again, and they will deal with it then.
Their stated goals with the upcoming system just isn't going to work, and it's going to be like all the other times, "We wanted to eliminate cookie-cutter builds, and other (things), but it didn't work out, so we're redoing the talent system again."
chrth Dec 8th 2011 2:05PM
"Here we see a bunch of familiar talents letting us choose between silence, CC, and interrupt & stun. I'm curious to see if Intimidation gets changed at all. Right now Wyvern Sting is going to be the way to go in 5-mans, and Silencing Shot is probably the best call for raids -- but it all depends how the abilities change."
No no NO, Frostheim. C'mon, they already told us that we'll be able to swap talents like we do glyphs, so you're not going to have a build per function, but a build per boss. For example: Intimidation is useful against the exploding adds in the Ragnaros fight, so Hunters will take it for Ragnaros. If the boss has melee adds, Wvyern Sting may be the way to go, while if there are caster adds, Silencing Shot will be the call.
velutina Dec 9th 2011 8:32AM
Yes chrth, and that's why the new talents are *more* mathy than the old ones, not less. Now you can go online and look up an "optimum" build. In MoP, you'll have to go online and look up and optimal spec and rotation for each fight.
chrth Dec 9th 2011 3:10PM
@velutina: That doesn't follow. Knowing which cc is most useful for a fight is awareness, not number-crunching. If you need to go online to determine that Intimidation stuns adds on a boss where the raid leader tells you that only stuns work, then you're class awareness is sorely lacking. Worst-case scenario is that you adjust the talent between pulls.
Or to use another example: of the three level 90 traps, Black Ice would be most effective if you've been tasked with add kiting (for example, the parasites in Magmaw). If you understand in advance what the talents actually do, you shouldn't have to go online to figure that out; it should be a simple "Hunter, can you kite these adds?" followed by "sure, just give me a sec to swap a talent."
Granted, something like the Level 75 talents will be number-crunched to death, but the reality is that there will be a shorthand that will be 90% optimal. Is there a DPS race at the end? Then Readiness is probably the way to go for a giant burst. Is sustained DPS more important? Then Thrill of the Hunt will probably be the choice. Or are there adds/events that occur where it's necessary for you to down them quickly? Fervor might be the choice in case you're caught relatively focus-starved. (These are just examples and not to be taken as gospel)
Will there be sites that say For Boss X spec A-E-H-K-N-Q? Of course. But fight and class awareness - along with (hopefully) a relatively easy system for talent-swapping - makes these largely irrelevant.
cloudbuster Dec 8th 2011 2:09PM
I agree that the talent system rocks. Most of the talents offered are at least acceptable, as well. It's what the MoP Talent Calculator is showing us about the specs outside the talents that's troubling. All the Tier 1 spec. talents are completely MIA. These may be "boring, passive" talents, but they have an enormous impact on gameplay. I see no sign that these abilities are being rolled into the specs. In fact, the spec. ability listings are rather tired, incomplete, unimaginative adaptations of the current specs. to the new framework. Having BM missing Longevity, Go for the Throat, Sic'em. Efficiency, Improved Kill Command, Bestial Discipline, One with Nature and Pathing all severely affects the spec.
All of the first two tiers of talents are available, at least in part, to all specs. and are important to all specs. We see no clue about how that will be addressed. We're being asked to provide feedback, but being given such a haphazard effort to work with, it's hard to provide meaningful feedback. We're left either assuming "well, surely they're rectify " or being quite worried about where this is leading.
They finally removed Counterattack, but they don't address the problem with why Counterattack is such a joke. In Wrath and Cata, hunters have been systematically stripped of our passive defenses. Our parry was nerfed to the ground in Wrath, but we were left with dodge (due to monkey and dragonhawk), and talents that improved our dodge. In Cata, they stripped away all our dodge. We're hugely squishy in melee (and now disengage is broken. Argh!). We have almost no passive damage mitigation other than armor (which ain't very impressive). Aspect of the Iron Hawk is NOT going to fix that, because we'll still frequently need to switch to Fox when being trained by melee and we need to move while recovering focus (right when we need the damage reduction. duh.).
What we're being shown is wholly unworkable if implemented as is, and we're being given no insight that there's a plan for how to put it all together in something that work.
Again, the talent framework is great. Our peek into the spec. construction is deeply troubling.
Ringo Flinthammer Dec 8th 2011 4:21PM
The plan for how they'll put it together to make it work is called "F&F alpha" and "beta." This will not be our talent list when MoP ships.
cloudbuster Dec 8th 2011 4:58PM
Oh, and what is your source for that information? I'm not as sanguine about you that this isn't what our specs will look like come MoP, in the absence of criticism and advice to the contrary. They put these out there for us to critique, therefore we must assume they have some validity.
cloudbuster Dec 8th 2011 5:01PM
Adding to what I just said -- I develop software. By the time we have an Alpha, the plan is long done and the bulk of the coding is done. The last thing we really want to do is to have to scrap a lot of hard work because our Alpha is completely wrong. NOW is the time for plans. Before we reach Alpha.
Dan Dec 8th 2011 7:13PM
Except that they do change things like this...all the time. They do it already on every single PTR. I'm not a programming expert, but judging from my experience on PTRs and other game betas, I know that just because the coding is done doesn't mean they're not going to change all this before it goes live. On the contrary, the big surprise would be if nothing changed.
Kuttyr Dec 8th 2011 2:59PM
I found it interesting that for SV Lock'n'Load no longer procs off of Black Arrow or any fire trap. Only procs off ice/freeze. At least based off the current tooltip.
cloudbuster Dec 8th 2011 3:15PM
It has always been that way. It's TNT which causes Explosive Trap and Black Arrow to proc LnL
kuttyr Dec 8th 2011 3:35PM
Awesome, how in the world had I never noticed that before. Need more caffeine.
Kaesth Dec 8th 2011 6:16PM
I think the last tier is extremely unlikely to make it live. One reason is because it's boring as sin. It has zero pve applications (hunters have sufficient CC options for 5 mans, most of it won't work in raids, and other classes have better options than hunters). The only pve application I can think of would be the extremely gimmicky use of dropping a frost trap in a place where it might be activated so you can get a speed boost. That's.....really unfun.
The pvp application you've suggested for the transmorph trap is also an absurd amount of control for any single player to have. Short of having all of those abilities start to share cooldowns, I just can't imagine it'll make it through a balance pass.
Additionally, and perhaps more fundamentally, I think the last tier (and in some way the entire tree) misses entirely what makes a hunter a hunter. What do you think about when you think about being a hunter? 1) shooting things, 2) having a pet. Traps, disengage? Both way down the list. I think the level 90 talent tree could have become far more compelling had it been dedicated to improving pets or changing or improving how we shoot htings. Imagine if the three options were: 1) stable rush in which all of your pets come out and run around being awesome for however long; 2) "mirror pet" in which case 1 duplicate of your current pet spawns for a limited duration, during which your pet's special abilities have no cooldown or a halved cooldown or something (utility/cc/pvp awesomeness); 3) a hunter equivalent of symbiosis in which the hunter inherits an attribute or ability based on the family of his current pet.
Those types of abilities feel very hunter. Those feel (to me) very awesome. Being able to chain a single frost trap or move faster over an ice trap or turn something into a weird...beast...thing? None of that is epic or cool (even if it turns out t be kinda useful), and none of it affects how we do our primary job. It might be a good lower tier, but it definitely isn't up to snuff for a level 90 tier, regardless of what our 87 and 90 abilities end up being.
monotype Dec 8th 2011 11:14PM
>>3) a hunter equivalent of symbiosis in which the hunter inherits an attribute or ability based on the family of his current pet.
...holy crap, that's one of the most awesome ideas I've heard since Blizz Con. Grokking the toughness of your bear for when your tank "DCs" in the middle of some nasty pulls? Or getting a focus regen boost, courtesy of your bird of prey? -- oh, no, no, no, give me hunter Heart of the Phoenix! I want this so bad, and now I'm sad because I know it won't happen. D:
Lexy Dec 9th 2011 4:42AM
Like the level 90 talent tree you listed, I might have a few ideas myself to change it a bit.
1) Stable rush: agree with this one, all 5 pets will come out for 20sec? and will start attacking the current target with their own abilities (claw, bite, ...)
2) Mirrow pet: This I would see more fit for a BM hunter. You get an exact copy of your current pet which will also use abilities like kill command, bestial wrath(this one might be too powerfull though). In fact double the pet dps for 20sec?
3) Again, like the idea, but I would go a bit further. How about you melt together with your pet and become one new powerfull "creature" for 20sec with new abilities (something like the metamorphosis skill for warlocks).
dmrobertson2 Dec 8th 2011 8:12PM
I've been using Wyvern Sting and Freeze Trapping combo for a while. To me it is awesome in 5 mans. I remember goin against Malacross and Wyverning the snake and Freeze trapping the Imp. I did it that way because I could scare beast the snake after the sting popped
monotype Dec 8th 2011 11:16PM
Yeah, I've definitely had tanks look around after pulls and go, "Hey, who put that troll to sleep?"
"Uh, I did."
"Hunters can do that? I had no idea!"