WoW Insiderhttp://wow.joystiq.comWoW Insiderhttp://wow.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gifWoW Insiderhttp://wow.joystiq.comen-usCopyright 2015 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/WoW Insider ShowEvery week, the WoW Insider Show brings you news and views from the World of Warcraft and the site that covers it all, WoW Insider. We introduce a panel of rotating guests, including bloggers from WoW Insider and other WoW blogs, and many popular personalities from around the WoW community. From the live listener chat and polls during the show, to the emails direct from listeners (reach us at theshow@wow.com), right on to the "meat" of the show -- in-depth discussion of the most popular news and posts on WoW Insider -- the WoW Insider Show is a terrific source of news and entertainment about what's going on with Blizzard and their World of Warcraft. Listen live every Saturday at 3:30 pm Eastern on our Ustream page (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wow-insider-show) or subscribe to the feed and let us know what you think by reviewing the show right here in iTunes.How to play a boosted level 90 hunterhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/26/how-to-play-a-boosted-level-90-hunter/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/26/how-to-play-a-boosted-level-90-hunter/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/26/how-to-play-a-boosted-level-90-hunter/#commentsFiled under: ,

Night Elf Hunter with Wolf
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing how to get started with the hunter class.

Do you still need convincing on why you should boost a hunter to 90? Go check out my 10 reasons why from last week. So you've got a fresh level 90 hunter in front of you -- what now? What are all these abilities? How do pets work? We've got answers for all that. Without the benefit of having abilities and mechanics slowly introduced while leveling, you might be a little confused when you first log in. Don't fret, you'll be turning monsters into pin cushions and taming an army of pets in no time.

You can check out my previous getting started with hunters article for help in choosing a race and specialization for your hunter. Once you're past that step, we can dive into the meaty bits. We'll start with the absolute basics. What to do the moment you log in with a fresh 90 hunter. First, I want you to take a peek in your spellbook. Don't panic, we'll sort out what's important here.

Continue reading How to play a boosted level 90 hunter

WoW InsiderHow to play a boosted level 90 hunter originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 26 Feb 2014 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>90-boostbeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-dpshunter-gearhunter-guidehunter-infohunter-petshunter-talentslevel-90-boostmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsnew-playersrookie-guidesurvival-hunter-scattered-shotsAdam KoebelWed, 26 Feb 2014 20:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: 10 reasons to use your level 90 boost on a hunterhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/20/scattered-shots-10-reasons-to-use-your-level-90-boost-on-a-hunt/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/20/scattered-shots-10-reasons-to-use-your-level-90-boost-on-a-hunt/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/20/scattered-shots-10-reasons-to-use-your-level-90-boost-on-a-hunt/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Hunter pets
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the reasons why you should be playing a hunter.

As you may have heard, Warlords of Draenor will be available for pre-order soon, and with each purchase comes one free level 90 boost. Still wondering which class you should use your boost on? I'm here to make your decision a whole lot easier. Here are 10 reasons why you should use your level 90 boost on a hunter.

1. Feign death

Hunters only die if we choose to die. Feign Death makes a hunter's repair bill is a mere fraction of what it would normally be. It's not just about repair bills though, it's about being able to avoid fighting things you don't want to fight. It's about avoiding corpse runs. And you would be surprised how often it fools people in PvP. Other classes are jealous of Feign Death, but they put up with it because we can mass resurrect to save them a corpse run. I put this at number one because it is, without a doubt, my favorite hunter ability. On second thought, it's probably tied with number three on the list. It's really hard to choose.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: 10 reasons to use your level 90 boost on a hunter

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: 10 reasons to use your level 90 boost on a hunter originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Feb 2014 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotschoosing-a-classhunter-infohunter-petshunter-soloinghunter-talentslevel-90-boostlevel-90-hunter-boostmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsnew-playerssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotsAdam KoebelThu, 20 Feb 2014 11:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Hunting for transmog gearhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/13/scattered-shots-hunting-for-transmog-gear-thursday/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/13/scattered-shots-hunting-for-transmog-gear-thursday/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/13/scattered-shots-hunting-for-transmog-gear-thursday/#commentsFiled under: ,

Hunter & Loque'nahak
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing his favorite hunter transmog gear.

On my main hunter I count 61 ranged weapons, 11 complete tier sets, and 350 total pieces of transmog gear. I guess you could say transmogrification has become somewhat of an obsession of mine. As soon as I heard the feature was coming way back during patch 4.2, I began the hunt to to re-acquire gear I'd possessed in the past, or other gear which I always wished I had while it was relevant but never had the opportunity. It breathed new life into the game for me.

Hunters are well suited for farming transmog gear as we can solo things that other classes can't. We also have the freedom of transmogging any ranged weapon type into another, e.g. a gun into a bow. If you search hard enough, you'll find some really unique pieces out there which allow you to look like you're wearing armor from a different class. For example, did you know there's a mail armor eye patch available?

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunting for transmog gear

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Hunting for transmog gear originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 13 Feb 2014 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-guidehunter-transmoghunter-transmogrificationmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotstransmogtransmogrificationAdam KoebelThu, 13 Feb 2014 16:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Button bloat and its effect on hunter DPShttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/06/scattered-shots-button-bloat-and-its-effect-on-hunter-dps/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/06/scattered-shots-button-bloat-and-its-effect-on-hunter-dps/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/06/scattered-shots-button-bloat-and-its-effect-on-hunter-dps/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Hunter in Tsunami Armor
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the strange cost of button bloat.

When most hunters think button bloat, they think of abilities like Eagle Eye or Distracting Shot -- completely situational abilities that many won't even bother to key bind. They may be superfluous, but these abilities are not the real bloat problem if you ask me. The true problem is having our damage distributed amongst a dozen or more DPS abilities. Having this many buttons for DPS ends up devaluing each one individually until single abilities cease to matter. Each expansion has added more, and it's beginning to get a little tedious.

It may seem counterintuitive to suggest less buttons can result in more compelling gameplay, but I believe it's the truth in the case of hunter DPS. Properly using fewer abilities with perfect focus management is more difficult than executing a long list of abilities in sequence. When you have so many buttons, using each one has less perceived impact -- as in how much the monster's health drops in response -- compared to a handful of strong, satisfying abilities. A large number of DPS buttons is only meaningful if there is a choice in what you're pressing. Currently, I feel there is very little choice here. You either hit all the buttons or you don't.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Button bloat and its effect on hunter DPS

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Button bloat and its effect on hunter DPS originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 06 Feb 2014 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>ability-bloatbeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotsbutton-bloathunter-rotationmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotsAdam KoebelThu, 06 Feb 2014 16:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Hunter etiquettehttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/30/scattered-shots-hunter-etiquette/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/30/scattered-shots-hunter-etiquette/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/30/scattered-shots-hunter-etiquette/#commentsFiled under: ,

Feign Death
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing what it means to be a good hunter.

The level 90 boosts are coming Soon[TM] and I am sure there are some of you interested in picking the hunter as your first boosted character. You can check out my article on getting started with the hunter class from two weeks ago for a brief introduction to the class and picking a race. Once you are level 90 and want to start doing group activities, there are some things you should know about being a hunter. The last thing you want to do is contribute to that awful "huntard" stereotype.

We're going to start off with a little pet etiquette. First and foremost, turn off Growl autocast when you are in any kind of instance with a tank. Even veteran hunters make this mistake from time to time. You're out killing things on the Timeless Isle, and all of the sudden your queue pops and you forget to turn Growl off once you get inside. If you find that you are forgetful when it comes to this, you may want to look into getting the BadPet addon or something similar.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunter etiquette

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Hunter etiquette originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshuntardhunter-guidehunter-infohunter-petsmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsnew-playerssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotsAdam KoebelThu, 30 Jan 2014 13:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Beast mastery vs. survival raidinghttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/23/scattered-shots-beast-mastery-vs-survival-raiding/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/23/scattered-shots-beast-mastery-vs-survival-raiding/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/23/scattered-shots-beast-mastery-vs-survival-raiding/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Hunter in Nagrand
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the differences between survival and beast mastery raiding.

It's been a long time since I felt the need to agonize over what spec I want to play on my hunter in raids. Usually there's one clear cut winner, but in Siege of Orgrimmar both survival and beast mastery are doing pretty darn well. Maybe we're not putting out warlock numbers, but we're well into the upper half of the charts when it comes to DPS. The recent hotfix to Aspect of the Hawk gave us just enough of a kick to keep us competitive as everyone continues to gear up. Marksmanship has cemented itself as a popular PvP spec in 5.4, and maybe it's OK that one spec is more PvP oriented. At least we have large numbers of hunters playing all three specs -- it's not a luxury we've always had in the past.

One of the most common questions I see from new hunters is what spec should they play for the best DPS? It's difficult to answer such a question, and it reminds me a lot of the "what is the best pet?" question. If we're talking about PvE it really comes down to beast mastery vs. survival. I haven't forgotten about marksmanship, but in my opinion it's just not as versatile for raiding this tier, or this entire expansion for that matter. As for choosing between survival and beast mastery, the best place to start is to learn the differences.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Beast mastery vs. survival raiding

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Beast mastery vs. survival raiding originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 23 Jan 2014 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-masterybeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-guidehunter-infohunter-raidingsiege-of-orgrimmarsurvivalsurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswow-hunter-infoAdam KoebelThu, 23 Jan 2014 14:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Getting started with the hunter classhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/16/scattered-shots-getting-started-with-the-hunter-class/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/16/scattered-shots-getting-started-with-the-hunter-class/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/16/scattered-shots-getting-started-with-the-hunter-class/#commentsFiled under: ,

Night elf hunter
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing how to get started with the hunter class.

Before we get into this week's column, I wanted to give a shout out to the Hunting Party Podcast. All good things must come to an end, and this Saturday, January 18 at 2 p.m. EST will be episode 200, aka the final episode. Retired hosts will be returning as well as some special guests. It should be a fine send off to this awesome hunter-specific podcast. If you miss the live show you will find it on their front page or Youtube. Now, back to your regularly scheduled huntering.

So you've finally decided to roll a hunter. Congratulations on coming to your senses and choosing the best class in WoW. Whether you are a veteran of one of the other 10 hunter-support classes, or a brand new WoW player, there are probably important questions burning in your head like which color of sporebat should you tame? Such questions will all be answered in due time, but first you should meditate on whether or not this is truly the class for you.

I think you'll have a hard time fully enjoying your hunter if the idea of hunting down and managing pets doesn't get you excited. Some players are just looking for that classic archer archetype and unfortunately WoW does not have that. There are other pet classes, but none compare to hunters. We get to choose from literally hundreds of different pets in the world (with many more added each expansion). We name them, fight with them, choose their specialization, and can collect up to 55 of them on a single hunter. We're the only class which can bring almost any buff or debuff to our groups. Oh, and we can play dead to avoid repair bills.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Getting started with the hunter class

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Getting started with the hunter class originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-guidehunter-infohunter-levelingmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsnew-player-guidenew-playerssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswow-hunterAdam KoebelThu, 16 Jan 2014 13:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Hunter predictions for 2014http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/09/scattered-shots-hunter-predictions-for-2014/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/09/scattered-shots-hunter-predictions-for-2014/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/09/scattered-shots-hunter-predictions-for-2014/#commentsFiled under: ,

Hunter at Dark Portal
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing predictions for hunters in 2014.

Happy New Year, Hunters! I hope you're all enjoying our late Christmas present from Blizzard. For the past three years, Frostheim (former Scattered Shots columnist) has been doing annual hunter predictions and looking back at them to see how accurate he was a year later. I'm going to continue the tradition today with 2014 hunter predictions. Trying to guess what's going to happen in an expansion year is pretty tough compared to predicting what will happen during an already-released expansion, but that just lets me get a little more crazy with the predictions. I'll try to have a decent mix of realistic and outrageous predictions, but before that we'll start with doing a quick review of Frostheim's 2013 predictions which he made a year ago. At that point, patch 5.1 was about a month old and the Throne of Thunder was still a couple months away.

2013 predictions review
  • Hunters get a DPS buff. This one turned out to be slightly true. We never ended up topping the meters in Mists, but after getting some PvP-driven nerfs early in the expansion, we were finally compensated somewhat in 5.4 with signature shot buffs and having Stampede restored to full damage in PvE. There was also Aspect of the Hawk -- which started out this expansion as a 10% RAP buff -- now a whopping 35% after three mid-tier buffs.
  • Sniper Training or something similar returns. This didn't happen in 2013, but one of the level 100 talents (which could and probably will change), is called Snipe and can only be used while standing still.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunter predictions for 2014

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Hunter predictions for 2014 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 09 Jan 2014 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>ability-squishbeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotsbutton-bloathunter-infohunter-predictionshunters-warlords-of-draenorlevel-100-talents-huntermarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswow-huntersAdam KoebelThu, 09 Jan 2014 09:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Hunter pets we'd like to see in our stableshttp://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/02/scattered-shots-hunter-pets-wed-like-to-see-in-our-stables/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/02/scattered-shots-hunter-pets-wed-like-to-see-in-our-stables/http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/01/02/scattered-shots-hunter-pets-wed-like-to-see-in-our-stables/#commentsFiled under: ,

Diemetradon
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing potential new hunter pets in Warlords of Draenor.

Blizzard seems to have really enjoyed teasing hunters this expansion with the Dire Beast spell. Dire Beast is a talent which summons a random beast to fight for you for 15 seconds. Each zone in Pandaria has three different beasts it chooses from, and there are several instances where it will summon a beast which you're currently unable to tame. The most notable examples being the pterrorwings on Isle of Thunder and the gulp frogs on Timeless Isle.

There's also several beast families which have been in the game for a long time but remain untamable. Occasionally, these are added in a new expansion, such as the basilik and water strider in Mists of Pandaria. As a pet collector, I have high hopes that we'll see both old and new pet families added in Warlords of Draenor to fill our stables. Let's start with a family of beast so obvious that they already have a unique spell attributed to them in the game.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunter pets we'd like to see in our stables

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Hunter pets we'd like to see in our stables originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 02 Jan 2014 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-infohunter-petsmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotspet-tamingrare-petssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswarlords-of-draenor-petswow-hunter-petswow-petsAdam KoebelThu, 02 Jan 2014 20:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Challenge mode tips for huntershttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/26/scattered-shots-challenge-mode-tips-for-hunters/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/26/scattered-shots-challenge-mode-tips-for-hunters/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/26/scattered-shots-challenge-mode-tips-for-hunters/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Hunter in Challenge Mode Armor
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing how to succeed as a hunter in Mists of Pandaria challenge mode dungeons.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like challenge mode dungeons are the most underutilized new feature in Mists of Pandaria. It's something I didn't even touch for the first year of the expansion until I started to run out of other things to do. Cosmetic rewards don't get everyone excited, and I think some people are intimidated by them. Getting all gold medals is definitely a challenge, but you don't have to strive for that on your first run at them. Silver medals should be doable by any organized group, and bronze medals have a long enough time limit to be completed in a decent pickup group.

Gear optimization can help somewhat, but ultimately challenge modes are about skill and efficiency. There's still room for mistakes - even for a gold medal - but your group will be relying on you to maximize your DPS, crowd control, and interrupts. Hunters can be strong in challenge mode dungeons and any group will welcome a competent one with open arms. If you have the class aptitude to complete the gold medal in the proving grounds, you are ready to go for the gold in challenge modes.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Challenge mode tips for hunters

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Challenge mode tips for hunters originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 26 Dec 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotschallenge-modehunter-challenge-modehunter-guidehunter-talentshunter-tipsmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotsAdam KoebelThu, 26 Dec 2013 09:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Macro your hunterhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/19/scattered-shots-macro-your-hunter/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/19/scattered-shots-macro-your-hunter/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/19/scattered-shots-macro-your-hunter/#commentsFiled under: ,

Hunter Macros
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing hunter macros.

Macros are all about saving clicks and key presses. Next to addons, they are probably the largest quality of life enhancement you can add to your gameplay. For the uninitiated, macros are simple scripts that allow you to combine multiple abilities and conditional parameters into a single button. You don't need them to play, but the benefits are tangible and will improve your overall performance.

If you're an engineer, take Synapse Springs for instance. It's off the global cooldown, which means you can stack it on top of other abilities to maximize its uptime and not worry about remembering to use it. Sometimes certain abilities will line up closely with other cooldowns which makes it beneficial to macro it in instead of using autocast. Have you ever noticed how slowly your pet will switch targets sometimes? Or when you tell it to Kill Command on a new target, but it attacks its previous target instead? There's a way to fix it with macros. As a keyboard abuser, one of my favorite macro perks is being able to remove the error messages and "spell not ready yet" sounds my character makes as I spam my buttons.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Macro your hunter

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Macro your hunter originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 19 Dec 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-guidehunter-macrosmacrosmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswow-macrosAdam KoebelThu, 19 Dec 2013 13:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Mining Celestalon's tweets for hunter informationhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/12/scattered-shots-mining-celestalons-tweets-for-hunter-informati/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/12/scattered-shots-mining-celestalons-tweets-for-hunter-informati/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/12/scattered-shots-mining-celestalons-tweets-for-hunter-informati/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Hunter in Draenor
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing new stats and the potential for hunter spec differentiation.

We're still patiently waiting for the Warlords of Draenor beta to get some more concrete information on hunters, but in the meantime we've had Celestalon to poke and prod on Twitter. Celestalon is a Technical Game Designer on WoW and has been very forthcoming with technical information regarding classes and the new gearing system in Warlords. We've learned a few new bits of information such as how new secondary stats will work and some vague plans for their intentions with the hunter class. If you missed the BlizzCon hunter recap post, be sure to check it out before we dive into the newer stuff.

The replacements for hit and expertise

You may have heard how hit and expertise are being removed from the game in Warlords of Draenor. I was very happy when I heard about this, but at the same time wondered if gear was going to get too simple since they're also removing reforging, and having less gems and enchants on gear. The good news is, those two wholly uninteresting stats are being replaced by 3 new ones, and if you've been raiding Siege of Orgrimmar their functionality may already be familiar to you.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Mining Celestalon's tweets for hunter information

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Mining Celestalon's tweets for hunter information originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 12 Dec 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>amplifybeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotscelestalonhunter-infohunters-warlords-of-draenormarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsmultistrikenew-secondary-statsreadinesssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotstertiary-statsAdam KoebelThu, 12 Dec 2013 14:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Helpful hunter addonshttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/05/scattered-shots-helpful-hunter-addons/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/05/scattered-shots-helpful-hunter-addons/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/12/05/scattered-shots-helpful-hunter-addons/#commentsFiled under: ,

Hunter with Quilen Pet
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing UI addons for hunters.

I've personally never been much of a fan of cosmetic UI addons, but I'm a big proponent of utility addons and feel like they can improve your performance dramatically. Therefore, I won't really be talking about unit frames or action bar replacements because frankly I'm not very current with them. If you're interested in giving your whole UI a facelift, you may want to look into an all-in-one solution such as ElvUI, or check out WoW Insider's addon spotlight. Let's start with the addons I can't imagine playing my hunter without.

Essential addons
  • Skada Damage Meter (Curse | WoWInterface): This one is my personal preference over Recount. I like being able to save individual parses for later viewing, and I like some of the plugins you can use with it. One of the best ones is SkadaExplosive. This one is entirely made for tracking the T16 4-piece survival bonus. It lets you know what your longest Explosive Shot streak was (every time I get a 10 streak I feel like it's Christmas morning), the highest damaging tick, and other Lock and Load stats.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Helpful hunter addons

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Helpful hunter addons originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 05 Dec 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>addonsbeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-addonshunter-guidemarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsprocsrppmsurvival-hunter-scattered-shotsui-guideweakauraswow-hunter-infoAdam KoebelThu, 05 Dec 2013 09:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Why every hunter needs a tallstrider pethttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/28/scattered-shots-why-every-hunter-needs-a-tallstrider-pet/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/28/scattered-shots-why-every-hunter-needs-a-tallstrider-pet/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/28/scattered-shots-why-every-hunter-needs-a-tallstrider-pet/#commentsFiled under: ,

Hunter pets, tallstriders
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing how awesome tallstriders are, along with some other interesting hunter pets.

I still deeply regret abandoning my hydra pet back in Wrath of the Lich King. A bug in one of the daily quests in Sholazar Basin allowed hunters to tame a ghostly hydra, oozeling, or crocodile. Blizzard fixed the bug, but allowed everyone to keep their pets. In my defense, we were only allowed to have four pets in our stable at the time, and there was spirit beasts to be had. Do you know how heavily camped Loque'nahak was back then? You think cross-realm zones are bad?

Before Wrath added a couple of extra stable slots (which cost gold, by the way), hunters only had two stable slots throughout vanilla and BC in addition to our active pet. Then Cataclysm came along and let us tame a whopping 25 pets. I'm pretty sure the server hosting the Petopia forums spontaneously exploded in the back of a room somewhere, ruining some poor IT guy's day. It felt like it could never get any better for a pet collector. Then patch 5.3 came along and Blizzard said: "You guys want, like, 30 more pet slots? Sure, here you go."

The new slots were welcome, but just how does one tame 55 unique pets?. Once you've tamed every rare and hunted down every spirit beast, what else is there? The tallstrider, of course. Get one in every color and have your own fleet of tallstriders. Tallstriders are awesome! Maybe even more awesome than sporebats.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Why every hunter needs a tallstrider pet

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Why every hunter needs a tallstrider pet originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 28 Nov 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotsexotic-petshunter-petsmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsrare-petsspirit-beastsurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswow-hunter-infowow-huntersAdam KoebelThu, 28 Nov 2013 16:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Lone wolveshttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/21/scattered-shots-lone-wolves/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/21/scattered-shots-lone-wolves/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/21/scattered-shots-lone-wolves/#commentsFiled under: ,

Lone Wolf Hunter
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the fourth hunter specialization masquerading as a talent.

If you missed Scattered Shots last week, you can go check it out for a summary of what we learned about hunters at BlizzCon 2013. Today, I want to focus on the most controversial of the new talents: Lone Wolf. By taking this talent (only as survival or marksmanship) you gain 30% increased damage when your pet is not active. I've read a lot of posts, tweets, and comments over the past week and it seems that hunters are split right down the middle with this talent, along with a few in the middle who like having it as an option for pet unfriendly encounters.

My initial reaction to Lone Wolf was very enthusiastic, but then I started to wonder how it was going to work with a class built around pets. It's going to have a cascading effect on many existing hunter talents and abilities, namely anything that works in conjunction with your pet. It's possible Blizzard will add secondary effects to these talents so they work without a pet, but if they spend the time adapting older abilities then why not just go all in with the idea? If someone is leveling up a hunter, shouldn't they be able to make a play style choice as drastic as this early on instead of at level 100? Then again, hunters are a pet class ... so why do we need this talent, anyway?

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Lone wolves

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Lone wolves originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 21 Nov 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>hunter-talentslone-wolfmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswarlords-of-draenorwarlords-of-draenor-level-100-talentswow-hunter-infoAdam KoebelThu, 21 Nov 2013 09:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Hunters at BlizzCon 2013http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/14/scattered-shots-hunters-at-blizzcon-2013/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/14/scattered-shots-hunters-at-blizzcon-2013/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/14/scattered-shots-hunters-at-blizzcon-2013/#commentsFiled under: ,

Hunters at BlizzCon 2013
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing level 100 talents and other awesome hunter things from BlizzCon 2013.

This past week has been a blur. Things at WoW Insider have been hectic, and I'm still trying to catch up on everything from BlizzCon (thank you, virtual ticket). The most notable thing relating to hunters to come out of BlizzCon was the level 100 talents. When I first read the original transcriptions that people we're tweeting out from the demo stations, I thought I was being trolled.

I never thought I would see the day of a hunter without a pet. Then again, the mantra of Warlords of Draenor is that nothing is sacred. The brilliant thing about the other two talents is they replace existing abilities, so they won't be contributing to the ability bloat problem. There's a few more tidbits of information besides talents to look at. This week, we'll do a recap of everything we learned about hunters at BlizzCon.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunters at BlizzCon 2013

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Hunters at BlizzCon 2013 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotsblizzcon-2013hunter-talentslevel-100-talents-huntermarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotsquiverssurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswarlords-of-draenorAdam KoebelThu, 14 Nov 2013 17:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: A hunter retrospectivehttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/07/scattered-shots-a-hunter-retrospective/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/07/scattered-shots-a-hunter-retrospective/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/07/scattered-shots-a-hunter-retrospective/#commentsFiled under: ,

A Hunter Retrospective
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the nine year history of the hunter class.

Last week, we talked about the community's ideas for the future of hunters. This week, on the eve of BlizzCon, we're going to look in the other direction at the nine year history of hunters. Recently, I was browsing through some ancient screenshots (which you'll find peppered through this article) and I was struck with some mixed emotions. I was extremely nostalgic for vanilla, but at the same time I would never want to go back to how it was. You veteran hunters can put on your rose-tinted glasses as I dive back into the era of pet happiness and mongoose bites, and the rest of you can find out just how much our class has changed over the years.

Our story begins in beta patch 0.9, released on August 17, 2004. This was a very special patch because it's when hunters were added to World of Warcraft -- the last class to be added, in fact. Things were different back then. The survival specialization was known as "outdoorsmanship" and marksmanship was known as "ranged combat" because it was the only specialization actually focused on ranged combat. Prior to this patch, all classes were able to learn tracking but now it was made exclusive to hunters (and rightfully so). Feign Death was a rogue and druid ability before the hunters came and took it over. To this day, the name of the Feign Death icon is "ability_rogue_feigndeath."

Continue reading Scattered Shots: A hunter retrospective

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: A hunter retrospective originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 07 Nov 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-masterybeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-infomarksmanshipmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvivalsurvival-hunter-scattered-shotsvanilla-wowWoW-historywow-hunter-historywow-huntersAdam KoebelThu, 07 Nov 2013 14:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Hunter wish list for 6.0http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/31/scattered-shots-hunter-wish-list-for-6-0/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/31/scattered-shots-hunter-wish-list-for-6-0/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/31/scattered-shots-hunter-wish-list-for-6-0/#commentsFiled under: ,

Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the future of the hunter class.

In little more than a week, we'll know what we have to look forward to in the next expansion at BlizzCon. Whether or not we hear something about hunters specifically remains to be seen. There's no class panel scheduled and class questions won't be allowed during the Q&A panel. We have had some hints from the developers here and there, but ultimately our future is a mystery and may remain so until we see the first beta patch notes.

Arth over at the Warcraft Hunters Union has been compiling a community-generated list of hunter ideas and suggestions intended for the developers known as The Hunter Project. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the hunter class as it stands, but there are some areas where I think some changes are needed. We'll take a look at some of the suggestions put forth in The Hunter Project and I'll add my own input to the mix.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunter wish list for 6.0

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Hunter wish list for 6.0 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-masterybeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotshunter-infohunter-petshunter-talentsmarksmanshipmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotssurvivalsurvival-hunter-scattered-shotswow-hunterwow-hunter-infowow-huntersAdam KoebelThu, 31 Oct 2013 15:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Siege tips and tricks, part 2http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/24/scattered-shots-siege-tips-and-tricks-part-2/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/24/scattered-shots-siege-tips-and-tricks-part-2/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/24/scattered-shots-siege-tips-and-tricks-part-2/#commentsFiled under: ,

Garrosh Hellscream slain by Hunters!
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the finer points of pew pewing in The Underhold and Downfall wings of Siege of Orgrimmar.

Some of you have been waiting 6 weeks for the Downfall wing to unlock, but now all hunters will get their opportunity to turn Garrosh Hellscream into their own personal pin cushion. If you missed the column from a few weeks ago, you can go check out part 1 of the Siege tips and tricks, covering Vale of Eternal Sorrows and Gates of Retribution.

The fights in the latter half of the raid range from purely single target, such as Malkorok, to complete AoE binges like Spoils of Pandaria. In this guide we'll be focusing on mechanics in flexible and normal mode, but some of this can apply to raid finder difficulty. Keep in mind that a lot of the forthcoming tips are simply suggestions and that your mileage may vary. What works for me may not work for you, but this will give you an idea of how our abilities can be utilized on the final six bosses. Stock up on some Tomes of the Clear Mind and let's get started.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Siege tips and tricks, part 2

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Siege tips and tricks, part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>beast-masteryhunter-beast-mastery-scattered-shotshunter-guidehunter-infohunter-marksmanship-scattered-shotshunter-survival-scattered-shotshunter-talentsmarksmanshipsiege-of-orgrimmarsurvivaltipstips-and-trickswow-hunterAdam KoebelThu, 24 Oct 2013 14:00:00 ESTScattered Shots: Hunter Theorycrafting 101http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/16/scattered-shots-hunter-theorycrafting-101/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/16/scattered-shots-hunter-theorycrafting-101/http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/10/16/scattered-shots-hunter-theorycrafting-101/#commentsFiled under: ,

WoW Hunter Theorycrafting
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing how to maximize your performance through theorycrafting.

Whenever someone asks me what my secret is for topping the meters, I always tell them it's because I push my buttons harder than anyone else in the raid. Most of them think I'm joking, but it's the truth. High DPS players are keyboard abusers who don't miss a single global cooldown. This is the biggest factor in your DPS, but optimization through theorycrafting still matters -- it's like icing on the cake.

If you're scared of a little math, then don't be. There are fancy tools that do everything for you now such as Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer, Simulation Craft and Ask Mr. Robot. Aside from squeezing out a little bit of extra DPS, theorycrafting will help you understand your abilities and how they contribute to your DPS which is going to result in better damage in the real world.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunter Theorycrafting 101

WoW InsiderScattered Shots: Hunter Theorycrafting 101 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 Oct 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]>hunter-beast-mastery-scattered-shotshunter-dpshunter-guidehunter-infohunter-marksmanship-scattered-shotshunter-survival-scattered-shotshunter-talentshunter-theorycraftingsimulationsimulation-crafttheorycraftingwow-class-guidewow-guideAdam KoebelWed, 16 Oct 2013 18:00:00 EST