Posts with tag WoW, Warcraft, hunter

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I'm living a dream that many guys out there have: My girlfriend is actively learning how to play World of Warcraft and is enjoying it. After a couple of false starts, she finally found a class that suited her.

First, she tried a warlock. Too many things to remember. Keeping DoTs up, keeping up with soul shards and collecting them, keeping tabs on her demon in battle. It was too much for her.

She tried a hunter. Taming her own pet was cool at first, but then she had to feed it and manage it in dungeons. Throw Feign Death, Deterrence and Disengage into the mix, and it was not her cup of tea. She's flying back 10 yards into other packs of mobs and feigning death every time the cooldown is up because she's afraid of the tank yelling at her for "doing the aggro thing." I was dismayed that a hunter didn't work out, because I always deemed it the default starter class for new players. At least it was for me.

Then came the paladin. Oh, blessed paladin, how she loves thee. At first, all she had to do was run up to the mob and hit it with Judgement of Light. The only "tricky" thing I had to teach her was when the Judgement of Light button was dark and wouldn't let her use it, it meant she needed to apply her Seal of Righteousness again. I even put the Seal right above the Judgement so she wouldn't forget. She was actually having pure joy with her new class. She didn't wonder if she was doing it right. She didn't worry about forgetting something. Just kill, kill, kill and love every second of it.

Leveling up my draenei hunter, I used to keep looking for the next upgraded item I'd be able to use. My most exciting upgrading moment so far came when I reached level 40 and got to put on a full mail set I had bought and put away in the bank just for that moment.

Somehow, though, I wasn't able to find many upgrades in my forties, and now starting on my fifties, some of that armor I had saved in the bank is still the best I can find, on the auction or in quests. The surprising thing is that leveling still isn't that hard! Of course maybe it's just because I'm a hunter, and hunters can even level naked if they want to.

Still, it makes me wonder just how often we need to try and upgrade our armor leveling up. Is it totally different for the various classes? For example, can a hunter get by with sub-par gear for a long time, while a priest or warrior never could? If you're trying to level a very gear dependent class and just can't seem to find good upgrades, how do you manage?

Paladinsucks points us to this fascinating video of a level 70 hunter soloing Azuregos. Yes, you read that right -- a single level 70 hunter soloing Azuregos. And before you say it can't be done, the hunter does say he spent 87 minutes working on this -- and if you can hold out for that long, I'm tempted to believe almost anything's possible.

Previously on Moviewatch...

First, a word of caution: there is a possibility that Blizz may consider this strategy to be griefing, so employ it at your own risk. It is, however, awesome. Apparently, if you're a Hunter, you can get a beggar killed, in town, if you're near an NPC that you can declare war on. For this example, we'll use a Cenarion Circle NPC (which I think there are in every major city). To summarize the OP:

1. Beggar asks for gold.
2. Invite beggar to group.
3. Set "at war" with Cenarion Circle, put Misdirection on beggar, and shoot the Cenarion Circle NPC.
4. The NPC will attack and probably kill the beggar.

Pretty sweet, eh? Of course, the more attention this gets, the more likely it'll be fixed, so I had to think for a while before deciding to post it here. However, the forum thread is pretty hot right now, so more than likely Blizz knows about it already. Check the thread for pictures; there's also allegedly a movie here.

[Thanks to Brisk of Eldre'thalas for sending this one in]

Wow, who knew Hunters were so unhappy with their pet situation? Zolberserker, of H-Eitrigg-US, has made an exceedingly long list of improvements he wants for Hunter pets, to be included in what he terms a "pet patch." These aren't mostly new demands, nor does he pretend them to be so, but it is a nice compilation of ideas. Some of the ones that caught my eye:

• Pet armor, giving pets simple proc bonuses or whatnot, preferably appearing on the pet.
• Saddles to make some pets mountable. I'm heavily against this, for obvious reasons (there's already too many free mounts in the game, Hunters already get a movement speed increase).
• Foods that give bonuses to pets (the Sporeling Snack is one such that is already in the game).
• Rare pets, including some doing non-physical damage.
• "All beasts and beast like pets should be tameable."

Most of these, I'm sorry to say, seem a bit off to me. Pets are already quite powerful enough in PvP and solo PvE, and none of these address the problem of pets in group PvE. Although come to think of, the pet armor idea could be adapted to help them in group PvE: have pet armor give them a large amount of damage reduction (via straight armor, or dodge, or whatever), at the cost of reducing their movement speed. This would keep the armor from being overpowered in PvP, although it might make the pets a bit too good of off-tanks in groups. What do you guys think, those of you with more Hunter experience? What do pets need? Are pets really broken enough that a full "pet patch" is warranted?

Yay! That same old Hunter feedback thread in the European forums has been hit up again with some developer love. Before I get into it, I'd like to warn you that almost all the responses are either "the Devs see what you mean, but have no idea when/how/if it'll be fixed" or "the Devs see what you mean, but it's working as intended." This week they focused mostly on pet concerns, which is what they skipped last week. Here's a summary of the more interesting responses:

• Pet survivabilty: "Quite possible" that this might improve, but devs have to avoid making pets overpowered in PvP.
• Encounters un-pet-friendly: We see what you mean, and might improve in the future.
• Certain stats (e.g. crit, hit rating) don't help your pet, making gear with them less attractive: This is intended, but might change in the future.
• It's impossible to tell who out of multiple targets resists your FD: Devs agree, and would like to see it ifixed; no ETA.
• Pet kills don't count for player kills (for Rapid Killing, for instance) even when the player has tagged the mob: Fixed for 2.1.
• Growl scales by RAP, often giving MM Hunters better Growl threat than BM Hunters: Devs agree, but "no information available regarding what they will do to address this concern."
• Hunters' role endgame: DPS class, with utility as a bonus. "Hunters compare quite well to other DPS classes, but possibly a bit low, however this is something that is being looked at. Things will get adjusted here and there where required."
• People going through ammo too fast: Devs agree, considering what to do about it.

It's good that the devs are being more responsive than usual about this, but it's a little frustrating to have so few concrete details. Vaneras's full post after the cut.

There's been a thread floating around the EU Hunter forums for a while listing some concerns Hunters have with their class (gear, talents, and pets), and today it finally got some answers. I love it when the Devs actually respond to things. Below is the post by Vaneras, copied in full for the work crew; unfortunately, there are no responses on the subject of pets (which tend to drop like flies in some high end instances). But first, or if you don't want to slog through the CM-ese, a summary:

• Hunters wanted to know if Hunter-specific items with ranged AP (as opposed to universal AP) were in the works. Devs say no, but maybe in the future.
• Hunters thought gear was too Marksman-centric. Devs think the itemization is OK, but they may adjust talents, like Lightning Reflexes, to work better with items.
• Hunters say the Survival tree is lacking. Devs agree, and will probably make changes to that tree, but "you should not expect any full class revamp or full talent reviews."
• Hunters say the MM tree is pretty good. Devs agree.

I think not making items with just RAP is probably fine; I don't see why there should have to be items any one class has an exclusive claim over. And of course the Survival tree is lacking, so it's good to hear it's being looked at. However, this stance of "no more class reviews" worries me...what if there's something really wrong with a class? Something that a series of tweaks and adjustments can't fix? I don't think Hunters are there yet, I'm just saying. At any rate, here's Vaneras:
Hi everybody :-)

Good news... We have received some feedback from the developers today, which means that we now have a few answers for some of the concerns & questions posted in this thread. Here we go:

---

Q u o t e:

1. Itemization, Agility, (Ranged) Attack Power and Crit
a) With hunters no longer being so focused on Agility heavy gear, is there any plan of introducing more items with Ranged Attack Power instead of only Attack Power to make certain items more geared towards hunters? For example an item with +x Attack Power, +y Ranged Attack Power [+other stats].

---

There are currently no plans for adding more hunter specific items with focus on ranged attack power, but this is a good idea that could prove useful in the future.

Hunters with wind serpents that have a lot of +spell damage gear (??), this is for you. Ommra declares:

A hot fix has been applied. This fix reduces the amount of bonus damage that the Hunter pet ability Lightning Breath receives from the Hunter's +damage gear.

Well, OK then. Do Hunters really wear a lot of +spell damage? I hear the Wind Serpent is a great DPS pet, and I doubt this is going to affect it very much.

And here's a development in some news that's had the Mage forums in a bit of a tizzy:

Mages

• Increased the chance Frozen effects are broken when the target is critically struck by a spell.
  

*This note was unintentionally left out of the patch notes but is now properly listed.

I'm actually a bit confused about this -- other blue sources state that all crits will break Frozen. Hopefully we'll get this totally clarified soon; if this note here is correct, and not what Tseric wrote earlier, the Mage nerf is significantly reduced.

As I've discussed before, my main is a priest. So when the 2.0.10 patch notes came out...nah, just kidding, I've whined enough about this patch. I'm not going to talk about that now. Anyway, my priest is currently specced 14/40/7, in a strange holy DPS/healing hybrid, which works fine for farming as well as for healing Black Morass and Shadow Labyrinth and such. However, I'm anxious to start raiding, and to do that I really want a straight healing build (probably 21/40/0). Healing builds are great for healing, but I do still need some way to farm primals for my cloth transmutes -- what's the answer to this conundrum?

Roll a Hunter. And thus my BM Hunter was born; he's currently level 50. This character has been a blast to level, as I've always heard Hunters are (previously, I hadn't gotten one past 30ish). One thing that took some getting used to, though, is the range limitations, and one thing that helped a lot with getting used to that is the mod Nudge (see? I was getting there). It's pretty simple; it provides a frame that changes colors based on whether your targeted mob is in melee range, your dead zone, ranged range, or out of range (i.e. 0-5 yd, 5-8 yd, 8-40 yd, >40 yd). It didn't take long before I was able to just watch Nudge out of the corner of my eye to figure out whether I was close enough to shoot or not. And yes, I could just look at my action bars, but Nudge is a lot more obvious and a lot easier to read at a glance. Green for melee, yellow for dead zone, blue for ranged, red for out of range. Of course, now when I see a red stoplight, I have a strange urge to edge closer to it until it turns blue...but I'm sure that's unrelated.

The frame only appears when you've got a hostile mob targeted, you can move and resize it however you want, the text and colors are customizable, it takes into account Hawk Eye if you have it (at least I think it does), and altogether it feels like a well-made little bit of frill that's handy for any hunter. By the way, if you're not a hunter and are looking for something that'll simply tell you when you're in range of some given spell (40 yards for heals, perhaps?), Fudge is what you want.

Download Nudge at WoWInterface

Previously on the Spotlight

Don't know how to use AddOns? Fear not!

It looks like not only do Druids get the free flying mount we've all discussed, but they're going to get to quest for an epic flight form as well. From Ommra:

• We have upcoming development plans which we wanted to share now, as it could impact choices that Druids might make in the immediate future regarding flying mount riding skills or purchasing epic mounts:
  
  The regular Storm Crow form remains trainable at level 68 and moves at 60%. Also as previous, the normal flying mount skill comes with the form.
  
  An epic quest line will be going into an upcoming patch which will grant Druids an additional flying form with increased stats. The epic flying form will move at the epic rate of 280%, but basically fall under the same conditions as the previous flight form (i.e. can't run on the ground).
  
  However, the first prerequisite of the quest will require the epic flying mount riding skill, so it would not be a loss to Druids if they wish to purchase their epic flying mount skill now or in the near future. Obviously, one could then diversify their epic mounts beyond the Druid's casted epic form if they choose.

I think it was the right move to make it required to train epic flying, since 5,000 gold, on top of the 1,000 from before, would be a little much for druids not to have to pay.

And following up on the news about Warlock pets despawning when you flying-mount up, it looks like Hunter pets are getting the same treatment. Ommra again:

• This change should apply to hunter's pets in the same way.

A poster in the Hunters forum asked whether Hunters would, any time soon, be able to learn skills from beasts without taming them, or if not, if we could get more stable slots. Nethaera replied to let us know that new skills for Hunter pets are in the works, slated for the "next large patch" (she declined to give a patch number, but I'm thinking 2.1). Here's the pertinent information from her postings in that thread. The summary is that we will be getting new skills that are "trainable and transferable between pets," and autoattack/autoshot will be able to be toggled in the interface options.

You heard correctly -- we have official news on hunter talents and spells. (I'm linking them via the European site, because the US site seems to be swamped right now.) These talents seem very similar to what we saw leaked last week, even including the odd "snake trap" ability. (Let the "snakes on a..." jokes begin!) And, before you ask -- yes, that is a legitimate screenshot from the website.

We're getting close to the end of these Burning Crusade talent rumors -- as all sources are predicting official hunter talents out soon. However, they're not out yet, and that means just one thing: more hunter talent rumors! I am tempted to put some faith in this set of rumors, which come from poster Anders on the Curse Gaming forums, as we've gotten interesting information from him before that's later proven accurate. The talents are interesting and some rather odd (threat reduction? increased RAP by 25% of intellect), but with some of the talents I've seen previewed thus far for other classes, these would not surprise me. And if they're wrong? Well, we'll see in the next few days. Read on for the full text of the possible talents.