Feb. 17, 2009
Mr. Pinchy does not know!
How are hunters doing in PVP? Ghostcrawler doesn’t think we’re out of control in Arena (as other classes might maintain):
Aside from the random stun of TNT and a couple of the bugs mentioned, we don’t think hunters are grossly imbalanced in PvP at the moment. Explosive Shot might be a bit too high, but we aren’t nerfing it for the moment. We’ll see how things feel once some of the changes to other classes are in place.
Feb. 12, 2009
Duality
Big question and answer session regarding dual talent specializations. Ideally slated for 3.1, here are some nitty gritty facts that we hadn’t had until now.
What is dual speccing?
Dual speccing is the ability to save two separate talent specs, glyphs, and action bars.
Why are we allowing players to dual spec after all this time?
We really felt like this was a great way to increase the flexibility available to players and encourage them to take part in more aspects of the game. To use just one example, some players like to participate in both raids and Arenas, which is awesome behavior that we want to promote. But, there are some talents which are more useful in one part of the game than another. Currently, players have to pay respec costs and go through the process of setting up the desired talent spec and action bars whenever they switch.
The new system makes this a much more logical process, saving on time and cost and allowing players to easily move from one aspect of the game to another.
Who will be able to use it?
Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.
Why do players need to be max level in order to do this?
We didn’t want to burden lower-level players with extra complexity as they’re working to level up and learn their class. But if the feature proves popular we might consider expanding it.
How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.
How do you switch between specs?
Players will be able to switch between their talent specs by visiting any Lexicon of Power provided they’ve paid for the ability to have a secondary spec. Lexicons of Power will be available in major cities, and inscribers will also be able to create a new item that summons one. Anyone can purchase this item, but it requires a ritual of several players to summon it for use by the party. It’s similar to a repair bot in that it will exist in the world for a short duration. It’s important to keep in mind that you will not be able to switch specs while in combat or Arenas. While you won’t be able to switch your spec without the Lexicon, you will still be able to look at your secondary spec whenever you want to.
Will solo players have the ability to switch their specs outside of the cities or will they still need to visit a Lexicon of Power?
Solo players will still need to go into the city to visit the Lexicon of Power to switch their talent spec or will need to get together with other players to summon one in.
Is the item that allows you to summon a Lexicon of Power reusable, or is it used up?
We haven’t made a final decision on that yet, and will be evaluating how it works on the PTR.
Can I respec only one of my talent sets, or will I need to respec them both if I reset one?
When you reset your talents, it will look at the spec you currently have in use as the talent set you want to change.
*Will you be able to switch gear easily to match your spec?*
At the same time we implement dual specs, we will also be setting up a gear system. The feature is called “Gear Manager.” It can also be used to just swap weapons or trinkets or put on that tuxedo to strut around town. It will not automatically switch your gear when you change your talent spec, but it will allow for an easy gear change between them. The feature may not be fully functional immediately in the PTR, but we’ll have more information to share about it before too much longer.
*What about hunters? Often their pet talents are set up to match the talents of the hunter. Will they be able to switch their pet specs as well?*
We will wipe the pet talents. However we are going to remove the respec cost for pet talents so that players won’t feel like they need to jump through an additional hoop to respec their pet. In addition, we are going to provide hunters a new core ability to let them remotely access their stable on a long cooldown. This way if their exotic pet heads off to the stable, they will be able to get a different pet. We hope to be able to discuss this new spell in more detail when we get a little further along.
*Will you be able to change your Glyphs as well?*
Glyphs will be tied to each talent spec so that if you switch between them, so too will the Glyphs. You’ll notice the UI will have changed a little bit so that the Glyph panes show up alongside the Talent panes now that they are associated.
What about hotbars? Will players be able to save them for the talent spec they’re running?
Yes, you will be able to save hotbars and use them with your talent specs. It just saves your bars at the same time as it saves the glyphs and talents. If you want to switch to your other action bar, you will need to change specs.
*Is there a way for players to choose their talents without them being saved? Currently, once you spend your talent point, it’s spent unless you pay the respec cost again.*
With the dual spec feature, we are going to allow players who respec to configure all their talents before they get saved. They will be able to allocate the points, then choose if they want to use that as their spec, rather than needing to carefully diagram out their talents ahead of time. This will allow players a little more freedom when deciding on the talents they want to pick and avoid costly mistakes.
Will players be confined to only setting up two specs?
We will be launching the feature with just two specs, but depending on how we feel it works out, we might consider additional specs in the future.
When can players expect to try out dual specs?
Players will be able to try out the dual spec system on the Public Test Realms when they are made available. This has been a pretty big project with a lot of people working toward making it a reality in the game. We’ll definitely be watching the feedback and looking for ways of making sure the system works the way we all envisioned it to.
I’ve highlighted the items that are of particular interest to hunters. The new remote stable ability, and how good it is, will probably depend on how long a “long cooldown” is.
Feb. 10, 2009
Hunter Ammo Changes
This just posted from Eyonix:
In our 3.1.0 class updates post, we had announced plans to remove consumable ammunition from the game upon the release of the next major content patch. Our original plans were to change ammunition so that hunters would no longer need to utilize bag space, while adding some new functionality that would continue to make ammunition a compelling element of gameplay. Unfortunately, this intended change will not be completely ready in time for patch 3.1.0.
We still fully intend to move forward with this change when the additional functionality becomes available, and for 3.1.0 we still intend to remove the need for pouches/quivers by greatly increasing the stack sizes on arrows and bullets, and the haste bonus from the bags will be preserved in another fashion. We’ll be sure to inform our players with further updates once they become available.
Feb. 9, 2009
Extended downtime = patch?
Not official, but being reported by MMO-Champion is that 3.0.9 will be going live tomorrow with the following changes to Hunters:
- Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
- Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
- Lava Breath now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
- Poison Spit now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
Unleashed Fury will possibly remain in its post-nerf form. Obviously as these aren’t official notes, not everything is mentioned so I think we have to wait until 3.0.9 to be sure of ANYTHING.
Indirectly confirmed that these notes are real (sort of) was a comment made by Ghostcrawler regarding a change to rogues (Hunger for Blood):
The damage increase is for 3.09. The mechanic increase is for 3.1. We probably confused some people by announcing the much larger 3.1 changes first.
Oh, and, I meant to include this a bit ago, but it slipped my mind. Regarding Malygos and Feign Death.
Feign death not working in actually intentional, but certainly not desired. It was causing a very nasty problem, and we’ve been trying to figure out a way to handle the particular boundary case without setting the creature flag that ignores feign death.
Feb. 5, 2009
Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 3)
Just posted by Eyonix is the preview for Hunters for 3.1:
- Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
- A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
- Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
- Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
- Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
- We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.
I’m not at all surprised by the ammunition change. I had a feeling we were heading towards that, was even telling someone that the other day in game – it feels good to be vindicated.
Dual talent specs might be reality by 3.1:
It will not be in the next patch, 3.0.8. If all goes well, we’ll get it in the one after that, but we usually don’t tell you our estimates so there is less ALL CAPS POSTING when we miss our targets.
There was also a post regarding Hunting Party, which was obviously addressed with the 3.1 preview. And a Ghostcrawler question/answer:
You said you are happy with the dps a MM hunter can pull. I have been playing in a competitive raid environment for 4 years and when I spec marks I fall 1000 dps behind ele shams, 800 dps behind the moonkin and 700 dps behind the arcane mages. We also then see you stating that you feel arcane mages are performing well in pve. Do your internal tests have MM hunters and arcane mages near each other or are we reading too much into what you are saying?
What I said before was that players tend to look at relative numbers while we look at absolute numbers. All the players saying “SV is not too high” justify that by saying “because I am not topping the meters.” And in some cases, SV is topping the meters. :)
You want all ferocity pets to feel viable in PVE but pets like wasps, wolves, tall striders and carrion birds have utility specials instead of damage specials. The only way I can see balancing the pets would be to give them 2 unique specials, one utility and one damage oriented. What ideas have been brainstormed at the table?
There is a trade-off between damage and utility. We specifically gave some hunter pets raid buff / debuff options in case your group, esp. a 5 or 10-player group, has trouble having access to that bonus. I have seen a lot of wasps out there lately.
But as I also said, more parity among pets is something we want to pursue. Currently most of the hunter discussions on the forums are about SV-MM-BM differences or PvP however.
41 point survival talent was due for a buff coming out of beta but we have seen no further discussion on it; last patch it even received a nerf! What are your plans for this?
We hope to be able to announce some 3.1 changes soon.
MM is still crippled by Chimera shots ~580 mana cost. Any chance we could see some arcane shot glyph inspired solutions to this? Possibly make rapid recuperation like shamanistic rage?
[Previous] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 [Next]We will be adding more glyphs over time, especially for newer abilities. We didn’t want to add them all right away for fear that players would just assume the glyphed version of the spell was the way the spell worked rather than realizing what a benefit the glyph itself brought. If that makes sense.