Oct. 22, 2008

Upcoming hunter changes. Again

From Ghostcrawler:

As I have suggested a few times, we are concerned that hunters of all 3 specs are doing damage that is clearly superior to other classes. While we’re trying to achieve closer parity among specs of all classes with regard to dps, and we want to particularly make sure that hunters, rogues, mages and locks are not left behind, we do think the hunters are too far ahead, particularly at 80, in good gear, when raid-buffed.

However, we have also tried to give hunters a substantial survivability boost in PvP and we don’t want to do anything that hurts them too much in PvP.

So here are changes you will most likely see soon:

1) Ranged attacks no longer benefit from the haste effects of Windfury Totem and Improved Icy Talons. This is a nerf to hunter white damage.

2) We are also improving the armor on level 83 raid bosses by 10%. This will be a nerf to the dps of any class that does physical damage. For classes that would slide behind with such a change, we’ll take steps to adjust them — though it probably isn’t as many as you think. The raid buff stacking overhaul was very beneficial to melee (and hunters). Sunder / Expose Armor alone can be a 20%+ dps increase, which is why we decided to attack the problem from this angle.

3) Now the armor change won’t affect PvP at all and the haste buff change will only have a marginal affect in BGs and only in Arena teams that include certain comps. However, in order to make sure we didn’t nerf hunters too much, we made two changes to Disengage. First, its cooldown dropped to 25 sec (from 30) which can be talented to 16. Second, it no longer requires a target, but does require you to be in combat. Now if someone closes to melee, you can leap back without having to select them first. We require you to be in combat though so we don’t see a lot of hunters bouncing around IF / Org or using it like Blink to goofily speed up travel.

Oct. 16, 2008

Boom Boom Ba

Some of the exotics might be fun, but the screen shaking boom that comes with them – less so. A fix is on the way though.

We are going to disable the screen shake once the pet is tamed.

Oct. 15, 2008

Grovelling succeeds

I’m near to being speechless with the news from Ghostcrawler today!

Aspects are now off the GCD. It’s true. There will still be a 1 sec cooldown to switch from one aspect to another. It should feel a lot more like warrior stances or death knight presences.

We’re also going to be putting a little bit of dodge (~10%?) onto Monkey. I’ll update when we decide on a final number.

Just for consistency, paladin auras will probably get the same treatment.

These changes should go live before Nov 13.

As always, thanks for all of the feedback, and please keep it up now that many of the changes are live.

EDIT: After further discussion, we’re not crazy about the “stance dancing” that hunters need to do to switch to Monkey when someone is in on you in melee. As we’ve said a few times, Disengage and Deterrence should be your go-to abilities at that time. If anything, removing Aspects from the GCD makes it feel like you are supposed to go Monkey every time you’re in melee.

Rather than revert the change, we are introducing a new spell!

Instead of getting new ranks of Hawk at level 75 and 80, you now get the new Aspect of the Dragonhawk. This powerful aspect combines all of the effects of Hawk and Monkey. Any talent or glyph that affects either Hawk or Monkey also affects Dragonhawk the same way. The idea is that you retire Hawk and Monkey at level 75 and go to essentially two Aspects: Dragonhawk for combat and Viper for mana regen.

Enjoy.

Also, a bit more on Aspect of the Viper and Exotic pets.

We aren’t happy with how Aspect of the Viper is working in PvP, but it seems fine in PvE. We’re going to try changing it so that 50% of its current regen is passive, leaving the remaining 50% active. That should give hunters some more mana in Arenas in particular when dealing with opponents who manage to get out of LOS a lot. Yet, in PvE where hunter dps is very high, the difference in regen shouldn’t be very noticable. We are also going to let Viper return mana from melee attacks for those cases where a melee opponent is too close for comfort.

The second change is to some of the numbers on the special attacks of exotic pets to make sure the pets are around a 10% increase from normal pets. This should make exotic pets a reasonable benefit for the talent point (especially when you also count the bonus pet talents) without making every BM hunter feel like they are limited to just those pets.

And, new pet families and exotics are likely in the future.

Now that we have a better system for introducing pets, I have no doubt we’ll add more per family and more families over time.

Oct. 14, 2008

Echos of Doom

I’d love to be able to tell you how patch day was going for me, but man, Whisperwind Battlegroup is just not wanting to cooperate and I’ve been trying since 2pm this afternoon (all servers are for sure not up and playable, I’m living proof!) So, you’ll have to settle for some patch notes. Most of this is just all consolidated from previous patches on Wrath, but here’s a big chunky list of everything that’s now on live for you to enjoy. Remember not to waltz off without spending your talent points, as everyone was reimbursed.

All aspects now have a 1 second global cooldown, down from a 1.5 global cooldown.
All pet families now have one unique ability. New abilities have been added for families such as bears and sporebats.
Stablemasters can now accommodate two additional pets.
Pets now have their own trees. These can be accessed via the talent panel.
Aimed shot mana cost has been reduced from 11% of base mana to 8%, casting time reduced from 2.5 sec to instant. Cooldown increased from 6 seconds to 10 seconds and damage reduced.
Animal Handler (Beast Mastery): No longer increases speed while mounted, but now reduces the cooldown of your Master’s Call ability by 5/10 sec.
Arcane Shot: No longer dispels magic effects.
Aspects now no longer cost mana.
Aspect of the Beast: Now increases melee attack power by 10% for the hunter and the hunter’s pet. The hunter can’t be tracked while using this Aspect. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.
Aspect of the Viper – The hunter takes on the aspect of the viper, causing ranged attacks to regenerate mana but reducing total damage done by 50%. Mana is gained based on ranged weapons speed. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.
Aspect of the Wild (Rank 4) now increases Nature resistence by 130, (up from 70.)
Avoidance, Dash / Dive and Cobra Reflexes are now pet talents instead of pet skills.
Bestial Swiftness is now a pet talent tree talent, and has been removed from the Beast Mastery Hunter tree.
Bite now has no cooldown, does the same damage and costs the same Focus as Claw, so works as a Focus dump.
Clever Traps (Survival) has been renamed “Trap Mastery.”
Combat Experience (Marksmanship): Now grants 3/6% Agility, up from 1/2%.
Concussive Barrage (Marksmanship): Can now proc from Volley and Multi-shot attacks.
Counterattack: Damage increased by 20%, and now also scales with your Ranged Attack Power.
Deterrence (Survival): Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, and now also increases your chance to resist spells by 60%. Now has a new spell effect.
Disengage: This ability has been re-designed. Now leaps the Hunter backwards up to 13 yards. 30 second cooldown. Disengage now also only has one rank (rank 1).
Distracting Shot: This shot now “taunts” the target onto the Hunter. The taunt effect will last 6 seconds. Distracting Shot now only has one rank (rank 1).
Every hunter pet can learn Growl, Cower and either Bite or Claw (never both).
Focused Aim no longer affects Aimed Shot and now increases chance to hit by 1/2/3 %.
Focused Fire (Beast Mastery): Now increases the critical strike chance of your Kill Command by 10/20/30% while Kill Command is active. This effect can stack up to 3 times, but diminishes for each charge of Kill Command.
Freezing Arrow now breaks on damage.
Freezing Trap now breaks on damage.
Hunter pets can now learn talents in one of three trees depending on family. Pets gain talent points starting at level 20 and earn an extra talent point every 4 levels.
If a hunter tames a pet that is more than five levels beneath their own level, the pet will then have their level increased to five levels beneath the hunter’s own level.
Improved Arcane Shot (Marksmanship): Now increases the damage done by your Arcane Shot by 5/10/15%.
Improved Feign Death (Survival): This talent has been replaced with Survival Tactics.
Improved Hunter’s Mark (Marksmanship): Now a 3-point talent, and now increases the amount of attack power granted by your Hunter’s Mark ability by 10/20/30% and reduces the mana cost of your Hunter’s Mark ability by 33/66/100%.
Improved Stings (Marksmanship): Now a 3-point talent, down from 5-points.
Kill Command: This ability now increases the damage done by your pet’s special abilities by 60%. Each attack will reduce the damage bonus by 20%. 1 minute cooldown.
Kill Shot damage slightly reduced.
Kindred Spirits will no longer stack with other movement enhancing buffs.
Lock and Load now has a chance to proc periodic damage by 2/4/6% (down from 5/10/15%.)
Loyalty, Training Points and the hunter Beast Training button no longer exist. Hunter pets can now learn all skills at their level. They will get new ranks automatically as they gain levels.
Marked for Death now increases damage done by ranged and by pets special abilities by 4% on marked targets (down from 8%.)
Master Tactician (Survival): Chance to proc increased to 10%, up from 6%.
Mongoose Bite: No longer requires you to dodge in order to use this ability.
Monster Slaying (Survival) and Humanoid Slaying (Survival) has been combined into “Improved Tracking”.
Multi-shot mana cost has been increased slightly to 9% base mana (up from 8%.)
New Talent – Aspect Mastery (Beast Mastery)
New Talent – Hunter vs. Wild (Survival): Increases you and your pet’s attack power and ranged attack power equal to 10/20/30% of your total Stamina.
New Talent – Improved Tracking (Survival): Increases all damage done to targets that are being tracked 1/2/3/4/5%.
New Talent – Lock and Load (Survival): You have a 33/66/100% chance when you trap a target and a 10/20/30% chance when you sting a target to cause your next 3 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo.
New Talent – Survival Tactics (Survival): Reduces the chance your Feign Death ability and all trap spells will be resisted by 2/4%, and reduces the cooldown of your Disengage ability by 2/4 sec.
New Talent – T.N.T. (Survival): Your Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Explosive Shot have a 5/10/15% to stun targets for 2 sec when they deal damage, and increases the critical strike chance of your Explosive Shot and Explosive Trap by 5/10/15%.
Pathfinding (Beast Mastery): Now also increases the movement speed while mounted by 5/10%.
Point of No Escape reduced to a 2 point talent and now affects Freezing Arrow. The critical strike chance has increased to 3/6% (up from 2/4/6%.)
Rapid Killing (Marksmanship): This will now proc off Chimera Shot, but no longer works with auto-shot.
Readiness (Marksmanship): Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes, and has been moved to Tier 5 of the Marksmanship Tree from the Survival Tree.
Savage Strikes (Survival): Now includes Counterattack.
Scattershot has been moved from the Marksmanship Tree to Tier 3 of the Survival Tree.
Silencing Shot (Marksmanship): This spell will now interrupt the current spell being cast on the target and lock out that school for 3 sec if the target is immune to silence effects.
Spirit Bond (Beast Mastery): Also increases healing done to you and your pet by 5/10%.
Steady Shot now uses ammo. In result, its bonus damage has been slightly reduced. Players can notice a damage increase based upon what ammo they use.
Steady Shot: Now has a 2.0 cast time, up from 1.5.
Surefooted (Survival) now reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 16/25/50% (instead of resist % chance). Moved from tier 4 to tier 2 and no longer increases hit chance.
Survival Instincts (Survival): This has been moved to tier-2, up from tier 6.
Survivalist (Survival): Now increases your total Stamina, instead of your total Health.
The arming time has been reduced to 1 second, from 2 seconds for all traps.
T.N.T. has been moved from Tier 2 to Tier 4.
Tranquilizing Shot: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (down from 20), and now dispels Enrage and Magic effects.
Trap Mastery (Survival) is now an 11-point talenttalent and has been moved from tier 3 to tier 9 and increases the duration by 30% fo both Freezing Trap and Frost Trap.
Trueshot Aura – This aura is now raid-wide and now increases all ranged and melee attack power by 10%. In addition, this spell now only has one rank. All other ranks have been removed.
Wingclip: No longer does damage.
Devilsaur Eye now increases your pet’s attack power for a short duration instead of increasing its critical strike chance. It also provides a small amount of passive Agility.

Oct. 8, 2008

In before Blizzcon

Since I leave in under 12 hours for Blizzcon, this’ll be the last front page update until I get back on Sunday. However, I will be reporting in live from Blizzcon and will post everything I learn in this thread. Here’s hoping I learn something interesting! Lots of stuff to post before I go though, from Ghostcrawler.

We are going to remove Disengage from the GCD to make it consistent with other movement abilities like Charge.

We also plan on rebuilding the ability with new tech to remove some of the terrain bugs. This will also allow us to let is suspend snare effects during the leap. Because it involves code, this change will take a little longer.

That’s good news. Aspects too, please!

The cat’s ability, Rake, was doing too much damage. We want to keep the pets to very similar dps so that you really feel like you have a choice. If we err, it will be on the side of the exotics.

This makes my lion a sad mew mew. Now, about Master’s Call still not really working (has it ever?)

Yeah, we’re working on it. It’s hard to tell sometimes with abilities that involve pet movement if the data are set up correctly and there’s just a code bug somewhere (that may happen infrequently) or if the spell itself is just borked.

Aimed Shot/Explosive Shot information.

We probably are going to let Barrage affect Aimed Shot.

We looked at Explosive Shot again and its damage seemed like a significant increase over Arcane Shot, but if Survival ends up low, then Explosive is probably where we’ll try to make up the difference.

Annnnd, another big question and answer session. I’ve trimmed down the questions a slight bit and am more just highlighting the answers. Do we have too much haste on our expansion gear?

We do put a lot of haste on gear. Part of that is because we don’t have a huge canvas to work with. We can’t put a ton of Strength and Spirit on hunter gear. Also, keep in mind that we aren’t trying to make the best possible gear for you. We want you to toss out less optimal pieces for more optimal pieces. Finally, keep in mind that gear is one of the things we use to let players demonstrate mastery of the game. Making the decision of whether that new ring or belt is an upgrade should require a little bit of thought. That’s what makes it interesting. But I will bring up the issue of haste and we can talk it over again.

TKA Something