June 18, 2008
Gigantique
Patch 2.4.3 is currently on the Test realm which is also up and active. There are some hunter changes and some general things of hunter interest.
- Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
- Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
- Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.
- Placing an item in your bank will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress if the spell was cast by that item.
- When a stun wears off, the creature that was stunned will prefer the last target with the highest threat, versus the current target.
- Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet’s Growl.
- Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
- Scare Beast: This spell will now be limited correctly to one target.
- For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, pets gaining/losing phase status will now properly break off combat from unphased/phased opponents.
- Bow of the Verdant Keeper’s Aim: This item’s triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
- Thori’dal, the Star’s Fury is now Unique as intended.
- Invisible players with Hunter’s Mark can see the hunter that put the mark on them.
- Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.
- Snake Trap will no longer break players out of stealth if the snakes pass near the stealthed character.
- Concussive shot will now properly have a chance to proc Bow of Searing Arrows.
- Corrected an issue where the initial trigger or activation sounds for Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap could not be heard by some players.
Not mentioned but fixed as well, is the Scare Beast tooltip – it now correctly displays the 1.5 cast time.
June 1, 2008
The Verdict
A few days ago, we got the “official” word regarding programs like AutoHotKey or certain gaming keyboards for the Hunter shot rotation macros. The answer probably doesn’t surprise most but disappoints some, as it’s a relatively popular way to avoid tiring your fingers out with 11111111 or 22222222 (or 3333333, for you non-conformists) when using a macro for shot rotations, by holding down a single key instead of hitting it over and over.
This is not okay. One hardware function = one action, according to standard macro rules. A hardware function is a keypress (including press/release) associated with movement and an ability/item. Obviously, our default macro rules enable you to use 'modifying’ trinkets or abilities, such as nature’s swiftness, plus a single spell all in a single press.
To clarify: No, you may not use hardware or software to auto-spam your shot rotations – period.
And more specifically, a comment about the G15.
The G15 may have the ability to continually activate an ability as long as you keep the key pressed but that is not a function that is permitted by our policies. The keyboard is allowed but certain functions it can do are not.
May 16, 2008
Within Sunwell
From Daelo, Lead Encounter Designer:
We also hotfixed a bug in the Eredar Twins encounter that prevent a Hunter’s Feign Death ability from working if Lady Sacrolash was alive.
Also:
We’ve changed the Negative Energy spells cast by M’uru and Entropius to no longer cause spell interruption on the target. This should ease the frustration of the encounter for those casting classes who can not obtain 100% resistance to spell interruption through talents and effects such as Concentration Aura.
May 14, 2008
Scare Beast follow-up
This was posted earlier, by Drysc, in regards to why the instant Scare Beast didn’t make it to live servers, as a follow-up to what Eyonix has already said:
The instant cast was felt to just be too effective against feral druids, and so the previous cast time reduction to 'instant’ was reverted through a hotfix back to 1.5 sec. If we had made the change through the patch instead of a hotfix it would have required a new build to be generated, additional testing on that build, and likely a week long delay for the release of this patch. The downside when hotfixing an ability is that the tool tip won’t be updated to correctly display any changes made to the ability.
May 13, 2008
Just stick to the cards sir
2.4.2 went in today. We’ve been over these changes but I’ll re-list the hunter important stuff.
- Aspect of the Viper: This ability now grants an additional amount of mana each 5 seconds equal to 35% of the hunter’s level.
- Boar Charge: This ability will no longer make Growl cast immediately after it generates excessive threat.
- The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power and now scales with the hunter’s Attack Power.
- Dire Ravens in Blade’s Edge Mountains are now tameable.
- Scare Beast: The range on this spell has been increased to 30 yards.
- Tamed Drywallow Snappers now will know Bite 5 (instead of Claw 5).
- Bow of Searing Arrows and Red Whelp Gloves will no longer break crowd control effects.
- Darkmoon Card: Madness: The durations of the buffs received from this item have been extended to 60 seconds.
- Elixir of Demonslaying: This elixir now grants ranged attack power against demons as intended.
- Shattered Sun Pendant of Might: The triggered effect from this item will no longer break Scatter Shot or other crowd-controlling affects. The visual on the Scryer version has been updated.
- The Cursed Vision of Sargeras now gives the buff, “Sense Demons” which can be canceled normally. Additionally hunters and druids are able to track two things at once while using the item.
The instant cast change to Scare Beast did not make it to live servers, despite the tooltip being changed (it is still 1.5 cast time). When asked why this change didn’t make it live, Eyonix replied:
On live realms the ability was never instant cast. The ability now has a 30 yard range on live (patch 2.4.2), which is a small improvement (buff).
While some hunters may be disappointed that they weren’t getting the buff to the ability that they anticipated, it’s certainly not a nerf. The instant cast change, was simply too strong and as a result, pulled at the very last moment.
PS We love you Hunters. :P
Edit: Neth does not love you and all hate should be directed at her!
And, I knew we hadn’t heard the last about the Growl issue. Despite previous threads being locked regarding it, it still isn’t 100% correct on live servers post patch, according to Hortus:
There is still a bug with Growl that is allowing it to scale with some pet attack power buffs as well as the hunter’s attack power. This will be fixed in a future patch, until then enjoy the extra threat from these buffs.
And followed up with:
As I have stated many times before Growl scales correctly with Hunter attack power. It has been verified with internal tools multiple times buy myself and other testers both in 2.4.2 and 2.4.1. It may not scale at a rate that you like but it does scale at the rate the developers currently want (and no I can not reveal that rate).
If you feel it should scale differently then you will need to post about it in the suggestions or class forums. Repeatedly posting about it here in this forum will not result in any positive changes but it will result in your posting privileges being removed.
[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]Right now Growl is ALSO scaling inappropriately with attack power buffs applied to your pet (such as Blessing of Might) this is a bug that is currently in your favor, it will likely be fixed in a future patch so enjoy it while you can.