July 11, 2008

The sheep, or the wolf. The choice is yours

Thanks to Elois of Uldum for the latest addition to our Spreadsheets section, a statistical calculator for hunters intended to be a tool that can look past the gear and look to the hunter to identify how to improve DPS. Enjoy!

June 28, 2008

Ah, Paris...

The Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational has kicked off, lead by the announcement that Diablo 3 will be Blizzard’s next game. The panels were busy at work answering class related questions about Wrath of the Lich King as well – thanks to MMO-Champion and World of Raids for the following Hunter information:

• Steady Shot will no longer clip Auto Shot, meaning it won’t have to be timed, just spammed
• The skill point system of pets will be replaced with Pet Talents, one tree for utility, one tree for tanking and one tree for DPS. The skill points for each pets are being changed to the new “Pet talents” and will disappear
• A new ability will make the pet deal extra 20% damage when on 20% health
• Each kind of pet family will have its own talent tree and its own unique ability
• There are going to be new pets in WotLK

I obviously wish I could be reporting live from Paris, but alas. Stay tuned for updates as they become available!

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.