July 28, 2007

Why did you bring a cop to my command center

The new forum is now up! The transition seems to have gone well, but feel free to contact me if you notice any errors, mistakes or have suggestions!

July 11, 2007

We aim, we fire, you die

Blizzcon is under a month away, and it’s no wonder that the new patch notes are going up now,
because I don’t think anyone is happy unless they have something to complain about. Obviously,
these are subject to change, and no, the Test server isn’t live yet, but here are the hunter related
items of interest:

Aspect of the Cheetah: This ability will now cause Hunters to become dazed when struck while sitting.
Aspect of the Pack: This ability will now cause party members to become dazed when struck while sitting.
Aspect of the Viper: This ability has received a slight redesign. The amount of mana regained will increase as the Hunter’s percentage of mana remaining decreases. At about 60% mana, it is equivalent to the previous version of Aspect of the Viper. Below that margin, it is better (up to twice as much mana as the old version); while above that margin, it will be less effective. The mana regained never drops below 10% of intellect every 5 sec. or goes above 50% of intellect every 5 sec.
Freezing Trap and Scare Beast duration against PvP targets has been reduced to 10 seconds.
Hunter’s Mark: The duration remaining graphic will now display properly for Hunter’s Mark after it has been refreshed on a target, and will properly consume mana when recasting it to refresh its duration.
Kill Command will not charge the hunter mana if their pet is on passive.
Misdirection: Items used while Misdirection is active will now consume a charge correctly.
Steady Shot: The tooltip stating the percentage of Attack Power gained by Steady Shot was inaccurate and has been corrected. The damage remains unchanged.
Volley: This spell is now affected by area damage caps. Its bonus damage coefficients have also been increased. It also correctly consumes charges of Misdirection.
Pets are now affected by Paladin greater blessings.
Leggings of Beast Mastery: The stamina and armor granted by this item for your pet have been increased.
Rift Stalker Armor: The pet healing set bonus now heals for a percentage of damage dealt by the Hunter.
Talon of Al’ar: The bonus damage to all Shot abilities now provides the full bonus to Scatter Shot and Silencing Shot.
Trappings of the Unseen Path Set: The buff on your pet from this set bonus will no longer appear to be constantly running out and refreshing.
Faction and loot rewards have been added to non-boss mobs in the Battle of Mount Hyjal raid event. The faction awarded by bosses has been decreased to balance this.
Void Reaver: The Arcane Orb ability used by this creature will now correctly Daze players affected by Aspect of the Pack or Aspect of the Cheetah.
Pets will no longer chase players that Vanish.
Player using ranged attacks while under the shapeshift effects of the spell: Torment of the Worgen, will now play attack animations.

While not listed here, there are also changes to other classes regarding some of their abilities (rogues, blind, WTF!) and resilience (this was announced previously), as well as tradeskill changes, most noteably to enchanting. Also, we’re being teased with talk of Zul’aman, which won’t be for a while yet (in-game voice chat and guild banks come first), but the question on MY mind that no one answered yet was: Will there be stuff there we can tame?! It sounds likely, as the main bosses will be 'animal gods’ (sounds just like Zul’Gurub to me) and the gods are Bear, Dragonhawk, Lynx and Eagle (perhaps a new family, well, we can hope).

There are also some UNdocumented changes. Nethermine Ravagers are also tameable now, but come with no innate abilities. And who says Blizzard never listens – raptors can finally learn Dash (but will that effect their popularity? Who knows). However, Blizzard didn’t make the raptors in Netherstorm tameable to accompany this change (the Scythetooth Raptors in Eco-Dome Farfield, well, they’re not tameable YET, anyway). So, if you want a raptor with minimal leveling, you’re stuck with Felsworn Daggermaw in Blade’s Edge. Never considered a raptor for a pet before this? Check out TKA Something’s Raptor page to see what’s available!

June 23, 2007

There must be a good reason for our suffering

With the uproar of TKA’s 'grand re-opening’ over, and yet another patch behind us, things are
returning to a tolerable level of what passes for normalcy around here. First, the latest patch
notes (admittedly, a bit tardy):

Improved Mend Pet, Abolish Disease, and Abolish Poison no longer play sounds when there is nothing to dispel.
Some new cooking recipes are available from Kylene in Shattrath City.
Fixed bug with Misdirection where sometimes only two attacks were redirected instead of three.
Entrapment: This talent will no longer causes Hunter to stand up or stop eating and drinking when it procs.
Improved Mend Pet: This ability will no longer cause Hunters to stand or to interrupt eating and drinking.
Poison Spit: These abilities will now appear in the correct order in the pet training menu.
Scatter Shot: This ability will now trigger Thrill of the Hunt.
Thunderstomp: These abilities will now appear in the correct order in the pet training menu.
PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects that cause loss of control of your character.
Relentless Earthstorm Diamond: The bonus damage to critical strikes from this metagem now applies to all types of damage, not just physical.

The guide section has some great new additions as well as the return of some old (but updated) favorites. If you have a submission of any sort, please feel free to email me at fritti@tkasomething.com!

Also, please note: TKA Something will be switching to new forum software soon. Before this occurs, I will be pruning the database to get rid of any lingering spammers and inactive accounts. This means, that you probably want to login to the forums at least once as soon as possible so you’re not removed for inactivity (and forcing you to re-register when we make the switch). It should be a fairly seamless transition otherwise.

May 21, 2007

In like a Lion, out like a Lamb - BAH!

Without much ado, fanfare or lighting of fireworks, welcome to TKA Something. Going strong since 2004 (thank you very much for the support, WOW Hunter community). At the end of 2006, I decided that with the expansion around the corner, it was time for a new look for the website. After much toil, tossing of the virtual paper in the wastebasket, I FINALLY came up with a new design that I very much like and I hope that old timers to the site will find it pleasing to the eye – and newcomers will find everything they’re looking for. I am sorry it took so long to update the front page but good things come to those who wait!

Also, please note, everything will look really ugly in IE6. Hopefully I will be able to iron out the bugs with it, but at this time I am focusing on content items first. If you see any other bugs, please report them to the forum, and I will try to fix them ASAP!

So why waste time talking about the past, huh? Today is a new day and a new patch, with many hunter changes. Here they are:

A new Avoidance ability can now be taught to hunter pets. This effect reduces the damage they take from area of effect spells and abilities.
A new Cobra Reflexes ability can now be taught to hunter pets. This effect increases attack speed but reduces damage.
Arcane Shot: Casting lower ranks of Arcane Shot than your maximum rank will now reduce the bonus you receive from attack power.
Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack: Wand damage will again correctly daze players with this effect active.
Clever Traps now affects Snake Trap.
Entrapment (Survival): Effect duration reduced to 4 seconds and is now subject to diminishing returns in PvP.
Entrapment: The tooltip has been corrected to indicate it works on Snake Trap.
Expose Weakness: The chance for this talent to trigger has increased to 33/66/100% chance at 1/2/3 talent points.
Ferocious Inspiration: This ability will now trigger Kill Command correctly.
Flare cooldown increased to 20 seconds, and duration reduced to 20 seconds.
Frenzy: This talent can now trigger from Kill Command.
Frost Trap: This trap no longer breaks stealth from its slowing effect.
Go for the Throat no longer causes additional threat.
Hunter’s Mark: This ability now becomes stronger each time the target is struck by a ranged attack.
Improved Hunter’s Mark: Adjusted the tooltip to indicate this talent only grants melee attack power equal to the base ranged attack power on the Hunter’s Mark.
Kill Command has been removed from the global cooldown. The shout animation has been removed.
Kill Command: This ability will now still work even when your pet is out of your line of sight.
Readiness: Now resets the cooldown on Misdirection.
Revive Pet: The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate the pet returns with a percentage of its base health. It will not get an increased percentage of the bonus health it receives from a percentage of its master’s stamina.
Scatter Shot: This ability will now trigger Kill Command when it critically strikes.
Scorpid Poison: Ranks of this ability now appear in correct order in the pet training window.
Survival Instincts now also increase attack power by 2/4%.
The quest creature, Death Ravager, is no longer able to be tamed.
The Razorfang Ravager can now be tamed.
Replaced the current Mend Pet channel spell with an instant cast heal over time. No combat reset, resets global cooldown. The mana cost has been reduced and the heal value increased. Duration on Heal Over Time increased to 15 seconds in 3 second increments. Changed the graphic to better represent the Heal Over Time effect on the pet.
The Mend Pet heal over time buff is now able to be dispelled.
Bonus healing gear will no longer effect Mend Pet.
Added a 10% and 20% reduction to the mana cost of Mend Pet in Improved Mend Pet talent (Beast Mastery).
Abilities and items that are triggered when you kill a target are also now triggered when your pet kills a target.
Fixed the amount of happiness lost when you dismiss a Nether Ray pet.
Warlock and Hunter pets will now be automatically dismissed when you summon a mount. These pets will return on dismount. This does not affect pet happiness for Hunters.
Warlock and Hunter pets will now be automatically dismissed when you un-talent.
Devilsaur Tooth: This item has been reverted to pre-Burning Crusade design, granting an automatic critical strike to your pet’s next attack.
Marsh Lichen: This food is now considered a fungus.
Stromgarde Muenster is now correctly considered cheese for the purposes of feeding pets.
The Talon of Al’ar: This trinket now applies correctly to Scatter Shot and Silencing Shot.
Scout’s Arrow reputation requirement for Cenarion Expedition has been moved to friendly.
Warden’s Arrow minimum level has been changed to 68.
High-level bullets can be purchased from Honor Hold and Thrallmar factions at revered.
Players who feign death no longer appear dead to party and raid members and friendly spells will not be interrupted.
Hunter Pets now display their spell damage bonus on the pet pane. The actual effect will nearly always be less than the bonus listed as it depends on the bonus coefficient of the spell the pet is using.
Hunters now have a UI option Auto Attack/Auto Shot that if turned off means that the hunter will not automatically switch between ranged attack and melee attack difficulty when the range changes.
Party members will no longer see a hunter who is feigning death as actually dead.
Player pets can no longer attack PvP players while not being flagged for PvP.
In battlegrounds, pets with a damage over time spell will no longer continue to attack the caster after Resurrection.

PHEW! Add to that numerous item changes, profession changes, a new dungeon, new factions, new flying mounts… the list does seem to go on a bit, doesn’t it? Ironically, you’d think that with that wall of text, everything got covered but as we all know, patch notes don’t cover EVERYTHING (or we’d be reading until next year). But since I didn’t rattle off all the changes in the patch (pff, who cares about the warrior changes, not me!) that gives me room to mention some additional observations.

New swimming animations have been added to several beasts that didn’t previously have them (including bats, wind serpents, raptors, crawlers, scorpids, owls and carrion birds). Ravagers are still screwed.

Three new tameable beasts have been added. The Lost Torranche are tallstriders (which are purple and come with Cower 7) and Skettis Kaliri are owls (which are purple and look identical to the Avian Warhawk in Sekketh Halls. AND they come with Dive 3). And another white warp stalker in the Skettis area (that has warp, but if you really wanted a warp stalker, wouldn’t you have one by now?) Two beasts that should be tameable but are not are the Aether Rays in Blade’s Edge Mountains (new coloration too, shame they weren’t made tameable) and the Monsterous Kaliri in Skettis (orange, like their Avian Ripper counterparts). Ah well.

Crawlers no longer have algae on their legs and shell (affectionately known as the mohawk). I always thought it gave them character. Apparently Punk Is Dead.

Lions visited the Hair Club for Men over the last month, but the plugs didn’t take. Lions had more mane added, but I hated it so obviously it got changed back just because of my gripes. Or maybe I’m just so used to it now, I didn’t hate it as much as I thought. Lion owners, you be the judge.

Usually, I’d leave it at that. BUT wait, there’s more! From the Stratics House of Commons chat yesterday:

Q: With the changes to encounters in TBC and the development of KTM threat meter, Safe DPS is not as important as it was 2 years ago. Also, many raids are dropping down to 1 or less hunters with only MD in mind. Tack that onto the most difficult method of DPS in the game, the buffs given in 2.1 seem to be nice but they will not be enough to bring hunters back into raids so my question is…What are you going to do to save the hunter?

A, from Kalgan: We’ll keep ratcheting up hunter raid dps as needed. I do still think there’s value in “safe” dps regardless of threat meters. It doesn’t change the fact that hunters have the potential to be less threat limited than other classes.

Q: The change to Aran’s Flame Wraith made the encounter more pet accessible. Any ideas of making other encounters more pet friendly, like immunity to the melee AoE effect at gruul?

A: from Tigole: I think the upcoming changes to the hunter pet will help. We have to be careful about going too far with immunities on pets though. I know it sounds silly — but we can overpower their presence. It’s actually a fine line.

And, apparently, we can look to Retribution paladins to save us, post 2.1. Or not, as the case my be. You can read the entire transcript here.

So, thanks for sticking with me and stay tuned. Not all of the guides or site additions are in yet, but now that the 'hard work’ is done… Out like a lamb? No way – hear me ROAR!

Dec. 20, 2006

Get me. I'm givin' out wings

I know I said I probably wouldn’t be doing any more news updates until the new year. Now, rather than rant and rave about the ongoing hunter issues that have yet to be fixed since the latest patch (disappearing pet bars, pets not resurrecting in battlegrounds, oh, there’s more but…), in the spirit of the season I’m putting that aside. Instead, I’m going to run a contest for, mmm, Beta Account Key goodness!

That’s right! TKA Something currently has a Burning Crusade beta account key to give away. I want to make it interesting though and at least somewhat lucrative for the site. So here’s what I’m looking for:

For a single entry, I’m looking for screenshots, macros – anything that I can use to update the site. The screenshots can be of any tameable beast. I won’t accept macros that don’t work or macros lifted directly from the thread on the Blizzard boards or my own message board – all entries must be your original! I will also not accept any submissions dealing with the Hunter epic quest. Beyond that, the sky’s the limit, mostly, even site corrections (I’m sure there are a few out there to be made). The screenshots MUST be high quality and I would prefer them in their original TGA format. A good screenshot should be a full screen image, something like this:

You can submit as many of these 'types’ of items as you want, but, for example, you can’t send me 15 screenshots of the same beast. Use your best judgment.

Now, for 20 (yes twenty!) entries into the contest, you can submit a guide. What’s a guide? Well, Freeze Trap 101 is a good example of a site guide. So is the Solo Hunter’s Guide to Zul’Gurub. Guides can also include hunter related add-ons (but you absolutely must be the author). Or high quality desktop wallpaper or character art (again, you must be the author, please don’t go taking credit for other people’s work. I’ll find out and you’ll be disqualified). There are a lot of things that I’m adding to the site, but just because you think I might already have it planned for 2007 doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do it better! Show me what you’ve got!

Also, I will accept submissions FROM the Burning Crusade Beta. If you got in and your best friend didn’t and you’d like to try to win a key to share – be my guest. So any information (that you have gathered yourself) from Burning Crusade Beta, it counts towards an entry as well!

By submitting entries, you are granting me permission to use the material(s) in any way that I deem appropriate. This contest will end on the stroke of midnight (12am) on December 25th, at which time I will draw a name out of my hat and one lucky boy or girl will have a Burning Crusade Beta Account Key under their virtual tree. All submissions should include your character’s name, server and e-mail address where I can contact you. This is for the US version of BC Beta (I think, the key doesn’t really specify, so anyone entering from outside the US/Canada does so on the chance that the key may not work).

All entries should be sent to fritti@tkasomething.com starting… now.

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