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.

Dec. 6, 2006

We have to put a barrier between us and the snakes

No commentary today. Just going to get straight to the point (so you can’t say I didn’t give you fair warning). TKA Something isn’t going to have much in the way of front page news updates for a while. But why, Fritti, why, you ask? Although I’m not planning on making this an annual event, TKA Something will again undergo some changes for 2007. This includes incorporating a lot of suggestions I’ve received over the last year about site additions, changes in navigation, layout, etc.

But what does this mean to you? Not a lot. I’m hoping that everything will potentially be finished by the time Burning Crusade goes live. It does mean, however, that additional site content will be put on hold or removed altogether due to it being out of date with the recent, monumental Hunter changes. So, if you’d like to submit an article (or have), it likely won’t be posted until the site changes are in effect. There are some things that will continue to be updated (like Rooke’s spreadsheet) as time allows. And, if there’s something you’d like to see on TKA that you don’t think I’ve considered for the revamp, please email me.

Speaking of updates, there are a few. Probably the last of 2006, though (we’ll see!) Welcome back our wayward serpents, who once again became tameable in the latest patch. Complete with a new ability – Poison Spit! And Rooke of Whisperwind has supplied us with a new spreadsheet to download.

OH! One more thing. Some of you may have noticed that your pets still retain their fast (or slow) attack speeds. Don’t get too attached. As far as I’m aware, the attack speed normalization will still be going in with the Burning Crusade, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Serpents – (Beasts) added
Pet Abilities – (Beasts) updated
A Statistics Discussion – Agility & Chance to Hit – (Guides) updated

Nov. 19, 2006

Luck, my friend, luck. Who needs it more than we?

Recovering from a cold that’s kept me in bed for a bit, I come back to find out that the Test server is up with the changes for 2.0.1 there for all hunters to angst over.

All players will have talent points reimbursed and will have access to new talents throughout their trees; this includes the 41-point talents. Several new abilities have also been added for all classes.
All pets now receive a percentage of their master’s armor, spell damage, spell resistances, attack power, and stamina.
Crowd Control effects in PvP will last no longer than 12 seconds instead of the full duration, with a chance of a heartbeat resist.
Traps can be set while in combat, but require a 2 second arming time.
Auto shot will be automatically enabled if the Hunter steps out of melee range while in combat with target.
1 agility will now grant 1 ranged attack power.
Auto shot is now reset when casting Aimed Shot.
Players can now cast item targetable spells on items that are in your action bar. For instance you can cast feed pet and have the food you want the pet to be fed in one of your action bars.
The “Far Sight” effect has changed so that the camera now zooms in to a distant location, rather than instantly showing the distant view. This also affects the items: Ultra-Spectropic Vision Goggles, the Ornate Spyglass, and the Hunter ability “Eagle Eye.”
The Hunter ability Mend Pet will now turn red when a pet is out of range.
Fixed an issue that was putting Hunters back into combat when they have the Spirit Bond Talent or have the Cryptstalker set bonus.
Player pets will no longer attack CC’ed targets while in Passive mode.
The Hunter Auto Shot ability will no longer activate on resurrection.
You will no longer die when Feign Death is finished channeling.
Scatter Shot will now properly do damage even if the target is immune to the confuse effect.
Aspect of the Cheetah will now properly trigger with absorbed damage.
Beastmaster’s Gloves will now give the proper 2% crit chance for Hunter pets.

Also confirmed as intentional is the change in pet attack speeds. As far as I’m concerned, at this point they may as well just standardize all pets. AC, DPS, Hit Points, the whole kit and kaboodle. It’s obvious that the model being worked towards is that pets are only aesthetically different (I mean, as it is now, the variance between pet base statistics are minimal anyway) and I would much rather have these changes over and done with. I think what just tires me out is that I’m about up to here with the complete lack of communication beyond patch notes. I know, I know, it’s too much to ask for a statement like: Pet attack speeds were changed because X. Our plans include Y to offset this change. The eventual goal is for Z for pets. There IS a plan in place, right? Some already discussed series of changes that are designed to guide the hunter class into its gameplay niche? I don’t think it’s a huge demand to make to ask that each class is assigned a rep – all the money that Blizzard swims around in like Scrooge McDuck should be put to some good use, after all.

Nov. 4, 2006

Remember as much as you can about your old life

I actually sat in front of my computer for about two hours, trying to think how I was going to break this news, but there’s no real way to say it without throwing people into a frenzy so I’m just going to come out and say it.

Currently, in Burning Crusade Beta, all pets, yes ALL of them, have had their attack speed standardized to 2.00.

No, I don’t know if it’s a bug. No, it’s not confirmed as intentional anywhere 'official’ that I’ve been able to find but yes, I have confirmed this myself.

I sort of up in arms about this change. This causes me to rethink my Burning Crusade talent build which was centered around a fast pet/fast bow (hell on the ammo, but you’d be surprised how well it’s been working for me). Add to this that while attack speed might have been normalized, nothing else has been. For example, bears are still 'tank’ type pets with more base armor class and hit points, while cats are still 'damage’ type pets with higher DPS (compared against equal level beasts, sans any bonuses from the Hunter in terms of pet scaling). So what is this going to change? For Beast Mastery hunters, probably not AS much, since if you’re spec’ing down the tree far enough, you’ll be getting Serpent’s Swiftness which will lower your pet to about a 1.60 attack speed – but without more extensive testing, I don’t know how it’s going to work out (previously, I could keep Ferocious Inspiration up fairly consistently. Now, not so sure.). It hurts Marksmanship and Survival hunters far more, as I know some of those who spec down other trees rely on the fast attack speed pets in other situations (like PvP).

There is only one upside to this change and I’m not really sure I think it’s much of one. This MIGHT prompt people to branch out in terms of what pets they cling to because of their attack speed and start picking pets for looks. But if species still have varying AC/HP/DPS, I don’t see this as really being the case as people who number crunch will still want the pet that does the most DPS (so like, cats or raptors) or has the most AC/HP for tanking, that sort of thing. People who pick pets for looks already DO that – they didn’t need the attack speed change to help them make up their mind to pick a pet not in the Hunter Top Ten (Broken Tooth, Bloodseeker Bat, etc).

I know there are people who will say something like, “Well, you can’t say that we weren’t warned this might happen.” Fine. Whatever. ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO. We were also promised that every pet would have a species specific ability and that’s yet to materialize. Look at it this way. You’re asking every single hunter currently in the game to completely re-learn their class because of these major changes (traps in combat, shot rotations, etc). And to top it all off, you’re changing the only other constant we’ve had since day one with only a handful of exceptions (like the Spire Spiderlings) which is attack speed on our pets. Run speed wasn’t enough that our pets still have trouble hitting moving targets? Ugh, I’d better stop now before I really get going.

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