Oct. 29, 2006

Villainy wears many masks

I know everyone is very excited… well, maybe not excited but anxious to see the new Burning Crusade Hunter changes in action, as well as see the new beasts and the like. But, one of the changes that has slipped under a lot of people’s radar are the major changes to the UI code and functionality that are also planned for the expansion. Although truthfully, hunters will be one of the classes impacted least by this, this doesn’t mean that we aren’t effected at all. Announced earlier this month, Zorlen and his team have decided to discontinue their function library. On behalf of the Hunter community and myself in particular since I was a user of the library, it is indeed a sad day and I would like to thank the Zorlen team for all their hard work over the last two years.

For a more complete list of all the planned UI changes, you can visit this thread.

Oct. 24, 2006

Doesn't mean I can't believe it!

As the expansion draws ever closer, we have two new site additions. First, from Palehoof (one of the Blizzard MVP’s no less), we have a brief overview of the new Horde race, the Blood Elves. From yours truly, a graphical guide to the newest beasts in Outlands. I’ve also set up three separate topics on the TKA Something message boards (one in the General section and two in Pick of the Litter) to keep track of what it is we know about the expansion as it specifically relates to hunters. Have we crossed the line into overhype yet? Nah.

But, it seems we’re destined to HAVE to wait. This JUST in!

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.

A pawprint of the Burning Crusade – (Beasts) added
Journey of the Blood Elf – (Guides) added

Oct. 17, 2006

What happened? Did I faint? What did he leave us?

I am working on getting all the new Burning Crusade information compiled and up within the next couple of days. If you have additional information or screenshots, do feel free to send it to me, even if you think I might already know or have pictures already. There’s no such thing as too much information (at least in this case).

Since the new talents were released, there have been some changes. Hawk Eye [Survival] has been moved to Tier 1 of the Survival tree (I approve of this) and Deflection [Survival] and Savage Strikes [Survival] have switched places (Deflection [Survival] moves up to T2, Savage Strikes [Survival] down to T1). This change I don’t really like. I would suggest the combination of the slaying talents at this point into a 5 talent instead of spreading them out over 2 separate 3 point talents, while moving Deflection [Survival] and Savage Strikes [Survival] back to where they were. Also, Combat Experience [Marksmanship] was gutted. Stamina was removed completely and the agility bonus reduced to 2% (Intellect remains the same at 6%). I expect more changes in the coming weeks as well – so I wouldn’t get too attached to your new talent builds QUITE yet.

Too, we received a lengthy explanation from Eyonix concerning the new Combat Rating system – a change you might have noticed if you’ve seen any of the Burning Crusade items from Beta, as they no longer display statistics the way we’re used to, such as 2% critical chance. But, Eyonix explains it better than I do, so read on:

With the upcoming release of the Burning Crusade, we thought we would take the time to explain more on a new stat that we are introducing: Combat Ratings. These ratings are being used for any combat stat that previously was percentage-based such as: critical strike chance, hit chance, dodge chance and defense skill. Combat ratings are only used with effects generated by items and do not apply to effects that are generated by spells and talents which will continue to work the same.

The following combat ratings are currently in use: weapon skill, defense, dodge, parry, block, hit chance, spell hit chance, critical strike chance, spell critical strike chance, resilience, haste, and spell haste. We may introduce others at a later time.

Combat Skills
Unlike fixed percentages such as 2% critical strike chance, combat ratings diminish in potency as your character increases in level. 2% crit is the same at every level, while 28 critical strike rating grants 4% crit at level 34, 2% crit at level 60, and 1.27% crit at level 70. This allows us the ability to create and add new and better items to the world without eventually reaching a point where every character has a 100% chance to critically strike.

Below is the level 60 conversion for combat skills:

Weapon Skill Rating 2.5 rating grants 1 weapon skill
Hit Rating 10 rating grants 1% hit chance
Spell Hit Rating 8 rating grants 1% spell hit chance
Critical Strike Rating 14 rating grants 1% critical strike chance
Spell Critical Strike Rating 14 rating grants 1% spell critical strike chance
Haste 10 rating 1% haste
Spell Haste 10 rating grants 1% spell haste

Defense Skills
The impact on the defense skill and weapon skill systems is slightly more complicated. Many people do not realize these skills actually grant percentage-based benefits already. For example, every 25 points of defense skill grants a 1% dodge chance, 1% parry chance, 1% block chance, 1% increased chance to be missed and 1% decreased chance to be critically hit by physical attacks. Weapon skills have a similar effect for the attacker. Items will now grant skill rating rather than skill directly, and that will convert to an actual skill increase.

Below is the level 60 conversion for defense skills:

Defense Skill Rating 1.5 rating grants 1 defense skill
Dodge Rating 12 rating grants 1% dodge
Parry Rating 20 rating grants 1% parry
Block Rating 5 rating grants 1% block chance

Resilience
Resilience is a special new rating which we have created to reduce the effects of critical hits against your character. It has two components; it reduces the chance you will be critically hit by X percent, and it reduces the damage dealt to you by critical hits by 2X percent. X is the percentage resilience granted by a given resilience rating.

Below is the level 60 conversion for resilience:

Resilience 25 rating grants 1% resilience

Each time you go up a level, the amount of rating needed to get the same benefit will increase. An example of the scaling involved would be the current implementation of Agility which has always worked this way in the live game, requiring more agility for the same critical strike chance as you go up in level.

Confused? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. If you want to read more, check out this thread.

Oct. 8, 2006

When the tears are gone, life will move on

I knew I should have waited on a news update. I KNEW it! So yes, I’m sure you’ve seen by now, hunter talents and spells are now available for our dissection and discussion. Too, a lot of the rumors flying around have been now confirmed by a Blizzard representative (Kalgan).

1. Traps are now on a 30 sec cooldown, but can be used in combat (you no longer need to feign/trap).
2. When feign death is resisted, you are still reduced to 0 threat for any targets that did not resist feign death (although if any creature resists the feign, you won’t be taken completely out of combat, you’ll still be on the creature group’s target list).
3. Attack Power and Crit related changes:
a. Hunters now get 1 AP per Agility rather than 2. This change helps us provide more interesting stat distributions on hunter items. Previously, Hunters valued Agi significantly above any other stat, such that it was extremely difficult for us to create variety among Hunter items. For example, before this change, we could have spent 1 stat point on an item to give you either 2 AP or 1 Agi (which gave 2 AP along with a small bonus to crit and a small bonus to dodge… clearly the better choice). However, several changes have been made along with this change in order to offset the AP loss.
b. Hunters now get significantly more crit per point of Agility than before (about 33agi/crit at level 60).
c. Hunters now get more dodge per point of Agility than before (about 20agi/dodge at lvl 60).
d. Ranged weapons have had their damage values significantly increased (and consequently the weapon’s dps)... this also helps make weapon upgrades feel more meaningful for Hunters than it did previously (along with the other changes, this change is retroactive).
e. Most Hunter equipment has been updated to have a better distribution between +Attack Power bonuses and Agility.
4. Aimed Shot related changes:
a. Aimed Shot now resets the Hunter’s shot timer. This talent was always intended to be an “opening” shot, and not something that would be woven between shots. However, since Aimed Shot became such a core element for Hunter DPS, we didn’t want to make this change until we were prepared to make several other changes to increase hunter DPS to offset it. Fortunately, this means that some of the odd side effects of the old Aimed Shot are no longer relevant, such as requiring hunters to use extremely slow weapons to maximize their DPS (weapons slow enough to be able to use Aimed Shot in between auto shots)
b. Arcane Shot now does substantially more damage than it did before, and scales with AP.
c. Steady Shot has been introduced as a core ability in the expansion, and provides much the same kind of gameplay as Aimed Shot did in the past (a shot you weave in between your normal shots), but to a much more managable degree (since it’s a 1.5 sec shot, it doesn’t require as slow of a weapon to take advantage of, and doesn’t require to stand still for as long).
5. Other note: Wyvern Sting may now be used in combat.

Also answered were questions regarding regarding if items that had very high agility (items usually seen as “hunter items”) were receiving a statistics review.

Yes, a handful of items that were not explicitly hunter-only but were clearly designed as “hunter items” with disproportionately high Agi values are having some of their stats shifted to AP (although they’ll still be agi-heavy in general).

And the change in Wyvern Sting not being noted on the talent calculator.

The Talent Calculator will be updated to remove the “out of combat” requirement. However, Wyvern Sting did gain a 1.5 second cast time instead.

More information about Steady Shot.

Steady Shot does not have a cooldown. The AP scaling on Arcane Shot is 20% of AP.

Essentially it works similarly to the way Aimed Shot works in today’s game. If you’re in the middle of a Steady Shot when your shot timer comes up, it won’t fire until your Steady Shot is finished. So, it’s to your advantage to get your steady shots in nicely in-between your normal shots.

Also, since Arcane Shot does a bit more damage than Steady Shot (unless the target is dazed), you’ll generally favor Arcane Shot over Steady Shot when it’s available.

Answers to questions about our Snakes on a Plane… er, Trap.

1. Yes, snakes are mobs that can be targeted. There are 6 to 10 snakes that come out of the trap (oh $h1%, we’ve got Snakes on a Trap!) and attack random targets within 10 yards of the trap.
2. The snakes do physical damage and apply random poisons (ie: mind numbing, crippling, and a deadly poison).
3. They don’t do a lot of damage individually, but in total the damage is meaningful.
4. The snakes will chase the same distance mobs normally chase.
5. The snakes move at normal mob speed (although their victims may be affected by crippling poison).

Replies to inquiries regarding pets and Hawk Eye.

1. The pet abilities that have been “leaked” are pet abilities that have been in the database for at least 3 years now, but never went live because they were considerably overpowered. So, ignore those. More information on new pet types/abilities will come at a later time.
2. We moved Hawk Eye in order to shift a meaningful talent from MM (which we felt had too many) to Survival (which we felt could use another).

Cooldown issues.

Arcane Shot and Aimed Shot no longer share the same cooldown.

Misdirection (new spell).

It can be used in a 5 person party too.

Misdirection doesn’t change your target, it simply changes who the threat is going to.

So, imagine you’re firing away, you click misdirection (and get the spell glove to target a party/raid member), click on the person you want the threat to go to, and for your next 3 shots all the threat generated by those shots is added to that party/raid member.

Silencing Shot (new Marksmanship 41 point talent).

You’ll still get the damage against targets that can’t be silenced.

Other stuff (the original questions being answered will be in italics).

Since Aimed Shot will now reset the auto-shot timer and also add the weapon’s delay to the spell’s cooldown, are there any plans to remove the weapon speed normalization from it?

Aimed Shot’s cooldown should not be affected by the weapon’s delay. This is bug that will be corrected.

Are there any plans to make Kill Command scale with attack power? It might be pretty nice for fresh 70’s but abilities that deal a flat amount of damage with no way of increasing it become useless eventually (think of Mongoose Bite).

Kill Command actually already scales (just not in an obvious way). First, as your crit % goes up, you’ll be able to use it more often. Second, since it’s an instant attack for your pet, its damage goes up as the pet scales with your gear improvements (the ability deals pet damage + the “an additonal” bonus listed in the tooltip).

On a related note, will Mongoose Bite scale with weapon damage or attack power in the expansion?

Mongoose Bite does scale based on your melee attack power in the expansion.

Why do Arcane Shot and Steady shot scale with attack power rather than weapon damage? Wouldn’t it make weapon upgrades more appealing if weapon damage was considered?

Arcane and Steady shot scale with your attack power rather than your weapon damage so as not to overemphasize weapon speed (while we don’t mind having slow or fast weapons have abilities/talents that favor one or the other slightly, we don’t like being in a place where fast weapons are considered drastically inferior to slow weapons).

Will ranged weapon damage scale faster than before? What I mean by that is currently, the DPS difference between Rhok’delar and Ashjre’thul is 1.6. In the “leaked” screenshots I have seen, the DPS on both weapons was increased significantly. However, the difference between the new upgraded versions was still 1.7 DPS. In order for weapon upgrades to be more appealing, ranged weapon damage needs to grow faster (similarly to 2-handed weapon damage growth). Obviously I’m only looking at 2 weapons, and those are not official screenshots, so could you provide us with some additional insight? My beef was that ranged weapon damage increases at about the same rate as 1-handed weapons, but hunters don’t have % multiplier attacks like rogues.

Noted, although I suppose everyone would like for their weapons to scale more quickly, wouldn’t they. ;]

The new agility to AP/crit ratio seems interesting. However, don’t you think the optimal distribution might still be something along the lines of: X agility + 2X attack power? For instance I was looking at the new hunter versions of current hunter items such as Dragonstalker’s Helm. The new version has 18 agility + 36 attack power (I think) instead of 27 agility. This stat spread seems to be optimal as it provides a nice balance between attack power and crit, providing more crit than the old version, but the same attack power (and therefore it is “better” than the old stat distribution, which you said was optimal already in the current game). Am I wrong?

We actually gain several viable stat combinations that you haven’t mentioned (ie: AP/Crit, Agil/Crit, in addition to +hit rating and +crit rating being more comparable to agility on a point-for-point basis than they were before).

Can you tell us about how feign death is being changed in the expansion as far as its functionality?

This is described in more detail in one of the other threads I posted in. In summary, only the actual creatures that resist feign death will completely ignore its effects.

Would you consider moving Hawk Eye to a level 1 survival talent?

Yes, this has been under consideration for some time now and has not yet been ruled out. No promises though.

Will +attack power buffs (blessing of might, battle shout) once again apply to ranged attack power?

We hope to be more clear about what effects should and should not affect Ranged Attack Power. However, that doesn’t mean that all melee attack power buffs will be extended to affect ranged attack power (otherwise there wouldn’t be much point to having them as different stats).

So yes, lots to discuss. My own take (and issue) is this – while I understand the explanation about Hawk Eye being moved, I’m not sure I entirely agree with it. Even though in end game raiding (Naxx), the extra yardage isn’t really all that important (AEs are either avoidable within lesser range or they’re not), it’s still a core part of the hunter class in nearly all other aspects. No one single ability is a “must have” MORE than Hawk Eye. If you’re going to acknowledge this fact (and Blizzard has) either put it into a tree where people will already be significantly be spending (IE Marksmanship) and leave it where it was or move it to a T1 talent. I’ve also heard (yes yes, I know, I swore not to repeat leaked information but in this one case I’m making a singular exception) that traps now have an 'arming time’ (meaning they’re not instant upon drop). I think too that people are blinded by the fact that they can be dropped in combat and have missed the fact that their cooldown has doubled. Boo. Hiss. And finally, I doubt many noticed it unless you had the talent, Improved Eyes of the Beast is no more. Anyway! Feel free to discuss the changes on the TKA Message Boards.

Oct. 2, 2006

Oh, no, I'll take a hallucination like that

I’ve been holding off on a news update because I keep expecting the Hunter talent preview any day now. The problem is, I’ve been sitting on a huge amount of news because of it and the pressure! So, here it is (some of it could even be classified as old news, now). Of course, I’m sure that the talents will be out something like tomorrow and then I’ll be like, oh man! Anyway. Let’s go in order from oldest to most recent, although the most recent has happened just in the last few days.

We’re going to be scaling Warlock and Hunter pets come expansion so that they become stronger as the player gains more statistics through itemization.

This comes as no surprise, really, and something that’s probably been in the works for a while. Shame we have to wait for Burning Crusade to see any sort of realization on it. But, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m glad it’s being worked on.

The current plan is to reduce effectiveness of crowd control spells in Arena combat. I’m not sure at the moment if this will also carry over to battlegrounds, but it is a possibility.

What were looking into is having reduced duration of crowd control spells to prevent extended removal from combat. Outside of a PvP area such as arenas, spells will operate as normal, according to tooltip. Inside a PvP instance, a spell which may have had a 15 second duration will be reduced to a 10 or 5 second duration. The details of duration are not specific, I am merely using these numbers to illustrate the point and intent.

So, while we don’t plan on disabling CC in Arenas, we do have intent to decrease its potential for extended incapacitation.

I’m certain that Freezing Traps will fall under this category, which will be interesting to see in terms of implementation as my traps (at LV60) rarely last the entire 15 second duration during PvP anyway. But then, we also heard this today:

Player: Polymorph and Dragon’s Breath are on the same Diminishing Returns timer just like Scatter Shot and Freeze Trap ;).

Kalgan [Blizzard Poster]: Not anymore (in both cases).

So, that makes Scatter Shot the PvP necessity (not that it wasn’t already). This does make me feel less angsty about the Arena crowd control changes, a little (very little!). Lastly, and this is really what I’d term the worst news lately, we finally, two years later, have gotten an answer regarding stable slots.

We don’t have any intentions at this time to increase the total number of stable slots.

However, we are interested in possibly changing the way Hunter’s might use stable slots. The issue we see, is that a stable slot is usually left empty in order to swap out pets and take abilities off of them. This results in Hunters usually having one empty stable slot at all times, waiting for that “disposable” pet.

We might be changing the way taming works, so that beast training can be used without actually having to tame and stable a pet. This could then allow Hunters to store an actual pet in that previously empty slot, effectively increasing the stable size.

Increasing storage space for characters carries a heavy technological weight to it and is something we try to avoid when possible by using more creative solutions. Increasing character data directly impacts game performance, so it is something done with careful consideration and should not be regarded as “the simple, easy solution”.

Not the answer I wanted or honestly, am willing to accept. One single slot isn’t enough. Am I the only person who sees the irony regarding previous statements made about how hunters can switch their pet on the fly to fit their situation – when we can only ever choose from three pets (at most), none of which who can currently be as specific as we might want them to be because of the limits of training points? I don’t know, I realize coding an MMO is a big, complicated thing but changing the way pets are trained to free up a single slot doesn’t seem all that creative to me.

Okay, enough ranting. We had some site changes, most noticeably a major re-write of the Pet Extend add-on is now available. There’s some other stuff but I actually have sort of forgotten what… as ever, just poke around, you’ll see some updates! Oh and… about our talents?

I’m still hoping for this week, although the preview is still in the works and will have to go through translation for all regions before it’s released, so no promises.

Mpstark’s Pet Extend – (Beasts) updated

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