Aug. 31, 2005
Is your blade as sharp as your tongue?
I have been busy, busy BUSY on the Test server! So, when the new patch is released, never fear – everything will be updated accordingly (at least in regards to pet skills). Don’t forget, you click on the little plus sign beside the skill to expand the list! Too, Hortus of Blizzard confirms the following:
Learning a higher rank of a pet ability refunds the previous ranks talent points.
And, although the new 'autocast toggle from spellbook’ for pet skills is also being implemented in the upcoming patch, it’s been confirmed that only allowing pets to learn four skills is NOT a bug – it’s by design because of the new customization. So, I guess I’m not sure what the ability to toggle from the spellbook was for, since it can all be managed via the pet bar, now…
Speaking very briefly about pet skills – I’m glad to know that people are using TKA as a resource (that’s what it’s for, after all), but if you’re going to use my skill list on your own site, it’d be courteous if you’d at least give credit rather than just lifting the list in its entirety and passing it off as your own. I’m aware the information is readily available but I also know a cut and paste job when I see one. Consider this my verbal 'slap on the wrist’.
Next Blizzard stop – Mortal Shots! Kalgan had this to say:
Hopefully, I can shed some light as to why this change was necessary.
First, some numbers…
Due to the number of talent improvements in this patch, our testing showed that a typical marksmanship Hunter’s DPS was going to go up by over 11% as a result of the combined changes. Although some of you are likely to disagree, we felt that this was too much of an increase and would have led to Hunters being “overpowered”. Bringing Mortal Shots down to a 30% bonus is an 8% decrease in the damage done on a crit since the 2.5 crit dmg multiplier is goes down to 2.3. According to our tests, this change, combined with the dps gains from other talent changes, have resulted in a net INCREASE in a marksmanship hunter’s DPS by a little more than 4%.
In addition, due to the additional rank in the Barrage talent and the fact that some of the new hunter talents increase a hunter’s base damage (which increases crit damage, since the 2.3 multiplier is being applied to a larger base number), we have found that a marksmanship hunter’s burst dps is still approximately what it was before.
Second, some design philosophy…
In considering different potential builds, we felt as though Mortal Shots was too much of a “required” talent, and we’d prefer it if every hunter didn’t feel as though they had to have Mortal Shots, since it drastically decreases the number of viable builds. Simply moving it farther down the tree (as some experts have suggested) would have been very dangerous, as many players would still feel “forced” to go even farther down the Marksmanship tree, which would even further reduce the number of perceived “viable” builds.
Also, while some players have suggested that the new Mortal Shots talent isn’t worth the points, it’s worth noting that the rogue’s Lethality talent is a 30% bonus (and even more limited in application), yet is still used extensively by rogues.
OK, WAIT. STOP. Do my eyes deceive me? Are we actually being compared to rogues? Every time we’re compared to rogues, someone, somewhere, throttles a kitten, pulls the wings off a fly or prevents an angel from getting their wings (maybe all 3 at once!). It’s exceptionally cruel to try to balance us against a class that requires half the amount of agility to net the same results. You do realize that we require 52-ish agility and rogues need about half that. Right? I mean, this hasn’t been some error all along, RIGHT?
In summary, I think it’s important to come to terms with the fact that patch 7 brings more interesting talent choices, more pet customization, and an increase to the DPS of most hunters (unless you re-spec to a build that avoids as many DPS talents as you can, which I don’t foresee many players doing).
Interesting might not be the exact word I’d use to describe it…
Hunter DPS – Math, Myth and Mystery (Guides) added
Wailing Caverns – (Habitat) added
Aug. 16, 2005
Leo the tiger couldn’t do anything right
So much hunter news, as the 1.7 patch looms on the horizon. Here is the latest, jammed into another giant update:
Due to player feedback, it appears that Counterattack will indeed be in 1.7, replacing Readiness on the current new Survival tree. The viability of Counterattack was reviewed after the overwhelming response regarding its removal, and it was determined by the designers that the talent should not be removed from the tree after all. Unfortunately, this means that something else from that new tree had to be replaced.
Survival hunters get their wish, but at the cost of Readiness, which would have been a reset to trap and feign death timers.
Hawk Eye has switched places with Barrage in the Marksmanship talent tree, and another rank has been added to Barrage. This change will be in 1.7.
Spirit Bond has been changed from its original form to a consistent 1% health regeneration. This change, I am less than thrilled about.
Here’s what I was told from the class designers’ viewpoint:
Spirit Bond was not considered a compelling 31 point talent in comparison with others, so Bestial Wrath was made the “ultimate” in Beast Mastery. When they moved it, they chose to make it passive so that the regeneration (both Hunter and pet) would be working as long as the pet was active. Previously, (as I’m sure you know) the pet had to be successfully hitting and it would only give the Hunter health.
The old Spirit Bond was more situational. If the pet wasn’t hitting (if it was crowd controlled or being kited, etc) or if the Hunter was at full health, it gave no benefit. The new version is more universal, giving both Hunter and pet health whenever they’re wounded regardless of what the pet is doing at the time.
That was the general philosophy. EDIT: To my knowledge, this is not getting changed back.
Now, here’s the big news that I sort of worked up to (to soften the blow).
The designers have deemed Mortal Shots a touch too powerful in its current form when combined with the rest of the talent changes. As such, the maximum will no longer be 50%, but rather 30% to ranged weapon critical damage. This makes the talent similar to its Rogue equivalent, Lethality, which holds the same percentage. (Mind you, this is NOT a comparison between the two classes, as they are not precisely the same and have a wealth of different abilities and strengths.)
Even with this change, Hunter DPS should increase in 1.7 on the whole. After reviewing the affect Mortal Shots would have when used with the other possible combination of talents, it was determined that a 50% increase in critical damage would be going too far; the new value should still be beneficial, and DPS should still increase for you on average.
Now, I rarely voice an opinion about Blizzard changes. I try to stay mostly neutral about things. But this change I do not like, at all. In the big spectrum of things, I feel that the Hunter class is really struggling to carve out a niche for itself. It seems that the path we’re supposed to be taking is one of sustained damage at low cost – to which I’ll agree, for the most part, we do deliver that. However, the majority of fights we engage in, except for the current “end game” instances, are not fought in terms of large chunks of time (this is especially true in PvP). The fights are short, under a minute or two for most, and this is where this change will hurt us. Supposedly this is still under discussion with developers so I guess we have to wait and see what the final result will be.
All right, folks, here’s something that should lift your spirits. The following are the pet customization changes in the 1.7 patch.
You can now train your pet in passive abilities such as increased Armor, Stamina, Fire Resistance, Nature Resistance, Shadow Resistance, Frost Resistance, and Arcane Resistance using their training points.
In addition, there are specialized abilities for certain types of pets:
- Bats, Owls, and Carrion Birds can now learn the Screech ability, a fast, single-target attack that also lowers the attack power of all enemies within melee range of the pet.
- Cats can now learn the Stealth ability. In addition to being unseen, they receive a damage bonus for their first attack coming out of Stealth.
- Scorpids can now learn Scorpid Poison. This poison deals Nature damage over time and stacks up to five times on a single enemy.
- Wolves can now learn Furious Howl. The howl adds a flat amount of damage to all nearby party members’ next attack (within 15 yards).
The training point costs for all pet abilities have been rebalanced, and Growl is now free for all pets. You can un-train your pet’s training points from any Pet Trainer in the major cities for a fee. Similar to talent respecs, un-training a specific pet scales up as you do it more times: 10s, 50s, 1g, 2g, 3g, etc… capping at 10g.
Hunter pets will now gain experience based on the level difference between them and their target, rather than the difference between the Hunters and their target. This will make it much easier to level up a low level pet. You will still need to kill creatures from which the Hunter can gain experience, however.
And lastly — as a comment to an annoying issue for many — you can adjust the autocast status of skills with that option in the spellbook.
The designers are looking into further customization, but this is what is coming for 1.7.
No, I’m not off my soapbox yet. The pet customization is really a mixed bag. I like that low level pets won’t take as long to work with. I like that the abilities will be 'fixed’ via the spellbook now, instead of clunky workarounds. But I feel that the pets truly deserving of 'love’ aren’t getting it in the near future. I’m talking about the Wind Serpents and Gorillas of the world. Also not mentioned is how we’re obtaining the new special skills – and what happens to our old skills with the new training.
Since none of these changes are even on Test yet, Hunters remain in a holding pattern.
July 30, 2005
You say goodbye, I say hello
Normally, I wait a bit between news updates, unless there’s something 'big’ that’s keeping me busy. Well, in this case, something 'big’ has prompted a new update sooner than expected.
Blizzard has released a talent tree builder, that spotlights the brand new revamp of the three talent trees (Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, Survival). As promised, Lacerate (the end talent of the Survival tree) has been removed and replaced with a new ability called 'Wyvern Sting’. There are quite a few other changes and were I to list them all, the update would be as lengthy as our last – and besides, I know everyone wants to see them for themselves (and probably start playing around with the points).
Obviously, it’s not complete because many ranks don’t list the upgraded numbers, but it should give people an idea of what’s happening to our class. It never feels like there can be good news without bad, and this is no exception. Counterattack has been removed from the Talent Tree; whether it will re-appear as a skill is only speculation at this point.
Also (yes, I tried to sugar coat this final bit of news), there are some 'final words’ about the changes to traps that happened in the last patch. As we know, previously, traps were not resisted by anything short of NPCs that were actually immune to them. The sudden resistances that Hunters experienced in the last patch was thought (or hoped) to be a bug. Seismics, from the Blizzard Bug Forum touched on traps in his update, but today we received confirmation from Community Manager Caydiem:
I’m sorry you’re upset, but this is what I was told.
Apparently, traps were always meant to have a resist rate in some capacity. The code for that to occur, however, was not functioning for quite some time. It was fixed in patch 1.6. We were not informed of the change during patch note compilation — indeed, I was not made aware of it until recently.
I do sincerely apologize for the confusion that has surrounded this change, and I wish I’d have received the information as I was writing the patch notes so it could have been avoided.
When the point was brought up that our crowd control is not really re-castable (unlike Poly/Root/Frost Nova) because it requires us to be out of combat, the response was as follows:
Er… please put this in perspective. A Mage’s Frost Nova and Polymorph can be resisted. A Druid’s Root can be resisted. Yet they “count on” these abilities because they are part and parcel of what their class happens to be. With Hunters it is no different. :) I am aware there are differences, but the point remains. Traps, while they are out-of-combat, are instant-cast and do not cost the Hunter much at all. Those other crowd control abilities I mentioned have their own separate costs.
We never once stated that the trade-off for no resists was that traps could be only set out of combat — that was an unfortunate assumption that we could not dispel considering the state of traps up until recently.
Again, I’m sorry for the confusion, but the resists are intended by the developers and I do not believe they will return them to their unresistible state at any point in the future.
So, there you have it. If you actually made it back to reading the second part of the update, rather than running off to play with the new talent tree, you’ll see that trap resist (and Feign Death resists) are now built in there as well. Something of a double edged sword, but it will be interesting to see how things play out once the changes make it to test/live.
July 28, 2005
Pursue that flighty temptress, adventure
With the Hunter patch looming on the horizon, some news from Seismics of Blizzard in the Bug Forum regarding hunter issues/bugs:
Known issues not listed below:
- When a hunter has Auto Shot activated and switches targets Auto Shot is canceled.
- Feign Death can be resisted by a non-pvp flagged player.
- After Frost Trap is triggered, the hunter will cause other mobs around him outside of trap’s radius to have the frost effect.
- The Hunter’s pet does not receive the flurry talent buff from a special skill crit attack
- If a Hunter/Warlock tells his pet to attack a target and switches to passive mode to recall the pet before the pet engages, the pet will return properly. However that target remains on the pet’s hate list and if the owner places the pet on defensive the pet will agro that target.
- Lightning Shield type spells will hit a Hunter when triggering a trap type spell.
- Pet happiness isn’t restored to the full amount when resurrecting in a battlegound.
Issues yet to be researched:
- Traps are not activating when players stealth or charge over them.
- Daze effect attached to Aspect of the Cheetah is triggered by DoT damage.
- The hunter’s Arcane Shot, Scatter Shot, Distracting Shot, Scorpid Sting, Viper Sting, and Serpent Sting all have tooltips that state they are attack speed abilities while the are actually instant abilities.
- The hunter’s Immolation Trap and Explosive trap have resist rates of the spells level rather than the hunter’s level.
- Scatter Shot is not dealing its damage if the target is immune to the Scatter Shot confuse effect.
- Traps (notably freeze and immolation) are sometimes being resisted/not activating when mobs run over them. Unclear is this is an intentional nerf or a new bug with 1.6. Freeze traps are considered poor crowd-control as it is; to have them subject to failure further diminishes their value.
The fact that traps can be resisted is intended as stated. It seems I forgot to mention that previous to 1.6.0, traps were not able to be resisted. In design, we always meant to have traps resisted. However at some point traps stop being resisted due to a bug. Fixing this bug has changed traps back to their intended resistible form. We’re sorry that this change was not posted in the patch notes.
There have been several reports that the fire-based traps seem to be resisting more than normal. This is something we’re looking into right now. It seems the traps are using their own level for the resistance formula and not the Hunter’s level. Once I have more information on this I’ll let you all know.
- Feign Death appears to be resisted at an unreasonable rate; sometimes when there are no hostile mobs nearby.
First there is a known bug that non-flagged players can resist a feign death. In addition, thanks to a recent hotfix (near 1.6.0) feign death should actually be resisting less. Previously, high-level MOBs were resisting approximately 20% more than intended.
The general resistance data is as follows for PVE:
Vs. +0 level mob (same level), old resist: 4% new resist: 4%
Vs. +1 level mob, old resist: 5% new resist: 5%
Vs. +2 level mob, old resist: 6% new resist: 6%
Vs. +3 level mob, old resist: 37% new resist: 17%
Vs. +4 level mob, old resist: 48% new resist: 28%
Vs. +5 level mob, old resist: 59% new resist: 39%
Vs. +6 level mob, old resist: 70% new resist: 50%
And so on (+11% for each additional level)
For PVP:
Vs. +0 level player (same level), old resist: 4% new resist: 4%
Vs. +1 level player, old resist: 5% new resist: 5%
Vs. +2 level player, old resist: 6% new resist: 6%
Vs. +3 level player, old resist: 25% new resist: 13%
Vs. +4 level player, old resist: 32% new resist: 20%
Vs. +5 level player, old resist: 39% new resist: 27%
Vs. +6 level player, old resist: 46% new resist: 34%
And so on (+7% for each additional level)
Basically this means that against higher level MOBs, feign death was more likely to fail in the past. If there is a high level MOB/player near when you feign death, there is a better chance that the feign death will be resisted.
During controlled testing these tables were confirmed to be correct. This isn’t to say that other feign death bugs may be occurring, but as for the actual resist formulas, you now have them to compare to. If anyone finds data that is off from these tables when testing, please let us know the location, level, MOBs, players, etc so that we can reproduce the issue and research it. Remember though that higher fire/frost/etc resistances can allow MOBs/players to resist more.
- Several players have reported their secondary pet skills (mend/train/feed) going missing shortly after getting those skills via the quest. They are unable to get them at the trainer, and they’re not in the spellbook. Logging out or a server restart may be involved.
We’ll look into this a bit more to see what could be causing this. For the time being though, please contact a GM if this happens and they will be able to help.
- Incorrect sting/debuff stacking: Serpent sting will stack. Scorpid will stack with Viper if cast AFTER; but not before. Viper sting will not stack with itself or Serpent. Hunters mark cast after Improved Hunters Mark will stack; but Improved cast after will overwrite.
Thanks for the report! We’ll send this one to the designers to see exactly what should and should not stack.
- Scattershot should turn off autoshot & autoattack, as disengage does.
Yes this is a known bug that we’re currently working on.
- Can’t interrupt Aimed Shot, even if aimed shot has failed due to the target moving out of range. Player must move first to break it.
- Traps and other non-hunter crowd control skills are causing mobs to “warp” right to players when the CC breaks, as of patch 1.4.
Thanks for the report! This is a known general issue that we’ve been working on a fix for.
- Feign death causes loss of kill/quest credit and looting rights, if pet kills the mob; even if player caused most of the damage to the mob.
Thanks for the report! From what we’ve found, using feign death while your pet is still in combat can cause the hunter to gain less experience than the kill is worth, loss of loot rights, and loss of quest kill credit.
- Flare’s tooltip indicates it exposes hidden enemies with 30 yards, for 30 seconds. The radius is much smaller than 30 yards.
Thank you for the report. We’ll test this out to see what could be causing this.
- Casting flare causes aggro from guards in Booty Bay.
We do have a bug about non-aggressive spells sometimes causing aggro from neutral guards but historically flare has not had this problem. One thing we did find from a player report though was that some MOBs will actually aggro from casting flare on them. We’ll test flare more and see what we can find. If anyone has consistent reproducible steps please let us know.
- Autoshot is counted as a “spell” for the purposes of Spell Bomb, and the Silence effect caused by Maraudon Basilisks.
Spell Bomb used to have this problem for any ability that was used. It has since been removed from all mobs in the game. The silence from the basilisks sounds familiar. Please try this in the next patch when it comes out and let us know if it still happens.
- A hunter using Feign Death can cause other party members or nearby players to stop moving.
- Scattershot appears to be on the same diminishing returns as freeze trap in PvP.
This is very similar to the way a rogue’s gouge and sap are on the same timer. This is not a bug and is intended since both skills are “mez” type crowd control skills.
- The recent fix to Aspect of the Hawk appears to have disabled Blessing of Might, Battle shout, and other +attack power buffs from affecting Ranged Attack Power. Battle Shout’s description states “Increases party’s melee and ranged damage”, so this is in no way “working as intended”, despite assertions to the contrary.
Attack power bonuses granted through buffs are type specific. Anything applying to ranged attack power will specifically state “ranged attack power”. This is as designed. Battle Shout tooltip reads “…increasing the attack power of all members…” and does not apply to ranged attack power.
- There is a serious problem with how +agi, +attack power, and +crit% items work when being put on/off. From Bruser: “If the user has just logged on, just equipped an item including agi, or just zoned, then the crit calc does not include any crit % bonuses from gear. If the user then unequips an item that includes a crit% bonus, but no agi, then the crit% includes the crit% bonuses, but only until that user zones, equips gear with an agi bonus, or logs out.
The only bug that comes to mind about crit percentages being off is the set bonus bug. Set bonuses have problems stacking with similar item bonuses when the set item is unequipped then reequipped. I’m thinking this is not the bug you’re referring to but I wanted to make you aware of it. If possible can we get a full explanation of the issue above so we can better test it?
- It is reported that Ranged Weapon Specialization is no longer correctly adding damage to special shots as of patch 1.3 or 1.4.
Yup, the hunter’s Ranged Weapon Specialization talent is not applying to Arcane Shot, Volley, or Serpent Sting. This is not simply a display issue. We’re seeing how we can fix this.
- Cannot cast trueshot while within range of another hunter’s trueshot aura.
- Improved Scorpid Sting when active incorrectly displays the amount of stamina the target has been reduced. Related: Improved Aspect of the Hawk and Improved Hunters Mark do not show their increased values when active.
- Improved Aspect of the Monkey doesn’t show increased % to dodge when active in the buff tooltip.
- Improved Aspect of the Hawk doesn’t show increase ranged attack power in tooltip.
All the above issues are caused from a bug with talents updating buff tooltips. It is something we know about and are working on a fix for.
- Pets are automatically put into passive mode when the hunter mounts. If the hunter is forcibly dismounted, the previous attack mode is not restored.
We do not want to allow pets to attack while the owner is mounted. Pet owners could command their pet to attack and run circles around their target while mounted.
- Pet skills not on the pet bar but in the spellbook will autocast: often undesirable.
If you take a skill off auto-cast and then remove it from the quick-bar then the skill should not be cast. However when you logout or zone this skill will revert back to being auto-cast. This is a known bug.
- Dash autocast is broken, such that it casts when the hunter is attacked (despite being on passive, not defensive); not when the pet is ordered to attack. New with 1.5.
Yup this is a bug that we know about and will be releasing a fix for in an upcoming patch.
- Utility buttons on the pet action bar such as stay, follow, or defensive/passive mode can be dragged off and lost permanently. These “skills” should be either listed in the pet skills section of the spell book, or be permanently locked in the bar and undragable.
There was an old issue with this on release that was fixed. This might be a resurfacing of this bug. In our internal version when we drag a skill it can only be moved around on the bar and not actually removed. Please try this in the next patch and let us know if it is still happening.
- Dash does not autocast-trigger when the target is a humanoid, or does so inconsistently. Fewer problems when the target is another creature type.
This is a bug that we know about and will be releasing a fix for in a future patch.
- There isn’t room for Claw, Bite, Growl, Cower, and Dash to be on the pet bar at the same time. A skill on autocast then dragged off will stay autocast. In some cases this is desirable, in others, not.
- If a pet’s first hit on a target is a critical strike, it won’t trigger Frenzy.
If the first hit was a special attack like bite (which is usually the case) then this could be caused by the issue where a pet’s special attack crit will not proc flurry. As for normal attacks they, seemed to be giving the flurry buff consistently.
- Hostile Pets: Pets sometimes become red and attackable by the friendly faction. May be an issue with PvP and Contested Zones. Update Apr 15: no longer seem attackable, but the name label still appears red sometimes until the pet is targeted.
This is caused by the owner being outside your computers “loading” range. If you try and attack a red pet that is owned by a friendly faction it should not let you and give you an error. I understand how this is confusing so I’ll forward it on to be looked at.
- Equipment durability goes down as the pet gets hit, not the hunter. Defense skill may also raise as part of the same bug.
We know about this issues and it is currently being looked at.
- Pet pathing: if the player jumps down a height where there is a alternate path not requiring a jump, the pet will go the long way, often dragging many mobs behind. Pets instead should follow straight behind the player down jumps.
Yes this issue is known. Unfortunately I have no new info to report on this yet.
- Pet aggro range: it’s been reported that pets can draw aggro from much farther than players. Gnomeregan has been mentioned multiple times; with pets reportedly causing every mob in the instance to aggro & start running at the player.
The Gnomeregan issue stated above is a problem with the alarm aggro radius. If a party member is level 27 or below they will aggro the Gnomeregan alarms from beyond their emote distance. This causes the alarm to spawn a ridiculously large number of mobs that will swarm the players. It can be easily mistaken as the entire dungeon coming at the players. Otherwise, as tested, the pets aggro range should be the same as a players of equal level.
- It has been reported that a pet will continue chasing a rogue after using Vanish. This may be related to a known problem with Vanish.
Lag can definitely seem to cause this. In a controlled environment with no lag, when the rogue vanishes, the pet attacking runs back to the hunter. Also there are some issues with vanish and attacks in progress and spells in flight which break vanish.
- Pet stats such as armor, health, and damage differ between what is shown via Beast Lore, and the stats it has once tamed.
Tamed animals stats change once it has been tamed. Beast Lore will only show you the stats of the MOB. This is as designed.
- Eyes of the Beast: the pet sometimes “rubber bands” back to its starting point beside the player. This may happen a few times before it will actually start moving properly.
In a controlled environment with no lag the spell seemed to work fine without any rubber banding effect. This is happening however in retail and the most likely cause is lag.
- Level 55 Diseased grizzlies (W. Plaguelands) have Claw 8 when tamed, which requires level 56 to use.
Several pet skills can be learned before you are high enough level to teach a pet the skill. There is no penalty or bonus to learning the skill early. This is as designed.
- Players can get “stuck” in combat mode, often in instances or during PvP combat. For hunters this prevents laying traps or feeding their pet.
We’ve nailed a lot of the in-combat bugs recently, but the Hunter might have some remaining that are pet related. We’ll look into this and see what reports we get from players concerning this in the next patch.
- Ranged attack skills can go from red to white (available) while the player is still too close; and gets an error trying to use them. Appears to be about a half-yard margin.
We were unable to reproduce this in a controlled lag-free environment. Most likely the culprit is lag on the server updating the Hunter’s client. We’ll retest this in a laggy environment and see what we can find.
- Chance to crit for special shots should be agility based not intellect based, due to our dependence on agility as our primary stat.
All Hunter shots are actually agility based.
Now, some of you might notice that this update has been altered from its original form of a few days ago. Normally, I probably wouldn’t go back and edit – I’d just post the changes/additions in the next update. However, I felt that Seismics re-visitation of Hunter bugs was much more thorough, and hope that TKA regulars will find the re-write more informative.
In site news, with the help of Rokk of Eredar, the Hunter epic walkthrough has been updated with new viable strategies for defeating the demons (including Solenor). I know he’s a major stumbling block for most hunters on this step and Rokk does a great job of describing his 'bug rodeo’ to deal with the swarms.
The Hunt for Rhok’delar (Guides) updated
Blackfathom Deeps (Habitat) added
July 14, 2005
Little surprises around every corner
The latest (1.6) patch for World of Warcraft went in a few days ago, and already the Hunter community is feeling the sting of the latest changes. But, before we get to that, here’s what effects us.
- Pets will now enter passive/follow mode when their masters mount.
- Fixed the duration of Frostbite on pets which are dismissed and then recalled.
- Fixed race condition allowing hunters to control a charmed unit and a pet at the same time.
- Felheart, Cenarion, Giantstalker’s and Earthfury item sets now have updated art. The Felheart Skullcap is now also called something more appropriate to the new art.
- The Alliance Mail and Horde Leather and Mail Epic PvP Honor reward armor sets have received art updates.
- When worn by female characters, the Beaststalker’s Tunic had a missing texture piece last patch. This has been corrected.
- The Carapace Spine Crossbow, Bloodseeker, and Ancient Bone Bow have had their damage variances altered to be more in line with other crossbows and bows. While the minimum and maximum damage values of the items have changed, the average DPS values of the weapons have not changed.
- The Bloodseeker crossbow’s firing animation has been corrected.
- The chance for an Epic quest item dropping from the Majordomo’s chest has been increased to 100%.
- If you cycle through targets with the Tab key, manually select a different target using another method, then quickly hit Tab again, your last Tab-selected target will be re-selected and you can continue Tab-selecting where you left off. Clearing your target will restart the Tab selection process.
- The pet UI will now be greyed out while you are mounted to reflect the fact that you can’t command your pet.
- Counterattack – Will now cause damage to targets immune to immobilizing effects.
- Wing Clip – Will now cause damage to targets immune to immobilizing effects.
- Explosive Trap – Fixed a bug where the trap’s effects suffered inappropriate damage reduction against high level targets. In addition, damage caused by this trap should no longer kill opponents in duels.
- Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack – Non-damaging spells and abilities will no longer cause the dazed effect. In addition, when switching between Pack and Cheetah, you should no longer receive the “A more powerful spell is already active” error message.
- Beast Lore – Will no longer flag you for PvP or cause guard retaliation when used on an enemy faction target.
Some additional, unfortunate changes also were apparently a side effect and are being taken to the developers as per Community Manager Caydiem:
Hey folks.
I just want to make sure I have the following correct, and give you a chance to add anything before I send issues off to be addressed. Keep in mind that this thread is for constructive explanations of any unintentional changes for the Hunter class that cropped up in this patch. (A good way to check is to review the patch notes on the website before posting.)
So far, the two major issues I’ve seen are as follows:
1) The new “passive” mode for pets while mounted works as intended and goes away if you dismount normally, but if you’re forced off your mount, your pet remains in passive mode.
2) Traps are now being resisted, whereas before they were not.
In layman’s terms, Freeze Trap can now be resisted, which is a major blow to our crowd controlling abilities. Pets go wonky while mounted (they continue to follow even when being told to stay among other things). Another change, not mentioned is the fact that tabbing through targets now cancels Auto Shot (which I personally don’t mind so much, it does allow for more control – but it should be something people are aware of.) The patch also added a 'max pet happiness’ can be reached via feeding, as food will show smaller and smaller happiness gains until it reaches 0 (where previously pets just gained 35 a tick, endlessly – although I’m sure there is/was a cap, it just wasn’t registering correctly). And, the change with Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack which IS mentioned now has you dazing every time a DOT ticks. There’s no telling how much of this is intended (if any) so hopefully we’ll find out soon.
With the bad comes the good this time, as Caydiem also had this to say:
The next patch is looking to have some good things for Hunters in it, and we’re in the process of preparing a preview of the new Survival tree for you. A lot has changed, and while I know you’d love to hear what and when right this very instant, I’d rather wait and get as much information as I can for you about the various changes to the tree. Just to give you a hint, however… once this change goes in, people won’t be complaining about Lacerate anymore. ;)
That’s not the only change coming your way, but it is the one on which I have the most information. I will continue to drill for information as time goes on and the patch approaches; with hope, I’ll be able to give you some idea of what to expect all around.
As it stands, I just wanted to inform you that I’m not ignoring you and I plan on getting more information to you soon. Stay tuned.
I’ve also started knocking back the dungeon zones. TKA Something updates for this week:
Scarlet Monastery (Habitat) added
Shadowfang Keep (Habitat) added