May 4, 2005

*I* have to be careful what *I* shoot at?

I wouldn’t have credited it as possible, but this last week and a half – all’s quiet on the Hunter front. No patches, no changes, nothing that can really be considered out of the ordinary.

With things can be classified as quiet, I did take a little time off this week to help some of my friends who’ve recently started playing World of Warcraft, one as a hunter! He’s doing well, and our big thrill was traveling to Durotar at LV10 to obtain his red raptor which he named 'Fuoj’ (after he carefully perused the Beasts section). They make a very cute couple. We traveled over to Stormwind afterward for a zero hour attempt for me to work on my human faction because I WILL get a horse! Oh yes, I will (more repeatable faction quests, please!)

However, it might be worthy to mention that Battlegrounds aren’t too far off in the future, since Hunters received word that the Spirit Guide NPCs within them will resurrect both the Hunter and their pet, with the pet happiness meter restored to full.

Since the last patch introduced the Hunter epic quest, it probably comes as no great surprise that it’s already been solved. Avatar of Warsong has written an excellent walk through which can now be found in the Guides section. Which, in turn, brings us to this week’s updates:

The Hunt for Rhok’delar (Guides) added
Blasted Lands (Habitat) added
Durotar (Habitat) updated
Dustwallow Marsh (Habitat) updated
Mulgore (Habitat) updated

April 21, 2005

Revenge is a dish best served

Serving it up hot or cold – the PvP honor system introduced in this week’s patch has everyone out for blood, struggling to attain that Grand Marshal/High Warlord status. This patch, too, brought changes to the Hunter class, as detailed below.

  • A new Hunter epic quest series is now in the game and waiting to be found.
  • Scatter Shot (Talent) – Now usable while moving and no longer interrupts ranged combat. Now properly reduces the ranged attack power contribution by the percent modifier.
  • Highland Striders no longer have Cower (Rank 3) when tamed.
  • New Pet Ability: Dive – Increases movement speed for a short duration.
  • New Pet Ability: Dash – Increases movement speed for a short duration.
  • Freezing Trap – Visual changed.
  • Track Hidden – Increased stealth detection.
  • Scorpid Sting – Fixed a bug where it was not considered a poison. It can now be removed by poison curing effects.
  • Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack – These Aspects will now be canceled when mounted.
  • Viper Sting – This spell can no longer be used on warrior and rogue targets. In addition, while it can be used on a druid target at any time it will only drain mana when the druid is in caster form.

Most of the changes are no surprise, as the Test Server has had them up and running for several weeks prior to release. I’m absolutely loving the new Freeze Trap animation, but really do wish that Dive and Dash were available to all pets rather than a select few (after all, it was a tortoise that won the race). Also mentioned this week was the fact that upcoming changes include a revamp of the Survival talent tree and a user interface change that will include our pet’s health bar.

Even I’m not immune to the lure of Tarren Mill, which means this week’s update is short and sweet (I was working on Durotar and Mulgore, but got sidetracked).

Lazy Hunter Macros (Guides) added

April 14, 2005

You hear that, Mr. Anderson?

My name… is Neo.

Or it would be, if I could dodge and parry bullets and arrows flying at me. But, on the Test Server this last week, there seemed to be a lot of saviors of the world running around, with a proposed Hunter change going into effect where our shots could miss in this manner. This, coupled with an easily documentable lowering in pet DPS caused a near riot in the Hunter community.

Now, take a deep breath. Let it out slowly.

These changes won’t be going live with the next patch. The following statements were made by Blizzard representatives:

After further DPS tests we have determined that fixing this bug and making ranged attacks able to be dodged and parried caused a substantial loss in DPS for the Hunter. As a result, this fix is going to be backed out of patch 1.4.0. Ranged attacks will no longer be able to dodged or parried. Ranged attacks now consider Defense instead of level when determining success.

Ranged attacks in the NEW version of patch 1.4.0:

  • Can be Blocked by a target with a shield
  • Cannot be Dodged
  • Cannot be Parried
  • Can Miss

Hunter pets dealing significantly less damage than before. This isn’t intentional and we’re looking into why it’s happening.

The other hot topics this week were about pet run speeds and +attack items versus +attack buffs. I’m not going to rehash the debate about what the Aspect of the Hawk hotfix did, since it’s impossible to test now in regards to other buffs, but we did get this definitive statement regarding items:

Items with +attack power increase both melee and ranged attack power. This is as designed.

And this good news about pets:

The Pet Run Speed bug has been fixed developer-side and is in the process of internal testing for verification that it is, in fact, fixed. Progress is being made.

So, while you were worrying what was going to happen in Teldrassil, Kalimdor and Azeroth, I hope you didn’t forget to pay your taxes! They’re due the 15th (TODAY) but before I Cheetah off to send in my own (I get to gloat a bit because I’m getting a rebate I think), here are this week’s site updates:

Burning Steppes (Habitat) updated
Deadwind Pass (Habitat) updated
Desolace (Habitat) updated
Feralas (Habitat) updated
Hillsbrad Foothills (Habitat) updated
Silverpine Forest (Habitat) updated
Stonetalon Mountains (Habitat) updated
Guides (Guides) grapically updated
Zorlen’s Hunter Functions (Guides) added

April 3, 2005

Carrot on a Stick

Hot on the heels of the last patch comes the enticing news about upcoming pet customization. Details include:

  • Active Abilities: abilities consciously used, such as poison, increased speed, and damage mitigation.
  • Passive Abilities: abilities always “on” that, for example, increase attributes (such as Strength and Stamina), armor, and resistances.
  • AI Abilities: abilities automatically used in certain situations by your pet, such as becoming enraged.

Unfortunately, I’m a bit skeptical. Having played during Closed Beta, I recognize these promises as being something that has long been considered the carrot for Hunters. And, since no official ETA was given for when these changes will be implemented or HOW they’ll be implemented, I wouldn’t expect anything like this to happen for months (and months).

Much more hopeful is the word that there will be a meeting on the myriad of Hunter issues and we’ve been promised by Community Manager Caydiem some real answers to questions like, “How do you feel the Hunter’s DPS is as the class plays right now?”, “What are your thoughts behind the relative power of a pet in the end-game?” and “What qualities does a Hunter – and only a Hunter – bring to the table in terms of a five-man group that would make them an asset and a worthy choice to a five-man group?” That meeting is supposed to be taking place sometime this week.

Finally, this week’s site updates:

Elwynn Forest (Habitat) updated
Redridge Mountains (Habitat) added
Westfall (Habitat) added

March 20, 2005

No news doesn't mean good news

So, before I go on with the update, I want to let everyone know that you can now look forward to more frequent front page updates. Up until now, I’ve been posting changes on the message board, but the feedback I’ve received about the site generally said people were missing my sparkling personality in a more prominent position. SO. Front page updates it is. Now, on to news.

The big, breaking news is, of course, the Hunter specific changes happening next patch, which I’m guessing are going in sometime around the first week of April. Now, I’d love to say they’re all great, but… well, they’re not.

  • Training costs adjusted. Total training cost was decreased.
  • Sandfury Guardians are no longer tameable.
  • Fixed a bug where Hunter pets were sometimes unattackable by opposing faction players.
  • Fixed a bug where creatures were keeping their innate resistances after being tamed. This was unintentional and the fix will affect all existing pets.
  • Distracting Shot – Is now properly improved by the Efficiency and Hawk Eye talents.
  • You can no longer use Eyes of the Beast to leave a flight path.

Not to say the patch was ALL bad news – there are new arrows being introduced, converted from Thorium Shells (just to mention one good thing). But, the loss of resist pets, coupled with the loss of the hard to obtain Sandfury Guardian AND

  • Fixed a bug where Ammo Pouch and Quiver bonuses were stacking together. Now only the better bonus should be considered.
  • Fixed a bug where Quivers and Ammo Pouches were granting a larger haste bonus than intended in some cases.

leaves us feeling sort of slapped on the wrist. Now, the quiver bug has been around for a long time (since Beta) so it doesn’t really surprise me it’s getting fixed. Nevertheless, it just seems like it’s a lot of bad news at once to take with not enough good news to offset it. Blizzard responded:

The ammo pouch/quiver haste % was much greater than was intended, and this is being fixed in this patch. The developers did not balance Hunters around this bug, as is the common rumor, thus Hunter DPS will not go lower than intended due to this change. Ranged weapons do not have lower DPS to compensate for this haste bug. Ranged weapons have lower DPS because they use ammo, which boosts the weapon’s DPS. The ammo DPS not showing on the paper doll previously was corrected, and it was not noted in the patch notes. However, this is not a conspiracy to mislead our players, but rather an unintended omission.

Now, I might be sad that Dire (formerly Snarler) is losing his resists and that the patch didn’t offer us much this go. I also love my hunter and I’m in for the duration. How about you?

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