Mists of Pandaria Hunter Talents Preview

Class talent systems are going to be radically overhauled for Mists of Pandaria. Players will choose a specialization at level 10, then select one of three talents at levels: 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90. Classes will receive their defining core abilities automatically.

Builds will be pretty flexible in that talents will be easily swappable. Ghostcrawler mentioned that talents will available for changing – much in the same way that glyphs are now. You won’t be able to respec during an encounter or arena match, but you will probably have the option of tweaking your talents in between boss fights or BGs, arenas, etc…

GC mentioned that Kill Command was going to be the level 10 spec ability for BM Hunters, so it’s looking like KC will be a ‘BM only’ ability. Makes sense. Intimidation will become a level 30 talent – available to all three specs.

Here is how the Hunter talents are laid out as of now. Keep in mind that any or all of these talents could change between now and the eventual release of MoP…

Mists of Pandaria Hunter Talents
Complete List of Level 90 Hunter Talents

Level 15 Talents: Ammo

Hunters will be able to talent a particular ammo type depending upon their style of play, PvE or PvP, etc…

Frozen Arrows will likely be a PvP-based choice, Arcane Arrows will offer additional focus regen – making them a middle of the road choice, and Venom Tipped Arrows will add a damage over time effect, i.e., more DeePS.

Level 15 Hunter Talents - Mists of Pandaria
Level 15 is all about Ammo

Level 30 Talents: CC

All Hunters will now have access to abilities that were previously ‘spec-exclusive’. As of now, the abilities are pretty much the same ones we use today, so no new abilities to discuss here.

  • Silencing Shot
  • Wyvern Sting
  • Intimidation
Level 30 Hunter Talents - Mists of Pandaria
Level 30 Talents: Crowd Control Abilities

Level 45 Talents: Enhancements to Disengage

  • Posthaste offers 4 seconds of increased movement speed following a Disengage
  • Evasiveness adds a short 3 second Deterrence type of effect after a Disengage.
  • Exhilaration gives hunters a self-heal of %15 of the hunter’s health upon sticking the landing after a Disengage.
Level 45 Hunter Talents - Mists of Pandaria
Level 45 Talents Enhance Disengage

Level 60 Talents: Survivability

You can go for the elusiveness of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimaera… the damage mitigation of Aspect of the Iron Hawk… or the passive self-heal of Spirit Bond.

Note that the healing from Spirit Bond is now double. It’s still 2%, but the effect will tick every 5 seconds instead of 10. Woot!

Level 60 Hunter Talents - Mists of Pandaria
Level 60 Talents Provide Boosts to Survivalfulness

Level 75 Talents: Resource Replenishment & Cooldowns

Thrill of the Hunt has been modified a little, but apart from it, these talents are more or less ones we use today. This tier is geared toward resource replenishment and cooldown management.

  • Fervor – Instant 50 focus regen for the hunter and the pet, 2 min cooldown.
  • Readiness – Immediately finish all cooldowns, 3 min cooldown.
  • Thrill of the Hunt – 15% to regain 100% of the focus cost of the shot.
Level 75 Hunter Talents - Mists of Pandaria
Level 75 Talents Offer Resource Replenishment

Level 90 Talents: Traps

Hunters are getting Sheep! Well, actually it’ll be more of a Hex type of ability, but yea… a polymorph for Hunters!!!

  • Flash Freeze – Removes the cooldown from Freezing Trap, but can only be applied to one target at a given time.
  • Black Ice – Provides decreased mobility for your enemies, while giving you increased movement speed while in the AoE of your Ice Trap.
  • Transmorph Trap – Slows the afflicted enemy, while transforming them into a beast and preventing them from using any of their abilities while under the effect of this trap.
Level 90 Hunter Talents - Mists of Pandaria
Level 90 Talents are all about Traps

Hunter Pet Talents in Mists of Pandaria

Hunter pets will no longer be bound to one tree. All pets will have access to all three trees, so you’ll be able to spec your Tallstrider for tanking or your Bear for DPS. I’m not certain if this means that there will be one basic spec for each type of pet, i.e., DPS, PvP Tank, or if it means we’ll still get to talent them. I’m sure I’ll know soon enough.

Oh man… I am sooo geeked about the Mists of Pandaria announcements! 😀

Blizzard never ceases to amaze.

24 thoughts on “Mists of Pandaria Hunter Talents Preview”

  1. A few things that come to my mind:

    – I see some interesting choices in the ammo tree. While Frozen Arrows clearly is meant for PvP, Arcane Arrows make stuff much more interesting. The same goes for Venom Tipped Arrows and Arcane Arrows in PvE. If the wording of WTA is correct, then this will be THE choice for AE heavy fights, as it affects all arrows, not just auto shot. It’ll be interesting to see what impact AA will have in general. I see some respec-for-every-boss potential here.

    – Fervor is downright weak compared to TotH (which probably awards way more focus in 2mins) and Readiness. I believe they’ll turn Fervor in something more interesting soon.

    – I feel that traps are one of our weakest mechanic, so enhancing them in our ultimate tier feels somewhat underwhelming. But who knows, I like the way Black Ice works, maybe that tier is better than it looks at the 1st glance. Time will show that.

    Reply
    • y agree too

      Black ice could be fun, i wonder about raid situations where I do Black Ice and all team members get a Speed boost ?

      And if not team related how long the ice stay on the ground i may renew it all the time and stay fast on my toes. I like speed and running at Boss encounters

      also multiply Add encounters…. slowing them all down while i have speed ! that sounds fun, and gives a real agility feeling.

      I have one ability for BM which i would love to see maybe as talent maybe as T14 …. The Beast Within ! for a short amount of time me and my Pet becoming one Creature Big red with Blood-lust , for those time the Hunter become a Melee Class (dont need jump to there u just get the position of ur Pet) the Control change to 3-4 Button cast slash hammer keys and just feel good. U will get a 1 second warning or 2 like ability is ready release the Fury “)

      thanks for reading 🙂

      Reply
  2. This is fine and dandy, but what I wanna know is:

    Are we getting more storage for our pets?

    What kinda new tameable pets will be avaliable?

    What kinda new Exotic Pets (for us BM hunters) will be avaliable?

    Will they fix the Pet only have 6-7k of health after dismounting and or summoned?

    Just a couple questions I have.

    -Kahless-

    Reply
  3. God I missed Bliz Con this year..life got in the way again bummer. I like what you have written about the new Mists of Pandaria coming next year. I too think it is a great way to take WOW to. Cat always seemed like a big ongoing patch to me and I was getting tired of the heavyness of it. I know a lot of people that play are going to be thrilled with this Panda lore and it should bring in some new players and old. My wife included. Thanks for all the work you do Gar for us all and I hope your Donations increase..lol

    Reply
  4. I’m interested in the flexible builds myself. We’ll probably end up seeing the min/maxers po poo anything that isn’t like theirs, but I like being able to design my character for my own playstyle and interest.

    While I understand the Pandaren have been in Warcraft lore for years, I mean, why? Sure the monk class is something a little different to what’s already available, but pandas? Really? Why not Teddy bears? Or clones of Winne the Pooh dressed to kill?

    I would have been a lot more interested in a third faction that players can join, the Burning Sun, or a reinvigorated Scourge, or something altogether new to Azeroth, that threatens both the Horde and the Alliance.

    Anyhow, the loss of minimum range will be welcome. I can just see hunters pouring shot after shot into some warrior who is cleaving into them… should be interesting being able to use our best weaponry against melee up close.

    Cheers,
    D

    Reply
    • Darr,

      I can understand not everyone getting on the ball with the Pandaren. But we have to face a few hard facts first:

      1) The Pandaren were in as early as a hidden quest in Warcraft 3, and as far as I know they were pretty popular even back then. They even got into the DotA mod. This is key: there are a lot of fans/customers who actually want to see them integrated into WoW as opposed to those who don’t. In fact I know people who hate Night Elves and Worgen, but love the Pandaren. Besides this, Pandas can be quite vicious in real life. 😉

      2) New challenge modes and world raids aside, it makes sense for Blizzard to expand the world of Azeroth in a more laid-back, lore exploration fashion, especially since the doom-and-gloom of Cataclysm and WotLK. From a business and lore standpoint, Mists of Pandaria would be considered a “breather episode” of sorts in television terms to give the crowd some space to stretch their legs (and their imaginations). Also remember that a great bulk of WoW players are actually women (60% from what I read last).

      3) Besides, the more immediate threat as of the moment, right after Deathwing, is indeed King Varian’s open declaration of war against the Horde. What Blizzard did in this sense with the Pandaren having to choose sides is intriguing in this light.

      4) A third faction will take hundreds of thousands of man hours to complete and balance against everything else. StarCraft was able to get away with this because it was an RTS game and not an MMO. In an MMO context it would be much more difficult to get things done.

      Hope that helps. 🙂

      Reply
      • I think most of your response is spot on but i was intrigued by this part:

        “Also remember that a great bulk of WoW players are actually women (60% from what I read last).”

        Eh? I mean i don’t understand the point you’re making in the context?

        Reply
        • Charlatan,

          Sorry if I didn’t clear it up in the original reply. What I meant was that the majority of WoW players are actually women, many of them among the middle aged generation (30-50 years), and making the game darker and edgier after Cataclysm–even more “realistic” as some of the more hardcore fans desire, e.g. the debacle over Diablo III’s “colorful” palette–may only serve to alienate a substantial amount of them, which Blizzard doesn’t want. And none of us will want that either, or the game will eventually die out due to lack of support.

          In essence, that section of my post was, in part, a cry of “Remember the Lich King!” as WotLK wast the least successful expansion due to a number of issues–like the faceroll-easy tank-n’-spank dungeons, which led to the rise of the infamous “GearScore God” subset of hardcore WoW players. Said players only served to alienate a sizable number of paying customers due to their attitudes and intensified WoW’s bad stigma of being a no-lifer’s game. Sadly, we still have those guys today, the people who QQ in dungeons, raids and battlegrounds when things are going poorly and who think success is everything.

          I hope that clears things up. 🙂

          Reply
        • My bad, I did some more research and found that, while women still make up a large number of WoW players, males still outnumber them. Still, according to a 2009 report, females made up approximately 37%-40% of the WoW population in the US:

          http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/stateofvgamer_040609_fnl1.pdf

          It would be instructive to have such numbers compiled for the current generation, but the gist is that Blizzard does NOT want to mess with that number. That’s probably one of the reasons why there’s a Pokemon-style pet battle system now, most likely inspired by the Zergling vs. Murloc Marine companion “battles”, Facebook games and the fact that many people love to collect companion pets.

          Reply
    • You never know Darr, they might be building up to it. If you take a look at how Blizzard has operated in the past expansions you’ll notice how they new expansion features as “stepping stones” for later adjustments. Take the DK for example, they were introduced in WotLK as a test bed for forging and the Paladins Holy Power. Now that they are playing with a Neutral Race, they might be utilizing it as a test for Neutral Factions, or maybe even cross-faction selection. Man, I’d be stoked if I can make a Tauren Alliance XD

      Reply
  5. Cool, indeed.

    But…

    … If I’ll come back to WoW, I will roll Pandamonk for sure. And will waste my time in meditation, while watching that phenomenal new environment.

    Still too early anyway. One year minimum?

    Reply
    • Considering they already have a decent amount of playable contant, and given that they’re trying to bump up their release schedule, I think it could hit as early as next summer.

      Reply

Leave a Comment