BlizzChat hosted an open dev chat on Twitter this past Friday. A couple of hunter related questions were fielded by BlizzChat. Here’s a quick transcript:
Q. Will there be any new pet families added, or will we simply see more additions to existing ones?
A: We’re not sure yet whether we’re adding new pet families or not. It’s possible. Expect to see some monkeys, foxes and other new pet possibilities though!
Q: Does the Marksman mastery (Double Shot) work like the Wild Quiver talent (provide a free autoshot) or like the Lightning Overload talent (a free whatever spell you just cast)? In other words, can Double Shot fire a second Chimera Shot?
A: Double Shot is a half-strength autoshot. Wild Quiver will increase the damage of the autoshot to 60-70% (or something similar). Lightning Overload (the talent) will likewise increase the magnitude of the Elemental Overload mechanic.
More pet possibilities! Woo hoo..! Last year, Blizzard had also mentioned making some existing non-hunter beasties tamable, such as Zhevras.
My initial reaction to the Masteries, is that Marksmanship’s is the weakest. The BM Mastery looks great, as does Survival’s. BM receives passive boosts to pet damage, plus faster haste regen. SV gets a buff to all “elemental” attacks, along with a higher passive crit rate.
Here’s a quick recap of how the masteries are shaking out:
Beast Mastery
- Ranged Damage
- Haste
- Pet Damage
Marksmanship
- Ranged Damage
- Armor Penetration
- Double Shot
Survival
- Ranged Damage
- Ranged Critical Damage
- Elemental Damage
Don’t get me wrong… I think the passive Zod’s effect for MM is pretty cool, it’s just my least favorite of the masteries. I prefer to have a mastery that’s not dependent upon RNG, or hindered by movement-heavy encounters.
As I always say though… Cataclysm’s a ways off, so we’ll just have to wait and see. No sense in getting ruffled just yet. Who knows… maybe the proc-rate on Double Shot will be quite generous, and maybe hunters will have more stand and shoot types of fights.
See the entire BlizzChat over at MMO-Champion. There’s some exciting stuff in there, including the mention of a new trainable 310% mount speed. 🙂
Back to the new pet possibilities… I expect to see quite a few new Doras running around trying for the Explorer achievement, with either a Swiper or Boots by their side. 😉