Miscellaneous Cataclysm Musings

Now that I’ve had a chance to savor and digest all of the juicy Cataclysm hunter updates that were released last week (while I was on vacation), here are a few miscellaneous thoughts and comments of mine…

Aimed Shot

I like the older style mechanic of Aimed Shot making its return in Cataclysm. While it’s definitely nice having another instant cast shot in our arsenal, having Aimed Shot be an instant just never made sense to me. I like how it’s becoming a high damage shot once again, even with the long cast time. There was something so joyfully sinister about seeing your enemy hopelessly stuck within your Freezing Trap while you slowly drew your bow or aimed your rifle, preparing to rattle them with a mammoth Aimed Shot crit. 😈

Widow Venom

Along with Aimed Shot’s 2 second cast time and increased damage, the other thing that’s changing is its mortal Strike effect is going bye-bye. Hunters in Cataclysm will now be using a shot called Widow Venom in order to apply an MS effect.

As with most of this closed beta news, I’m not going to spend a lot of time theorycrafting or forming firm opinions, as sooo much of this is unsettled and will change over the coming months. However, my initial take on this new Widow Venom ability is that it looks pretty good, even though the MS effect has been reduced by half (down to 25% from 50%).

It seems as if MS effects have been cut across the board, so a 50% nerf shouldn’t be such a huge deal in the expansion. What is nice is that the effect lasts for 30 seconds. This will be hell on classes that cannot dispel.

I also like the synergy this new ability is going to have with Chimera Shot. Chimera Shot will now heal the hunter for an instant 15% of their total health if this sting is active on their target. An MS coupled with HP replenishment… sign me up.

Of course, this is being viewed solely from a PvP perspective. More on this in a bit…

Aspect of the Fox

This new aspect looks really promising and will likely be the dominant aspect in use for PvP. Additional damage while on the run + focus regeneration = win. Aspect of the Fox will no doubt be useful during PvE encounters as well. I see the potential for a lot more aspect micro management in the expansion, which should really make things interesting.

Aspect of the Monkey

This looks horrible. I’m gonna close my eyes and pretend I didn’t see it.

New Aspect of the Monkey
Whenever you are critically hit by a melee attack, the cooldown of your Disengage is instantly reduced by [2/4] sec.
Whenever you are critically hit by a ranged attack, the cooldown of your Deterrence is instantly reduced by [4/8] sec.

This should only apply to melee situations in my opinion. I suggest they remove the ranged damage quotient of the mechanic and implement some form of enhancement to melee ability or escape capability. What would be nice is to add in the old Aspect of the Monkey glyph buff, which increased movement speed if you were hit while in that aspect. Also, maybe throw in an increased dodge chance or buff melee damage.

Or better yet… Aspect of the Orangutang…

Whenever you are critically hit by a melee or ranged attack, you pounce on your enemy and tear their arms (1 or 2 depending upon points invested) from their sockets.

That would add a whole new meaning to the term disarm…

Do it Blizzard.

New Pet Stay Command

This looks awesome. I just peeped a video that Frostheim made of the new pet stay ability in Cataclysm, and I am quite excited about this new mechanic. It’s going to be quite handy not having to run to each location where we want to plant our pet.

If you haven’t seen this video yet, then be sure to check it out. It also gives a nice preview of the new fox model scampering about.

Marksmanship

Like, holy s**t… is Blizzard trying to make Marksmanship thee PvP spec in Cataclysm or what..? Personally, I’m really intrigued by the changes up until this point, but it has to make the MM PvE’ers a bit sad in the pants.

Chimera Shot is losing the Serpent Sting damage modifier and all of the additional effects are primarily focused on PvP. In addition to that, talents like Posthaste and Dazzled Prey are pretty much PvP oriented. I’m not complaining, as I feel MM is the dominant PvP spec anyway, but that fact looks be be accentuated come Cataclysm. All in all, Marksmanship looks to be receiving the most PvP upgrades within the three trees.

It’s not to say that MM won’t be a great PvE spec in Cataclysm… I’m sure it’ll be great in that capacity as well. I also noticed some of the early talent previews in the tree showing some additional buffs to pet damage. My initial thought is that MM hunters will be primarily dipping into the BM tree once their 31 points have been apportioned.

Well anyway, those are just a a few random thoughts of mine on the latest Cataclysm hunter talents, abilities and what not. There’s obviously a heck of a lot more than can be discussed, but as I said, a lot will be changing in the coming weeks and I’d rather not spend a bunch of time and energy on subjects that will likely be inconsequential within a few weeks.

That said, I will likely be visiting the ever evolving Cataclysm changes from time to time just to discuss a few things and see what your thoughts are as well.

For a look at the beta hunter talent trees, check out the Cataclysm portion of WoWHead. Keep in mind that these are no way even close to being finalized, and will likely see some truncating within the coming weeks. Blizzard has plans of removing the passive (i.e., boring…) talents, making the trees much more ability based and exciting.

I can tell you one thing… I’m getting pretty f**king excited about all of this. How about you..?!

Now if only I could get a beta invite… 😕