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WoW Hunter Guides, News, Resources and Musings

Master of Arms No More

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Drackmire, Dwarf HunterI was perusing the World of Warcraft (WoW) general forums the other day, reading some of the upcoming changes coming in the Cataclysm Expansion. Nothing too crazy, and a lot of what was there I didn’t care about or had already caught wind of. After all the class changes, I went to the Cataclysm Stat & System Changes thread.

As a five and a half year veteran of WoW, this little tidbit caught my eye:

Weapon Skill – This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

Now this change is not really a big deal, and definitely makes leveling a bit easier; it also saves a little bit of money early on, and as any Hunter knows, we have one of the most expensive skill purchases at the level 40 milestone. Any money we can save early on helps to get all those skills, without having to come back later when you have the extra cash. It also means there are a lot more options starting at level 1, instead of one ranged, and one melee weapon type. [Read more…]

Cross-Battlegroup Battlegrounds?!

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I’ve just learned that come Cataclysm, battlegrounds will no longer be limited to servers from a particular battlegroup, but rather, a region. I mean… holy s**t!

From the Official WoW Forums:

We’re currently expecting both normal and rated battlegrounds to be cross-battlegroup (within a region) for the launch of Cataclysm. So, players queueing from anywhere in north america (for example) could play vs players on any north american battlegroup, etc. This applies to all regions, not just north america.

Also, read this post over at WoW.com.

That is freaking amazing!

This means that queues will be popping like mad and we’ll have opportunities to encounter players from all of the battlegroups within our respective regions. I can’t wait! [Read more…]

Memories

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…like the corners of my mind

Misty Darkshore screenshot memories

Of the way we were…

I got to feeling a little sentimental tonight and figured I’d share some old school Gar with y’all. I wasn’t very screenshot happy during my early playing days, but here are a few from the archives that you might enjoy…

Stock UI

My first ever WoW screenshot. I felt very proud at this moment, having ventured out upon the bowsprit of the boat from Darkshore. I was also into my twenties and feeling very capable. Sadly though… Delilah, my Moonstalker Runt and first pet, was eventually kicked to the curb in favor of Broken Tooth. Her only trace of existence being this screenie right here.

Garwulf, Night Elf Hunter [Read more…]

New possible pet families in Cataclysm

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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:

Swiper under Bestial WrathQ. 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. 😉

Some thoughts on the Cataclysm hunter class preview

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Now that I’ve had a chance to read through and digest all of the Cataclysm hunter class changes, here are some of my thoughts…

Focus

There are a lot of negative nellies out there really poo-poo’ing this change. I really don’t think you can come to an accurate conclusion on this new mechanic just yet. For one, we have no way of knowing how other factors will play into our focus regen and management.

All we know is the base cost of shots, along with the base focus regen rate. Given those two things, it looks as if we’re going to be reduced to stationary focus-starved ranged DPS’ers. However, what we don’t know is how talents, abilities, stats and various buffs will play into the equation.

Once talented, there’s no doubt that all of the shots will have their base focus costs reduced. Also, it’s very possible that focus regeneration rates will be much higher than the base 6/sec. once talents, gear and buffs are taken into account.

Hunters are one of the most popular classes in WoW, so it’s highly doubtful that Blizzard would intentionally “destroy” the class. Give this new mechanic some time to develop, and for all you downer donnas out there… FFS, quit yer bitchin’!

My only real concern is that the defensive abilities end up costing too much. They’ve mentioned the possibility of having their focus costs reduced or even done away with, so at least it’s on their minds. I’d hate to have to wait 3-5 seconds to pop Deterrence just because I’m focus starved. 😕 [Read more…]