WoW Hunter Guides, News, Resources and Musings
Two slight hunter buffs made it into the Patch 4.3 PTR today. Both buffs are pretty minor, but each one provides a slight DPS bump for both BM and SV.
I’m excited over the fact that I’ll be having a lot more uptime on Focus Fire, as well Survival hunters should be stoked about the higher proc chance for Lock and Load.
T.N.T.Increases the damage done by your Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap, Black Arrow and Immolation Trap by 2/4/6%.
This talent increases the damage done by the Hunter’s three fire based skills: Explosive Trap, Immolation Trap and Explosive Shot; as well as the DoT effect on Black Arrow.
This talent is very important for buffing Explosive Shot and Black Arrow damage for Survival Hunters. It’s going to be even sweeter for SV PvP once 3.2 hits, since Hunters will be able to drop a Frost and Immolation or Explosive Trap one after the other, not to mention SV Hunters will also have their Black Arrow ticking all the while. This is going to provide for some nasty fire damage and Lock and Load procs when combined with Entrapment and Trap Mastery.
This talent is not necessary for Beast Mastery or Marksmanship Hunters since the only buff they’d receive for their 1-3 points would be for the two fire traps. Even for a PvP build, MM Hunters will find better places to use their points within the SV tree.
Lock and LoadDescription: You have a 33/66/100% chance when you trap a target with Freezing Trap, Freezing Arrow or Frost Trap and a 2/4/6% chance when you deal periodic damage with your Immolation Trap or Black Arrow to cause your next 2 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo.
Lock and Load provides a huge proc-based damage burst which is activated either by trapping a target in an ice based trap, or by DoTs ticking from either Black Arrow or Immolation Trap.
A mandatory talent for Survival Hunters for both PvE and PvP, as it provides a huge damage burst. For those Hunters that like to PvP as Marksman, this talent is for you too. The 100% proc rate on frost and freezing traps is key for PvP burst.
Aside from all Survival builds and PvP MM builds, no other Hunters will need this. BM Hunters will never go past 7 points in Survival for serious PvE or PvP, so definitely no need for Lock and Load. This talent is also useless for PvE MM builds since it requires traps to activate.
