Creature Feature: Boar

He looks dis'grunt'led.

Boars were one of the most well known and respected pets in the World of Warcraft.  They were legendary for holding threat for longer than any other pet could… until patch 3.0 hit.

The changes to pets changed everything for Boars.  No longer the top threat pet, they are now underused, and they are harder to find around top end hunters than a Spirit Beast.  Boars are the time-old story of fallen kings… the kings of tanking pets.

GENERAL STATS
Boars are tenacity pets.  Like all other tenacity pets, Boars are exceptionally good at taking damage without dying, but not so good at dishing out the pain.  At the moment, they receive a 10% increase to hit points and a 5% increase to armor.  This might change in the near future though, as Blizzard is doing some talking about giving all pets the same bonuses.  Tenacity pets will continue to be the tanks, but only thanks to their talents, not their bonuses.

The focus dump for Boars is Bite, and they have one unique move, Gore.

Boars were once immensely popular.  Before patch 3.0, boars were the only pets to be able to keep threat on a monster for longer than a few seconds.  They had a special, unique move called Charge at the time.  Charge doubled the damage they dealt with their next Gore attack.  However, Charge is now available to all ferocity pets and all tenacity pets.

Boars have 9 different skins, all of which are tamable! If you see a Boar you like the look of, it’s obtainable somehow.  Most pets don’t have that going for them.  The skins aren’t the most varied looking though, other than the colours.

Boars are legendary for being the posterchild of a tenacious beast, even in real life.  As a result, if you can hunt and kill one, it’s a sign of strength.  It’s also a waste of a perfectly awesome pet.

ABILITIES
Gore: Does a great deal of damage, and a great deal more when used within 6 seconds of a charge.

First, I’ll start with the bad side.  Gore only does damage.  That’s it.  No armor reducing, no bleed effects: just plain and simple damage.

The good side is that this move does more base damage than most other pet moves, and the damage is doubled whenever it’s used after a charge.

What this means is that the boar is useful anywhere, really.  Damage is useful in any situation, and although a wasp might reduce armor, that reduction in armor is useless if you have a druid casting Faerie Fire on the same mob.  Damage is damage, and nothing replaces it.

In addition, when used after Charge, Gore’s damage is doubled.  That’s pretty much an automatic critical hit… that can, in turn, still critically hit! This means one thing: Gore can do amazing initial damage after any Charge.

It seems the damage is similar to Bite.  However, it is less focus to use, and it’s very powerful after a charge.  Besides, another move that does damage is another move that does damage.  No complaints here.

NATURAL HABITAT
Boars are well placed almost anywhere, but are found most often in Solo environments, and Battlegrounds.  Thanks to their amazing initial damage, Boars get threat instantly on mobs they are attacking.  You can shoot the enemy as much as you like, but if a Boar attacked it, the boar is going to tank it.

In battlegrounds, burst damage and survivability are necessary.  For beastmasters especially, boars do an incredible amount of damage, combined with an amazing amount of survivability: it’s a perfect candidate.

In arenas, Boars don’t do as well as some other pets because they don’t have any special effect attached to Gore.  Whereas a chimaera has a slow, and cats have a bleed, boars have nothing extra.  As a result, they are useful, but not the best.

In PvE, tenacity pets are for utility mostly.  Boars don’t give a lot of that, and so they shouldn’t be seen in a PvE environment usually.

KLINDERAS’ THOUGHTS
Although I have not had the experience of hunting next to a boar, I still remember the sights of boars hurling themselves at a foe, smashing bone and tearing sinew with their tusks.  Boars seem more to me like a walking bundle of iron-bound muscle and rock-hard bone.

Boars are incredibly stubborn more often than not, and they never give up.  If their first charge was a failure, you can bet your gun or bow that they’ll just turn around and slam into your back side.  Boars seem to be incredibly agile for such massive, if boorish, creatures.

If there’s one thing I find I like about them though it is this: the noises they make.  They’re enough to make me laugh every time.  Honestly, HROINK?

/snicker

COLEMAND’S THOUGHTS
Do you even need to ask? Really?

This is all I have to say.

Patches With Scratches

Patch 3.1 as it stands.

If there’s something I always love to cover, it’s patch notes.

Patch notes are always subject to change.  That’s English for they don’t really exist, but they might one day.  I always think it’s important to take a look at them, and try to think about the consequences of the changes.  It gives us a certain amount of foresight.

Not to mention bragging rights when we guess right! and I do love my bragging rights.

So, without further posturing, the latest batch of notes!

Engineering

• Nitro Boosts now Permanently attaches overpowered nitro boosts to a pair of boots, increasing critical strike rating by 16 (up from 12) and allowing you to greatly increase run speed for 2 sec.
  Personally, I already like my lollerskates, especially for leveling up on a PvP server.  They have saved my hide a number of times, and are always useful, even when they malfunction.  Giving them a crit rating has been announced before, and was a welcome change… but 16 is a little low.  I’m not complaining though: these little gizmos have saved my rear end even without the crit rating.

  For PvE? Near useless.  Don’t bother getting them for raids or heroics.

• Flexweave Underlay now Permanently attaches a flexweave underlay to a cloak, increasing Agility by 15 (up from 10) and allowing you to turn the cloak into a parachute to fall slowly for 10 sec.
  Seeing as I have this on my cloak just in case I need to dive bomb, jump off of Wyrmrest Temple, or run away, I think this is great!  Being chased? Jump off a high cliff and use the ‘chute.  Now with the agility enchant? Great for solo leveling and grinding and exploring! It’s also a cheap way to enchant a placeholder cloak with agility instead of forking over tons of gold for a 22 Agility enchant.  But once you find a good cloak you’re keeping for a while, I suggest getting the enchantment, and dropping this… but it’s still not terrible I suppose.
• Springy Arachnoweave now Permanently attaches a springy arachnoweave to a cloak, increasing spell power by 18 (up from 11) and allowing you to turn the cloak into a parachute to fall slowly for 10 sec.
  Same deal as the Flexweave Underlay, but for casters instead.  I’m not knowledgeable with casters, but 18 spellpower seems… small.  Smaller than 15 agility anyway.

HUNTERS

Survival

• Wyvern Sting cooldown has been lowered from 1.5min to 1min.
  This is a buff, plain and simple.  Being able to use this shot every minute is great for PvP utility! More CC makes me a happy hunter in that setting.  For PvE, it’s not a big deal, but it can save your raid when used properly.  I’ll talk more about the uses of the shot another time: what’s important here is that you can use it more often.
• Frost Trap now slows down the enemy by 50%. (Down from 60%)
  This is the opposite: a nerf.  The trap is still the most useful one we have as a non-survivalist, and most important as a PvPer period.  This trap is what allowed us to get away.  It still will allow us to run out of melee, but not as far or as quickly.  This will be noticed, but I think everyone will adapt quickly but learning to disengage properly.

  In PvE? This might make kiting Dog Chow’s a little harder, but once again… not by too much.
  

• Resourcefulness now also effects Black Arrow.
  This is awesome sauce.  In every way possible.  The 30 second cooldown on Black arrow is a little annoying, but reducing it to 24? That’s great! I don’t know a lot about survival talents, but I should expect some testing done with this talent.  With the other changes that have happened to far to Survival, and with the way Lock and Load works, it should be interesting to see how this talent changes Survival playstyle.
  
• Entrapment changed to – When your Frost Trap, Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Snake Trap are triggered you entrap all afflicted targets, preventing them from moving for 2/4/6 sec.
  This looks similar to what it once was, but it’s not actually.  Before, it was a chance that the trap would entrap the target for 4 seconds.  Now it’s guaranteed, so long as they don’t resist the trap, and the entrapment effect can last up to 6 seconds!

  From a glance, this appears to be a great big buff to PvP.  It also makes up for the nerf to Frost Trap, to an extent…

Beastmastery

• Animal handler now increases the duration of your Master’s Call effect by 6sec. (Down from 10sec)
  Well, this… I don’t really know what to say about this.  Currently, the talent reduces the cooldown by 10 seconds, which means using it more often.  However, with the change going to duration now… hmm.

  From what I can see, this is better for hunters for PvP.  You now have 6 extra seconds to run away from a rogue without him slowing you down.  Although we can’t use the ability as often, being useful for longer I think would be better.

  However, I would have liked 10 extra seconds more…

Marksmanship

• Wild Quiver now deals 80% weapon nature damage. (Old – 80% Nature damage, wording change?)
  Who knows.  If it’s a wording change, this isn’t much of a change.  Actually, right now, the talent states plain old “50% nature damage.”  50% of what? My paycheck? My groceries? My haircare products? Who knows! I think this is indeed just a wording change.
• Concussive Barrage changed from 3 to 2 ranks, now gives your successful Chimera Shot and Multi-Shot attacks a 50/100% chance to Daze the target for 4 sec. (Old – 2/4/6% chance on Auto Shot, Multi-Shot, and Volley)
  /twitch

  I just want everyone to know that this change is going to make marksmen even more viable for PvP than they already are! Chimera Shot already packs an incredible amount of damage, and for PvP, damage is good.  Mix in a built-in Concussive shot, and you have yourself some kiting ability!

  For PvE though, looks like it does nothing.  /sigh
  

• Efficiency now reduces the Mana cost of your Shots and Stings by 3/6/9/12/15%. (Up from 2/4/6/8/10%)
  Straight up nerf.  Nothing more really needs to be said, right? Okay, a little more.

  Efficiency as it stands is more of a filler talent.  With this change, it might be actually be sought after.

Glyphs

• Glyph of the Monkey has been removed.
  I have one word for this.

  HOLYCRAPWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY!?

  This glyph was so useful in PvP! You dodge, you get a move speed boost.  It was useful, it was handy, it was one the the must have glyphs for PvP!

  The only reasons I can think of Blizzard getting rid of it are two-fold:
  1.  They don’t like random number generator type things, and this was on their list.
  This reason sucks because you can plan on dodging attacks most of the time, and this… well, it’s just not that random.
  2.  They don’t like having hunter with Fiery feet.
  This reason also stinks: I love fire! I stand in it on purpose!.. *cough*

  Overall, I just don’t understand why.  Maybe having super-fast hunters was OP, but I wouldn’t know, eh Mr. Rogue?
  

• Glyph of Mend Pet has been added – Increases the healing done by your Mend Pet ability by 40%.
  This is pure win.  Right now, glyph of mend pet allows you to save money by not feeding your pet ever; it gave happiness every time you cast it.  But we already don’t need food; we have Bloodthirsty, Carrion Feeder, and Guard Dog for our pets.  They already “feed” our pet for us.

  So, the glyph as it stands is near useless.  This new version does a lot of great things for us:
  1.  It helps your pet survive in PvE fights with lots of AoE.
  2.  It helps your pet survive in PvP from being smashed without a chance.
  3.  Makes soloing elites like Gigantaur in Dragonblight a piece of cake.

  So, good? Very.  Useful? Definitly.  Glyph status? Mandatory.

• Glyph of Raptor Strike – For 3 sec (down from 5 sec) after using Raptor Strike, you take 20% less damage.G
  … crap.  Well, this glyph is still going to be nice to have for PvP, but how useful is it going to be? You don’t want to be in melee in the first place, but it’s going to happen from time to time.  So long as you’re staying, you might as well take less damage.  Hunter armor usually can get to about ~35-38% damage reduction.  This put us up to ~55-58% damage reduction.  That’s not half bad.  Just make sure you don’t stay in melee for longer than those 3 seconds; if you are any longer, you’re not doin’ your job.  Stay out of melee!

  Unless you’re soloing, and need to save money on bullets.  /shifty eyes

  Oh, and bonus: if I am reading this correctly, the damage reduction applies to all attacks while under the effect… including magical and ranged attacks.  Score!

Conclusion
Well, this batch of patch was a seesaw.  We have some nerfs, we have some neutral changes, but the majority of changes were beneficial compared to how they are on live.  This patch of patch notes is not a bad thing to look forward at all, although Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey is going to be missed.

I liked having my feet light up on fire every once in awhile.  It amused me greatly…

At least now my lollerskates have crit rating.

On a final note, I would just like to take a moment to say this.  Remember: all this stuff is in your head, and is subject to change.

At Long Last, I Got Pizza!

Would you eat this if Colemand made it?

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of pets.  I have been watching pets go from the scummy situation they were in before, to the shinier, and much greener situation they are in now.  I like what I see.

The big reason the situation was so crummy before was because of pet homogenization.  Most might recall when the only viable pets in the WoW world were Cats, Raptors, and Ravagers.  Reason? They were the only ones that dealt any respectable amount of damage.  To boot, any other pets were laughed out of most raids, including my lovely Link.  I could solo and do 5 mans with Link, but Radix had to handle the rest, being a cat and all.

Nowadays, many more pets are viable.  Wasps, Wolves, Cats, Carrion Birds, Spirit Beasts, Moths, Devilsaurs… just to name a few of the ferocity pets.  There are still some that aren’t the greatest(Tallstriders, wut?) but the situation is much better.  Mostly.

As many of you know, there was a very big change that happened in the tenacity section of hunter-ville: Gorilla‘s have lost Thunderstomp as their unique ability.  It was once a Gorilla State secret, but a Worm reverse engineered it for everyone.  Now all Tanking pets have it.

What does this mean?

At long last, I can have my freakin’ pasta when it comes to tenacity pets.  Jormungandr can now main tank an instance, no problem.  He has an AoE and a ranged Sunder Armor.  Lucas? My beautiful bear can AoE grind for me better than a gorilla ever could.  Boars? They can work now too! Turtles, warpstalkers, scorpids(they’re still nasty!)… the large majority of them are now viable for everyday work! Some pets still don’t get much out of this change(Crabs, for instance, are still a PvP pet, and thunderstomp isn’t very useful in that situation), but most work!

Here’s my problem with this though:

How the hell does a crab stomp thunderously!?

To add, what makes a crab different from a gorilla now?

Not much now, actually.  This is another development: if this trend continues, of giving cool abilities to all the pets, then what’s to stop them from homogenizing pets further?

Oh wait.  They did that too. Great.

See, this is a problem.  When you give all the trees the same stat bonuses, you’re homogenizing them.  They state that they are adding”additional talents have been added to distinguish a pet’s abilities based on its specializations.”  Additional talents, eh? Really! For example, they let Tenacity share Grace of the Mantis and Roar of Sacrifice with Cunning pets.  That’s really “unique.”

I guess the talents they were talking about are the new ones so far at the top of the tree that only BM players get full benefit out of it.  Yeah, that’s certainly unique.

It’s nice that more pets are going to be used, don’t get me wrong.  It’s exactly what I wanted.

But if they all are all pasta, and that’s all I get to eat, then what about when I want to eat pizza? Well, I’ll be out of luck at that point because there’s only one thing for dinner, every night: KD.

So, Blizzard, everything is good, so far.  Everything you’ve done for pets has been great.  Leaps and bounds in every direction, nothing bad.  Yet.

I’m just sitting in the corner here, hoping that they don’t go so far as to make pets all the same.  Because KD for the rest of my life would suck, and then I’d be dead from heart complications.

Headache Inducing For Patch Producing

It's big. No, really big. Bigger than that...

Well, the PTR is up and running, and hunters are reporting changes everywhere.  Honestly, there are so many changes at the moment it’s making my poor, delicate, and valuable head spin.

But, the thing to remember is that many of these changes are going to change, be removed, or otherwise “not be technically feasible.”

Either way, it’s a good idea to look at them as they stand to better grasp what might happen to them later.  So, lets take a look at them…

Oh man, I have a feeling about this…

You can find the list, by the way, on MMO Champion.

Talents

Beast Mastery

• Improved Aspect of the Hawk now has a new spell effect.
  Like the stacking of clams, this will be seen as the most broken change in the history of the game! Can you imagine? Beastmasters will be over the top!

  Actually, this is bullshit.  We’re the lowest DPS spec, and we get… well, this.  Woo.  I suggest every Beastmaster out there to brace yourselves, as your Marksmen and Survivalist cousins actually get useful changes.

• Pets get a new tier of talents!
  Well, we finally got some news on the talents.  If you want to see them, I suggest taking a look at Less QQ, More PewPew.  Drotora has some screenshots of the talents.

  Will this give the BM tree a much needed buff? I doubt it.  The problem with BM lies not with the pet anymore.  The hunter needs to deal more damage, as most of the fights in raids right now are very pet unfriendly.  I suspect that this will continue throughout end-game raids, as to do otherwise would severely limit Blizzard’s ability to creat challenging and interesting content.

  So, even more reason to keep a pet alive.  As if we needed any more.

Markmanship

• Ranged Weapon Specialization: Points reduced from 5 to 3, 1/3/5%.
  Thank goodness! You marksmen people don’t have to sink so many points into here now! Because, now you will be putting them into Piercing shots.  See why below.
• Wild Quiver (Tier 9) now increases your chance to shoot an additional shot when doing damage with your auto shot, dealing 80% Nature damage, by 4/8/12%. (Previously it dealt 50% nature damage and had a 4/7/10% chance.)
  This is good.  The talent was lackluster before, and it’s somewhat less so now.  Actually, a 30% boost in damage isn’t bad, but the chance for it to procure still… kinda sucks.  Sorry.
• Piercing Shots (Tier 7) Your critical Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of the damage dealt over 8 sec. (Previously triggered 2/4/6% armor ignore).
  Where before this talent underwhelming, behold.  It is now big, and scary! Or at least, that’s how it looks.  Unfortunately, we still don’t have a clue whether multiple crits in a row refresh the bleed, or add multiple bleeds.  Look at the marksmen blogs as time goes on: they’ll have an answer.

  Either way, this is a great change to Marksmanship, and hopefully a useful one.

Survival

• Hunting Party (Tier 10) is now a 3 point talent, increasing agility by 1/2/3% and your Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot and Steady Shot critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to grant up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of the maximum mana per second. Lasts for 15 sec.
  Well, now we know what the “passive bonus” is.  3% more agility.  Just when you thought 15% was enough, they make with another 3% for 18% total.

  This makes Survivalists happy.  Understandably so, too.  Less points, more bang for your buck.  Everyone will put 2-3 points in this talent, no matter what.

• Lock and Load re-designed: You now 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. This now has a new spell effect and sound.(Previously worked on all traps and included serpent sting)
  A mouthful, but the basic gist is this: no more trap dancing.  For PvErs, this is a sad day, for your unique playing style will be missed.  For PvPers, this changes nothing.  With the other changes that follow, it will be imperative that Survivalists remain at range.  Continue reading to find out why.
• New Talent: Trap Launcher: When activated, your next Trap will be launched instantly at the enemy target. 1 minute cooldown.
  If the earlier L ‘n’ L change didn’t make it clear, this sure did.  People have been begging for something like this to come out for some time.

  My issue is this: now that it’s a talent, our Frost Arrow is useless to Survivalists.  Why on earth would you use a trap that doesnt necessarily land(Frost Arrow) when you have one that gets shot directly at the unfortunate victim(Trap Launcher)? Survivalists got a boon here: but at the cost of your lvl 80 ability.

  Heh.  Not really a loss anyways.

• T.N.T. re-designed: Increases the damage done by your Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap and Immolation Trap by 2/4/6%, and gives your Explosive Shot a 33/66/100% chance to refresh the duration of your Immolation Trap effect on the target.
  Trap-dance… is deader than de-ead…

  You shoot your imolation trap, then use explosive shot to keep the imolations trap running.

  Trap dancing dies in 3.0.1.

• Wyvern Sting duration increased from 12 sec to 30 sec. PvP duration reduced from 10 sec to 6 sec.
  Well, this is good and bad, obviously.  In PvE, Wyvern sting can now be used to help control a situation gone wrong: just use it on the mob that’s out fo control, and you have yourself 30 seconds take care of everything else.

  PvPers will start crying though, as this wonderful 10 second CC has been nerfed into almost half that amount.  It’s still very useful, but it means that hunters can’t perma CC someone for awhile now.

• Improved Wing Clip: This talent has been removed.
  By the way, this change was labeled under “Beast Mastery.”  Yeah… this was actually a survival talent.

  This talent was useful for PvP only, but it was actually pretty good when it worked.

  With all the things Survival is getting though, I wouldn’t be sad at all.  This talent was useless anywhere other than PvP, and even then, it wasn’t a sure thing.  Less Random Number Generator is a good thing.

• Trap Mastery moved from Tier 9 to Tier 2 and is now a 3 point talent. Increases the duration of Frost and Freezing trap by 10/20/30%, Periodic damage of Immolation and Explosive trap by 10/20/30%, and number of snakes summoned by Snake Trap by 30%. (Previously was just 1 point)
  This is hardly what I would call a “replacement.”  In TBC, this was the exact same thing, except one tier lower and it was only 1 point.

  Now, it’s a tier higher, and it’s another point sink.

  Personally, if they had just left it at one point, it would have made more sense.  Plus, Survival hardly needs more point sinks.  Survivalists already have Master Tactician, Expose Weakness, and at least 3-4 more point sinks in the tree.

  What I think will happen is that this change will go through, and most people will pick this over Hawk Eye.

• *New Talent* Black Arrow (Tier 9) – Fires a Black Arrow at the target, increasing all damage done by you to the target by 6% and dealing [ 10% of RAP + 785 ] Shadow damage over 15 sec. Costs 6% base mana. 5-35 yard range. Instant Cast. 30 sec cooldown.
  I think I am going to dub this the beginning of “warlock syndrome.”  Another shot added to an already very complicated shot rotation adds even more difficulty and cumbersomness.

  Either that or it doesn’t stack with serpent sting, and this will be a replacement.

  Either way, Survivalists get a shot that hunters in general have been begging for since Vanilla WoW.  Lucky bastards.
  

• Sniper Training (Tier 9) has been changed to increase the critical strike chance of your Kill Shot ability by 5/10/15%, and while standing still for 6 sec., you gain Sniper Training increasing the damage done by your Steady Shot, Aimed Shot, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot by 2/4/6% Lasts 15 sec. (Previously increased damage and critical strike chance based on your range to the target)
  This puts the nail in Trap-Dancing’s coffin.  Stand still, at range, and get a damage boost.  Trap-dance, and you will fail.  Simple as that.

Skills

• Kill Shot no longer has a minimum range. It can now be used in melee range.
  This is good! Kill shot is now a ranged execute in every way.  Not too shabby for PvP, useless for PvE.
• Disengage cooldown increased to 30 secs. (Previously was 25 secs)
  This just in: a Blizzard employee has been found dead in the Hudson River.  Police suspect that the culprit might have been the crazy canadian shouting “death to blizzard” on the waterfront.  More at 11.

  In short, this sucks.  Try again, Blizz.
  
  

• *New Skill* Call Stabled Pet – A pet of your choice busts out of its stable and joins you no matter where you are, replacing your current pet. Cannot be used in combat. Instant. 30 min cooldown. Requires Level 80.
  Believe it or not, this was also filled under Beast Mastery, although this change affects everyone.

  Needless to say, this has been a long time coming, and so long as they don’t pull a “technicality” out of their rear, this change should go through.

  So, dance for now.  Be happy! Be merry! But hope like hell that you can learn this ability at a lower level, cause learning it at 80 is way too late.  Like, lets learn this around 30, so we can level 2 pets at once while out and about.

  Oh, and imagining Link “busting out” of his stable reminds me of Homeward Bound.
  

• Frost Trap: If the target who triggers Frost Trap is immune to its effect, the Frost Trap area effect will no longer be triggered.
  Well, aint this a load of crap.  It’s not a big change in the least, but it still annoys me.  My AoE trap becomes useless if one person who’s immune steps on it.  Harumph.

Glyphs

• Glyph – Aimed Shot  — Reduces the cooldown of your Aimed Shot ability by 2 sec. (Old: Reduces the mana cost of your aimed shot ability by 20%)
  There goes my reason to keep Aimed Shot in any way, shape, or form for PvE.  Good for PvP though.  Why? Well, less cooldown time means more aimed shots, more aimed shots means more damage while kiting those pesky melee classes, and that make Klin a happy elf.
• Glyph of the Monkey  — While Aspect of the Monkey or Aspect of the Dragonhawk are active, each time you dodge you gain 30% increased movement speed for 6 sec.  Can only occur every 20 sec.  This speed does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects. (Old: Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey  — While Aspect of the Monkey or Aspect of the Dragonhawk are active, each time you dodge you gain 30% increased movement speed for 6 sec.  This speed does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.)
  Well, I hope everyone had fun with getting 3 or so dodges in a row with this glyph.  It’s still very useful in PvP, but it means that you can’t be Speedy Gonzales anymore.

  More to the point, the 20 CD shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place, as you should have been out of melee range for that long anyway.
  

• Glyph of Wyvern Sting  — Decreases the cooldown of your Wyvern Sting by 6 sec. (Old: Decreases the cooldown of your Wyvern Sting by 15 sec., but decreases the damage it deals by 20%.)
  Woopdedoo.  Not much to say here folks: nerfed.  Wyvern sting has a 60 second cooldown.  Reducing it by 15 seconds, but losing damage, was much better than reducing it by 6 seconds.  This ability was meant to Crowd Control, not deal damage.
  
• Glyph of Snake Trap  — Snakes generated by your Snake Trap take 90% reduced damge from area of effect spells. (Old: Your Snake Trap creates 2 additional snakes)
  PvP just got a new glyph.  This alone should make snake traps much more worthwhile in PvP, as the only reason we didnt use it was because everyone had AoE  and killed them instantly.

  Now our little snakes can live long enough to poison some people.

  Happy? I know I am.
  

• Glyph of the Hawk  — Increases the haste bonus of the Improved Aspect of the Hawk effect by an additional 6%. (Old: Renamed from Glyph of Improved Aspect of the Hawk)
  Wow.  Aspect of the Hawk is getting love this patch.  A new spell effect, and and renamed glyph.  This will surely upset the balance.
  
• Glyph of Chimera Shot *new*  — Reduces the cooldown of Chimera Shot by 1 sec.
  I’m going to leave this one for the marksmen, but 1 second off of a very powerful shot is never a bad thing… but it’s still only one second.  Take it or leave it, I guess.
• Glyph of Explosive Shot *new*  — Increases the critical strike chance of Explosive Shot by 4%.
  This will be a must have for Survivalists.  ‘Nuff said.
  
• Glyph of Kill Shot *new*  — Reduces the cooldown of Kill Shot by 6 sec.
  Errrm, okay.  I like it.  It’s good for PvE on a boss fight, as it means you can get off 3 now instead of 2.

  In PvP, your kill shot should kill them, so this shouldn’t be too big.
  

• Glyph of Explosive Trap *new*  — The periodic damage from your Explosive Trap can now be critical strikes.
  Good for AoE fights, just launch an eplosive trap into a group of mobs and watch em burn!
  
• Glyph of Scatter Shot *new*  — Increases the range of Scatter Shot by 3 yards.
  My experience with scatter shot has been this: use it when your opponent is too close.  Otherwise, don’t bother.

  So, I think it’s safe to say that this glyph is made of suck for now.
  

• Glyph of Raptor Strike *new*  — For 5 sec. after using Raptor Strike, you take 20% less damage.
  Adding… more activated abilities?

  /twitch

  This is good, but it’s already hard to find room for glyphs in PvP as is.  This will have to be one of them though, as 5 seconds of 20% reduction is not to be messed with, especially when confronted with angry rogues, warriors, paladins, just to name a few.
  
  

Pets

• Roar of Sacrifice can be used on the hunter only.
  Nerf.  No two ways about it: Roar of Sacrifice isn’t nearly as useful.

  Before, you could use it on a healer to give them the boost they needed.  Now, not so much.

  Still good for you, but not for the team.

• Stampede (rhino) only affects 1 target, but adds a 25% bleed damage debuff (that does not stack with Mangle etc.) in addition to its knockback.
  This is not cool.  The one thing… one thing I really thought was pure fun has been smashed, bashed, drawn, and quartered.  It’s still good for PvP, as a bleed effect is always welcome, but the lack of multiple targetness makes rhinos a lot less desirable in Battlegrounds…

  /sniff

  Goodbye, Rhino bowling.

  Rhino.  We Win.

  CONCLUSION

  My prediction is this:

  Blizzard is going completely crazy.  Survivalists are getting huge, flashy buffs.  They are already the top DPS spec for Hunters.

  Beasmastery, the lowest performance spec for DPS, got some visual changes mostly.  Yay.  Now my tier 1 talent that everyone can get looks spectacular.

  Marksmen got a buff too, although they aren’t nearly as spoiled as Survivalists right now.

  The short and skinny version?

  BRK should stick to Survival, it would save him a lot of gold.

  Marksmen and Beastmasters will fight each other for 2nd best, but MM will likely win that one.

  Rhino Bowling will get a massive funeral.  Trap-Dancing will go unmourned, despite how interesting he was.

  The sales of Tylenol and Advil will go through the roof as people read these notes and an epidemic of headaches ensues.

In Azeroth, News Breaks You!

Ghostcrawler just smashed our brain! More at 6.

This just in! Would you believe it, but Blizzard now has some answers about Dual Specs.  Some, not a lot, but some.

It seems that Scribes are going to be very important for a raid, among other things.

Of particular note is that, in addition to Dual Specs, hunters will receive a spell that allows…

/drumroll

Start foaming at the mouth, ladies and gents.

A spell that allows remote access of our stables.

But knowing what they did with the last major change like this, I wouldn’t be surprised if the “technology” didn’t exist.  But hope exists for a reason, so this should be a major help to hunters everywhere… if it happens.

I suggest that everyone read the interview, as there are many bonuses in there that come with dual specs, like test talents.  You can make a build like you would on a talent calculator, without paying.  You pay only when you’re done moving your points around, and when you push the pay button.  This, by the way, is spectacular!

So, all told, read it.  Lots of great little tidbits, but whatever you do…

Don’t count on it.

When Patches Go Ninja

This is Patch 3..0.9. Don't stare at him!

Patch 3.0.9.  It got the opener, and it’s going to be applied very soon.

The patch notes for patch 3.0.9 are finally up on MMO Champion.  And by finally, I mean “where the hell did it come from?”

In any case, despite the fact that this came from nowhere, there are some things for hunters worth looking at.

Hunter

• Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
• Serpent’s Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.
  …and everything is back to normal.  Almost.  Unleashed Fury is still nerfed to 15% compared to it’s former glory, but these talents are now back to normal.  This should put our DPS back to where it should be!
  Not to where it was, where it is supposed to be.  On equal footing with Marksmanship and Survivalists.
  If there was a song for this…
  HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLELUJAH!

PETS

• Lava Breath now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
• Poison Spit now reduces the target’s casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
  They seem to be nerfing cast-time increases across the board.  If everything else is getting nerfed, this shouldn’t be a surprise.  A cast-time increase is still a cast time increase.  If you need this, then use it.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

Patience helps.  BM is back to where it’s supposed to be: topping the damage meters.  Cast-time increases are reduced by almost half.

And all should be well for the hunter class.  For once, all three trees will be somewhat close to one another! That’s my prediction anyway.

Creature Feature: Cats

Cats! EYAH!

Cats.

Their popularity was unmatched, their skill unsurpassed, and their beauty,  renowned.

Cats are a hunter’s signature pet.  Since the first days of WoW, even with the old pet system, Cats were the among best DPS out there.  Even now, for DPS purposes, you really can’t go wrong with a cat.

GENERAL STATS
Cats are Ferocity pets.  This means they get a 10% bonus to damage dealt and a 5% increase to health points.  They do not receive a bonus to armor, however, making them squishy to direct melee attacks.

The Focus Dump skill for Cats is Claw, and they have two special moves: Rake, and Prowl.  Most pets only have one special move, so Cats are unique in this regard.

Cats are immensely popular, and they have 24 different skins, 21 of which are tamable.  Many of their skins are fantastic, and very pretty.  A good number of them are also incredibly hard to get.

Cats can be tamed by all hunters.

ABILITIES
Rake: This ability strikes for a scalable amount of damage, then causes the opponent to bleed for more damage over time.

This ability scales with the attack power of your pet, meaning that the stronger your pet gets, the stronger this ability becomes.

Rake does significant amounts of damage, making it a very powerful ability for DPS.  In addition, the secondary effect of Rake, the bleed damage, works with a druid’s Mangle ability.  Cats will do very good DPS with a druid in the raid thanks to Mangle.

Unfortunately, that’s all Rake does in PvE: Damage.  If you want more utility, then I suggest a different pet.

For PvP, Rake is a damage dealer as well; however, there is something of note.  Rake does bleed damage, which is something hunters normally don’t do.  They can keep this damage on constantly as well.

This is important for one thing in PvP: Stealthers.  Take a rogue, for example.  If the rogue gets in a sticky situation, and wants to get away, he will vanish more often than not.  This will get rid of magic and poisons; it does not get rid of bleed effects.  If your cat has used Rake on a rogue before he vanishes, the rogue will not be in a vanished for very long.

Earlier PvE bonuses apply to Rake as well.

Once again, all the ability provides is DPS.  Other than there being a bleed effect, Rake doesn’t have any other utility.

Prowl: Causes the cat to go into stealth.  It increases the damage of the first attack the cat uses when it breaks stealth.  Slows the pet down.

This ability has limited use in PvE.  More often than not, the damage increase is offset by the time it takes for the cat to get fighting.  It can be useful for sneaking past some areas, but there’s really no point to using it for PvE.  There’s no reason not to use it either, other than the cat slowing you down.

In PvP, it can be useful.  Since it hides your cat, your opponent must be close in order to attack the animal.  This also allows your cat to sneak up on targets without them noticing.  You can send your torpedo kitty to the healer, and no one will notice the beast until it strikes.  The increased damage also gives the cat some extra burst, which is always a good thing in PvP.

NATURAL HABITAT
Cats make their homes both in PvE, and in PvP environments.  Their high damage will always be welcome in any environment, and Prowl allows for some interesting options in PvP.  In both situations, Pet management must be top notch in order to keep your companion in the fray, as it does not have alot of HP, and it has even less armor.

Being a Ferocity pet, there are talents to strengthen your cat’s damage dealing capabilities(Rabid, Spider’s Bite…), and talents to reduce squishiness(Improved Cower, Bloodthirsty…).  Both must be taken into consideration to keep your feline friend in the fray.

KLINDERAS’S THOUGHTS
Cats are very graceful, powerful, and intelligent companions.  They can be depended upon to do most tasks, especially killing your opponent very quickly.

Their fur is fabulous, and many types of cats exist.

I think it’s entirely possible that the legendary Spirit Beasts are magic-infused versions of Cats.  We shall see if that fate befalls Radix or not.

Their teeth are entirely too long to be considered anything but out of place.

Nonetheless, a beautiful, powerful, and altogether amazing pet.

COLEMAND’S THOUGHTS
Teriyaki sauce.  350 degrees for an hour in elvish wine.  Serve with leaks.  ‘nuf said.

When Life Gives You Lemons…

You clone them, and make SUPER lemons!

…Well, the answer is simple, isn’t it?

But when life gives you a glimpse at hunter changes…

Slow Wolf gives you a spin on them! Patch Juice!

As luck would have it, Eyonix posted a list of things that they are currently discussing at Blizzard HQ, a list of things involving patch 3.1.  As many of you know, this has the potential to be the biggest patch since 3.0, largely thanks to rumours of Dual Specs, and the major changes happening to every class.

Warlocks getting replenishment? Luxury!

Blessing of Kings being base trainable by all paladins? Vanity!

Hunters needing no ammo?.. wait, SAY WHAT?

Lets look at the hunter changes for now.

HUNTER

Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
Well.  I think that the forums have been foaming at the mouth for a change like this since TBC.  Ammo has become incredibly expensive, and this will help relieve that financial stress by a large margin.  Plus, no more “I have to go buy ammo” runs in the middle of a raid.  As far as the attack speed goes, I think they’ll just add that to the arrows themselves.  Overall, pure win, and a new bag slot.

A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
A new tier? Like, a new frontier? I feel like Kirk, ’cause I have no freakin’ clue what is out there.  Until they reveal what type of talents our pets can get, who knows what is going to happen.

Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
I… I really don’t know what to say.  This is great, no doubt.  Speccing survival isn’t easy, largely because of the amount of points you have to spend on lower tiers.  This makes taking more than 3 ranks in Hunting party hard to do, as you didn’t have enough points to really do it.  Now that it is 3 ranks maximum, this won’t be as much of an issue.  As far as the passive buff goes… maybe raidwide Expose Weakness again? Who the hell knows.

Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
Now this… this should have Rilgon foaming at the mouth.  If your Chimera Shots are critting for what, 8900 on the top end(thank you for the info Rilgon), 30% of that is 2600.  That’s a freakin lot of damage! This is also going to kill those pesky rogues in PvP; They can’t vanish out of bleed effects.

Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
This has a good and a bad side.  Good side is that this talent is much easier to use while trapdancing, and it’s shouldn’t affect PvP too much at all.  In addition, you don’t have to rely on getting Hawk eye if you wish to use this talent.  Bad side: Fights with a lot of moving make getting this buff to your damage impossible.  Heigan, I’m looking at you, you rat-bastard.

We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.
Okay, does this mean they finally get a new talent to replace Trap Mastery? Or is Resourfulness going to affect Lock and Load? Who knows.  I can only suppose it’s going to be good, but how? Will it really help?

So, what can I say about these changes?

Looks like we’re going where no man has gone before.  We’re going into county with a blindfold.  We could be walking into Elysium, I have no flippin’ idea.  But if any/all of these changes go through, we’re going to be in a better place than we have been in awhile.

Also, Blizzard, can my hunter get all the gold I’ve spent on arrows back please? I could afford my roflcopter that way…

Impressions of a Beastmaster: Survival

I was curious.

I’m sorry, god of Beastmastery, I will not falter for awhile.

You see, I tried survival.  Just to see how it worked.

WOW.  The number of shots I could use! I probably got the wrong glyphs and everything, but with a 50 mana difference between Aimed and arcane, I figured using aimed wouldn’t hurt too much.

So, Serpent Sting, Explosive shot, Aimed Shot, Steady shot priority.  I went for a long ranged build…

Yes, it was a sucky build, but work with me on this one.

I tried it out, and I loved having all those cool new shots! It was great! Plus, kiting was a breeze.  The amount of damage I could dish out while Kiting was ridonculous.  Ridiculous is too normal a word to use here.

… However.  I missed the utility that my pet could bring to the table.  You see, I had a quest where you have to kill a magnataur called Gigantaur.

I could not solo him.  Not possible.  He was also incredibly hard to kite, as he ran incredibly fast, so no kiting either.

So, I tried to get a group going.  We almost got him, but our paladin died(honest! They can die!) and then our rogue evasion tanked for as long as he could.  Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough, and we wiped.

So, I opted to go back to BM, and we could use my worm to tank.  The paladin would heal.

This worked to perfection.  No issues.  The tankadin kept Jormungandr topped up nicely, and he never lost threat.

So, survival? Great mana conservation.  Awesome kiting.  Great damage.

Hard to do anything else? Ayup.

Now, for all your survivalists…

FLAME ON!

Master of the Arcane

… Well, the Arcane Shot, anyway.

Earlier on in my blogging, I wrote a post detailing how important arcane shot is going to be in Beast master and Marksmanship rotations.  What was my reasoning? Well, it’s the same mana cost as Steady Shot, and now it’s doing a lot more damage.

You want proof? I’ll give you your proof!

The formula for Steady Shot is [RAP * 0.1 + 252] now.  So, lets plug in my stats at the moment…
AP =1613+230
AP=1843
[1843*0.1+252] +Unmodified Weapon damage+Ammo=DAMAGE!
[184.3+252]+364+32 d/s=DAMAGE!
800.3+~48=DAMAGE!
848.3 damage per Steady Shot before Armor Reduction kicks in, and that’s if I am doing top end damage.  I want people to correct me if I’m wrong.

Now lets look at Arcane Shot.
Damage=[RAP * 0.15 + 492]
D=[1843*0.15+492]
D=[276.45+492]
D=768.45

But wait! That’s not more is it?
You’re right.  It isn’t… at face value, anyway.  This bypasses armor though, as it’s a magic attack.  So, it does more damage, although not much more.

But for Beast masters and Marksmen, the fun isn’t over.

Thanks to the talent “Improved Arcane shot“, we can do even more.

Fully talented, Improved arcane shot gives a 15% bonus to damage done by arcane shot.  So…
D=768.45*1.15
D=~883.72

Now, that’s bigger than Steady Shot by sheer numbers! It’s not affected by armor either!
For beast masters, it gets even better.  Ferocious inspiration now grants you an additional 9% bonus to arcane shot, for a total of 24% bonus damage.  Let’s check it out.
D=768.45*1.24
D=~952.88

Wow.  For the same mana cost, Arcane shot does more damage, and bypasses armor.  The only reason this isn’t affecting Survivalists is because they have Explosive shot which does more damage than Arcane shot and shares a cooldown with it.  So, they use Explosive shot instead.

BM and MM hunters, however, are going to need to use arcane shot every time they can.  If they don’t, they’re not doing enough damage.  Not nearly enough.  BRK made a post concerning the Spirit Beast and it’s damage, but an interesting thing he said was that Arcane shot was getting critical hits for around 4k damage.  That’s huge for a shot that’s instant!

So, a word of advice.  Use Arcane shot, or start sweeping the bottom of the damage meters.  Your choice.

And while you’re at it, polish my shoes.  They’ve been trudging around in mud and slush for weeks

Here is the source from where I got my info for the changes.