f13.net

http://www.worldofming.com/?p=141&page=1

Or.

General
- All players will have talent points reimbursed and will have access
to new talents throughout their trees; this includes the 41-point
talents. Several new abilities have also been added for all classes.
- All pets now receive a percentage of their master’s armor, spell
damage, spell resistances, attack power, and stamina.

Low-level spells cast by high-level players will receive smaller
bonuses from +healing and +spell damage.
- HoTs, DoTs, and channeled spells have been re balanced to receive a
more appropriate (higher) percentage of +spell damage and +healing.
- HoTs from different sources will now stack (i.e. multiple druids can
cast the Rejuvenation spell on 1 target).
- New item property “Resilience” has been introduced. Resilience
reduces your chance to be the victim of a critical strike, and
reduces the amount of damage critical strikes do to you.
- Weapon Skill now does the following:
- Weapon skill will no longer reduce the percentage damage lost due to
glancing.
- The player will gain 0.1% to their critical strike rating per weapon
skill against monsters above their level.
- When casting a buff on a low level target, the appropriate rank of
the buff will be automatically be applied.
- Crowd Control effects in PvP will last no longer than 12 seconds
instead of the full duration, with a chance of a heartbeat resist.
- Players will no longer lose faction when under the influence of
“Mind Control” or the Gnomish Mind Control Cap.

PvP
- Honor System Revamp
Current honor totals have been reset.
Players may display their highest lifetime rank title (accessible
from character sheet).
Honor points earned each day may now be spent as a form of currency.
Check the PvP tab of your character sheet to see your honor
information.
PvP rewards are no longer unique.
- Marks of Honor earned from battlegrounds are no longer turned in for
reputation or honor. They are now used in addition to honor points
in order to purchase rewards.
- Two New Arenas are now available in three different modes.
2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 matches
Players may queue up at Goblin NPC’s in Stormwind, Ironforge,
Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Gadgetzan

Druids
- The talent “Swiftmend” will now include bonus healing from the
talents “Improved Rejuvenation” and “Empowered Rejuvenation”.

Hunters
- Traps can be set while in combat, but require a 2 second arming time.
- Auto shot will be automatically enabled if the Hunter steps out of
melee range while in combat with target.
- 1 agility will now grant 1 ranged attack power.
- Auto shot is now reset when casting Aimed Shot.

Shaman
- Shaman with the appropriate talent spec are now able to dual-wield.
Both main and off-hand weapons can be affected by self-weapon buffs
such as Windfury.
- Rockbiter’s weapon functionality has been changed. It is now a
damage proc instead of a flat attack power bonus.
- Windfury Weapon and Rockbiter Weapon enchantments will only benefit
the weapon with the enchantment on it.

Warlocks
- Range of “Drain Life” and “Drain Mana” spells have been increased.

Warriors
- Rage generation from dealing damage has been normalized.
- All Rage awards are averaged with our expected rage per swing
(adjusted for weapon speed).

Items
- The “Far Sight” effect has changed so that the camera now zooms in
to a distant location, rather than instantly showing the distant
view. This also affects the items: Ultra-Spectropic Vision Goggles,
the Ornate Spyglass, and the Hunter ability “Eagle Eye.”
- Spells can now require either a totem item or a totem category item
to cast a spell. This means that the Enchanting Rods now count as
all of the lower level enchanting rods as well, so you only need a
single enchanting rod instead of all six. This also means that
“Finkel’s Skinner” now counts as a Skinning Knife. Several weapons
that are picks have been flagged as counting as a Mining pick as
well.
- Items that give bonuses, such as + to crit, have been modified to
adhere to a combat rating system.
- All current items will provide the exact same benefit from ratings
at level 60 as they provided before the ratings system.
- Thrown weapon items no longer stack, but use durability instead. One
unit of durability is lost per throw, and these items can be repaired.
- The tool tip for the Great Staff of the Guardian now shows the
proper increase of 28 to the party spell critical rating.
- Items that are useable from player inventory with a cooldown will
now update the cooldown in real-time.
- Players will no longer be able to sell the “Blue Skeletal Horse” to
vendors.
- The damage Proc from the item “Misplaced Servo Arm” will no longer
break the Rogue ability “Gouge”.
- The “Skull of Impending Doom” has been changed and will now increase
run speed by 60% for 10 seconds, but deals damage equal to 60% of
your maximum health and drains 60% of your maximum mana for over 10
seconds.
- The Backfire effect on the “Net-O-Matic” will no longer break on
damage.

Professions
- All of the profession-made items that have been created up to now
have been given proper stats based on the current expansion item
level progression table.
- Most of the items made by Tailoring/Leatherworking/Blacksmithing
have had their creation time reduced. Now the cap on time required
to make an item in those professions is based on quality and level.
- New Max times required.
Level 31+ Green Items at least 8 sec
Level 31+ Blue Items at least 15 sec
Level 31+ Purple Items at least 25 sec
Skill level now determines what items you can disenchant.
Skill 1= Level 1-20
Skill 25= Level 20-25
Skill 50= Level 25-30
Skill 75= Level 30-35
Skill 100= Level 35-40
Skill 125= Level 40-45
Skill 150= Level 45-50
Skill 175= Level 50-55
Skill 200= Level 55-60
Skill 225= Level 60-65
- Players will no longer lose an item when attempting to disenchant
on a boat when the loading screen appears.

User Interface
- Meeting Stone gossip options have been removed from Innkeepers in
preparation for the new LFG system.
- LFG/LFM UI
Tips have been added to Loading Screen tips and new player tips
Meeting Stones now function similar to a Warlock Summon spell.
Player’s select party member to be summoned and right click the
stone.
A second party member then clicks the portal to summon.
- Enchanting UI has been vastly improved.
- Raid UI now supports frame for Main Tank.
- Spell Alert (Enemy Cast bar)
Defaults to off
Enabled through Interface Options
Displays targeted enemy’s cast bar when they are casting.
May also be displayed with “V” key functionality.
- Auto-loot may be enabled with just one click in the Interface
Options.
- Character sheet UI now displays more precise melee, ranged, and
spell stats.
- Players can now cast item targetable spells on items that are in
your action bar. For instance you can cast feed pet and have the
food you want the pet to be fed in one of your action bars.
- Semi-charged items can no longer be placed in the Auction House.
- A knowledge base has been added to the in-game UI.
- Searchable database of FAQ’s and common support issues.
- Keyrings have been expanded to hold more key-type items and will now
size dynamically for the number of keys in possession.
- The Hunter ability, “Mend Pet,” will now turn red when a pet is out
of range.
- Players will now be able to disable ability messages in the floating
combat text.
- Players will now be able to scroll down their ignore list if it
extends beyond one page.
- The tooltips for the Show Dispellable Debuffs and Show Castable
Buffs options will now specify they only apply to raid pullout
groups.
- Significant changes have been made to User Interface customization.
For specific details, please visit
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...36975623&sid=1

Bugs
- The Rend Blackhand arena event in Upper Blackrock Spire will now
properly reset after a wipe.
- Players will no longer resurrect with low mana and health if they
died and released on a Zeppelin or Ship.
- Fixed an issue where effects with 100% chance to be applied were
being resisted.
- Fixed an issue where high level players were not being properly
credited the right amount of faction reputation.
- Party members will now be properly credited for completing the
“Dead Man’s Plea” quest when a totem or pet gets the killing blow
on Baron Rivendare.
- Slowing abilities and spells will no longer decrease the speed of a
player when traveling by Gryphon.
- Fixed an issue where players were re-taining talent based abilities
even after re-training.
- Fixed an issue where the Warlock spell “Shadowburn” was improperly
consuming two Soul Shards.
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to click on anything if
they had any add-ons installed.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to use “Mana Burn” on mobs
and players without mana.
- Fixed an issue where spells that proc while a player was standing
would not proc if they were sitting or lying down.
- Fixed many interface overlapping graphic issues.
- Fixed an issue where Seal of Justice (Rank 2) will now refresh with
melee strikes.
- Blood Elf mobs in Azshara will now have the correct model.
- Fixed an issue where a spell with two procs would be reflected and
one of the procs would still hit the player that reflected the spell.
- Fixed an issue that was putting Hunters back into combat when they
have the “Spirit Bond” Talent or have the Cryptstalker set bonus.
- Fixed an issue where players were being awarded the wrong item when
double looting a corpse under the master loot option.
- Fixed an issue where players interrupted while casting would have a
longer cast time than normal.
- Fixed an issue where players could not see enchants when inspecting
another player.
- Fixed an issue where extra attacks from “Windfury Weapon” would not
proc “Flurry” when they crit.
- Fixed an issue where players that were killed in freezing traps
would be stuck there until releasing.
- Fixed an issue where Warlocks were able to despawn a pet to gain a
free “Soul Shard”in the Battlegrounds.
- Warrior “Shield Slam” and “Shield Bash” will no longer trigger a
proc from an equipped weapon.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to consume a Mana Emerald at
full mana.
- The totem, “Wrath of Air,” will no longer be useable in “Ghost Wolf”
form.
- Fixed an issue where Warrior “Battle Shout” was causing too much
threat.
- Fixed an issue where computers with ATi video cards were sometimes
having problems when displaying a certain texture.
- Fixed an issue where the Warlock spell “Death Coil” gained double
the benefit from the talent “Shadow Mastery”.
- Player pets will no longer attack CC’ed targets while in Passive
mode.
- “Prayer of Spirit” will no longer cast on the user if there is no
other target selected.
- “Lightning Shield” will now have the appropriate cool-down time
between uses.
- Fixed an issue where materials were being consumed if a player
logged out before an enchantment had finished being applied.
- The Hunter, “Auto Shot,” ability will no longer activate on
resurrection.
- Fixed a bug where “Inner Focus” was not being consumed when using
“Mind Soothe.”
- Fixed a bug where Rogues were able to use the ability
“Ghostly Strike” when not facing their target.
- Warlock pet dismiss sounds will now play properly.
- Fixed an issue where Fist weapons were sheathing improperly.
- Bags will no longer overlap the Bank UI when the game window is
resized.
- Players will no longer be able to whisper to enemy players in
Battlegrounds.
- The Skeletal Gryphon ride for the Eastern Plaguelands PvP event will
now fly at its correct speed.
- Players will no longer be able to whisper to enemy players in
Battlegrounds.
- Players will no longer be able to jump onto the top of the Dun
Baldur Fortress in Alterac Valley and get behind the terrain to
attack other players.
- Shapeshifting will now break “Nogginfogger Elixir” effect.
- You will no longer die when Feign Death is finished channeling.
- “Scatter Shot” will now properly do damage even if the target is
immune to the confuse effect.
- “Aspect of the Cheetah” will now properly trigger with absorbed
damage.
- Casting a lower rank polymorph on a target that is already under the
effect of a higher rank will cause an error message and not consume
mana.
- The talent, “Master of Elements,” will now properly proc off of
totems.
- Players will no longer be attacked by same faction guards when using
mind control on an enemy player to attack.
- “Vanish” will now properly un-target the Rogue from the attacker
when the attacker is in the same party.
- The talent, “Improved Chain Heal,” will now properly add to the base
healing done.
- “Healing Wave” Ranks 11 and 12 will now benefit from the Shaman
talent, “Healing Way.”
- “Improved Curse of Agony” will now properly increase the base and
spell power.
- Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet
when they take a flight path.
- Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet
when they are dead at the end of a Battleground match.
- Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet
when they enter an Arena.
- Casting “Dark Pact” after exiting combat will no longer put you back
in combat.
- The tool tip for the “Great Staff of the Guardian” now shows the
proper increase of 28 to the party spell critical rating.
- Several Chest spawns in Dustwallow Marsh will now properly spawn
above ground.
- Items that can give +Stamina/Intellect from random suffixes will now
properly apply while dead.
- “Beastmaster’s Gloves” will now give the proper 2% crit chance for
Hunter pets.
- Various graphical errors will be noticeable while viewing maps

Lots of fun stuff there.

Hmm...I wonder if the arena being tested is one of the TBC ones, or if they've instanced Gurubashi or activated the Org arena or something?

So, when are we getting this ?

well, if it is live on the test client now, i would say probably in around 2, maybe 3 weeks tops?

I got my hands on the beta the other day and have been messing around in it.  I like the Honor system title changes.  I missed having "Knight-Captain" rank, but didn't want to spend all my time in BGs anymore.  I'm sure the honor grinders will have fits.

The new Character UI is very slick. I like being able to access all the stats from just a few drop-down and having it all presented to me as it actually relates to the game, rather than having to mentally adjust what the paper doll is telling me.
 
Hunters feel VERY different now, and it's going to take some time ( & Equipment evaluation changes) for everyone to adjust.  Mana consumption is through the roof unless you rely on Autoshot a LOT more than you're used to.  Melee is also pretty damned viable on hunters now - if only to finish someone off.   No more running like a little girl for range.   My RAP is down to 1120 as a Marks spec, but my Meele AP is up to 8-900 with all the +ap on my gear.    Paper doll DPS was something like 191 Ranges vs 121 Melee (Rhok & Lhok equipped)

Spamming Arcane shot every 6 seconds really plows through your mana even with 5/5 Efficiency. Multishot? Forget it unless you're going for some kind of killing blow.  (Which,  with 8/8 GS Barrage and Imp Barrage will likely be impressive.  I need to re-copy my hunter since I finally got my last piece and check it out.) 

I think I'm going to pick-up some "shaman crap" that's +mana or +int/ +ap over the next few weeks.  They'll help a lot more than the +agi crap I'm toting around now.

Good changes in all after 3-4 hours checking it out.  I'm gonna check beast & survival over the next few days, since it looks like respecs are only 1c.

Yeah, thankfully my last guildmate going for High Warlord gets it this week... hopefully. People just hitting Field Marshal or Warlord though probably won't make it if it's out before the middle of December.

Still, they weren't going to make it anyways with the old release date, so they shouldn't be too shocked :wink:.

Wow, talk about EZ-Mode gameplay. If I were a warlock, I'd be a little bummed.

I'm a warlock, and I'm not bummed.

All this change does is save me ~5-10 shards and cut down on a lot of raid-related annoyances. It's just like the "healthstone buffet" spell they're adding... it removes a lot of the tedium, but not the usefulness of 'locks.


-- Z.

Why exactly would you be bummed?  Unless you were making a living summoning people to 5 man instances, i cant see how this would be a negative thing.  Of course, since there are no meeting stones in Silithus, you can still get your share of "join our group and summon someone to AQ for us" i guess.

I've got to figure out what to do with my Hunter now. Maybe my full BM spec, and try that out. Ugh.

All this stuff has already been on the beta test servers for over a month now, i would be surprised if it doesn't go in next week.

Beta servers have all that expansion content as well.  Want to give it at least a week to see if something esoteric doesn't break.  Liike not having the Blood Elf newb quests activated causes a server to spawn Ragnaros instead of Rabbits.

Why?  What do the hunter changes mean for your playstyle?

I'll likely go back to BM for levelling to 70 but I don't know.

Beta Test Realm /= Public Test Realm.  KThx

For anybody that was a lightning reflexes survival hunter, its QQ time. Survival is largely becoming the ghetto PvP build that it once was now that 1 AGI = 1 RAP. However, with their higher crit rate, use of wyvern sting and traps in combat, they could be entertaining to play solo.

For those in marksman, master marksman will give a DPS boost when using the modified GS or DS armor sets, though crit will drop (as it does for most everybody).

Beastmasters will continue to be best at solo grinding, as well as gaining some raid utility.

Fuck me pretty hard. Without lube. Aimed Shot moves to an opener -- I probably won't even spec it now. Steady shot I can't get until well past level 60. Hopefully the gear I have will convert properly so I won't lose much auto-shot DPS. Arcane shot is boosted in power, but it's mana-inefficient. I don't get Aspect of the Viper or all the lovely mana/5 gear until the expansion.

So now my hunter is stuck doing less DPS for a hell of a lot more mana -- which is going to run out because none of my damn gear is heavily int or mana specced. (Maybe I can go grind some shaman shit). I'll spec beastmaster, but the hunter pet scaling still sucks at the high end -- it's not the overpowered awesome it was awhile back.

So my steady DPS has dropped. My ability to do high DPS has dropped -- and the length of time I can keep pumping out heavy DPS has been shortened. My pet isn't surviveable enough to help, and at least SOME of my gear won't convert right to make up for the agility changes -- rings and such.

Until it goes live, I can't really tell -- but I expect that the month until TBC is going to suck -- I'll just play an alt or go play EVE.

Heard a very sweet rumor today: Havent personally confirmed this, since i havent installed the test client, but someone told me that we get 4 (yes FOUR) new bank slots AND a new normal backpack/bag slot purchaseable in the new patch.

Supposedly the prices of new bank slots is also getting a severe chopping, im talking along the lines of being able to purchase all 4 new slots combined for what your old last slot would have cost.

Add to this the ready availability of 18 and likely 20 slot bags in the expantion, and unless there is a SEVERE glut of needing to keep loads of equipment around, i think we shouldnt be too hard up for inventory space any more.

(i mean, christ, thats like 80 new slots alone if you count 16 slot bags alone)

Yes, they basically added an extra column to the bank UI: four new regular slots and one new bag slot.

We'll fill it up.

Junk always grows to fit the available space.

I'm a hunter/Engineer. I'll take what I can get.

I'm thinking they expanded the banks and bags because the new content will include reasons to fill said banks and bags.

I am a clothes whore.  I'll have all the extra space filled within ten minutes of getting access to it.

Actually its 20 new bank slots if you use a 16 slot bag. You get 4 more "bank" slots, and 1 new "bag" slot.

Ohhh, i read that as 4 new BAG slots (on your bank) and one new Bag slot on your character (paper doll)  My bad.   Not nearly as nice as i though then, but still better then nothing.

Go to PTR, suck it and see. I'm far from optimally equipped for either pre or post expansion, and I went from an unbuffed 1090 RAP without TSA/AotH to 989 with a typical MM build and ZERO equipment changes. My crossbow of smiting went from 45 to 55 DPS, so that's a DPS gain right there. There are some easy blue +AP cloaks, rings, necklaces and melee weapons that can be had to mitigate a large amount of the loss to RAP in the short term.

However, the increase in weapon DPS and changes to talents means around another 20% more damage on auto shots alone. Putting arcane + aimed into a shot rotation will expend mana much more quickly than before, but with the appropriate talents its a big jump in DPS (don't forget that arcane shot is not mitigated by armor). Add in a reduced cooldown of rapid fire, and nerfage of rogues & fury warriors on weapon skill, and you're not looking so unhealthy in raids.

It will take time to accumulate fancy purple bling that has +AP rather than AGI, but even from the outset, you'll simply have to adapt your use of mana without it even losing DPS. In most cases, you should gain a little raid DPS without any gear changes or increased potion/buff use.

Edit: and if I don't change out my Cloak of the Shrouded Mists, Onyxia Pendant, Brutality Blade, crappy Bone Slicing Hatchet and shitty blue rings, my crit goes to over 30% ... so while you're still in AGI gear and waiting for +AP gear, you're going to be doing a lot more crits with the new crit formula.

Therazane'a Link > Dragonstalker Belt under new mechanics/ item stats, for those of you alliance-side doing BWL & Nef.   It was formerly "shaman crap" and had a low DKP value. 4 more AP, 1 less int. 12 spi and 8 more sta.  Unless you've got the 8 piece bonus, I'd pick it up.  :-D

Playing around in the Beta with Beastmaster spec right now.  Not too much of a difference in mob-killing speed, but I can chug along a hell of a lot better.  I can still pull the mob off my pet at will, though.  More aggro-retention abilities, plz.

I wish I could get into a raid of some sort, to see how things work out as a whole.

According to the top hunter in our guild, Beast Mastery will be the highest DPS raid build between this patch and the expansion release. The problem is that aimed shot is being nerfed so that it's not a staple dps spell like it is now, but an opened like it was originally intended to be. The new shot called Steady Shot which is intended to replace the current functionality of Aimed Shot is not available until level 66. Not only that, but the mana cost of Multishot is being significantly increased with the new mechanics. The dps contribution of Aimed Shot and Multishot currently is anywhere from 40-60% of a hunters damage, with the rest coming from autoshot. With the two mainstays of hunter DPS coming from spells that are being nerfed with no substitute until the expansion, hunters are getting F'd in the A.

I don't remember why Beast Mastery is going to be the top raid DPS build after the mechanic change, I just know that's what he said.

Speaking of warlocks... it's very obvious that the current talent trees are pvp-balanced for BC with 70 levels and truckloads of stamina gear. Affliction locks with a good amount of spell damage can basically dot people to death, without any way to prevent it. (UA = no dispel for joo)
And the felguard is just plain disgusting.

(but with HP pools doubling-tripling, neither a one-trick melee pet or relatively slow DOT damage will pose this much of a threat at 70)


-- Z.

As of yesterday's beta patch Steady Shot was dropped to 62, but "Kill" was raised to 66.  Arcane shot has had it's damage significantly upped and with a Marks spec I was critting for 1120 or so. (Damage = 220 + .2*ranged attack power). The biggest problem I've been having is getting used to actually using Arcane Shot.  I finally moved Aimed and Multi so I wasn't tapping them unless I thought about it.

  He probably said that beast was going to produce the best raid DPS because of Ferocious Inspiration (Pet crits & Entire Party gets 3% bonus damage) and Serpent's Swiftness.  My Cat had 120-some paperdoll DPS when I beast specced.  That's a nice contribution to my own DPS, provided the pet stays alive in raids.    If he was counting "The Beast Within" bad news - it's been downgraded to a 10% damage increase rather than the 30% it was.

I'm wondering if Survival might be a better raid spec.  Thrill of the Hunt ensures you're not going to run out of mana anywhere near as much as Marks.  More mana = more shots & better DPS.  You're also not reliant on a pet that won't get heals like beast.  Expose weakness is like an 8/8 DS bonus without spending all that time & DKP to pick up the pieces.   I'm playing around with survival right now just to see what the proc rates are like.  Of course, even killing level 62-63 mobs they don't last long enough to get a good feeling for it.

Can you provide quick and dirty explanation of what exactly new system is like? Can you PvP to 'advance'? Do you have to grind it?

The funny thing is, the one method of getting XP from Battlegrounds (turning in Marks of Honor) is now gone :P.

The rest though...


The main advantages of the new system versus the current one are that you don't have to grind it all in one go and that you don't have to buy anything you don't want. Honor is now a currency with a certain cap, that's really the best analogy there is.

Hope that answers your questions.

Its very simple, honor is like gold for pvp gear.  You can grind it if you want but you dont have too unlike the previous system.  You don't lose honor if you dont pvp for any period of time either.

How about PvP items, were they improved to be more in-line with PvE gear?

If I recall correctly, it's the arena gear that's supposed to be roughly equivelent to latest level raiding gear. The "grindable" PvP gear you get for tokens I imagine is going to stay roughly at it's comparitive level of power to raiding stuff.

The current level 60 epic PVP gear is easily comparable with BWL/AQ40-level raid gear. What's even better is that it'll be faster to acquire with a relatively low amount of time invested, and it's a sure thing instead of an internally competitive system with a random factor.

They've said that the Arena reward gear is supposed to be equivalent to the cutting-edge raid gear while the regular honor rewards are a tier below or something along those lines.

Hunters really have no excuse to whine about the changes. They may need to adapt to new talent builds, but since that's going to be a freebie, it's no hardship.

The scaling of pets is gigantic. Just wow. Let's take as an example my level 60 worg, which has the following skills: natural armor 10, bite 8, howl 4, dash 3, and all resists 2. Before the patch, he has 3452 health, 4739 armor, does 68-83 damage with a 1.2s speed for 63.1 DPS (including trueshot aura), has a melee attack power of 352 and all resists of 120. After the patch, he has 4262 health, 6354 armor, does 101-117 damage with a 1.2s speed for 90.7 DPS (including trueshot aura), has a melee attack power of 646 and resists vary from 120 through to 140 based on my resistances and pet armor bonus.

In both cases measured with a marksman build with no beastmastery talents other than improved aspect of the hawk. Since the scaling is based on hunter gear, its worth knowing that I'm currently sporting 5/8 dragonstalker and 3/8 giantstalker, and other then my crossbow & brutality blade the rest of my gear is pretty ghetto, netting me 1386 RAP, 535-601 damage with 2.96s speed for 192.0 DPS before patch and 1338 RAP, 579-660 damage with 2.96s speed for 209.6 DPS after patch. The only gear substitution I made was Cloak of Shrouded Mists -> Cape of the Black Baron.

How does it compare in play? Fly both hunters to Azshara, head to the Blue Dragons and send the pet to tank one of the warrior variants (Blue Scalebane, 53 elite).

Current - Let the pet put in a growl and start up aimed shot. If it crits, you're going to be kiting. If it doesn't you'll be healing the pet soon because the scalebanes are vicious. Auto, multi, auto, heal pet, aimed, auto, auto... if its not dead or in your face, heal the damned pet again. Rough fight with the pet getting a battering. Almost easier just to ditch the damn pet and kite/strafe the whole fight.

PTR - Send the pet, and immediately crank up the aimed shot. As soon as it flies, hit arcane, auto, multi, auto, arcane... oh dead. Pet is at 90% or more health, and a chain of crits won't pull aggro. Easy mode for the win.

There's going to be more mana used in a raid. Hunters will have to get used to using more consumables. I expect that's intentional. Blizzard loves forcing all raid participants to use many consumables. Oh yeah... new cheap good arrows - 16s (minus discount) per 200, 22 DPS wicked arrows, level 55, available from your local general supplier.

I was about to ask if you'd found the new arrows.  :-D

I don't even bother with Multishot when killing mobs unless there's a group.   It's just too damned mana-intensive and the damage isn't that far above arcane shot anymore.  345 mana for Multi vs 195 for Arcane.   Maybe if I had 8/8 GS.. I should copy to PTR instead of Beta to check. I used all my beta copies  :| 

Hell, even Aimed Shot isn't proving to be worth it for grinding, so I question how useful it will be as a raiding opener.  Hunters are VERY different now.  Checked out your melee stats with all the +AP you've got now?   As Marksman there's a marked difference, but you're pretty close on RAP and MAP as either of the other specs. Hunters (somewhat) able to melee without gimping their ranged damage horribly? I smell PvP whines coming.

(Improved Hunters Mark is also ++ <3 for your new uber pet.)

Aimed is still a nice opener, especially now the pet can hold the aggro on an aimed crit. Multi benefits from increased damage and crit if you pick the talents up, and is on a different timer than aimed or arcane, so if you want to kill something quick and are happy to drink afterwards, go for it. But yeah, for grinding and farming, its going to mostly be auto shot interspersed with arcane.

I saw the improved MAP - coupled with the reduction in agility value to RAP, we're back to two-handed weapons. Warriors & paladins beware, that's hunter loot!

I dunno, I'm just not sold on using multi all that much at all, unless you need that "die now" oomph.   It costs 80% more mana than a single arcane shot and even down at 1164 RAP with a Rhok, it's barely hitting as hard as arcane.

Aimed I haven't been getting decent crits on, I suppose.  It's hitting for about 7-800 each time it doesn't crit (26% crit chance.) and at 300 mana with shitty spirit, int and no MP/5 on the 'old mechanics' equipent, thats a valuable chunk of my pool.

Spec I'm using now (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-hunter/talents.html?5020300000000000000000555101005013053105100000000000000000000000)  Improved barrage would up my Multishot to a 41% crit chance so that'd probably help offset the mana cost, but that's 3 levels away, since I'd rather have the survivability on my pet for grinding.

Rawr 2-handers.  I had a hard time explaining that, yes, hunters should be allowed to spend DKP on that 86AP 2hder out of BWL a few weeks back. (After the main dps melee, of course)  "But there's no Agi on it!  How is it a hunter weapon?"  /sigh.




 
 

Once again, the problem of introducing new mechanics before the expansion. With the new mp5 aspect you're getting, as well as gear being itemized to include more mana regen, hunters should be relatively fine on mana. But you can't get the new aspect until after 60, and aside from tier 3 gear mostly, you're not going to find any mp5 itemized gear until the expansion. I still don't get the rush to push this out well in front of the expansion. Maybe it'll be buggy enough that they'll have to push it to early january and I won't have to bitch anymore.

I don't think the new aspect kicks in until 67, and as I noted -- all the mana/5 gear is post-60. Unless we start snagging shaman gear, which looks a heck of a lot better under the new hunter schema.

I haven't been following the latest changes to hunter -- figure I'd find out sooner or later through experience -- but last I checked the pet changes still didn't scale properly after they massively nerfed the pets a few weeks ago. Have they buffed pets back up then? Because it went from "my pet can tank dire maul" back to "My pet can't hold aggro after an aimed/auto crit" without intimidate.

I'm pretty sure there was a bug with growl or pet aggro somewhere for those "My pet can't hold aggro" problems.

I wasn't able to keep a mob of ANY level on my pet without letting it chew 25% of the mob's health on its own.  Once I had aggro I couldn't feign it off to my pet.  As soon as I stood back up (even after waiting a few secs)  the mobs were right back on me.  Then they patched the beta realm this week and I was aimed/ arcane/ auto shotting and didn't get the mob on me more than a few times, and I was able to feign them off of me again.

Pets themselves have been buffed up so as to be better, but not to the "hey I've got a pocket warrior, we don't need a tank class" level most of the vocal hunters seem to want them at.

 All the bitching a few weeks ago was because people were using BC mobs that haddn't been adjusted.  If you were using an 'old world' mob you were simply gimping yourself because the BC mobs were so far above in terms of DPS/ AC and Health it was ridiculous.  When they fixed that obvious oversight people felt nerfed.  I didn't get in until after all that, and I do notice a lot more survivability and damage out of my pet in BC vs live, but not to a point I feel like a two-person solo group.

I'm more worried about raid surviveability for BM specced hunters. My pet should be doing a significant chunk of my damage (10 to 20%) as a BM specced hunter, but on raids it generally drops in seconds from the godawful insane AoE stuff the bosses do. I hated using bears simply because I could use mage food to keep them happy because they were always dying...

If this is true, consider me one VERY pissed off mage:

Blizzard has now decided to revoke our Mage licence as "masters of AoE" (guess they felt we needed another one to hang along the wall with our expired "you get to be the glass cannon in exchange for top damage" certificate).

One of my guildies in the betatest is also one of our top mages in the guild.  He recently discovered that they have done a massive,  and im talking FUCKING HUGE, nerf to "AoE" type spells.

Appearently, in their infinite wizdom, blizzard has decided that the generic reduction to +spell damage that all AoE spells get for simply being AoE wasnt enough.  They have now added in the effect that for every target beyond 10 (YES TEN.....TEN MOBS), your spell damage done by AoE spells drops signifigantly (we are talking tens or twenties of percents here).  While this may not seem like much, trust me when i say it is.

If you are confused about why this sucks, here is an example:

My guildie is currently level 70 in beta.
With all the fancy new ranks of his spells and stuff.
And about 6k or so HP unbuffed.
And probably around 700 or so +spelldamage. 

He told us over vent today that he nearly died while trying to AoE one of those packs random critters that ambush you when you go through certain gates in Stratholm  You know the ones, where you get swarmed by rats or grubs or beetles and the gates close on you till they are dead.

The ones a level 60 mage in blues can normally kill with a blastwave and a few bursts of Arcane Explosion.

THEY NEARLY KILLED A LEVEL 70 MAGE IN NAXX GEAR.

His arcane explosions were doing something in the range of 50 to 60 damage per hit.

Now, consider that, and try to imagine doing the Supression Room in BWL. Or the Swarm Tunnel on the way to Fenkriss in AQ 40. Or he Packs of Imps leading to Magmadar, or the Skeleton Pit in ZG, or hell, even an accidental Leeroy Jenkins pull in UBRS.  Or any number of other incounters where you need to AoE down a swarm of mobs.

I mean, holy fuck Blizzard.  Do you really have THAT much of a hardon for makeing sure no one ever wants to go back to old instances?  Were mages aoeing swarms of critters REALLY that broken? (never mind that the only really broken AoE encounter I ever saw, the one where the mage kills 90+ mobs at once during the Naxx opening event, was totally due to blizzards stupidity in placing huge swarms of mele only mobs in the same area)

Yes, it's true.  It's an overreaction to mages who were AOE farming and making vids of it then 'lolzing'.  Hopefuly they'll see the error of this mechanic change, but I dobut it.

 Hey, on the 'plus side' I was seeing there's no reduction to +dmg gear on AOEs so long as you're below 10 mobs.  >.<

Yeah, it will be amusing, im sure, to start aoeing on a pack of 10 mobs, and have a sudden big drop in one of your AoE pulses because one of those level 1 rats or bugs briefly respawned in your pack of 10 :P

It also only applies to instant AoEs. Blizzard and Flamestrike damage as normal... or so the mage forums say if you squint past all the drama.

Are mages no longer top damage dealers?

As things stand currently? no.

A well geared fury Warrior (naxx gear) will mop the floor with a similarly geared Mage on damage meters.
Rogues are the same way.
Warlocks can also do better then we can. on most single target fights.

Most mages who are on the top of the damage meters are usually the ones who catch and hold the lucky rolling ignites for big damage stacks, or the ones inflating their DPS on AoE trash. 

The longer the fight goes, the farther we fall behind.

Of course, word has it that mages are now king of the hill in single target DPS in beta, but that held true in the origional game untill uber itemizations started being hit (mages were king on the way up to 60 and in early 60 instances, but after BWL level mele gear arrived, we got smacked in the face)

I guess most of our mages are great with them rolling ignites then. Only on certain single bosses do the top warriors and rogues do close to similar damage. And that's going the way of the dodo in the patch with the incoming nerf to weapon skill vs glancing.

Here are the classes I've heard whining about the patch/beta changes - mage, hunter, rogue, warrior, druid, warlock, priest, shaman, paladin. I suppose we're all fucked, and bottom of the tree,

I was about ready to believe you, but then I noticed you included warlocks in your post.

You have actually heard warlocks bitching about upcoming expantion changes?  WTF, have these people no shame?  Warlocks got so much love all around in the expantion as it stands that they should be in a perpetual state of dripping extascy.

Yeah, some locks have severe "grass is greener" syndrome. Felguard locks are complaining that the felguard is banishable / CC-able, destro locks are whining that dragon's breath is better than shadowfury and affliction locks are whining that they die too fast to melee. There's also plenty of crying about other classes, especially Cloak of Shadows (which does screw locks rather hard, but there are ways around it -- as an alliance lock, I've had to deal with WOTF forever, which is almost as bad as CloS) and Ice Lance (omg mages might actually have a chance now, nerf!!11).

IMO most of the whiners on the 'lock forums (and other class forums... hell, I'd say most of the WOW forums) need to take a cup of STFU. As an affliction lock who's been playing since closed beta, I couldn't be happier with the changes (well ok, there ARE some useless talents still, but which class doesn't have any of those?)


-- Z.

Blizzard has a plan - most +dmg (or +dmg/heal) stats in TBC is going to go on caster weapons, so when a mage dagger (or whatever) drops, it'll be just as big an upgrade for them as melee weapons are for fury warriors, instead of casters having to piecemeal upgrade armour for spell damage.

Whether it works or not is a different matter, but at least they're trying something

Mages have and always will be the kings of QQ though.

This AOE thing is not that big a deal.

Don't worry too much about Fury warriors being 'king of the hill' much longer, even with uber itemization.  They're normalizing rage generation so uber-geared warriors will no longer have more rage than they know what to do with.   

I'm worried about this hurting other folks because we'll have to hold back now that warriors won't be able to spam aggro-generating attacks at will.

If I remember right, it's only Rage done by attacks that's being normalized. On top of that, faster weapons (since they do less damage) aren't getting hurt as badly as big two-handers.

Tanks don't have much to worry about. Arms warriors? Yeah.

Well that's good news.  I hadden't heard much about it other than what I learned BSing with one of our Tanks in vent a few days ago.

Yeah prot warriors are still fine. As long as you're pounding shield slam whenever it's up, you're fine due to the over 1k threat it generates at once. That and HS's every so often keep you above anybody.

It's about time.  But there goes my thorium arrow/bullet business (thorium ammo for 60s/stack, which is ok, but I'm not getting rich since I'm buying mats off the AH) - unless Blizzard put in something else for crafters.  Do thorium bullets get a boost? 

We're still talking about the next patch, right?  Not TBC expac?

Good -- I've been going broke buying ice-threaded bullets for MC raids.. Figured it was the least I could do, what with the consumable costs of the tanks and such.

Yes, next patch.  With the changes to Hunter mechanics going in they had to patch-in all the related stuff.  All ranged weapons will see a large boost in their listed DPS as well.

This isn't good for my stockpile of thorium bars and dense blasting powder though.

Wonder why they don't just up the dps on those so that crafted is still better than storebought?

Sell the dense blasting powder short. The thorium will more than make up for the loss. Mail it to a bank alt, or float it around the mail system for a couple of months. Ore and bars will both be in heavy demand come the expansion, and with the super-inflation on cash above level 60, there's going to be a lot of money floating around.