Hunters in 4.0

[Turken]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24261186675&sid=1

With the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm many game elements will be changing, and each class will be receiving a number of tweaks. Here, we will explore the changes that are being made to the gun-wielding, pet-training hunter. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the new hunter abilities!

New Hunter Abilities

Cobra Shot (level 81): A new shot that deals Nature damage instead of Physical damage. This ability will share a cooldown with Steady Shot. This will give hunters an alternative to Steady Shot on heavily-armored targets, and we will have talent incentives in the Beast Mastery tree to make this a signature shot.

Trap Launcher (level 83): When used, the next trap can be shot to a location within 40 yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result, we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global cooldown.

Camouflage (level 85): The hunter enters an obscured state that prevents him or her from taking ranged damage. The character would still be subject to melee or area-of-effect attacks, and dealing or taking damage will break the Camouflage effect. The hunter can move and set traps when under Camouflage, and will receive a damage bonus when attacking while under Camouflage (which will then break the effect).

Resource Mechanic Change

Here we come to the meat of the upcoming hunter changes.

Hunters will no longer use mana; instead the class will use Focus. Focus generates much like Energy, by building up. It will not be affected by Intellect at all. Haste will improve its generation. Hunters will generate roughly 6 Focus per second, slightly less than rogues' Energy generation rate of around 10 Energy per second. Below, we have listed some examples of how we intend Focus costs to operate:

          o Steady Shot/Cobra Shot: No cost. Generates 9 Focus per shot (or 12 per second instead of 6).
          o Arcane Shot/Chimera Shot /Explosive Shot: 45 Focus.
          o Aimed Shot/Multi-Shot: 60 Focus.
          o Concussive Shot/Tranquilizing Shot: 35 Focus.
          o Rapid Fire/Master’s Call/Disengage: 30 Focus.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to the resource change and new abilities listed above, we intend to make adjustments to some of the other abilities and mechanics you already know well. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we’re going for with each spec.

A major change coming for the hunter is the removal of ammunition. Guns, bows, and crossbows will now do damage without consuming ammunition at all. There will be no more ammo slot on the hunter’s character display. Any ammunition that a hunter has at the time of the change will become gray sellable items. Existing quivers will be converted into large bags -- though each hunter can only have one and non-hunters will not benefit from this change -- and we will not be making any additional quivers.

Pet management will also change. Hunters will now have two types of attainable pets: active pets and stored pets. Hunters will be able to have up to three active pets (perhaps five for Beast Mastery specialized players) and will have the ability to switch among these pets any time they are out of combat, without going to town. They will also be able to have a large number of pets in storage at the stables. In order to swap a pet from active to passive, a hunter will still need to visit their local Stable Master. However, this should afford ample storage for the many Spirit Beasts wandering the lands of Azeroth.

Additionally, hunters will now start with a race-appropriate pet at level 1 and will be able to tame a different pet at level 10. We are also changing many pet family abilities to provide important buffs and debuffs. The intention is to allow the hunter to be able to swap pets and fill a position if a certain role is missing from the group. The goal is to have all pets provide a damage increase that is very similar and no greater than any other pet. Some examples of the changes we are making to the pet families are listed below:

          o Wind Serpents: Will provide a debuff that increases the amount of spell damage taken by an enemy (similar to a weaker version of the warlock ability Curse of Elements).
          o Ravagers: Will provide a debuff that will increase an enemy's Physical damage vulnerability (similar to a weaker version of the warrior ability Rampage).
          o Hyenas: Will provide bleed damage (similar to a weaker version of the druid ability Mangle).

    * Stings and other periodic effects will now benefit from haste and critical strike ratings. Hasted damage-over-time abilities do not lose duration, but instead add additional damage ticks.
    * Viper Sting will now restore 9 Focus every 3 seconds.
    * We are reinforcing hunters as a ranged class. To this end, the class will now start with ranged abilities at level 1, and we will be removing some melee abilities, such as Mongoose Bite.



New Talents and Talent Changes

    * Beast Mastery hunters will have a new talent called Careful Aim, which increases the damage of the next Steady Shot or Cobra Shot, but also increases the cast time of these abilities.
       The intention is to make the combination of spells into a decent damage opener, especially in conjunction with the new ability Camouflage.
    * Beast Mastery hunters will also have talents that make Cobra Shot superior to Steady Shot, such as Longevity reducing the cast time of Cobra Shot to 1.5 seconds.
    * Rapid Recuperation will cause Rapid Fire to give 20/40/60 Focus immediately and will cause Rapid Killing to generate 3 Focus per second.
    * Efficiency will reduce the Focus cost of Chimera Shot, Aimed Shot, and Arcane Shot.
    * Thrill of the Hunt grants Focus when you land a critical strike.
    * Hunter vs. Wild increases the hunter’s Focus generation when his or her pet is snared, stunned, or rooted.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Beast Mastery

    * Ranged Damage
    * Haste
    * Pet Damage

Pet Damage: Many of the passive benefits to pet damage will no longer be available in the Beast Mastery talent tree. However, these will be provided through the new Mastery mechanic.

Marksmanship

    * Ranged Damage
    * Armor Penetration
    * Double Shot (the hunter will have a chance to launch a free attack off of the global cooldown for 50% damage)

Survival

    * Ranged Damage
    * Ranged Critical Damage
    * Elemental Damage

Elemental Damage: Hunter abilities such as traps, Black Arrow, and Explosive Shot will do elemental damage of the following types: Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind that what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these planned changes as well as others continue to develop in response to feedback and testing.

A clarification of Camouflage and what becoming obscured actually means:

Camouflage is *not* stealth. Your enemies will never wonder where you are. We're trying to use the new Cataclysm water effect to put a shimmering PREDATORy visual on you. It's protection from ranged attacks and it gives you some combat bonuses, but it's not like Shadowmeld or rogue / druid stealth where players can't find you.

The idea with it is that Hunters are only vulnerable to melee attacks or ranged AEs while they are in the obscured state. If you target a camo hunter or a rogue using Smoke Bomb, you will get an error message saying something like "Target obscured." You can see them and target them, but can't use your attacks. Imagine they are behind a pillar or something. You can try and get off an AE near them or you can move to melee.

As most of you know, we tried Camo once before, but because it was true stealth it was very hard to balance, plus it felt like we were just handing out the same cool abilities to every class instead of coming with unique mechanics. Hunters were so overwhelmingly excited about the basic idea that we wanted to try it again, but not as stealth.

Regarding Cobra Shot sharing cooldown with Steady Shot:

At this point in time it's not actually a cooldown. Cobra Shot has a 2 sec cast time, but Beastmaster has a talent to reduce the cast time to 1.5 sec (as well as a few damage hooks). Both generate focus so there is no reason for BM to ever use Steady again.

Regarding focus and how much of it Hunters will have:

Hunters will get 100 focus

The focus costs mentioned in the preview are just examples, so it is a little too soon for you to try to min / max your rotations just yet. In general, the basic rotations of all three hunters work okay on live today. With focus you might hit moments where you don't need to Steady at all, and you'll never run dry again for long periods of time like you might with mana.

If the costs of some of the defensive cooldowns are too expensive or even need to be free that's certainly the kind of thing we'll consider.

Regarding Ammo in Cataclysm:

There is no ammo slot on your character sheet in Cataclysm. It no longer exists.

[Jaxxa]

I finally get my Camo, in what sounds like a potentially fun gimmick guaranteed to annoy other classes, more pet storage, no ammo, AND a trap launcher?

Blizzard might have just given me something to look forward to, assuming I'm around to see any of it.

[WilloW]

I dont like the whole focus thing.

[Jaxxa]

I dont like the whole focus thing.

/throws Adderall at you

[Chim]

I dont like the whole focus thing.

Looking at it more in depth, it really basically doesnt change the class at all.  Spam shots to regain focus, nuke, spam, nuke.  It's really all we do now but eliminates the need to go into viper, which creates a more sustained dps.  I can see haste becoming more desirable though.  Faster spams, more focus, more nukes.

[Jaxxa]

Link

I may have spoken too soon on Counterattack. Just today we discussed keeping it and getting rid of Mongoose instead. There are some legit PvP uses of hunter melee attacks, so long as the class doesn't feel like it's supposed to be a melee-ranged hybrid. You're ranged.

The melee attacks have always felt like they didn't quite fit us, but they've got to give us something to use against enemies in the dead zone.

[Jaxxa]

The Cataclysm NDA was just lifted, here are are new skills from the beta:

Camouflage (level 85) 45 Focus, Instant, 1 min cooldown
You camouflage, causing you and your Pet to blend into your surroundings. After 3 sec., you will enter a camouflaged state for 1 min, making you untargetable and providing stealth while stationary. While camouflaged, you and your pet's movement speed is reduced by 30%, but the damage done by your next attack is increased by 15%. You can lay traps while under the effect, but any damage done by you or your pet will cancel the effect. Cannot be cast while in combat.

Aspect of the Fox (level 83) Instant, 1 sec cooldown
The hunter takes on the aspects of a fox, increasing your focus regeneration by 20% and allows you to Auto-shot while moving.

Cobra Shot (level 81) 5-35 yd range, 1.5 sec cast
Deals weapon damage plus [ 6% of RAP + 950 ] in the form of Nature damage and increases the duration of your Serpent Sting on the target by 3 sec. ( Aspect of the Hawk : Generates 9 Focus. )

Trap Launcher (level 48) 30 Focus, Instant
When used, your next Trap can be launched to a target location within 40 yards.

Widow Venom (level 40) 30 Focus, 5-35 yd range, Instant
A venemous shot that reduces the effectiveness of any healing taken by 25% for 30 sec. Only one Venom per Hunter can be active on any one target.

[WilloW]

Camouflage (level 85) 45 Focus, Instant, 1 min cooldown
You camouflage, causing you and your Pet to blend into your surroundings. After 3 sec., you will enter a camouflaged state for 1 min, making you untargetable and providing stealth while stationary. While camouflaged, you and your pet's movement speed is reduced by 30%, but the damage done by your next attack is increased by 15%. You can lay traps while under the effect, but any damage done by you or your pet will cancel the effect. Cannot be cast while in combat.

 Love it

[Jaxxa]

We wanted to share some our intent with some of the hunter changes, which will in turn help you give feedback.

Focus -- We'll be messing with ability costs for some time. Depending on your weapon, autoshot costs can be higher than "focus dump" abilities, which clearly won't work. We're working on a DPCT priority list that makes more sense. As far as regen goes though, we think the current rate is about right. We don't want the rotation to become erratic and we like the gameplay of building focus through shots. In situations where you just can't stand still, such as kiting, you can use the new Aspect of the Fox. We've tied the focus regen for using cast-time shots during Aspect of the Hawk, otherwise there would be no reason to be in anything but Fox. Focus is more of a combo between rage and energy, since you build it and use it up. The skill of playing a hunter involves keeping your focus high enough -- as it is somewhat random due to procs -- but use it before you overflow.

Shots -- Each hunter talent tree has a "signature" focus dump: Survival has Explosive Shot, Marks has Chimera Shot, and Beastmaster has Raccoon Shot... I mean Kill Command. These all have cooldowns, so if you are at 100 focus, use Kill Command and still have focus left over, you can use Arcane Shot next. This is why Explosive and Arcane no longer share cooldowns. Once you figure out which abilities to use for each spec, the number of abilities you need to manage should feel less daunting. For example, Marks would use Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Arimed Shot, Chimera Shot and Arcane Shot on a boss fight, and Serpent Sting gets refreshed automatically. Think less in terms of shot rotations and more in terms of prioritizations.

Pets -- We haven't done our design pass on them yet. The design is for them to no longer receive raid buff since they get complete scaling from the master (and we don't want them to double dip). Their abilities will be divided into 3 categories: basic focus dumps (e.g. Claw), specials (e.g. web), and exotic abilities for the BM exotic pets. Specials never cost focus and basics have short cooldowns but meaningful damage. All pets will do the same dps. We don't want "wolf or die" in Cataclysm (and before that it was cat). Each pet family will bring a unique raid buff, allowing hunters to be wildcards for when you are lacking something. The ease of swapping pets will facilitate this further.

Cobra Shot -- We're not happy with the damage yet. We want BM to basically not use Steady ever again. Marks may use Cobra in PvP situations where spell damage trumps physical damage.

Kill Command -- We like the Frenzy / Focus Fire mechanic, but are likely to make it it's own clicky and not tied to Kill Command. Kill Command itself will be the signature focus dump for BM. For other specs, it will be more situational, such as dealing damage to a target out of your (but not your pet) LoS. Marks also has the Resistance is Futile talent to give it some more use.

Aimed Shot -- We are returning this ability to be an opener once again, like Ravage or Ambush. In longer fights, Master Marskman can proc instant Aimed Shots, to keep the ability relevant.

AE damage -- The design is that you use Multi-Shot on 2+ targets, and Explosive Trap and Volley on 4+ targets.

Venoms -- The focus cost may be too high. However, don't expect to have to use these on every target. Part of separating Serpent Sting from the Venoms so that they could be more situational. Even Serpent Sting isn't necessary on every target, especially those that will die quickly. Instead 2-3 Steadies with an Arcane or Kill Shot should do the job. Hunters are used to using every ability on every target because there is no real resource cost with mana. Now priority and efficiency become important.

Ultimately, we think these changes will solve some of the problems the hunter class has had as well as making them more fun to play, or we wouldn't be going through so much re-design.

[WilloW]

Aimed Shot -- We are returning this ability to be an opener once again, like Ravage or Ambush. In longer fights, Master Marskman can proc instant Aimed Shots, to keep the ability relevant.

 This just made my day.

[Jaxxa]

Description of changes to pet stabling:

We're in the middle of converting the stables over to the new model.

New model:

You have 5 active pets and 20 (or more) stable slots. You can summon an active pet whenever you want, out of combat. This replaces the remote stable spell. In other words, if you have a crab, a bear and a wolf, you can swap from wolf to bear in between encounters.

You must visit a stable master to change which are the active pets though. There are a lot of stable slots, so you can catch Spirit Beasts or rare spawns or whatever you want, even if you don't think you will use them often.

[Stugots]

Description of changes to pet stabling:

Thats kinda cool

[Raist]

The Mortal Strike effect was removed from Aimed shot as well.

[Jaxxa]

The Mortal Strike effect was removed from Aimed shot as well.

Is that an intended change or the product of a bug? I think I remember it falling off in previous patch testing.

[Bayuriel]

Is that an intended change or the product of a bug? I think I remember it falling off in previous patch testing.

They removed it, they redesigned stings and seperated them.

Serpent sting is a single dot, Scorpid, Viper, and a new ability called Widow's Venom take the palce of old stings now referred to as Venoms only one venom per hunter is allowed.

[Jaxxa]

I'll miss it, it certainly was handy, but I guess it makes sense if they're trying to recreate it as an opening shot.

[Bayuriel]

Shoulda been more specific, new ability called Widow's Venom has a ms effect, which is handy because you can have serpent sting up and Widow's venom up on the same target.

[Bacco]

now that's nice

[Jaxxa]

Chimera vs. Arcane – Chimera should have a higher DPCT/damage than Arcane as a tradeoff for having a cooldown. You should be casting Chimera before Arcane in any situation where it's not on cooldown. There numbers may not be tuned quite right yet.

Serpent Sting – You’ll find it's not efficient to cast your damage-over-time on targets that die before Serpent Sting lasts the full duration. This is similar to other classes. Druids don’t use all of their bleeds on targets that die in 8 seconds; it's just not efficient. Chimera refreshing Serpent Sting is a bonus for fights that take longer, like boss fights or “epic” creatures. It isn’t factored into the “budget” of the ability, so don’t feel like you wasted a Chimera just because you couldn’t utilize the “refresh Serpent Sting” mechanic.

Tranq Shot – We want this to have a focus cost. There may be opportunities where you want to use two Tranqs in a row, and it's your decision if you want to do that or not. I think most Hunters dislike it having a focus cost because they feel their raid leaders may mandate them to dispel something on an encounter, and because they have to spend focus it sucks because you lose DPS. That's legitimate, but also the same kind of decision that a lot of other classes have to make.

Venoms – We hear you on some of their issues. We might try things like giving them some damage, reducing the focus cost, and / or have them last 5 minutes on PvE creatures. Again, shooting a Venom isn’t really ideal on targets that you kill quickly. You shouldn’t cast one on every trash mob, for example. That said, we don’t want them to become too “maintenance-y” on boss fights.

Aspects – We would like Aspect of the Fox to be as good as it can be, which we feel is 30%. Any higher than that and we lose the Steady Shot focus-generating gameplay. It seems that some hunters are, not surprisingly, somewhat turned off from doing less damage while moving as they are on live, but this is intended. A ranged class that can do almost as much damage moving as it can standing still is not going to be fair, and often is what restricts us from doing cool things with the class.

Trap Launcher – We'd like to take it off the GCD.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25969516735/initial-mm-hunter-thoughts-80-81/

[Turken]

Beta talent calculator

[Jaxxa]

New engineering scopes:

Scopes are also here:

    * Gnomish X-Ray Scope - Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged critical strike rating by 88. Attaching this scope to a ranged weapon causes it to become soulbound.

    * R19 Threatfinder - Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its ranged hit rating by 88. Attaching this scope to a ranged weapon causes it to become soulbound.

    * Safety Catch Removal - Removes the safety mechanism from a bow or gun, increasing its ranged haste rating by 88. Using this kit causes the bow or gun to become soulbound.

[Bacco]

oooh, safety catch...

[Jaxxa]

MMO Champion has pictures of the new interfaces. Pets are getting a "Move to" button that does just what it says it does - pick a spot, click it, and the critter parks there.

[Jaxxa]

Some hunter questions from the developer Twitter chat:

Q. What is the design choice behind the focus recharge in Aspect of Fox, is it meant to replace Viper?
A. Aspect of the Fox is intended to be used for mobile damage or kiting. There is still some tuning to be done on Focus and this aspect, but that is the design goal.

Q. Will Hunters be able to pet-tank through cata (even if just beast masters)?
A. What, you didn’t see that video where some guy tanked Marowgar with his Gorilla?

Q. How are you trying to separate the play styles of the hunter specializations? What makes Cobra Shot feel different from Steady Shot?
A. Cobra Shot is ideal for Beast Mastery and Survival hunters because they don’t really have any other way of keeping Serpent Sting up (Cobra Shot extends Serpent Sting’s duration), and also for Survival because it is “Elemental” damage. It's also useful in PvP or in some other niche situations, say, when a creature is immune to physical damage. Now you have a solution.

Q. Concerning Marksmanship hunters, why is the PvP talent Resistance is Futile a prerequisite for PvE talent Marked for Death?
A. In an upcoming build it won’t be a prerequisite, and we want to change it to proc a free Kill Command instead of an instant critical.

[Pyrene]

The change from mana to focus takes some getting used to initially but now that they've revamped the trees it's not as jarring a change.

Ignore the QQ about it - you just have to relearn your rotations and how to apply all skills when in tight situations.

edited to add: I haven't had a chance to check everything out yet since I was only able to download the beta patch late last week courtesy of PITA internet issues.

edit v2. Some of our skills still have NYI on it so ...it'll be another patch most likely.

[Jaxxa]

No, hunters are not undergoing any kind of massive redesign. We have spent our efforts lately on trying to make sure focus works as intended in both aspects and at low and high level. We're not there yet. We'll work on the talent trees a little more when we feel like focus is where we want it to be, since that will affect the talent design.

(Source)

[Jaxxa]

Rhumba removed from the game
We were sad to see this talent go, because we thought it was cool too. However, BM just had too many damage-oriented talents, which was preventing those hunters from being able to pick up the utility or fun talents, which in turn violated a major goal of the talent tree revamps.

Swapping pets
If our pet dies, can we use Feign Death, drop combat, and instantly bring out one of our 5 different pets in that short window of being out of combat in an Arena Match?
No, because you have to dismiss a pet before you can summon a new one. You also need to rez a dead pet before you can dismiss it. It's possible that allowing all of that in combat is fine since it would take so long to actually pull off and in the meantime you could just have rezzed your pet (or healed an injured one rather than dismissing it).

On the other hand, dismissal no longer affects happiness in any way since the new model is you can swap them more regularly. Your pets just have to learn not to get all emo about it.

[Jaxxa]

Link to the OH HELL NAW thread

Volley removed
I know I'm going to regret posting in this thread again, but I think it's the right thing to do so I'll take one for the team.

We think Multi-Shot is a more interesting ability and can fill the hunter AE niche (along with Explosive Trap). We'll have to change Multi-Shot from the current version to get it there. I'm very sorry if for some unusual reason Volley was your favorite spell as a hunter. We've been trying to consolidate abilities and free up some bar space and having multiple AEs that competed with each other seems like a good area to hit up. The Volley and Multi-Shot niches were very similar, which resulted in the latter being dead. We wanted to pick one and we though Multi-Shot felt more huntery and less "clunky" (to use a favorite Wow forums term).

Do consider that you won't be AE'ing yourselves through Cataclysm content the way you do currently. When you do need to AE, hunters will have the tools to do so. In situations where you do have to AE, you are probably not also trying to CC. When you're back to the level of trivializing lower level content, nobody is going to say "Don't bring a hunter. Their AE spam isn't spammy enough." We don't consider easily breaking rogues out of stealth a good reason to keep Volley around.

I think that hits most of the reasonable concerns. I care much less about addressing the unreasonable ones.

As always, those of you whose sole contribution is to post very inane or derogatory things will be banned.

Man, have we come a long way from "AE is only for trash."