Patch 3.0.8

Patches?  We don’t need no stinkin’ patches…  Ok, joking aside, we’ve got some major changes for Hunters coming up with today’s patch.  I’m still confused by why 3.0.8, but oh well, lol.  So here are the changes, with some comments to further explain what they mean since patch days mean most bloggers post about the patch, lol.

 

• Hunter Aspects are now off the Global Cooldown again. They still have a shared 1 second cooldown.
• WoOt!  Aspects are just so different from spells and abilities on global cooldown, it makes sense they have their own cooldown.  This also enables us to switch aspects easier.  A few examples – tank dies and hunter needs to pop on Dragonhawk instead of Beast (only applies to those with the right glyph to kite) when the hunter is temporarily the tank before a druid battle-rez’s.  Hunter runs out of mana on a long fight and needs to pop Viper.  Hunter is doing mad DPS, outdoing the tank for threat, and pops Viper for threat mitigation.  So yeah, this one makes sense.
• All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
• Nice!  I’m sure this will have quite a few implications in regards to pet DPS.  Ironically it will probably increase it rather than decrease like Bliz was initially trying to do.
• Arcane Shot: Mana cost lowered to match the cost of Steady Shot.
• This is gonna screw with many people’s shot-rotations.  Not a timing thing, but a mana thing.  Personally, I use this in my rotation already, so it just means more mana for me, but for others it may mean including it in their rotation finally.
• Aspect of the Wild - This aspect is now raid-wide.
• Umm… does anyone use this?  I suppose that’s incentive, but it’s so rare it would be worth it.
• Call of the Wild: The benefit from this pet talent now applies to only the Hunter and their own pet.
• Hmm…  I guess they want to make sure hunters do more DPS than everyone else.  While I’m cool with that, I thought they were trying to drop our DPS because we’re OP’d…  Yeah, I don’t quite get this change.
• Deterrence: Design changed to grant 100% parry and 100% chance to "deflect" spells coming from the front, but prevents the Hunter from attacking. Lasts 5 seconds and has a 90 second cooldown.
• Hunter Bubble!!!!  Muahahaha…  Don’t tell anyone that rogues can still pwn us by hitting us in the back, but we have a bubble now!
• Explosive Shot: Damage increased substantially, and additional scaling added to compensate Survival Hunters for the decrease in power of Steady Shot. No longer deals damage to secondary targets.
• Awwe, no more quasi-AoE?  Hmm, Survival hunters get more DPS?  I’ve never seen a survival hunter… you?  No?  Maybe this is incentive?  Well, all classes have the lone ranger spec…
• Ferocious Inspiration: This talent now also increase the damage the Hunter does with Arcane Shot by 3/6/9%.
• WoOt!  Combined w/ the above, this means more DPS!!!  Really?  Did Bliz honestly give up on the idea of decreasing our DPS?
• Improved Tracking(Survival): This talent has been slightly re-designed. Now reads: While tracking Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids and Undead, all ranged damage done to those types is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• And it gets a change again.  Well, not really, this is mostly just a wording change.  Still means you have to juggle tracking if you’ve spec’d the points.
• Kill Shot – Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 35 sec.
• Hah, I hoped they’d do this.  Let’s put it this way, we kill mobs fast.  I understand the idea of only being able to use this once per mob, but I was def a the point of only being able to use it every other or every couple mobs because of the CD on it.    Interestingly enough though, this may mean we can use it multiple times on Boss fights.  I guess it’s a tradeoff, but either way it means more DPS!
• Kindred Spirits: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• Aha!  Pet-nerf.  This literally means 5% less DPS from pets.  However, since pets do (roughly here for easy math) 50% of hunter DPS, this means hunters will drop 2-2.5% in DPS overall as a result.  When we’re talkin 2k+ DPS, that’s only ~50DPS we lose.  Nothing major.
• Lock and Load: Now has a 30 second cooldown.
• Survival hunter talent.  And it’s a nerf by adding a cooldown.  Ok…?
• Readiness: No longer resets the cooldown on Bestial Wrath.
• Awwe man!!!  Well that drops our DPS a bit…  So much for using it multiple times in a battle.  There goes our best skill in PvP.  At least we can still use it once I guess.
• Steady Shot: Now gains 10% of attack power as damage instead of 20%.
• Straight up nerf to the hunter’s bread and butter.  Half of hunters call it a “steady shot rotation”…  I suppose that’s one way to directly nerf hunters.  But the big thing about it is, that means other attacks do more dmg and are more beneficial.  I have a feeling this means a change in shot rotations to max our DPS.  I’m sure I’ll follow up on this one later.
• Serpent's Swiftness: This talent now grants only 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet. The hunter attack speed bonus is unchanged.
• Again, a BM hunter pet nerf.  But it’s attack speed anyway, which is only a portion of a pet’s DPS.  So I’d say this is similar to the above, where we’ll only see ~ 50DPS less on a 2k DPS hunter.  Not a big deal, but the numbers are starting to add…
• Tranquilizing Shot (Hunter): Cooldown increased to 8 sec, up from 6. Mana cost reduced to 8%, down from 12%.
• Cool.  Not used too often, and rarely in succession, so the CD increase won’t matter.  The mana cost is awesome though.
• Unleashed Fury: This talent now grants only 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.
• Dangit!  Another -50DPS to pets…
• Viper Sting: Now drains a percentage of maximum mana.
• Yay, this is now effective!  I mean, will draining 3k mana over 8 sec really do anything?  I’ll be curious to see what the % is though, as it could be better or worse, lol.  But at least it scales with the levels/characters, etc.  Interesting what it may do on boss fights though…
• Volley: The damage has been reduced on all ranks by approximately 30% (including attack power scaling).
• Well, it was cool while it lasted.  I know hunters aren’t an AoE class, but it was nice to be able to do some AoE for a bit there.  Guess it’s not so much anymore.  Granted, Bliz stated at one point (sry, don’t have a link here) that many hunters were using Volley more than their main skills, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s OP.  It could mean they’re just plain huntards.  Or it could mean that hunters need an AoE too.  Or, it could mean it’s OP, lol.
• Pets
• All Hunter pet abilities with a cooldown of 30 seconds or more are no longer on the global cooldown.
• Hmm, already stated this one.
• The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Poison (Scorpid) has been lowered.
• Yep, another pet nerf.  Again, not much by itself, but dang…
• Rake: This hunter pet ability has had its damage adjusted to prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.
• Well if it’s unreasonable then fine.  We can still /cry anyway, lol.  Guess there’s a double-nerf on this particular skill.  My prediction?  Bliz will give part of it back in the next patch.
• Scorpid Poison: No longer stacks. The damage has been adjusted to prevent unreasonable scaling with attack power.
• Hmm, anyone else think the two are the same skill just for different pets..?
• Spirit Strike (hunter pet ability) now has an initial attack (which can crit) and then a single dot. Damage overall is higher.
• /snif… this only matters to those with Spirit Beasts.  Some of us are just very unlucky.  Yes, I’m still trying, but I just don’t have 20 hrs straight to circle Sholazar and have my friends do the same.  I’ll get it eventually.  But anyway, this is cool because those with the epic pet do more DPS.

 

So yes, lots and lots of changes for hunters.  Time to go relearn the class again, change shot rotations, and see where our DPS lies when all the dust settles.  Or, just wait until the next patch when they fix some of the mistakes/overbalances of above in typical Bliz fashion.  (fyi, bliz makes changes.  Then over-counter-balances.  Then corrects.  They prefer this method over minor changes in the right direction until they hit it.  There’s + & - to both methods, but that’s the way they choose).