Lethal Shots

For those who don’t know, my main (my Hunter) has been an Engineer for quite a while. I have always loved the idea behind the profession, even if it hasn’t always been well implemented in game. So while the Enchanters, Jewelcrafters, Scribes, ect. all got min/maxing friendly perks, Engineers got handed, well, nothing. Our profession only perks are inferior to standard enchants, leaving little reason to use them.

Well, it looks like there are going to be some changes in 3.2 to help offset this imbalance. The blue post can be found here, but I’ll go ahead and list the highlights of the post here:

• Added a new Mind Amplification Dish attachment for helmets, allowing engineers to control other humanoid targets. Some restrictions apply: does not work in Arenas, dish sometimes reverses targets, unable to stack with other stat-improving head enchantments and makes your helmet look… stylish?

Think Gnomish Mind-Control Cap (off-hand, I can’t look up the exact name right now). This is Blizz’s attempt to bring old-world Engineering into current end-game, which I am all for. Some of that old stuff is a blast to play with. But in truth it really isn’t that great for PvE.

• Engineers can now learn to create a portable Wormhole Generator for Northrend. The Wormhole allows them to travel to different locations in Northrend, although the locations are sometimes in dangerous places.

Fun, useful, and very mage-like. But if you really want to impress me, let me use it to go to places in Azeroth and Outland too.

• Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.
• Increased the passive bonuses provided by Springy Arachnoweave, Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.

Simply Blizz changing every profession to keep up with Smiths being able to equip two extra epic gems.

• Mote Extractor now has innate tracking of gas clouds while it is in your inventory.
• The Spynocular belt attachment has been changed to a Frag Belt. The Frag Belt periodically produces a Cobalt Frag Bomb that can be used from the belt every 10 minutes (never runs out!).

I’m thinking these two changes may be Blizz trying to augment Engineering’s already weak profession bonuses. At the very least it will be a new toy to play with.

• A new repair bot has been added, and his name is Jeeves. He is the ultimate gentleman robot butler, able to perform all the mundane tasks of repairing, selling and buying junk for your entire raid. Additionally, he can open bank boxes for skilled engineers (350+). Jeeves is not destroyed when used, but due to pressing engagements, can only be summoned once per hour. The schematic for this handsome robot was said to be hidden within the parts of another robot – hoping to be found by an engineer one day.
• Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.

Wow, this is actually pretty cool. Almost as cool as the squire, which (if memory serves me right) can do everything Jeeves and MOLL-E can do, that EVERYONE can get in 3.2 from the Argent Tournament.

• The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.

Interesting change. The only effect I see this having is removing the niche market at the AH of people who buy the ammo boxes and re-list the ammo itself. I do like that it no longer requires an anvil.

• A Steam-Powered Auctioneer has been added to the Dalaran Like Clockwork engineering shop, allowing access to one’s faction Auction House. The Steam-Powered Auctioneer was programmed with a superiority chip, and will only interact with Grand Master Engineers.

Now this is huge. I love this idea. Too bad there will be so much QQing from non-engineers that the idea will either be dropped or it will be opened up for use by non-engineers.

I know I didn’t go over all the changes, but to be honest the rest of them weren’t very exciting. Overall I like the direction they are going. Up until now, Blizz has only payed Engineering minor lip service in terms of min/maxing, but I’m hoping the devs have seen reason and buffed our gadgets up enough to make them worth using. Jeeves is going to be cool, but not really that big of a deal since anyone who spends some time at the Argent Tournament can get a squire. And the Engineer-only auctioneer in Dalaran? You can can forget about that ever making it live. The whining and crying from other professions will be so overwhelming that Blizz will cave. But hey, we can dream can’t we?

As many of you have figured out by now, I am really enjoying playing my Shaman now, almost as much as I enjoy my Hunter. And as a direct result, changes to the Shaman class now interest me a great deal, so I am going to cover them here also.

Classes: General

• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).

This indirectly effects all classes, but i think I’m going to feel this especially hard as a Resto Shaman who is still trying to get geared up.

Shamans

• A customizable totem bar will now be available for shamans allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.

Huge! Even Huger than huge! This is a large step in streamlining the Shaman class to help it keep up with others. Tune in later, I have a lot to say about this change.

• All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.
• Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.
• Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.

More range, more health, more healing power. All three of these changes are solid buffs.

• Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed.

Nothing special, just more of the across the board changes to travel forms and mounts.

• Talents
  • Enhancement
    • Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman’s attack power, down from 30%.
  • Restoration
    • Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target’s armor.
    • Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.
    • Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.
    • Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman’s Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
    • Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman’s health.
    • Nature’s Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30-second internal cooldown and increases the shaman’s maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
    • Nature’s Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
    • Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
    • Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

Honestly, all of these talent changes seem pretty solid to me. The shorter cooldown on Shamanistic Rage will take some adjustment, but I think it will offer greater flexibility. All of the Resto changes look great, and I especially like the change to Improved Water Shield.

Bug Fixes

• Shamans
  • Fixed a bug where Frostbrand Weapon (Rank 9) was not scaling properly with a shaman’s spell power.

As always, bug fixes rock.

The changes this patch for Shaman have me way more excited than wha tis planned for Hunters, I just hope Blizz comes through and doesn’t drop anything at the last minute. But enough of my opinions, what are yours?

Patch 3.2 is on the PTR, which means it is probably a little over a month from going live. Hunters are getting a handful of changes this patch, though not near as many as we saw in 3.1. Luckily there are no huge nerfs, but at the same time not much to get excited about. Below are the portions of the patch notes that pertain to Hunters along with my two cents on them. The complete patch notes can be found here.

Classes: General

• All pets now receive 40% of their master’s resilience and 100% of their master’s spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.

This is huge! How long have Hunters been asking for this? Now our PvP oriented brethren will be able to hold their own better.

• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).

The way I read this, replenishment is taking a 20% hit in mana returned. While this only directly affects those of us that roll Survival, it indirectly affects everyone. I’m hoping that mana doesn’t start to become even more of an issue in 10-mans.

• Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3-second interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.

So the Marksman among us get a spell interrupt for boss fights. I can only see this as a good thing.

Hunters

• Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.

Part of an across the board change for all travel forms. Will be great for new players and those leveling alts.

• Deterrence now has a new visual spell effect.

Meh, I really could care less.

• The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.

Ok, a lot of people are up in arms over this one. Here’s some advice: Get Over It. This does not make chain trapping impossible, it simply makes it slightly more difficult. Less breathing room, but still easy enough to do with practice.

• Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.

This is even HUGER!!!! I can finally CC again without gimping my DPS by not using Black Arrow. I can honestly see myself using traps a lot more once this goes into effect. And I can see the masochistic arena Hunters drooling over this one.

• Beast Mastery
  • Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.

Does anyone even take this talent? I mean maybe a PvP player, but I don’t know any Hunter that PvPs as a BM. Well, maybe those crazy guys that are out tanking with their pets take it, so yeah, they get a buff.

• Survival
  • Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.

A slight nerf to a PvP talent if anything at all. Nothing worth crying over.

• • Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.

We all knew that chain L&L procs were too good to last. At least it isn’t a full 30 second cooldown like last time, and maybe now they will up the proc rate slightly.

• Pets
  • Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the Hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.

Um, pretty much useless. No one uses a tenacity pet when they are in an instance. (Well, they shouldn’t be at the very least.) I don’t know, this might be another PvP thing, but I don’t see myself ever using it.

• Bug Fixes
  • All ranks of Sonic Blast now properly have an 80 Focus cost.
  • Black Arrow Ranks 5 and 6 training costs have been lowered significantly.
  • Lock and Load: The tooltip for this talent has been updated to indicate that it also works with Explosive Trap.
  • The tooltip for Improved Tracking has been slightly re-written to indicate that it only works on the hunter, and works on melee damage as well.
  • T.N.T. (Rank 3): Now indicates that the talent works with Black Arrow.

Yay for bug fixes! Nothing too exciting though. Mostly just wording changes.

Most of the changes aren’t anything special. I am excited about the changes to pet resilience and the splitting up of trap cooldowns, and I’m not too happy about them adding a cooldown to L&L again. Of course everything is still on the PTR and subject to change, so I’m not going to get too worked up yet. But what about you. Anything in the notes that has you excited or upset?

Man, it’s been over a month since i last posted anything. And to be honest I have missed it. Real life has been keeping me real busy lately. Between work, chores around the house, and taking care of the pregnant wife (more on that later) my free time has been pretty limited. But I think I have finally caught up and should be able to devote some much needed attention to the blog.

But anyway, what have I been up to the last month? A lot. Previously mentioned work and chores around the house mostly, but you guys don’t care about that. In WoW though I have been raiding (a little), leveling alts, working the AH (more on that later), and adjusting to new officer’s duties in my “alt guild” (a lot more on that later).

Also, you’ll likely see some changes in the blog over time. Not only looks, but in content. Part of what has kept me from posting for an extended period is that I have not been focusing solely on my Hunter. Since my Shaman has hit 80, he has been getting tons of play time. That, coupled with the huge interest I have taken in the AH lately, means that the focus of this blog will change to encompass everything I am doing in the game.

While I hope these changes don’t alienate any of my readers, ultimately I blog for my own enjoyment. So while I hope everyone decides to stick around, I will understand if some of you who want straight Hunter info move on.