Lethal Shots

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?

The Beast Master talent spec and glyphs didn’t change much in 3.1. While not very exciting, it does make for an easy transition into the patch. Below is a quick summary of my recommended build and glyphs. Click here to see it in WowHead for mouse-over pop-up goodness.

• Beast Mastery (53 points)
  • 5/5 Improved Aspect of the Hawk
  • 1/5 Endurance Training
  • 2/2 Focused Fire
  • 2/2 Improved Revive Pet
  • 1/1 Aspect Mastery
  • 5/5 Unleashed Fury
  • 2/2 Improved Mend Pet
  • 5/5 Ferocity
  • 1/1 Intimidation
  • 2/2 Bestial Discipline
  • 2/2 Animal Handler
  • 3/5 Frenzy
  • 3/3 Ferocious Inspiration
  • 1/1 Bestial Wrath
  • 5/5 Serpent’s Swiftness
  • 3/3 Longevity
  • 1/1 The Beast Within
  • 3/3 Cobra Strikes
  • 5/5 Kindred Spirits
  • 1/1 Beast Mastery
• Marksmanship (11 points)
  • 5/5 Lethal Shots
  • 3/3 Careful Aim
  • 2/5 Mortal Shots
  • 1/2 Go for the Throat
• Survival (7 points)
  • 5/5 Improved Tracking
  • 2/2 Survival Instincts

Glyphs:

• Major
  • Bestial Wrath
  • Serpent Sting
  • Steady Shot
• Minor
  • Feign Death
  • Revive Pet
  • Mend Pet

For your pet, you will want to spec it something like this (Ferocity pet assumed). The build focuses on pure DPS talents, taking both of the new 6th tier talents. Note that to do this it requires you to take the 51st talent, Beast Mastery.

There is some flexibility build into the spec. You could take Spirit Bond over Improved Mend Pet if you wished. If you are short on hit rating, you could drop some points from the Survival tree and take any needed points in Focused Aim. As for glyphs, other than Bestial Wrath your major glyphs are pretty flexible. There are some other solid choices you could use depending on your play style.

Remember, as I always say this spec is not a end all. It is merely a starting point for you to design a spec to suit you. Feel free to leave a link to the build you are using in the comments. I am always interested to see what other people are using.

Out of all three specs, the shot rotation for Beast Mastery is the simplest. This simplicity is due to your pet providing such a large percentage of your overall DPS. (Now I’m not implying that playing Beast Master is easier, pet management can be a challenge in its own right.) Of course, rotation is not the best word to use anymore since Autoshot is un-linked. A Hunter now has more of a shot priority, but for simplicity’s sake I’m going to continue to call it a rotation.

Now that shot rotations are based on priority, you will pick which shot to fire based off of cooldowns. Each shot available to you will be prioritized based on damage. Higher damage shots (which naturally have longer cooldowns) will be at the top of your list. You will then fire the shot with the highest priority that is not on cooldown. It may seem random, but you will get used to it.

There are four shots in the basic Beast Master Hunter rotation. They should be fired in the following priority:

1. Kill Shot (Only when the mob is at 20% health or less.)
2. Arcane Shot
3. Serpent Sting
4. Steady Shot

There are also two other shots which can be put in the mix, both of which would be between Arcane Shot and Serpent Sting:

1. Aimed Shot (If specced into it.)
2. Multi-Shot

In my experience, the inclusion of these shots leads to a decrease in DPS. Aimed Shot has a high mana cost meaning more time spent in Viper, and Multi-Shot does poor damage against single targets. You can include these shots at your own discretion though.

There are other skills that are not included in the rotation due to long cooldowns, such as Bestial Wrath, Rapid Fire, trinkets, Hunter’s Mark. Again, these you will want to mix in at your own discretion.

The important thing to remember is to stay flexible. Don’t lock yourself in and develop tunnel vision. Misdeirect and Feign Death when needed, drop traps to help with kiting, pull adds off of healers, etc.