Lethal Shots

Another week, another patch. Here’s what I’ve been thinking.

• Not much posting happening this week. Work has me in a class all week, meaning no access to PC at work and longer hours (due to driving to and from class) means not much post time in the evenings.
• 3.0.9 hit servers today, and I can finally spec back to BM.
• Yeah, BM is supposed to be viable again, but I am actually having fun as a Survival. WTB dual specs so I don’t have to decide.
• Got a nice helm from 25-man OS Sunday. Better stats than my Engineering goggles, but it is ugly as all hell. No other helm in the game beats the cool factor of the goggles.
• The Shaman finally hit 68 over the weekend. He is now leveling in Northrend until he hits 70, at which he will go back to Outland to train flying and finish leveling Mining to 350.

So what’s on your mind today?

As I’m sure you have heard by now, the changes for Hunters in the upcoming 3.1 patch have been announced. While they look good on the surface, some of the changes really aren’t that great.

Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.

Sure, this sounds great, but lets think of the consequences. Right now Engineers main source of income profession wise is ammo (I don’t count the motorcycles since they are too expensive to even think about mass-producing). Take that away and it becomes for the most part a vanity profession. And an even bigger problem with this change is the loss of realism. Ranged weapons need ammo. We’re not shooting wands here. Sure, I want another bag slot as much as the rest of us, but come on. If you really want to give us another bag slot, make the quiver/ammo pouch into something similar to the keyring.

A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.

Ok, I like this one. BM damage needs buffed back up, and this is a good way to go about it.

Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.

Another good one. Not much else to say here.

Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.

Well, Blizz had to do something if they wanted people to ever use the talent. This will be good, as long as the bleed effect stacks.

Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.

This would be good, if you could actually stand still for more than 6 seconds. I don’t know about you, but there are very few fights in the game right now that don’t require considerable movement just to stay alive. If this change goes through, Sniper training will effectively become a useless talent and force Survival Hunters to trap dance.

We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

Better trap functionality is always good. It is nice to see that Blizz is trying to take Surv back to its roots somewhat while still keeping it competitive damage wise.

One thing to keep in mind though is that none of these changes are set in stone yet. There is still a ton of testing to be done meaning these could change at any time. Or be thrown out completely. As always, thoughts and comments appreciated.