When information began to trickle down about patch 2.4, hunters, like most classes, were groaning. Which nerf bat would we be hit with next? Fortunately, it seems that we have slipped under the radar. For now. Maybe Aspect of the Beast finally did us some good. Let's break down the changes and see how this is going to be affecting us. With no major patches between now and Wrath, we might be living with these changes for awhile.
Bug fixes:
- Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues. Since no one likes animation issues, I'm filing this under "win." Not that I've ever tried to equip a thrown weapon while already shooting, mind you.
- Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players. To me, this sounds fair. Also, I want to be invisible. Rogues can, so why not hunters? Right? No?
- Hunter's Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter's Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter's Mark cast by Hunters without the talent. This used to be, but then was not. Now, it will be again. While it might rub your ego the wrong way always reading the message "a more powerful spell is already active," it is better for overall DPS this way.
- The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase. Personally, I find that most of my tooltips on most of my characters do not reflect the changes made by my talent points. At least one more will appear correctly, and I will try not to be sad about the others.
- Hunters will no longer spin around if they cast Aimed Shot or Steady Shot while facing away from their target. So this was a nice little bug we had for awhile, but let's face it; it wasn't fair. It also doesn't help the "huntard" image any when hunters are caught whining that now, we will have to learn to actually face our targets; and that's just too hard. What does this mean you ask? Do note that these are our two channeled shots, and as such, if another player sees us channeling, they need only run around us far enough to interrupt the channel. Prior to 2.4, we would have spun with the runner.
- Improved Mend Pet now has a 25/50 chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic, or Poison effect, up from 15/50%. This is good news; as much as I enjoy the way my owl looks when she is purple, green, or even glowing, I ought not to torture her for pretty pictures.
- Multi-Shot: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc. Now this is a lovely little safeguard that several classes are also getting. Now the inexperienced hunters will not lose as many friends, and the more seasoned hunters can find new ways to use Multi that would otherwise not have been advisable.
- Track spells will now persist after death. This is not bad, so it must be good. Granted, there are many issues I would like to see addressed before I would have requested this one, but here we are. It will be especially useful in battlegrounds, as it can be a bit of a pain to have to find the tiny little button on the minimap, use a dropdown, and pick your tracking. That little button and I have issues.
As for our Multi no longer breaking crowd control, while this is a buff, it is not hunter specific. Other classes with similar abilities will also stop upsetting the mages until Vent becomes unpleasant, or people begin to "disconnect."
Of course, Blizzard devs have not been the only ones hard at work. Check out BRK's preview of what addons will bring to the hunter class in 2.4.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
3-25-2008 @ 11:25AM
Mirina said...
Multi-Shot: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc. Now this is a lovely little safeguard that several classes are also getting. Now the inexperienced hunters will not lose as many friends, and the more seasoned hunters can find new ways to use Multi that would otherwise not have been advisable.
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This has been taken out...
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3-25-2008 @ 11:28AM
Chris Anthony said...
As always, it's possible that the change made it to the live realms while being omitted in the patch notes. Let's not come to any conclusions until the realms are back up.
3-25-2008 @ 11:32AM
Mark said...
You can almost certainly take this one to the bank, Chris.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5463899193&pageNo=1&sid=1#3
Mirina is right.
3-25-2008 @ 11:33AM
Chris Anthony said...
...but if Hortus confirmed that the change wasn't happening, then I guess it's probably not. (It's still *possible* that it will - deciding the change shouldn't happen, removing it from the notes, and then pushing the patch with the code intact. It's unlikely, but it's happened before...)
3-25-2008 @ 11:41AM
Mirina said...
And I shall not be the one to test this in tonight's raid (if we can manage one--you all know how patch days go)--I'll leave that to some "other hunter" ;)
3-25-2008 @ 11:26AM
Mark said...
They took back the multi-shot buff, along with several other of the CC-breaking abilities. As far as I know, the paladin shield-throwing ability (name is lost to me right now) is the only one that remained. I think cleave might be on there too, but I'm not sure.
I am sure; however, that multi-shot will still break CC. Hortus confirmed it on the PTR forum.
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3-25-2008 @ 11:31AM
Chris Anthony said...
"if another player sees us channeling, they need only run around us far enough to interrupt the channel. Prior to 2.4, we would have spun with the runner."
Has this been confirmed? The patch note seems to imply that the bug was that you could start the channel while facing away from the target, and that's no longer the case; if you use Aimed Shot or Steady Shot while facing away, the cast will fail. But if you start casting while facing properly and the target moves, you'll still follow the target. Is that incorrect?
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3-25-2008 @ 11:40AM
ThorinII said...
My first reaction to the bug fix for our channeled shots was "That it is a nerf!" It was a nice lazy-man's bug. Which I am a lazy man. However, it's IS a bug fix and how often do we really use them in PvP anyway? Most of the time we're getting pounded and can't get through the warm up time. Not a huge loss here.
I agree that only the hunTARDS should QQ about this.
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3-25-2008 @ 12:10PM
Saido said...
One other item in the notes caught my eye - most elementals are no longer immune to poisons (except those who have always been immune to nature-based attacks in general) - I'm eager to test if that will affect immunity to stings.
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3-25-2008 @ 12:17PM
Josh said...
"if another player sees us channeling, they need only run around us far enough to interrupt the channel. Prior to 2.4, we would have spun with the runner."
Aimed shot and Steady shot are NOT channeled. They are CAST. There is a difference. A channeled spell has a periodic effect while the timer drops, like arcane missiles or volley. If you are hit while channeling, the duration of the effect is decreased, rather than pushed back.
A cast spell has a duration where nothing happens and you can take no other action. At the end of that duration, an effect happens. This is aimed shot, steady shot, and spells like frostbolt and shadowbolt.
Single target spells which are channeled do home in on the target, and you turn with them, as long as they were a legal target when the cast began.
No Cast spells do this. This can be thought of as a bug fix because these spells were never channeled.
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3-25-2008 @ 12:17PM
Br_other said...
What about the other changes which affecting us? Resilience-Mana drain?
The combat log changes? Not the opponent can see in the log when we're dropping traps. There are already addons for arena which are alarming when hunter drops the trap.
Now we'll be even less present in Arena then before!
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3-25-2008 @ 12:44PM
sabbah said...
I'm sure I'll get yelled at for not making a useful comment, but I just wanted to say that I laughed so hard reading this. Especially the comment about Aspect of the Beast. I actually followed the link going what aspect is that? :D Anyway, your writing style is wonderfully amusing and ironic. Thank you.
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3-25-2008 @ 1:32PM
Blackbird said...
Didn't they nerf the Arena S3 Hunter Axe?
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3-25-2008 @ 2:20PM
Bunkai said...
It was buffed.
From the patch notes:
"Vengeful Gladiator's Waraxe: The weapon delay has been reduced."
If I'm reading that correctly... "delay" means attack speed... so it's getting faster for melee (from 3.60 to 3.00)... no biggie for hunters.
However, they did reduce the damage of that axe(was 386-580 is now 321-483) , which brought the DPS down a negligible amount (from 134.2 to 134.0), even with the attack speed increase. DIDN'T MAKE THE PATCH NOTES.
2.4 version:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34014
3-25-2008 @ 6:07PM
Manatank said...
That change is absolutely a nerf. Not one I care a ton about. If I have to use it, I want as much burst damage from it as possible. This change lowers the damage from a single hit. If I'm in range for the 3 seconds it takes to swing a second time, I'm already in trouble. I never want to take a swing more than once with this thing. This probably is a nerf to the damage from raptor strike as well (because it is based on the single hit damage of the weapon as far as I know).
It is still a fantastic weapon, but I did enjoy the grief I was causing mages as soon as 2.3 came out and they poped in my face and I smashed it in with this axe. It's still great as a stat booster, and still good as a face smasher.
3-25-2008 @ 2:03PM
Kheldul said...
I wish they'd fix the Kill Command (and other instants) bug causing Auto-Shots to stop indefinitely. It's ridiculous and only showed up in 2.3.
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3-25-2008 @ 2:28PM
Hunter said...
No nerfs??? The mana burn nerf!!! The drinking nerfs!!! Are mana burn is 20% less effective againts enemys with 400 resil. We can no longer drink in arenas and with are mana pool we will be OOM and useless in less then a minute if the other team has a mana burner. Being the least represented class in arena this patch will only bring hunters down. Good thing warhammers coming soon cuase I'm done with this fucking class.
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3-26-2008 @ 7:55AM
here is a thought said...
don't forget the gear changes
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3-26-2008 @ 11:04AM
Akussa said...
You missed the shiny little bug fix about snake trap inconspicuously mixed in among the hundreds of all bug fixes.
Snakes from the snake trap will no longer go after non-flagged members of the opposite faction.
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3-26-2008 @ 12:14PM
Gimmlette said...
FIRST THING I commented on in Guild chat last night.
"Oh No! Now we can't set traps in the Inn in Crossroads and kill the unsuspecting low levels that show up!" That was fun for awhile, although the good PvP'ers learned to avoid the traps or come with a poison removal system. Having been both the perpetrator and victim of said snake trap, it was funny and this game could use a strong dose of "This is just funny. Let's do it."
I agree that we slipped under the radar this time. But any GOOD hunter will be able to still do their job even if Blizzard nerfs something.