AotV, Exotics to be changed
Aspect of the Viper is an ability that the developers have been toying with like an indecisive puppy for months now. It's been scrapped and re-written a few times, and I can barely even remember all the iterations it's gone through. Many hunters aren't happy with the current version for PvP. Fortunately for them, neither is Blizzard, so it's getting changed again.
In the new version, half of AotV's regen will work passively - whether you're hitting the opponent or not, you'll get 4% of your max mana every 3 seconds. The other half will remain active, but will work on melee hits as well. This way you'll be regenerating mana whether your target is in melee or at range, and getting at least some mana even if the target is out of LoS.
They're also doing some retuning of exotic pets' specials. The target is for an exotic pet to do 10% more DPS than normal pets. GC says the goal with that is to make exotics seem like a good use of a talent point (along with the 4 bonus pet talent points) without feeling like you have to choice an exotic if you're a BM hunter. I question that a little bit. Let's say a BM hunter gets between 25 and 40% of his DPS from his pet. A 10% boost on that translates to a 2.5 to 4% boost in overall DPS. What hunter is going to skip that just for pet aesthetics? Well, probably the kind that doesn't read articles with numbers in them, I guess. Still, in my book, a damage increase like that is not to be passed up without a good reason.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
10-15-2008 @ 4:06PM
cuteunit said...
I really dont want the exotic pets to JUST be for looks. I really dont. Exotics are my Explosive Shot. You change your whole rotation when you get that (or chimera) in those specs. Exotic taming should have some similar benefit, not just be 4 petpoints and a wider choice of looks.
I'll spec marksman or something if they're going to fill my devilsaur with helium again.
Reply
10-15-2008 @ 4:51PM
Harmun said...
yeah, this 51 point talent has a fairly high opportunity cost in terms of some very high dps talents that are just out of reach if you take it.
10-15-2008 @ 6:10PM
Eddy said...
Agreed, but I'd really hate for it to be at such a huge tradeoff that I want three exotics and three non-exotics for my offspec. I also really hate the looks of all the exotics save that one northrend worm and the elusive spirit beast and I'd be pretty frustrated if exotic pets only became the only "right way" to play a BM hunter.
10-15-2008 @ 4:08PM
Michael Renzi said...
There adding this boost cuz as it stands its better to not spend your talent point on exotic pets and get readiness at 80. We will see if this boot tips it in fevor of the exotic pet talent. I hope it does, I want to keep my devilsaur. :)
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10-15-2008 @ 4:10PM
Palamer said...
Ghostcrawler said:
The second change is to some of the numbers on the special attacks of exotic pets to make sure the pets are around a 10% increase from normal pets.
Is it a 10% DPS increase, or just an increase of 10% on the special attackes?
If the former you are dead right, most BM players will feel the need to use the exotics.
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10-15-2008 @ 4:16PM
SpaceDog said...
He said they're buffing the damage of the special abilities in order to provide an overall 10% increase.
I think it's a good move. I don't like it much when you only go 50 points into a tree.
I understand the problem, but with the new stable slots you can always just have a dedicated raid pet. End game doesn't tend to allow for much room to wiggle anyway.
10-15-2008 @ 4:17PM
SpaceDog said...
*That is, an overall 10% pet damage increase.
10-15-2008 @ 4:10PM
Bad Mojo said...
So they want to nerf exotic pets? Is that how I read the post?
What's the point of the whole talent then? Might as well just drop it :P
Reply
10-15-2008 @ 4:14PM
Mike said...
no they are buffing exotic pets, 10% dmg increase
10-15-2008 @ 4:16PM
Bad Mojo said...
At Mike.... ok. Thank you for clarifying that. I had to re-read it a few times to decipher that.
So now it looks like they want that talent (and exotic pet) to be the "go to" for BM hunters.
In essence, making regular pets useless.
I think I got it now :P
10-16-2008 @ 5:54PM
Ikarus said...
Why not just have the talent do what it currently does as well as increasing all Pet damage by 10%? Then BM hunters that like their standard pets can have them and the 51 point talent and not be missing out?
10-15-2008 @ 4:12PM
Cappell said...
I'm really glad they're bringing back at least SOME of the old AotV. Mana has been the biggest problem for me especially because I'm specced survival.
Reply
10-15-2008 @ 4:13PM
Saelorn said...
I really don't want exotic pets to be much stronger than normal pets. The talent grants four extra pet talent points, allowing me to grab Spider's Bite among other things.
I expect that others, like myself, will have one pet for damage and one pet for tanking. If exotic pets are numerically better, then EVERY beast-master will have a corehound/devilsaur and a worm; I don't want a worm tank, but I don't want to gimp myself by picking something other than a worm.
If anything, changes to exotic pets will just cause me to go back to marksman, or try out survival.
Reply
10-15-2008 @ 4:41PM
Cappell said...
try out survival :p
10-15-2008 @ 4:17PM
Flath said...
The change to Beast Mastery would be a _BUFF_ not a nerf (despite how the post is written). Right now, the new 21-pt. talent in the MM tree (Readiness) is probably better than our 51-pt. talent. UNLESS Blizz buffs exotic pets to make them worthwhile, I'm going 50/21/0. Which is a shame.
For reference, Readiness means you can cast BW 5 times in 4 minutes unglyphed, and have 4 Rapid Fire casts in that period as well. I'll take this over 4 pet talent points any day.
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10-15-2008 @ 4:21PM
Raze said...
I'm the kind of hunter to pass over a DPS increase for Aesthetics.
It's one reason I love my class: I get choose the graphics for my DoTs and am not pigeon holed into using a T-rex that makes too much noise, a Starship Trooper alien, or a Corehound that also makes too much noise.
Exotics pets can all rot as far as I'm concerned.
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10-15-2008 @ 4:24PM
Ooglie said...
Yes, I was looking forward to a greater variety of dps pet for raiding (Never was a big fan of cats, raptors or Ravagers) but if this happens then it'll just be trading one small set for another and I'm not all that thrilled with the appearance of any of the exotic pets either. Can you imagine trying to deal with a friggin Rhino in the tight quarters of an instance? That's fine for bouncing mobs around a fields somewhere but is gonna suck in the tight places that some instances have.
But if they have as much more dps as you're talking about then we'll pretty much have to have one to be able to dps as well as we can.
Reply
10-15-2008 @ 4:24PM
Beatphreek said...
I don't think that DPS is the end-all be-all reason to choose one pet over another. There are unique abilities that the normal pets have that the exotics don't ... i.e. the Gorilla's AOE tanking ability, hyena's slowing move, etc. So, while I think most BM hunters would want an exotic at some point, I don't see them being the only option at all.
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10-15-2008 @ 4:30PM
Paul said...
Whilst I love hunters, can wowinsider please maybe get other classes covered as much? It seems like theres 4 or 5 hunter blogs a week, whereas say Balance druids haven't had anything in about three weeks. :(
Reply
10-15-2008 @ 4:38PM
zappo said...
There are a fair number of druid posts. You just can't see them behind the pole.