(Apologies for the late posting of Scattered Shots. Next week we'll be back on our Thursday schedule.)
Last week I covered crowd control using traps. This week, filling in for David, I'll discuss the options available to hunters for weapon choice: ranged and melee alike. Hunters have a wide variety of weapons we can train, but our main concern is usually going to be ranged weapons: the bow, crossbow, and gun. Secondary to the ranged weapon of course is what we carry at our sides. Hunters can train in every weapon style except for maces (one and two hand) and wands. It's not technically a weapon, but for the sake of this discussion it's important to note that hunters cannot train in the use of shields. What this means is that there's a lot of weapons we can use, while not all of them are weapons that we should.
Adding to the decision is the fact that we hunters can learn to dual wield one handed weapons at level twenty. With one weapon, you tend to get more punch close up, but with two weapons you might lose some damage in melee, but gain an extra weapon's worth of stat bonuses, enchantments, and other augmentations. Each weapon you have equipped contributes its individual bonuses, if any, so it's a good idea to weigh the options, even for melee weapons which you might hardly ever use.
Earlier in the column, I recommended a low level hunter train in a two handed weapon early, since the first ten levels involve a greater percentage of melee combat, prior to getting a pet to handle your aggro. I'll talk about where to train what weapons, what augmentations you can add to weapons, and which ranged weapons are the best, after the jump!
After a short hiatus last week (due to the Friday evening patch 2.4 mayhem), the phat loot is back, this time with an axe that not only has one of the best names in the game, but can give you a little ranged help as well.
Use: Hurls the axe through the air, directly at a target's head (very "vorpal," if you get that reference). Causes 513-567 damage with a 3 minute cooldown.
It's a 40-yard range, instant cast, so definitely very nice for pulling. Shows up as a black version of the Paladin's ranged attack.
And it was rumored that this was counted not as a melee attack, but as a spell. However, players have apparently confirmed that spell damage does not add to it, although we're still not sure if spell crit helps the percentage. Maybe commenters can shed light on that one-- I don't have this one around for testing.
Bosses, as you may expect, are immune to the throw. But it is pretty easy to put together a macro which will let you use the throw ability to pull, and then switch over to your usual tanking weapon.
How to get it: Pretty simple-- drops from Prince in Karazhan. People are downing him with PUGs nowadays (and odds are your guild, if they're raiding at all, has like three groups clearing it every week), so hope for the 13% percent drop chance to kick in, win the roll (tanks and shammies might be rolling on it, but by now, everyone who wants one probably already has it), and it's all yours.
Getting rid of It: Sells to a vendor for 12g 44s 56c, and disenchants into a Void Crystal. That's all I got-- I guess you could destroy it if you want, but this is the kind of item where the proc would probably come in handy at almost any level. Have a good weekend.
There's a tooltip error, it should be "5-35 yards". We want melee and ranged to be kept separate, so that when in melee attack range you should not be able to use a ranged attack. There's some amount of 'give' there, especially in fast paced PvP which can produce some temporary gray area but that's fully known with this change.
Feeding the issue of the tooltip error is a bug currently where you can indeed range attack someone while being meleed, but that's in the process of being resolved as well.
When I first saw the new "1-41" range for hunters (that's with the extended-range talent "Hawk Eye") over on World of Raids, I knew that something was wrong. To let hunters use melee and ranged attacks at the same time means that they would often do better up close to their enemies rather than far away, and would go against a lot of the fundamental concepts around which the class is based. As it is, the mechanic of switching between melee and ranged attacks is one of the exciting things about being a hunter, and, now that the deadzone is dying at last, there won't be that block of frustration getting in the way between the two.
You want a bow that will make people sit up and say "whoah?" You want a bow with a neat mana proc? You want a bow that requires a really, really good PvE guild to get? Here you go.
Name: Black Bow of the Betrayer Type: Epic Ranged Bow (where are the Legendary Ranged weapons, by the way?) Damage/Speed: 201-374 / 3.00 (95.8 DPS) Abilities:
Increases attack power by 26, always very nice
On Equip: Succesful melee or ranged attacks will grant 8 mana and if possible drain 8 mana from the target. That's incredible-- it's basically 40-45 mana per five seconds, which allows any Hunter to keep up their DPS for almost twice as long as normal.
And if you want even more mana, there is a set of mail gloves created by Blacksmiths (dropped by Moam in AQ, I believe) called Black Grasp of the Destroyer that have the exact same proc. And while I haven't tried it out in game, I'm told that the effects of both stack. So with both the gloves and the bow, you'll never need mana again!
If only Shamans could equip bows...
How to Get It: Such a bow isn't going to be easy to get, and as the name might have already told you, this drops from the Betrayer himself, Illidan Stormrage, at the end of the Black Temple. There is a good argument made that if you're a Hunter able to get to Illidan, you probably aren't going to be worrying about mana problems anymore anyway. But to the victors go the spoils, so kill Illidan, be a Hunter (the mana proc on the weapon makes it just for you animal lovers), and win the roll and the bow is yours. The rest of the world gets to stare in awe at how frighteningly pointy this baby looks.
Getting Rid of It: As far as I can possibly tell, no one has. But maybe there's a guild out there who has Illidan on farm, and just doesn't need it any more. In that case, it's the usual Void Crystal, or 10g 82s 33c if sold to a vendor.
A posting on the general forums complains that melee haste has been reduced in effectiveness on the PTR, making it grant the same values per rating as spell haste. The debate rages as to what effect this will have on rogues trying to stay on top of the damage meters in raids, whether it will mean that top raiding guilds have no reason to bring rogues over ranged DPS, whether it also unfairly hurts feral druids, enhancement shamans and other melee DPS classes. Rogues mention that they have a lack of utility in raids and as a result, this is a large blow to their effectiveness.
What are your thoughts? Will this make rogues less or more reliant on haste potions? Does this hurt melee DPS even more in raids or will it have a negligible effect? Is it purely based off of epics and legendaries that most players will never see, like the Warglaive of Azzinoth? Is melee haste still 'better' than spell haste because melee attacks don't cost mana?
Thanks to World of Raids for a concise breakdown of the issue.
For sheer ranged damage (anywhere in the world, not just in Tempest Keep), no other ammunition does it better. This is the only Epic ammunition in the game, and it's pretty clear why.
Adds 53 damage per second. That's like having an increase of over 700 attack power. The next highest ammo, Adamantite Shells, are +43 DPS, so this is far and above the best ammo you can obtain and use anywhere in the game.
How to Get It: And so of course it doesn't come cheap (in either gold or effort). To get these arrows or bullets, all you have to do is buy them-- they're available from Andormu or Nozari in the Caverns of Time. But the first catch is that you've got to be Honored with Scale of the Sands to do it.
Just to get Friendly with Scale of the Sands, you've got to obtain Vials of Eternity, so that means that you've got to beat both Vashj and Kael in SSC and the Eye. Yup, if you just stopped reading right now, I can't say I blame you.
And after that, I believe the only way to gain Scale of the Sands reputation is to run Mount Hyjal and get rep from kills in there. Work your way to Honored, and you'll be able to buy this ammo. And the last catch on this one? Each stack of 200 is a whopping 2g a piece. Unless you're overflowing with money (and then again, if you've made your way to Mount Hyjal, maybe you are), this is strictly raid boss ammo only.
Getting Rid of It: Vendor will give you 25c back for them if you decide you'd rather not pour out DPS like a Hefeweizen at Oktoberfest.
If you've never played a Hunter, you may be unfamiliar with the concept of a "dead zone." The term is used to describe a certain distance between the Hunter and their target in which the target is too close for the Hunter to fire ranged weapons and yet too far away for the Hunter to use melee attacks. It's an interesting feature of the Hunter class that is shared by none of the other ranged-attack classes: all of the casters, for example, can throw painful spells at you even when you're right in their face.
Many Hunters argue that the dead zone is entirely unnecessary -- and weakens the class by giving it a range in which it's completely helpless. Some Hunters argue that their dead zone should simpy be removed while others suggest the addition of some mid-ranged attacks or allowing regular ranged attacks to work in the dead zone with reduced damage, to at least allow them something. (Though the melee classes are likely to disagree: the melee zone in which they do their best damage is much smaller than the Hunter's ranged zone in which they do their best damage.)
But what do you, Hunters and non-Hunters, think about the issue? Is the dead zone required to keep Hunters balanced? Or is it nothing but a weakening nuisance?
Every Friday, we take a nice long look at one of the drool-worthy items floating around the World of Warcraft. Last Friday, we looked at one of the best melee weapons in this game, so this Friday, we'll go HUNTER ITEM! and check out one of the sweetest (and best looking) ranged weapons you can find.
Probably the coolest looking weapon out there. It opens its mouth when it fires!
+14 Agility, +7 Stamina. Why no +Fire damage, Blizzard?
Yeah, OK, it's not the best ranged weapon in the game, especially if you want +crit% for PVP. But any hunter would love to have this thing, and the stats aren't bad for a tank's ranged slot either. Plus, just look at it! It's a freakin' dragon!
Any race/class that can use guns can use this, but don't forget, Dwarves get a +5 to Gun Skill.
How to Get It: No quests this week-- all you need is a raid group that can get you into Blackwing Lair and down Ebonroc about thirteen times (just over 8% drop rate, so if you're lucky it'll take less-- if not, it'll take more). Oh, and if you're in a guild, you'll probably need the DKP, especially because the tanks in your group are going to be drooling all over themselves to get their mitts on this. Just yell "Hunter item!"-- that justifies everything. (Can you tell I have a hunter main?)
Auction Price: Sorry folks, this one's BOP, too. A vendor will give you 10g, 65s, 74c for it, and as they walk away you'll hear them laughing loudly. At you. For selling them this weapon.
(Apologies for the late posting of Scattered Shots. Next week we'll be back on our Thursday schedule.)
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